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[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward as the writer's assistant.\nTags: science, physics, quantum gravity, theoretical, complex concepts\nAuthor: Lee Smolin\nTitle: Three Roads to Quantum Gravity\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Things are very different for large, macroscopic bodies. In the world we live in, the future is very different from the past, which is exactly what is captured in the law stating that entropy increases into the future. Because this seemed to contradict the fact that in Newton's theory the future and the past are reversible, many physicists refused to believe that matter is made of atoms until the first few decades of the twentieth century, when conclusive experimental proof was obtained for their existence.\n\nThe ideas that temperature is a measure of energy in random motion and entropy is a measure of information underlie what is called the statistical formulation of thermodynamics. According to this view ordinary matter is made out of enormous numbers of atoms. This means that one has to reason statistically about the behaviour of ordinary matter. According to the founders of statistical mechanics, as the idea was called, one could explain the apparent paradox about the direction of time by deriving the laws of thermodynamics from Newton's laws. The paradox was resolved by understanding that the laws of thermodynamics are not absolute: they describe what is most likely to happen, but there will always be a small probability of the laws being violated.\n\nIn particular, the laws assert that most of the time a large collection of atoms will evolve in such away as to reach a more random-meaning more disorganized-state. This is just because the randomness of the interactions tends to washout any organization or order that is initially present. But this need not happen, it is just what is most likely to happen. A dp n=\"108\" folio=\"99\" ?? system which is very carefully prepared, or which incorporates structures that preserve a memory of what has happened to it-such as a complex molecule such as DNA-can be seen to evolve from a less ordered to a more ordered state.\n\nThe argument here is rather subtle, and it took several decades for most physicists to be convinced. The originator of the idea that entropy had to do with information and probability, Ludwig Boltzmann, committed suicide in 1906, which was before most physicists had accepted his arguments. (Whether his depression had anything to do with the failure of his colleagues to appreciate his reasoning, Boltzmann's suicide had at least one far-reaching consequence: it convinced a young physics student named Ludwig Wittgenstein to give up physics and go to England to study engineering and philosophy.) In fact, the arguments that finally convinced most physicists of the existence of atoms had just been published the year before by the then patent office clerk Albert Einstein (\"Same Einstein', as my physics teacher used to say.) This argument had to do with fact that the statistical point of view allowed the laws of thermodynamics to be violated from time to time. What Boltzmann had found was that the laws of thermodynamics would be exactly true for systems that contained an infinite number of atoms. Of course, the number of atoms in a given system, such as the water in a glass, is very large, but it is not infinite. Einstein realized that for systems containing a finite number of atoms the laws of thermodynamics would be violated from time to time. Since the number of atoms in the glass is large, these effects are small, but they still may in some circumstances be observed. By making use of this fact Einstein was able to discover manifestations of the motions of atoms that could be observed. Some of these had to do with the fact that a grain of pollen, observed in a microscope, will dance around randomly because it is being jiggled by atoms colliding with it. As each atom has a finite size, and carries a finite amount of energy, the jiggles that result when they collide with the grain of pollen can be seen, even if the atoms themselves are far too small to be seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The success of these arguments persuaded Einstein and a dp n=\"109\" folio=\"100\" ?? few others, such as his friend Paul Ehrenfest, to apply the same reasoning to light. According to the theory published by James Clerk Maxwell in 1865, light consisted of waves travelling through the electromagnetic field, each wave carrying a certain amount of energy. Einstein and Ehrenfest wondered whether they could use Boltzmann's ideas to describe the properties of light on the inside of an oven.\n\nLight is produced when the atoms in the walls of the oven heat up and jiggle around. Could the light so produced be said to be hot? Could it have an entropy and a temperature? What they found was profoundly puzzling to them and to everyone else at the time. They found that horrible inconsistencies would arise unless the light were in a sense also to consist of atoms. Each atom of light, or quantum as they called it, had to carry a unit of energy related to the frequency of the light. This was the birth of quantum theory.\n\nI shall tell no more of this story, for it is indeed a very twisted one. Some of the results that Einstein and Ehrenfest employed in their reasoning had been found earlier by Max Planck, who had studied the problem of hot radiation five years earlier. It was in this work that the famous Planck's constant first appeared. But Planck was one of those physicists who believed neither in atoms nor in Boltzmann's work, so his understanding of his own results was confused and, in part, contradictory. He even managed to invent a convoluted argument that assured him that photons did not exist. For this reason the birth of quantum physics is more properly attributed to Einstein and Ehrenfest.\n\nThe moral of this story is that it was an attempt to understand the laws of thermodynamics that prompted two crucial steps in our understanding of atomic physics. These were the arguments that convinced physicists of the existence of atoms, and the arguments by which the existence of the photon were first uncovered. It was no coincidence that both these steps were taken by the same young Einstein in the same year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We can now turn back to quantum gravity, and in particular to quantum black holes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For what we have seen in the last few chapters is that black holes are systems which maybe dp n=\"110\" folio=\"101\" ?? described by the laws of thermodynamics. They have a temperature and an entropy, and they obey an extension of the law of increase of entropy. This allows us to raise several questions. What does the temperature of a black hole actually measure? What does the entropy of a black hole really describe? And, most importantly, why is the entropy of a black hole proportional to the area of its horizon?\n\nThe search for the meaning of temperature and entropy of matter led to the discovery of atoms. The search for the meaning of the temperature and entropy of radiation led to the discovery of quanta. In just the same way, the search for the meaning of the temperature and entropy of a black hole is now leading to the discovery of the atomic structure of space and time.\n\nConsider a black hole interacting with a gas of atoms and photons. The black hole can swallow an atom or a photon. When it does so, the entropy of the region outside the black hole decreases because the entropy is a measure of information about that region, and if there are fewer atoms or photons there is less to know about the gas. To compensate, the entropy of the black hole must increase, otherwise the law that entropy can never decrease would be violated. As the entropy of the black hole is proportional to the area of its horizon, the result must be that the horizon expands a little.\n\nAnd indeed, this is what happens. The process can also go the other way: the horizon can shrink a little, which means that the entropy of the black hole will decrease. To compensate, the entropy outside the black hole must increase. To accomplish this, photons must be created just outside the black hole-photons that comprise the radiation that Hawking predicted should be emitted by a black hole. The photons are hot, so they can carry the entropy that must be created to compensate for the fact that the horizon shrinks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What is happening is that, to preserve the law that entropy does not decrease, a balance is being struck between, on the one hand, the entropy of atoms and photons outside the black hole, and, on the other, the entropy of the black hole itself. But notice that two very different things are being balanced. The entropy outside the black hole we understand in terms of dp n=\"111\" folio=\"102\" ?? the idea that matter is made out of atoms; it has to do with missing information. The entropy of the black hole itself seems to have nothing to do with either atoms or with information. It is a measure of a quantity which has to do with the geometry of space and time: it is proportional to the area of the black hole's event horizon.\n\nThere is something incomplete about a law which asserts a balance or an exchange between two very dissimilar things. It is as though we had two kinds of currency, the first of which was exchangeable into a concrete entity such as gold, while the other had no worth in terms other than paper. Suppose we were allowed to freely mix the two kinds of money in our bank accounts. Such an economy would be based on a contradiction, and could not survive for long. (In fact, communist governments experimented with two kinds of currency, one convertible into other currencies and one not, and discovered that the system is unstable in the absence of all sorts of complicated and artificial restrictions on the use of the two kinds of money.) Similarly, a law of physics that allows information to be converted into geometry, and vice versa, but gives no account of why, should not survive for long. There must be something deeper and simpler at the root of the equivalence.\n\nThis raises two profound questions: * Is there anatomic structure to the geometry of space and time, so that the entropy of the black hole could be understood inexactly the same way that the entropy of matter is understood: as a measure of information about the motion of the atoms? * When we understand the atomic structure of geometry will it be obvious why the area of a horizon is proportional to the amount of information it hides?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "* Is there anatomic structure to the geometry of space and time, so that the entropy of the black hole could be understood inexactly the same way that the entropy of matter is understood: as a measure of information about the motion of the atoms?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "* When we understand the atomic structure of geometry will it be obvious why the area of a horizon is proportional to the amount of information it hides?\n\n* Is there anatomic structure to the geometry of space and time, so that the entropy of the black hole could be understood inexactly the same way that the entropy of matter is understood: as a measure of information about the motion of the atoms?\n\n* When we understand the atomic structure of geometry will it be obvious why the area of a horizon is proportional to the amount of information it hides?\n\nThese questions have motivated a great deal of research since the mid-1970s. In the next few chapters I shall explain why there is a growing consensus among physicists that the answer to both questions must be \"yes\".\n\nBoth loop quantum gravity and string theory assert that there is anatomic structure to space. In the next two chapters we shall see that loop quantum gravity in fact gives a rather detailed picture of that atomic structure. The picture of the atomic structure one gets from string theory is presently incomplete but, as we shall see in Chapter 11, it is still impossible in string theory to avoid the conclusion that there must bean atomic structure to space and time. In Chapter 13 we shall discover that both pictures of the atomic structure of space can be used to explain the entropy and temperature of black holes.\n\nBut even without these detailed pictures there is a very general argument, based simply on what we have learned in the last few chapters, that leads to the conclusion that space must have anatomic structure. This argument rests on the simple fact that horizons have entropy. In previous chapters we have seen that this is common to both the horizons of black holes and to the horizon experienced by an accelerated observer. In each case there is a hidden region in which information can be trapped, outside the reach of external observers. Since entropy is a measure of missing information, it is reasonable that in these cases there is an entropy associated with the horizon, which is the boundary of the hidden region. But what was most remarkable is that the amount of missing information measured by the entropy had a very simple form. It was simply equal to one-quarter of the area of the horizon, in Planck units." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fact that the amount of missing information depends on the area of the boundary of the trapped region is a very important clue. It becomes even more significant if we put this dependence together with the fact that spacetime can be understood to be structured by processes which transmit information from the past to the future, as we saw in Chapter 4. If a surface can be seen as a kind of channel through which information flows from one region of space to another, then the area of the surface is a measure of its capacity to transmit information. This is very suggestive.\n\nIt is also strange that the amount of trapped information is proportional to the area of the boundary. It would seem more dp n=\"113\" folio=\"104\" ?? natural for the amount of information that can be trapped in a region to be proportional to its volume, not to the area of its boundary. No matter what is on the other side of the boundary, trapped in the hidden region, it can contain the answer to only a finite number of yes/no questions per unit area of the boundary. This seems to be saying that a black hole, whose horizon has a finite area, can hold only a finite amount of information.\n\nIf this is the right interpretation of the results I described in the last chapter, it suffices to tells us that the world must be discrete, since whether a given volume of space is behind a horizon or not depends on the motion of an observer. For any volume of space we may want to consider, we can find an observer who accelerates away from it in such away that that region becomes part of that observer's hidden region. This tells us that in that volume there could be no more information than the limit we are discussing, which is a finite amount per unit area of the boundary. If this is right, then no region can contain more than a finite amount of information. If the world really were continuous, then every volume of space would contain an infinite amount of information. Ina continuous world it takes an infinite amount of information to specify the position of even one electron. This is because the position is given by areal number, and most real numbers require an infinite number of digits to describe them. If we write out their decimal expansion, it will require an infinite number of decimal places to write down the number." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In practice, the greatest amount of information that maybe stored behind a horizon is huge-10 66 bits of information per square centimetre. No actual experiment so far comes close to probing this limit. But if we want to describe nature on the Planck scale, we shall certainly run into this limitation, as it allows us to talk about only one bit of information for every four Planck areas. After all, if the limit were one bit of information per square centimetre rather than per square Planck area, it would be quite hard to see anything because our eyes would then be able respond to at most one photon at a time.\n\nMany of the important principles in twentieth-century dp n=\"114\" folio=\"105\" ?? physics are expressed as limitations on what we can know. Einstein's principle of relativity (which was an extension of a principle of Galileo's) says that we cannot do any experiment that would distinguish being at rest from moving at a constant velocity. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle tells us that we cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle to arbitrary accuracy. This new limitation tells us there is an absolute bound to the information available to us about what is contained on the other side of a horizon. It is known as Bekenstein's bound, as it was discussed in papers Jacob Bekenstein wrote in the 1970s shortly after he discovered the entropy of black holes.\n\nIt is curious that, despite everyone who has worked on quantum gravity having been aware of this result, few seem to have taken it seriously for the twenty years following the publication of Bekenstein's papers. Although the arguments he used were simple, Jacob Bekenstein was far ahead of his time. The idea that there is an absolute limit to information which requires each region of space to contain at most a certain finite amount of information was just too shocking for us to assimilate at the time. There is noway to reconcile this with the view that space is continuous, for that implies that each finite volume can contain an infinite amount of information. Before Bekenstein's bound could betaken seriously, people had to discover other, independent reasons why space should have a discrete, atomic structure. To do this we had to learn to do physics at the scale of the smallest possible things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 9\n\nHOW TO COUNT SPACE\n\nThe first approach to quantum gravity that yielded a detailed description of the atomic structure of space and spacetime was loop quantum gravity. The theory offers more than a picture: it makes precise predictions about what would be observed were it possible to probe the geometry of space at distances as short as the Planck scale.\n\nAccording to loop quantum gravity, space is made of discrete atoms each of which carries a very tiny unit of volume. In contrast to ordinary geometry, a given region cannot have a volume which is arbitrarily big or small-instead, the volume must be one of a finite set of numbers. This is just what quantum theory does with other quantities: it restricts a quantity that is continuous according to Newtonian physics to a finite set of values. This is what happens to the energy of an electron in an atom, and to the value of the electric charge. As a result, we say that the volume of space is predicted to be quantized.\n\nOne consequence of this is that there is a smallest possible volume. This minimum volume is minuscule-about 10 99 of them would fit into a thimble. If you tried to halve a region of this volume, the result would not be two regions each with half that volume. Instead, the process would create two new regions which together would have more volume than you started with. We describe this by saying that the attempt to measure a unit of volume smaller than the minimal size alters the geometry of the space in away that allows more volume to be created\n\nVolume is not the only quantity which is quantized in loop dp n=\"116\" folio=\"107\" ?? quantum gravity. Any region of space is surrounded by a boundary which, being a surface, will have an area, and that area will be measured in square centimetres. In classical geometry a surface can have any area. In contrast, loop quantum gravity predicts that there is a smallest possible area. As with volume, the theory limits the possible areas a surface can have to a finite set of values. In both cases the jumps between possible values are very small, of the order of the square and cube of the Planck length. This is why we have the illusion that space is continuous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These predictions could be confirmed or refuted by measurements of the geometry of things made on the Planck scale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem is that because the Planck scale is so small, it is not easy to make these measurements-but it is not impossible, as I shall describe in due course.\n\nIn this chapter and the next I shall tell the story of how loop quantum gravity developed from a few simple ideas into a detailed picture of space and time on the shortest possible scales. The style of these chapters will be rather more narrative than the others, as I can describe from personal experience some of the episodes in the development of the theory. I do this mainly to illustrate the complicated and unexpected ways in which a scientific idea can develop. This can only be communicated by telling stories, but I must emphasize that there are many stories. My guess is that the inventors of string theory have better stories, with more human drama. I must also stress that I do not intend these chapters to be a complete history of loop quantum gravity. I am sure that each of the people who worked on the theory would tell the story in a different way. The story I tell is sketchy and leaves out many episodes and steps in the theory's development. Worse, it leaves out many of the people who atone time or another have contributed something important to the theory.\n\nThe story of loop quantum gravity really begins in the 1950s with an idea that came from what would seem to be a totally different subject-the physics of superconductors. Physics is like this: the few really good ideas are passed around from field to field. The physics of materials such as metals and dp n=\"117\" folio=\"108\" ?? superconductors has been a very fertile source of ideas about how physical systems might behave. This is undoubtedly because in these fields there is a close interaction between theory and experiment which makes it possible to discover new ways for physical systems to organize themselves. Elementary particle physicists do not have access to such direct probes of the systems they model, so it has happened that on several occasions we have raided the physics of materials for new ideas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Superconductivity is a peculiar phase that certain metals can be put into in which their electrical resistance falls to zero." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A metal can be turned into a superconductor by cooling it below what is called its critical temperature. This critical temperature is usually very low, just a few degrees above absolute zero. At this temperature the metal undergoes a change of phase something like freezing. Of course, it is already a solid, but something profound happens to its internal structure which liberates the electrons from its atoms, and the electrons can then travel through it with no resistance. Since the early 1990s there has been an intensive quest to find materials that are superconducting at room temperature. If such a material were to be found there would be profound economic implications, as it might greatly reduce the cost of supplying electricity. But the set of ideas I want to discuss go back to the 1950s, when people first understood how simple superconductors work. A seminal step was the invention of a theory by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and John Schrieffer, known as the BCS theory of superconductivity. Their discovery was so important that it has influenced not only many later developments in the theory of materials, but also developments in elementary particle physics and quantum gravity.\n\nYou may remember a simple experiment you did at school with a magnet, apiece of paper and some iron filings. The idea was to visualize the field of the magnet by spreading the filings on apiece of paper placed over the magnet. You would have seen a series of curved lines running from one pole of the magnet to the other (Figure 19). As your teacher may have told you, the apparent discreteness of the field lines is an illusion. In nature they are distributed continuously; they only appear to be a discrete set of lines because of the finite size of the iron dp n=\"118\" folio=\"109\" ?? filings. However, there is a situation in which the field lines really are discrete. If you pass a magnetic field through a superconductor, the magnetic field breaks up into discrete field lines, each of which carries a fundamental unit of magnetic flux (Figure 20). Experiments show that the amount of magnetic flux passing through a superconductor is always an integer multiple of this fundamental unit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 19\n\nField lines between two poles of an ordinary magnet, in air.\n\nFIGURE 20\n\nThe magnetic field of a superconductor breaks up into discrete flux lines, each carrying a certain minimum amount of the field.\n\nThis discreteness of the magnetic field lines in superconductors is a curious phenomenon. It is unlike the discreteness of the electric charge, or of matter, in that it has to do with afield that carries a force. Furthermore, it seems that we can turn it on and off, depending on the material the magnetic field is passing through.\n\nThe electric field has field lines as well, although there is no equivalent of the iron filings experiment that allows us to see them. But in all circumstances we know about they are continuous: no material has been found which functions like an electric superconductor to break electric field lines into discrete units. But we can still imagine something like an electric superconductor, in which the field lines of the electric field would be quantized. This idea has been very successful in explaining a result from another seemingly unrelated subject: experiments show that protons and neutrons are each composed of three smaller entities called quarks.\n\nWe have good evidence that there are quarks inside protons and neutrons, just as there are electrons, protons and neutrons inside the atom. There is one difference, however, which is that the quarks seem to be trapped inside the protons. No one has ever seen a quark moving freely, that was not trapped inside a proton, neutron or other particle. It is easy to free electrons from atoms-one needs only to supply a little energy, and the electrons jump out of the atom and move freely. But no one has found away to free a quark from a proton or neutron. We say that the quarks are confined. What we then need to understand is whether there is a force that can act as the electric field does in holding electrons around the nucleus, but that does so in such away that the quarks can never come out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From many different experiments we know that the force that holds the quarks together inside a proton is quite similar to the electric force. For one thing, we know that force is transmitted by afield that forms lines like electric and magnetic field lines. These lines connect charges which are carried by the quarks, just as electric field lines connect positive and negative electric charges. However, the force dp n=\"120\" folio=\"111\" ?? between quarks is rather more complicated than the electric force, for which there is only one kind of charge. Here there are three different varieties of charge, each of which can be positive or negative. These different charges are called colours, which is why the theory that describes them is called quantum chromodynamics, QCD for short. (This has nothing to do with ordinary colours, it is just a vivid terminology which reminds us there are three kinds of charge.) Imagine two quarks held together by some colour-electric field lines, as shown in Figure 21. Experiments show that when the two quarks are very close to each other they seem to move almost freely, as if the force between them is not very strong. But if an attempt is made to separate the two quarks, the force holding them together rises to a constant value, which does not falloff no matter how far apart they are pulled. This is very different from the electric force, which becomes weaker with increasing distance.\n\nThere is a simple way to picture what is happening. Imagine that the two quarks are connected by a length of string. This string has the peculiar property that it can be stretched however far we want. But to separate the quarks we must stretch the string, and this requires energy. No matter how long the string already is, we are going to have to put more energy into stretch it more. To put energy into the string we must pull on it, which means that there is a force between the quarks. No matter how far apart the quarks are, to pull them farther apart you must stretch the string more, which means that there is always a force between them. As shown in Figure 21, no matter how far apart they maybe they are still connected to each other by the string. This stringy picture of the force that holds quarks together is very successful, and explains the results of many experiments. But it brings with it a question: what is the string made of? Is it itself a fundamental entity, or is it composed of anything simpler? This is a question that generations of elementary particle physicists have worked to answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The one big clue we have is that the string stretched between two quarks behaves just like a line of magnetic flux in a superconductor. This suggests a simple hypothesis: dp n=\"121\" folio=\"112\" ?? FIGURE 21 Quarks are held together by strings made of quantized flux lines of afield, called the QCD field, which are analogous to the quantized magnetic flux lines in a superconductor (Figure 20). As the quarks are pulled farther apart, the flux lines are stretched, and the force between the quarks is the same no matter how far apart they are. The result is that the quarks cannot be pulled apart. perhaps empty space is very like a superconductor, except that what ends up discrete is the lines of force holding the colour charges of quarks together rather than the lines of magnetic flux. In this picture the lines of force between the coloured charges on the quarks are analogous to the electric rather than the magnetic field. So this hypothesis can be put very succinctly as follows: empty space is a colour-electric superconductor. This has been one of the most seminal ideas in elementary particle physics over the last few decades. It explains why quarks are confined in protons and neutrons, as well as many other facts about elementary particles. But what is really interesting is that the idea, clear as it is, contains a puzzle, for it can be looked it in two quite different ways.\n\nFIGURE 21\n\nQuarks are held together by strings made of quantized flux lines of afield, called the QCD field, which are analogous to the quantized magnetic flux lines in a superconductor (Figure 20). As the quarks are pulled farther apart, the flux lines are stretched, and the force between the quarks is the same no matter how far apart they are. The result is that the quarks cannot be pulled apart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One can take the colour-electric field as the fundamental entity, and then try to understand the picture of a string stretched between the quarks as a consequence of space having properties that make it something like an electric version of a superconductor. This is the route taken by those physicists who work on QCD. For them, the key problem is to understand why empty space has properties that make it behave in certain circumstances like a superconductor. This dp n=\"122\" folio=\"113\" ?? is not as crazy as it sounds. We understand that in quantum theory space must be seen to be full of oscillating random fields, as discussed in Chapter 6. So we may imagine that these vacuum fluctuations sometimes behave like the atoms in a metal in away that leads to large-scale effects like superconductivity.\n\nBut there is another way to understand the picture of quarks held together by stretched strings. This is to seethe strings themselves as fundamental entities, rather than as made up of the force lines of some field. This picture led to the original string theory. According to the first string theorists, the string is fundamental and the field is only an approximate picture of how the strings behave in some circumstances.\n\nWe thus have two pictures. In one, the strings are fundamental and the field lines are an approximate picture. In the other, the field lines are fundamental and the strings are the derived entities. Both have been studied, and both have had some success in explaining the results of experiments. But surely only one can be right? During the 1960s there was only one picture-the string picture. During this period were planted the seeds that would lead, two decades later, to the invention of string theory as a possible quantum theory of gravity. QCD was invented in the 1970s and quickly superseded the string picture as it seemed more successful as a fundamental theory. But string theory was revived in the mid-1980s, and now, as we enter the twenty-first century, both theories are thriving. It may still be that one is actually more fundamental than the other, but we have not yet been able to decide which." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is a third possibility, which is that both the string picture and the field picture are just different ways of looking at the same thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would then be equally fundamental, and no experiment could decide between them. This possibility excites many theorists, as it challenges some of our deepest instincts about how to think about physics. It is called the hypothesis of duality.\n\nI should emphasize that this hypothesis of duality is not the same as the wave-particle duality of quantum theory. But it is as important as that principle or the principle of relativity. dp n=\"123\" folio=\"114\" ?? Like the principles of relativity and quantum theory, the hypothesis of duality tells us that two seemingly different phenomena are just two ways of describing the same thing. If true, it has profound implications for our understanding of physics.\n\nThe hypothesis of duality also addresses an issue that has plagued physics since the middle of the nineteenth century, that there seem to be two kinds of things in the world: particles and fields. This dualistic description seems necessary because, as we have known since the nineteenth century, charged particles do not interact directly with one another. Instead, they interact via the electric and magnetic fields. This is behind many observed phenomena, including the fact that it takes a finite speed for information to travel between particles. The reason is that the information travels via waves in the field.\n\nMany people have been troubled by the need to postulate two very different kinds of entities to explain the world. In the nineteenth century people tried to explain fields in terms of matter. This was behind the famous aether theory, which Einstein so effectively quashed. Modern physicists try instead to explain particles in terms of fields. But this does not eliminate all the problems. Some of the most serious of these problems have to do with the fact that the theory of fields is full of infinite quantities. They arises because the strength of the electric field around a charged particle increases as one gets closer to the particle. But a particle has no size, so one can get as close as one likes to it. The result is that the field approaches infinity as one approaches the particle. This is responsible for many of the infinite expressions that arise in the equations of modern physics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are two ways to resolve this problem, and we shall see that both play a role in quantum gravity. One way is to deny that space is continuous, which then makes it impossible to get arbitrarily close to a particle. The other way is through the hypothesis of duality. What one can do is replace the particles by strings. This may work because from a distance one cannot really tell if something is a point or a little loop. But if the hypothesis of duality is true, then the dp n=\"124\" folio=\"115\" ?? strings and the fields maybe different ways of looking at the same thing. In this way, by embracing the hypothesis of duality, several of the problems that have clouded our understanding of physics for almost two centuries maybe resolved.\n\nI personally believe in this hypothesis. To explain why, I can tell the story of two seminars I attended just before and just after I started graduate school in 1976. I happened to have my interview at Harvard on the day that Kenneth Wilson was giving a talk about QCD. Wilson is one of the most influential theoretical physicists, responsible for several innovations, including the subject of that seminar. He had come up with a remarkable way to understand the electric-superconductor picture of empty space which has since been a major influence on the life's work of many physicists, including myself.\n\nWilson asked us to imagine that space is not continuous, but is instead represented by a kind of graph, with points connected in a regular arrangement bylines, as shown in Figure 22. We call such a regular graph a lattice. He suggested to us that the distance between the points of his lattice was very small, much smaller than the diameter of a proton. So it would be hard to tell from experiment that the lattice was thereat all. But conceptually it made a huge difference to think of space as a discrete lattice rather than a continuum. Wilson showed us that there was a very simple way to describe the colour-electric field of QCD by drawing field lines on his lattice. Rather than trying to show that empty space was like a superconductor, he simply assumed that the field lines were discrete entities which could move around his lattice. He wrote down simple rules to describe how they moved and interacted with one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ken Wilson then argued incompletely the opposite direction to everyone who had previously thought about these questions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He showed us that if there was one kind of electric charge, as in ordinary electricity, the field lines would have the tendency to group collectively in such away that when they got very long they would lose the property of discreteness and behave like ordinary electric field lines. So he dp n=\"125\" folio=\"116\" ?? derived the ordinary experience of the world from his theory, rather than the reverse. But when there were three kinds of charge, as there were with quarks, then no matter how big they got, they would always stay discrete. And there would be a constant force between the quarks. The rules governing Wilson's theory were very simple-so simple, in fact, that one could explain them to a child.\n\nFIGURE 22\n\nQuarks and strings as conceived of by Kenneth Wilson. Space is imagined as a lattice made of nodes connected by edges. The quarks can live only on the nodes of the lattice. The strings, or quantized tubes of flux of the field, connect the quarks but can exist only on the edges of the lattice. The distance between the nodes is assumed to be finite, but much smaller than the size of the proton. For simplicity, the lattice shown here is drawn in two dimensions only.\n\nWilson's loops, as everyone has called them since, later became a major theme of my life as a theoretical physicist. I don't actually recall reflecting on the seminar afterwards, but I do recall its presentation very vividly. Nor did I then, so far as I remember, formulate the simple argument that came tome many years later: if physics is much simpler to describe under the assumption that space is discrete, rather than continuous, is not this fact itself a strong argument for space being discrete? If so, then might space look, on some very small scale, something like Wilson's lattice?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next autumn I started graduate school, and later that year I came in one day to find a great buzz of excitement amongst the dp n=\"126\" folio=\"117\" ?? theorists. The Russian theorist Alexander Polyakov was visiting and was to give a talk that afternoon. In those days there were great schools of theoretical physics in the Soviet Union, but their members were seldom allowed to travel to the West. Polyakov was the most creative and most charismatic of them, and we all went along to his seminar. I recall someone with disarming warmth and informality, under which there was hidden (but not too well) someone with unlimited confidence.\n\nHe began by telling us that he had dedicated his life to pursuing a foolish and quixotic vision, which was tore-express QCD in a form in which the theory could be solved exactly. His idea for doing this was to recast QCD completely as a theory of the dynamics of lines and loops of colour-electric flux. These were the same as Wilson's loops, and indeed Polyakov had independently invented the picture of QCD on a discrete lattice. But in this seminar at least he worked without the lattice, to try to pullout from the theory a description in which the quantized loops of electric flux would be the fundamental entities. A physicist working without a lattice is something like a trapeze artist working without a net. There is an ever present danger that a false move will lead to a fatal result. In physics the fatalities arise from confrontations with infinite and absurd mathematical expressions. As we mentioned earlier, such expressions arise in all quantum theories based on continuous space and time. In his seminar Polyakov showed that despite these infinities, one could give physical meaning to loops of electric flux. If he did not succeed completely in solving the resulting equations, his seminar was altogether an assertion of faith in the hypothesis of duality-that the strings areas fundamental as the electric field lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea of duality is still a major driving force behind research in elementary particle physics and string theory. Duality is the very simple view that there are two ways of looking at the same thing-either in terms of strings or in terms of fields. But so far no one has been able to show that duality is applicable in ordinary QCD. It has been shown to be valid in very specialized theories which depend on very dp n=\"127\" folio=\"118\" ?? specific simplifying assumptions. Either the dimensionality of space is reduced from three to one, or a great deal of additional symmetry is added, which leads to a theory that can be understood much more easily. But even if it has not yet solved the problem that inspired its invention, duality has turned out to be a central concept in quantum gravity. How this happened is a very typical tale of how good scientific ideas can spread far from their point of origin, for I rather doubt that either Wilson or Polyakov originally considered how their idea might be applied to a quantum theory of gravity.\n\nLike many good ideas, this one needed several goes to get it right. Inspired by what I had heard from Wilson and Polyakov, and further lessons on lattice theories I got from Gerard \"t Hooft, Michael Peskin and Stephen Shenker during my first year of graduate school, I set out to formulate quantum gravity in terms of Wilson's lattice theory. Using some ideas borrowed from several people, I was able to concoct such a theory, which enabled me to spend a year or so learning the various techniques developed by Polyakov, Wilson and others by applying them to my version of quantum gravity. I wrote up and sent out along paper about it and waited fora reaction. As was common in those days, the only response was a stack of postcards from far-away places requesting copies of the paper. There was of course the inevitable request from the U. S. Army research lab, which reminded us that someone somewhere was being paid to think about the possible military applications of whatever young graduate students were up to. It is strange to recall those days, not so long ago, when we typed our papers on IBM Selectric typewriters, got a professional in the basement to draw the illustrations, and then stuffed the copies individually into envelopes and mailed them out. These days we write our papers on laptops and upload them to electronic archives from where they are immediately available on the Internet. I doubt many of our current students have seen either an IBM Selectric typewriter or a postcard requesting a preprint. Many have never even gone to the library to read a paper printed in a journal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few months later I realized that the paper was basically wrong. It was a brave attempt, but fatally flawed. Still, it got me a few invitations to conferences. I don't think Stephen Hawking was very happy when I used the occasion of his invitation to give a talk at a conference he organized to explain why making a lattice theory of gravity was not a very smart thing to do. Some people seemed to like the idea, but I did not see what else I could do-it was a bad idea, and I had the responsibility to explain why.\n\nAt another conference I left a copy of the paper in the mailbox of someone called Ashok Das, who had told me he was interested in doing something similar. Bryce DeWitt, who is justly thought of as the father of serious research in quantum gravity, looked for his mail in the same box and assumed that my paper was intended for him. I'm sure he saw all its shortcomings, but he was still kind enough to ask me to join him as a postdoc. I owe my career to Bryce's mistake. At that time I was being told that I had committed professional suicide by working on quantum gravity and that I was unlikely to get any job at all.\n\nWhat was wrong with my first paper was that Wilson's lattice was an absolute, fixed structure and thus clashed with the relational nature of Einstein's theory of gravity. So my theory did not contain gravity and had nothing at all to do with relativity. To fix this, the lattice itself would have to become a dynamical structure which could evolve in time. The key lesson I learned from this failed attempt was that one cannot fashion a successful quantum theory of gravity out of objects moving against a fixed background.\n\nAt about this time I met Julian Barbour, a physicist and philosopher who lives in a little village near Oxford. Julian had left the academic world after his Ph. D. in order to have the freedom to think deeply about the nature of space and time. He supported himself by translating Russian scientific journals into English and, away from the usual pressures of academic life, he used his considerable linguistic skills to read deeply into the history of our understanding of space and time. He had understood from his study the importance of the idea that space and time are relational, and he had then dp n=\"129\" folio=\"120\" ?? applied this wisdom to modern physics. He was I believe the first person to gain a deep understanding of the role this idea plays in the mathematical structure of Einstein's theory of relativity. Ina series of papers, first alone and then with an Italian friend, Bruno Bertotti, he showed how to formulate mathematically a theory in which space and time were nothing but aspects of relationships. Had Leibniz or anyone else done this before the twentieth century, it would have changed the course of science." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it happened, general relativity already existed, but-and this is a strange thing to say-it was widely misunderstood, even by many of the physicists who specialized in its study. Unfortunately, general relativity was commonly regarded as a machine that produces spacetime geometries, which are then to be treated as Newton treated his absolute space and time: as fixed and absolute entities within which things move. The question then to be answered was which of these absolute spacetimes describes the universe. The only difference between this and Newton's absolute space and time is that there is no choice in Newton's theory, while general relativity offers a selection of possible spacetimes. This is how the theory is presented in some textbooks, and there are even some philosophers, who should know better, who seem to interpret it this way. Julian Barbour's important contribution was to show convincingly that this was not at all the right way to understand the theory. Instead, the theory has to be understood as describing a dynamically evolving network of relationships.\n\nJulian was of course not the only person to learn to see general relativity in this way. John Stachel also came to this understanding, at least partly through his work as the first head of the project to prepare Einstein's collected papers for publication. But Julian came to the study of general relativity equipped with a tool that no one else had-the general mathematical formulation of a theory in which space and time are nothing but dynamically evolving relationships. Julian was then able to show how Einstein's theory of general relativity could be understood as an example of just such a theory. This demonstration laid bare the relational nature of the description of space and time in general relativity.\n\nSince then, Julian Barbour has become known to most people working in relativity, and recently he has become even more widely known and appreciated as a result of the publication of his radical theories on the nature of time. But in the early 1980s few people knew of his work, and I was very fortunate to meet him shortly after I had realized that my lattice gravity theory was in trouble. During this meeting he explained tome the meaning of space and time in general relativity, and the role of the relational concept in it. This gave me the conceptual language to understand why my calculations were showing that gravity was nowhere to be found in the theory I had constructed. What I needed to do was invent something like Wilson's lattice theory, but in which there was no fixed lattice, so that all the structures were dynamical and relational. A set of points connected by edges-in other words a graph-is a good example of a system defined by relationships. But what I had done wrong was to base the theory on a fixed graph. Instead, the theory should produce the graph, and it should not mirror any pre-existing geometry or structure. It should rather evolve according to rules as simple as those that Wilson had given for the motion of loops on his lattice. It was to be ten years before away appeared which made this possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During those ten years I spent my time on a variety of unsuccessful attempts to apply techniques from particle physics to the problem. These techniques were all background dependent, in that they assumed that you could fix a single classical spacetime geometry and study how quantized gravitational waves, called gravitons, move and interact on the background. We tried lots of different approaches, but they all failed. Besides this I wrote a few papers on supergravity, the new theory of gravity which had been invented by one of my advisors, Stanley Deser, and others. Those attempts also came to nothing. Then I wrote a few papers about the implications of the entropy of black holes, making various speculations about their connection with problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Looking at them now, it seems tome that these papers were the only interesting things I did during those years, but I have no evidence that very dp n=\"131\" folio=\"122\" ?? many people ever read them. Certainly there was no interest in, and no market for, young people applying ideas from quantum black holes to fundamental issues in quantum theory.\n\nLooking back, I am quite puzzled about why I continued to have a career. One sure reason was because at that time very few people worked on quantum gravity, so there was little competition. I was not actually getting anywhere, but people seemed to be interested in at least that part of my work in which I tried to apply techniques from particle physics to quantum gravity, even if what I had to report was that these were not very smart things to do. No one else was getting very far either, so there was room for the kind of people who prefer trying new things to following the research programs of older people, or who thrive on stealing ideas from one field and applying them in another. I doubt very much that I would have a career in the present-day environment, which is much more competitive, and in which the jobs are controlled by older people who feel confident that they are working on the right approach to quantum gravity. This allows them-but I should really say \"us\", for I am now one of the older people who hires postdocs-to feel justified in using the enthusiasm a young researcher shows for our own research program as a measure of that researcher's promise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For me, as for many people working in this area, the turning point came with the revival of string theory as a possible quantum theory of gravity. I shall come to string theory in the next chapter. For now I shall say only that, having experienced the invention and failure of a whole series of wrong approaches to quantum gravity, I, along with many other physicists, was quite optimistic about what string theory could do for us. At the same time, I was also completely convinced that no theory could succeed if it was based on things moving in a fixed background spacetime. And however successful string theory was at solving certain problems, it was still very much a theory of this kind. It differed from a conventional theory only inasmuch as the objects moving in the background were strings rather than particles or fields. So it was clear right away, tome and to a few others, that while dp n=\"132\" folio=\"123\" ?? string theory might bean important step towards a quantum theory of gravity, it could not be the complete theory. But nevertheless, as it did for many other physicists, string theory changed the direction of my research. I began to look fora way to make a background independent theory which would reduce to string theory as an approximation useful in situations in which spacetime could be regarded as a fixed background.\n\nTo get inspiration for this project I recalled the seminar given by Polyakov that had so excited meas a beginning graduate student. I wondered whether I could use the method he had used, which was to try to express QCD in terms in which the fundamental objects were loops of colour-electric flux. I needed a theory in which there was no lattice to get in the way, and he had worked without a lattice. I worked for about a year on this idea, with Louis Crane. I was then a postdoc at the University of Chicago, and Louis Crane was a graduate student. He was older than me, but he had actually been a child prodigy, perhaps the last of a distinguished series of scientists and scholars that the University of Chicago admitted to college in their early teens. He had suffered the misfortune of being expelled from graduate school for leading a strike against the invasion of Cambodia, and it had taken him ten years to find his way back to graduate school. Louis has since become one of a handful of mathematicians who has made significant creative contributions to the development of our ideas about quantum gravity. Some of his contributions have been absolutely seminal for developments in the field. I was very fortunate to become his friend at that time, and count myself lucky to be his friend still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Louis and I worked on two projects. In the first we tried to formulate a gravitational theory based on the dynamics of interacting loops of quantized electric flux. We failed to formulate a string theory, and as a result we published none of this work, but it was to have very important consequences. In the second project we showed that a theory in which spacetime was discrete on small scales could solve many of the problems of quantum gravity. We did this by studying the implications of the hypothesis that the structure of spacetime dp n=\"133\" folio=\"124\" ?? was like a fractal at Planck scales. This overcame many of the difficulties of quantum gravity, by eliminating the infinities and making the theory finite. We realized during that work that one way of making such a fractal spacetime is to build it up from a network of interacting loops. Both collaborations with Louis Crane persuaded me that we should try to construct a theory of spacetime based on relationships among an evolving network of loops. The problem was, how should we go about this?\n\nThis was how things stood when a discovery was made that completely changed how we understand Einstein's theory of general relativity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 10\n\nKNOTS, LINKS AND KINKS\n\nDuring the year I was working with Louis, a young postdoc named Amitaba Sen published two papers which excited and mystified many people. We read them with a great deal of interest, for what Sen was doing was attempting to make a quantum theory from supergravity. Embedded in the papers were several remarkable formulas in which Einstein's theory of gravity was expressed in a much simpler and more beautiful set of equations than Einstein had used. Several of us spent many hours discussing what would happen if we could somehow find away to base quantum gravity on this much simpler formulation. But none of us did anything at the time.\n\nThe one person who took Sen's equations seriously was Abhay Ashtekar. Abhay had been trained as a classical relativist, and early in his career had done important work in that area, but more recently he had set his sights on a quantum theory of gravity. Being mathematically inclined, Ashtekar saw that Sen's equations contained the core of a complete reformulation of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and by a year later he had done just that: fashioned anew formulation of general relativity. This did two things: it vastly simplified the mathematics of the theory, and expressed it in a mathematical language which was very close to that used in QCD. This was exactly what was needed to transform quantum gravity into areal subject, one in which it would in time become possible to do calculations that dp n=\"135\" folio=\"126\" ?? yielded definite predictions about the structure of space and time on the Planck scale.\n\nI invited Abhay to give a talk about this at Yale, where I had just become an assistant professor. At the talk was a graduate student named Paul Renteln, from Harvard, who had also been studying Sen's papers. It was clear to us that Ashtekar's formulation would be the key to further progress. Afterwards, I drove Abhay to the airport in Hartford. On the hour's drive between New Haven and Hartford my car had not one but two flat tyres-and Abhay still just caught his flight. He had to hitch a ride for the last few miles, while I waited on the side of the road for help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I finally got home I sat down immediately and began to apply to the new formalism of Sen and Ashtekar the methods Louis Crane and I had developed during our unsuccessful attempts tore-invent string theory. A few weeks later there began a semester-long workshop in quantum gravity at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara. By another piece of luck, I had convinced the authorities at Yale to let me spend a semester there, just after they had hired me. As soon as I got there I recruited two friends, Ted Jacobson and Paul Renteln. We found right away that a very simple picture of the quantum structure of space emerged if we used something very like the electric superconductor picture for the flux lines of the gravitational field. At first I worked with Paul. Fearful of the infinities that come with continuous space, we used a lattice, much like Wilson's lattice. We found that the new form of the Einstein equations implied very simple rules for how the loops interact on the lattice. But we ran into the same problem as I had ten years before: how to get rid of the background imposed by the use of a fixed lattice.\n\nTed Jacobson suggested that we try to follow Polyakov and work without a lattice. I have already described the result, in Chapter 3. The next day we were standing in front of a blackboard, staring at something which it had never occurred to us, nor anyone else, to even look for. These were exact solutions to the full equations of the quantum theory of gravity.\n\nWhat we had done was to apply the usual methods for constructing a quantum theory to the simple form of the equations for general relativity that Sen and Ashtekar had discovered. These led to the equations for the quantum theory of gravity. These equations had first been written down in the 1960s, by Bryce DeWitt and John Wheeler, but we found new forms for them which were dramatically simpler. We had to plug into these equations formulas that described possible quantum states of the geometry of space and time. On an impulse I tried something that Louis Crane and I had played with, which was to build these states directly from the expressions Polyakov used to describe the quantized loops of electric fields. What we found was that, as long as the loops did not intersect, they satisfied the equations. They looked like the loops in Figure 23." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 23\n\nQuantum states of the geometry of space are expressed in loop quantum gravity in terms of loops. These states are exact solutions to the equations of quantum gravity, as long as there are no intersections or kinks in the loops.\n\nIt took us a few days of hard work to find still more solutions. We found that even if the loops intersected, we could still combine them to make solutions provided certain simple rules were obeyed. In fact, we could write down an infinite number of these states-all we had to do was draw loops and apply some simple rules whenever they intersected.\n\nIt took many years for us and others to workout the implications of what we had found in those few days. But even at the start we knew that we had in our grasp a quantum theory of gravity that could do what no theory before it had done-it gave us an exact description of the physics of the Planck scale in which space is constructed from nothing but the relationships among a set of discrete elementary objects. These objects were still Wilson's and Polyakov's loops, but they no longer lived on a lattice, or even in space. Instead, their interrelations defined space.\n\nThere was one step to go to complete the picture. We had to prove that our solutions really were independent of the background space. This required us to show that they solved an additional set of equations, known as diffeomorphism constraints, which expressed the independence of the theory from the background. These were supposed to be the easy equations of the theory. Paradoxically, the equations we had solved so easily, the so-called Wheeler-DeWitt equations, were supposed to be the hard ones. At first I was very optimistic, but it turned out to be impossible to invent quantum states that solved both sets of equations. It was easy to solve one or the other, but not both." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back at Yale the next year, we spent many fruitless hours with Louis Crane trying to do this. We pretty much convinced ourselves it was impossible. This was very frustrating because it was easy to see what the result would be: if we could only get rid of the background, we would have a theory of nothing but loops and their topological relationships. It would not matter wherein space the loops were, because the points in space would have no intrinsic meaning. What would matter would be how the loops intersected one another. It would also matter how they knotted and linked.\n\nI realized this one day while I was sitting in my garden in Santa Barbara. Quantum gravity would be reduced to a theory of the intersecting, knotting and linking of loops. These would give us a description of quantum geometry on the Planck scale. From the work I had done with Paul and Ted, I also knew that the quantum versions of the Einstein equations we had invented could change the way the loops linked and dp n=\"138\" folio=\"129\" ?? knotted with one another. So the relationships among the loops could change dynamically. I had thought about intersecting loops, but I had never wondered about how loops could knot or link.\n\nI went inside and called Louis Crane. I asked him whether mathematicians knew anything about how loops might knot and link. He said, yes, there is a whole field devoted to the subject, called knot theory. He reminded me that I had had dinner a few times in Chicago with one of its leading thinkers, Louis Kauffman. So the last step was to rid the theory of any dependence on where the loops were in space. This would reduce our theory to the study of knots, links and kinks, as James Hartle, one of the leading American relativists, teasingly began to call it shortly afterwards. But this was not so easy, and we were notable to take this step for over a year. We tried very hard, with Louis and others, but we could not do it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The workshop at Santa Barbara had closed with a conference at which our new results were first presented. There I had meta young Italian scientist, Carlo Rovelli, who had just been awarded his Ph. D. We didn't talk much, but shortly after he wrote to ask if he could come to visit us at Yale. He arrived that October, and took a room in Louis Crane's apartment. The first day he was there I explained to him that there was nothing to do, because we were completely stuck. The work had looked promising, but Louis and I had found the last step to be impossible. I told Carlo he was welcome to stay, but perhaps given the sad state of the subject he might prefer to go back to Italy. There was an awkward moment. Then, looking for something to talk about, I asked him if he liked to sail. He replied that he was an avid sailor, so we abandoned science for the day and went straight to the harbour where the Yale sailing team kept its boats, and took out a sailing dinghy. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about our girlfriends.\n\nI didn't see Carlo the next day. The day after that he appeared at the door to my office and said,\"I've found the answer to all the problems.\" His idea was to make one more reformulation of the theory, so that the basic variables were nothing but the loops. The problem was that the theory up till then depended both on the loops and on the field flowing dp n=\"139\" folio=\"130\" ?? around the loop. Carlo saw that it was the dependence on the field that was making it impossible to proceed. He also saw how to get rid of it, by using an approach to quantum theory invented by his mentor, Chris Isham, at Imperial College. Carlo had found that applying it to the loops gave exactly what we needed. It took us no more than a day to sketch the whole picture. In the end we had a theory of the kind that Polyakov had spoken about as his great dream: a theory of pure loops which described an aspect of the real world in equations so simple they could be solved exactly. And when it was used to construct the quantum version of Einstein's theory of gravity, the theory depended only on the relationships of the loops to one another-on how they knot, link and kink. Within days we had shown that one can construct an infinite number of solutions to all the equations of quantum gravity. For example, there is one solution for every possible way to tie a knot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few weeks later we went to Syracuse University, which by then was the centre of work stemming from Ashtekar's and Sen's discoveries, and Carlo gave the first seminar on the new theory of quantum gravity. On the way to the airport we were rear-ended by a guy in a very flashy car. No one was hurt, and the rear bumper of my old Dodge Dart was barely scratched, but his Maserati was wrecked. Still, we made it. The next day Carlo had a high fever, but he got through the seminar, and at the end there was along, appreciative silence. Abhay Ashtekar said it was the first time he had seen something that might be the quantum theory of gravity. A few weeks after that I gave the second seminar on the new theory, in London, in front of Chris Isham, on my way to a conference in India.\n\nIn India, two ancient cultures met when I introduced the conference organizer to Carlo, who had decided impulsively to jump on a plane and come, though he had no invitation. The distinguished gentleman looked at his longhair and the sandals and clothes he had picked up while wandering alone for two days through the backstreets of Bombay, and sputtered, \"Mr Rovelli, but didn't you get my letter saying the meeting is closed? \"Carlo smiled and replied,\"No, but dp n=\"140\" folio=\"131\" ?? didn't you get mine?\" He was given the best room in the hotel, and Air India put him in first class on his flight home to Rome.\n\nThus was born what is now called loop quantum gravity. It took several years of work, first with Carlo and then as part of a growing community of friends and colleagues, to unravel the meaning of the solutions to the quantum gravity equations we had found. One straightforward consequence is that quantum geometry is indeed discrete. Everything we had done had been based on the idea of a discrete line of force, as in a magnetic field in a superconductor. Translated into the loop picture of the gravitational field, this turns out to imply that the area of any surface comes in discrete multiples of simple units. The smallest of these units is about the Planck area, which is the square of the Planck length. This means that all surfaces are discrete, made of parts each of which carries a finite amount of area. The same is true of volume." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To arrive at these results we had to find away to eliminate the infinities that plague all expressions in quantum theories of fields." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had an intuition, stemming from my past conversations with Julian Barbour, and the work I had done with Louis Crane, that the theory should have no infinities. Many physicists have speculated that the infinities come from some mistaken assumption about the structure of space and time on the Planck scale. From the older work it was clear tome that the wrong assumption was the idea that the geometry of spacetime was fixed and non-dynamical. When calculating the measures of geometry, such as area and volume, one had to do it in just the right way to eliminate any possible contamination from non-dynamical, fixed structures. Exactly how to do this was a technical exercise that cannot be explained here. But in the end it did turnout that as long as one asks a physically meaningful question, there will be no infinities.\n\nIn my experience it really is true that as a scientist one has only a few good ideas. They are few and far between, and come only after many years of preparation. What is worse, having had a good idea one is condemned to years of hard work developing it. The idea that area and volume would be dp n=\"141\" folio=\"132\" ?? discrete had come tome in a flash as I was trying to calculate the volume of some quantum geometry, while I was sitting for an hour in a noisy room in a garage waiting for my car to be fixed. The page of my notebook was filled with many messy integrals, but all of a sudden I saw emerge a formula for counting. I had begun to calculate a quantity on the assumption that the result was areal number, but found instead that, in certain units, all the possible answers would be integers. This meant that areas and volumes cannot take any value, but come in multiples of fixed units. These units correspond to the smallest areas and volumes that can exist. I showed these calculations to Carlo, and a few months later, during a period we spent working together at the University of Trento, in the mountains of north-east Italy, he invented an argument that showed that the basic unit of area could not betaken to zero. This meant there was noway to avoid the conclusion that if our theory were true, space had an \"atomic\" structure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I well remember our work in Trento for another reason. In the previous year one of our students, Bernd Bruegmann, had come to my office with a very disturbed look on his face. His thesis problem was to apply the new methods from loop quantum gravity to QCD on a lattice, and see whether the properties of protons and neutrons would emerge. While doing so he did what good scientists should do, but which we had not, which was to check the literature thoroughly. He had found a paper in which methods very similar to ours had already been applied to QCD by two people we had never heard of, Rodolfo Gambini and Anthony Trias, who were working in Montevideo and Barcelona.\n\nScientists are human, and we all suffer from the need to feel that what we do is important. Pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a scientist is to find that someone has made the same discovery before you. The only thing worse is when someone publishes the same discovery you made, after you've published it yourself, and does not give you adequate credit. It was true that we had discovered the method of working with loops in the realm of quantum gravity rather than in QCD, but there was no avoiding the fact that the method we had developed was quite close to the one that Gambini and dp n=\"142\" folio=\"133\" ?? Trias had already been using for several years in their work on QCD. Even though they had been publishing in the Physical Review, which is a major journal, we had somehow missed seeing their work.\n\nWith a heavy heart we did the only thing we could, which was to sit down and write them a very apologetic letter. We heard nothing from them until one afternoon in Trento, when Carlo got a phone call from Barcelona. Our letter had finally reached them. They had tracked us down to Trento, and asked if we would still be there tomorrow. The next morning they arrived, having driven most of the night across France and northern Italy. We spent a wonderful day showing each other our work, which was thankfully complementary. They had applied the method to QCD, while we had applied it to quantum gravity. Anthony Trias did most of the talking, while Rodolfo Gambini sat at the back of the room and at first hardly said anything. But we soon found that Rodolfo was a creative scientist of the first order. Just how creative we learned over the next few months, as he quickly invented anew approach to doing calculations in loop quantum gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since then Gambini has been one of the leaders in the field of quantum gravity, often working in collaboration with Jorge Pullin at Penn State University and a very good group of young people he trained in Montevideo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They have discovered many more solutions to the equations of quantum gravity, and resolved several important problems that came up along the way.\n\nIt also must be said that, despite his quiet nature, Rodolfo Gambini has been more or less single-handedly responsible for reviving physics in both Venezuela and Uruguay after its total destruction by the military dictatorships. Just what this meant was brought home tome the first time I visited Montevideo. It was the middle of winter, and we did physics with Rodolfo and his group in a run-down old convent, without heat or computers, fighting off the cold by drinking a continuous supply of matte (a kind of tea) that was kept hot over a Bunsen burner. Now the science departments at the University of Uruguay are housed in modern buildings and dp n=\"143\" folio=\"134\" ?? facilities, built with funds that Rodolfo raised in his spare time, while keeping up a continuous flow of new ideas and calculations.\n\nOne of the most beautiful results to have come from loop quantum gravity was the discovery that the loop states could be arranged in very beautiful pictures, which are called spin networks. These had actually been invented thirty years earlier by Roger Penrose. Penrose had also been inspired by the idea that space must be purely relational. Going directly to the heart of the matter, as is his nature, he had skipped the step of trying to derive a picture of relational space from some existing theory, as we had. Instead, having more courage, he had sought the simplest possible relational structure that might be the basis of a quantum theory of geometry. Spin networks were what he came up with. A spin network is simply a graph, such as those shown in Figures 24 to 27, whose edges are labelled by integers. These integers come from the values that the angular momentum of a particle are allowed to have in quantum theory, which are equal to an integer times half of Planck's constant." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the narrative forward in collaboration with the writer.\nTags: science, physics, quantum gravity, theoretical, complex concepts\nAuthor: Lee Smolin\nTitle: Three Roads to Quantum Gravity\nChapter: 17" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since then Gambini has been one of the leaders in the field of quantum gravity, often working in collaboration with Jorge Pullin at Penn State University and a very good group of young people he trained in Montevideo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They have discovered many more solutions to the equations of quantum gravity, and resolved several important problems that came up along the way.\n\nIt also must be said that, despite his quiet nature, Rodolfo Gambini has been more or less single-handedly responsible for reviving physics in both Venezuela and Uruguay after its total destruction by the military dictatorships. Just what this meant was brought home tome the first time I visited Montevideo. It was the middle of winter, and we did physics with Rodolfo and his group in a run-down old convent, without heat or computers, fighting off the cold by drinking a continuous supply of matte (a kind of tea) that was kept hot over a Bunsen burner. Now the science departments at the University of Uruguay are housed in modern buildings and dp n=\"143\" folio=\"134\" ?? facilities, built with funds that Rodolfo raised in his spare time, while keeping up a continuous flow of new ideas and calculations.\n\nOne of the most beautiful results to have come from loop quantum gravity was the discovery that the loop states could be arranged in very beautiful pictures, which are called spin networks. These had actually been invented thirty years earlier by Roger Penrose. Penrose had also been inspired by the idea that space must be purely relational. Going directly to the heart of the matter, as is his nature, he had skipped the step of trying to derive a picture of relational space from some existing theory, as we had. Instead, having more courage, he had sought the simplest possible relational structure that might be the basis of a quantum theory of geometry. Spin networks were what he came up with. A spin network is simply a graph, such as those shown in Figures 24 to 27, whose edges are labelled by integers. These integers come from the values that the angular momentum of a particle are allowed to have in quantum theory, which are equal to an integer times half of Planck's constant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 24\n\nA spin network, as invented by Roger Penrose, also represents a quantum state of the geometry of space. It consists of a graph, together with integers on the edges. Only a few of the numbers are shown here.\n\nFIGURE 25\n\nA spin network can be made by combining loops.\n\nI had known fora longtime that Penrose's spin networks should come into loop quantum gravity, but I had been afraid of working with them. When Penrose described them in his talks they always seemed so intricate that only he would be able to work with them without making mistakes. To do a calculation Penrose's way, one has to add up long series of numbers which are each either+ 1,0 or-1. If you miss one sign, you're dead. Still, during a visit to Cambridge in 1994 I met Roger and asked him to tell me how to calculate with his spin networks. We did one calculation together, and I thought I had the hang of it. That was enough to convince me that spin networks would make it possible to calculate aspects of quantum geometry such as the smallest possible volume. I then showed what I had learned to Carlo, and we spent the rest of that summer translating our theory into the language of Penrose's spin networks.\n\nWhen we did this we found that each spin network gives a possible quantum state for the geometry of space. The integers dp n=\"145\" folio=\"136\" ?? on each edge of a network correspond to units of area carried by that edge. Rather than carrying a certain amount of electric or magnetic flux, the lines of a spin network carry units of area. The nodes of the spin networks also have a simple meaning: they correspond to quantized units of volume. The volume contained in a simple spin network, when measured in Planck units, is basically equal to the number of nodes of the network. It took much work and heartache to clarify this picture. Penrose's method was invaluable but, as I had expected, it was not easy to work with. Along the way we learned the truth of something I once heard Richard Feynman say, which is that a good scientist is someone who works hard enough to make every possible mistake before coming to the right answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 26\n\nThe quantization of space as predicted by loop quantum gravity. The edges of spin networks carry discrete units of area. The area of a surface comes from the intersection of one edge of a spin network with it. The smallest possible area comes from one intersection, and is about 10-66 of a square centimetre. The nodes of the spin networks carry discrete units of volume. The smallest possible volume comes from one node, and is about 10-99 of a cubic centimetre.\n\nFIGURE 27\n\nAvery large spin network can represent a quantum geometry that looks smooth and continuous when viewed on a scale much larger than the Planck length. We say that the classical geometry of space is woven by making it out of a very large and complex spin network. In the spin network picture, space only seems continuous-it is actually made up of building blocks which are the nodes and edges of the spin network.\n\nProbably my worst moment in science came at a conference in Warsaw when a young physicist named Renate Loll, who had also been a student of Chris Isham in London, announced at the end of her talk that our calculation for the smallest possible volume was wrong. After a lot of argument it turned out that she was right, and we traced our error back to a single sign mistake. But remarkably, our basic pictures and results held up. They have since been confirmed by mathematical physicists who showed that the results we found are underpinned by rigorous mathematical theorems. Their work tells dp n=\"147\" folio=\"138\" ?? us that the spin network picture of quantum geometry is not just a product of someone's imagination-rather, it follows directly from combining the basic principles of quantum theory with those of relativity.\n\nThe loop approach to quantum gravity is now a thriving field of research. Many of the older ideas, such as supergravity and the study of quantum black holes, have been incorporated into it. Connections have been discovered to other approaches to quantum gravity, such as Alain Connes's non-commutative approach to geometry, Roger Penrose's twistor theory and string theory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One lesson we have learned from this experience is the extent to which science progresses quickly when people with different backgrounds and educations join forces to push back the frontiers. The relationship between theoretical physicists and mathematical physicists is not always smooth. It is rather like the relationship between the scouts who first explore the frontier, and the farmers who come after them and fence the land and make it productive. The mathematical farmers need to tie everything down, and determine the exact boundaries of an idea or a result, while we physicist scouts like our ideas when they are still a bit wild and untamed. Each has a tendency to think that they did the essential part of the work. But something we and the string theorists have both learned is that in spite of their different ways of working and thinking, it is essential that mathematicians and physicists learn to communicate and work with one another. As happened with general relativity, quantum gravity requires new mathematics as much as it requires new concepts, ideas and ways of doing calculations. If we have made real progress it is because we have discovered that people can work together to invent something that no one person could have come up with alone.\n\nIn the end, what is most satisfying about the picture of space given by loop quantum gravity is that it is completely relational. The spin networks do not live in space; their structure generates space. And they are nothing but a structure of relations, governed by how the edges are tied together at the nodes. Also coded in are rules about how the edges may knot and link with one another. It is also very dp n=\"148\" folio=\"139\" ?? satisfying that there is a complete correspondence between the classical and quantum pictures of geometry. In classical geometry the volumes of regions and the areas of the surfaces depend on the values of gravitational fields. They are coded in certain complicated collections of mathematical functions, known collectively as the metric tensor. On the other hand, in the quantum picture the geometry is coded in the choice of a spin network. These spin networks correspond to the classical description in that, given any classical geometry, one can find a spin network which describes, to some level of approximation, the same geometry (Figure 27)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In classical general relativity the geometry of space evolves in time. For example, when a gravitational wave passes a surface, the area of that surface will oscillate in time. There is an equivalent quantum picture in which the structures of the spin networks may evolve in time in response to the passage of a gravitational wave. Figure 28 shows some of the simple steps by which a spin network evolves in time. If we let a spin network evolve, we get a discrete spacetime structure. The events of this discrete spacetime are the processes by which changes of the form shown in Figure 28 occur. We can draw pictures of evolving spin networks; they look like Figures 29 to 31. An evolving spin network is very like a spacetime, but it is discrete rather than continuous. We can say what the causal relations are among the events, so it has light cones. But it also has more, for we can draw slices through it that correspond to moments of time. As in relativity theory, there are many different ways of slicing an evolving spin network, so as to see it as a succession of states evolving in time. Thus, the picture of spacetime given by loop quantum gravity agrees with the fundamental principle that in the theory of relativity there are nothings, only processes.\n\nJohn Wheeler used to say that on the Planck scale spacetime would no longer be smooth, but would resemble a foam, which he called spacetime foam. In tribute to Wheeler, the mathematician John Baez has suggested that evolving spin networks be called spin foam. The study of spin foam has sprung up since the mid-1990s. There are several different versions presently understudy, invented by Mike Reisenberger, by Louis Crane dp n=\"149\" folio=\"140\" ?? and John Barrett, and by Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara. Carlo Rovelli, John Baez, Renate Loll and many of the other people who contributed to loop quantum gravity are now engaged in the study of spin foam. So this is presently a very lively area of research. Figure 32 shows a computer simulation of a world with one space and onetime dimension, modelled upon ideas from spin foam theory. This is work of Jan Ambjørn, Kostas Anagnastopoulos and Renate Loll. These universes are very small, each edge corresponding to one Planck length. They do not always evolve smoothly; instead, from time to time the size of the universe jumps suddenly. These are the quantum fluctuations of the geometry. After many years, we have here areal quantum theory of the geometry of spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 28\n\nSimple stages by which a spin network can evolve in time. Each one is a quantum transition of the geometry of space. These are the quantum theoretic analogues of the Einstein equations. [From F. Markopoulou, \"Dual formulation of spin network evolution\", gr-qc/9704013. All the papers referenced here as gr-qc/xxxx are available at xxx. lanl. gov.]\n\nFIGURE 29\n\nTwo pictures of quantum spacetimes. Each event in the quantum spacetime is a simple change in the quantum geometry of space, corresponding to one of the moves shown in Figure 28. According to loop quantum gravity, this is what spacetime looks like if we examine it on a timescale of 10-43 of a second and a length scale of 10-33 of a centimetre. The upper picture shows a single elementary move. The lower one shows a combination of two elementary moves. [From C. Rovelli, \"The projector on physical states in loop quantum gravity\", gr-qc/9806121.]\n\nFIGURE 30\n\nAnother of the elementary moves for quantum transitions among spin networks, together with the spacetime picture that represents it. [From R. de Pietri, \"Canonical loop quantum gravity and spin foam models\", gr-qc/9903076.]\n\nIs the theory right? We do not know yet. In the end, it will be decided by experiments designed to test the predictions the theory makes about the discreteness of area and volume and other measures of spacetime geometry. I do want to emphasize that although it follows directly from the combination of the principles of general relativity and quantum theory, loop quantum gravity does not need to be the complete story to be true. In particular, the main predictions of the theory, such as the quantization of area and volume, do not depend on many details being correct, only on the most general assumptions drawn from quantum theory and relativity. The predictions do not constrain what else there can be in the world, how many dimensions there are or what the fundamental symmetries are. In particular, they are completely consistent with the basic features of string theory, including the existence of extra dimensions and supersymmetry. I know of no reason to doubt their truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, in the end experiment must decide. But can we really hope for experimental confirmation of the structure of space on the Planck scale, 20 orders of magnitude smaller than the proton? Until very recently most of us were sceptical about whether we might see such tests in our lifetime. But dp n=\"152\" folio=\"143\" ?? now we know we were being too pessimistic. Avery imaginative young Italian physicist, Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, has pointed out that there is away to test the predictions that the geometry of space is discrete on the Planck scale. His method uses the whole universe as an instrument.\n\nFIGURE 31\n\nAnother picture of a quantum spacetime, showing the causal futures of the events where the spin networks change. These are drawn as light cones, as in Chapter 4. [From F. Markopoulou and L. Smolin, \"The causal evolution of spin networks\", gr-qc/9702025.]\n\nWhen a photon travels through a discrete geometry it will suffer small deviations from the path that classical physics predicts for it. These deviations are caused by the interference effects that arise when the photon's associated wave is scattered by the discrete nodes of the quantum geometry. For photons that we can detect, these effects are very, very small. What no one before Amelino-Camelia had thought of, though, dp n=\"153\" folio=\"144\" ?? is that the effects accumulate when a photon travels very long distances. And we can detect photons that have travelled across large fractions of the observable universe. He proposes that by carefully studying images taken by satellites of very violent events such as those that create X-ray and gamma-ray bursts, it maybe possible to discover experimentally the discrete structure of space.\n\nFIGURE 32" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Computer model of a quantum spacetime, showing a universe with one space and onetime dimension. The structures shown exist on scales of 10-33 of a centimetre and 10-43 of a second. We see that the quantum geometry fluctuates very strongly because of the uncertainty principle. As with the position of an electron in an atom, for such small universes the quantum fluctuations in the size of the universe are very important as they areas large as the universe itself. [These simulations are the work of Jan Ambøjrn, Kostas Anagnastopoulos and Renate Loll. They can be seen at their Web page, http:// www. nbi. dk/~ konstant/homepage/ lqg2/ .]\n\nIf these experiments do show that space has anatomic structure on the Planck scale, it will surely be one of the most exciting discoveries of early twenty-first century science. By developing these new methods we maybe able to look at pictures of the discrete structure of space, just as we are now able to study pictures of arrays of atoms. And if the work I have described in the last two chapters is not completely irrelevant, what we shall see are Wilson's and Polyakov's loops, organized into Penrose's spin networks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 11\n\nTHE SOUND OF SPACE IS A STRING\n\nI am convinced that the hardest thing about doing science is not that it sometimes demands a certain level of skill and intelligence. Skills can be learned, and as for intelligence, none of us is really smart enough to get anywhere on our own. All of us, even the most independent, manage to carry our work through to completion because we are part of a community of committed and honest people. When we are stuck, most of us look fora way out in the work of others. When we are lost, most of us look to see what others are doing. Even then, we often get lost. Sometimes even whole groups of friends and colleagues get lost together. Consequently, the hardest thing about science is what it demands of us in terms of our ability to make the right choice in the face of incomplete information. This requires characteristics not easily measured by tests, such as intuition and a person's faith in themself. Einstein knew this, which is why he told John Wheeler, in a remark that Wheeler has often repeated, how much he admired Newton's courage and judgement in sticking with the idea of absolute space and time even though all his colleagues told him it was absurd. The idea is absurd, as Einstein knew better than anyone. But absolute space and time was what was required to make progress at the time, and to see this was perhaps Newton's greatest achievement.\n\nEinstein himself is often presented as the prime example of someone who did great things alone, without the need fora community. This myth was fostered, perhaps even deliberately, dp n=\"156\" folio=\"147\" ?? by those who have conspired to shape our memory of him. Many of us were told a story of a man who invented general relativity out of his own head, as an act of pure individual creation, serene in his contemplation of the absolute as the First World War raged around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a wonderful story, and it has inspired generations of us to wander with unkempt hair and no socks around shrines like Princeton and Cambridge, imagining that if we focus our thoughts on the right question we could be next great scientific icon. But this is far from what happened. Recently my partner and I were lucky enough to be shown pages from the actual notebook in which Einstein invented general relativity, while it was being prepared for publication by a group of historians working in Berlin. As working physicists it was clear to us right away what was happening: the man was confused and lost-very lost. But he was also a very good physicist (though not, of course, in the sense of the mythical saint who could perceive truth directly). In that notebook we could see a very good physicist exercising the same skills and strategies, the mastery of which made Richard Feynman such a great physicist. Einstein knew what to do when he was lost: open his notebook and attempt some calculation that might shed some light on the problem.\n\nSo we turned the pages with anticipation. But still he gets nowhere. What does a good physicist do then? He talks with his friends. All of a sudden a name is scrawled on the page: \"Grossmann!!!\" It seems that his friend has told Einstein about something called the curvature tensor. This is the mathematical structure that Einstein had been seeking, and is now understood to be the key to relativity theory.\n\nActually I was rather pleased to see that Einstein had not been able to invent the curvature tensor on his own. Some of the books from which I had learned relativity had seemed to imply that any competent student should be able to derive the curvature tensor given the principles Einstein was working with. At the time I had had my doubts, and it was reassuring to see that the only person who had ever actually faced the problem without being able to lookup the answer had not dp n=\"157\" folio=\"148\" ?? been able to solve it. Einstein had to ask a friend who knew the right mathematics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The textbooks goon to say that once one understands the curvature tensor, one is very close to Einstein's theory of gravity. The questions Einstein is asking should lead him to invent the theory in half a page. There are only two steps to take, and one can see from this notebook that Einstein has all the ingredients. But could he do it? Apparently not. He starts out promisingly, then he makes a mistake. To explain why his mistake is not a mistake he invents a very clever argument. With falling hearts, we, reading his notebook, recognize his argument as one that was held up to us as an example of how not to think about the problem. As good students of the subject we know that the argument being used by Einstein is not only wrong but absurd, but no one told us it was Einstein himself who invented it. By the end of the notebook he has convinced himself of the truth of a theory that we, with more experience of this kind of stuff than he or anyone could have had at the time, can see is not even mathematically consistent. Still, he convinced himself and several others of its promise, and for the next two years they pursued this wrong theory. Actually the right equation was written down, almost accidentally, on one page of the notebook we looked at it. But Einstein failed to recognize it for what it was, and only after following a false trail for two years did he find his way back to it. When he did, it was questions his good friends asked him that finally made him see where he had gone wrong.\n\nNothing in this notebook leads us to doubt Einstein's greatness-quite the contrary, for in this notebook we can seethe trail followed by a great human being whose courage and judgement are strong enough to pull him through a thicket of confusion from which few others could have emerged. Rather, the lesson is that trying to invent new laws of physics is hard. Really hard. No one knew better than Einstein that it requires not only intelligence and hard work, but equal helpings of insight, stubbornness, patience and character. This is why all scientists work in communities. And that makes the history of science a human story. There dp n=\"158\" folio=\"149\" ?? can be no triumph without an equal amount of foolishness. When the problem is as hard as the invention of quantum gravity, we must respect the efforts of others even when we disagree with them. Whether we travel in small groups of friends or in large convoys of hundreds of experts, we are all equally prone to error." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another moral has to do with why Einstein made so many mistakes in his struggle to invent general relativity. The lesson he had such trouble learning was that space and time have no absolute meaning and are nothing but systems of relations. How Einstein himself learned this lesson, and by doing so invented a theory which more than any other realizes the idea that space and time are relational, is a beautiful story. But it is not my place hereto tell it-that must be left to historians who will tell it right.\n\nThe subject of this chapter is string theory, and I begin it with these reflections for two reasons. First, because the main thing that is wrong with string theory, as presently formulated, is that it does not respect the fundamental lesson of general relativity that spacetime is nothing but an evolving system of relationships. Using the terminology I introduced in earlier chapters, string theory is background dependent, while general relativity is background independent. At the same time, string theory is unlikely to be in its final form. Even if, as is quite possible, string theory is ultimately reformulated in a background independent form, history may record that Einstein's view of Newton applies also to the string theorists: when it was necessary to ignore fundamental principle in order to make progress, they had the courage and the judgement to do so.\n\nThe story of string theory is not easy to tell, because even now we do not really know what string theory is. We know a great deal about it, enough to know that it is something really marvellous. We know much about how to carryout certain kinds of calculations in string theory. Those calculations suggest that, at the very least, string theory maybe part of the ultimate quantum theory of gravity. But we do not have a good definition of it, nor do we know what its fundamental principles are. (It used to be said that string theory was part of dp n=\"159\" folio=\"150\" ?? twenty-first-century mathematics that had fallen by luck into our hands in the twentieth century. This does not sound quite as good now as it used to.) The problem is that we do not yet have string theory expressed in any form that could be that of a fundamental theory. What we have on paper cannot be considered to be the theory itself. What we have is no more than along list of examples of solutions to the theory; what we do not yet have is the theory they are solutions of. It is as if we had along list of solutions to the Einstein equations, without knowing the basic principles of general relativity or having anyway to write down the actual equation that defines the theory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or, to take a simpler example, string theory in its present form most likely has the same relationship to its ultimate form as Kepler's astronomy had to Newton's physics. Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets travel along elliptical orbits, and he was able to use this principle together with two other rules he discovered to write down an infinite number of possible orbits. But it took Newton to discover the reason why the planetary orbits are ellipses. This allowed him to unify the explanation of the motions of the planets with many other observed motions, such as the parabolic trajectories that Galileo had discovered are followed by projectiles on the Earth. Many more examples of solutions to string theory have recently been discovered, and the virtuosity required to construct these solutions in the absence of a fundamental principle is truly humbling. This has made it possible to learn a lot about the theory, but so far, at least, it does not suffice to tell us what the theory is. No one has yet had that vital insight that will make it possible to jump from the list of solutions to the principles of the theory.\n\nLet us begin, then, with what we do know about string theory, for these are reasons enough to take it seriously. Quantum theory says that for every wave there is an associated particle. For electromagnetic waves there is the photon. For electrons there is the electron wave (the wave-function). The wave doesn't even have to be something fundamental. When I strike a tuning fork I setup waves that travel up and down it: these are sound waves travelling in dp n=\"160\" folio=\"151\" ?? metal. Quantum theory associates a particle with such sound waves; it is called a phonon. Suppose I disturb the empty space around us by making a gravitational wave. This can be done by waving around anything with mass-one of my arms will do, or a pair of neutron stars. A gravitational wave can be understood as a tiny ripple moving against a background, which is the empty space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The particle associated with gravitational waves is called the graviton. No one has ever observed a graviton. It is hard enough even to detect a gravitational wave, as they interact only very weakly with matter. But as long as quantum theory applies to gravitational waves, gravitons must exist. We know that gravitons must interact with matter, for when anything massive oscillates it produces gravitational waves. Quantum theory says that, just as there are photons associated with light, there must be gravitons associated with gravitational waves.\n\nWe know that two gravitons will interact with each other. This is because gravitons interact with anything that has energy, and gravitons themselves carry energy. As with the photon, the energy of a graviton is proportional to its frequency, so the higher the frequency of a graviton, the more strongly it will interact with another graviton. We can then ask what happens when two gravitons interact. We know that they will scatter from each other, changing their trajectories. A good quantum theory of gravity must be able to predict what will happen whenever two gravitons interact. It ought to be able to produce an answer no matter how strong the waves are and no matter what their frequencies are. This is just the kind of question that we know how to approach in quantum theory. For example, we know that photons will interact with any charged particle, such as an electron. We have a good theory of the interactions of photons and electrons, called quantum electrodynamics, QED for short. It was developed by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Sinitiro Tomonaga and others in the late 1940s. QED makes predictions about the scattering of photons and electrons and other charged particles that agree with experiment to an accuracy of eleven decimal places.\n\nPhysics, like the other sciences, is the art of the possible. So I must add a rider here, which is that we do not really understand QED. We know the principles of the theory and we can deduce from them the basic equations that define the theory. But we cannot actually solve these equations, or even prove that they are mathematically consistent. Instead, to make sense of them we have to resort to a kind of subterfuge. We make some assumptions about the nature of the solutions-which, after more than fifty years, are still unproved-and these lead us to a procedure for calculating approximately what happens when photons and electrons interact. This procedure is called perturbation theory. It is very useful in that it does lead to answers that agree very precisely with experiment. But we do not actually know whether the procedure is consistent or not, or whether it accurately reflects what areal solution to the theory would predict. String theory is presently understood mainly in the language of this approximation procedure. It was invented by modifying the approximation procedure, rather than the theory. This is how people were able to invent a theory which is understood only as a list of solutions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perturbation theory is actually quite easy to describe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thanks to Feynman, there is a simple diagrammatic means for understanding it. Picture a world of processes in which three things can happen. An electron may move from point A atone time to point Bat another. We can draw this as a line, as in Figure 33. A photon may also travel, which is indicated by a dotted line in the figure. The only other thing that may happen is that an electron and a photon interact, which is indicated by the point where a photon line meets an electron line. To compute what happens when two electrons meet, one simply draws all the things that can happen, beginning with two electrons entering the scene, and ending with two electrons leaving. There are an infinite number of such processes, and we see a few of them in Figure 34. Feynman taught us to associate with each diagram the probability (actually the quantum amplitude, whose square is the probability) of that process. One can then workout all the predictions of the theory.\n\nFIGURE 33\n\nThe basic processes in the theory of electrons and photons (called quantum electrodynamics, or QED for short.) Electrons and photons can move freely in spacetime, or they can interact in events in which an electron absorbs or emits a photon.\n\nIn the language of these diagrams, now known appropriately as Feynman diagrams, it is very easy to explain what string theory is. The basic postulate of the theory is that there are no particles, only strings moving in space. A string is just a loop drawn in space. It is not made of anything, just as a particle is thought of as a point and nothing else. There is only one kind of string, and the different kinds of particle are postulated to be nothing but different modes of vibration of these loops. So, as shown in Figure 35, photons and electrons are to bethought of just as different ways in which a string can vibrate. When a string moves in time it makes a tube rather than a line (Figure 35). Two strings can also join and merge into one (Figure 36), or one string can split into two. All the interactions that occur in nature, including those of photons and electrons, can be interpreted in terms of these splittings and joinings. We can see from these pictures that string theory gives a very satisfactory unification and simplification of the physical processes represented in Feynman diagrams. Its main virtue is that it gives a simple way of finding theories that make consistent physical predictions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 34\n\nThe processes illustrated in Figure 33 are put together to make Feynman diagrams, which are pictures of the possible ways a process can happen. Shown here are some of the ways in which two electrons can interact simply by absorbing and emitting photons. Each one is a story that is a possible piece of the history of a universe.\n\nFIGURE 35\n\nIn string theory there is only one kind of thing that moves, and that is a string-a loop drawn in space. Different modes of vibration of the string behave like the different kinds of elementary particle.\n\nFIGURE 36\n\nAll the different kinds of interaction between particles are interpreted in string theory in terms of the splitting and joining of strings.\n\nThe trouble with Feynman's method is that it always leads to infinite expressions. This is because there are loops in the diagrams where particles are created, interact, and are then destroyed. These are called virtual particles because they exist only fora very short time. According to the uncertainty principle, because virtual particles live fora very short time dp n=\"165\" folio=\"156\" ?? they can have any energy, as the conservation of energy is suspended during their brief lives. This creates big problems. One has to add up all the diagrams to get the overall probability for the process to occur, but if some particles can have any energy between zero and infinity, then the list of possible processes one has to add up will be infinite. This leads to mathematical expressions that are no more than complicated ways of writing the number infinity. As a result, Feynman's method seems at first to give nonsensical answers to questions about the interactions of electrons and photons.\n\nQuite ingeniously, Feynman and others discovered that the theory was giving silly answers to only a few questions, such as \"What is the mass of the electron?\" and \"What is its charge?\" The theory predicts that these are infinite! Feynman figured out that if one simply crosses out these infinite answers wherever they appear, and substitutes the right, finite answer, the answers to all other questions become sensible. All the infinite expressions can be removed if one forces the theory to give the right answer for the mass and the charge of the electron. This procedure is called renormalization. When it works fora theory, that theory is called renormalizable. The procedure works very well for quantum electrodynamics. It also works for quantum chromodynamics, and for the Weinberg-Salam theory, which is our theory of radioactive decay. When this procedure does notwork, we say that a theory is not renormalizable-the method fails to give a sensible theory. This is actually the case for most theories; only certain special ones can be made sense of by these methods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The most important theory that cannot be made sense of in this way is Einstein's theory of gravity. The reason has to do with the fact that arbitrarily large energies can appear in the particles moving inside the diagrams. But the strength of the gravitational force is proportional to the energy, because energy is mass, from Einstein, and gravity pulls on mass, from Newton. So the diagrams with larger energies give correspondingly larger effects. But according to the theory, the energies inside the diagrams can be arbitrarily large. The result is a kind of runaway feedback process in which we lose all control over what is happening inside the diagrams. No dp n=\"166\" folio=\"157\" ?? one has ever found away to describe a gravitational theory in the language of particles moving around Feynman diagrams. But in string theory one can make sense of the effects of gravity. This is one of its great achievements. As with the older theories, there are many string theory variants that lead to infinite expressions for every physical process, and these must be discarded. What is left is a set of theories that have no infinities at all. One does not have to play any games to isolate infinite expressions for masses and throw them out. There are just two possible kinds of string theory: inconsistent and consistent. And all the consistent ones appear to give finite and sensible expressions for all physical quantities.\n\nThe list of consistent string theories is very long. There are consistent string theories in all dimensions from one to nine. In nine dimensions there are five different kinds of consistent string theory. When we get down to the three-dimensional world we seem to live in, there are at least hundreds of thousands of different consistent string theories. Most of these theories come with free parameters, so they do not make unique predictions for things like the masses of the elementary particles. Each consistent string theory is very tightly structured. Because all the different kinds of particle arise from vibrations of the same fundamental objects, one is not generally free to choose which particles are described by the theory. There are an infinite number of possible vibrations and hence of possible particles, although most of them will have energies which are too large to observe. Only the lowest modes of vibration correspond to particles with masses we could observe. A remarkable fact is that the particles that correspond to the lowest modes of vibration of a string always include the broad categories of particles and forces we do observe. The other modes of vibration correspond to particles with masses of around 10 19 times the mass of the proton. This is the Planck mass, which is the mass of a black hole the size of a Planck length." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, there still are issues which must be addressed if string theory is to describe our universe. Many string theories predict the existence of particles which have so far not been seen. Many have problems keeping the strength of the dp n=\"167\" folio=\"158\" ?? gravitational force from varying in space and time. And almost all consistent string theories predict symmetries among their particles beyond those that are seen. The most important of these are supersymmetries.\n\nSupersymmetry is an important idea, so it is worthwhile making a detour hereto discuss it. To understand supersymmetry one must know that elementary particles come into two general types: bosons and fermions. Bosons, which include photons and gravitons, are particles whose angular momentum, when measured in units of Planck's constant, are simple integers. Fermions, which include electrons, quarks and neutrinos, have angular momenta that come in units of one-half. Fermions also satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two of them can be put in the same state. Supersymmetry requires fermions and bosons to come in pairs consisting of one of each, with the same mass. This is definitely not observed in nature. If there were such things as bosonic electrons and quarks, the world would be a very different place, for the Pauli exclusion principle would have no force, and no form of matter would be stable. If supersymmetry is true of our world, then it has been spontaneously broken, which is to say that the background fields must confer a large mass on one member of each pair and not on the other. The only reason to entertain the idea of such a strange symmetry is that it seems to be required for most, if not all, versions of string theory to give consistent answers.\n\nThe search for evidence of supersymmetry is a major priority of experiments now underway at particle accelerators. String theorists very much hope that evidence for supersymmetry will be found. If supersymmetry is not found experimentally, it would still be possible to concoct a string theory that agrees with experiment, but this would be a less happy outcome than if experimental support for supersymmetry were forthcoming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is obviously something very wonderful about string theory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among its strong points are the natural way it leads to a unification of all particles and forces, and the fact that there are many consistent string theories that include gravity. String theory is also the perfect realization of the hypothesis dp n=\"168\" folio=\"159\" ?? of duality discussed in Chapter 9. Also, it cannot be overemphasized that in the language in which it is understood-that of diagrams corresponding to quantum particles moving against a background spacetime-string theory is the only known way of consistently unifying gravity with quantum theory and the other forces of nature.\n\nWhat is very frustrating is that in spite of this, string theory does not seem to fully incorporate the basic lesson of general relativity, which is that space and time are dynamical rather than fixed, and relational rather than absolute. In string theory, as it has so far been formulated, the strings move against a background spacetime which is absolute and fixed. The geometry of space and time is usually presumed to be fixed forever; all that happens is that some strings move against this fixed background and interact with one another. But this is wrong, because it replicates the basic mistake of Newtonian physics in treating space and time as a fixed and unchanging background against which things move and interact. As I have already emphasized, the right thing to do is to treat the whole system of relationships that makeup space and time as a single dynamical entity, without fixing any of it. This is how general relativity and loop quantum gravity work.\n\nStill, science is not made from absolutes. The progress of science is based on what is possible, which means that it often makes sense to do what is practical, even if it seems to go against established principles. For this reason, even if it is ultimately wrong, it may still be useful to follow the background dependent approach as far as it will go, to see whether there is a consistent picture in which we can answer questions such as what happens when two gravitons moving in empty spacetime scatter from each other. As long as we remember that such a picture can give at best an approximate description this can bean important and necessary step in the discovery of the quantum theory of gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another main shortcoming of string theory is that is not one theory, but a whole class of theories, so it does not lead to many predictions about the elementary particles. This shortcoming is closely related to the problem of background dp n=\"169\" folio=\"160\" ?? dependence. Each string theory moves against a different background spacetime, so to define a string theory one must first fix the dimension of space and the geometry of spacetime. In many cases space has more dimensions than the three we observe. This is explained by the hypothesis that in our universe the extra dimensions are curled up too tightly for us to perceive directly. We say that the extra six dimensions have been compactified. Since string theory is simplest if the world has nine spatial dimensions, this leads to a picture in which many of the different consistent string theories in three dimensions can be understood as arising from different ways of choosing the structure of a hidden six-dimensional space.\n\nThere are at least hundreds of thousands of ways in which the six extra dimensions maybe compactified. Each way corresponds to a different geometry and topology for the extra six dimensions. As a result there are at least that many different string theories that are consistent with the basic observation that the world has three large spatial dimensions. Furthermore, each of these theories has a set of parameters that describe the size and other geometric properties of the six compactified dimensions. These turnout to influence the physics that we see in the three-dimensional world. For example, the geometry of the extra dimensions influences the masses and the strengths of the interactions of the elementary particles we observe.\n\nIt is most likely irrelevant whether these extra dimensions exist in any literal sense. If one is drawn to a picture of our three-dimensional \"reality\" embedded in some higher-dimensional realm, then one can believe in the extra dimensions, at least as long as one is working in this background dependent picture. But these extra dimensions can also be seen as purely theoretical devices which are useful for understanding the list of consistent string theories in three dimensions. As long as we stay on the background dependent level, it does not really matter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a result, although it is a unified theory, string theory in its present form makes few predictions about the physics we actually observe. Many different scenarios for what the new, more powerful particle accelerators will find are consistent dp n=\"170\" folio=\"161\" ?? with one version of string theory or another. Thus, not only does string theory lack experimental confirmation, but it is hard to imagine an experiment that could be done in the next several decades that could definitively confirm or reject it. Nor is there anything special, from the point of view of string theory, about having six out of nine dimensions compactified while the other three are left large. String theory can easily describe a world in which any number of dimensions, from nine down to none at all, are left large.\n\nString theory thus indicates that the world we see provides only a sparse and narrow sampling of all possible physical phenomena, for if true it tells us that most of the dimensions and most of the symmetry of the world are hidden. Still, many people do believe in it. This is partly because, however incomplete its present formulation maybe, string theory remains the one approach that unifies gravity with the other forces consistently at a background dependent level.\n\nThe main problem in string theory, then, is how to see beyond it to a theory which will incorporate the successes of string theory while avoiding its weaknesses. One approach to this problem begins with the following question. What if there were a single theory that unified the different string theories by interpreting each of its solutions as one of the consistent string theories? The different string theories, together with the spacetimes they live in, will not be put in as absolutes. Rather they will all arise from solutions of this new theory. Note that the new theory could not be formulated in terms of any objects moving against a fixed spacetime background, because its solutions would include all the possible background spacetimes. The different solutions of this fundamental theory would be analogous to the different spacetimes which are all solutions to the equations of general relativity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now we can argue by analogy in the following way. Let us take any spacetime which is a solution to the Einstein equations, and wiggle some matter within it. This will generate gravitational waves. These waves move on the original spacetime like ripples moving on the surface of a pond. We can make ripples in the solution of our fundamental theory in the same way. What if these gave rise not to waves dp n=\"171\" folio=\"162\" ?? moving on the background, but to strings? This maybe hard to visualize, but remember that according to the hypothesis of duality strings are just a different way of looking at afield, like the electric field. And if we wiggle afield we get waves. The wiggles in the electric and magnetic field are after all nothing but light. But if duality is true, there must be away to understand this in terms of the motion of strings through space.\n\nIf this picture is correct, then each string theory is not really a theory in its own right. It is no more than an approximate description of how ripples may move against a background spacetime which itself is a solution to another theory. That theory would be some extension of general relativity, formulated in terms that were relational and background independent.\n\nThis hypothesis would, if true, explain why there are so many different string theories. The solutions to the fundamental theory will define a large number of different possible universes, each described in terms of a different space and time.\n\nIt remains only to construct this single, unifying string theory. This is a project that a few people are working hard on, and I must confess it is something I also am spending a lot of time on. There is presently no agreed upon form of this theory, but at least we have a name for it-we call it M theory. No one knows what the M stands for, which we feel is appropriate fora theory whose existence has so far only been conjectured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These days, string theorists spend much of their time looking for evidence that M theory exists. One strategy which has been very successful is to look for relationships between different string theories. A number of cases have been found in which two apparently different versions of string theory turnout to describe exactly the same physical phenomena. (In some cases this is seen directly; in others the coincidence is apparent only certain approximations or from studying simplified versions of the theories in which extra symmetries have been imposed.) These relationships suggest that the different string theories are part of a larger theory. The dp n=\"172\" folio=\"163\" ?? information about these relationships can be used to learn something about the structure M theory must have, if it exists. For example, it gives us some information about the symmetries that M theory will have. These are symmetries that extend the idea of duality in a major way, which could not be done within any single string theory.\n\nAnother very important question is whether M theory describes a universe in which space and time are continuous or discrete. At first it seems that string theory points to a continuous world, because it is based on a picture of strings moving continuously through space and time. But this turns out to be misleading, for when looked at closely string theory seems to be describing a world in which space has a discrete structure.\n\nOne way to seethe discreteness is to study strings on a space that has been wrapped up, so that one dimension forms a circle (Figure 37). The circle which has been wrapped up has radius R. You might think that the theory would get into trouble if we allowed R to get smaller and smaller. But string theory turns out to have the amazing property that what happens when R becomes very small is indistinguishable from what happens when R becomes very large. The result is that there is a smallest possible value for R. If string theory is right, then the universe cannot be smaller than this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 37\n\nA cylinder is a two-dimensional space in which one direction is a circle. We see a string wrapped on the circle. This is typical of ideas of how the extra dimensions are hidden; the horizontal direction is typical of the three ordinary directions, while the vertical direction stands for one of the hidden dimensions. Time is not indicated here.\n\nThere is a pretty simple explanation for this, which I hope will at least give you a taste of the kind of reasoning that permeates the study of string theory. The reason why R has a smallest possible value has to do with the fact that there are two different things a string can do when wrapped around a cylinder (it is said to have two degrees of freedom). First, it can vibrate, like a guitar string. Since the radius of the cylinder is fixed there will be a discrete series of modes in which the string can vibrate. But the string has another degree of freedom, because one can vary the number of times it is wrapped around the cylinder. Thus there are two numbers that characterize a string wrapped around a cylinder: the mode number and the number of times it is wrapped.\n\nIt turns out that if one tries to decrease the radius of the cylinder, R, below a certain critical value, these two numbers just trade places. A string in the 3rd mode of vibration wrapped 5 times around a cylinder with R slightly smaller than the critical value becomes indistinguishable from a string wrapped 3 times around a cylinder slightly larger than the critical value, when it is in the 5th mode of vibration. The effect is that every mode of vibration of a string on a small cylinder is indistinguishable from a different mode of a string wrapped on a large cylinder. Since we cannot tell them apart, the modes of strings wrapped around small cylinders are redundant. All the states of the theory can be described in terms of cylinders larger than the critical value." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another way to seethe discreteness is to imagine a string going by at very nearly the speed of light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would appear to contain a set of discrete elements, each of which carries a certain fixed amount of momentum. These are called string bits, and they are shown in Figure 38. The more momentum a string has, the longer it is, so there is a limit to the size of an object that can be resolved by looking at it with a string. But since, according to string theory, all the particles in nature are actually made up of strings, then, if the theory is right, there is dp n=\"174\" folio=\"165\" ?? a smallest size. Just as there is a smallest piece of silver, which is a silver atom, there is a smallest possible process that can propagate, and that is a string bit.\n\nFIGURE 38\n\nA string seen through a Planck-scale magnifying glass is found to consist of discrete bits, rather like a wooden toy snake.\n\nThere turns out to be a simple way to express the fact that there is a minimum size that can be probed in string theory. In ordinary quantum theory the limitations to what can be observed are expressed in terms of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This says that Δ x> (h/Δp) where Δx is the uncertainty in position, his Planck's famous constant and Δp is the uncertainty in momentum. String theory amends this equation to Δx> (h/Δ p) + CΔ p where C is another constant that has to do with the Planck scale. Now, without this new term one can make the uncertainty in position as small as one likes, by making the uncertainty in momentum large. With the new term in the equation one cannot do this, for when the uncertainty in momentum becomes large enough the second term comes in and forces the uncertainty in position to start to increase dp n=\"175\" folio=\"166\" ?? rather than decrease. The result is that there is a minimum value to the uncertainty in position, and this means that there is an absolute limit to the precision with which any object can be located in space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Δ x> (h/Δp)\n\nΔ x> (h/Δp)\n\nΔx> (h/Δ p) + CΔ p\n\nΔx> (h/Δ p) + CΔ p\n\nThis tells us that M theory, if it exists, cannot describe a world in which space is continuous and one can pack an infinite amount of information into any volume, no matter how small. This suggests that whatever it is, M theory will not be some direct extension of string theory, as it will have to be formulated in a different conceptual language. The present formulation of string theory is likely, then, to be a transitional stage in which elements of anew physics are mixed up with the old Newtonian framework, according to which space and time are continuous, infinitely divisible and absolute. The problem that remains is to separate out the old from new and find a coherent way to formulate a theory using only those principles that are supported by the experimental physics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 12\n\nTHE HOLOGRAPHIC PRINCIPLE\n\nIn Part II we looked at three different approaches to quantum gravity: black hole thermodynamics, loop quantum gravity and string theory. While each takes a different starting point, they all agree that when viewed on the Planck scale, space and time cannot be continuous. For seemingly different reasons, at the end of each of these roads one reaches the conclusion that the old picture according to which space and time are continuous must be abandoned. On the Planck scale, space appears to be composed of fundamental discrete units.\n\nLoop quantum gravity gives us a detailed picture of these units, in terms of spin networks. It tells us that areas and volumes are quantized and come only in discrete units. String theory at first appears to describe a continuous string moving in a continuous space. But a closer look reveals that a string is actually made of discrete pieces, called string bits, each of which carries a discrete amount of momentum and energy. This is expressed in a simple and beautiful way as an extension of the uncertainty principle, which tells us that there is a smallest possible length.\n\nBlack hole thermodynamics leads to an even more extreme conclusion, the Bekenstein bound. According to this principle the amount of information that can be contained in any region is not only finite, it is proportional to the area of the boundary of the region, measured in Planck units. This implies that the world must be discrete on the Planck scale, dp n=\"179\" folio=\"170\" ?? for were it continuous any region could contain an infinite amount of information.\n\nIt is remarkable that all three roads lead to the general conclusion that space becomes discrete on the Planck scale. However, the three different pictures of quantum spacetime that emerge seem rather different. So it remains to join these pictures together to make a single picture which, when we understand it, will become the one final road to quantum gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first it may not be obvious how to do this. The three different approaches investigate different aspects of the world. Even if there is one ultimate theory of quantum gravity, there will be different physical regimes, in which the basic principles may manifest themselves differently. This seems to be what is happening here. The different versions of discreteness arise from asking different questions. We would find an actual contradiction only if, when we asked the same question in two different theories, we got two different answers. So far this has not happened, because the different approaches ask different kinds of question. It is possible that the different approaches represent different windows onto the same quantum world-and if this is so, there must be away of unifying them all into a single theory.\n\nIf the different approaches are to be unified, there must be a principle which expresses the discreteness of quantum geometry in away that is consistent with all three approaches If such a principle can be found, then it will serve as a guide to combining them into one theory. In fact, just such a principle has been proposed in recent years. It is called the holographic principle.\n\nSeveral different versions of this principle have been proposed by different people. After a lot of discussion over the last few years there is still no agreement about exactly what the holographic principle means, but there is a strong feeling among those of us in the field that some version of the holographic principle is true. And if it is true, it will be the first principle which makes sense only in the context of a quantum theory of gravity. This means that even if it is presently understood as a consequence of the principles of dp n=\"180\" folio=\"171\" ?? general relativity and quantum theory, there is a chance that in the end the situation will be reversed and the holographic principle will become part of the foundations of physics, from which quantum theory and relativity may both be deduced as special cases." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The holographic principle was inspired first of all by the Bekenstein bound, which we discussed in Chapter 8. Here is one way to describe the Bekenstein bound. Consider any physical system, made of anything at all-let us call it The Thing. We require only that The Thing can be enclosed within a finite boundary, which we shall call The Screen (Figure 39). We would like to know as much as possible about The Thing. But we cannot touch it directly-we are restricted to making measurements of it on The Screen. We may send any kind of radiation we like through The Screen, and record whatever changes result on The Screen. The Bekenstein bound says that there is a general limit to how many yes/no questions we can answer about The Thing by making observations through The Screen that surrounds it. The number must be less than one-quarter of the area of The Screen, in Planck units. What if we ask more questions? The principle tells us that either of two things must happen. Either the area of the screen will increase, as a result of doing an experiment that asks questions beyond the limit; or the experiments we do that go beyond the limit will erase, or invalidate, the answers to some of the previous questions. At no time can we know more about The Thing than the limit, imposed by the area of The Screen.\n\nFIGURE 39\n\nThe argument for the Bekenstein bound. We observe The Thing through The Screen, which limits the amount of information we can receive about The Thing to what can be represented on The Screen.\n\nWhat is most surprising about this is not just that there is a limit on the amount of information that can be coded into The Thing-after all, if we believe that the world has a discrete structure then this is exactly what we should expect. It is just that we would normally expect the amount of information that can be coded into The Thing to be proportional to its volume, not to the area of a surface that contains it. For example, suppose that The Thing is a computer memory. If we continue to miniaturize computers more and more, we shall eventually be building them purely out of the quantum geometry in space-and that has to be the limit of what can be done. Imagine that we can then build a computer memory out of nothing but the spin network states that describe the quantum geometry of space. The number of different such spin network states can be shown to be proportional to volume of the world that state describes (The reason is that there are so many states per node, and the volume is proportional to the number of nodes.) The Bekenstein bound does not dispute this, but it asserts that the amount of information that we outside observers could extract is proportional to the area and not the volume. And the area is proportional not to the number of nodes of the network, but to the number of edges that go through the screen (Figure 40). This tells us that the most efficient memory we could construct out of the quantum geometry of space is achieved by constructing a surface and putting one bit of memory in every region 2 Planck lengths on aside. Once we have done this, building the memory into the third dimension will not help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 40\n\nA spin network, which describes the quantum geometry of space, intersects a boundary such as a horizon in a finite number of points. Each intersection adds to the total area of the boundary.\n\nThis idea is very surprising. If it is to betaken seriously, there had better be a good reason for it. In fact there is, for the Bekenstein bound is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. The argument that leads from the laws of thermodynamics to the Bekenstein bound is not actually very complicated. Because of its importance I give a form of it in the box on the next page.\n\nThere are at least two more good reasons to believe in the Bekenstein bound. One is that the relationship between Einstein's theory and the bound can be turned around. In the argument for the Bekenstein bound as I present it in the box, the bound is partly a consequence of the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity. But, as Ted Jacobson has shown in a justly famous paper, the argument can be turned on its head so that the equations of Einstein's theory can be derived by assuming that the laws of thermodynamics and the Bekenstein bound are true. He does this by showing that the area of The Screen must change when energy flows through it, because the laws of thermodynamics require that some entropy flows along with the energy. The result is that the geometry of space, which determines the area of The Screen, must change in response to the flow of energy. Jacobson shows that this actually implies the equations of Einstein's theory.\n\nArgument for the Bekenstein bound Let us suppose that The Thing is big enough to be described both in terms of an exact quantum description and in terms of an averaged, macroscopic description. We shall argue by contradiction, which means that we first assume the opposite of what we are trying to show. Thus we assume that the amount of information required to describe The Thing is much larger than the area of The Screen. For simplicity, we assume that The Screen is spherical. We know that The Thing is not a black hole, because we know that the entropy of any black hole that can fit into The Screen must be equivalent to an area less than that of the screen. But in this case its entropy must be lower than the area of the screen, in Planck units. If we assume that the entropy of a black hole counts the number of its possible quantum states, this is much less than the information contained in The Thing. It then follows (from a theorem of classical general relativity) that The Thing has less energy than a black hole that would just fit inside The Screen. Now, we can slowly add energy to The Thing by dripping it slowly through the screen. We shall reach some point by which we shall have given it so much energy that, by that same theorem, it must collapse to a black hole. But then we know that its entropy is given by one-quarter of the area of the screen. Since that is lower than the entropy of The Thing initially, we have managed to lower the entropy of a system. This contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. We dripped the energy in slowly to ensure that nothing surprising happens outside The Screen which might increase the entropy strongly somewhere else. There seem to be no loopholes in this argument. Therefore, if we believe the second law of thermodynamics, we must believe that the most entropy that we, outside the Screen, can attribute to The Thing is one-quarter of the area of The Screen. And because entropy is a count of answers to yes/no questions, this implies the Bekenstein bound as we have stated it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Argument for the Bekenstein bound\n\nLet us suppose that The Thing is big enough to be described both in terms of an exact quantum description and in terms of an averaged, macroscopic description. We shall argue by contradiction, which means that we first assume the opposite of what we are trying to show. Thus we assume that the amount of information required to describe The Thing is much larger than the area of The Screen. For simplicity, we assume that The Screen is spherical.\n\nWe know that The Thing is not a black hole, because we know that the entropy of any black hole that can fit into The Screen must be equivalent to an area less than that of the screen. But in this case its entropy must be lower than the area of the screen, in Planck units. If we assume that the entropy of a black hole counts the number of its possible quantum states, this is much less than the information contained in The Thing.\n\nIt then follows (from a theorem of classical general relativity) that The Thing has less energy than a black hole that would just fit inside The Screen. Now, we can slowly add energy to The Thing by dripping it slowly through the screen. We shall reach some point by which we shall have given it so much energy that, by that same theorem, it must collapse to a black hole. But then we know that its entropy is given by one-quarter of the area of the screen. Since that is lower than the entropy of The Thing initially, we have managed to lower the entropy of a system. This contradicts the second law of thermodynamics.\n\nWe dripped the energy in slowly to ensure that nothing surprising happens outside The Screen which might increase the entropy strongly somewhere else. There seem to be no loopholes in this argument. Therefore, if we believe the second law of thermodynamics, we must believe that the most entropy that we, outside the Screen, can attribute to The Thing is one-quarter of the area of The Screen. And because entropy is a count of answers to yes/no questions, this implies the Bekenstein bound as we have stated it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another reason to believe the Bekenstein bound is that it can be derived directly from loop quantum gravity. To do this one only has to study the problem of how a screen is described by the quantum theory. As shown in Figure 40, in loop quantum gravity a screen will be pierced by edges of a spin network. Each edge that intersects the screen contributes to the total area of the screen. It turns out that each edge that is added also increases the amount of information that can be stored in a quantum theoretic description of the screen. We can add more edges, but the information a screen can store cannot increase faster than its area. This is just what is required by the Bekenstein bound.\n\nPerhaps the first person to realize the radical implications of the Bekenstein bound was Louis Crane. He deduced from it that quantum cosmology must be a theory of the information exchanged between subsystems of the universe, rather than a theory of how the universe would look to an outside observer. This was the first step towards the relational theories of quantum cosmologies later developed by Carlo Rovelli, Fotini Markopoulou and myself. Gerard 't Hooft later began to think about the horizon of a black hole as something like a computer, along the lines I have described. He proposed the first version of the holographic principle and gave it its name. It was then quickly championed by Leonard Susskind, who showed how it could be applied to string theory. Since then at least two other versions of the holographic principle have been proposed. So far there is no consensus on which is right. I shall explain two of the versions, which are called the strong and weak holographic principles.\n\nThe idea of the strong holographic principle is very simple. Since the observer is restricted to examining The Thing by making observations through The Screen, all of what is observed could be accounted for if one imagined that, instead of The Thing, there was some physical system defined on the screen itself (Figure 41). This system would be described by a dp n=\"185\" folio=\"176\" ?? theory which involved only The Screen. This \"screen theory\" might describe The Screen as something like a quantum computer, with one bit of memory for every pixel, each pixel being 2 Planck lengths on each side. Now suppose that the observer sends some signal through The Screen, which interacts with The Thing. The result is a signal which comes back out through The Screen. As far as the observer is concerned, the same thing would happen if the light interacted with the quantum computer on The Screen and returned a suitable signal. The point is that there is noway for the observer to tell if they were interacting with The Thing itself, or merely with its image, represented as a state of the screen theory. If the screen theory were suitably chosen, or the computer representing the information on the screen suitably programmed, the laws of physics holding inside the screen could equally well be represented by the response of The Screen to the observer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 41\n\nThe Screen is like a television set with pixels measuring 2 Planck lengths on each side. One can only see as much information about the world beyond The Screen as can be represented on it.\n\nIn this form, the holographic principle states that the most succinct description that can be given of the part of the world that lies on the other side of any surface is actually a description of how its image evolves on that surface. This might seem weird, but the important thing is the way it relies on the Bekenstein bound. The Screen description is adequate because no more information can be gained about The Thing than can ever be represented by the state of the pixels on The Screen. The strong form of the holographic principle says that the world is such that the physical description of any object in nature can equally well be represented by the state of such a computer, imagined to exist on a surface surrounding it. That is, for every set of true laws that might hold inside The Screen, there is away to program the computer representing the screen theory so that it reproduces all true predictions of those laws.\n\nThis is weird enough, but it does not go as far as it might. The problem is that it describes the world in terms of things. But remember, in Chapter 4 I argued that when we get down to the fundamental theory there will be nothings, only processes. If we believe this, we cannot believe in any principle which expresses the world in terms of things. We should reformulate the principle so that it makes references only to processes. This is what the weak holographic principle does. It states that we are mistaken to think that the world consists of Things that occupy regions of space. Instead, all that there exists in the world are Screens, on which the world is represented. That is, it does not posit that there are two things, bulky things, and images or representations of them on their surfaces. It posits that there is only one kind of thing-representations by which one set of events in the history of the universe receives information about other parts of the world." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the writer, keep the story going.\nTags: science, physics, quantum gravity, theoretical, complex concepts\nAuthor: Lee Smolin\nTitle: Three Roads to Quantum Gravity\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FIGURE 41\n\nThe Screen is like a television set with pixels measuring 2 Planck lengths on each side. One can only see as much information about the world beyond The Screen as can be represented on it.\n\nIn this form, the holographic principle states that the most succinct description that can be given of the part of the world that lies on the other side of any surface is actually a description of how its image evolves on that surface. This might seem weird, but the important thing is the way it relies on the Bekenstein bound. The Screen description is adequate because no more information can be gained about The Thing than can ever be represented by the state of the pixels on The Screen. The strong form of the holographic principle says that the world is such that the physical description of any object in nature can equally well be represented by the state of such a computer, imagined to exist on a surface surrounding it. That is, for every set of true laws that might hold inside The Screen, there is away to program the computer representing the screen theory so that it reproduces all true predictions of those laws.\n\nThis is weird enough, but it does not go as far as it might. The problem is that it describes the world in terms of things. But remember, in Chapter 4 I argued that when we get down to the fundamental theory there will be nothings, only processes. If we believe this, we cannot believe in any principle which expresses the world in terms of things. We should reformulate the principle so that it makes references only to processes. This is what the weak holographic principle does. It states that we are mistaken to think that the world consists of Things that occupy regions of space. Instead, all that there exists in the world are Screens, on which the world is represented. That is, it does not posit that there are two things, bulky things, and images or representations of them on their surfaces. It posits that there is only one kind of thing-representations by which one set of events in the history of the universe receives information about other parts of the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In such a world, nothing exists except processes by which information is conveyed from one part of the world to another. And the area of a screen-indeed, the area of any surface in space-is really nothing but the capacity of that surface as a channel for information. So, according to the weak holographic principle, space is nothing but away of dp n=\"187\" folio=\"178\" ?? talking about all the different channels of communication that allow information to pass from observer to observer. And geometry, as measured in terms of area and volume, is nothing but a measure of the capacity of these screens to transmit information.\n\nThis more radical version of the holographic principle is based on the ideas introduced in Chapters 2 and 3. It relies strongly on the idea that the universe cannot be described from the point of view of an observer who exists somehow outside of it. Instead there are many partial viewpoints, where observers may receive information from their pasts. According to the holographic principle, geometrical quantities such as the areas of surfaces have their origins in measuring the flow of information to observers inside the universe.\n\nThus, it is not enough to say that the world is a hologram. The world must be a network of holograms, each of which contains coded within it information about the relationships between the others. In short, the holographic principle is the ultimate realization of the notion that the world is a network of relationships. Those relationships are revealed by this new principle to involve nothing but information. Any element in this network is nothing but a partial realization of the relationships between the other elements. In the end, perhaps, the history of a universe is nothing but the flow of information.\n\nThe holographic principle is still anew and very controversial idea. But for the first time in the history of quantum gravity we have in our hands an idea which at first seems too crazy to be true, but which survives all our attempts to disprove it. Whatever version of it finally turns out to be the true one, it is an idea which seems to be required by what we understand so far about quantum gravity. But it is also the kind of idea which will make it quite impossible, if it is ever accepted, to go back to any previous theory that did without it. The uncertainty principle of quantum theory and Einstein's equivalence principle were also ideas of this type. They contradicted the principles of older theories and, at first, just barely seemed to make sense. Just like them, the holographic principle is the kind of idea one hopes to run into just as one is turning the corner to anew universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 13\n\nHOW TO WEAVE A STRING\n\nPerhaps the main reason why some physicists do not get very excited about loop quantum gravity is that, although it succeeds very well in describing how the geometry of space must look on the Planck scale, it is basically pretty boring. There are no new principles involved. To setup the theory we just put in the basic principles of quantum theory and relativity. We get a lot out that is new and could even be tested experimentally. But it is perhaps not so surprising that when geometry is treated quantum theoretically it behaves like a quantum theoretic system. Things that used to be continuous, such as the range of possible volumes a space could have, now become discrete. The main lesson is that we really can treat space and time in a background independent way, and see them as a nothing but a network of relationships. This is good, but this is also what the principles we put in demanded. That it works is a good consistency check, but we should not consider it either surprising or revolutionary. The main strength of this approach, its simplicity and transparency, is perhaps also its main weakness.\n\nString theory is just the opposite. We start not with basic principles, but by contradicting the thing we feel most certain about quantum gravity-that it must be a background independent theory. We ignore this, and search fora theory of gravitons and other particles moving against a background of empty space; and, by trial and error, we find it. Our guiding principle is to find something that works. To do this we have dp n=\"189\" folio=\"180\" ?? to change the rules, not once but over and over again. There are not particles, there are strings. There are not three dimensions of space but nine. There are extra symmetries. String theory is unique. Actually, it is not quite unique-it comes in an enormous number of versions. And in fact there are not just strings, but membranes of many different dimensions. And there are not nine dimensions, but ten. And soon. String theory has been nothing but a series of surprises, one after the other. We put in no principles-all we put in is the desire fora theory of gravitons that makes sense. And we get out along list of unexpected facts, a whole new world to be explored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For more than ten years, from about 1984 to 1996, these two theories of quantum gravity were developed by two different groups of people completely independently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each group was successful in solving the problems it set for itself. Although we listened to each other's talks, and maintained friendships formed before the split, it must be said that almost everyone thought that their group was on the right path and the others were misguided. To each group it was obvious why the other could not succeed. The loop guys (and gals) said to the string guys,\"Your theory is not background independent, it cannot be areal quantum theory of space and time. Only we know how to make a successful background independent theory. \"The string guys said to the loop guys,\"Your theory does not give a consistent description of the interactions between gravitons and other particles. Only our theory describes a consistent unification of gravity with the other interactions. ' I am ashamed to admit that few in either community rose to the challenge. During this whole period, for example, there was not a single person who worked on both theories. Many seemed to make the understandable mistake of confusing the solution of part of the problem of quantum gravity with the solution of the whole problem.\n\nMany misunderstandings have resulted. I have had the experience more than once of sitting next to someone from one camp listening to a talk by someone from the other. The person next tome would get very agitated: \"That young person is so arrogant, they claim they have solved everything!\" dp n=\"190\" folio=\"181\" ?? In fact the speaker had given a very measured presentation full of careful qualifications and caveats and had not made a single claim that went beyond what they had done. The problem is that such qualifications have to be presented in the terminology specific to the theory, and the person next tome, from the opposing theory's camp, was unable to follow it. This has happened tome in both directions. Even now, one can go to a conference and find that string theory and loop quantum gravity are the subjects of separate parallel sessions. The fact that the same problems are being addressed in the two sessions is noticed only by the small handful of us who do our best to be in both rooms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are many remarkable aspects of this situation, including the fact that almost everyone of these people is quite sincere. Just as the existence of Moslems does not deter some Christians from the sincere conviction that theirs is the one true religion, and vice versa, there are many string theorists and many loop quantum gravity people who do not seem to be troubled by the existence of a whole community of equally sincere and smart people who pursue a different approach to the problem they are spending their lives attacking.\n\nBut this is a problem not of science but of the sociology of the academy. Sometimes, rushing from the loop room to the string room and back again, I have wondered what would have happened had physics in the seventeenth century been carried out in the same sociological context as present-day science. So let us wind back time and consider an alternative history of science. By 1630 there would have been two large groups of natural philosophers working on the successor to Aristotelian science. At conferences they would have divided into two parallel sessions with, as today, little overlap. In one room would be those who thought that falling bodies provided the key to the new physics. They would spend their time in profound reflections on the motion of bodies on the Earth. They would launch projectiles, experiment with pendulums and roll balls down inclined planes. Each of them would have their own personal version of the theory of falling bodies, but they would be united by the conviction that no dp n=\"191\" folio=\"182\" ?? theory could succeed that did not incorporate the deep principle discovered by Galileo that objects fall with a constant acceleration. They would be unconcerned with the motion of planets, because they would see nothing to disagree with the old and profoundly beautiful idea that planets move in circular orbits.\n\nTwo floors above them there would be a larger room where the ellipse theorists met. They would spend their time studying the orbits of planets, both in the real solar system and in imagined worlds of various dimensions. For them the key principle would be the great discovery by Kepler that planets move on elliptical orbits. They would be quite unconcerned with how bodies fall on Earth because they would share the view that only in the heavens could one seethe true symmetries behind the world, uncontaminated by the complexities of the Earth, where so many bodies pushed on one another as they sought the centre. In any case they would be convinced that all motion, including that on Earth, must in the end reduce to complicated combinations of ellipses. They would assure sceptics that it was not yet time to study such problems, but when the time came they would have no problem explaining falling bodies in terms of the theory of ellipses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, they would focus their attention on the recent discovery of D-planets, which would have been found to follow parabolas rather than ellipses. So the definition of ellipse theory would be extended to include parabolas and other such curves such as hyperbolas. There would even be a conjecture that all the different orbits could be unified under one common theory, called C-theory. However, there was no agreed set of principles for C-theory, and most work on the subject required new mathematics that most physicists could not follow.\n\nMeanwhile, another new form of mathematics was being invented by a brilliant mathematician and philosopher in Paris, René Descartes. He propounded a third theory, in which planetary orbits have to do with vortices.\n\nIt is true that while Galileo and Kepler did correspond, each seemed to show little interest in the key discoveries of the dp n=\"192\" folio=\"183\" ?? other. They wrote to each other about the telescope and what it revealed, but Galileo seems never to have mentioned ellipses, and to have gone to his grave believing the planetary orbits were circles. Nor is there any evidence that Kepler ever thought about falling bodies or believed them to be relevant to explaining the motions of the planets. It took a young scientist of a later generation, Isaac Newton, born the year of Galileo's death, to wonder whether the same force that made apples fall drew the Moon to the Earth and the planets to the Sun. So, while my story is fanciful, it really did happen that scientists with the stature of Galileo and Kepler each contributed an essential ingredient to a scientific revolution while remaining almost ignorant of and apparently uninterested in each other's discoveries.\n\nWe can hope that it will take less time to bring the different pieces of the quantum theory of gravity together than it did for someone to seethe relationship between the work of Kepler and Galileo. The simple reason is that there are many more scientists working now than there were then. Whereas Kepler and Galileo might each have complained, if asked, that they were too busy to look at what the other was doing, there are now plenty of people to share the work. However, there is now the problem of making sure that young people have the freedom to wander across boundaries established by their elders without fear of jeopardizing their careers. It would be naive to say this is not a significant issue. In many areas of science we are paying for the consequences of an academic system that rewards narrowness of focus over exploration of new areas. This underlines the fact that good science is, and will always be, as much a question of judgement and character as it is a question of cleverness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, over the last five years the climate of mutual ignorance and complacency that separated the string theorists from the loop quantum gravity people has begun to dissipate. The reason is that it has been becoming increasingly clear that each group has a problem it cannot solve. For string theory it is the problem of making the theory background independent and finding out what M theory really is. This is necessary both to unify the different string theories into a single theory and to dp n=\"193\" folio=\"184\" ?? make string theory truly a quantum theory of gravity. Loop quantum gravity is faced with the problem of how to show that a quantum spacetime described by an evolving spin network will grow into a large classical universe, which to a good approximation can be described in terms of ordinary geometry and Einstein's theory of general relativity. This problem arose in 1995 when Thomas Thiemann, a young German physicist then working at Harvard, presented for the first time a complete formulation of loop quantum gravity which resolved all the problems then known to exist. Thiemann's formulation built on all the previous work, to which he added some brilliant innovations of his own. The result was a complete theory which in principle should be able to answer any question. Furthermore, the theory could be derived directly from Einstein's general theory of relativity by following a well defined and mathematically rigorous procedure.\n\nAs soon as we had the theory, we began calculating with it. The first thing to calculate was how a graviton might appear as a description of a small wave or disturbance passing through a spin network. Before this could be done, however, we had to solve a more basic problem, which was to understand how the geometry of space and time, which seems so smooth and regular on the scales we can see, emerges from the atomic description in terms of spin networks. Until this was done we would not be able to make sense of what a graviton is, as gravitons should be related to waves in classical spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This kind of problem, new to us, is very familiar to physicists who study materials. If I cup my hands together and dip them into a stream I can carry away only as much water as will fill the \"cup\". But I can lift a block of ice just by holding it at its two sides. What is it about the different arrangements of the atoms in water and ice that accounts for the difference? Similarly, the spin networks that form the atomic structure of space can organize themselves in many different ways. Only a few of these ways will have a regular enough structure to reproduce the properties of space and time in our world.\n\nWhat is remarkable-indeed, what is almost a miracle-is that the hardest problem faced by each group was precisely the key problem that the other had solved. Loop quantum gravity tells us how to make a background independent quantum theory of space and time. It offers a lot of scope to the M theorist looking fora way to make string theory background independent. On the other hand, if we believe that strings must emerge from the description of space and time provided by loop quantum gravity, we then have a lot of information about how to formulate the theory so that it does describe classical spacetime. The theory must be formulated in such away that the gravitons appear not on their own, but as modes of excitations of extended objects that behave as strings.\n\nIt is then possible to entertain the following hypothesis: string theory and loop quantum gravity are each part of a single theory. This new theory will have the same relationship to the existing ones as Newtonian mechanics has to Galileo's theory of falling bodies and Kepler's theory of planetary orbits. Each is correct, in the sense that it describes to a good approximation what is happening in a certain limited domain. Each solves part of the problem. But each also has limits which prevent it from forming the basis fora complete theory of nature. I believe that this the most likely way in which the theory of quantum gravity will be completed, given the present evidence. In this penultimate chapter I shall describe some of this evidence, and the progress that has recently been made towards inventing a theory that unifies string theory and loop quantum gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a first step we can ask fora rough picture of how the two theories might fit together. As it happens, there is a very natural way in which strings and loops can emerge from the same theory. The key to this is a subtlety that I have so far only hinted at. Both loop quantum gravity and string theory describe physics on very small scales, roughly the Planck length. But the scale that sets the size of strings is not exactly equal to the Planck length. That scale is called the string length. The ratio of the Planck length to the string length is a number of great significance in string theory. It is a kind of dp n=\"195\" folio=\"186\" ?? charge, which tells us how strongly strings will interact with one another. When the string scale is much larger than the Planck length this charge is small and strings do not interact very much with one another.\n\nWe then can ask which scale is larger. There is evidence that, at least in our universe, the string scale is larger than the Planck scale. This is because their ratio determines the fundamental unit of electric charge, and that is itself a small number. We can then envisage scenarios in which loops are more fundamental. The strings will be descriptions of small waves or disturbances travelling through spin networks. Since the string scale is larger, we can explain the fact that string theory relies on a fixed background, as the needed background can be supplied by a network of loops. The fact that strings seem to experience the background as a continuous space is explained by them being unable to probe down to a distance where they can distinguish a smooth background from a network of loops (see Figure 38 on page 165).\n\nOne way to talk about this is that space maybe \"woven\" from a network of loops, as shown in Figure 38, just as apiece of cloth is woven from a network of threads. The analogy is fairly precise. The properties of the cloth are explicable in terms of the kind of weave, which is to say in terms of how the threads are knotted and linked with one another. Similarly, the geometry of the space we may weave from a large spin network is determined only by how the loops link and intersect one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We may then imagine a string as a large loop which makes a kind of embroidery of the weave. From a microscopic point of view, the string can be described by how it knots the loops in the weave. But on a larger scale we would see only the loop making up the string. If we cannot seethe fine weave that makes up space, the string will appear against a background of some apparently smooth space. This is how the picture of strings against a background space emerges from loop quantum gravity.\n\nIf this is right, then string theory will turnout to bean approximation to a more fundamental theory described in terms of spin networks. Of course, just because we can argue dp n=\"196\" folio=\"187\" ?? fora picture like this does not mean that it can be made to work in detail. In particular, it may notwork for any version of loop quantum gravity. To make the large loops behave as strings we may have to choose the details of the loop theory carefully. This is good, not bad, for it tells us how information about the world already revealed by string theory maybe coded in such away that it becomes part of the fundamental theory that describes the atomic structure of space and time. At present, a programme of research is underway to unify string theory and loop quantum gravity using essentially this idea. Very recently this has led to the discovery of anew theory that appears to contain within it both string theory and a form of loop quantum gravity. It looks promising to some of us but, as it is work in progress, I can say no more about it here.\n\nHowever, if this programme does work it will exactly realize the idea of duality I discussed in Chapter 9. It will also realize the aims of Amitaba Sen, for the whole loop approach arose out of his efforts to understand how to quantize supergravity, which is now understood to be closely related to string theory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While my hypothesis is certainly not proven, evidence has been accumulating that string theory and loop quantum gravity may describe the same world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One piece of evidence, discussed in the last chapter, is that both theories point to some version of the holographic principle. Another is that the same mathematical ideas structures keep appearing on both sides. One example of this is a structure called non-commutative geometry. This is an idea about how to unify quantum theory with relativity that was invented by the French mathematician Alain Connes. The basic idea is very simple: in quantum physics we cannot measure the position and velocity of a particle at the same time. But if we want to we can at least determine the position precisely. However, notice that a determination of the position of a particle actually involves three different measurements, for we must measure where the particle is relative to a set of three axes (these measurements yield the three components of the position vector). So we may consider an extension of the uncertainty principle in which dp n=\"197\" folio=\"188\" ?? one can measure only one of these components precisely at anyone time. When it is impossible to measure two quantities simultaneously, they are said not to commute, and this idea leads to anew kind of geometry which is labelled non-commutative. In such a world one cannot even define the idea of a point where something maybe exactly located.\n\nAlain Connes's non-commutative geometry thus gives us another way to describe a world in which the usual notion of space has broken down. There are no points, so it does not even make sense to ask if there are an infinite number of points in a given region. What is really wonderful, though, is that Connes has found that large pieces of relativity theory, quantum theory and particle physics can be carried over into such a world. The result is a very elegant structure that seems also to penetrate to several of the deepest problems in mathematics.\n\nAt first, Connes's ideas were developed independently of the other approaches. But in the last few years people have been surprised to discover that both loop quantum gravity and string theory describe worlds in which the geometry is non-commutative. This gives us anew language in which to compare the two theories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One way to test the hypothesis that strings and loops are different ways of describing the same physics is to attack a single problem with both methods. There is an obvious target: the problem of giving a description of a quantum black hole. From the discussion in Chapters 5 to 8, we know that the main objective is to explain in terms of some fundamental theory where the entropy and temperature of a black hole come from, and why the entropy is proportional to the area of the black hole's horizon. Both string theory and loop quantum gravity have been used to study quantum black holes, with spectacular results coming on each side in the last few years.\n\nThe main idea on each side is the same. Einstein's theory of general relativity is to bethought of as a macroscopic description, obtained by averaging over the atomic structure of spacetime, inexactly the same way that thermodynamics is obtained by applying statistics to the motion of atoms. Just as a gas is described roughly in terms of continuous quantities such as density and temperature, with no mention of atoms, dp n=\"198\" folio=\"189\" ?? in Einstein's theory space and time are described as continuous, and no mention is made of the discrete, atomic structure that may exist on the Planck scale.\n\nGiven this general picture, it is natural to ask whether the black hole's entropy is a measure of the missing information that could be obtained from an exact quantum description of the geometry of space and time around a black hole. The fact that the entropy of a black hole is proportional to the area of its horizon should be a huge clue to its meaning. String theory and loop quantum gravity have each found away to use this clue to construct a description of a quantum black hole.\n\nIn string theory, good progress has been made by conjecturing that the missing information measured by the black hole's entropy is a description of how the black hole was formed. A black hole is a very simple object. Once formed, it is featureless. From the outside one can measure only a few of its properties: its mass, electric charge and angular momentum. This means that a particular black hole might have been formed in many different ways: for example, from a collapsing star, or-in theory at least-by compressing, say, a pile of science-fiction magazines to an enormous density. Once the black hole has formed there is noway to look inside and see how it was formed. It emits radiation, but that radiation is completely random, and offers no clue to the black hole's origin. The information about how the black hole formed is trapped inside it. So one may hypothesize that it is exactly this missing information that is measured by the black hole's entropy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over the last few years string theorists have discovered that string theory is not just a theory of strings. They have found that the quantum gravity world must be full of new kinds of object that are like higher-dimensional versions of strings in that they extend in several dimensions. Whatever their dimension, these objects are called branes. This is shortened from \"membranes\", the term used for objects with two spatial dimensions. The branes emerged when new ways to test the consistency of string theory were discovered, and it was found that the theory can be made mathematically consistent only by including a whole set of new objects of different dimensions.\n\nString theorists have found that in certain very special cases black holes could be made by bringing together a collection of these branes. To do this they make use of a feature of string theory, which is that the gravitational force is adjustable. It is given by the value of a certain physical field. When this field is increased or decreased, the gravitational force becomes stronger or weaker. By adjusting the value of the field it is possible to turn the gravitational force on and off. To make a black hole they begin with the gravitational field turned off. Then they imagine assembling a set of branes which have the mass and charge of the black hole they want to make. The object is not yet a black hole, but they can turn it into one by turning up the strength of the gravitational force. When they do so a black hole must form.\n\nString theorists have not yet been able to model in detail the process of the formation of the black hole. Nor can they study the quantum geometry of the resulting black hole. But they can do something very cute, which is to count the number of different ways that a black hole could be formed in this way. They then assume that the entropy of the resulting black hole is a measure of this number. When they do the counting, they get, right on the nose, the right answer for the entropy of the black hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So far only very special black holes can be studied by this method. These are black holes whose electric charges are equal to their mass. This is to say that the electrical repulsions of two of these black holes are exactly balanced by their gravitational attractions. As a result, one can put two of them next to each other and they will not move, for there is no net force between them. These black holes are very special because their properties are strongly constrained by the condition that their charge balances their mass. This makes it possible to get precise results, and, when this is possible the results are very impressive. On the other hand, it is not known how to extend the method to all black holes. Actually, string theorists can do a bit better than this, for the methods can be used to study black holes whose charges are close to their masses. These calculations also give very impressive results: in particular, they reproduce every last factor of 2 and dp n=\"200\" folio=\"191\" ?? π in the formula for the radiation emitted by these black holes.\n\nA second idea about a black hole's entropy is that it is a count, not of the ways to make a black hole, but of the information present in an exact description of the horizon itself. This is suggested by the fact that the entropy is proportional to the area of the horizon. So the horizon is something like a memory chip, with one bit of information coded in every little pixel, each pixel taking up a region 2 Planck lengths on aside. This picture turns out to be confirmed by calculations in loop quantum gravity.\n\nA detailed picture of the horizon of a black hole has been developed using the methods of loop quantum gravity. This work started in 1995 when, inspired by the ideas of Crane, 't Hooft, and Susskind, I decided to try to test the holographic principle in loop quantum gravity. I developed a method for studying the quantum geometry of a boundary or a screen. As I mentioned earlier, the result was that the Bekenstein bound was always satisfied, so that the information coded into the geometry on the boundary was always less than a certain number times its total area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meanwhile, Carlo Rovelli was developing a rough picture of the geometry of a black hole horizon. A graduate student of ours, Kirill Krasnov, showed me how the method I had discovered could be used to make Carlo's ideas more precise. I was quite surprised because I had thought that this would be impossible. I worried that the uncertainty principle would make it impossible to locate the horizon exactly in a quantum theory. Kirill ignored my worries and developed a beautiful description of the horizon of a black hole which explained both its entropy and its temperature. (Only much later did Jerzy Lewandowksi, a Polish physicist who has added much to our understanding of loop quantum gravity, workout how the uncertainty principle is circumvented in this case.)\n\nKirill's work was brilliant, but a bit rough. He was subsequently joined by Abhay Ashtekar, John Baez, Alejandro Corichi and other more mathematically minded people who developed his insights into a very beautiful and powerful description of the quantum geometry of horizons. The results dp n=\"201\" folio=\"192\" ?? can be applied very widely, and give a general and completely detailed description of what a horizon would look like were it to be probed on the Planck scale.\n\nWhile this work applies to a much larger class of black holes than can be addressed by string theory, it does have one shortcoming compared with string theory: there is one constant that has to be adjusted to make the entropy and temperature come outright. This constant determines the value of Newton's gravitational constant, as measured on large scales. It turns out that there is a small change in the value of the constant when one compares its value measured on the Planck scale with the value measured at large distances. This is not surprising. Shifts like this occur commonly in solid state physics, when one takes into account the effect of the atomic structure of matter. This shift is finite, and has to be made just once, for the whole theory. (It is actually equal to the√ 3/log 2.) Once done it brings the results for all different kinds of black holes inexact agreement with the predictions by Bekenstein and Hawking that we discussed in Chapters 6 to 8." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus, string theory and loop quantum gravity have each added something essential to our understanding of black holes. One may ask whether there is a conflict between the two results. So far none is known, but this is largely because, at the moment, the two methods apply to different kinds of black hole. To be sure, we need to find away of extending one of the methods so that it covers the cases covered by the other method. When we can do this we will be able to make a clean test of whether the pictures of black holes given by loop quantum gravity and string theory are consistent with each other.\n\nThis is more or less what we have been able to understand so far about black holes from the microscopic point of view. A great deal has been understood, although it must also be said that some very important questions remain unanswered. The most important of these have to do with the interiors of black holes. Quantum gravity should have something to say about the singular region in the interior of a black hole, in which the density of matter and the strength of the gravitational field become infinite. There are speculations that quantum effects will remove the singularity, and that one consequence of this dp n=\"202\" folio=\"193\" ?? maybe the birth of anew universe inside the horizon. This idea has been studied using approximation techniques in which the matter forming the black hole is treated quantum theoretically, but the geometry of spacetime is treated as in the classical theory. The results do suggest that the singularities are eliminated, and one may hope that this will be confirmed by an exact treatment. But, at least so far, neither string theory nor loop quantum gravity, nor any other approach, has been strong enough to study this problem.\n\nUntil 1995 no approach to quantum gravity could describe black holes in any detail. None could explain the meaning of the entropy of a black hole or tell us anything about what black holes look like when probed on the Planck scale. Now we have two approaches that are able to do all these things, at least in some cases. Every time we are able to calculate something about a black hole, in either theory, it comes outright. There are many questions we still cannot answer, but it is difficult to avoid the impression that we are finally understanding something real about the nature of space and time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Furthermore, the fact that both string theory and loop quantum gravity both succeed in giving the right answers about quantum black holes is strong evidence that the two approaches maybe revealing different sides of a single theory. Like Galileo's projectiles and Kepler's planets, there is more and more evidence that we are glimpsing the same world through different windows. To find the relation of his work to Kepler's, Galileo would only have had to imagine throwing a ball far enough and fast enough that it became a moon. Kepler, from his point of view, could have imagined what a planet orbiting very close to the Sun might have looked like to people living on the Sun. In the present case, we only have to ask whether a string can be woven from a network of loops, or whether, if we look closely enough at a string, we can seethe discrete structures of the loops. I personally have little doubt that in the end loop quantum gravity and string theory will be seen as two parts of a single theory. Whether it will take a Newton to find that theory, or whether it is something we mortals can do, is something that only time will tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 14\n\nWHAT CHOOSES THE LAWS OF NATURE?\n\nBack in the 1970s there was a simple dream about how physics would end. A unified theory would be found that incorporated quantum theory, general relativity, and the various particles and forces known to us. This would not only be a theory of everything, it would be unique. We would discover that there was only one mathematically consistent quantum theory that unified elementary particle physics with gravity. There could be only one right theory and we would have found it. Because it was unique, this theory would have no free parameters-there would be no adjustable masses or charges. If there was anything to adjust, the theory would then come indifferent versions, and it would not be unique. There would be only one scale, against which everything was measured, which was the Planck scale. The theory would allow us to calculate the results of any experiment to whatever accuracy we desired. We would calculate the masses of the electron, proton, neutron, neutrinos and all the other particles, and our results would all be inexact agreement with experiments.\n\nThese calculations would have to explain certain very strange features of the observed masses of the particles. For example, why are the masses of the proton and neutron so very small in Planck units? Their masses are of the order of 10-19 Planck masses. Where do such terribly small numbers come from? How could they come out of a theory with no free parameters? If the fundamental atoms of space have the dp n=\"204\" folio=\"195\" ?? Planck dimensions, then we would expect the elementary particles to have similar dimensions. The fact that protons and neutrons are nearly 20 orders of magnitude lighter than the Planck mass seems very hard to understand. But since the theory would be unique it would have to get this right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "String theory was invented with the hope that it would be this final theory. It was its potential uniqueness that made it worth studying, even as it became clear that it was not soon going to lead to predictions about the masses of particles or anything else that could be tested experimentally. After all, if there is one unique theory it does not need experiments to verify it-all that is needed is to show that it is mathematically consistent. A unique theory must automatically be proved right by experiments, so it does not matter if a test of the theory is several centuries away. If we accept the assumption that there is one unique theory, then it will pay to concentrate on the problem of testing that theory for mathematical consistency rather than on developing experimental tests for it.\n\nThe problem is that string theory did not turnout to be unique. It was instead found to come in a very large number of versions, each equally consistent. From our present-day perspective, taking into account only the results on the table, it seems that the hope fora unique theory is a false hope. In the current language of string theory, there is noway to distinguish between any of a very large number of theories: they are all equally consistent. Moreover, many of them have adjustable parameters, which could be changed to obtain agreement with experiment.\n\nLooking back, it is clear that the assumption that a unified theory would be unique was no more than that-an assumption. There is no mathematical or philosophical principle which guarantees thereto be only one mathematically consistent theory of nature. In fact, we now know that there can be no such theory. For example, suppose that the world had one or two spatial dimensions, rather than three. For these cases we have constructed lots of consistent quantum theories, including some which have gravity. These were done as warm-up exercises for various research dp n=\"205\" folio=\"196\" ?? programmes. We keep them around as experimental laboratories in which we can test new ideas in a context where we know we can calculate anything we like. It is always possible that there is only one possible consistent theory to describe worlds that have more than two spatial dimensions. But there is no known reason why this should be true. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the fact that there are many consistent theories that describe one-and two-dimensional universes should lead us to doubt the assumption that mathematical consistency in itself allows only one theory of nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, there is away out, which is the possibility that string theory is not the final theory. Besides the fact that it comes in many versions, there are good reasons to believe this: string theory is background dependent and it is understood only in terms of a certain approximation scheme. A fundamental theory needs to be background independent and capable of being formulated exactly. So most people who work with string theory now believe the M theory conjecture I described in Chapter 11: that there is a single theory, which can be written down exactly and in away that is independent of any given spacetime, that unifies all the different string theories.\n\nThere is some evidence to support this M theory conjecture. Many physicists, myself included, are now trying to invent the theory. There seem to be three possibilities: 1. The correct theory of nature is not a string theory. 2. The M theory conjecture is false: there is no unified string theory, but one of the string theories will make predictions that agree with experiment. 3. The M theory conjecture is true: there is a single unified theory, which, however, predicts that the world could come in a great many different physical phases. In these phases the laws of nature appear to be different. Our universe is in one of them.\n\n1. The correct theory of nature is not a string theory.\n\n2. The M theory conjecture is false: there is no unified string theory, but one of the string theories will make predictions that agree with experiment.\n\n3. The M theory conjecture is true: there is a single unified theory, which, however, predicts that the world could come in a great many different physical phases. In these phases the laws of nature appear to be different. Our universe is in one of them.\n\nIf possibility 1 is true, then all we can do is take the story of string theory as a cautionary tale. So let us put this one aside and look at the others. If possibility 2 is true, then we are left with a puzzle: what or who chose which consistent theory applies to our world? Among the list of different possible consistent theories, how was one chosen to apply to our universe?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There seems to be only one possible answer to this question. Something external to the universe made the choice. If that's the way things turnout, then this is the exact point at which science will become religion. Or, to put it better, it will then be rational to use science as an argument for religion. One already hears a lot about this in theological circles, as well as from certain scientists, in the form of arguments based on what we might call the anthropic observation. It seems that the universe we live in is very special. Fora universe to exist for billions of years and contain the ingredients for life, certain special conditions must be satisfied: the masses of the elementary particles and the strengths of the fundamental forces must be tuned to values very close to the ones actually we observe. If these parameters are outside certain narrow limits, the universe will be inhospitable to life. This raises a legitimate scientific question: given that there seem to be more than one possible consistent set of laws, why is it that the laws of nature are such that the parameters fall within the narrow ranges needed for life? We may call this the anthropic question.\n\nIf there are different possible consistent laws of nature, but no framework which unifies them, then there are only two possible answers to the anthropic question. The first is that we are very lucky indeed. The second is that whatever entity specified the laws did so in order that there would be life. In this case we have an argument for religion. This is of course aversion of an argument which is well known to theologians-the God of the Gaps argument. If science raises a question like the anthropic question that cannot be answered in terms of processes that obey the laws of nature, it becomes rational to invoke an outside agency such as God. The scientific version of this argument is called the strong anthropic principle.\n\nNotice that this argument is valid only if there is noway to explain how the laws of nature might have been chosen except by invoking the action of some entity outside our universe. You may recall the principle with which I started this book: that there is nothing outside the universe. As long as there is away of answering all our questions without violating this principle, we are doing science and we have no need of any other mode of explanation. So the argument for the strong anthropic principle has logical force only if there is no other possibility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there is another possibility, possibility 3. This is like possibility 2, but with an important difference. If the different string theories describe different phases of a single theory, then it is possible that under the right circumstances there could be a transition from one phase to another. Just as ice melts to water, the universe could \"melt\" from one phase, in which it is described by one string theory, to another phase, in which it is described by another. We are then still left with the question of why one phase rather than another describes our universe, but this is not so hard to resolve because in this picture the universe is allowed to have changed phase as it evolved in time. There is also the possibility that different regions of the universe exist indifferent phases.\n\nGiven these possibilities, there are at least two alternatives to the God of the Gaps argument. The first is that there is some process that creates many universes. (Do not worry for the moment about what that process is, for cosmologists have found several attractive ways to make a universe which continually spawns new universes.) The big bang is then not the origin of all that exists, but only a kind of phase transition by which anew region of space and time was created, in a phase different than the one from which it came, and then cooled and expanded. In such a scenario there could be many big bangs, leading to many universes. The astrophysicist Martin Rees has a nice name for this-he calls the whole collection the \"multiverse\". It is possible that the process creates universes in random phases. Each would then be governed by a different string theory. These universes will have different dimensions and geometries, and they will also dp n=\"208\" folio=\"199\" ?? have different sets of elementary particles which interact according to different sets of laws. If there are adjustable parameters, it is possible that they are set at random each time anew universe is created." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So there is a simple answer to the anthropic question. Among all the possible universes, a minority will have the property that their laws are hospitable to life. Since we are alive, we naturally find ourselves in one of them. And since there area great many universes, we need not worry that the chance of anyone of them being hospitable to life is small, because the chance of at least one of them being hospitable to life may not be small. There will then be nothing to explain. Martin Rees likes to put this in the following way: if one finds a bag by the side of the road containing a suit that fits one perfectly, that is something to wonder about. But if one goes into a clothing store and is able to find a suit that fits, there is no mystery because the store carries lots of suits in many different sizes. We may call this the God of The Gap. It is also sometimes called the weak anthropic principle.\n\nThe only problem with this kind of explanation is that it is difficult to see how it could be refuted. As long as your theory yields a very large number of universes, you only need thereto beat least one like ours. The theory makes no other predictions apart from the existence of at least one universe like ours. But we already know that, so there is noway to refute this theory. This might seem good, but actually it is not because a theory that cannot be refuted cannot really be part of science. It can't carry very much explanatory weight, because whatever features our universe has, as long as it can be described by one of the large number of string theories, our theory will not be refuted. Therefore it can make no new predictions about our universe.\n\nIs it possible to have a theory which gives a scientific answer to the anthropic question? Such a theory maybe framed around the possibility that the universe can make a physical transition from one phase to another. If we could look back into the history of the universe to before the big bang, it maybe that we would see one or a whole succession of different phases in which the universe had different dp n=\"209\" folio=\"200\" ?? dimensions and appeared to satisfy different laws. The big bang would then be just be the most recent of a series of transitions the universe has passed through. And even though each phase maybe governed by a different string theory, the whole history of the universe would be governed by a single law-M theory. We then need an explanation in physical terms for why the universe \"chose\" to exist in a phase such as the one in which we find ourselves, which exists for billions of years and is hospitable for life. There are several different possible explanations of this kind, which are described in detail in another book of mine, The Life of the Cosmos, so I shall be brief here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One idea is that new universes could form inside black holes. In this case our universe would have a large number of progeny, as it contains at least 10 18 black holes. One may also conjecture that the changes in the laws from old universes to new are small, so that the laws in each new universe formed from our own are close to those that hold in our universe. This also means that the laws in the universe from which ours was formed were not very different from those of our own. Given these two assumptions, a mechanism which is formally analogous to natural selection operates, because after many generations those universes that give rise to many black holes will dominate the population of universes. The theory then predicts that a randomly chosen universe will have the property that it will make more black holes than will universes with slightly different values of the parameters. We can then ask whether this prediction is satisfied by our universe. To cut along story short, up to the present time it seems that it is. The reason is that carbon chemistry is not only good for life, it plays an important role in the processes that make the massive stars that end up as black holes. However, there are several possible observations which could disprove the theory. Thus, unlike the God of the Gaps and the God of The Gap theories, this theory is very vulnerable to being disproved. Of course, this means that it is likely to be disproved.\n\nThe important thing about this theory is that it shows that there are alternatives to both the strong and the weak dp n=\"210\" folio=\"201\" ?? anthropic principle. And if that is so, then those principles have no logical force. Beyond this, the theory of cosmological natural selection (as it is sometimes called) shows us that physics can learn an important lesson from biology about possible modes of scientific explanation. If we want to stick to our principle that there is nothing outside the universe, then we must reject any mode of explanation in which order is imposed on the universe by an outside agency. Everything about the universe must be explicable only in terms of how the laws of physics have acted in it over the whole span of its history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Biologists have been facing up to this problem for more than a century and a half, and they have understood the power of different kinds of mechanism by which a system may organize itself. These include natural selection, but that is not the only possibility: other mechanisms of self-organization have been discovered more recently. These include self-organized critical phenomena, invented by Per Bak and collaborators and studied by many people since. Other mechanisms of self-organization have been studied by theoretical biologists such as Stuart Kauffman and Harold Morowitz. So there is no shortage of mechanisms for self-organization that we could consider in this context. The lesson is that if cosmology is to emerge as a true science, it must suppress its instinct to explain things in terms of outside agencies. It must seek to understand the universe on its own terms, as a system that has formed itself overtime, just as the Earth's biosphere has formed itself over billions of years, starting from a soup of chemical reactions.\n\nIt may seem fantastic to think of the universe as analogous to a biological or ecological system, but these are the best examples we have of the power of the processes of self-organization to form a world of tremendous beauty and complexity. If this view is to betaken seriously, we should ask whether there is any evidence for it. Are there any aspects of the universe and the laws that govern it that require explanation in terms of mechanisms of self-organization? We have already discussed one piece of evidence for this, which is the anthropic observation: the apparently improbable dp n=\"211\" folio=\"202\" ?? values of the masses of the elementary particles and the strengths of the fundamental forces. One can estimate the probability that the constants in our standard theories of the elementary particles and cosmology would, were they chosen randomly, lead to a world with carbon chemistry. That probability is less than one part in 10 220. But without carbon chemistry the universe would be much less likely to form large numbers of stars massive enough to become black holes, and life would be very unlikely to exist. This is evidence for some mechanism of self-organization, because what we mean by self-organization is a system that evolves from a more probable to a less probable configuration. So the best argument we can give that such a mechanism has operated in the past must have two parts: first, that the system be structured in someway that is enormously improbable; and second, that nothing acting from the outside could have imposed that organization on the system. In the case of our universe we are taking this second part as a principle. We then satisfy both parts of the argument, and are justified in seeking mechanisms of self-organization to explain why the constants in the laws of nature have been chosen so improbably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there is an even better piece of evidence for the same conclusion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is right in front of us, and so familiar that it is difficult at first to understand that it also is a structure of enormous improbability. This is space itself. The simple fact that the world consists of a three-dimensional space, which is almost Euclidean in its geometry, and which extends for huge distances on all sides, is itself an extraordinarily improbable circumstance. This may seem absurd, but this is only because we have become so mentally dependent on the Newtonian view of the world. For how probable the arrangement of the universe is cannot be answered a priori. Rather, it depends on the theory we have about what space is. In Newton's theory we posit that the world lives in an infinite three-dimensional space. On this assumption, the probability of us perceiving a three-dimensional space around us, stretching infinitely in all directions, is 1. But of course we know that space is not exactly Euclidean, only approximately so. On large scales space is curved because gravity bends light rays. Since this dp n=\"212\" folio=\"203\" ?? directly contradicts a prediction of Newton's theory, we can deduce that, with probability 1, Newton's theory is false.\n\nIt is a little harder to pose the question in Einstein's theory of spacetime, as that theory has an infinite number of solutions. In many of them space is approximately flat, but in many of them it is not. Given that there are an infinite number of examples of each, it is not straightforward to ask how probable it would be, were the solution chosen at random, that the resulting universe would look almost like three-dimensional Euclidean space.\n\nIt is easier to ask the question in a quantum theory of gravity. To ask it we need a form of the theory that does not assume the existence of any classical background geometry for space. Loop quantum gravity is an example of such a theory. As I explained in Chapters 9 and 10, it tells us that there is anatomic structure to space, described in terms of the spin networks invented by Roger Penrose. As we saw there, each possible quantum state for the geometry of space can be described as a graph such as that shown in Figures 24 to 27. We can then pose the question this way: how probable is it that such a graph represents a geometry for space that would be perceived by observers like us, living on a scale hugely bigger than the Planck scale, to bean almost Euclidean three-dimensional space? Well, each node of a spin network graph corresponds to a volume of roughly the Planck length on each side. There are then 10 99 nodes inside every cubic centimetre. The universe is at least 10 27 centimetres in size, so it contains at least 10 180 nodes. The question of how probable it is that space looks like an almost flat Euclidean three-dimensional space all the way up to cosmological scales can then be posed as follows: how probable is it that a spin network with 10 180 nodes would represent such a flat Euclidean geometry?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer is, exceedingly improbable! To see why, an analogy will help. To represent an apparently smooth, featureless three-dimensional space, the spin network has to have some kind of regular arrangement, something like a crystal. There is nothing special about any position in Euclidean space that distinguishes it from any other position. The same must be true, at least to a good approximation, of the quantum dp n=\"213\" folio=\"204\" ?? description of such a space. Such a spin network must then be something like a metal. A metal looks smooth because the atoms in it have a regular arrangement, consisting of almost perfect crystals that contain huge numbers of atoms. So the question we are asking is analogous to asking how probable it is that all the atoms in the universe would arrange themselves in a crystalline structure like the atoms in a metal, stretching from one end of the universe to another. This is, of course, exceedingly improbable. But there are about 10 75 spin network nodes inside every atom, so the probability that all of them are arranged regularly is less than 1 part in 10 75-smaller still.\n\nIt maybe that this is an underestimate and the probability is not quite so small. There is one way of ensuring that all the atoms in the universe arrange themselves in a perfect crystal, which is to freeze the universe down to a temperature of absolute zero, and compacted so as to give it a density high enough for hydrogen gas to form a solid. So perhaps the spin network representing the geometry of the world is arranged regularly because it is frozen.\n\nWe can ask how probable this is. We can reason that if the universe were formed completely by chance it would have a temperature which is some reasonable fraction of the maximum possible temperature. The maximum possible temperature is the temperature that a gas would have if each atom was as massive as the Planck mass and moved at a fair fraction of the speed of light. The reason is that if the temperature were raised beyond point, the Planck temperature, the molecules would all collapse into black holes. Now, for the atoms of space to have a regular arrangement the temperature must be much, much less than this maximum temperature. In fact, the temperature of the universe is less than 10-32 times the Planck temperature. So the probability that a universe, chosen randomly, would have this temperature is less than 1 part in 10 32. So we conclude that it is at least this improbable that the universe is as cold as it is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whichever way we make the estimate, we conclude that if space really has a discrete atomic structure, then it is extraordinarily improbable that it would have the completely smooth and regular arrangement we observe it to have. So this dp n=\"214\" folio=\"205\" ?? is indeed something that requires explanation. If the explanation is not to be that some outside agency chose the state of the universe, there must have been some mechanism of self-organization that, acting in our past, drove the world into this incredibly improbable state. Cosmologists have been worrying about this problem for sometime. One solution which has been proposed is called inflation. This is a mechanism by which the universe can blow itself up exponentially fast until it becomes the flat, almost Euclidean universe we observe today. Inflation solves part of the problem, but it itself requires certain improbable conditions. When inflation begins to act, the universe must already be smooth on a scale of at least 10 5 times the Planck scale. And-at least as far as we know-inflation requires the fine tuning of two parameters. One of these is the cosmological constant, which must be smaller than its natural value in a quantum theory of gravity by a factor of at least 10 60. The other is the strength of a certain force, which in many versions of inflation must be no greater than 10-6. The net result is that for inflation to act we require a situation with a probability of at most 10-81. Even if we leave the cosmological constant out of it, we still require a situation whose probability is at most 10-21. So inflation maybe part of the answer, but it cannot be the complete answer.\n\nIs it possible that some method of self-organization accounts for the fact that space looks perfectly smooth and regular, on scales hugely bigger than the Planck scale? This question has prompted some recent research, but as yet no clear answer has emerged. But if we are to avoid an appeal to religion, then this is a question that must have an answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, in the end, the most improbable and hence the most puzzling aspect of space is its very existence. The simple fact that we live in an apparently smooth and regular three-dimensional world represents one of the greatest challenges to the developing quantum theory of gravity. If you look around at the world seeking mystery, you may reflect that one of the biggest mysteries is that we live in a world in which it is possible to look around, and see as far as we like. The great triumph of the quantum theory of gravity maybe that it will explain to us why this is so. If it does not, then the mystic who dp n=\"215\" folio=\"206\" ?? said that God is all around us will turnout to have been right. But if we find a scientific explanation of the existence of space, and so take the wind out of the sails of such atheistic mystic, there will still remain the mystic who preaches that God is nothing but the power of the universe as a whole to organize itself. In either case the greatest gift the quantum theory of gravity could give the world would be a renewed appreciation of the miracle that the world exists at all, together with a renewed faith that at least some small aspect of this mystery maybe comprehended." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the storyline as the writer's tale partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spinnock could well recall the last few times he had been witness to the dragon unleashed. Flames ripping through the forest that was Mott Wood, crashing down in a deluge, with a deafening concussion that drowned out every death-cry as countless unseen creatures died. Among them, perhaps a handful of Crimson Guard, a dozen or so Mott Irregulars. Like using an axe to kill ants.\n\nThen, from the very heart of that fiery maelstrom, virulent sorcery lashed out, striking Silanah in a coruscating wave. Thunder hammering the air, the dragon's scream of pain. The enormous beast writhing, slashing her way free, then, trailing ropes of blood, flying back towards Moon's Spawn.\n\nHe recalled Anomander Rake's rage, and how he could hold it in his eyes like a demon chained to his will, even as he stood motionless, even as he spoke in a calm, almost bored tone. A single word, a name.\n\nCowl. And with that name, oh, how the rage flared in those draconean eyes.\n\nThere had begun, then, a hunt. The kind only a fool would choose to join. Rake, seeking out the deadliest wizard among the Crimson Guard. Atone point, Spinnock remembered standing on the high ledge on the face of Moon's Spawn, watching the mage-storms fill half the northern night sky. Flashes, the knight charge of thunder through a smoke-wreathed sky. He had wondered, then, if the world was on the very edge of being torn apart, and from the depths of his soul had risen a twisted, malignant thought. Again...\n\nWhen great powers strode onto the field of battle, things had away of getting out of hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had it been Cowl who first blinked? Bowing out, yielding ground, fleeing?\n\nOr had it been the Son of Darkness?\n\nSpinnock doubted he would ever find out. Such questions were not asked of Anomander Rake. Sometime later, it was discovered by the Tiste Andii, Cowl had resurfaced, this time in Darujhistan. Causing more trouble. His stay there had been blessedly brief.\n\nAnother vision of Silanah, laying the trap for the Jaghut Tyrant in the Gadrobi Hills. More wounds, more ferocious magic. Wheeling over the ravaged plain. Five Soletaken Tiste Andii whirling round her like crows escorting an eagle.\n\nPerhaps he was alone, Spinnock reflected, in his unease with the alliance between the Tiste Andii and the Eleint. There had been a time, after all, when Anomander Rake had warred against the pure-blood dragons. When such creatures broke loose from their long-standing servitude to K'rul; when they had sought to grasp power for themselves. The motivation for Rake's opposition to them was, typically, obscure. Silanah's arrival– much later– was yet another event shrouded in mystery.\n\nNo, Spinnock Durav was far from thrilled by Silanah's bloodless regard.\n\nHe approached the arched entrance to the New Palace, ascending the flagstone ramp. There were no guards standing outside. There never were. Pushing open one of the twin doors, he strode inside. Before him, a buttressed corridor that humans would find unnaturally narrow. Twenty paces in, another archway, opening out into a spacious domed chamber with a floor of polished blackwood inset with the twenty-eight spiralling terondai of Mother Dark, all in black silver. The inside of the dome overhead was a mirror image. This homage to the goddess who had turned away was, to Spinnock's mind, extraordinary; appallingly out of place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, sages might well debate who had done the turning away back then, but none would dismiss the terrible vastness of the schism. Was this some belated effort at healing the ancient wound? Spinnock found that notion unfathomable. And yet, Anomander Rake himself had commissioned the terondai, the Invisible Sun and its whirling, wild rays of onyx flame.\n\nIf Kurald Galain had a heart in this realm's manifestation of the warren, it was here, in this chamber. Yet he felt no presence, no ghostly breath of power, as he made his way across the floor to the curling bone-white staircase. Just beyond the turn above wavered a pool of lantern light.\n\nTwo human servants were scrubbing the alabaster steps.\n\nAt his arrival they ducked away.\n\n\"Mind the wet,\" one muttered.\n\n\"I'm surprised, \"Spinnock said as he edged past,\"there's need to clean these at all. There are all of fifteen people living in this palace.\"\n\n\"You've that, sir, ' the man replied, nodding.\n\nThe Tiste Andii paused and glanced back. \"Then why are you bothering? I can hardly believe the castellan set you upon this task.\"\n\n\"No sir, he never did. We was just, er, bored.\"\n\nAfter a bemused moment, Spinnock resumed his ascent. These short-lived creatures baffled him.\n\nThe journey to the chambers where dwelt the Son of Darkness was a lengthy traverse made in solitude. Echoing corridors, unlocked, unguarded doors. The castellan's modest collection of scribes and sundry bureaucrats worked in offices on the main floor; kitchen staff, clothes-scrubbers and wringers, hearth-keepers and taper-lighters, all lived and worked in the lower levels. Here, on the higher floors, darkness ruled a realm virtually unoccupied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching the elongated room that faced the Nightwater, Spinnock Durav found his lord.\n\nFacing the crystal window that ran the entire length of the Nightwater wall, his long silver-white hair was faintly luminous in the muted, refracted light cast into the room by the faceted quartz. The sword Dragnipur was nowhere insight.\n\nThree steps into the chamber and Spinnock halted.\n\nWithout turning, Anomander Rake said, \"The game, Spinnock?\"\n\n\"You won again, Lord. But it was close.\"\n\n\"The Gate?\"\n\nSpinnock smiled wryly. \"When all else seems lost...\"\n\nPerhaps Anomander Rake nodded at that, or his gaze, fixed somewhere out on the waves of Nightwater, shifted downward to something closer by. A fisher boat, or the crest of some leviathan rising momentarily from the abyss. Either way, the sigh that followed was audible. \"Spinnock, old friend, it is good that you have returned.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Lord. I, too, am pleased to see an end to my wandering.\"\n\n\"Wandering? Yes, I imagine you might have seen it that way.\"\n\n\"You sent me to a continent, Lord. Discovering the myriad truths upon it necessitated... fair wandering.\"\n\n\"I have thought long on the details of your tale, Spinnock Durav.\" Still Rake did not turn round. \"Yielding a single question. Must I journey there?\"\n\nSpinnock frowned. \"Assail? Lord, the situation there...\"\n\n\"Yes, I understand.\" At last, the Son of Darkness slowly swung about, and it seemed his eyes had stolen something from the crystal window, flaring then dimming like a memory. \"Soon, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord, on my last day, a league from the sea...\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I lost count of those I killed to reach that desolate strand. Lord, by the time I waded into the deep, enough to vanish beneath the waves, the very bay was crimson. That I lived at all in the face of that is-\"\n\n\"Unsurprising,\" Anomander Rake cut in with a faint smile, \"as far as your Lord is concerned.\" The smile faded. \"Ah, but I have sorely abused your skills, friend.\"\n\nSpinnock could not help but cock his head and say, \"And so, I am given leave to wield soldiers of wood and stone on a wine-stained table? Day after day, my muscles growing soft, the ambition draining away.\"\n\n\"Is this what you calla well-earned rest?\"\n\n\"Some nights are worse than others, Lord.\"\n\n\"To hear you speak of ambition, Spinnock, recalls to my mind another place, long, long ago. You and I...\"\n\n\"Where I learned, at last,\" Spinnock said, with no bitterness at all, \"my destiny.\"\n\n\"Unseen by anyone. Deeds unwitnessed. Heroic efforts earning naught but one man's gratitude. '\n\n\"A weapon must be used, Lord, lest it rust.\"\n\n\"A weapon overused, Spinnock, grows blunt, notched.\"\n\nTo that, the burly Tiste Andii bowed. \"Perhaps, then, Lord, such a weapon must be put away. Anew one found.\"\n\n\"That time is yet to arrive, Spinnock Durav.\"\n\nSpinnock bowed again. \"There is, in my opinion, Lord, no time in the foreseeable future when you must journey to Assail. The madness there seems quite... self-contained.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anomander Rake studied Spinnock's face fora time, then nodded.\"Play on, my friend. Seethe king through. Until... ' and he turned once more back to the crystal window.\n\nThere was no need to voice the completion of that sentence, Spinnock well knew. He bowed a third time, then walked from the chamber, closing the door behind him.\n\nEndest Silann was slowly hobbling up the corridor. At Spinnock's appearance the old castellan glanced up.\"Ah, \"he said,\"is our Lord within? '\n\n\"He is.\"\n\nThe elder Tiste Andii's answering smile was no gift to Spinnock, so strained was it, a thing of sorrow and shame. And while perhaps Endest had earned the right to the first sentiment– a once powerful mage now broken– he had not to the second. Yet what could Spinnock say that might ease that burden? Nothing that would not sound trite. Perhaps something more... acerbic, something to challenge that self-pity-\n\n\"I must speak to him,\" Endest said, reaching for the door.\n\n\"He will welcome that,\" Spinnock managed.\n\nAgain the smile. \"I am sure.\" A pause, a glance up into Spinnock's eyes.\"I have great news. '\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nEndest Silann lifted the latch. \"Yes. I have found anew supplier of cadaver eels.\"\n\n\"Lord of this, Son of that, it's no matter, izzit? \"The man peeled the last of the rind from the fruit with his thumbknife, then flung it out onto the cobbles.\"Point is, \"he continued to his companions,\"he ain't even human, is he? Just another of'em hoary black-skinned demons, as dead-eyed as all the rest. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Big on husking the world, aren't ya? \"the second man at the table said, winking across at the third man, who'd yet to say a thing.\n\n\"Big on lotsa things, you better believe it,\" the first man muttered, now cutting slices of the fruit and lifting each one to his mouth balanced on the blade.\n\nThe waiter drew close at that moment to edge up the wick in the lantern on the table, then vanished into the gloom once more.\n\nThe three were seated atone of the new street-side restaurants, although \"restaurant\" was perhaps too noble a word for this rough line of tables and unmatched wooden chairs. The kitchen was little more than a converted cart and a stretch of canvas roof beneath which a family laboured round a grill that had once been a horse trough.\n\nOf the four tables, three were occupied. All humans– the Tiste Andii were not wont to take meals in public, much less engage in idle chatter over steaming mugs of Bastion kelyk, a pungent brew growing in popularity in Black Coral.\n\n\"You like to talk,\" the second man prodded, reaching for his cup. \"But words never dug a ditch.\"\n\n\"I ain't alone in being in the right about this, \"the first man retorted.\"Ain't alone at all. It's plain that if the Lord Son was dead and gone, all this damned darkness would go away, an'we'd be back to normal wi'day'n\"night again.\"\n\n\"No guarantees of that,\" the third man said, his tone that of someone half asleep.\n\n\"It's plain, I said. Plain, an'if you can't see that, it's your problem, not ours.\"\n\n\"Ours?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, just that.\"\n\n\"Plan on sticking that rind-snicker through his heart, then?\"\n\nThe second man grunted a laugh.\n\n\"They may livelong,\" the first man said in a low grumble, \"but they bleed like anybody else.\"\n\n\"Don't tell me, \"the third man said, fighting a yawn,\"you're the mastermind behind what you're talking about, Bucch. '\n\n\"Not me,\" the first man, Bucch, allowed, \"but I was among the first t'give my word an'swear on it.\"\n\n\"So who is?\"\n\n\"Can't say. Don't know. That's how they organize these things. '\n\nThe second man was now scratching the stubble on his jaw. \"Y'know, \"he ventured,\"it's not like there's a million of \"em, is it? Why, half the adults among us was soldiers in the Domin, or even before. And nobody took our weapons or armour, did they?\"\n\n\"Bigger fools them,\" Bucch said, nodding. \"Arrogance like that, they should pay for, I say.\"\n\n\"When's the next meeting? ' the second man asked.\n\nThe third man stirred from his slouch on his chair. \"We were just off for that, Harak. You want to come along?\"\n\nAs the three men rose and walked off, Seerdomin finished the last of his kelyk, waited another half-dozen heartbeats, and then rose, drawing his cloak round him, even as he reached beneath it and loosened the sword in its scabbard.\n\nHe paused, then, and formally faced north. Closing his eyes, he spoke a soft prayer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, walking with a careless stride, he set off, more or less in the direction the three men were taking.\n\nHigh on the tower, a red-scaled dragon's eyes looked down upon all, facets reflecting scenes from every street, every alley, the flurry of activity in the markets, the women and children appearing on flat rooftops to hang laundry, figures wandering here and there between buildings. In those eyes, the city seethed.\n\nSomewhere, beyond Night, the sun unleashed a morning of brazen, heady heat. It gave form to the smoke of hearth fires in the makeshift camps alongside the beaten tracks wending down from the north, until the pilgrims emerged to form an unbroken line on the trails, and then it lit into bright gold a serpent of dust that rode the winds all the way to the Great Barrow.\n\nThe destitute among them carried shiny shells collected from shoreline and tidal pools, or polished stones or nuggets of raw copper. The better off carried jewellery, gem-studded scabbards, strips of rare silk, Delantine linen, Daru councils of silver and gold, loot collected from corpses on battlefields, locks of hair from revered relatives and imagined heroes, or any of countless other items of value. Now within a day's march of the Great Barrow, the threat of bandits and thieves had vanished, and the pilgrims sang as they walked towards the vast, descended cloud of darkness to the south.\n\nBeneath that enormous barrow of treasure, they all knew, lay the mortal remains of the Redeemer.\n\nProtected forevermore by Night and its grim, silent sentinels.\n\nThe serpent of dust journeyed, then, to a place of salvation.\n\nAmong the Rhivi of North Genabackis, there was a saying. A man who stirs awake the serpent is a man without fear. A man without fear has forgotten the rules of life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silanah heard their songs and prayers.\n\nAnd she watched.\n\nSometimes, mortals did indeed forget. Sometimes, mortals needed... reminding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he knew to stand there Would be a task unforgiving Relentless as sacrifices made And blood vows given He knew enough to wait alone Before the charge of fury's heat The chants of vengeance Where swords will meet And where once were mortals Still remain dreams of home If but one gilded door Could be pried open. Did he waste breath in bargain Or turn aside on the moment Did he smile in pleasure Seeking chastisement?\n\n\"See him still, he stands there While you remain, unforgiving The poet damns you The artist cries out The one who weeps Turns his face away Your mind is crowded By the inconsequential Listing the details Of the minuscule And every measure Of what means nothing To anyone\n\nHe takes from you every rage Every crime... Whether you like it Or you do not... Sacrifices made Vows given He stands alone Because none of you dare Stand with him)\n\nFisher's challenge to his listeners, breaking the telling of The Mane of Chaos\n\nOn this morning, so fair and fresh with the warm breeze coming down off the lake, there were arrivals. Was a city a living thing? Did it possess eyes? Could its senses be lit awake by the touch of footsteps? Did Darujhistan, on that fine morning, look in turn upon those who set their gazes upon it? Arrivals, grand and modest, footsteps less than a whisper, whilst others trembled to the very bones of the Sleeping Goddess. Were such things the beat of the city's heart?\n\nBut no, cities did not possess eyes, or any other senses. Cut stone and hardened plaster, wood beams and corniced façades, walled gardens and quiescent pools beneath trickling fountains, all was insensate to the weathering traffic of its denizens. A city could know no hunger, could not rise from sleep, nor even twist uneasy in its grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leave such things, then, to a short rotund man, seated at a table at the back of the Phoenix Inn, in the midst of an expansive breakfast– to pause with a mouth crammed full of pastry and spiced apple, to suddenly choke. Eyes bulging, face flushing scarlet, then launching a spray of pie across the table, into the face of a regretfully hungover Meese, who, now wearing the very pie she had baked the day before, simply lifted her bleary gaze and settled a basilisk regard upon the hacking, wheezing man opposite her.\n\nIf words were necessary, then, she would have used them.\n\nThe man coughed on, tears streaming from his eyes.\n\nSulty arrived with a cloth and began wiping, gently, the mess from a motionless, almost statuesque Meese.\n\nOn the narrow, sloped street to the right of the entrance to Quip's Bar, the detritus of last night's revelry skirled into the air on a rush of wild wind. Where a moment before there had been no traffic of any sort on the cobbled track, now there were screaming, froth-streaked horses, hoofs cracking like iron mallets on the uneven stone. Horses– two, four, six– and behind them, in a half-sideways rattling skid, an enormous carriage, its back end crashing into the face of a building in a shattering explosion of plaster, awning and window casement. Figures flew from the careering monstrosity as it tilted, almost tipping, then righted itself with the sound of a house falling over. Bodies were thumping onto the street, rolling desperately to avoid the man-high wheels.\n\nThe horses plunged on, dragging the contraption some further distance down the slope, trailing broken pieces, plaster fragments and other more unsightly things, before the animals managed to slow, then halt, the momentum, aided in no small part by a sudden clenching of wooden brakes upon all six wheels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perched atop the carriage, the driver was thrown forward, sailing through the air well above the tossing heads of the horses, landing in a rubbish cart almost buried in the fête's leavings. This refuse probably saved his life, although, as all grew still once more, only the soles of his boots were visible, temporarily motionless as befitted an unconscious man.\n\nStrewn in the carriage's wake, amidst mundane detritus, were human remains in various stages of decay; some plump with rotting flesh, others mere skin stretched over bone. A few of these still twitched or groped aimlessly on the cobbles, like the plucked limbs of insects. Jammed into the partly crushed wall of the shop the conveyance's rear right-side corner had clipped was a corpse's head, driven so deep as to leave visible but one eye, a cheek and one side of the jaw. The eye rolled ponderously. The mouth twitched, as if words were struggling to escape, then curled in an odd smile.\n\nThose more complete figures, who had been thrown in various directions, were now slowly picking themselves up, or, in the case of two of them, not moving at all– and by the twist of limbs and neck it was clear that never again would their unfortunate owners move of their own accord, not even to draw breath.\n\nFrom a window on the second level of a tenement, an old woman leaned out fora brief glance down on the carnage below, then retreated, hands snapping closed the wooden shutters.\n\nClattering sounds came from within the partly ruined shop, then a muted shriek that was not repeated within the range of human hearing, although in the next street over a dog began howling.\n\nThe carriage door squealed open, swung once on its hinges, then fell off, landing with a rattle on the cobbles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On her hands and knees fifteen paces away, Shareholder Faint lifted her aching head and gingerly turned it towards the carriage, in time to see Master Quell lunge into view, tumbling like a Rhivi doll onto the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smoke drifted out in his wake.\n\nCloser to hand, Reccanto Ilk stood, reeling, blinking stupidly around before his eyes lit on the battered sign above the door to Quip's Bar. He staggered in that direction.\n\nFaint pushed herself upright, brushed dust from her meat-spattered clothes, and scowled as scales of armour clinked down like coins onto the stones. From one such breach in her hauberk she prised loose a taloned finger, which she peered at fora moment, then tossed aside as she set out after Reccanto.\n\nBefore she reached the door she was joined by Sweetest Sufferance, the short, plump woman waddling but determined none the less as both her small hands reached out for the taproom's door.\n\nFrom the rubbish cart, Glanno Tarp was digging himself free.\n\nMaster Quell, on his hands and knees, looked up, then said, \"This isn't our street. '\n\nDucking into the gloom of Quip's Bar, Faint paused briefly until she heard a commotion at the far end, where Reccanto had collapsed into a chair, one arm sweeping someone's leavings from the table. Sweetest Sufferance dragged up another chair and thumped down on it.\n\nThe three drunks who were the other customers watched Faint walk across the room, each of them earning a scowl from her.\n\nQuip Younger– whose father had opened this place in a fit of ambition and optimism that had lasted about a week– was shambling over from the bar the same way his old man used to, and reached the table the same time as Faint.\n\nNo one spoke.\n\nThe keep frowned, then turned round and made his way back to the bar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Master Quell arrived, along with Glanno Tarp, still stinking of refuse.\n\nMoments later, the four shareholders and one High Mage navigator of the Trygalle Trade Guild sat round the table. No exchange of glances. No words.\n\nQuip Younger– who had once loved Faint, long before anyone ever heard of the Trygalle Trade Guild and long before she hooked up with this mad lot– delivered five tankards and the first pitcher of ale.\n\nFive trembling hands reached for those tankards, gripping them tight.\n\nQuip hesitated; then, rolling his eyes, he lifted the pitcher and began pouring out the sour, cheap brew.\n\nKruppe took a mouthful of the dark magenta wine– a council a bottle, no less– and swirled it in his mouth until all the various bits of pie were dislodged from the innumerable crevasses between his teeth, whereupon he leaned to one side and spat onto the floor. \"Ah.\" He smiled across at Meese. \"Much better, yes?\"\n\n\"I'll take payment for that bottle right now, ' she said.\n\n\"That way I can leave before I have to witness one more abuse of such an exquisite vintage.\"\n\n\"Why, has Kruppe's credit so swiftly vanished? Decided entirely upon an untoward breaking of fast this particular morning? '\n\n\"It's the insults, you fat pig, piled one on another until it feels I'm drowning in offal.\" She bared her teeth. \"Offal in a red waistcoat.\"\n\n\"Aaii, vicious jab. Kruppe is struck to the heart... and,\" he added, reaching once more for the dusty bottle, \"has no choice but to loosen said constricture of the soul, with yet another tender mouthful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meese leaned forward. \"If you spit that one out, Kruppe, I will wring your neck.\"\n\nHe hastily swallowed, then gasped. \"Kruppe very nearly choked once more. Such a morning! Portents and pastry, wails and wine!\"\n\nHeavy steps descending from the upper floor.\n\n\"Ah, here comes yon Malazan saviour. Mallet, dear friend of Kruppe, will Murillio– sweet Prince of Disenchantment– recover to his fullest self? Come, join me in this passing ferment. Meese, sweet lass, will you not find Mallet a goblet?\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed into thin slits. \"How about one for yourself, Kruppe?\"\n\n\"Delightful suggestion.\" Kruppe wiped at the bottle's mouth with one grimy sleeve, then beamed across at her.\n\nShe rose, stalked off.\n\nThe Malazan healer sat down with a heavy sigh, closed his eyes and rubbed vigorously at his round, pallid face, then looked round the bar. \"Where is everyone?\"\n\n\"Your companion of the night just past Kruppe has sent home, with the assurance that yourself is safe from all harm.\"Tis dawn, friend, or rather morning's fresh stumping on dawn's gilt heels. Ships draw in alongside berths, gangplanks clatter and thump to form momentous bridges from one world to the next. Roads take sudden turns and out trundle macabre mechanisms scattering bits of flesh like dark seeds of doom! Hooded eyes scan strangers, shrikes cry out above the lake's steaming flats, dogs scratch vigorously behind the ears– ah, Meese has brought usher finest goblets! A moment, whilst Kruppe sweeps out cobwebs, insect husks and other assorted proofs of said goblets\" treasured value– there, now, let us sit back and watch, with pleased eyes, as Meese fills our cups to brimming glory. Why-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For Hood's sake, \"Mallet cut in,\"it's too early for your company, Kruppe. Let me drink this wine and then escape with my sanity, I beg you.\"\n\n\"Why, friend Mallet, we await your assessment of Murillio's physical state. '\n\n\"He'll live. But no dancing fora week or two. \"He hesitated, frowning down into his goblet, as if surprised to find it suddenly empty once more.\"Assuming he comes out of his funk, that is. A mired mind can slow the body's recovery. Can reverse it, in fact.\"\n\n\"Fret not over Murillio's small but precise mind, friend, \"Kruppe said.\"Such matters ever find solution through Kruppe's wise ministrations. Does Coll remain at bedside?\"\n\nMallet nodded, set the goblet down and rose. \"I'm going home. \"He glowered across at Kruppe.\"And with Oponn's pull, I might even get there.\"\n\n\"Nefarious nuisances thrive best in night's noisome chaos, dear healer. Kruppe confidently assures you a most uneventful return to your atypical abode. '\n\nMallet grunted, then said, \"And how do you plan on assuring that?\"\n\n\"Why, with worthy escort, of course!\" He poured himself the last of the wine and smiled up at the Malazan. \"See yon door and illimitable Irilta positioned before it? Dastardly contracts seeking your sad deaths cannot indeed be permitted. Kruppe extends his formidable resources to guarantee your lives!\"\n\nThe healer continued staring down at him. \"Kruppe, do you know who offered this contract?\"\n\n\"Ringing revelations are imminent, treasured friend. Kruppe promises.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another grunt, then Mallet wheeled and walked towards the door and his escort, who stood smiling with brawny arms crossed.\n\nKruppe watched them leave and weren't they just quite the pair.\n\nMeese slouched down in the chair Mallet had vacated. \"Guild contract,\" she muttered. \"Could simply be some imperial cleaning up, you know. New embassy's now up and running after all. Could be somebody in it caught word of Malazan deserters running a damned bar. Desertion's a death sentence, ain't it? '\n\n\"Too great a risk, sweet Meese,\" Kruppe replied, drawing out his silk handkerchief and blotting at his brow. \"The Malazan Empire, alas, has its own assassins, of which two are present in said embassy. Yet, by all accounts,\"twas a Hand of Krafar's Guild that made the attempt last night.\" He raised a pudgy finger. \"A mystery, this one whoso seeks the death of inoffensive Malazan deserters, but not a mystery for long, oh no! Kruppe will discover all that needs discovering!\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Meese said, \"now discover that council, Kruppe, for the bottle.\"\n\nSighing, Kruppe reached into the small purse strapped to his belt, probed within the leather pouch, then, brows lifted in sudden dismay: \"Dearest Meese, yet another discovery...\"\n\nGrainy-eyed, Scorch scowled at the teeming quayside. \"It's the morning fisher boats, \"he said,\"comin'in right now. Ain't no point in hangin'round, Leff.\"\n\n\"People on the run will becoming here early,\" Leff pointed out, scooping outwith his knife the freshwater conch he had purchased a moment ago. He slithered down a mouthful of white, gleaming meat. \"T'be waitin'for the first ships in from Gredfallan. Midmorning, right? The new locks at Dhavran have made it all regular, predictable, I mean. A day through with a final scoot to Gredfallan, overnight there, then on with the dawn to here. Desperate folk lineup first, Scorch,\"cause they're desperate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate sitting anywhere my feet have to dangle,\" Scorch complained, shifting uncomfortably on the stack of crates.\n\n\"Decent line of sight,\" Leff said. \"I'll join ya up there anon. '\n\n\"Don't know how you can eat that. Meat should have blood in it. Any meat without blood in it ain't meat.\"\n\n\"Aye, it's conch. '\n\n\"It's a thing with eyes on the ends of its tentacles, watching as you cut its body apart– see how the stalks swivel, following up to your mouth, tracking every swallow? It's watching you eat it!\"\n\n\"So what?\"\n\nGulls shrieked in swarming clouds over the low jetties where the fishers were heaving baskets of sliverfish onto the slimy stone, children scurrying about in the hopes of being hired to slip the wriggling fish onto monger-strings in time for the morning market. Grey-backed Gadrobi cats, feral now fora thousand generations, leapt out in ambush to kill gulls. Frenzied battles ensued, feathers skirling, tufts of cat hair drifting on the breeze like thistle heads.\n\nBelow the inside docks old women wandered in the gloom between pylons, using long, thin, barbed pokers to collect up the small, hand's-length sliverfish that managed to slip through the baskets and fall in gleaming rain as the catch was carried ashore. When the harvest was small, the old hags were wont to use those toothed pokers on each other.\n\nScorch could see them from where he was perched, muffled forms moving this way and that, pokers darting in the perpetual shadows. \"I swore to never again eat anything this lake gave up,\" he muttered. \"Gran above,\" he added in a hoarse whisper, \"y'see I remember them cuts an'holes in your scrawny arms. I remember'em, Gran, an'so I swore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that? ' Leff asked from below.\n\n\"Nothing, only we're wasting our time-'\n\n\"Patience, Scorch. We got us a list. We got us trouble. Didn't we hear that Brokul might be making a run? '\n\n\"The place is a damned mob, Leff.\"\n\n\"We just need to concentrate on the lines forming up.\"\n\n\"Ain't no lines, Leff. '\n\nLeff tossed the shell over the end of the lake wall, where it clattered down below onto ten thousand others. \"Not yet,\" he said. \"Soon.\"\n\nJust past the fork at Urs, the battered remnants of the caravan headed up towards South Worrytown. Herders and quarry workers on their way out to the Ravens edged to the sides of the road, then stopped and stared at the four charred and smoke-streaked trader-wagons rocking past. A single horse struggled in a makeshift yoke before each wain.\n\nOf the usual assortment of guards that might be expected, even fora caravan as small as this one seemed to be, only one was visible, slouched down in a Gadrobi saddle and almost entirely hidden beneath a dusty, hooded cloak. From seamed slits in the faded brown cape, just above the man's shoulder blades, jutted the worn grips and pommels of twin cutlasses. The leather gauntlets covering his hands where they rested on the high saddle horn were stained and mostly in shreds, revealing to those close enough to see skin tattooed to very nearly solid black.\n\nFrom the shadow of the hood, strangely feline eyes held fixed on the road ahead. The first decrepit shanties of South Worrytown emerged from the morning mist like the dishevelled nests of some oversized carrion bird, lining the dirt track to either side. From cracks and holes in the leaning walls, liquid eyes peered out as the guard led his clattering train past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before long, they were well and truly within the maze and its crowds of life's refugees, rising like ghosts from the shadows, raising faint voices to beg for coin and food. Few caravans coming up from the south chose this route into Darujhistan, since the track through the city's shabby outskirts was both narrow and twisting. And those that proved insufficiently defended could become victims of the raw, desperate need drawing ever closer on all sides.\n\nA hundred paces still south of the main road known as Jatem's Worry, it seemed that such a fate would befall this hapless caravan and its guardian of one.\n\nAs grasping, grimy hands reached out to close round spokes in wagon wheels, and others snatched at the traces of the horses, the hooded man glanced back at the growing boldness and reined in. Ashe did so he seemed to suddenly fill out as he straightened in his saddle.\n\nEyes fixed on him, furtive and wary and with fading diffidence. One rag-clad man swung up beside the first wagon's driver who, like the guard, was hooded and wrapped in a leather cape. As the Worrier clutched the driver's shoulder and yanked him round, the hood fell back.\n\nRevealing a dead man's withered face. The mostly hairless head turned, hollow sockets settling on the man crouched on the bench.\n\nEven as the Worrier shrieked, twisting to fling himself from the wagon, the lone caravan guard drew his cutlasses, revealing broad iron blades stained in a pattern of flaring barbs of black and pale orange. The hood dropped back to unveil abroad face tattooed in an identical fashion, the mouth opening to reveal long canines as the guard smiled. There was no humour in that smile, just the promise of mayhem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was enough for the crowd. Screaming, flinching back, they fled.\n\nMoments later, the four wagons and their lone guard resumed their journey.\n\nOnto Jatem's Worry, edging into the traffic slowly working towards the city gate, where the lone, tattooed guard resheathed his weapons.\n\nThe unhooded corpse guiding the lead wagon seemed disinclined to readjust its head covering, and before too long the lifeless driver acquired a flapping, squawking escort of three crows, each fighting to find purchase on the grey, tattered pate. By the time the caravan reached the gate, the driver sported one crow on its head and one on each shoulder, all busy tearing strips of desiccated meat from its face.\n\nAgate-watcher stepped out to squint up at the barbed, bestial guard as he drew rein beneath the arch.\n\n\"Gruntle, ain't it? You been in a fight, man. Is this Sirik's caravan– gods below!\" This last cry announced the watcher's discovery of the first wagon driver.\n\n\"Best just let us past,\" Gruntle said in a low, rasping voice. \"I'm in no mood for more than one conversation, and that one belongs to Sirik. I take it he's done his move into his new estate?\"\n\nThe man nodded, his face pale and his eyes a little wild. Stepping back, he waved Gruntle on.\n\nThe journey to Sirik's estate was blessedly brief. Past Despot's Barbican, then left, skirting High Gallows Hill before reaching the freshly plastered wall and broad, high-arched gate leading into the merchant's compound.\n\nWord must have gone in advance for Sirik himself stood waiting, shaded from the morning sun by a servant with a parasol. A half-dozen armoured men from his private bodyguard were clustered round him. The merchant's expression descended in swift collapse upon seeing a mere four wagons roll into the compound. Curses rode the dusty air from the guards when they spied the first driver, whose centre crow at that moment decided to half spread its wings to regain balance as the withered hands twitched the traces, halting the wagon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle reined in and slowly dismounted.\n\nSirik waved his hands in a helpless gesture. \"But– but-\"\n\nDrawing off his cloak revealed the damage on Gruntle's chain hauberk, the slashes through the black iron links, the gouges and punctures, the crusted blood.\"Dwell raiders, ' he said in a rumble, grinning once more.\n\n\"But-\"\n\n\"We gave good account,\" Gruntle resumed, squinting at the guards behind the merchant. \"And if you'd let loose a few more of your precious preeners there, we might ha'done better still. The raiding party was a big one, a hundred shrieking savages. The fools torched the other wagons even as they looted'em. '\n\nOne of the bodyguard, Sirik's scar-faced captain, stepped forward, scowling at the wagons.\"A hundred, was it? Against what, eight guards under your command, Gruntle? Do you take us for idiots? A hundred Dwell and you'd not be here.\"\n\n\"No, Kest, you're not an idiot, \"Gruntle allowed.\"Thick-skulled and a bully, but not an idiot. '\n\nAs the captain and his men bridled, Sirik held up a trembling hand. \"Gruntle, Gisp sits that wagon but he's dead. '\n\n\"He is. So are the other three.\"\n\n\"But– but how?\"\n\nGruntle's shrug was an ominous roll of his massive shoulders.\"Not sure, \"he admitted,\"but they took my orders anyway– granted, I was desperate and yelling things I normally wouldn't, but by then I was the last one left, and with four surviving wagons and as many horses...\" He shrugged again, then said, \"I'll take my pay now, Sirik. You've got half the Bastion kelyk you wanted and that's better than none. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what am Ito do with four undead drivers?\" Sirik shrieked.\n\nGruntle turned, glared up at Gisp. \"Go to Hood, you four. Now.\"\n\nThe drivers promptly slumped, sliding or tottering from their perches. The three crows picking at Gisp's shredded face setup an indignant squall, then flapped down to resume their meal once the body settled on the dust of the compound.\n\nSirik had recovered enough to show irritation. \"As for payment-\"\n\n\"In full,\" Gruntle cut in. \"I warned you we didn't have enough. Kest may not bean idiot, but you are, Sirik. And sixteen people died for it, not to mention a hundred Dwell. I'm about to visit the Guild, as required. I get my pay in full and I'll keep my opinions to myself. Otherwise... \"Gruntle shook his head,\"you won't be hiring anymore caravan guards. Ever again.\"\n\nSirik's sweat-sheathed face worked fora time, until his eyes found a look of resignation.\"Captain Kest, pay the man. '\n\nA short time later, Gruntle stepped out onto the street. Pausing, he glanced up at the morning sky, then set out for home. Despite the heat, he donned his cloak and drew up the hood once more. The damned markings on his skin rose flush with battle, and took weeks to fade back into a ghostly tint. In the meantime, the less conspicuous he could make himself the better. He suspected that the hovel he called home was already barricaded by a murder of acolytes awaiting his return. The tiger-skinned woman who proclaimed herself High Priestess of the local temple would have heard the fierce battle cry of Trake's Mortal Sword, even at a distance of thirty or so leagues out on the Dwelling Plain. And she would be in a frenzy... again, desperate as ever for his attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Gruntle didn't give a damn about her and the mangy losers she'd gathered to her temple. Killing those raiders had not been a task he had welcomed. No pleasure in spilling blood, no delight in his own savage rage. He'd lost friends that day, including the last pair who had been with him ever since Capustan. Such wounds were far deeper than those his flesh still carried, and they would take much longer to heal.\n\nMood foul despite the bulging purse of councils at his belt, he was disinclined to suffer the normal jostling necessary to navigate the city's major avenues and streets– one push or snarl too many and he'd be likely to draw blades and set about carving a path through the crowds, and then he'd have no choice but to flee Darujhistan or risk dangling from High Gallows Hill– and so once through the Estates Gate just south of Borthen Park, and down the ramp into Lakefront District, Gruntle took a roundabout route, along narrow, twisting alleys and rubbish-filled wends between buildings.\n\nThe few figures he met as he walked were quick to edge aside, as if struck meek by some instinct of self-preservation.\n\nHe turned onto one slightly wider track only to find it blocked by a tall carriage that looked as if it had been through a riot– reminding Gruntle that the fête was still on– although, as he drew closer and found himself stepping over withered, dismembered limbs and streaks of slowly drying blood, and when he saw the gaping hole in the carriage where a door should have been, with the dark interior still and grey with motionless haze, and the horses standing with hides crusted in dried sweat and froth– the entire mess unattended and seemingly immune to looting– he recognized that this was one of those damned Trygalle Guild carriages, well and truly infamous for sudden, inexplicable and invariably violent arrivals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as irritating, the Trygalle was a clear rival to the city's own Caravanserai Guild, with its unprecedented shareholding system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something the Caravanserai should have thought of long ago, although if what Gruntle had heard was anywhere near the truth, then the attrition rate among the Trygalle's shareholders was appallingly high– higher than any sane guard would accept.\n\nThen again, he reconsidered, here he was, the lone survivor of Sirik's caravan, and despite the councils he now carried his financial return was virtually nothing compared to the profits Sirik would harvest from the kelyk, especially now that he didn't have to pay his drivers. Of course, he'd need to purchase new wagons and repair the ones Gruntle had delivered, but there was insurance to offset some of that.\n\nAshe edged round the carriage in the street, he was afforded a closer look, concluding, sourly, that the Trygalle built the bastards to weather just about anything. Scorched, gouged as if by the talons of plains bears, bitten and chopped at, gaudy paint peeled away as if splashed with acid. As battered as a war wagon.\n\nHe walked past the horses. Then, five strides onward, Gruntle turned about in surprise. That close and the beasts should have panicked– they always panicked. Even ones he had broken to his scent shivered uncontrollably beneath him until sheer nervous exhaustion dulled their fright. But here... he scowled, meeting the eyes of one of the leaders and seeing naught but jaded disinterest.\n\nShaking his head, Gruntle resumed his journey.\n\nDamned curious. Then again, he could do with a horse like one of those.\n\nBetter yet, how about a dead one? Dead as Gisp?\n\nThe thought brought him back to certain un-pleasantries he didn't much want to think about at the moment. Like my being able to command the dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was, he considered, too old to be discovering new talents.\n\nThe walrus-skin coracle bobbed perilously in the chop between two trader barges, at risk of being crushed between them before a frantic scull by the lone occupant squirted the craft through, to draw up moments later alongside a mud-smeared landing crowded with crayfish traps. The man who clambered up from the coracle was soaked from the hips down, and the knapsack he slung onto one shoulder sloshed, then began to drain incontinently as he worked his way up the dock to the worn stone steps that climbed to the quayside.\n\nHe was unkempt, his beard two or three days old, and the leathers he wore seemed a strange mix of those normally worn beneath armour and those a Nathii fisher might wear in a squall. The floppy sealskin hat covering his head was misshapen, sun-faded and salt-rimed. In addition to his knapsack he carried an odd-looking scimitar in a split scabbard bound together by frayed strips of leather. The serpent-head pommel revealed empty sockets where gems had once resided for eyes, fangs and collar. Tall, wiry, he moved with a vaguely furtive haste once he reached the quay, cutting through the crowds towards one of the feeder alleys on the other side of Front Street.\n\nFrom the landing down on the water, someone was yelling, demanding to know who had left a half-awash coracle beside his cages.\n\nReaching the alley mouth, the man walked in a few paces, then paused in the shadow between the high-walled warehouses. He drew off his floppy hat and wiped the grime from his brow. His black hair, while thinning from the front, hung in along ponytail that had been tucked up beneath the hat but now fell to the small of his back. His forehead and face were seamed in scars, and most of his left ear was missing, slashed away sometime past. Scratching a moment at his beard, he settled the hat back on, and headed off down the alley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was set upon less than ten paces later, as two figures closed on him from alcoves, one to either side. The one on his left jammed the point of a dagger against his ribs, while the other waved a shortsword in front of his eyes, using it to direct the man against a grimy wall.\n\nMute, the man complied. In the gloom he squinted at the one with the sword, then scowled. \"Leff.\"\n\nA stained grin. \"Hey, old partner, fancy you showing up.\"\n\nThe one with the knife snorted. \"Thought we'd never spy you out wi'that stupid hat, did you?\"\n\n\"Scorch! Why, I can't tell you how glad I am to see you both. Gods below, I would've thought you two would have met grisly ends long ago. But this is a great discovery, friends! Had I any coin– any at all– why, I'd buy you both a drink-'\n\n\"Enough of that,\" Leff said in a growl, still waving the sword in front of the man's face.\"You're on our list, Torvald Nom. Aye, way down on it since most people figured you were long gone and almost as long dead. But you ran out on a debt– a big one and bigger now, aye– not to mention running out on me and Scorch-\"\n\n\"Hardly! I seem to recall we formally absolved our partnership, after that night when-\"\n\nScorch hissed, \"Quiet, damn you! Nobody knows nothing about none of that!\"\n\n\"My point was,\" Torvald hastily explained, \"I never ran out on you two.\"\n\n\"Don't matter, \"Leff said,\"since that ain't why you're on the list now, is it? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You two must be desperate, to take on one of those-\"\n\n\"Maybe we are,\" said Scorch, \"and maybe we ain't. Now, you saying you're broke is bad news, Torvald. For you more'n us, since we now got to deliver you. And my, won't Lender Gareb be pleased.\"\n\n\"Wait! I can get that money– I can clear that debt. But I need time-\"\n\n\"No time to give ya,\" Leff said, shaking his head. \"Sorry, old friend.\"\n\n\"One night, that's all I'm asking.\"\n\n\"One night, for you to run as far as you can.\"\n\n\"No, I swear it. Gods, I've just returned! Hereto honour all my debts! '\n\n\"Really, and how are you planning to do that?\"\n\n\"Best leave the details tome, Scorch, just to keep you and Leff innocent. Now, I'm way down on that list– I'd have to be, since it's been years. That means nobody's expecting you to come up with me, right? Give me a night, just one, that's all I'm asking. We can meet again right here, this time tomorrow. I won't run out on you two, I promise. '\n\n\"You must think we're idiots, ' Leff said.\n\n\"Listen, once I've cleared Gareb's debt, I can help you. With that list. Who's better than meat that kind of stuff? '\n\nScorch's disbelieving expression stretched his face until it seemed his eyes would fallout of their sockets. He licked his lips, shot Leff a glance.\n\nTorvald Nom saw all this and nodded. \"Aye, you two are in trouble, all right. Those lists chew up whoever takes'em on. I must tell you, I'm amazed and, well, deeply disappointed to find that you two have sunk that far since I left. Gods, if I'd known, well, I might've considered staying-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leff snorted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now that's a damned lie. '\n\n\"All right, perhaps an exaggeration. So what is Gareb saying I'm owing him now? '\n\n\"A thousand silver councils.\"\n\nTorvald Nom gaped, the colour leaving his face. \"For Hood's sake, he just bought me a supper and a pitcher or two! And even then, I figured he was simply being generous. Wanted me to do some work for him or something. I was insulted when he sent me a bill for that night-'\n\n\"Interest, Torvald,\" said Leff. \"You know how it is.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" added Scorch, \"you just up and ran. Where ya been all this time?\"\n\n\"You'd never believe me. '\n\n\"Is that shackle scars on your wrists?\"\n\n\"Aye, and worse. Nathii slave pens. Malazan slavers– all the way to Seven Cities. Beru fend, my friends, none of it was pretty. And as for the long journey back, why, if I was a bard I'd make a fortune spinning that tale! '\n\nThe sword hovering in front of his face had wavered, dipped, and now finally fell away, while the knife point jabbing his ribs eased back. Torvald looked quickly into both faces before him, and said, \"One night, old friends, and all this will be cleared up. And I can start helping you with that list.\"\n\n\"We already got us help,\" Leff said, although he didn't seem pleased by that admission.\n\n\"Oh? Who?\"\n\n\"Kruppe. Remember him?\"\n\n\"That oily, fat fence always hanging out at the Phoenix Inn? Are you two mad?\"\n\nScorch said, \"It's our new taproom, Torvald, ever since Bormen threw us out for-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't tell him stuff like that, Scorch! '\n\n\"One night,\" Torvald said, nodding. \"Agreed? Good, you won't regret it. '\n\nStepping back, Leff sheathed his shortsword. \"I already do. Listen, Torvald. You run and we'll chase you, no matter where you go. You can jump straight back into the Nathii slave pens and we'll be there right beside you. You understanding me?\"\n\nTorvald frowned at the man fora moment, then nodded. \"That I do, Leff. But I'm back, now, and I'm not going anywhere, not ever again.\"\n\n\"One night.\"\n\n\"Aye. Now, you two better head back to watching the quay– who knows who might be readying to flee on the next outbound ship.\"\n\nBoth men suddenly looked nervous. Leff gave Torvald a push as he worked past, Scorch on his heels. Torvald watched them scurry to the alley mouth, then plunge into the crowd on Front Street.\n\n\"How is it,\" he asked under his breath, of no one, \"that complete idiots just live on, and on? And on?\"\n\nHe adjusted his Moranth raincape, making certain that none of the items secreted in the underside pockets had been jostled loose or, gods forbid, broken. Nothing dripping. No burning sensations, no slithering presence of... whatever. Good. Tugging down his floppy hat, he set off once more.\n\nThis thing with Gareb was damned irritating. Well, he'd just have to do something about it, wouldn't he? One night. Fine. So be it. The rest can wait.\n\nI hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Born in the city of One Eye Cat twenty-seven years ago, Humble Measure was of mixed blood. A Rhivi woman, sold to a local merchant in exchange fora dozen bars of quenched iron, gave birth to a bastard son a year later. Adopted into his father's household eight years on, the boy was apprenticed in the profession of ironmongery and would have inherited the enterprise if not for one terrible night when his sheltered, stable world ended.\n\nA foreign army had arrived, investing the city in a siege. Days and nights of high excitement for the young man, then, with the streets aflame with rumours of the glory promised by the city's membership in the great, rich Malazan Empire– if only the fools in the palace would capitulate. His father's eyes had glowed with that imagined promise, and no doubt it was on the rising tide of such visions that the elderly trader conspired with agents of the Empire to open the city gates one night– an attempt that ended in catastrophic failure, with the merchant suffering arrest and then execution, and his estate invaded by city garrison soldiers with swords drawn.\n\nThat assault had left nightmare memories that would never leave Humble Measure. Witnessing his mother's rape and murder, and that of his half-sisters. Screams, smoke and blood, everywhere blood, like the bitter gift of some dark god– oh, he would remember that blood. Beaten and in chains, he had been dragged into the street and would have suffered the same fate as the others if not for the presence of a mercenary company allied with the city. Its commander, a tall, fierce warrior named Jorrick Sharplance, had taken command of the handful of surviving prisoners.\n\nThat company was subsequently driven from One Eye Cat by the city's paranoid rulers, sailing out on ships across Old King Lake, shortly before yet another act of treachery proved more successful than the first attempt. Another night of slaughter, this time at the bloodied hands of Claw assassins, and One Eye Cat fell to the Malazan Empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jorrick Sharplance had taken his prisoners with him, setting them free on the wild south shore of the lake, at the very feet of One Eye Range, with sufficient supplies to take them through the mountain passes onto the Old King Plateau." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From there, Humble Measure had led his household's survivors, slaves and free citizens alike, down the trader tracks to the city of Bear. A brief stay there, then southward to Patch and onto the Rhivi Trail.\n\nA short stay in Pale, until, fleeing yet another Malazan siege, down to Darujhistan in the midst of a decrepit column of refugees.\n\nWhereupon Humble Measure had settled in the last surviving office of his father's business, thereto begin along, careful rebuilding process that honed his tactical skills and, indeed, his fortitude.\n\nSuch along, fraught journey had ensured the loyalty of his staff. The slaves were rewarded with emancipation, and not one refused his offer of employment. His trade in iron burgeoned. Fora time, it seemed that the curse that was the Malazan Empire might well track him down once more, but there had been a gift, a gift of blood that he well understood now, and the city's life had been spared.\n\nFor how long? Humble Measure was well acquainted with how the Empire got things done. Infiltration, clever acts of destabilization, assassinations, the fomenting of panic and the dissolution of order. That they now had an embassy in the city was no more than a means of bringing their deadly agents into Darujhistan. Well, he was done running.\n\nHis father's ancestors had traded in iron for twelve generations. Herein the office in the Gadrobi District of Darujhistan, in the vaults far below street level, he had found written records reaching back almost six hundred years. And among the most ancient of those vellum scrolls, Humble Measure had made a discovery.\n\nDarujhistan would not fall to the Malazan Empire– he had found the means to ensure that. To ensure, indeed, that no foreign power could ever again threaten the city he now called home, ever again endanger his family, his loved ones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To achieve this, Humble Measure well understood that he would need all his acumen in bringing complicated plans to fruition. He would need vast sums of coin, which he now had at his disposal. And, alas, he would need to be ruthless.\n\nUnpleasant, yes, but a necessary sacrifice.\n\nThe central office of Eldra Iron Mongers was a sprawling collection of buildings, warehouses and work yards just north of Two-Ox Gate. The entire complex was walled and virtually self-contained. Three sets of forges fronted an elongated, single-storey foundry resting against the west wall. Beneath it ran a subterranean stream that provided outflow into the Maiten River, the effluent and wastes issuing from that stream giving the bay beyond its name of Brownrun, and most days the stain spread out far onto Lake Azure, an unfortunate consequence of working iron, as he said often to city officials when the complaints of the Gadrobi fishers grew too strident to ignore. Offers of recompense usually sufficed to silence such objections, and as for the faintly bitter irony Humble Measure felt when paying out these sums– an irony founded on the cold fact that iron was needed by all, the demand unending, from fish-hooks to gaffs to armour and swords– well, he wisely kept that to himself.\n\nThe administration building rose against the south wall of the compound, both office and residence. Staff quarters dominated the wing nearest the south end of the foundry. The central block housed the records and clerical chambers. The final wing was the oldest part of the structure, its foundations dating back to an age when bronze was the primary metal, and civilization was still a raw promise. Far beneath the ground level of this wing, ancient stairs wound down through layers of limestone, opening out onto a succession of rough-hewn vaults that had been used as storage rooms for generations. Long before such mundane usage, Humble Measure suspected, these crypts had held a darker purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had recently converted one such chamber into a secret office, wherein he could work alone, protected by a skein of long-dormant wards, and here he would remain for most of each night, strangely tireless, as if the very nobility of his cause blessed him with inhuman reserves– further proof to his mind that his efforts had begun to yield gifts, a recognition of sorts, from powers few even suspected still existed.\n\nHis thoughts were on such matters even during the day, and this day in particular, when his most loyal servant– the only man who knew of the secret crypts and, indeed, of Humble Measure's master plan– entered his office and placed a small wax book on his desk, then departed.\n\nA sudden quickening of anticipation, quickly crushed once he opened the book and read the message scribed into the wax.\n\nMost unfortunate. Four assassins, all failing. The Guild assured him that such failure would not be repeated.\n\nSo, the targets had proved themselves to be truly as dangerous as Humble Measure had suspected. Sour consolation, alas. He set the book down and reached for the roller on its heated plate. Carefully melted away the message.\n\nThe Guild would have to do better. Lest he lose faith and seek... other means.\n\nIn the yards beyond, bars of iron clanged as they were rolled from pallets onto the rail-beds leading to the warehouse, like the sudden clash of armies on afield of battle. The sound made Humble Measure wince.\n\nWhatever was necessary. Whatever was necessary.\n\nIna very short time the foreign ship edging ever closer to the Lowstone Pier captured the attention of the crowds on the quayside, sufficient to dampen the constant roar of the hawkers, stevedores, fortune-tellers, prostitutes, carters, and fisherfolk. Eyes widened. Conversations died as lungs snatched air and held it taut in numbed shock. A sudden laugh yelped, swiftly followed by others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standing at the bow of the low-slung ship, one pale, perfect hand resting on the carved neck of the horsehead prow, was a woman. If not for her stunning, ethereal beauty, her poise was so regal, so haughty, that it would have verged on caricature. She was swathed in a diaphanous blouse of emerald green that flowed like water in a glacial stream. She wore abroad black leather belt in which were thrust three naked-bladed daggers, and beneath that, tight-fitting, tanned leather breeches down to rawhide leggings. Behind her, on the deck and in the rigging, swarmed a score of bhokarala, while three more fought over the steering oar.\n\nAll harbours the world over possessed tales of outrageously strange arrivals, but none matched this, or so it would be claimed by the witnesses in homes and bars for years to come. As the ship glided closer to the pier, disaster seemed imminent. Bhokarala were mere apes, after all, perhaps as smart as the average dog. Crewing a ship? Ridiculous. Drawing into berth with deft precision? Impossible. Yet, at the last moment, the three creatures struggling for control of the steering oar miraculously heeled the ship over. The straw bumpers barely squeezed between hull and stone as the craft nudged the pier. Lines sailed out in chaotic profusion, only a few within reach of the dockside handlers– but enough to make the ship fast. High on the mainmast, the topsail luffed and snapped, then the yard loosened and the canvas folded as it dropped down, temporarily trapping a bhokaral within it, where the creature squawked and struggled mightily to free itself.\n\nDown on the main deck, bhokarala rushed from all directions to fight over the gangplank, and all on the quayside watched as the grey, warped board jutted and jerked on its way down to clatter on the pier's stones, a task that resulted in three or four of the black, winged beasts falling into the water with piteous squeals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen paces away stood a clerk of the harbour master's office, hesitating overlong on his approach to demand moorage fees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dunked bhokarala clambered back onto the deck, one with a large fish in its mouth, enticing others to rush into fight over the prize.\n\nThe woman had stepped back from her perch alongside the prow, but instead of crossing the main deck to disembark, she vanished down through the cabin hatch.\n\nThe clerk edged forward then quickly retreated as a half-dozen bhokarala crowding the rail near the gangplank bared their fangs at him.\n\nCommon among all crowds, fascination at novelty was short-lived, and before too long, as nothing else of note occurred beyond the futile attempts by the clerk to extract moorage fees from a score of winged apes that did little more than snarl and make faces at him– one going so far as to pelt him with afresh fish-head– fixed regard wavered and drifted away, back to whatever tasks and whatever demands had required attention before the ship's appearance. Word of the glorious woman and her absurd crew raced outward to infest the city, swift as starlings swirling from street to street, as the afternoon stretched on.\n\nIn the captain's cabin aboard the ship, Scillara watched as Sister Spite, a faint smile on her full lips, poured out goblets of wine and set them down before her guests seated round the map-table. That smile collapsed into a sad frown– only slightly exaggerated– when Cutter twisted in his chair, too frustrated to accept the peaceable gesture.\n\n\"Oh, really,\" Spite said, \"some maturity from you would be a relief right now. Our journey has been long, yes, but I do reiterate that delaying our disembarkation until dusk remains the wisest course.\"\n\n\"I have no enemies here,\" Cutter said in a belligerent growl. \"Only friends.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward as the writer's assistant.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 12" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen paces away stood a clerk of the harbour master's office, hesitating overlong on his approach to demand moorage fees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dunked bhokarala clambered back onto the deck, one with a large fish in its mouth, enticing others to rush into fight over the prize.\n\nThe woman had stepped back from her perch alongside the prow, but instead of crossing the main deck to disembark, she vanished down through the cabin hatch.\n\nThe clerk edged forward then quickly retreated as a half-dozen bhokarala crowding the rail near the gangplank bared their fangs at him.\n\nCommon among all crowds, fascination at novelty was short-lived, and before too long, as nothing else of note occurred beyond the futile attempts by the clerk to extract moorage fees from a score of winged apes that did little more than snarl and make faces at him– one going so far as to pelt him with afresh fish-head– fixed regard wavered and drifted away, back to whatever tasks and whatever demands had required attention before the ship's appearance. Word of the glorious woman and her absurd crew raced outward to infest the city, swift as starlings swirling from street to street, as the afternoon stretched on.\n\nIn the captain's cabin aboard the ship, Scillara watched as Sister Spite, a faint smile on her full lips, poured out goblets of wine and set them down before her guests seated round the map-table. That smile collapsed into a sad frown– only slightly exaggerated– when Cutter twisted in his chair, too frustrated to accept the peaceable gesture.\n\n\"Oh, really,\" Spite said, \"some maturity from you would be a relief right now. Our journey has been long, yes, but I do reiterate that delaying our disembarkation until dusk remains the wisest course.\"\n\n\"I have no enemies here,\" Cutter said in a belligerent growl. \"Only friends.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps that is true,\" Spite conceded, \"but I assure you, young assassin, Darujhistan is not the city you left behind years past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fraught, poised on the very edge of great danger-\"\n\n\"I know that! I feel it– I felt it before I ever came aboard your cursed ship! Why do you think just sitting here, doing nothing, strikes meas the worst decision possible? I need to see people, I need to warn-\"\n\n\"Oh dear,\" Spite cut in, \"do you truly believe that you alone are aware of the danger? That all hangs in the balance right thereat your fingertips? The arrogance of youth!\"\n\nScillara filled her pipe with rustleaf and spent a moment sparking it alight. Heavy, brooding emotions filled the cabin. Nothing new in that, of course. This entire journey had been chaotic and contrary from the moment she, Cutter, Barathol and Chaur had been fished from the seas even as the sky flung giant gobbets of fire down on all sides. Worshipful bhokarala, a miserable mule, an old hag who collapsed into a heap of spiders if one so much as looked askance in her direction. A scrawny, entirely mad High Priest of Shadow, and a broken-hearted Trell. And while Spite comported herself with all the airs of a coddled princess, she was in truth a Soletaken sorceress, dreadfully powerful and as dangerously fey as some Elder Goddess. No, a more motley shipload of passengers and crew Scillara could not imagine.\n\nAnd nowhere we are. Poor Darujhistan! \"Won't belong now, \"she said to Cutter.\"We're better off trying to stay as far beneath notice as possible.\"\n\nIskaral Pust, seated on his chair with his legs drawn up so that his toad-like face was between his knees, seemed to choke on that comment; then, reddening and eyes bulging, he scowled at the table. \"We have a crew of mad apes!\" His head tilted and he stared agog at Scillara. \"We could smoke dried fish with her– just hang'em in her hair! Of course, the fish'd end up poisoning us all, which might be her plan all along! Keep her away from food and drink– oh yes, I have figured her out. No High Priest of Shadow can be fooled so easily! Oh, no. Now, where was I?\" His brows knitted, then suddenly rose threateningly as he glared at her. \"Beneath notice! Why not just sneak out in that cloud of yours, woman?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She blew him a smoky kiss.\n\nSpite set her goblet down. \"The dispositions facing us now are probably worth discussing, don't you think? '\n\nThis question, addressed to everyone, yielded only blank stares.\n\nSpite sighed. \"Mappo Runt, the one you seek is not on this continent. Even so, I would advise you cross overland here, perhaps as far as Lamatath, where you should be able to procure passage to the fell empire of Lether.\"\n\nThe Trell studied her from beneath his heavy brows. \"Then I shall not linger.\"\n\n\"Oh, he mustn't linger, \"Iskaral Pust whispered.\"No no no. Too much rage, too much grief. The giant oaf cannot linger, or worse malinger. Malingering would be terrible, and probably against the law anyway. Yes, perhaps I could get him arrested. Locked up, forgotten in some nefarious dungeon. Oh, I must cogitate on this possibility, all the while smiling benignly! ' And he smiled.\n\nMogora snorted. \"Husband,\" she said sweetly, \"I have divined your fate. In Darujhistan you shall find your nemesis, a catastrophic clash. Devastation, misery for all, the unleashing of horrible curses and ferocious powers. Ruin, such ruin that I dream each night of blessed peace, assured that the universe is in balance once more.\"\n\n\"I can hardly imagine,\" Spite said, \"Shadow imposing balance of any sort. This husband of yours serves a diabolical god, a most unpleasant god. As for your divination, Mogora, I happen to know that you possess no such talents-\"\n\n\"But I can hope, can't I? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not the world for wishful thinking, dear.\"\n\n\"Don't you'dear\" me! You're the worst kind of witch, a good-looking one! Proof that charm is naught but a glamour-\"\n\n\"Oh, wife,\" Iskaral Pust crooned, \"would that you could glamour yourself. Why, an end to my nausea-\"\n\nWith a snarl Mogora veered into a seething mass of spiders, spilling down over the chair and onto the plank floor, then scattering in all directions.\n\nIskaral Pust snickered at the others. \"That's why I sit like this, you fools. She'll bite you all, at every chance!\" He jabbed a gnarled finger at Scillara. \"Except you, of course, because you make her sick!\"\n\n\"Good,\" she replied, then glanced across at Barathol. The huge black-skinned man was half smiling as he observed the others. Behind him stood Chaur, his foolish grin unwavering even as he tried stamping on spiders. \"And what of you, blacksmith? Eager to explore this grand city of blue fire?\"\n\nBarathol shrugged. \"I believe I am, although it has been sometime since I last found myself among crowds. I imagine I might even enjoy the anonymity.\" He seemed to take note of his hands where they rested on the table before him, and saw something in their skein of scars that made him frown, then slowly withdraw them from view. His dark eyes shifted from hers, almost shyly.\n\nNot one for grand confessions, Scillara well knew. A single regret could crush a thousand proud deeds, and Barathol Mekhar had more regrets than most mortals could stomach. Nor was he young enough to brazen his way through them, assuming, of course, that youth was indeed a time of bold fearlessness, that precious disregard for the future that permitted, well, almost anything, so long as it served an immediate need." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I admit,\" said Spite, \"to a certain melancholy when visiting vibrant cities, as is this Darujhistan. Along life teaches one just how ephemeral is such thriving glory. Why, I have come again upon cities I knew well in the age of their greatness, only to find crumbled walls, dust and desolation.\"\n\nCutter bared his teeth and said, \"Darujhistan has stood for two thousand years and it will stand for another two thousand– even longer.\"\n\nSpite nodded. \"Precisely.\"\n\n\"Well, we hardly have the leisure of living for millennia, Spite-\"\n\n\"You clearly weren't listening, \"she cut in.\"Leisure is not a relevant notion. Consider the weariness that often afflicts your kind, late in their lives. Then multiply that countless times. This is the burden of being long-lived. '\n\n\"A moment, then, while I weep for you,\" Cutter said.\n\n\"Such ingratitude! Very well, young man, please do leave us now, and if this be the last I see of you then I will indeed know the reward of leisurely comportment!\"\n\nCutter rubbed at his face and seemed but moments from pulling at his own hair. He drew a deep breath, slowly released it. \"I'll wait, ' he muttered.\n\n\"Really?\" Spite's thin, perfect brows rose.\"Then perhaps an apology is forthcoming? '\n\n\"Sorry,\" Cutter said in a mumble. \"It's just that, with what I fear is about to happen to my city, then wasting time– anytime at all– well, it's not easy.\" He shrugged.\n\n\"Apologies with caveats are worthless, you know,\" Spite said, rising. \"Is it dusk yet? Can't you all crawl off to your bunks fora time? Or wander the hold or something? For all that rude Cutter frets over things he cannot control, I myself sense the presence of... personages, residing in Darujhistan, of a nature to alarm even me. Accordingly, I must think fora time... preferably alone. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scillara rose. \"Let's go, Cutter, ' she said, taking his arm.\n\nTrailed by Chaur, Barathol followed the Trell warrior down into the hold. There were no berths aboard large enough to accommodate Mappo, so he had fashioned an abode of sorts amidst bales of supplies. Barathol saw that the Trell had already packed his kit, hammock, armour and weapons all stuffed into alone sack knotted at the mouth by a rawhide cord, and now he sat on a crate, glancing up to regard the blacksmith.\n\n\"You wish to speak of something, Barathol?\"\n\n\"Spite tells me that the Trell were driven from this continent long ago.\"\n\n\"My people have been assailed for thousands of years.\" He shrugged his massive shoulders. \"Perhaps we are so ugly to others that our very existence is unacceptable.\"\n\n\"You have along journey ahead,\" Barathol said. \"My thought is-\"\n\nBut Mappo raised a hand. \"No, my friend. I must do this alone.\"\n\n\"To cross an entire continent, in the face of hostility– possibly on all sides– Mappo, someone must guard your back.\"\n\nThe Trell's dark, deep-set eyes studied him fora half-dozen heartbeats.\"Barathol Mekhar, we have come to know each other well on this journey. I could not imagine anyone better to guard my back than you. \"He shook his head.\"I do not intend to cross the continent. There are... other paths. Perhaps indeed more perilous, but I assure you I am not easy to kill. The failure was mine and to make it right, well, the responsibility is mine and mine alone. I will not– I cannot– accept that others risk their lives on my behalf. Not you, friend. Not blessed Chaur. Please, leave me to this. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Barathol sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You force upon mean even more terrible choice, then.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\nAwry grin. \"Aye. What to do with my life.\"\n\nMappo grunted a laugh. \"I would not call that terrible, at least from my own point of view.\"\n\n\"I understand what it is to be driven,\" Barathol said. \"I think that is all that I understand. Back in Seven Cities, well, I'd almost convinced myself that what I'd found was all I needed, but I was lying to myself. Some people, I now believe, cannot just... retire. It feels too much like surrender.\"\n\n\"You were a blacksmith-\"\n\n\"By default. I was a soldier, Mappo. A Red Blade.\"\n\n\"Even so, to work iron is a worthy profession. Perhaps you were a soldier, once, but to set down your weapons and find another profession is not surrender. Yet if it feels so to you, well, this city is no doubt crowded with estates, many of which would welcome a guard of your experience. And there will be merchants, operating caravans. Indeed, the city must have its own garrison– no warrior ever fears unemployment, for their skills are ever in demand.\"\n\n\"A sad admission, Mappo.\"\n\nThe Trell shrugged again. \"I would think, now, Barathol, that if anyone needs his back guarded, it is Cutter.\"\n\nBarathol sighed in frustration. \"He says little of what he plans to do. In any case, this is his city. He will find those who know enough to protect him. Besides, I must admit, having seen Cutter practise with those knives of his, well, perhaps it is Darujhistan that must fear his return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is too precipitous.\"\n\n\"I trust Scillara to rein him in.\"\n\n\"Barathol, let us now make our farewells. I intend to depart soon.\"\n\n\"And had I not followed you down here?\"\n\n\"I do poorly saying goodbye.\" His gaze shied away.\n\n\"Then I will convey such to the others, on your behalf. Cutter will be... upset. For he has known you the longest among us all.\"\n\n\"I know, and I am sorry– in so many ways I am a coward.\"\n\nBut Barathol well understood. This was not cowardice. It was some sort of shame, twisted past any possible reason, any conceivable justification. The loss of Icarium was a wound so raw, so irreconcilable, that its spreading stain swept all from its path. Friends, loyalties, lives and histories. And Mappo could not fight against that onrushing tide and the fate he sought at its very end. There would be grief at that conclusion, Barathol suspected, of incalculable measure.\n\nIf Icarium Lifestealer was not yet unleashed, he would be soon. Mappo would be too late to prevent that. It was difficult, then, to leave the Trell to all that awaited him, to simply turn away, yet what else could he do, when Mappo's own desires were so clear?\"I will leave you to your... paths, then, Mappo. And I wish you the best: a peaceful journey, its satisfactory conclusion. '\n\n\"Thank you, my friend. I hope you will find Darujhistan a worthy home.\" He rose to clasp the blacksmith's hand, then moved past to embrace Chaur, who laughed in delight and tried to begin a dance with the Trell. Grimacing, Mappo stepped back.\"Goodbye, Chaur. Take care of Barathol here. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Chaur finally understood that he would not see Mappo again, there would be tears. There was a simple beauty to such open, child-like responses. Perhaps, Barathol considered, Chaur alone walked the truest path in life.\n\nSettling a hand on Chaur's muscled shoulder, he smiled at Mappo.\"He is a gift I do not deserve. '\n\nThe Trell nodded. 'A gift this world does not deserve.\n\nNow, I would be alone, in these final moments. '\n\nBarathol bowed, then guided Chaur back to the ladder leading up to the hatch.\n\nIskaral Pust clambered onto his bunk, the middle of three stacked against the curving hull. He scraped his head against the underside of the top one and cursed under his breath, then cursed some more as he had to fish out a handful of disgusting offerings left beneath his pillow by the bhokarala. Rotting fish-heads, clumps of scaly faeces, baubles stolen from Spite and a cracked kaolin pipe filched from Scillara. Flung off, they clumped and clattered on the two-plank-wide walkway at the very hoofs of his mule, which had taken to standing beside his berth at random intervals– each one proving succinctly inconvenient, as befitted a thoroughly brainless but quaintly loyal animal.\n\nFrom the bunk above came a rattling snort. \"The hatch is too small, you know,\" said Mogora. \"You make it too obvious, husband.\"\n\n\"Maybe obvious is my middle name, did you think that? No, of course not. She never thinks at all. She hasten thousand eyes and not one of them can see past her nose-hairs. Listen well, woman. Everyone knows mules are superior to horses in every way. Including the navigation of hatches. Why, my blessed servant here prefers using outhouses over just plopping any which where along the roadside. She possesses decorum, which can hardly be said for you now, can it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shouldn't you be picking your nose or something?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your worshippers are praying fora sign, you know. '\n\n\"At least I have worshippers. You just scare'em. You scare everybody. '\n\n\"Even you?\"\n\n\"Of course not. Gods below, she terrifies me! Better not let her know, though. That would be bad. I need to do something soon. Twist off her legs, maybe! Yes, that would do it. Leave her lying on her backscratching at the air and making pathetic mewling sounds. Oh, the imagination is a wonderful thing, is it not?\"\n\n\"When it's all you have. '\n\n\"When what's all I have? What idiocy are you blabbering about now? That was uncanny. Almost as if she can read my mind. Good thing she can't, though.\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" hissed Mogora. \"That mule was male! I'd swear it! '\n\n\"Checking him out, were you?\"\n\n\"One more step on that track, husband, and I will kill you with my own hands.\"\n\n\"Hee hee. What a terrible, disgusting mind you have, wife.\"\n\n\"No, you won't distract me this time. Your mule has just changed sex and knowing you I might be looking at a rival, but you know what? She can have you. With my blessing she can, oh yes! '\n\n\"Popularity is a curse,\" Iskaral said, stretching outwith his hands behind his head and staring up at the taut ropes of the mattress above him. \"Not that she'd know anything about that. I'd better visit the local temple, assert my tyrannical dominance overall the local acolytes and fakir priests and priestesses. Priestesses! Might be a pretty one or two. As High Priest, I could have my pick as is my right. Make offerings in the shadow between her legs, yes-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd know, Iskaral Pust, \"Mogora snapped, moving about on the bed above.\"I'd just know, and then I'd take my knife, one night when you're sleeping, and I'd snick snick and you'd be singing like a child and squatting t'piss and what woman or mule would want you then? '\n\n\"Get out of my head, woman!\"\n\n\"It's not hard to know what you're thinking.\"\n\n\"That's what you think! She's getting more dangerous, we need a divorce. But isn't it why most mates breakup?\n\nWhen the woman gets too dangerous? Must be. I'm sure of it. Well, I'd be free then, wouldn't I? Free!\"\n\nThe mule brayed.\n\nMogora laughed so hard she wet herself, if the rank dribbles from above were any indication.\n\nScillara and Cutter had taken the berths closest to the stern in an effort to achieve some sort of privacy, and had rigged a section of spare canvas across the walkway. Despite this, Mogora's half-mad laughter reached through, triggering yet another scowl from Cutter.\n\n\"If those two just realized how perfect they are for each other, we'd finally get some peace. '\n\nScillara smiled. \"I'm sure they do. Most marriages involve mutual thoughts of murder on occasion. '\n\nHe glanced over at her. \"You've some strange ideas, Scillara. About all sorts of things. '\n\n\"I was wondering, when you head out tonight, will you want my company? Or would you rather goon your own?\"\n\nHe could not hold her gaze and made a show of stretching his back before reclining on his bunk. \"Of course not,\" he said. \"You'll like the Phoenix Inn. Meese, Irilta, Murillio, Coll and Kruppe. Well, maybe not Kruppe, who rubs some people the wrong way, but he's harmless enough... I suppose.\" He rummaged in the pouch at his belt fora moment, then drew out a single coin. A Blue Moranth silver sceptre, which he began deftly working through his fingers. \"Won't they be surprised to see me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She managed a smile. \"Cutter's belated return. '\n\n\"Well, \"Cutter\" isn't the name they know me by. I was Crokus Younghand back then. '\n\n\"And where is he now? This Crokus Younghand.\"\n\nHe spent a moment squinting at the coin before replying, \"Dead. Long dead.\"\n\n\"And what will your friends make of that?\"\n\nHe sat up, suddenly restless and still unwilling to meet her eyes. \"I don't know. They won't be happy.\"\n\n\"I think I will leave you to it, Cutter,\" Scillara said.\n\n\"I'll join Barathol and Chaur wandering the night markets and such– there's a fête going on, yes? That sounds inviting. As for my meeting your friends, best it wait a day or two.\"\n\nHe glanced at her. \"Are you sure? You don't-'\n\n\"I'm sure, \"she cut in.\"You need this night to yourself. You'll have enough questions to answer without my presence confusing things even more.\"\n\n\"All right,\" and despite his efforts his relief was palpable. \"But come tomorrow– everyone knows where the Phoenix is, so all you need do is ask.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" she replied, rising from where she sat on the edge of her own berth. \"I'd best hunt Barathol down, so he doesn't leave without me.\"\n\n\"Must be nearing dusk.\"\n\n\"So it is, Cutter. Lady's pull on you this night. '\n\n\"Thanks.\" But it was a distracted response.\n\nAs she made her way forward, forced to shove the damned mule to one side, Scillara told herself that the hurt she was feeling was unwarranted. He'd found comfort in her arms, because there was no one else. No love was involved. Not once mentioned, not even whispered nor murmured in the thick, sleepy moments after lovemaking. Little more than mutual satisfaction, comfort and convenience. And now, well, that time had passed. Reunion with friends beckoned Cutter– that old world in which he had known his place. Difficult enough that he might no longer fit– explaining the overweight, pipe-sucking ex-whore at his side would only embarrass him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had changed her, she realized, pausing just inside the hatch. As if she'd absorbed some essence of his uncertainty, his lack of confidence. She no longer felt her usual brazen, bridling self. No longer ready with a sneer, no longer armoured against the vagaries of this damned world. Here, a dozen strides from the largest city she had ever seen, was neither the time nor the place for such weakness.\n\nWell, Barathol's solid presence could answer her need. Fora time, anyway.\n\nEmerging onto the main deck, she found herself in the midst of a growing storm. The bhokarala crowded the dockside rail and scampered back and forth along its length, while at the other end of the gangplank stood an agent of the harbour master along with a half-dozen city guards even now drawing their batons, readying to assault the ship.\n\nBarathol and Chaur had just climbed up from the hold and the blacksmith began pushing his way through the screeching, spitting apes.\n\nShe well understood his desire to prevent an escalation of the situation. Spite was not the most evenly tempered woman Scillara had known. An argument gone awry could well result in an enraged dragon's devastating the quayside and half the city beyond. All fora misunderstanding on moorage fees.\n\nSo much fora quiet arrival.\n\nScillara hurried forward, kicking aside bhokarala and pulling loose her coin-pouch.\n\nA blow to the side of his head and he rolled, suddenly awake, both knives coming into his hands and blades scraping across the gritty flagstoned floor beneath him. His shoulder struck a wall and he blinked in the gloom.\n\nA tall figure stood over him, black leather and banded iron in tatters, the dull gleam of snapped ribs showing through torn, green skin. A face in shadows, pitted eyesockets, abroad slash of mouth hinting at up-thrust tusks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rallick Nom studied the apparition, the knives feeling useless in his gloved hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The side of his head still rang. His gaze dropped to the stiffened leather toes of the demon's half-rotted moccasins.\"You kicked me. '\n\n\"Yes,\" came the rasping reply.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThe demon hesitated, then said, \"It seemed the thing to do.\"\n\nThey were in a narrow corridor. A solid door of black wood and bronze fittings was to Rallick's left. To his right, just beyond the demon, there was a T-intersection and double doors facing onto the conjunction. The light cast by the lantern the creature held in one withered, long-fingered hand seemed both pale and cold, throwing diffused, indifferent shadows against the stonewalls. Overhead, the ceiling was roughly arched, the stones thinner and smaller towards the peak, seemingly fitted without mortar. The air smelled of dust and decay, lifeless and dry.\n\n\"It seems... I remember nothing,\" Rallick said.\n\n\"In time.\"\n\nEvery joint was stiff; even sitting up with his back against the wall left Rallick's muscles trembling. His head ached with more than just the echoes of that damned kick.\"I'm thirsty– if you're not going to beat me to death, demon, then find me something to drink. '\n\n\"I am not a demon.\"\n\n\"Such things are never easy to tell,\" Rallick replied in a growl.\n\n\"I am Jaghut. Raest, once a tyrant, now a prisoner. \"He who rises shall fall. He who falls shall be forgotten.\" So said Gothos, although, alas, it seems we must all wait forever before his name fades into oblivion.\"\n\nSome strength was returning to his limbs. \"I recall something... a night of blood, the Gedderone Fête. Malazans in the city...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Portentous events as bereft of meaning now as they were then. You have slept, assassin, for sometime. Even the poison on your weapons has lost all potency. Although the otataral within your veins courses unabated by time– few would have done as you did, which is, I suppose, just as well.\"\n\nRallick sheathed his knives and slowly pushed himself upright. The scene spun sickeningly and he closed his eyes until the vertigo passed.\n\nRaest continued, \"I wander in this house... rarely. Perhaps sometime had passed before I realized that she was missing.\"\n\nRallick squinted at the tall, hunched Jaghut. \"She? Who?\"\n\n'A demon in truth. Vorcan is her name now, I believe.\n\nYou lay beside her, immune to the passage of time. But now she has awakened. She has, indeed, escaped. One might consider this... perturbing. If one cared, that is. '\n\nVorcan, Mistress of the Assassins'Guild, yes, now he remembered. She was wounded, dying, and he struggled to carry her, not knowing why, not knowing what he sought. To the house, the house that had grown from the very earth. The house the Malazans called an Azath. Born of the tyrant's Finnest– Rallick frowned at Raest. \"The house,\" he said, \"it is your prison, too.\"\n\nA desiccated shrug that made bones squeak. \"The stresses of owning property.\"\n\n\"So you have been here since then. Alone, not even wandering about. With two near-corpses cluttering your hallway. How long, Raest?\"\n\n\"I am not the one to ask. Does the sun lift into the sky outside then collapse once more? Do bells sound to proclaim a control where none truly exists? Do mortal fools still measure the increments leading to their deaths, wagering pleasures against costs, persisting in the delusion that deeds have value, that the world and all the gods sit in judgement over every decision made or not made? Do-\" \"Enough,\" interrupted Rallick, straightening with only one hand against the wall. \"I asked'how long?\" not'why?\" or'what point?\" If you don't know the answer just say so. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know the answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I should correct one of your assumptions. I did not dwell inhere alone, although I do so now, excepting you, of course, but your company I do not expect to last. That legion of headlong fools you call your people no doubt pine for your return. Blood awaits your daggers, your pouch thirsts for the coins that will fill it with every life you steal. And soon. '\n\n\"If you weren't alone before, Raest... '\n\n\"Ah, yes, I distracted myself with notions of human futility. The Master of the Deck of Dragons was, in the common language, a squatter herein the house, fora time.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"He left.\"\n\n\"Not a prisoner, then, this Master.\"\n\n\"No. Like you, indifferent to my miserable fate. Will you now exploit your privilege, assassin?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Will you now leave, never to return? Abandoning me to eternal solitude, with naught but cobwebs in my bed and bare cupboards in the kitchen, with mocking draughts and the occasional faint clatter of dead branches against shutters? And the odd scream or two as something unpleasant is devoured by earth and root in the yard. Will you simply leave me to this world, assassin?\"\n\nRallick Nom stared at the Jaghut. \"I had no idea my unconscious presence so eased your loneliness, Raest.\"\n\n\"Such insensitivity on your part should not surprise me.\"\n\n\"My answer is yes, I will indeed leave you to your world.\"\n\n\"You lack gratitude.\"\n\nRallick drew his cloak round his shoulders and checked his gear. There was old blood but it simply flaked off like black snow. \"Forgive me. Thank you, Raest, for the kick in the head.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are welcome. Now leave– I grow bored.\"\n\nThe door opened with aloud, groaning creak. Beyond was night, yet darkness was driven back, pushed skyward, by the defiant blue fires of Darujhistan. Somewhere out of sight from where he stood at the landing, streets seethed and churned with drunken revelry. Another fête, another half-mindless celebration of survival.\n\nThe thought stirred some anticipation in Rallick Nom's soul, blowing aside the last dust of what he suspected had been along, long sleep. Before the door behind him was closed he turned about and could just make out Raest's elongated form, still standing in the corridor. \"Why did you wake me?\" he asked.\n\nIn answer, the Jaghut stepped forward and shut the door with a thunderous slam that woke birds to panic and sent them bolting into the night.\n\nRallick turned back to the path, saw roots writhing like serpents in the mulch to either side.\n\nChecking his knives once more, he drew yet tighter his cloak, then set out to rediscover his city.\n\nAnd so the denizens of Darujhistan grew raucous, enough to give the city itself a kind of life. Headlong indeed, with nary a thought for the future, be that the next moment or a year hence. Gas hissed into blue flame, acrobats and mummers whirled through crowds, a hundred thousand musical instruments waged war on the plains of song, and if it was said by some scholars that sound itself was undying, that it rode unending currents that struck no fatal shore, neither in space nor through time, then life itself could be measured by its cry. In the times of free, blue clarity, and in the times of gathering clouds, in the chorus of pronouncements that sang out... arrivals, worlds lived on, as immortal as a dream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the rooftop of a bastion tower, on this night, there stood a woman all in black. Eyes cold as a raptor's looked down upon the sprawl of rooftops, spark-lit chimneys in the distant slums of the Gadrobi District, and, drifting silent overall, this woman thought long and thought hard of the future.\n\nOn a street close to Coll's estate, a cloaked man paused, stood rooted like a stone whilst the fête swirled round him, and even as he concluded that a public return, such as had first occurred to him, might prove unwise, so walked another man– younger but with the same look in his hardened eyes– on his way to the Phoenix Inn.\n\nFar in this one's wake, down at the quayside, a blacksmith, his halfwit servant, and a woman whose generous curves drew admiring glances from all sides, ambled their way towards the night markets of the Gadrobi, seeing all with the wonder and pleasure only foreigners could achieve when coming for the first time upon one of the greatest cities in the world.\n\nCloser to the ship from which they had disembarked, a High Priest of Shadow scurried for the nearest shadows, pursued mostly unseen by spiders drifting on the lake breeze, and on the trail of both scampered a score of bhokarala– many burdened with new offerings and whatever baubles they claimed as rightful possessions– a fang-bearing squall that flowed through crowds accompanied by shouts of surprise, terror and curses (as their collection of possessions burgeoned with every pouch, purse and jewel within reach of their clawed hands).\n\nAboard the ship itself, the captain remained. Now she was wearing loose, flowing robes of black and crimson silks, her face white as moonlight as she frowned at the city before her. Ascent on the air, some lingering perfume redolent with memories... oh, of all places, but was this truly an accident? Spite did not believe in accidents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so she hesitated, knowing what her first step onto solid stone would reveal– perhaps, she decided, it would do to wait fora time.\n\nNot long.\n\nJust long enough.\n\nIn another part of Darujhistan, a merchant of iron dispatched yet another message to the Master of the Assassins'Guild, then retired to his secret library to pore once moreover ancient, fraught literature. Whilst not too faraway sat a merchant guard with fading barbed tattoos, frowning down at a cup of spiced, hot wine in his huge, scarred hands; and from the next room came a child's laughter, and this sound made him wince.\n\nDown among the new estates of certain once-criminal moneylenders who had since purchased respectability, a destitute Torvald Nom stealthily approached the high, spike-topped wall of one such estate. Debts, was it? Well, fine, easily solved. Had he lost any of his skills? Of course not. If anything, such talents had been honed by the rigours of a legendary journey across half the damned world. His glorious return to Darujhistan still awaited him. Come the morning, aye, come the morning...\n\nAt this moment, in a small chamber above the taproom of the Phoenix Inn, a man was lying on his back on abed, still weak from blood loss, and in his thoughts he walked the cemetery of his past, fingers brushing the tops of weathered tombstones and grave markers, seeing the knots of tangled grass climbing the sides of dusty urns, while stretching away in his wake was the shadow of his youth– fainter, longer, fraying now at the very edges. He would not lift his hand yet to feel his own face, to feel the wrinkles and creases that wrote out in tired glyphs his age, his waning life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, flesh could be healed, yes...\n\nBelow, amidst a mob of bellowing, reeling drunks and screeching whores of both sexes, a small round man, seated as ever at his private table, paused with his mouth stuffed full of honeyed bread, and, upon hearing the tenth bell sound through the city, cocked his head and settled his tiny, beady eyes upon the door to the Phoenix Inn.\n\nArrivals.\n\nGlory and portent, delightful reunion and terrible imminence, winged this and winged that and escapes and releases and pending clashes and nefarious demands for recompense over a single mouthful of spat wine, such a night!\n\nSuch a night!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We were drowning amidst petals and leaves On the Plain of Sethangar Where dreams stirred like armies on the flatland And to sing of the beauty of all these blossoms Was to forget the blood that fed every root On the Plain of Sethangar We cried out for shelter from this fecund storm The thrust and heave of life on the scouring winds Was dry as a priest's voice in fiery torment On the Plain of Sethangar And nowise words could be heard in the roar Of the laughing flowers reaching out to the horizon As the pungent breath left us drunk and stagger'd On the Plain of Sethangar Must we ever die in the riches of our profligacy Succumbing to the earth cold and dark each time Only to burst free wide-eyed in innocent birth On the Plain of Sethangar? Which god strides this field scythe in hand To sever the grandiose mime with edged judgement Taking from our souls all will in bundled sheaves On the Plain of Sethangar To feed as befits all burdensome beasts? Flowers will worship the tree's fickle blessing of light Forests reach into the sweetness of a sky beyond touch Even as streams make pilgrimage to the sea And the rain seeks union with all flesh and blood Hills will hold fast over every plain, even Sethangar\n\nAnd so we dream of inequity's end As if it lay within our power Therein the plainness of our regard So poorly blinded to beauty...\n\nDeclamation (fragment) (?) Keneviss Brot First Century Burn's Sleep\n\nGroaning like a beast in its death-throes, the ship seemed to clamber upon to the black rocks before the keel snapped and the hull split with a splintering cry. Cut and bloodless corpses rolled and slid from the deck, spilling into the thrashing foam where pale limbs flopped and waved in the tumult before the riptide dragged them tumbling over the broken seafloor, out and down into the depths. The lone living figure, who had tied himself to the tiller, was now tangled in frayed ropes at the stern, scrabbling to reach his knife before the next huge wave exploded over the wreck. A salt-bleached hand– the skin of the palm hanging in blighted strips– tugged the broad-bladed weapon free. He slashed at the ropes binding him to the up-thrust tiller as the hull thundered to the impact of another wave and white spume cascaded over him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the last strand parted he fell onto his side and slid to the crushed rail, the collision driving the air from his lungs as he pitched across the encrusted rock, then sagged, limp as any corpse, into the churning water.\n\nAnother wave descended onto the wreck like an enormous fist, crushing the deck beneath its senseless power, then dragging the entire hull back into the deeper water, leaving awake of splintered wood, lines and tattered sail.\n\nWhere the man had vanished, the in-rushing seas swirled round the black rock, and nothing emerged from that thrashing current.\n\nIn the sky overhead dark clouds clashed, spun sickly arms into a mutual embrace, and though on this coast no trees rose from the ravaged ground, and naught but wind-stripped grasses emerged from pockets here and there among the rock and gravel and sand, from the wounded sky dried, autumnal leaves skirled down like rain.\n\nCloser to the shore heaved a stretch of water mostly sheltered from the raging seas beyond the reef. Its bottom was a sweep of coral sand, agitated enough to cloud the shallows.\n\nThe man rose into view, water streaming. He rolled his shoulders, spat out a mouthful thick with grit and blood, then waded onto the strand. He no longer carried his knife, but in his left hand was a sword in a scabbard. Made from two long strips of pale wood reinforced with blackened iron, the scabbard revealed that it was riven through with cracks, as water drained out from a score of fissures.\n\nLeaves raining on all sides, he walked up beyond the tide line, crunched down onto a heap of broken shells and sat, forearms on his knees, head hung down. The bizarre deluge thickened into flurries of rotting vegetation, like black sleet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The massive beast that slammed into him would have been thrice his weight if it was not starved. Nor would it have attacked at all, ever shy of humans, but it had become lost in a dust storm, and was then driven from the grasslands leagues inland onto this barren, lifeless coast. Had any of the corpses from the ship reached the beach, the plains bear would have elected to scavenge its meal. Alas, its plague of misfortunes was unending.\n\nEnormous jaws snapped close round the back of the man's head, canines tearing through scalp and gouging into skull, yet the man was already ducking, twisting, his sodden hair and the sudden welter of blood proving slick enough to enable him to wrest free of the bear's bite.\n\nThe sword was lying, still in its cracked scabbard, two paces away, and even as he lunged towards it the bear's enormous weight crashed down onto him. Claws raked against his chain hauberk, rings snapping away like torn scales. He half twisted round, hammering his right elbow into the side of the bear's head, hard enough to foul its second attempt to bite into the back of his neck. The blow sprayed blood from the beast's torn lip along the side of its jaw.\n\nThe man drove his elbow again, this time into the bear's right eye. A bleat of pain and the animal lunged to the left. Continuing his twist, the man drew up both legs, then drove them heels first into its ribs. Bones snapped.\n\nAnother cry of agony. Frothing blood sprayed out from its mouth.\n\nKicking himself away, the man reached his sword. His motions a blur of speed, he drew the weapon, alighted on his feet in a crouch, and slashed the sword into the side of the bear's neck. The ancient watermarked blade slid through thick muscle, then bit into bone, and through, bursting free on the opposite side. Blood and bile gushed as the bear's severed head thumped onto the sand. The body sat down on its haunches, still spewing liquid, then toppled to one side, legs twitching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blazing heat seethed at the back of the man's head, his ears filled with a strange buzzing sound, and the braids of his black, kinked hair dripped thick threads of bloody saliva as he staggered upright.\n\nOn the sword's blade, blood boiled, turned black, then shed in flakes.\n\nStill the sky rained dead leaves.\n\nHe staggered back down to the sea, fell onto his knees in the shallows and plunged his head into the vaguely warm water.\n\nNumbness flowed out along the back of his skull. When he straightened once more, he saw the bloom of blood in the water, a smear stretching into some draw of current– an appalling amount. He could feel more, streaming down his back now.\n\nHe quickly tugged off the chain hauberk, then the filthy, salt-rimed shirt beneath. He tore loose the shirt's left sleeve, folded it into abroad bandanna and bound it tight round his head, as much against the torn skin and flesh as he could manage by feel.\n\nThe buzzing sound was fading. A dreadful ache filled the muscles of his neck and shoulders, and in his head there now pounded a drum, each beat pulsating until the bones of his skull seemed to reverberate. He attempted to spit again, but his parched throat yielded nothing– almost three days now without water. A juddering effect assailed his vision, as if he stood in the midst of an earthquake. Stumbling, he made his way backup the beach, collecting his sword on the way.\n\nOnto his knees once more, this time at the headless carcass. Using his sword to carve into the torso, then reaching into grasp the bear's warm heart. He tore and cut it loose, raised it in one hand and held it over his mouth, then squeezed it as if it was a sponge. From the largest of the arteries blood gushed into his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drank deep, finally closing his lips round the artery and sucking the last drop of blood from the organ.\n\nWhen that was done he bit into the muscle and began to eat it.\n\nSlowly, his vision steadied, and he noticed for the first time the raining leaves, the torrent only now diminishing, as the heavy, warring clouds edged away, out over the sea.\n\nFinished eating the heart, he licked his fingers. He roughly skinned the bear and then rose once more and retrieved the scabbard, sheathing the sword. The drumbeat was fading, although pain still tormented his neck, shoulders and back– muscles and tendons that had only begun their complaint at the savage abuse they had suffered. He washed the one-sleeved shirt then wrung it– tenderly, since it was threadbare and liable to fall apart under too rigorous a ministration. Slipping it on, he then rinsed out the chain hauberk before rolling it up and settling it down over one shoulder.\n\nThen he set out, inland.\n\nAbove the crest of the shoreline, he found before him a wasteland. Rock, scrub, drifts of ash and, in the distance, ravines and outcrops of broken bedrock, a rumpling of the landscape into chaotic folds that lifted into raw, jagged hills.\n\nFar to his left– northward– a grainy, diffuse haze marred the sky above or beyond more hills.\n\nHe squinted, studied that haze for thirty heartbeats.\n\nPatches of dusty blue above him now, as the storm rolled westward over the sea, its downpour of leaves trailing like claw marks in the air, staining the whitecaps beyond the reef. The wind lost some of its chill bite as the sun finally broke through, promising its own assault on mortal flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's skin was dark, for he had been born on a savannah." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His was a warrior's build, the muscles lean and sharply defined on his frame. His height was average, though something in his posture made him seem taller. His even features were ravaged by depredation, but already the rich meat of the bear's heart had begun to fill that expression with stolid, indomitable strength.\n\nStill, the wounds blazed with ferocious heat. And he knew, then, that fever was not far off. He could see nothing nearby in which to take shelter, to hole up out of the sun. Among the ravines, perhaps, the chance of caves, overhangs. Yet... fifteen hundred paces away, if not more.\n\nCould he make it that far?\n\nHe would have to.\n\nDying was unthinkable, and that was no exaggeration. When a man has forsaken Hood, the final gate is closed. Oblivion or the torment of a journey without end– there was no telling what fate awaited such a man.\n\nIn any case, Traveller was in no hurry to discover an answer. No, he would invite Hood to find it himself.\n\nIt was the least he could do.\n\nSlinging the scabbard's rope-belt over his left shoulder, checking that the sword named Vengeance was snug within it, its plain grip within easy reach, he set out across the barren plain.\n\nIn his wake, stripped branches spun and twisted down from the heaving clouds, plunging into the waves, as if torn from the moon itself.\n\nThe clearing bore the unmistakable furrows of ploughs beneath the waist-high marsh grasses, each ribbon catching at their feet as they pushed through the thick stalks. The wreckage of a grain shed rose from brush at the far end, its roof collapsed with a sapling rising from the floor, as exuberant as any conqueror. Yet such signs were, thus far, all that remained of whatever tribe had once dwelt in this forest. Fragments of deliberate will gouged into the wilderness, but the will had failed. In another hundred years, Nimander knew, all evidence would be entirely erased. Was the ephemeral visage of civilization reason for fear? Or, perhaps, relief? That all victories were ultimately transitory in the face of patient nature might well because for optimism. No wound was too deep to heal. No outrage too horrendous to one day be irrelevant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nimander wondered if he had discovered the face of the one true god. Naught else but time, this ever changing and yet changeless tyrant against whom no creature could win. Before whom even trees, stone and air must one day bow. There would be a last dawn, a last sunset, each kneeling in final surrender. Yes, time was indeed god, playing the same games with lowly insects as it did with mountains and the fools who would carve fastnesses into them. At peace with every scale, pleased by the rapid patter of a rat's heart and the slow sighing of devouring wind against stone. Content with a star's burgeoning light and the swift death of a raindrop on a desert floor.\n\n\"What has earned the smile, cousin?\"\n\nHe glanced over at Skintick. \"Blessed with revelation, I think.\"\n\n\"A miracle, then. I think that I too am converted.\"\n\n\"You might want to change your mind– I do not believe my newfound god cares for worship, or answers any prayers no matter how fervent.\"\n\n\"What's so unique about that? '\n\nNimander grunted. \"Perhaps I deserved that.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are too quick to jump into the path of what might wound– even when wounding was never the intention. I am still open to tossing in with your worship of your newfound god, Nimander. Why not?\"\n\nBehind them, Desra snorted. \"I will tell you two what to worship. Power. When it is of such magnitude as to leave you free to do as you will.\"\n\n\"Such freedom is ever a delusion, sister,\" Skintick said.\n\n\"It is the only freedom that is not a delusion, fool.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grimacing, Nimander said, \"I don't recall Andarist being very free." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Because his brother was more powerful, Nimander. Anomander was free to leave us, was he not? Which life would you choose?\"\n\n\"How about neither?\" Skintick said.\n\nAlthough she walked behind them, Nimander could see in his mind's eye his sister's face, and the contempt in it as she no doubt sneered at Skintick.\n\nClip walked somewhere ahead, visible only occasionally; whenever they strode into another half-overgrown clearing, they would see him waiting at the far end, as if impatient with lagging, wayward children.\n\nBehind Nimander, Skintick and Desra walked the others, Nenanda electing to guard the rear as if this was some sort of raid into enemy territory. Surrounded by suspicious songbirds, nervous rodents, irritated insects, Nenanda padded along with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, a glower for every shadow. He would be like that all day, Nimander knew, storing up his disgust and anger for when they all sat by the fire at night, afire Nenanda deemed careless and dangerous and would only tolerate because Clip said nothing, Clip with his half-smile and spinning rings who fed Nenanda morsels of approval until the young warrior was consumed by an addict's need, desperate for the next paltry feeding.\n\nWithout it, he might crumble, collapse inward like a deflated bladder. Or lash out, yes, at everyone of his kin. At Desra, who had been his lover. At Kedeviss and Aranatha who were useless. At Skintick who mocked to hide his cowardice. And at Nimander, who was to blame for– well, no need to go into that, was there?\n\n\"Do not fret, beloved. I wait for you. Forever. Be strong and know this: you are stronger than you know. Think-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And all at once another voice sounded in his mind, harder, sour with venom, \"She knows nothing. She lies to you.\"\n\nPhaed.\n\n\"Yes, you cannot be rid of me, brother. Not when your hands still burn. Still feel the heat of my throat. Not when my bulging eyes stay fixed on you, like nails, yes? The iron tips slowly pushing into your own eyes, so cold, such pain, and you cannot pull loose, can never escape.\"\n\nDo I deny my guilt? Do I even flinch from such truths?\n\n\"That is not courage, brother. That is despair. Pathetic surrender. Remember Withal? How he took upon himself what needed doing? He picked me up like a rag doll– impressive strength, yes! The memory heats me, Nimander! Would you lick my lips?\" and she laughed. \"Withal, yes, he knew what to do, because you left him no choice. Because you failed. So weak you could not murder your sister. I saw as much in your eyes; at that last moment, I saw it!\"\n\nSome sound must have risen from Nimander, for Skintick turned with brows raised.\n\n\"What is wrong?\"\n\nNimander shook his head.\n\nThey walked round pale-barked trees, on soft loam between splayed roots. Dappled sunlight and the chattering alarm of a flying squirrel on a bony branch overhead. Leaves making voices– yes, that was all it was, whispering leaves and his overwrought imagination-\n\nPhaed snorted. \"\"Sometimes being bad feels good. Sometimes dark lust burns like parched wood. Sometimes, my love, you awaken desire in someone else's pain.\" Recall that poet, Nimander? That woman of Kharkanas? Andarist was reluctant to speak of her, but I found in the Old Scrolls all her writings. \"And with the tips of your fingers, all this you can train.\" Hah! She knew! And they all feared her, and now they will not speak her name, a name forbidden, but I know it– shall I-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No!\n\nAnd Nimander's hands clutched, as if once more crushing Phaed's throat. And he saw her eyes, yes, round and swollen huge and ready to burst. In his mind, yes, once more he choked the life from her.\n\nAnd from the leaves came the whisper of dark pleasure.\n\nSuddenly cold, suddenly terrified, he heard Phaed's knowing laugh.\n\n\"You look ill,\" Skintick said. \"Should we halt fora rest?\"\n\nNimander shook his head. \"No, let Clip's impatience drag us ever onward, Skintick. The sooner we are done... ' But he could not goon, would not finish that thought.\n\n\"See ahead,\" Desra said. \"Clip has reached the forest edge, and not a moment too soon.\"\n\nThere was no cause for her impatience, merely a distorted, murky reflection of Clip's own. This was how she seduced men, by giving back to them versions of themselves, promising her protean self like a precious gift to feed their narcissistic pleasures. She seemed able to steal hearts almost without effort, but Nimander suspected that Clip's self-obsession would prove too powerful, too well armoured against any incursions. He would not let her into his places of weakness. No, he would simply use her, as she had so often used men, and from this would be born a most deadly venom.\n\nNimander had no thought to warn Clip. Leave them their games, and all the wounds to come.\n\n\"Yes, leave them to it, brother. We have our own, after all.\"\n\nMust I choke you silent once more, Phaed?\n\n\"If it pleases you.\"\n\nThe clearing ahead stretched out, rolling downward towards a distant river or stream. The fields on the opposite bank had been planted with rows of some strange, purplish, broad-leafed crop. Scarecrows hung from crosses in such profusion that it seemed they stood like a cohort of soldiers in ranks. Motionless, rag-bound figures in each row, only a few paces apart. The effect was chilling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clip's eyes thinned as he studied the distant field and its tattered sentinels. Chain snapped out, rings spun in a gleaming blur.\n\n\"There's a track, I think, \"Skintick said,\"up and over the far side. '\n\n\"What plants are those?\" Aranatha asked.\n\nNo one had an answer.\n\n\"Why are there so many scarecrows?\"\n\nAgain, no suggestions were forthcoming.\n\nClip once more in the lead, they set out.\n\nThe water of the stream was dark green, almost black, so sickly in appearance that none stopped fora drink, and each found stones to step on rather than simply splash across the shallow span. They ascended towards the field where clouds of insects hovered round the centre stalk of each plant, swarming the pale green flowers before rising in a gust to plunge down onto the next.\n\nAs they drew closer, their steps slowed. Even Clip finally halted.\n\nThe scarecrows had once been living people. The rags were bound tightly, covering the entire bodies; arms, legs, necks, faces, all swathed in rough cloth that seemed to drip black fluids, soaking the earth. As the wrapped heads were forward slung, threads of the thick dark substance stretched down from the gauze covering the victims' noses.\n\n\"Feeding the plants, I think,\" Skintick said quietly.\n\n\"Blood?\" Nimander asked.\n\n\"Doesn't look like blood, although there maybe blood in it. '\n\n\"Then they're still alive. '\n\nYet that seemed unlikely. None of the forms moved, none lifted abound head at the sound of their voices. The air itself stank of death.\n\n\"They are not still alive,\" Clip said. He had stopped spinning the chain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then what leaks from them?\"\n\nClip moved onto the narrow track running up through the field. Nimander forced himself to follow, and heard the others fall in behind him. Once they were in the field, surrounded by the corpses and the man-high plants, the pungent air was suddenly thick with the tiny, wrinkle-winged insects, slithering wet and cool against their faces.\n\nThey hurried forward, gagging, coughing.\n\nThe furrows were sodden underfoot, black mud clinging to their moccasins, a growing weight that made them stumble and slip as they scrambled upslope. Reaching the ridge at last, out from the rows, down into a ditch and then onto a road. Beyond it, more fields to either side of a track, and, rising from them like an army, more corpses. A thousand hung heads, a ceaseless flow of black tears.\n\n\"Mother bless us,\" Kedeviss whispered, \"who could do such a thing?\"\n\n\"\"All possible cruelties are inevitable\",\" Nimander said. \"\"Every conceivable crime has been committed\".\" Quoting Andarist yet again.\n\n\"Try thinking your own thoughts on occasion,\" Desra said drily.\n\n\"He saw truly-\"\n\n\"Andarist surrendered his soul and thought it earned him wisdom,\" Clip cut in, punctuating his statement with a snap of rings. \"In this case, though, he probably struck true. Even so, this has the flavour of... necessity.\"\n\nSkintick snorted. \"Necessity, now there's a word to feed every outrage on decency. '\n\nBeyond the ghastly army and the ghoulish purple-leaved plants squatted a town, quaint and idyllic against a backdrop of low, forested hills. Smoke rose above thatched roofs. A few figures were visible on the high street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think we should avoid meeting anyone,\" Nimander said. \"I do not relish the notion of ending up staked above a plant.\"\n\n\"That will not occur,\" said Clip. \"We need supplies and we can pay for them. In any case, we have already been seen. Come, with luck there will be a hostel or inn.\"\n\nA man in a burgundy robe was approaching, up the track that met the raised road. Below the tattered hem of the robe his legs were bare and pale, but his feet were stained black. Long grey hair floated out from his head, unkempt and tangled. His hands were almost comically oversized, and these too were dyed black.\n\nThe face was lined, the pale blue eyes wide as they took in the Tiste Andii on the road. Hands waving, he began shouting, in a language Nimander had never heard before. After a moment, he clearly cursed, then said in broken Andii, \"Traders of Black Coral ever welcome! Morsko town happy of guests and kin of Son of Darkness! Come!\" Clip gestured for his troupe to follow.\n\nThe robed man, still smiling like a crazed fool, whirled and hurried back down the track.\n\nTownsfolk were gathering on the high street, watching in silence as they drew nearer. The score or so parted when they reached the edge of the town. Nimander saw in their faces a bleak lifelessness, in their eyes the wastelands of scorched souls, so exposed, so unguarded, that he had to look away.\n\nHands and feet were stained, and on more than a few the blackness rimmed their gaping mouths, making the hole in their faces too large, too seemingly empty and far too depthless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The robed man was talking. \"A new age, traders. Wealth! Bastion. Heath. Even Outlook rises from ash and bones. Saemankelyk, glory of the Dying God. Many the sacrifices. Of the willing, oh yes, the willing. And such thirst!\"\n\nThey came to abroad square with a bricked well on a centre platform of water-worn limestone slabs. On all sides stood racks from which harvested plants hung drying upside down, their skull-sized rootballs lined like rows of children's heads, faces deformed by the sun. Old women were at the well, drawing water in a chain that wended between racks to a low, squat temple, empty buckets returning.\n\nThe robed man pointed at the temple– probably the only stone building in the town– and said, \"Once sanctified in name of Pannion. No more! The Dying God now, whose body, yes, lies in Bastion. I have looked upon it. Into its eyes. Will you taste the Dying God's tears, my friends? Such demand! '\n\n\"What horrid nightmare rules here?\" Skintick asked in a whisper.\n\nNimander shook his head.\n\n\"Tell me, do we look like traders?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"Black Coral, Nimander. Son of Darkness– our kinfolk have become merchants!\"\n\n\"Yes, but merchants of what?\"\n\nThe robed man– a priest of some sort– now led them to an inn to the left of the temple that looked half dilapidated. \"Few traders this far east, you see. But roof is sound. I will send for maids, cook. There is tavern. Opens of midnight.\"\n\nThe ground floor of the inn was layered in dust, the planks underfoot creaking and strewn with pellets of mouse droppings. The priest stood beside the front door, large hands entwined, head bobbing as he held his smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clip faced the man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This will do,\" he said. \"No need for maids, but find a cook.\"\n\n\"Yes, a cook. Come midnight to tavern!\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nThe priest left.\n\nNenanda began pacing, kicking detritus away from his path. \"I do not like this, Herald. There aren't enough people for this town– you must have seen that. '\n\n\"Enough,\" muttered Skintick as he set his pack down on a dusty tabletop, \"for planting and harvesting.\"\n\n\"Saemankelyk,\" said Nimander. \"Is that the name of this dying god?\"\n\n\"I would like to see it,\" Clip said, chain spinning once more as he looked out through the smeared lead-paned window. \"This dying god.\"\n\n\"Is this place called Bastion on the way to Black Coral?\"\n\nClip glanced across at Nimander, disdain heavy in his eyes. \"I said I wish to see this dying god. That is enough.\"\n\n\"I thought-\" began Nenanda, but Clip turned on him sharply.\n\n\"That is your mistake, warrior. Thinking. There is time. There is always time.\"\n\nNimander glanced across at Skintick. His cousin shrugged; then, eyes narrowing, he suddenly smiled.\n\n\"Your god, Nimander?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Not likely to die anytime soon, then.\"\n\n\"No, never that.\"\n\n\"What are you two talking about?\" Clip demanded, then, dismissing any possible reply, he faced the window once more. \"A dying god needs to die sometime.\"\n\n\"Notions of mercy, Great One?\" Skintick asked.\n\n\"Not where you are concerned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just as well, since I could never suffer the gratitude.\"\n\nNimander watched as Desra glided up to stand beside Clip. They stood looking out through the pane, like husband and wife, like allies against the world. Her left arm almost touching him, up near her elbow, but she would not draw any closer. The spinning rings prevented that, whirling a metal barrier.\n\n\"Tonight,\" Clip said loudly, \"no one drinks.\"\n\nNimander thought back to those black-stained mouths and the ravaged eyes above them, and he shivered.\n\nMist drifted down from the park-like forest north of the Great Barrow, merging with the smoke of cookfires from the pilgrims encamped like an army around the enormous, circular mound. Dawn was paling the sky, seeming to push against the unnatural darkness to the south, but this was a war the sun could not win.\n\nFrom the city gate the cobbled road ran between lesser barrows where hundreds of corpses had been interred following the conquest. Malazans, Grey Swords, Rhivi, Tiste Andii and K'Chain Che'Malle. Farther to the west rose longer barrows, final home to the fallen citizens and soldiers of the city.\n\nSeerdomin walked the road through the gloom. A path through ghosts– too many to even comprehend– but he thought he could hear the echoes of their death-cries, their voices of pain, their desperate pleas for mothers and loved ones. Once he was past this place, who was thereto hear those echoes? No one, and it was this truth that struck him the hardest. They would entwine with naught but themselves, falling unheeded to the dew-flattened grass.\n\nHe emerged into morning light, like passing through a curtain, suddenly brushed with warmth, and made his way up the slope towards the sprawled encampment. For this, he wore his old uniform, a kind of penance, a kind of self-flagellation. There was need, in his mind, to bear his guilt openly, brazenly, to leave himself undefended and indefensible. This was how he saw his daily pilgrimage to the Great Barrow, although he well knew that somethings could never be purged, and that redemption was a dream of the deluded." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just as well, since I could never suffer the gratitude.\"\n\nNimander watched as Desra glided up to stand beside Clip. They stood looking out through the pane, like husband and wife, like allies against the world. Her left arm almost touching him, up near her elbow, but she would not draw any closer. The spinning rings prevented that, whirling a metal barrier.\n\n\"Tonight,\" Clip said loudly, \"no one drinks.\"\n\nNimander thought back to those black-stained mouths and the ravaged eyes above them, and he shivered.\n\nMist drifted down from the park-like forest north of the Great Barrow, merging with the smoke of cookfires from the pilgrims encamped like an army around the enormous, circular mound. Dawn was paling the sky, seeming to push against the unnatural darkness to the south, but this was a war the sun could not win.\n\nFrom the city gate the cobbled road ran between lesser barrows where hundreds of corpses had been interred following the conquest. Malazans, Grey Swords, Rhivi, Tiste Andii and K'Chain Che'Malle. Farther to the west rose longer barrows, final home to the fallen citizens and soldiers of the city.\n\nSeerdomin walked the road through the gloom. A path through ghosts– too many to even comprehend– but he thought he could hear the echoes of their death-cries, their voices of pain, their desperate pleas for mothers and loved ones. Once he was past this place, who was thereto hear those echoes? No one, and it was this truth that struck him the hardest. They would entwine with naught but themselves, falling unheeded to the dew-flattened grass.\n\nHe emerged into morning light, like passing through a curtain, suddenly brushed with warmth, and made his way up the slope towards the sprawled encampment. For this, he wore his old uniform, a kind of penance, a kind of self-flagellation. There was need, in his mind, to bear his guilt openly, brazenly, to leave himself undefended and indefensible. This was how he saw his daily pilgrimage to the Great Barrow, although he well knew that somethings could never be purged, and that redemption was a dream of the deluded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eyes fixed on him from the camps to either side as he continued on towards that massive heap of treasure– wealth of such measure that it could only belong to a dead man, who could not cast covetous eyes upon his hoard, who would not feel its immense weight night and day, who would not suffer beneath its terrible curse. He was tracked, then, by no doubt hardening eyes, the fixation of hatred, contempt, perhaps even the desire of murder. No matter. He understood such sentiments, the purity of such desires.\n\nArmour clanking, chain rustling across the fronts of his thighs as he drew ever closer.\n\nThe greater vastness of wealth now lay buried beneath more mundane trinkets, yet it was these meagre offerings that seemed most potent in their significance to Seerdomin. Their comparative value was so much greater, after all. Sacrifice must be weighed by the pain of what is surrendered, and this alone was the true measure of a virtue's worth.\n\nHe saw now the glitter of sunlight in the dew clinging to copper coins, the slick glimmer on sea-polished stones in an array of muted colours and patterns. The fragments of glazed ceramics from some past golden age of high culture.\n\nFeathers now bedraggled, knotted strips of leather from which dangled fetishes, gourd rattles to bless newborn babes and sick children. And now, here and there, the picked-clean skulls of the recent dead– a sub-cult, he had learned, centred on the T'lan Imass, who knelt before the Redeemer and so made themselves his immortal servants.\n\nSeerdomin knew that the truth was more profound than that, more breathtaking, and that servitude was not avow T'lan Imass could make, not to anyone but the woman known as Silverfox. No, they had knelt ingratitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That notion could still leave him chilled, wonder awakened in his heart like a gust of surprised breath.\n\nStill, these staring skulls seemed almost profane.\n\nHe stepped into the slightly rutted avenue and drew closer. Other pilgrims were placing their offerings ahead, then turning about and making their way back, edging round him with furtive glances. Seerdomin heard more in his wake, a susurration of whispered prayers and low chanting that seemed like a gentle wave carrying him forward.\n\nReaching the barrow's ragged, cluttered edge, he moved to one side, off the main approach, then settled down into a kneeling position before the shrine, lowering his head and closing his eyes.\n\nHe heard someone move up alongside him, heard the soft breathing but nothing else.\n\nSeerdomin prayed in silence. The same prayer, everyday, every time, always the same.\n\nRedeemer. I do not seek your blessing. Redemption will never be mine, nor should it, not by your touch, nor that of anyone else. Redeemer, I bring no gift to set upon your barrow. I bring to you naught but myself. Worshippers and pilgrims will hear nothing of your loneliness. They armour you against all that is human, for that is how they make you into a god. But you were once a mortal soul. And so I come, my only gift my company. It is paltry, I know, but it is all I have and all I would offer.\n\nRedeemer, bless these pilgrims around me.\n\nBless them with peace in their need.\n\nHe opened his eyes, then slowly climbed to his feet.\n\nBeside him spoke a woman. \"Benighted.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He started, but did not face her. \"I have no such title,\" he said.\n\nThere was faint amusement in her reply, \"Seerdomin, then. We speak of you often, at night, from fire to fire.\"\n\n\"I do not flee your venom, and should it one day take my life, so it will be.\"\n\nAll humour vanished from her voice as she seemed to draw a gasp, then said, \"We speak of you, yes, but not with venom. Redeemer bless us, not that.\"\n\nBemused, he finally glanced her way. Was surprised to see a young, unlined face– the voice had seemed older, deep of timbre, almost husky– framed in glistening black hair, chopped short and angled downward to her shoulders. Her large eyes were of darkest brown, the outer corners creased in lines that did not belong to one of her few years. She wore a woollen robe of russet in which green strands threaded down, but the robe hung open, unbelted, revealing a pale green linen blouse cut short enough to expose a faintly bulging belly. From her undersized breasts he judged that she was not with child, simply not yet past the rounded softness of adolescence.\n\nShe met his eyes in ashy manner that once again startled him. \"We call you the Benighted, out of respect. And all who arrive are told of you, and by this means we ensure that there is no theft, no rape, no crime at all. The Redeemer has chosen you to guard his children.\"\n\n\"That is untrue.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"I had heard that no harm befell the pilgrims this close to the Great Barrow.\"\n\n\"Now you know why.\"\n\nSeerdomin was dumbfounded. He could think of nothing to say to such a notion. It was madness. It was, yes, unfair. \"Is it not the Redeemer who shows us,\" said the woman, \"that burdens are the lot of us all? That we must embrace such demands upon our souls, yet stand fearless, open and welcoming?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not know what the Redeemer shows– to anyone.\" His tone was harsher than he'd intended.\"I have enough burdens of my own. I will not accept yours– I will not be responsible for your safety, or that of any other pilgrim. This– this... ' This is not why I am here! Yet, much as he wanted to shout that out loud, instead he turned away, marched back to the avenue.\n\nPilgrims flinched from his path, deepening his anger.\n\nThrough the camp, eyes set on the darkness ahead, wanting to be once more within its chill embrace, and the city, too. The damp grey walls, the gritty cobbles of the streets, the musty cave of a tavern with its surround of pale, miserable faces– yes, back to his own world. Where nothing was asked of him, nothing demanded, not a single expectation beyond that of sitting at a table with the game arrayed before him, the twist and dance of a pointless contest.\n\nOnto the road, into the swirl of lost voices from countless useless ghosts, his boots ringing on the stones.\n\nDamned fools!\n\nDown at the causeway spanning the Citadel's moat, blood leaked out from bodies sprawled along its length, and in the north sky something terrible was happening. Lurid slashes like a rainbow gone mad, spreading in waves that devoured darkness. Was it pain that strangled the very air? Was it something else burgeoning to life, shattering the universe itself?\n\nEndest Silann, a simple acolyte in the Temple of Mother Dark, wove drunkenly round the bodies towards the Outer Gate, skidding on pools of gore. Through the gate's peaked arch he could seethe city, the roofs like the gears of countless mechanisms, gears that could lock with the sky itself, with all creation. Such was Kharkanas, First Born of all cities. But the sky had changed. The perfect machine of existence was broken– seethe sky!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The city trembled, the roofs now ragged-edged. A wind had begun to howl, the voice of the multihued light-storm as it lashed out, flared with thunderous fire.\n\nForsaken. We are forsaken!\n\nHe reached the gate, fell against one pillar and clawed at the tears streaming from his eyes. The High Priestess, cruel poet, was shrieking in the nave of the Temple, shrieking like a woman being raped. Others– women all– were writhing on the marble floor, convulsing in unison, a prostrate dance of macabre sensuality. The priests and male acolytes had sought to still the thrashing limbs, to ease the ravaged cries erupting from tortured throats with empty assurances, but then, one by one, they began to recoil as the tiles grew slick beneath the women, the so-called Nectar of Ecstasy– and no, no man could now pretend otherwise, could not but see this the way it was, the truth of it.\n\nThey fled. Crazed with horror, yes, but driven away by something else, and was it not envy? Civil war had ignited, deadly as that storm in the sky. Families were being torn asunder, from the Citadel itself down to the meanest homes of the commonry. Andii blood painted Kharkanas and there was nowhere to run.\n\nThrough the gate, and then, even as despair choked all life from Endest Silann, he saw him approaching. From the city below. His forearms sheathed in black glistening scales, his bared chest made a thing of natural armour. The blood of Tiam ran riot through him, fired to life by the conflation of chaotic sorcery, and his eyes glowed with ferocious will." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Endest fell to his knees in Anomander's path.\"Lord! The world falls! '\n\n\"Rise, priest,\" he replied. \"The world does not fall. It but changes. I need you. Come.\"\n\nAnd so he walked past, and Endest found himself on his feet, as Lord Anomander's will closed about his heart like an iron gauntlet, pulling him round and into the great warrior's wake.\n\nHe wiped at his eyes. \"Lord, where are we going?\"\n\n\"The Temple.\"\n\n\"We cannot! They have gone mad– the women! They are-\"\n\n\"I know what assails them, priest.\"\n\n\"The High Priestess-\"\n\n\"Is of no interest tome.\" Anomander paused, glanced back at him. \"Tell me your name.\"\n\n\"Endest Silann, Third Level Acolyte. Lord, please-\"\n\nBut the warrior continued on, silencing Endest with a gesture from one scaled, taloned hand. \"The crime of this day, Endest Silann, rests with Mother Dark herself.\"\n\nAnd then, at that precise moment, the young acolyte understood what the Lord intended. And yes, Anomander would indeed need him. His very soul– Mother forgive me– to open the way, to lead the Lord onto the Unseen Road.\n\nAnd he will stand before her, yes. Tall, unyielding, a son who is not afraid. Not of her. Not of his own anger. The storm, oh, the storm is just beginning.\n\nEndest Silann sat alone in his room, the bare stonewalls as solid and cold as those of a tomb. A small oil lamp sat on the lone table, testament to his failing eyes, to the stain of Light upon his soul, a stain so old now, so deeply embedded in the scar tissue of his heart, that it felt like tough leather within him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being old, it was his privilege to relive ancient memories, to resurrect in his flesh and his bones the recollection of youth– the time before the aches seeped into joints, before brittle truths weakened his frame to leave him bent and tottering.\n\n\"Hold the way open, Endest Silann. She will rage against you. She will seek to drive me away, to close herself tome. Hold. Do not relent.\"\n\n\"But Lord, I have sworn my life to her.\"\n\n\"What value is that if she will not beheld to account for her deeds?\"\n\n\"She is the creator of us all, Lord!\"\n\n\"Yes, and she will answer for it.\"\n\nYouth was a time for harsh judgement. Such fires ebbed with age. Certainty itself withered. Dreams of salvation died on the vine and who could challenge that blighted truth? They had walked through a citadel peopled by the dead, the broken open, the spilled out. Like the violent opening of bodies, the tensions, rivalries and feuds could no longer be contained. Chaos delivered in a raw and bloody birth, and now the child squatted amidst its mangled playthings, with eyes that burned.\n\nThe fool fell into line. The fool always did. The fool followed the first who called. The fool gave away– with cowardly relief– all rights to think, to choose, to find his own path. And so Endest Silann walked the crimson corridors, the stench-filled hallways, there but two strides behind Anomander.\n\n\"Will you do as I ask, Endest Silann?\"\n\n\"Yes, Lord.\"\n\n\"Will you hold?\"\n\n\"I shall hold.\"\n\n\"Will you await me the day?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which day, Lord?\"\n\n\"The day at the very end, Endest Silann. Will you await me on that day?\"\n\n\"I said I would hold, Lord, and so I shall.\"\n\n\"Hold, old friend, until then. Until then. Until the moment when you must betray me. No– no protestations, Endest. You will know the time, you will know it and know it well.\"\n\nIt was what kept him alive, he suspected. This fraught waiting, so long all was encrusted, stiff and made almost shapeless by the accretion of centuries.\n\n\"Tell me, Endest, what stirs in the Great Barrow?\"\n\n\"Lord?\"\n\n\"Is it Itkovian? Do we witness in truth the birth of anew god?\"\n\n\"I do not know, Lord. I am closed to such things.\" As I have been since that day in the Temple.\n\n\"Ah, yes, I had forgotten. I apologize, old friend. Mayhap I will speak to Spinnock, then. Certain quiet enquiries, perhaps.\"\n\n\"He will serve you as always, Lord.\"\n\n\"Yes, one of my burdens.\"\n\n\"Lord, you bear them well.\"\n\n\"Endest, you lie poorly.\"\n\n\"Yes, Lord.\"\n\n\"Spinnock it shall be, then. When you leave, please send for him– not with haste, when he has the time.\"\n\n\"Lord, expect him at once.\"\n\nAnd so Anomander sighed, because no other response was possible, was it? And I, too, am your burden, Lord. But we best not speak of that.\n\nSee me, Lord, see how I still wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Incandescent light was spilling from the half-open doors of the temple, rolling in waves out over the concourse like the wash of a flood, sufficient in strength to shift corpses about, milky eyes staring as the heads pitched and lolled.\n\nAs they set out across the expanse, that light flowed up round their shins, startlingly cold. Endest Silann recognized the nearest dead Andii. Priests who had lingered too long, caught in the conflagration that Endest had felt but not seen as he rushed through the Citadel's corridors. Among them, followers from various factions. Silchas Ruin's. Andarist's, and Anomander's own. Drethdenan's, Hish Tulla's, Vanut Degalla's– oh, there had been waves of fighting on this concourse, these sanctified flagstones.\n\nIn birth there shall be blood. In death there shall be light. Yes, this was the day for both birth and death, for both blood and light.\n\nThey drew closer to the doors of the temple, slowed to observe the waves of light tumbling down the broad steps. Their hue had deepened, as if smeared with old blood, but the power was waning. Yet Endest Silann sensed a presence within, something contained, someone waiting.\n\nFor us.\n\nThe High Priestess? No. Of her, the acolyte sensed nothing.\n\nAnomander took his first step onto the stone stairs.\n\nAnd was held there, as her voice filled them.\n\nNo. Be warned, Anomander, dear son, from Andii blood is born anew world. Understand me. You and your kin are no longer alone, no longer free to play your vicious games. There are now... others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anomander spoke. \"Mother, did you imagine I would be surprised? Horrified? It could never be enough, to be naught but a mother, to create with hands closed upon no one. To yield so much of yourself, only to find us your only reward– us slayers, us betrayers.\"\n\nThere is new blood within you.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nMy son, what have you done?\n\n'Like you, Mother, I have chosen to embrace change.\n\nYes, there are others now. I sense them. There will be wars between us, and so I shall unite the Andii. Resistance is ending. Andarist, Drethdenan, Vanut Degalla. Silchas is fleeing, and so too Hish Tulla and Manalle. Civil strife is now over, Mother. '\n\nYou have killed Tiam. My son, do you realize what you have begun? Silchas flees, yes, and where do you think he goes? And the newborn, the others, what scent will draw them now, what taste of chaotic power? Anomander, in murder you seek peace, and now the blood flows and there shall be no peace, not ever again.\n\nI forsake you, Anomander Blood of Tiam. I deny my first children all. You shall wander the realms, bereft of purpose. Your deeds shall avail you nothing. Your lives shall spawn death unending. The Dark– my heart– is closed to you, to you all.\n\nAnd, as Anomander stood unmoving, Endest Silann cried out behind him, falling to his knees in bruising collapse. A hand of power reached into him, tore something loose, then was gone– something, yes, that he would one day call by its name: Hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat staring at the flickering flame of the lamp.\n\nWondering what it was, that loyalty should so simply take the place of despair, as if to set such despair upon another, a chosen leader, was to absolve oneself of all that might cause pain. Loyalty, aye, the exchange that was surrender in both directions. From one, all will, from the other, all freedom.\n\nFrom one, all will.\n\nFrom the other...\n\n\n\nThe sword, an arm's length of copper-hued iron, had been forged in Darkness, in Kharkanas itself. Sole heirloom of House Durav, the weapon had known three wielders since the day of quenching at the Hust Forge, but of those kin who held the weapon before Spinnock Durav, nothing remained– no ill-fitting, worn ridges in the horn grip, no added twists of wire at the neck of the pommel adjusting weight or balance; no quirk of honing on the edges. The sword seemed to have been made, by a master weaponsmith, specifically for Spinnock, for his every habit, his every peculiarity of style and preference.\n\nSo in his kin, therefore, he saw versions of himself, and like the weapon he was but one in a continuum, unchanging, even as he knew that he would be the last. And that one day, perhaps not far off, some stranger would bend down and tug the sword from senseless fingers, would lift it fora closer examination. The water-etched blade, the almost-crimson edges with the back-edge sharply angled and the down-edge more tapering. Would squint, then, and seethe faint glyphs nested in the ferule along the entire blade's length. And might wonder at the foreign marks. Or not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The weapon would be kept, as atrophy, as booty to sell in some smoky market, or it would rest once more in a scabbard at the hip or slung from a baldric, resuming its purpose which was to take life, to spill blood, to tear the breath from mortal souls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And generations of wielders might curse the ill-fitting horn grip, the strange ridges of wear and the once-perfect honing that no local smith could match.\n\nInconceivable, for Spinnock, was the image of the sword lying lost, woven out of sight by grasses, the iron's sheath of oil fading and dull with dust, and then the rust blotting the blade like open sores; until, like the nearby mouldering, rotting bones of its last wielder, the sword sank into the ground, crumbling, decaying into a black, encrusted and shapeless mass.\n\nSeated on his bed with the weapon across his thighs, Spinnock Durav rubbed the last of the oil into the iron, watched the glyphs glisten as if alive, as ancient, minor sorcery awakened, armouring the blade against corrosion. Old magic, slowly losing its efficacy. Just like me. Smiling, he rose and slid the sword into the scabbard, then hung the leather baldric on a hook by the door.\n\n\"Clothes do you no justice, Spin.\"\n\nHe turned, eyed the sleek woman sprawled atop the blanket, her arms out to the sides, her legs still spread wide. \"You're back. '\n\nShe grunted. \"Such arrogance. My temporary... absence had nothing to do with you, as you well know.\"\n\n\"Nothing?\"\n\n\"Well, little, then. You know I walk in Darkness, and when it takes me, I travel far indeed.\"\n\nHe eyed her fora half-dozen heartbeats. \"More often of late,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes.\" The High Priestess sat up, wincing at some pain in her lower back and rubbing at the spot. \"Do you remember, Spin, how all of this was so easy, once? Our young bodies seemed made for just that one thing, beauty woven round a knot of need. How we displayed our readiness, how we preened, like the flowers of carnivorous plants? How it made each of us, to ourselves, the most important thing in the world, such was the seduction of that knot of need, seducing first ourselves and then others, so many others-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Speak for yourself,\" Spinnock said, laughing, even as her words prodded something deep inside him, a hint of pain there was no point paying attention to, or so he told himself, still holding his easy smile as he drew closer to the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those journeys into Kurald Galain were denied you for so long, until the rituals of opening seemed devoid of purpose. Beyond the raw pleasure of sex.\"\n\nShe studied him a moment from beneath heavy lids. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Has she forgiven us, then?\"\n\nHer laugh was bitter. \"You ask it so plain, as if enquiring after a miffed relative! How can you do such things, Spin? It should have taken you half the night to broach that question.\"\n\n\"Perhaps age has made me impatient.\"\n\n\"After the torture you just put me through? You have the patience of lichen.\"\n\n\"But rather more interesting, I hope.\"\n\nShe moved to the edge of the bed, set her bare feet on the floor and hissed at the stone's chill.\"Where are my clothes? '\n\n\"They burned to ash in the heat of your desire.\"\n\n\"There– bring them over, if you please.\"\n\n\"Now who is impatient?\" But he collected up her priestly robes.\n\n\"The visions are growing more... fraught.\"\n\nNodding, he held out her robe.\n\nShe rose, turned round and slipped her arms into the sleeves, then settled back into his embrace. \"Thank you, Spinnock Durav, for acceding to my... need.\"\n\n\"The ritual cannot be denied,\" he replied, stroking her cut-short, midnight-black hair. \"Besides, did you think I would refuse such a request from you?\"\n\n\"I grow tired of the priests. Their ennui is such that most of them must imbibe foul herbs to awaken them to life. More often, of late, we have them simply service us, while they lie there, limp as rotting bananas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed, stepping away to find his own clothes. \"Bananas, yes, a most wondrous fruit to reward us in this strange world. That and kelyk. In any case, the image you describe is unfairly unappetizing.\"\n\n\"I agree, and so, thank you again, Spinnock Durav.\"\n\n\"No more gratitude, please. Unless you would have me voice my own and so overwhelm you with the pathos of my plight.\"\n\nTo that, she but smiled. \"Stay naked, Spin, until I leave.\"\n\n\"Another part of the ritual?\" he asked.\n\n\"Would I have so humbly asked if it was?\"\n\nWhen she was gone, Spinnock Durav drew on his clothing once more, thinking back to his own ritual, servicing his sword with a lover's touch, as if to remind the weapon that the woman he had just made love to was but a diversion, a temporary distraction, and that there was place for but one love in his heart, as befitted a warrior.\n\nTrue, an absurd ritual, a conceit that was indeed pathetic. But with so little to hold onto, well, Tiste Andii clung tight and fierce to anything with meaning, no matter how dubious or ultimately nonsensical.\n\nDressed once more, he set out.\n\nThe game awaited him. The haunted gaze of Seerdomin, there across from him, with artfully carved but essentially inert lumps of wood, antler and bone on the table between them. Ghostly, irrelevant players to each side.\n\nAnd when it was done, when victory and defeat had been played out, they would sit fora time, drinking from the pitcher, and Seerdomin might again speak of something without quite saying what it was, might slide round what bothered him with every word, with every ambiguous comment and observation. And all Spinnock would glean was that it had something to do with the Great Barrow north of Black Coral. With his recent refusal to journey out there, ending his own pilgrimage, leaving Spinnock to wonder at the man's crisis of faith, to dread the arrival of true despair, when all that Spinnock needed from his friend might wither, even die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And where then would he find hope?\n\nHe walked the gloomy streets, closing in on the tavern, and wondered if there was something he could do for Seerdomin. The thought slowed his steps and made him alter his course. Down an alley, out onto another street, this one the side of a modest hill, with the buildings stepping down level by level on each side, a cascade of once brightly painted doors– but who bothered with such things now in this eternal Night?\n\nHe came to one door on his left, its flaked surface gouged with a rough sigil, the outline of the Great Barrow in profile, beneath it the ragged imprint of an open hand.\n\nWhere worship was born, priests and priestesses appeared with the spontaneity of mould on bread.\n\nSpinnock pounded on the door.\n\nAfter a moment it opened a crack and he looked down to see a single eye peering up at him.\n\n\"I would speak to her,\" he said.\n\nThe door creaked back. A young girl in a threadbare tunic stood in the narrow hallway, now curtseying repeatedly. \"L-lord,\" she stammered, \"she is up the stairs– it is late-\"\n\n\"Is it? And I am not a'lord\". Is she awake?\"\n\nA hesitant nod.\n\n\"I will not take much of her time. Tell her it is the Tiste Andii warrior she once met in the ruins. She was collecting wood. I was... doing very little. Go, I will wait.\"\n\nUp the stairs the girl raced, two steps at a time, the dirty soles of her feet flashing with each upward leap.\n\nHe heard a door open, close, then open again, and the girl reappeared at the top of the stairs. \"Come!\" she hissed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood creaked beneath him as he climbed to the next level.\n\nThe priestess– ancient, immensely obese– had positioned herself on a once plush chair before an altar of heaped trinkets. Braziers bled orange light to either side, shedding tendrils of smoke that hung thick and acrid beneath the ceiling. The old woman's eyes reflected that muted glow, murky with cataracts.\n\nAs soon as Spinnock entered the small room, the girl left, closing the door behind her.\n\n\"You do not come,\" said the priestess, \"to embrace the new faith, Spinnock Durav.\"\n\n\"I don't recall ever giving you my name, Priestess. '\n\n\"We all know the one who alone among all the Tiste Andii consorts with us lowly humans. Beyond the old one who bargains for goods in the markets and you are not Endest Silann, who would have struggled on the stairs, and bowed each one near to breaking with his weight.\"\n\n\"Notoriety makes me uneasy.\"\n\n\"Of course it does. What do you want with me, warrior?\"\n\n\"I would ask you something. Is there a crisis among the faithful?\"\n\n\"Ah. You speak of Seerdomin, who now denies us in our need.\"\n\n\"He does? How? What need?\"\n\n\"It is not your concern. Not that of the Tiste Andii, nor the Son of Darkness.\"\n\n\"Anomander Rake rules Black Coral, Priestess, and we Tiste Andii serve him.\"\n\n\"The Great Barrow lies outside Night. The Redeemer does not kneel before the Son of Darkness.\"\n\n\"I am worried for my friend, Priestess. That is all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You cannot help him. Nor, it is now clear, can he help us.\"\n\n\"Why do you need help?\"\n\n\"We await the Redeemer, to end that which afflicts his followers.\"\n\n\"And how will the Redeemer achieve such a thing, except through chosen mortals?\"\n\nShe cocked her head, as if startled by his question, then she smiled. \"Ask that question of your friend, Spinnock Durav. When the game is done and your Lord is victorious yet again, and you call out for beer, and the two of you– so much more alike than you might imagine– drink and take ease in each other's company. '\n\n\"Your knowledge dismays me.\"\n\n\"The Redeemer is not afraid of the Dark.\"\n\nSpinnock started, his eyes widening. \"Embracing the grief of the T'lan Imass is one thing, Priestess. That of the Tiste Andii– no, there maybe no fear in the Redeemer, but his soul had best awaken to wisdom. Priestess, make this plain in your prayers. The Tiste Andii are not for the Redeemer. God or no, such an embrace will destroy him. Utterly. \"And, by Mother's own breath, it would destroy us as well.\n\n\"Seerdomin awaits you,\" she said, \"and wonders, since you are ever punctual.\"\n\nSpinnock Durav hesitated, then nodded. Hoping that this woman's god had more wisdom than she did; hoping, too, that the power of prayer could not bend the Redeemer into ill-conceived desires to reach too far, to seek what could only destroy him, all in that fervent fever of gushing generosity so common to new believers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Priestess, your claim that the Great Barrow lies beyond my Lord's responsibilities is in error. If the pilgrims are in need, the Son of Darkness will give answer-'\n\n\"And so lay claim to what is not his.\"\n\n\"You do not know Anomander Rake.\"\n\n\"We need nothing from your Lord.\"\n\n\"Then perhaps I can help.\"\n\n\"No. Leave now, Tiste Andii.\"\n\nWell, he had tried, hadn't he? Nor did he expect to gain more ground with Seerdomin. Perhaps something more extreme was required. No, Seerdomin is a private man. Let him be. Remain watchful, yes, as any friend would. And wait.\n\nIf he had walked from the nearest coast, the lone figure crossing the grasslands of north Lamatath had travelled a hundred leagues of unsettled prairie. Nowhere to find food beyond hunting the sparse game, all of it notoriously fleet of foot and hoof. He was gaunt, but then, he had always been gaunt. His thin, grey hair was unkempt, drifting out long in his wake. His beard was matted, knotted with filth. His eyes, icy blue, were as feral as any beast of the plain.\n\nAlong coat of chain rustled, swinging clear of his shins with each stride. The shadow he cast was narrow as a sword.\n\nIn the cloudless sky wheeled vultures or ravens, or both, so high as to be nothing but specks, yet they tracked the solitary figure far below. Or perhaps they but skirled in the blue emptiness scanning the wastes for some dying, weakening creature.\n\nBut this man was neither dying nor weak. He walked with the stiff purpose characteristic of the mad, the deranged. Madness, he would have noted, does not belong to the soul engaged with the world, with every hummock and tuft of grass, with the old beach ridges with their cobbles of limestone pushing through the thin, patched skin of lichen and brittle moss. With the mocking stab of shadow that slowly wheeled as the sun dragged itself across the sky. With the sounds of his own breath that were proof that he remained alive, that the world had yet to take him, pull him down, steal the warmth from his ancient flesh. Madness stalked only an inner torment, and Kallor, the High King, supreme emperor of a dozen terrible empires, was, in his heart, a man at peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the moment. But what mattered beyond just that? This single moment, pitching headlong into the next one, over and over again, as firm and true as each step he took, the hard ground reverberating up through the worn heels of his boots. The tactile affirmed reality, and nothing else mattered and never would.\n\nA man at peace, yes indeed. And that he had once ruled the lives of hundreds of thousands, ruled over their useless, petty existences; that he had once, with a single gesture, condemned a surrendered army of fifteen thousand to their deaths; that he had sat a throne of gold, silver and onyx, like a glutton stuffed to overflowing with such material wealth that it had lost all meaning, all value... ah well, all that remained of such times, such glory, was the man himself, his sword, his armour, and a handful of antiquated coins in his pouch. Endless betrayals, a sea of faces made blurry and vague by centuries, with naught but the avaricious, envious glitter of their eyes remaining sharp in his mind; the sweep of smoke and fire and faint screams as empires toppled, one after another; the chaos of brutal nights fleeing a palace inflames, fleeing such a tide of vengeful fools that even Kallor could not kill them all– much as he wanted to, oh, yes– none of these things awakened bitter ire in his soul. Herein this wasteland that no one wanted, he was a man at peace.\n\nSuch truth could not be challenged, and were someone to rise up from the very earth now and stand in such challenge, why, he would cut him to pieces. Smiling all the while to evince his calm repose.\n\nToo much weight was given to history, as far as Kallor was concerned. One's own history; that of peoples, cultures, landscapes. What value peering at past errors in judgement, at mischance and carelessness, when the only reward after all that effort was regret? Bah! Regret was the refuge of fools, and Kallor was no fool. He had lived out his every ambition, after all, lived each one out until all colour was drained away, leaving a bleached, wan knowledge that there wasn't much in life truly worth the effort to achieve it. That the rewards proved ephemeral; nay, worthless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every emperor in every realm, through all of time itself, soon found that the lofty title and all its power was an existence devoid of humour. Even excess and indulgences palled, eventually. And the faces of the dying, the tortured, well, they were all the same, and not one of those twisted expressions vouchsafed a glimmer of revelation, the discovery of some profound, last-breath secret that answered all the great questions. No, every face simply pulled into itself, shrank and recoiled even as agony tugged and stretched, and whatever the bulging eyes saw at the last moment was, Kallor now understood, something utterly... banal.\n\nNow there was an enemy– banality. The demesne of the witless, the proud tower of the stupid. One did not need to bean emperor to witness it– scan the faces of people encircling an overturned carriage, the gleam of their eyes as they strain and stretch to catch a glimpse of blood, of broken limbs, relishing some pointless tragedy that tops up their murky inkwells of life. Watch, yes, those vultures of grief, and then speak of noble humanity, so wise and so virtuous.\n\nUnseen by the ravens or condors, Kallor had now bared his teeth in a bleak smile, as if seeking to emulate the face of that tragically fallen idiot, pinned there beneath the carriage wheel, seeing the last thing he would see, and finding it in the faces of the gawkers, and thinking, Oh, look at you all. So banal. So... banal.\n\nHe startled a hare from some scrub, twenty paces away, and his left hand flashed out, underhand, and a knife sped in a blur, catching the hare in mid-leap, flipping it round in the air before it fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A slight tack, and he halted to stand over the small, motionless body, looking down at the tiny droplets of spilled blood. The knife sunk to the hilt, driven right through just in front of the hips– the gut, then, not good. Sloppy.\n\nHe crouched, pulled loose the knife then quickly sliced open the belly and tugged and tore out the hare's warm intestines. He held the glistening ropes up in one hand, studied them and whispered,\"Banal. '\n\nAn eye of the hare stared up sightlessly, everything behind it closed up, gone away.\n\nBut he'd seen all that before. More times than he could count. Hares, people, all the same. In that last moment, yes, there was nothing to see, so what else to do but go away?\n\nHe flung the guts to one side, picked up the carcass by its elongated hind limbs and resumed his journey. The hare was coming with him. Not that it cared. Later, they'd sit down for dinner.\n\nHigh in the sky overhead, the black specks began a descent. Their equally empty eyes had spied the entrails, spread in lumpy grey ropes on the yellow grasses, now in the lone man's wake. Empty eyes, but a different kind of emptiness. Not that of death's banality, no, but that of life's banality.\n\nThe same kind of eyes as Kallor's own.\n\nAnd this was the mercy in the hare's swift death, for unlike countless hundreds of thousands of humans, the creature's last glimpse was not of Kallor's profoundly empty eyes– a sight that brought terror into the face of every victim.\n\nThe world, someone once said, gives back what is given. In abundance. But then, as Kallor would point out, someone was always saying something. Until he got fed up and had them executed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pray, do not speak tome of weather Not sun, not cloud, not of the places Where storms are born I would not know of wind shivering the heather Nor sleet, nor rain, nor of ancient traces On stone grey and worn\n\nPray, do not regale the troubles of ill health Not self, not kin, not of the old woman At the road's end I will spare no time nor in mercy yield wealth Nor thought, nor feeling, nor shrouds woven To tempt luck's send\n\nPray, tell me of deep chasms crossed Not left, not turned, not of the betrayals Breeding like worms I would you cry out your rage 'gainst what is lost Now strong, now to weep, now to make fist and rail On earth so firm\n\nPray, sing loud the wretched glories of love Now pain, now drunken, now torn from all reason In laughter and tears I would you bargain with the fey gods above Nor care, nor cost, nor turn of season To wintry fears\n\nSing tome this and I will find you unflinching Now knowing, now seeing, now in the face Of the howling storm Sing your life as if a life without ending And your love, sun's bright fire, on its celestial pace To where truth is born\n\nPray, An End to Inconsequential Things Baedisk of Nathilog\n\nDarujhistan. Glories unending! Who could calla single deed inconsequential? This scurrying youth with his arms full of vegetables, the shouts from the stall in his wake, the gauging eye of a guard thirty paces away, assessing the poor likelihood of catching the urchin. Insignificant? Nonsense! Hungry mouths fed, glowing pride, some fewer coins for the hawker, perhaps, but it seemed all profit did was fill a drunken husband's tankard anyway so the bastard could die of thirst for all she cared! A guard's congenitally flawed heartbeat on, not yet pushed to bursting by hard pursuit through the crowded market, and so he lives a few weeks longer, enough to complete his full twenty years' service and so guarantee his wife and children a pension. And of course the one last kiss was yet to come, the kiss that whispered volumes of devotion and all the rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pot-thrower in the hut behind the shop, hands and forearms slick with clay, dreaming, yes, of the years in which a life took shape, when each press of a fingertip sent a deep track across a once smooth surface, changing the future, reshaping the past, and was this not as much chance as design?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all that intent could score a path, that the ripples sent up and down and outward could be surmised by decades of experience, was the outcome ever truly predictable?\n\nOh, of course she wasn't thinking any such thing. An ache in her left wrist obliterated all thoughts beyond the persistent ache itself, and what it might portend and what herbs she would need to brew to ease her discomfort– and how could such concerns be inconsequential?\n\nWhat of the child sitting staring into the doleful eye of a yoked ox outside Corb's Womanly Charms where her mother was inside and had been for near a bell now, though of course Mother had Uncle-Doruth-who-was-a-secret for company which was better than an ox that did nothing but moan? The giant, soft, dark-so-dark brown eye stared back and to think in both directions was obvious but what was the ox thinking except that the yoke was heavy and the cart even heavier and it'd be nice to lie down and what could the child bethinking about but beef stew and so no little philosopher was born, although in years to come, why, she'd have her own uncle-who-was-a-secret and thus like her mother enjoy all the fruits of marriage with few of the niggling pits.\n\nAnd what of the sun high overhead, bursting with joyous light to bathe the wondrous city like a benediction of all things consequential? Great is the need, so sudden, so pressing, to reach up, close fingers about the fiery orb, to drag it back– and back! – into night and its sprawled darkness, where all manner of things of import have trembled the heavens and the very roots of the earth, or nearly so.\n\nBack, then, the short round man demands, for this is his telling, his knowing, his cry of Witness! echoing still, and still. The night of arrivals, the deeds of the arrived, even as night arrives! Let nothing of consequence be forgot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let nothing of inconsequence be deemed so and who now could even imagine such things to exist, recalling with wise nod the urchin thief, the hawker, the guard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thrower of pots and the child and the ox and Uncle Doruth with his face between the legs of another man's wife, all to come (excuse!) in the day ahead.\n\nMark, too, this teller of the tale, with his sage wink. We are in the midst!\n\nNight, shadows overlapping, a most indifferent blur that would attract no one's notice, barring that nuisance of a cat on the sill of the estate, amber eyes tracking now as one shadow moves out from its place of temporary concealment. Outgoes this errant shadow, across the courtyard, into deeper shadows against the estate's wall.\n\nCrouching, Torvald Nom looked up to seethe cat's head and those damned eyes, peering down at him. A moment later the head withdrew, taking its wide gaze with it. He made his stealthy way to the back corner, paused once more. He could hear the gate guards, a pair of them, arguing over something, tones of suspicion leading to accusation answered by protestations of denial but Damn you, Doruth, I just don't trust you-\n\n-No reason not to, Milok. I ever give you one? No-\n\n-To Hood you ain't. My first wife-\n\n-Wouldn't leave me alone, I swear! She stalked me like a cat a rat-\n\n-A rat! Aye, that's about right-\n\n-I swear, Milok, she very nearly raped me-\n\n-The first time! I know, she told me all about it, with eyes so bright!-\n\n-Heard it made you horny as Hood's black sceptre-\n\n-That ain't any of your business, Doruth-\n\nAnd something soft brushed against Torvald's leg. The cat, purring like soft gravel, back bowed, tail writhing. He lifted his foot, held it hovering over the creature. Hesitated, then settled it back down. By Apsalar's sweet kiss, the kit's eyes and ears might be a boon, come to think of it. Assuming it had the nerve to follow him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald eyed the wall, the cornices, the scrollwork metopes, the braided false columns. He wiped sweat from his hands, dusted them with the grit at the wall's base, then reached up for handholds, and began to climb.\n\nHe gained the sill of the window on the upper floor, pulled himself onto it, balanced on his knees. True, never wise, but the fall wouldn't kill him, wouldn't even sprain an ankle, would it? Drawing a dagger he slipped the blade in between the shutters, carefully felt for the latch.\n\nThe cat, alighting beside him, nearly pitched him from the sill, but he managed to recover, swearing softly under his breath as he resumed working the lock.\n\n-She still loves you, you know-\n\n-What-\n\n-She does. She just likes some variety. I tell you, Milok, this last one of yours was no easy conquest-\n\n-You swore!-\n\n-You're my bestest, oldest friend. No more secrets between us! And when I swear to that, as I'm doing now, I mean it true. She's got an appetite so sharing shouldn't be a problem. I ain't better than you, just different, that's all. Different-\n\n-How many times a week, Duroth? Tell me true!-\n\n-Oh, every second day or so-\n\n-But I'm every second day, too!-\n\n-Odd, even, I guess. Like I said, an appetite-\n\n-I'll say-\n\n-After shift, let's go get drunk-\n\n-Aye, we can compare and contrast-\n\n-I love it. Just that, hah!... Hey, Milok...-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-Aye?-\n\n-How old's your daughter?-\n\nThe latch clicked, springing free the shutters just as a sword hissed from a scabbard and, amidst wild shouting, a fight was underway at the gate.\n\n-A joke! Honest! Just a joke, Milok!-\n\nVoices now from the front of the house, as Torvald slid his dagger blade between the lead windows and lifted the inside latch. He quickly edged into the darkroom, as boots rapped on the compound and more shouting erupted at the front gate. A lantern crashed and someone's sword went flying to skitter away on the cobbles.\n\nTorvald quickly closed the shutters, then the window.\n\nThe infernal purring was beside him, a soft jaw rubbing against a knee. He reached for the cat, fingers twitching, hesitated, then withdrew his hand. Pay attention to the damned thing, right, so when it hears what can't be heard and when it sees what can't be seen, yes...\n\nPivoting in his crouch, he scanned the room. Some sort of study, though most of the shelves were bare. Overreaching ambition, this room, a sudden lurch towards culture and sophistication, but of course it was doomed to failure. Money wasn't enough. Intelligence helped. Taste, an inquisitive mind, an interest in other stuff– stuff out of immediate sight, stuff having nothing to do with whatever. Wasn't enough to simply send some servant to scour some scrollmonger's shop and say'I\"ll take that shelf's worth, and that one, too. \"Master's not too discriminating, yes. Master probably can't even read so what difference does it make?\n\nHe crept over to the one shelf on which were heaped a score or so scrolls, along with one leather-bound book. Each scroll was rolled tight, tied with some seller's label– just as he had suspected. Torvald began reading through them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Treatise on Drainage Grooves in Stone Gutters of Gadrobi District, Nineteenth Report in the Year of the Shrew, Extraordinary Subjects, Guild of Quarry Engineering. Author: Member 322.\n\nTales of Pamby Doughty and the World Inside the Trunk (with illustrations by some dead man).\n\nThe Lost Verses of Anomandaris, with annotation. Torvald's brows rose, since this one might actually be worth something. He quickly slipped the string off and unfurled the scroll. The vellum was blank, barring a short annotation at the bottom that read: No scholarly erudition is possible at the moment. And a publisher's mark denoting this scroll as part of a series of Lost Works, published by the Vellum Makers' Guild of Pale.\n\nHe rolled the useless thing backup, plucked out one more.\n\nAn Illustrated Guide to Headgear of Cobblers of Genabaris in the fourth century, Burn's Sleep, by Cracktooth Filcher, self-avowed serial collector and scourge of cobblers, imprisoned for life. A publication of Prisoner's Pit Library, Nathilog.\n\nHe had no doubt the illustrations were lavish and meticulous, detailed to excess, but somehow his curiosity was not up to the challenge of perusal.\n\nBy now the commotion at the gate had been settled. Various members of the guard had returned from the fracas, with much muttering and cursing that fell away abruptly as soon as they entered the main house on their way to their rooms, telling Torvald that the master was indeed home and probably asleep. Which was something of a problem, given just how paranoid the bastard was and as the likely hiding place of his trove was somewhere in his damned bedroom. Well, the world presented its challenges, and without challenges life was worthless and pointless and, most crucially, devoid of interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved to the door leading to the hallway, pausing to wrap a cloth about his face, leaving only his eyes free. The cat watched intently. Lifting the latch he tugged the door open and peered out into the corridor. Left, the outer, back wall not three paces away. Right, the aisle reaching all the way through the house. Doors and a central landing for the staircase. And a guard, seated facing that landing. Black hair, red, bulbous nose, protruding lower lip, and enough muscles slabbed onto a gigantic frame to fill out two or three Torvald Noms. The fool was knitting, his mouth moving and brow knotting as he counted stitches.\n\nAnd there was the horrid cat, padding straight for him.\n\nTorvald quietly closed the door.\n\nHe should have strangled the thing.\n\nFrom the corridor he heard a grunting curse, then boots thumping down the stairs.\n\nOpening the door once more he looked out. The guard was gone, the knitting lying on the floor with one strand leading off down the stairs.\n\nHah! Brilliant cat! Why, if he met it again he'd kiss it– but nowhere near where it licked itself because there were limits, after all, and anywhere a cat could lick itself was nowhere he'd kiss.\n\nTorvald quickly closed the door behind him and tiptoed up the corridor. A cautious glance down the wide, central staircase. Wherever the cat had runoff with the ball of wool, it was out of sight, and so too the guard. He faced the ornate double doors directly behind the vacated wooden chair.\n\nLocked?\n\nYes.\n\nHe drew his dagger and slid the thin blade between the doors.\n\nOrnate decoration was often accompanied by neglect of the necessary mechanisms, and this lock followed the rule, as he felt the latch lift away. Boots sounded downstairs. He tugged open the door and quickly slipped inside, crouching once more. A front room, an office of sorts, with a single lantern on a short wick casting faint light across the desk and its strewn heap of papyrus sheets. A second door, smaller, narrow, behind the desk's high-backed plush chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald Nom tiptoed towards it.\n\nPausing at the desk to douse the lantern, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, crouching yet lower to squint at the crack beneath the bedroom door, pleased to find no thread of light. Drawing up against the panelled wood with its gold-leaf insets now dull in the gloom. No lock this time. Hinges feeling well oiled. He slowly worked the door open.\n\nInside, quietly shutting the door behind him.\n\nSoft breathing from the huge four-poster bed. Then a sigh. \"Sweet sliverfishy, is that you?\"\n\nA woman's husky, whispering voice, and now stirring sounds from the bed.\n\n\"The night stalker this time? Ooh, that one's fun– I'll keep my eyes closed and whimper lots when you threaten me to stay quiet. Hurry, I'm lying here, petrified. Someone's in my room!\"\n\nTorvald Nom hesitated, truly torn between necessity and... well, necessity.\n\nHe untied his rope belt. And, in a hissing voice, demanded, \"First, the treasure. Where is it, woman?\"\n\nShe gasped. \"That's a good voice! Anew one! The treasure, ah! You know where it is, you horrible creature! Right here between my legs! '\n\nTorvald rolled his eyes. \"Not that one. The other one.\"\n\n\"If I don't tell you? '\n\n\"Then I will have my way with you.\"\n\n\"Oh! I say nothing! Please!\"\n\nDamn, he sure messed that one up. There was noway she'd not know he wasn't who he was pretending to be, even when that someone was pretending to be someone else. How to solve this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get on your stomach. Now, on your hands and knees. Yes, like that.\"\n\n\"You're worse than an animal! '\n\nTorvald paused at the foot of the bed. Worse than an animal? What did that mean? Shaking his head, he climbed onto the bed. Well, here goes nothing.\n\nA short time later: \"Sliverfishy! The new elixir? Gods, it's spectacular! Why, I can't call you sliverfishy anymore, can I? More like... a salmon! Charging upstream! Oh!\"\n\n\"The treasure, or I'll use this knife. ' And he pressed the cold blade of the dagger against the outside of her right thigh.\n\nShe gasped again. \"Under the bed! Don't hurt me! Keep pushing, damn you! Harder! This one's going to make a baby– I know it! This time, a baby!\"\n\nWell, he did his part anyway, feeding his coins into the temple's cup and all that, and may her prayers guide her true into motherhood's blissful heaven. She collapsed onto the bed, groaning, while he backed off, knelt on the cold wooden floor and reached under the bed, knuckles skinning against a large, low longbox. Groping, he found one handle and dragged it out.\n\nShe moaned. \"Oh, don't start counting again, darling. Please. You ruin everything when you do that! '\n\n\"Not counting, woman. Stealing. Stay where you are. Eyes closed. Don't move. '\n\n\"It just sounds silly now, you know that.\"\n\n\"Shut up, or I'll do you again. '\n\n\"Ah! What was that elixir again?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He prised open the lock with the tip of the dagger. Inside, conveniently stored in burlap sacks tagged with precise amounts, a fortune of gems, jewels and high councils. He quickly collected the loot.\n\n\"You are counting!\"\n\n\"I warned you.\" He climbed back onto the bed. Looked down and saw that promises weren't quite enough. Gods below, if you only were.\"Listen, \"he said,\"I need more elixir.\n\nIn the office. Don't move.\"\n\n\"I won't. I promise. '\n\nHe hurried out, crept across the outer room and paused at the doors to the corridor to press his ear against the panel.\n\nSoftly, the slither-click of bamboo knitting needles.\n\nTorvald slid the dagger into its scabbard, reversed grip, opened the door, looked down at the top of the guard's hairy head, and swung hard. The pommel crunched. The man sagged in his chair, then folded into a heap at the foot of the chair.\n\nThe cat was waiting by the library door.\n\n\n\nUncle One, Uncle Two, Father None. Aunt One, Aunt Two, Mother None.\n\nPresent and on duty, Uncle One, Aunt One and Cousins One, Two, Three. Cousin One edging closer, almost close enough for another hard, sharp jab with an elbow as One made to collect another onion from the heap on the table. But he knew One's games, had a year's list of bruises to prove it, and so, just as accidentally, he took a half-step away, keeping on his face a beaming smile as Aunt One cooed her delight at this sudden bounty, and Uncle One sat opposite, ready to deliver his wink as soon as he glanced over– which he wouldn't do yet because timing, as Uncle Two always told him, was everything. Besides, he needed to be aware of Cousin One especially now that the first plan had been thwarted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One, whose name was Snell, would have to work harder in his head, work that cunning which seemed to come from nowhere and wasn't part of the dull stupidity that was One's actual brain, so maybe it was demons after all, clattering and chittering all their cruel ideas. Snell wouldn't let this rest, he knew. No, he'd remember and start planning. And the hurt would be all the worse for that.\n\nBut right now he didn't care, not about Cousin One, not about anything that might come later tonight or tomorrow. He'd brought food home, after all, an armload of food, delivering his treasure to joyous cries of relief.\n\nAnd the man whose name he'd been given, the man long dead who was neither Uncle One nor Uncle Two but had been Uncle Three and not, of course, Father One, well, that man would be proud that the boy with his name was doing what was needed to keep the family together.\n\nCollecting his own onion, the child named Harllo made his way to a safe corner of the single room, and, moments before taking a bite, glanced up to meet Uncle One's eyes, to catch the wink and then nod in answer.\n\nJust like Uncle Two always said, timing was how a man measured the world, and his place in it. Timing wasn't a maybe world, it was a world of yes and no, this, not that. Now, not later. Timing belonged to all the beasts of nature that hunted other creatures. It belonged to the tiger and its fixed, watching eyes. It belonged, too, to the prey, when the hunter became hunted, like with Cousin One, each momenta contest, a battle, a duel. But Harllo was learning the tiger's way, thanks to Uncle Two, whose very skin could change into that of a tiger, when anger awakened cold and deadly. Who had a tiger's eyes and was the bravest, wisest man in all of Darujhistan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the only one, apart from young Harllo himself, who knew the truth of Aunt Two, who wasn't Aunt Two at all, but Mother One." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even if she wouldn't admit it, wouldn't ever say it, and wouldn't have hardly nothing to do with her only child, her son of Rape. Once, Harllo had thought that Rape was his father's name, but now he knew it was a thing people did to other people, as mean as an elbow in the ribs, maybe meaner. And that was why Mother One stayed Aunt Two, and why on those rare occasions she visited she wouldn't meet Harllo's eyes no matter how he tried, and why she wouldn't say anything about nothing except with a voice that was all anger.\n\n\"Aunt Stonny hates words, Harllo,\" Gruntle had explained, \"but only when those words creep too close to her, to where she hides, you see?\"\n\nYes, he saw. He saw plenty.\n\nSnell caught his eye and made a wicked face, mouthing vicious promises. His little sister, Cousin Two, whose name was Mew, was watching from where she held onto the table edge, seeing but not understanding because how could she, being only three years old; while Cousin Three, another girl but this one named Hinty, was all swathed in the cradle and safe in there, safe from everything, which was how it should be for the littlest ones.\n\nHarllo was five, maybe close to six, but already tall– stretched, laughed Gruntle, stretched and scrawny because that's how boys grow.\n\nAunt Myrla had the rest of the vegetables in a steaming pot over the hearth, and Harllo saw her flick a knowing look at her husband, who nodded, not pausing in massaging the stumps below his knees, where most people had shins and ankles and then feet, but Uncle Bedek had had an accident– which was something like Rape only not on purpose– and so he couldn't walk anymore which made life hard for them all, and meant Harllo had to do what was needed since Snell didn't seem interested in doing anything. Except torment Harllo, of course." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air in the cramped room was smelling earthy and sweet now, as Myrla fed more dung onto the small hearth beneath the pot. Harllo knew he'd have to go out and collect more come the morrow and that might mean right out of the city, up along the West Shore of the lake, which was an adventure.\n\nSnell finished his onion and crept closer to Harllo, hands tightening into fists.\n\nBut Harllo had already heard the boots in the alley outside, crackling on the dead fronds from the collapsed roof opposite, and a moment later Uncle Two swept the hanging aside and leaned into the room, the barbs on his face looking freshly painted, so stark were they, and his eyes glowed like candle flames. His smile revealed fangs.\n\nBedek waved. \"Gruntle! Do come in, old friend! See how Myrla readies a feast!\"\n\n\"Well timed, then,\" the huge man replied, entering the room, \"for I have brought smoked horse.\" Seeing Harllo, he waved the boy over. \"Need to put some muscle on this one.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Myrla, \"he never sits still, that's his problem. Not fora moment! '\n\nSnell was scowling, scuttling in retreat and looking upon Gruntle with hatred and fear.\n\nGruntle picked up Harllo, then held him squirming under one arm as he took the two steps to the hearth to hand Myrla a burlap-wrapped package.\n\nBedek was eyeing Gruntle. \"Glad you made it back,\" he said in a low voice. \"Heard about you at the gate and that moment in Worrytown– damn, but I wish I wasn't so... useless. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Setting Harllo down, Gruntle sighed. \"Maybe your days of riding with caravans are done, but that doesn't make you useless. You're raising a fine family, Bedek, a fine family.\"\n\n\"I ain't raising nothing, \"Bedek muttered, and Harllo knew that tone, knew it all too well, and it might be days, maybe even a week, before Uncle One climbed backup from the dark, deep hole he was now in. The problem was, Bedek liked that place, liked the way Myrla closed round him, all caresses and embraces and soft murmurings, and it'd goon like that until the night came when they made noises in their bed, and come the next morning, why, Bedek would be smiling.\n\nWhen Myrla was like that, though, when she was all for her husband and nothing else, it fell to Harllo to tend to the girls and do everything that was needed, and worst of all, it meant no one was holding back Snell. The beatings would get bad, then.\n\nMyrla couldn't work much, not since the last baby, when she'd hurt something in her belly and now she got tired too easy, and even this glorious supper she was creating would leave her exhausted and weak with a headache. When able, she'd mend clothes, but that wasn't happening much of late, which made Harllo's raiding the local markets all the more important.\n\nHe stayed close to Gruntle, who now sat opposite Uncle Bedek and had produced ajar of wine, and this kept Snell away for now, which of course only made things worse later but that was all right. You couldn't choose your family, after all, not your cousins, not anyone. They were there and that was that." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-writing with the writer, continue the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A third cry, yet more powerful, more demanding.\n\nNimander fell, pulled down by Skintick's weight. Too late– they would turnabout, rise, set out for the field– the pain held him in its deadly, delicious embrace– too late, now-\n\nHe heard the inn's door slam open behind them.\n\nThen Aranatha was there, blank-eyed, dark skin almost blue, reaching down to grasp them both by their cloaks. The strength she kept hidden was unveiled suddenly, and they were being dragged towards the door– where more hands took them, tugged them inside-\n\nAnd all at once the compulsion vanished.\n\nGasping, Nimander found himself lying on his back, staring up at Kedeviss's face, wondering at her calculating, thoughtful expression.\n\nA cough from Skintick at his side. \"Mother Dark save us!\"\n\n\"Not her,\" said Kedeviss. \"Just Aranatha.\"\n\nAranatha, who flinches at shadows, ducks beneath the cry of a hunting hawk. She hides her other self behind a wall no power can surmount. Hides it. Until it's needed.\n\nYes, he could feel her now, an emanation of will filling the entire chamber. Assailed, but holding. As it would.\n\nAs it must.\n\nAnother cough from Skintick. \"Oh, dear...\"\n\nAnd Nimander understood. Clip was out there. Clip, face to face with the Dying God. Unprotected.\n\nMortal Sword of Darkness. Is that protection enough? But he feared it was not. Feared it, because he did not believe Clip was the Mortal Sword of anything. He faced Skintick. \"What do we do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. He may already be... lost. '\n\nNimander glanced over at Aranatha. \"Can we make it to the tavern?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"We should never have left him,\" announced Nenanda.\n\n\"Don't bean idiot, ' Kedeviss snapped.\n\nSkintick still sat on the floor, clawing periodically at his face, wracked with shivers. \"What manner of sorcery afflicts this place? How can a god's blood do this? '\n\nNimander shook his head. \"I have never heard of anything like what is happening here, Skintick. The Dying God. It bleeds poison.\" He struggled to keep from weeping. Everything seemed stretched thin, moments from tearing to pieces, a reality all at once in tatters, whipped away on mad winds.\n\nSkintick's sigh was ragged.\"Poison. Then why do I thirst for more? '\n\nThere was no answer for that. Is this a truth made manifest? Do we all feed on the pain of others? Do we laugh and dance upon suffering, simply because it is not our own? Can such a thing become addictive? An insatiable need?\n\nAll at once the distant moaning changed pitch, became screams. Terrible, raw– the sounds of slaughter. Nenanda was suddenly at the door, his sword out.\n\n\"Wait!\" cried Kedeviss. \"Listen! That's not him. That's them! He's murdering them all– do you want to help, Nenanda? Do you? '\n\nNenanda seemed to slump. He stepped back, shaken, lost.\n\nThe shrieks did not last long. And when the last one wavered, sank into silence, even the Dying God's cries had stilled. Beyond the door of the inn, there was nothing, as if the village– the entire outside world– had been torn away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside, none slept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each had pulled away from the others, coveting naught but their own thoughts, listening only to the all too familiar voice that was a soul's conversation with itself. On the faces of his kin, Nimander saw, there was dull shock, a bleakness to the staring, unseeing eyes. He felt the surrender of Aranatha's will, her power, as the threat passed, as she withdrew once more so far inward that her expression grew slack, almost lifeless, the shy, skittering look not ready to awaken once more.\n\nDesra stood at the window, the inside shutters pulled to either side, staring out upon an empty main street as the night crawled on, leaving Nimander to wonder at the nature of her internal dialogue– if such a thing existed, if she was not just a creature of sensation, riding currents of instinct, every choice re-framed into simple demands of necessity.\n\n\"There is cruelty in your thoughts.\"\n\nPhaed. Leave me alone, ghost.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong. I approve. Desra is a slut. She has a slut's brain, the kind that confuses giving with taking, gift with loss, invitation with surrender. She is power's whore, Nimander, and so she stands there, waiting to see him, waiting to see this strutting murderer that she would take to her bed. Confusions, yes. Death with life. Desperation with celebration. Fear with need and lust with love. '\n\nGo away.\n\n\"But you don't really want that, because then it would leave you vulnerable to that other voice in your head. The sweet woman murmuring all those endearing words– do I recall ever hearing such when she was alive? '\n\nStop.\n\n\"In the cage of your imagination, blissfully immune to all that was real– the cruel indifferences, yes– you make so much of so little, Nimander. A chance smile. A look. In your cage she lies in your arms, and this is the purest love, isn't it? Unsullied, eternal-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stop, Phaed. You know nothing. You were too young, too self-obsessed, to see anything of anyone else, unless it threatened you.\n\n\"And she was not a threat?\"\n\nYou never wanted me that way– don't be absurd, ghost. Don't invent-\n\n\"I invent nothing! You were just too blinded to see what was right in front of you! And did she die at the spear of a Tiste Edur? Did she truly? Where was I at that moment, Nimander? Do you recall seeing meat all?\"\n\nNo, this was too much.\n\nBut she would not relent. \"Why do you think the idea of killing Sandalath was so easy for me? My hands were already stained-\"\n\nStop!\n\nLaughter, ringing through his head.\n\nHe willed himself to say nothing, waited for those chilling peals of mirth to dwindle, grow ever fainter.\n\nWhen she spoke again in his mind there was no humour at all in her tone. \"Nenanda wants to replace you. He wants the command you possess, the respect the others hold for you. He will take it, when he sees his chance. Do not trust him, Nimander. Strike first. A knife in the back– just as you acted to stop me, so you must do again, and this time you cannot fail. There will be no Withal thereto finish the task. You will have to do it yourself.\"\n\nNimander lifted his gaze, looked upon Nenanda, the straight back, the hand resting on pommel. No, you are lying.\n\n\"Delude yourself if you must– but not for much longer. The luxury must be short-lived. You will need to show your... decisiveness, and soon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And how many more kin do you want to see dead, Phaed?\n\n\"My games are done with. You ended them once and for all. You and the swordsmith. Hate me if you will, but I have talents, and I gift them to you, Nimander– you were the only one to ever listen tome, the only one to whom I opened my heart-\"\n\nHeart? That vile pool of spite you so loved to swim in– that was your heart?\n\n\"You need me. I give strength where you are weakest. Oh, make the bitch murmur of love, fill her mouth with all the right words. If it helps. But she cannot help you with the hard choices a leader must make. Nenanda believes he can do better– see it in his eyes, so quick to challenge.\"\n\n\"It's growing light, \"Desra said from the window. She turned.\"I think we should go out. To the tavern. It maybe he is wounded. It maybe he needs our help. '\n\n\"I recall him not asking for it,\" growled Nenanda.\n\n\"He is not all-powerful,\" said Desra, \"though he might affect such– it comes with being so young.\"\n\nNimander stared across at her. Where did that insight come from?\n\n\"Clip is vulnerable?\" Kedeviss asked in mock surprise. \"Be quick to take advantage of that, Desra.\"\n\n\"The endless siege that is your envy grows wearisome, Kedeviss.\"\n\nKedeviss paled at that and said nothing.\n\nOh, we area vicious bunch, are we not? Nimander rubbed at his face, then said, \"Let's go, then, and see for ourselves what has become of him. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desra was first through the door.\n\nOut into pale silvery light, a cerulean sky devoid of clouds, looking somehow speckled with grit. The harvested plants drooped in their racks, sodden with dew, the bulbs like swollen heads lined up in rows above the latticework. Nimander saw, as he paused out on the street, that the temple's doors were ajar.\n\nClip was lying on the wooden sidewalk in front of the tavern, curled up, so covered in dried blood that he might have been a figure moulded in black mud.\n\nThey set out towards him.\n\nClip's eyes were open, staring– Nimander wondered if he was dead, until he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest– but showing no awareness of anything, even as they closed round him, even as Nimander knelt in front of him.\n\nSkintick moved up to the tavern doors, pushed them open and stepped inside. He staggered out a moment later, both hands covering his face as he stumbled out into the middle of the street and stood there, back to the others.\n\nSlaughter. He slaughtered them all. Clip's sword was lying nearby, thick with gore, as if the entire weapon had been dragged through some enormous beast.\n\n\"They took something from him,\" Aranatha said. \"Gone. Gone away.\"\n\nNenanda broke into a jog, straight for the temple opposite.\n\n\"Gone for good?\" Nimander asked Aranatha.\n\n\"I don't know. '\n\n\"How long can he live this way?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Force food and water into him, keep his wounds clean...\"\n\nLong moments when no one spoke, when it seemed not a single question could be found, could be cleaned off and uttered in the name of normality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nenanda returned. \"They've fled, the priests, all fled. Where was the Dying God supposed to be? '\n\n\"A place named Bastion,\" said Kedeviss. \"West of here, I think.\"\n\n\"We need to go there,\" Nimander said, straightening to face the others.\n\nNenanda bared his teeth. \"To avenge him.\"\n\n\"To get him back,\" Nimander retorted. \"To get back to him whatever they took.\"\n\nAranatha sighed. \"Nimander...\"\n\n\"No, we go to Bastion. Nenanda, see if there're any horses, or better yet, an ox and wagon– there was a large stable behind the inn. \"He looked down at Clip.\"I don't think we have the time to walk.\"\n\nAs the three women set out to collect the party's gear, followed for the moment by Nenanda, Nimander turned to study the tavern's entrance. He hesitated– even from here he could see something: dark sprawled shapes, toppled chairs; and now the buzz of flies spun out from the gloom within.\n\n\"Don't, \"said Skintick behind him.\"Nimander. Don't.\"\n\n\"I have seen dead people before.\"\n\n\"Not like these.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"They are all smiling.\"\n\nNimander faced his closest friend, studied his ravaged face, and then nodded. After a moment he asked, \"What made the priests flee?\"\n\n\"Aranatha, I think,\" answered Skintick.\n\nNimander nodded, believing the same. They had taken Clip– even with all the dead villagers, the priests had taken Clip, perhaps his very soul, as a gift to the Dying God. But they could do nothing against the rest of them– not while Aranatha resisted. Fearing retribution, they fled in the night– away, probably to Bastion, to the protection of their god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nimander,\" said Skintick in a low, hollow voice, \"we are forced.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Awakened once more.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I had hoped... never again.\"\n\nI know, Skintick. You would rather smile and jest, as befits your blessed nature. Instead, the face you will turn towards what is to come... it will be no different from ours, and have we not all looked upon one another in those times? Have we not seen the mirrors we became to each other? Have we not recoiled?\n\nAwakened.\n\nWhat lay in the tavern was only the beginning. Merely Clip and his momentary, failing frenzy.\n\nFrom this point on, what comes belongs to us.\n\nTo that, even Phaed was silent. While somewhere in the mists of his mind, so faint as to be almost lost, a woman wept.\n\nIt was a quirk of blind optimism that held that someone broken could, in time, heal, could reassemble all the pieces and emerge whole, perhaps even stronger for the ordeal. Certainly wiser, for what else could be the reward for suffering? The notion that did not sit well, with anyone, was that one so broken might remain that way– neither dying (and so removing the egregious example of failure from all mortal eyes) nor improving. A ruined soul should not be stubborn, should not cling to what was clearly a miserable existence.\n\nFriends recoil. Acquaintances drift away. And the one who fell finds a solitary world, a place where no refuge could be found from loneliness when loneliness was the true reward of surviving forever maimed, forever weakened. Yet who would not choose that fate, when the alternative was pity?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, pity was a virtually extinct sentiment among the Tiste Andii, and this Endest Silann saw as a rare blessing among his kind. He could not have suffered such regard for very long. As for the torment of his memories, well, it was truly extraordinary how long one could weather that assault. Yet he knew he was not unique in this matter– it was the burden of his entire people, after all. Sufficient to mitigate his loneliness? Perhaps.\n\nDarkness had been silent for so long now, his dreams of hearing the whisper of his realm– of his birthplace– were less than ashes. It was no wonder, then, was it, that he now satin the gloom of his chamber, sheathed in sweat, each trickle seeming to drink all warmth from his flesh. Yes, they had manifested Kurald Galain herein this city, an act of collective will. Yet it was a faceless power– Mother Dark had left them, and no amount of desire on their part could change that.\n\nSo, then, what is this?\n\nWho speaks with such power?\n\nNot a whisper but a shout, a cry that bristled with... what? With affront. Indignation. Outrage. Who is this?\n\nHe knew that he was not alone in sensing this assault– others must be feeling it, throughout Black Coral. Every Tiste Andii probably sat or stood motionless at this moment, heart pounding, eyes wide with fear and wonder. And, perhaps, hope.\n\nCould it be?\n\nHe thought to visit the temple, to hear from the High Priestess herself... something, a pronouncement, a recognition proclaimed. Instead, he found himself staggering out of his room, hurrying up the corridor, and then ascending the stairs, round and round as if caught in a swirling fever. Out into his Lord's south-facing demesne– stumbling into find Anomander Rake seated in his high-backed chair, facing the elongated window and, far below, crashing seas painted black and silver as deep, unknown currents thrashed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My Lord,\" Endest gasped.\n\n\"Did I have a choice?\" Anomander Rake asked, gaze still on the distant tumult.\n\n\"My Lord?\"\n\n\"Kharkanas. Did you agree with her... assessment? Endest Silann? Did I not see true what was to come? Before Light's arrival, we were in a civil war. Vulnerable to the forces soon to be born. Without the blood of Tiamatha, I could never have enforced... peace. Unification. '\n\n\"Sire,\" said Endest Silann, then found he could not goon.\n\nRake seemed to understand, for he sighed and said, \"Yes, a most dubious peace. For so many, the peace of death. As for unification, well, that proved woefully shortlived, did it not? Still, I wonder, if I had succeeded– truly succeeded– would that have changed her mind?\"\n\n\"My Lord– something is happening.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What must we do?\"\n\n\"Ah, my friend, you are right to ask that. Never mind the High Priestess and her answer– always the same one with her, yes? Who cries the war cry of Kurald Galain? Let us seek the answer between her legs. Even that can grow tiresome, eventually. Although do not repeat my words to Spinnock Durav– I would not disaffect his occasional pleasure.\"\n\nEndest Silann wanted to shriek, wanted to lunge against his Lord, grasp him by the neck, and force out– force out what? He did not know. The Son of Darkness was, to his mind, the smartest creature– mortal, immortal, it mattered not– that he had ever met. His thoughts travelled a thousand tracks simultaneously, and no conversation with him could be predicted, no path deemed certain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I cannot give answer this time,\" Anomander Rake then said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nor, I am afraid, can Spinnock. He will be needed... elsewhere.\" And now his head turned, and his eyes fixed upon Endest Silann. \"It must fall to you, again. Once more.\"\n\nEndest felt his soul recoil in horror, shrink back into whatever cave it had clawed out for itself somewhere down in the mined-out pit of his heart. \"Sire, I cannot.\"\n\nAnomander seemed to consider that fora time, ten thousand tracks danced across, onto something new that triggered faint surprise on his features. And he smiled. \"I understand. I will not ask again, then.\"\n\n\"Then... then what– who? Sire– I do not-\"\n\nThe wryness of Anomander Rake's tone jarred terribly with his words,\"Reborn into fury, oh, would that I could see that. \"Then his voice grew sober.\"You were right– you cannot stand in my stead. Do not intercede in anyway, Endest Silann. Do not set yourself between two forces, neither of which you can withstand. You may well feel the need, but defy it with all your will. You must not be lost. '\n\n\"Sire, I do not understand.\"\n\nBut Anomander Rake raised one hand.\n\nAnd yes, the emanation was gone. Darkness was silent once more. Whatever had come into their world had vanished.\n\nEndest found he was trembling. \"Will– will it return, my Lord?\"\n\nThe Son of Darkness studied him with strangely veiled eyes, then rose and walked over to the window. \"Look, the seas grow calm once more. A most worthy lesson, I think. Nothing lasts forever. Not violence, not peace. Not sorrow, old friend, nor rage. Look well upon this black sea, Endest Silann, in the nights ahead. To calm your fears. To offer you guidance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, just like that, he knew he was dismissed.\n\nBemused, frightened of a future he knew he was not intelligent enough to yet comprehend, he bowed, then departed. Corridors and stairs, and not so much as an echo remained. He recalled an old prayer, the one whispered before battle.\n\nLet Darkness receive my every breath With her own.\n\nLet our lives speak in answer unto death Never alone.\n\nBut now, at this moment, he had never felt more alone. The warriors no longer voiced that prayer, he well knew. Darkness did not wait to receive a breath, nor the last breath that bridged life and death. A Tiste Andii warrior fought in silence, and when he or she fell, they fell alone. More profoundly alone than anyone who was not Tiste Andii could comprehend.\n\nAnew vision entered his head then, jarring him, halting him halfway down the stairs. The High Priestess, back arching, crying out in ecstasy– or desperation, was there truly a difference?\n\nHer search. Her answer that was no answer at all.\n\nYes, she speaks for us, does she not?\n\n\"He is troubled,\" Salind murmured, only now shaking off the violent cold that had gripped her. \"The Redeemer stirred awake then, for some reason unknown and, to us, unknowable. But I felt him. He is most troubled...\"\n\nThe half-dozen pilgrims gathered round the fire all nodded, although none possessed her percipience in these matters, too bound up still in the confused obstinacy of mortality's incessant demands, and, of course, there was the dread, now, the one that had stalked them every moment since the Benighted's abandonment, an abandonment they saw as a turning away, which was deemed just, because none there had proved worthy of Seerdomin and the protection he offered. Yes, he was right in denying them. They had all failed him. In someway as yet undetermined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Salind understood all these notions, and even, to some extent– this alone surprising given her few years– comprehended the nature of self-abnegation that could give rise to them. People in great need were quick to find blame in themselves, quick to assume the burden of guilt for things they in truth had no control over and could not hope to change. It was, she had begun to understand, integral to the very nature of belief, of faith. A need that could not be answered by the self was then given over to someone or something greater than oneself, and this form of surrender was a lifting of avast, terrible weight.\n\nIn faith could be found release. Relief.\n\nAnd so this enormous contradiction is laid bare. The believers yield all, into the arms of the Redeemer– who by his very nature can release nothing, can find nothing in the way of relief, and so can never surrender.\n\nWhere then the Redeemer's reward?\n\nSuch questions were not for her. Perhaps indeed they were beyond answering. For now, there was before her a mundane concern, of the most sordid kind. A dozen ex-soldiers, probably from the Pannion Tenebrii, now terrorized the pilgrim encampment. Robbing the new arrivals before they could set their treasures upon the barrow. There had been beatings, and now a rape.\n\nThis informal gathering, presumably the camp's representatives, had sought her out, pleading for help, but what could she say to them? We were wrong to believe in the Benighted. I am sorry. He was not what we thought he was. He looked into my eyes and he refused. I am sorry. I cannot help you.\n\n\"You say the Redeemer is troubled, Priestess,\" said the spokesman, a wiry middle-aged man who had once been a merchant in Capustan– fleeing west before the siege, a refugee in Saltoan who had seen with his own eyes the Expulsion, the night when the advance agents of the Pannion Domin were driven out of that city. He had been among the first of the pilgrims to arrive at the Great Barrow and now it seemed he would stay, perhaps for the rest of his life. Whatever wealth he had once possessed was now part of the barrow, now a gift to a god who had been a man, a man he had once seen with his own eyes. \"Surely this is because of Gradithan and his thugs. The Redeemer was a soldier in his life. Will he not reach out and smite those who prey upon his followers?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Salind held out her hands, palms up. \"Friend, we do not converse. My only gift is this... sensitivity. But I do not believe that the source of the Redeemer's disquiet lies in the deeds of Gradithan and his cohorts. There was a burgeoning of... something. Not close at hand, yet of such power to make the ether tremble. \"She hesitated, then said,\"It had the flavour of Kurald Galain– the warren of the Tiste Andii. And, \"she frowned,\"something else that I have felt before. Many times, in fact. As if a storm raged far to the south, one that returns again and again. '\n\nBlank faces stared at her.\n\nSalind sighed. \"See the clouds roll in from the sea– can we halt their progress? Can we– any of us– drive back the winds and rain, the hail? No. Such forces are far above us, far beyond our reach, and they rage as they will, fighting wars in the heavens. This, my friends, is what I am feeling– when something ripples through the ether, when a storm awakens to the south, when the Redeemer shifts uneasy and is troubled.\"\n\n\"Then we are nothing to him,\" said the merchant, sorrow brimming in his eyes. \"I surrendered everything, all my wealth, for yet another indifferent god. If he cannot protect us, what is the point?\"\n\nShe wished that she had an answer to such questions. Were these not the very grist of priestly endeavours? To grind out palatable answers, to hint of promising paths to true salvation? To show a benign countenance gifted by god-given wisdom, glowing as if fanned by sacred breath? \"It is my feeling,\" she said, haltingly, \"that a faith that delivers perfect answers to every question is not a true faith, for its only purpose is to satisfy, to ease the mind and so end its questing.\" She held up a hand to still the objections she saw awakened among these six honest, serious believers. 'Is it for faith to deliver peace, when on all sides inequity thrives? For it shall indeed thrive, when the blessed walk past blissfully blind, content in their own moral purity, in the peace filling their souls. Oh, you might then reach out a hand to the wretched by the roadside, offering them your own footprints, and you may seethe blessed burgeon in number, grow into a multitude, until you areas an army. But there will be, will ever be, those who turn away from your hand. The ones who quest because it is in their nature to quest, who fear the seduction of self-satisfaction, who mistrust easy answers. Are these ones then to be your enemy? Does the army grow angered now? Does it strikeout at the unbelievers? Does it crush them underfoot?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My friends, is this not describing the terror this land has just survived?\" Her eyes fixed on the merchant. \"Is this not what destroyed Capustan? Is this not what the rulers of Saltoan so violently rejected when they drove out the Pannion monks? Is this not what the Redeemer died fighting against?\"\n\n\"None of this,\" growled a woman, \"eases my daughter's pain. She was raped, and now there is nothing to be seen in her eyes. She has fled herself and may never return.\n\nGradithan took her and destroyed her. Will he escape all punishment for such a thing? He laughed at me, when I picked up my daughter. When I stood before him with her limp in my arms, he laughed at me. '\n\n\"The Benighted must return,\" said the merchant. \"He must defend us. He must explain to us how we failed him.\"\n\nSalind studied the faces before her, seeing the fear and the anger, the pain and the growing despair. It was not in her to turn them away, yet what could she do? She did not ask to become a priestess– she was not quite sure how it even happened. And what of her own pain? Her own broken history? What of the flesh she had once taken into her mouth? Not the bloody meat of a stranger, no. The First Born of the Tenescowri, Children of the Dead Seed, ah, they were to be special, yes, so special– willing to eat their own kin, and was that not proof of how special they were? What, then, of the terrible need that had brought her here?\n\n\"You must go to him,\" said the merchant. \"We know whereto find him, in Black Coral– I can lead you to him, Priestess. Together, we will demand his help– he was a Seerdomin, a chosen sword of the tyrant. He owes us! He owes us all!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have tried-\"\n\n\"I will help you,\" insisted the merchant. \"I will show him our desire to mend our ways. To accord the Benighted the proper respect.\"\n\nOthers nodded, and the merchant took this in and went on, \"We will help. All of us here, we will stand with you, Priestess. Once he is made to understand what is happening, once we confront him– therein that damned tavern with that damned Tiste Andii he games with– how can he turn away from us yet again?\"\n\nBut what of fairness? What of Seerdomin and his own wounds? Seethe zeal in your fellows– see it in yourself, then ask: where is my compassion when I stand before him, shouting my demands?\n\nWhy will none of you defend yourselves?\n\n\"Priestess!\"\n\n\"Very well.\" And she rose, drawing her woollen robe tight about herself. \"Lead on, then, merchant, to where he maybe found.\"\n\nA man huddled against the counter, sneezing fiercely enough to loosen his teeth, and while this barrage went on none at the table attempted to speak. Hands reached for tankards, kelyk glistened on lips and eyes shone murky and fixed with intent upon the field of battle.\n\nSpinnock Durav waited for Seerdomin to make a move, to attempt something unexpected in the shoring up of his buckling defences– the man was always good fora surprise or two, a flash of tactical genius that could well halt Spinnock in his tracks, even make him stagger. And was this not the very heart of the contest, its bright hint of glory?\n\nThe sneezing fit ended– something that, evidently, came of too much kelyk. A sudden flux of the sinuses, followed by an alarmingly dark discharge– he'd begun to see stains, on walls and pavestones and cobbles, allover the city now. This foreign drink was outselling even ale and wine. And among the drinkers there were now emerging abusers, stumbling glaze-eyed, mouths hanging, tongues like black worms. As yet, Spinnock had not seen such among the Tiste Andii, but perhaps it was only a matter of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sipped at his cup of wine, pleased to note that the trembling in his fingers had finally ceased. The eruption of power from Kurald Galain that had taken him so unawares had vanished, leaving little more than a vague unease that only slightly soured the taste of the wine. Strange disturbances these nights; who could say their portent?\n\nThe High Priestess might have an idea or two, he suspected, although the punctuation of every statement from her never changed, now, did it? Half smiling, he sipped again at his drink.\n\nSeerdomin frowned and sat back. \"This is an assault I cannot survive,\" he pronounced. \"The Jester's deceit was well played, Spinnock. There was no anticipating that. '\n\n\"Truly?\" Spinnock asked. \"With these allies here?\"\n\nSeerdomin grimaced at the other two players, then grunted a sour laugh. \"Ah, yes, I see your point. That kelyk takes their minds, I think.\"\n\n\"Sharpens, just so you know,\" said Garsten, licking his stained lips. \"Although I'd swear, some nights it's more potent than other times, wouldn't you say so, Fuldit? '\n\n\"Eh? Yah, s'pose so. When you gonna move den, Seerdomin? Eh? Resto, bring us another bottle! '\n\n\"Perhaps,\" muttered Seerdomin, \"it's my mind that's not sharp. I believe I must surrender.\"\n\nSpinnock said nothing, although he was disappointed– no, he was shaken. He could see a decent counter, had been assuming his opponent had seen it immediately, but had been busy seeking something better, something wilder. Other nights, Seerdomin's talent would burst through at moments like these– a fearless gambit that seemed to pivot the world on this very tabletop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps if I wait a little longer-\n\n\"I yield,\" said Seerdomin.\n\nWords uttered, a crisis pronounced.\n\n\"Resto, bring us a pitcher, if you'd be so-' Seerdomin got no further. He seemed to jolt back into his chair, as if an invisible hand had just slammed into his chest. His eyes were on the tavern door.\n\nSpinnock twisted in his seat to see that strangers had arrived at the Scour. A young woman wearing a rough-woven russet robe, her haircut short– shorter even than the High Priestess's– yet the same midnight black. A paleface both soft and exquisite, eyes of deep brown, now searching through the gloom, finding at last the one she sought: Seerdomin. Behind her crowded others, all wearing little more than rags, their wan faces tight with something like panic.\n\nThe woman in the lead walked over.\n\nSeerdomin sat like a man nailed to his chair. All colour had left his face a moment earlier, but now it was darkening, his eyes flaring with hard anger.\n\n\"Benighted-\"\n\n\"This is my refuge,\" he said. \"Leave. Now.\"\n\n\"We-\"\n\n\"\"We\"? Look at your followers, Priestess.\"\n\nShe turned, in time to seethe last of them rush out of the tavern door.\n\nSeerdomin snorted.\n\nImpressively, the young woman held her ground. The robe fell open– lacking a belt– and Spinnock Durav judged she was barely adolescent. A priestess? Ah, the Great Barrow, the Redeemer. \"Benighted,\" she resumed, in a voice that few would find hard to listen to, indeed, at length, \"I am not here for myself. Those who were with me insisted, and even if their courage failed them at the end, this makes their need no less valid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They came with demands,\" Seerdomin said. \"They have no right, and they realized the truth of that as soon as they saw me. You should now do the same, and leave as they have.\"\n\n\"I must try-\"\n\nSeerdomin surged to his feet, suddenly enough to startle Garsten and Fuldit despite their addled senses, and both stared up wide-eyed and frightened.\n\nThe priestess did not even flinch. \"I must try,\" she repeated, \"for their sake, and for my own. We are beset in the camp-\"\n\n\"No,\" cut in Seerdomin. \"You have no right.\"\n\n\"Please, will you just listen?\"\n\nThe hard edge of those words clearly surprised Seerdomin. Garsten and Fuldit, collecting their tankards and bottles, quickly left the table.\n\nSpinnock Durav rose, bowed slightly to both, and made for the exit. Ashe passed Resto– who stood motionless with a pitcher in his hand– he said under his breath, \"On my tab, please– this entire night. Seerdomin will have no thought of you when he leaves.\"\n\nResto blinked up at him, then nodded.\n\nIn the darkness opposite the Scour's door, Spinnock Durav waited. He had half expected to seethe pilgrims waiting outside, but the street was empty– they had fled indeed, at a run, probably all the way back to the camp. There was little spine in the followers of the Redeemer.\n\nWith at least one exception, he corrected himself as the priestess stepped outside.\n\nEven from ten paces away, he saw her sag slightly, as if finding herself on suddenly watery legs. Tugging the robe tight round herself, she set off, three, four strides, then slowed and finally halted to turn and face Spinnock Durav." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who came forward. \"My pardon, Priestess,\" he said.\n\n\"Your friend took that pitcher for himself,\" she said. \"Expect along night. If you have a care you can collect him in a few bells– I'd rather he not spend a senseless night lying on that filthy floor. '\n\n\"I would have thought the possibility might please you,\" Spinnock said.\n\nShe frowned. \"No. He is the Benighted.\"\n\n\"And what does that mean?\"\n\nShe hesitated, then said, \"Each day, until recently, he came to the Great Barrow and knelt before it. Not to pray, not to deliver a trinket.\"\n\nConfused, Spinnock Durav asked, \"What, then?\"\n\n\"He would rather that remain a secret, I suspect.\"\n\n\"Priestess, he is my friend. I see well his distress-\"\n\n\"And why does that bother you so? More than a friend might feel– I can sense that. Most friends might offer sympathy, even more, but within them remains the stone thought that they are thankful that they themselves do not share their friend's plight. But that is not within you, not with this Seerdomin. No, \"she drew a step closer, eyes searching,\"he answers a need, and so wounded as he now is, you begin to bleed. '\n\n\"Mother Dark, woman!\"\n\nShe retreated at his outburst and looked away. \"I am sorry. Sir, the Benighted kneels before the Great Barrow and delivers unto the Redeemer the most precious gift of all. Company. Asking for nothing. He comes to relieve the Redeemer's loneliness. \"She ran a hand back through her short hair.\"I sought to tell him something, but he would not hear me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can I-\"\n\n\"I doubt it. I tried to tell him what I am sensing from the Redeemer. Sir, your friend is missed.\" She sighed, turning away. \"If all who worship did so without need. If all came to their saviour unmindful of that title and its burden, if they came as friends-\" she glanced back at him, \"what would happen then, do you think? I wonder...\"\n\nHe watched her walkaway, feeling humbled, too shaken to pursue, to root out the answers– the details– he needed most. To find out what he could do. For Seerdomin. For her.\n\nFor her?\n\nNow, why should she matter? By the Abyss, what has she done tome?\n\nAnd how in the Mother's name can Seerdomin resist her?\n\nHow many women had there been? He had lost count. It would have been better, perhaps, if he'd at least once elected to share his gift of longevity. Better, yes, than watching those few who'd remained with him for any length of time lose all their beauty, surrendering their youth, until there was no choice but for Kallor to discard them, to lock them away, one by one, in some tower on some windswept knoll. What else could he have done? They hobbled into lives of misery, and that misery was an affront to his sensibilities. Too much bitterness, too much malice in those hot, ageing eyes ever fixing upon him. Did he not age as well? True, a year for them was but a heartbeat for Kallor, but seethe lines of his face, seethe slow wasting of muscle, the iron hue of his hair...\n\nIt was not just a matter of choosing the slowest burning wood, after all, was it? And with that thought he kicked at the coals of the fire, watched sparks roil nightward. Sometimes, the urgent flames of the quick and the shortlived delivered their own kind of heat. Hardwood and slow burn, softwood and smouldering reluctance before ashen collapse. Resinous wood and oh how she flared! Blinding, yes, a glory no man could turn from." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Too bad he'd had to kill every child he begat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No doubt that leftmost of his wives and lovers somewhat disaffected. But he had not been so cruel as to hesitate, had he? No. Why, he'd tear those ghastly babes from their mothers'arms not moments after they'd tumbled free of the womb, and was that not a true sign of mercy? No one grows attached to dead things, not even mothers.\n\nAttachments, yes, now they were indeed a waste of time and, more relevantly, a weakness. To rule an empire– to rule a hundred empires– one needed a certain objectivity. All was to be used, to be remade howsoever he pleased. Why, he had launched vast construction projects to glorify his rule, but few understood that it was not the completion that mattered, but the work itself and all that it implied– his command over their lives, their loyalty, their labour. Why, he could work them for decades, see generations of the fools pass one by one, all working each and everyday of their lives, and still they did not understand what it meant for them to give to him– to Kallor– so many years of their mortal existence, so much of it, truly, that any rational soul would howl at the cruel injustice of such a life.\n\nThis was, as far as he was concerned, the real mystery of civilization– and for all that he exploited it he was, by the end, no closer to understanding it. This willingness of otherwise intelligent (well, reasonably intelligent) people to parcel up and then bargain away appalling percentages of their very limited lives, all in service to someone else. And the rewards? Ah, some security, perhaps. The cement that is stability. A sound roof, something on the plate, the beloved offspring each one destined to repeat the whole travail. And was that an even exchange?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would not have been so, for him. He knew that, had known it from the very first. He would bargain away nothing of his life. He would serve no one, yield none of his labour to the edification and ever-expanding wealth of some fool who imagined that his or her own part of the bargain was profound in its generosity, was indeed the most precious of gifts. That to work for him or her was a privilege– gods! The conceit of that! The lie, so bristling and charged in its brazen display!\n\nJust how many rules of civil behaviour were designed to perpetuate such egregious schemes of power and control of the few over the many? Rules defended to the death (usually the death of the many, rarely that of the few) with laws and wars, with threats and brutal repression– ah, those were the days, were they not? How he had gloried in that outrage!\n\nHe would never be one of the multitude. And he had proved it, again and again, and again. And he would continue to prove it.\n\nA crown was within reach. A kingship waited to be claimed. Mastery not over something as mundane as an empire– that game had grown stale long ago– but over a realm. An entity consisting of all the possible forces of existence. The power of earthly flesh, every element unbound, the coruscating will of belief, the skein of politics, religion, social accord, sensibilities, woven from the usual tragic roots of past ages golden and free of pain and new ages bright with absurd promise. While through it all fell the rains of oblivion, the cascading torrent of failure and death, suffering and misery, a god broken and forever doomed to remain so– oh, Kallor knew he could usurp such a creature, leave it as powerless as his most abject subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All– all of it– within his reach.\n\nHe kicked again at the embers, the too-small branches that had made up this shortlived fire, saw countless twigs fall into white ash. A few picked bones were visible amidst the coals, all that remained of the pathetic creature he had devoured earlier this night.\n\nA smear of clouds cut a swath across the face of the stars and the dust-veiled moon had yet to rise. Somewhere out on the plain coyotes bickered with the night. He had found trader tracks this past day, angling northwest-southeast. Well-worn wagon ruts, the tramping of yoked oxen. Garbage strewn to either side. Rather disappointing, all things considered; he had grown used to solitude, where the only sign of human activity had been the occasional grassfire on the western horizon– plains nomads and their mysterious ways– something to do with the bhederin herds and the needs for various grasses, he suspected. If they spied him they wisely kept their distance. His passing through places had away of agitating ancient spirits, a detail he had once found irritating enough to hunt the things down and kill them, but no longer. Let them whine and twitch, thrash and moan in the grip of timorous nightmares, and all that. Let their mortal children cower in the high grasses until he was well and gone.\n\nThe High King had other concerns. And other matters with which he could occupy his mind.\n\nHe sat straighter, every sense stung awake by a burgeoning of power to the north. Slowly rising to his feet, Kallor stared into the darkness. Yes, something foaming awake, what might it be? And... yes, another force, and that one he well recognized– Tiste Andii." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Breath hissed between worn teeth. Of course, if he continued on this path he would have come full circle, back to that horrid place– what was its name? Yes, Coral. The whole mess with the Pannion Domin, oh, the stupidity! The pathetic, squalid idiocy of that day!\n\nCould this be those two accursed hunters? Had they somehow swept round him? Were they now striking south to finally face him? Well, he might welcome that. He'd killed his share of dragons, both pure and Soletaken. One at a time, of course. Two at once... that could be a challenge.\n\nFor all this time, their pursuit had been a clumsy, witless thing. So easily fooled, led astray– he could have ambushed them countless times, and perhaps he should have done just that. At the very least, he might have come to understand the source of their persistent– yes, pathological– relentlessness. Had he truly angered Rake that much? It seemed ridiculous. The Son of Darkness was not one to become so obsessed; indeed, none of the Tiste Andii were, and was that not their fundamental weakness? This failing of will?\n\nHow had he so angered Korlat and Orfantal? Was it because he did not stay, did not elect to fight alongside all the doomed fools on that day? Let the Malazans bleed! They were our enemies! Let the T'lan Imass betray Silverfox– she deserved it!\n\nIt was not our war, Brood. Not our war, Rake. Why didn't you listen tome?\n\nBah, come and face me, then, Korlat. Orfantal. Come, let us be done with this rubbish!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The twin flaring of powers ebbed suddenly.\n\nSomewhere far to the east the coyotes resumed their frantic cries.\n\nHe looked skyward, saw the gleam of the rising moon, its ravaged scowl of reflected sunlight and the blighted dust of its stirred slumber. Look at you. Your face is my face, let us be truthful about that. Beaten and boxed about, yet we climb upright time and again, to resume our trek.\n\nThe sky cares nothing for you, dear one. The stars don't even see you.\n\nBut you will march on, because it is what you do.\n\nA final kick at the coals. Let the grasses burn to scar his wake, he cared not. No, he would not come full circle– he never did, which was what had kept him alive for this long. No point in changing anything, was there?\n\nKallor set out. Northward. There were, if he recalled, settlements, and roads, and a main trader track skirling west and north, out across the Cinnamon Wastes, all the way to Darujhistan.\n\nWhere he had an appointment to keep. A destiny to claim by right of sword and indomitable will.\n\nThe moon's light took hold of his shadow and made a mess of it. Kallor walked on, oblivious of such details.\n\n\n\nThree scrawny horses, one neglected ox and a wagon with a bent axle and a cracked brake: the amassed inherited wealth of the village of Morsko comprised only these. Bodies left to rot on the tavern floor– they should have set fire to the place, Nimander realized. Too late now, too hard the shove away from that horrid scene. And what of the victims on their crosses, wrapped and leaking black ichors into the muddy earth? They had left them as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Motionless beneath a blanket in the bed of the wagon, Clip stared sightlessly at the sideboards. Flecks of the porridge they had forced down his throat that morning studded his chin. Flies crawled and buzzed round his mouth. Every now and then, faint trembling rippled through his body.\n\nStolen away.\n\nNoon, the third day now on this well-made cobbled, guttered road. They had just passed south of the town of Heath, which had once been a larger settlement, perhaps a city, and might well return to such past glory, this time on the riches of kelyk, a dilute form of saemankelyk, the Blood of the Dying God. These details and more they had learned from the merchant trains rolling up and down this road, scores of wagons setting out virtually empty to villages and towns east of Bastion– to Outlook itself– then returning loaded with amphorae of the foul drink, wagons groaning beneath the weight, back to some form of central distribution hub in Bastion.\n\nThe road itself ran south of these settlements– all of which nested above the shoreline of Pilgrim Lake. When it came opposite a village there would be a junction, with a track or wend leading north. A more substantial crossroads marked the intersection of levelled roads to the reviving cities of Heath, Kel Tor and, somewhere still ahead, Sarn.\n\nNimander and his group did not travel disguised, did not pretend to be other than what they were, and it was clear that the priests, fleeing ahead of them, had delivered word to all their kin on the road and, from there, presumably into the towns and villages. At the junctions, in the ramshackle waystations and storage sheds, food and water and forage for the animals awaited them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Dying God– or his priests– had blessed them, apparently, and now awaited their pleasure in Bastion. The one who had sacrificed his soul to the Dying God was doubly blessed, and some final consummation was anticipated, probably leading to Clip's soul's being thoroughly devoured by an entity who was cursed to suffer for eternity. Thus accursed, it was little wonder the creature welcomed company.\n\nAll things considered, it was well that their journey had been one of ease and accommodation. Nimander suspected that his troupe would have been rather more pleased to carve their way through hordes of frenzied fanatics, assuming they could manage such a thing.\n\nHaving confirmed that Clip's comatose condition was unchanged, he climbed down from the wagon and returned to the scruffy mare he had been riding since Morsko. The poor beast's ribs had been like the bars of a cage under tattered vellum, its eyes listless and its tan coat patchy and dull. In the three days since, despite the steady riding, the animal had recovered somewhat under Nimander's ministrations. He was not particularly enamoured of horses in general, but no creature deserved to suffer.\n\nAshe climbed into the worn saddle he saw Skintick standing, stepping upon to the wagon's bench where Nenanda sat holding the reins, and shading his eyes to look southward across the empty plain.\n\n\"See something?\"\n\nA moment, then, \"Yes. Someone... walking.\"\n\nUp from the south? \"But there's nothing out there. '\n\nKedeviss and Aranatha rose in their stirrups.\n\n\"Let's get going, \"Desra said from the wagon bed.\"It's too hot to be just sitting here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nimander could seethe figure now, tall fora human. Unkempt straggly grey hair fanned out round his head like an aura. He seemed to be wearing along coat of chain, down to halfway between his knees and ankles, slitted in front. The hand-and-a-half grip of a greatsword rose above his left shoulder.\n\n\"An old bastard,\" muttered Skintick, \"to be walking like that.\"\n\n\"Could be he lost his horse,\" said Nenanda disinterestedly. \"Desra is right– we should be going.\"\n\nStriding like one fevered under the sun, the stranger came ever closer. Something about him compelled Nimander's attention, a kind of dark fascination– for what, he couldn't quite name. A cascade of images tumbled through his mind. As if he was watching an apparition bludgeoning its way out from some hoary legend, from a time when gods struggled, hands about each other's throats, when blood fellas rain and the sky itself rolled and crashed against the shores of the Abyss. All this, riding across the dusty air between them as the old man came up to the road. All this, written in the deep lines of his gaunt visage, in the bleak wastelands of his grey eyes.\n\n\"He is as winter,\" murmured Skintick.\n\nYes, and something... colder.\n\n\"What city lies beyond?\" the man asked.\n\nA startled moment when Nimander realized that the stranger had spoken Tiste Andii. \"Heath.\"\n\nThe man turned, faced west. \"This way, then, lies Bastion and the Cinnamon Track.\"\n\nNimander shrugged.\n\n\"You are from Coral?\" the stranger asked, scanning the group. \"Is he still camped there, then? But no, I recognize none of you, and that would not be possible. Even so, tell me why I should not kill you all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That got Nenanda's attention, and he twisted in his seat to sneer down at the old man.\n\nBut Nimander's blood had turned to ice.\"Because, sir, you do not know us. '\n\nPale eyes settled on him. \"You have a point, actually. Very well, instead, I would travel with you. Ride, yes, in your wagon– I have worn my boots through crossing this wretched plain. Tell me, have you water, decent food?\"\n\nNenanda twisted further to glare at Nimander. \"Turn this fool away. He can drink our dust.\"\n\nThe old man regarded Nenanda fora moment, then turned back to Nimander. \"Tie a leash on this one and we should be fine.\" And he stepped up to the wagon and, setting afoot on a spoke of the rear wheel, pulled himself up. Where he paused, frowning as he studied the prostrate form of Clip. \"Is he ill?\" he asked Desra. \"Are you caught with plague? No, not that– your kind rarely succumb to such things. Stop staring, child, and tell me what is wrong with this one.\"\n\n\"None of your business,\" she snapped, as Nimander had known she would. \"If you're going to crowd in then sit there, to give him some shade. '\n\nThin brows lifted, then a faint smile flickered across his withered, cracked lips. And without another word he moved to where Desra had indicated and settled down, stretching out his legs. \"Some water, darling, if you please.\"\n\nShe stared at him fora moment, then pulled loose a skin and slid it over. \"That one's not water, \"she said with a sweet smile.\"It's called kelyk. A local brew. Very popular.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nimander sat motionless, watching all this. He saw that Skintick and Nenanda were both doing the same.\n\nAt Desra's words, the old man grimaced.\"I'd rather water,\" he said, but reached for the skin anyway. Tugged free the stopper, then sniffed.\n\nAnd recoiled. \"Imperial dust!\" he said in a growl. He replaced the stopper and flung the skin to the back of the wagon. \"If you won't spare water then never mind, bitch. We can settle your inhospitality later. '\n\n\"Desra,\" said Nimander as he gathered his reins, \"give the man some water.\"\n\n\"After he called me a bitch?\"\n\n\"After you tried poisoning him with kelyk, yes.\"\n\nThey set out on the road, westward. Two more days, said the last trader they had passed that morning. Past Sarn and the lesser lake. To Bastion, the city by the inland sea, a sea so filled with salt no sailor or fisher could drown in it, and where no fish could be found barring an enormous eel with the jaws of a wolf. Salt that had not been there a generation ago, but the world will change, amen.\n\nThe Abject Temple of Saemenkelyk awaited them in Bastion.\n\nTwo days, then, to meet the Dying God. And, one way or another, to wrest from it Clip's soul. Nimander did not think the priests would just step aside for that.\n\nRiding his mount alongside the wagon, Nimander spoke to the old man. \"If you are going to Bastion, sir, you might want to reconsider staying with us.\"\n\n\"And why is that.\" There was little in that tone even remotely interrogative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think I can adequately explain why, \"Nimander replied.\"You'll just have to take meat my word.\"\n\nInstead the old man unslung his weapon and set it between him and Clip, then he laced his long-fingered hands behind his head and settled back, closing his eyes. \"Wake me when it's time to eat, ' he said.\n\nThe worn grip and nicked pommel of the greatsword, the broad cross-hilt and the scarred wooden scabbard all drew Nimander's attention. He can still use that damned weapon, ancient as he is.\n\nGrim legends, the clangour of warring gods, yes, this gaunt warrior belonged to such things.\n\nHe collected his reins. \"As you like, stranger.\" Nudging the mare into a trot, he glanced up to meet Skintick's gaze as he rode past. And saw none of the usual mocking pleasure. Instead, something wan, distraught.\n\nTrue, there was not much to laugh about, was there?\n\nMy unhappy kin.\n\nOnward, then, to Bastion.\n\n\n\nA succession of ridges stepped down towards the basin of the valley, each marking a time when the river had been wider, its cold waters churning away from dying glaciers and meltwater lakes. Now, a narrow twisting gully threaded along the distant floor, fringed by cottonwoods. Standing upon the highest ridge, Traveller looked down to the next level, where a half-dozen tipis rose, not quite breaking the high ground skyline. Figures moving about, clothed in tanned hides and skins, a few dogs, the latter now padding out to the camp's edge closest to the slope, sharp ears and lifted noses alerted to his presence although not one barked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A herd of horses foraged further down, a small, stocky steppe breed that Traveller had never seen before. Ochre flanks deepening to brown on the haunches, manes and tails almost black.\n\nDown on the valley floor, some distance to the right, carrion birds were on the ground, perched on islands of dead flesh beneath the branches of cottonwoods. Other horses wandered there, these ones more familiar, trailing reins as they cropped the high grasses.\n\nTwo men walked out to the base of the slope. Traveller set out down towards them. His own escort of Hounds had left him this morning, either off on a hunt or gone for good– there was no telling which.\n\nSun-burnished faces watched him approach. Eyes nestled in wind-stretched epicanthic folds. Midnight-black hair in loosely bound manes, through which were threaded– rather sweetly– white blossoms. Long, narrow-bladed curved knives in beaded belts, the iron black except along the honed edges. Their clothing was beautifully sewn with red-dyed gut thread, studded here and therewith bronze rivets.\n\nThe elder one, on the right, now held up both hands, palms outward, and said in archaic Daru, \"Master of the Wolf-Horses, welcome. Do not kill us. Do not rape our women. Do not steal our children. Leave us with no diseases. Leave us our g'athend horses-of-the-rock, our mute dogs, our food and our shelters, our weapons and our tools. Eat what we give you. Drink what we give you. Smoke what we give you. Thank us for all three. Grant your seed if a woman comes to you in the night, kill all vermin you find. Kiss with passion, caress with tenderness, gift us with the wisdom of your years but none of their bitterness. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not hate, do not fear, and neither will we hate or fear you. Do not invite your wolf-horses into our camp, lest they devour us and all our beasts. Welcome, then, wanderer, and we will tell you of matters, and show you other matters. We are the Kindaru, keepers of the horses-of-the-rock, the last clan left in all Lama Teth Andath– the grasses we have made so that trees do not reach high to steal the sky. Welcome. You need a bath. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To such a greeting, Traveller could only stand, silent, bemused, torn between laughter and weeping.\n\nThe younger of the two men– perhaps in his mid-twenties– smiled wryly and said, \"The more strangers we meet, the more we add to our words of welcome. This is born of experience, most of it sad, unpleasant. If you mean us harm, we ask that you heed the words given you, and so turn away. Of course, if you mean to betray us, then there is nothing we can do. Deceit is not our way.\"\n\nTraveller grimaced. \"Deceit is everyone's way. '\n\nTwin expressions of dismay, so similar that it was made clear they were father and son. \"Yes,\" said the son, \"that is true. If we saw that you would enter our camp and be with us, yet plan betrayal, why, we would plan the same, and seek to deliver unto you first what you thought to deliver unto us.\"\n\n\"You are truly the last camp left?\"\n\n\"Yes, we are waiting to die. Our ways, our memories. And the g'athend will run free once more, until they too are gone– for the horses we keep are the last of their kind, too. '\n\n\"Do you ride them?\"\n\n\"No, we worship them.\"\n\nYet they spoke Daru– what strange history twisted and isolated these ones from all the others? What turned them away from farms and villages, from cities and riches? \"Kindaru, I humbly accept your welcome and will strive to be a worthy guest.\"\n\nBoth men now smiled. And the younger one gestured with one hand.\n\nA faint sound behind him made Traveller turn, to see four nomads rising as if from nowhere on the slope, armed with spears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Traveller looked back at the father and son. \"You are all too familiar with strangers, I think.\"\n\nThey walked down into the camp. The silent dogs, ranging ahead, were met by a small group of children all bedecked in white flowers. Bright smiles flashed up at Traveller, tiny hands taking his to lead him onward to the hearthfires, where women were now preparing a midday meal. Iron pots filled with some milky substance steamed, the smell pungent, sweet and vaguely alcoholic.\n\nA low bench was set out, four-legged and padded, the woven coverlet a rainbow of coloured threads in zigzag patterns. The wooden legs were carved into horse heads, noses almost touching in the middle, the manes flowing in sweeping curves, all stained a lustrous ochre and deep brown. The artistry was superb, the heads so detailed Traveller could seethe veins along the cheeks, the lines of the eyelids and the dusty eyes both opaque and depthless.\n\nThere was only one such bench, and it was, he knew, to be his for the duration of his stay.\n\nThe father and son, and three others of the band, two women and a very old man, all sat cross-legged in a half-circle, facing him across the fire. The children finally released his hands and a woman gave him a gourd filled with the scalded milk, in which floated strips of meat.\n\n\"Skathandi,\" said the father. \"Camped down by the water. Hereto ambush us and steal our horses, for the meat of the g'athend is highly prized by people in the cities. There were thirty in all, raiders and murderers– we will eat their horses, but you may have one to ride if you desire so. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Traveller sipped the milk, and as the steam filled his face his eyes widened. Fire in his throat, then blissful numbness. Blinking tears from his eyes, he tried to focus on the man who had spoken. \"You sprang the ambush, then. Thirty? You must be formidable warriors.\"\n\n\"This was the second such camp we found. All slain. Not by us, friend. Someone, it seems, likes the Skathandi even less than we do.\"\n\nThe father hesitated, and in the pause his son said, \"It was our thought that you were following that someone.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Traveller frowned. \"Someone? There is but one– one who attacks Skathandi camps and slaughters everyone?\"\n\nNods answered him.\n\n\"A demon, we think, who walks like a storm, dark with terrible rage. One who covers well his tracks.\" The son made an odd gesture with one hand, a rippling of the fingers. \"Like a ghost.\"\n\n\"How long ago did this demon travel past here?\"\n\n\"Three days.\"\n\n\"Are these Skathandi a rival tribe?\"\n\n\"No. Raiders, preying on caravans and all who dwell on the Plain. Sworn, it is said, to a most evil man, known only as the Captain. If you see an eight-wheeled carriage, so high there is one floor above and a balcony with a golden rail– drawn, it is said, by a thousand slaves– then you will have found the palace of this Captain. He sends out his raiders, and grows fat on the trade of his spoils.\"\n\n\"I am not following this demon,\" said Traveller. \"I know nothing of it.\"\n\n\"That is probably well.\"\n\n\"It heads north?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The spirits fed him life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he took them into his soul and gave them anew home. They proved, alas, restless, uncivil guests.\n\nThe journey and the transformation into a nomadic tyrant of the Lamatath Plains was long, difficult, and miraculous to any who could have seen the wretched, maimed creature the Captain had once been. Countless tales spun like dust-devils about him, many invented, some barely brushing the truth.\n\nHis ruined feet made walking an ordeal. His fingers had curled into hook-like things, the bones beneath calcifying into unsightly knobs and protrusions. To see his hands was to be reminded of the feet of vultures clutched in death.\n\nHe rode on a throne set on the forward-facing balcony of the carriage's second tier, protected from the midday sun by a faded red canvas awning. Before him walked somewhere between four hundred and five hundred slaves, yoked to the carriage, each one leaning forward as they strained to pull the enormous wheeled palace over the rough ground. An equal number rested in the wagons of the entourage, helping the cooks and the weavers and the carpenters until their turn came in the harnesses.\n\nThe Captain did not believe in stopping. No camps were established. Motion was everything. Motion was eternal. His two wings of cavalry, each a hundred knights strong, rode in flanking positions, caparisoned in full banded armour and ebony cloaks, helmed and carrying barbed lances, the heads glinting in the sunlight. Behind the palace was a mobile kraal of three hundred horses, his greatest pride, for the bloodlines were strong and much of his wealth (that which he did not attain through raiding) came from them. Horse-traders from far to the south sought him out on this wasteland, and paid solid gold for the robust destriers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A third troop of horse warriors, lighter-armoured, ranged far and wide on all sides of his caravan, ensuring that no enemy threatened, and seeking out possible targets– this was the season, after all, and there were– rarely these days, true enough– bands of savages eking out a meagre existence on the grasslands, including those who bred grotesque mockeries of horses, wide-rumped and bristle-maned, that if nothing else proved good eating. These ranging troops included raiding parties of thirty or more, and at anyone time the Captain had four or five such groups out scouring the plains.\n\nMerchants had begun hiring mercenary troops, setting out to hunt him down. But those he could not buy off he destroyed. His knights were terrible in battle.\n\nThe Captain's kingdom had been on the move for seven years now, rolling in avast circle that encompassed most of the Lamatath. This territory he claimed as his own, and to this end he had recently dispatched emissaries to all the bordering cities– Darujhistan, Kurl and Saltoan to the north, New Callows to the southwest, Bastion and Sarn to the northeast– Elingarth to the south was in the midst of civil war, so he would wait that out.\n\nIn all, the Captain was pleased with his kingdom. His slaves were breeding, providing what would be the next generation to draw his palace. Hunting parties carried in bhederin and antelope to supplement the finer foodstuffs looted from passing caravans. The husbands and wives of his soldiers brought with them all the necessary skills to maintain his court and his people, and they too were thriving.\n\nSo like a river, meandering over the land, this kingdom of his. The ancient, half-mad spirits were most pleased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though he never much thought about it, the nature of his tyranny was, as far as he was concerned, relatively benign. Not with respect to foreigners, of course, but then who gave a damn for them? Not his blood, not his adopted kin, not his responsibility. And if they could not withstand his kingdom's appetites, then whose fault was that? Not his.\n\nCreation demands destruction. Survival demands that something else fails to survive. No existence was truly benign.\n\nStill, the Captain often dreamed of finding those who had nailed him to the ground all those years ago– his memories of that time were maddeningly vague. He could not make out their faces, or their garb. He could not recall the details of their camp, and as for who and what he had been before that time, well, he had no memory at all. Reborn in a riverbed. He would, when drunk, laugh and proclaim that he was but eleven years old, eleven from that day of rebirth, that day of beginning anew.\n\nHe noted the lone rider coming in from the southwest, the man pushing his horse hard, and the Captain frowned– the fool had better have a good reason for abusing the beast in that manner. He didn't appreciate his soldiers posturing and seeking to make bold impressions. He decided that, if the reason was insufficient, he would have the man executed in the traditional manner– trampled into bloody ruin beneath the hoofs of his horses.\n\nThe rider drew up alongside the palace, a servant on the side platform taking the reins of the horse as the man stepped aboard. An exchange of words with the Master Sergeant, and then the man was climbing the steep steps to the ledge surrounding the balcony. Where, his head level with the Captain's knees, he bowed.\n\n\"Sire, Fourth Troop, adjudged ablest rider to deliver this message.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on,\" said the Captain.\n\n\"Another raiding party was found, sire, all slain in the same manner as the first one. Near a Kindaru camp this time.\"\n\n\"The Kindaru? They are useless. Against thirty of my soldiers? That cannot be.\"\n\n\"Troop Leader Uludan agrees, sire. The proximity of the Kindaru was but coincidental– or it was the raiding party's plan to ambush them. '\n\nYes, that was likely. The damned Kindaru and their delicious horses were getting hard to find of late. \"Does Uludan now track the murderers?\"\n\n\"Difficult, sire. They seem to possess impressive lore and are able to thoroughly hide their trail. It maybe that they are aided by sorcery.\"\n\n\"Your thought or Uludan's? '\n\nA faint flush of the man's face.\"Mine, sire. '\n\n\"I did not invite your opinion, soldier.\"\n\n\"No, sire. I apologize.\"\n\nSorcery– the spirits within should have sensed such a thing anywhere on his territory. Which tribes were capable of assembling such skilled and no doubt numerous warriors? Well, one obvious answer was the Barghast– but they did not travel the Lamatath. They dwelt far to the north, along the edges of the Rhivi Plain, in fact, and north of Capustan. There should be no Barghast this far south. And if, somehow, there were... the Captain scowled. \"Twenty knights shall accompany you back to the place of slaughter. You will then lead them to Uludan's troop. Find the trail no matter what. '\n\n\"We shall, sire.\"\n\n\"Be sure Uludan understands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sire.\"\n\nAnd understand he would. The knights were there not just to provide a heavier adjunct to the troop. They were to exact whatever punishment the sergeant deemed necessary should Uludan fail.\n\nThe Captain had just lost sixty soldiers. Almost a fifth of his total number of light cavalry.\n\n\"Go now,\" he said to the rider, \"and find Sergeant Teven and send him tome at once.\"\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\nAs the man climbed back down, the Captain leaned back in his throne, staring down at the dusty backs of the yoked slaves. Kindaru there, yes. And Sinbarl and the last seven or so Gandaru, slope-browed cousins of the Kindaru soon to be entirely extinct. A shame, that– they were strong bastards, hard-working, never complaining. He'd set aside the two surviving women and they now rode a wagon, bellies swollen with child, eating fat grubs, the yolk of snake eggs and other bizarre foods the Gandaru were inclined towards. Were the children on the way pure Gandaru? He did not think so– their women rutted anything with a third leg, and far less submissively than he thought prudent. Even so, one or both of those children might well be his.\n\nNot as heirs, of course. His bastard children held no special rights. He did not even acknowledge them. No, he would adopt an heir when the time came– and, if the whispered promises of the spirits were true, that could be centuries away.\n\nHis mind had stepped off the path, he realized.\n\nSixty slain soldiers. Was the kingdom of Skathandi at war? Perhaps so.\n\nYet the enemy clearly did not dare face him here, with his knights and the entire mass of his army ready and able to take the field of battle. Thus, whatever army would fight him was small-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shouts from ahead.\n\nThe Captain's eyes narrowed. From his raised vantage point he could see without obstruction that alone figure was approaching from the northwest. A skin of white fur flapped in the breeze like the wing of a ghost-moth, spreading out from the broad shoulders. A longsword was strapped to the man's back, its edges oddly rippled, the blade itself a colour unlike any metal the Captain knew.\n\nAs the figure came closer, as if expecting the massed slaves to simply part before him, the Captain's sense of scale was jarred. The warrior was enormous, easily half again as tall as the tallest Skathandi– taller even than a Barghast. A face seemingly masked– no, tattooed, in a crazed broken glass or tattered web pattern. Beneath that barbaric visage, the torso was covered in some kind of shell armour, pretty but probably useless.\n\nWell, the fool– huge or not– was about to be trampled or pushed aside. Motion was eternal. Motion was– a sudden spasm clutched at the Captain's mind, digging fingers into his brain– the spirits, thrashing in terror– shrieking-\n\nA taste of acid on his tongue-\n\nGasping, the Captain gestured.\n\nA servant, who sat behind him in an upright coffin-shaped box, watching through a slit in the wood, saw the signal and pulled hard on a braided rope. A horn blared, followed by three more.\n\nAnd, for the first time in seven years, the kingdom of Skathandi ground to a halt.\n\nThe giant warrior strode for the head of the slave column. He drew his sword. Ashe swung down with that savage weapon, the slaves began screaming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From both flanks, the ground shook as knights charged inward.\n\nMore frantic gestures from the Captain. Horns sounded again and the knights shifted en masse, swung out wide to avoid the giant.\n\nThe sword's downward stroke had struck the centre spar linking the yoke harnesses. Edge on blunt end, splitting the spar for half its twenty-man length. Bolts scattered, chains rushed through iron loops to coil and slither onto the ground.\n\nThe Captain was on his feet, tottering, gripping the bollards of the balcony rail. He could see, as his knights drew up into ranks once more, all heads turned towards him, watching, waiting for the command. But he could not move. Pain lanced up his legs from the misshapen bones of his feet. He held onto the ornate posts with his feeble hands. Ants swarmed in his skull.\n\nThe spirits were gone.\n\nFled.\n\nHe was alone. He was empty.\n\nReeling back, falling into his throne.\n\nHe saw one of his sergeants ride out, drawing closer to the giant, who now stood leaning on his sword. The screams of the slaves sank away and those suddenly free of their bindings staggered to either side, some falling to their knees as if subjecting themselves before anew king, a usurper. The sergeant reined in and, eyes level with the giant's own, began speaking.\n\nThe Captain was too faraway. He could not hear, and he needed to– sweat poured from him, soaking his fine silks. He shivered as fever rose through him. He looked down at his hands and saw blood welling from the old wounds– opened once more– and from his feet as well, pooling in the soft padded slippers. He remembered, suddenly, what it was like to think about dying, letting go, surrendering. There, yes, beneath the shade of the cottonwoods-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sergeant collected his reins and rode at the canter for the palace.\n\nHe drew up, dismounted in a clatter of armour and reached up to remove his visored helm. Then he ascended the steps.\n\n\"Captain, sir. The fool claims that the slaves are now free.\"\n\nStaring into the soldier's blue eyes, the grizzled expression now widened by disbelief, by utter amazement, the Captain felt a pang of pity.\"He is the one, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"The enemy. The slayer of my subjects. I feel it. The truth– I see it, I feel it. I taste it!\" The sergeant said nothing.\n\n\"He wants my throne,\" the Captain whispered, holding up his bleeding hands. \"Was that all this was for, do you think? All I've done, just for him? '\n\n\"Captain,\" the sergeant said in a harsh growl. \"He has ensorcelled you. We will cut him down.\"\n\n\"No. You do not understand. They're gone! '\n\n\"Sir-\"\n\n\"Make camp, Sergeant. Tell him– tell him he is to be my guest at dinner. My guest. Tell him... tell him... my guest, yes, just that.\"\n\nThe sergeant, a fine soldier indeed, saluted and set off.\n\nAnother gesture with one stained, dripping, mangled hand. Two maids crept out to help him to his feet. He looked down atone. A Kindaru, round and plump and snouted like a fox– he saw her eyes fix upon the bleeding appendage at the end of the arm she supported, and she licked her lips.\n\nI am dying.\n\nNot centuries. Before this day is done. Before this day is done, I will be dead. \"Make me presentable,\" he gasped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There shall be no shame upon him, do you see?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I want no pity. He is my heir. He has come. At last, he has come.\"\n\nThe maids, both wide-eyed with fear now, helped him inside.\n\nAnd still the ants swarmed.\n\nThe horses stood in a circle facing inward, tails flicking at flies, heads lowered as they cropped grass. The oxen stood nearby, still yoked, and watched them. Kedeviss, who leaned with crossed arms against one of the wagon's wheels, seemed to be watching the grey-haired foreigner with the same placid, empty regard.\n\nNimander knew just how deceptive that look could be. Of them all– these paltry few left– she saw the clearest, with acuity so sharp it intimidated almost everyone subject to it. The emptiness– if the one being watched finally turned to meet those eyes– would slowly fade, and something hard, unyielding and immune to obfuscation would slowly rise in its place. Unwavering, ever sharpening until it seemed to pierce the victim like nails being hammered into wood. And then she'd casually look away, unmindful of the thumping heart, the paleface and the beads of sweat on the brow, and the one so assailed was left with but two choices: to fear this woman, or to love her with such savage, demanding desire that it could crush the heart.\n\nNimander feared Kedeviss. And loved her as well. He was never good with choices.\n\nIf Kallor sensed that regard– and Nimander was certain he did– he was indifferent to it, preferring to divide his attention between the empty sky and the empty landscape surrounding them. When he wasn't sleeping or eating. An unpleasant guest, peremptory and imperious. He would not cook, nor bother cleansing his plate afterwards. He was a man with six servants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nenanda was all for banishing the old man, driving him away with stones and pieces of dung, but Nimander found something incongruous in that image, as if it was such an absurd impossibility that it had no place even in his imagination.\n\n\"He's weakening, ' Desra said at his side.\n\n\"We're soon there, I think, ' Nimander replied. They were just south of Sarn, which had once been a sizeable city. The road leading to it had been settled all along its length, ribbon farms behind stalls, shops and taverns. The few residents left were an impoverished lot, skittish as whipped dogs, hacking at hard ground that had been fallow too long– at least until they saw the travellers on the main road, whereupon they dropped their hoes and hurried away.\n\nThe supplies left at the T-intersection had been meticulously packed into wooden crates, the entire pile covered in a tarp with its corners staked. Ripe fruits, candied sugarrocks dusted in salt, heavy loaves of dark bread, strips of dried eel, watered wine and three kinds of cheese– where all this had come from, given the wretched state of the farms they'd passed, was a mystery.\n\n\"He would kill us as soon as look at us,\" Desra said, her eyes now on Kallor.\n\n\"Skintick agrees.\"\n\n\"What manner of man is he?\"\n\nNimander shrugged. \"An unhappy one. We should get going.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" said Desra. \"I think we should get Aranatha to look at Clip.\"\n\n\"Aranatha?\" He looked round, found the woman sitting, legs folded under her like a fawn's, plucking flowers from the sloped bank of the road.\"Why? What can she do? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Desra shook her head, as if unable to give her reasons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or unwilling.\n\nSighing, Nimander said, \"Go ahead, ask her, then.\"\n\n\"It needs to come from you.\"\n\nWhy? \"Very well.\" He set out, a dozen strides taking him to where Aranatha sat. As his shadow slipped over her she glanced up and smiled.\n\nSmiles so lacking in caution, in diffidence or wry reluctance, always struck him as a sign of madness. But the eyes above it, this time, were not at all vacuous. \"Do you feel me, Nimander?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by that, Aranatha. Desra would like you to examine Clip. I don't know why,\" he added, \"since I don't recall you possessing any specific skills in healing. '\n\n\"Perhaps she wants company,\" Aranatha said, rising gracefully to her feet.\n\nAnd he was struck, as if slapped across the face, by her beauty. Standing now so close, her breath so warm and so strangely dark. What is happening tome? Kedeviss and now Aranatha.\n\n\"Are you all right, Nimander?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" No. \"I'm fine. ' What awakens in me? To deliver both anguish and exaltation?\n\nShe placed a half-dozen white flowers in his hand, smiled again, then walked over to the wagon. A soft laugh from Skintick brought him round.\n\n\"There's more of that these days, \"his cousin said, gazing after Aranatha.\"If we are to bean incongruous lot, and it seems we are, then it follows that we confound each other at every turn. '\n\n\"You are speaking nonsense, Skintick.\"\n\n\"That is my task, isn't it? I have no sense of where it is we're heading– no, I don't mean Bastion, nor even the confrontation that I think is coming. I mean us, Nimander. Especially you. The less control you have, the greater your talent for leadership seems to become, the qualities demanded of such a person– like those flowers in your hand, petals unfolding. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nimander grimaced at this and scowled down at the blossoms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They'll be dead shortly. '\n\n\"So may we all,\" Skintick responded. \"But... pretty while it lasts.\"\n\nKallor joined them as they prepared to resume the journey. His weathered face was strangely colourless, as if drained of blood by the incessant wind. Or whatever memories haunted him. The flatness in his eyes suggested to Nimander that the man was without humour, that the notion was as alien to him as mending the rips in his own clothes. \"Are you all finally done with your rest?\" Kallor asked, noting the flowers still in Nimander's hand with a faint sneer.\n\n\"The horses needed it,\" Nimander said. \"Are you in a hurry? If so, you could always go ahead of us. When you stop for the night we'll either catch up with you or we won't.\"\n\n\"Who would feed me, then?\"\n\n\"You could always feed yourself,\" Skintick said. \"Presumably you've had to do that on occasion. '\n\nKallor shrugged. \"I will ride the wagon,\" he said, heading off.\n\nNenanda had collected the horses and now led them over. \"They all need re-shoeing,\" he said, \"and this damned road isn't helping any. '\n\nA sudden commotion at the wagon brought them all round, in time to see Kallor flung backward from the side rail, crashing heavily on the cobbles, the look on his face one of stunned surprise. Above him, standing on the bed, was Aranatha, and even at that distance they could see something dark and savage blazing from her eyes.\n\nDesra stood near her, mouth hanging open.\n\nOn the road, lying on his back, Kallor began to laugh. A rasping, breathy kind of laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a bemused glance at Skintick and Nenanda, Nimander walked over.\n\nAranatha had turned away, resuming her ministrations to Clip, trickling water between the unconscious man's lips. Tucking the flowers under his belt, Nimander pulled himself onto the wagon and met Desra's eyes. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"He helped himself to a handful,\" Desra replied tonelessly, nodding towards Aranatha. \"She, er, pushed him away.\"\n\n\"He was balanced on a wheel spoke?\" Skintick asked from behind Nimander.\n\nDesra shook her head. \"One hand on the rail. She just... sent him flying.\"\n\nThe old man, his laughter fading away, was climbing to his feet. \"You damned Tiste Andii,\" he said, \"no sense of adventure.\"\n\nBut Nimander could see that, despite Kallor's seeming mirth, the grizzled warrior was somewhat shaken. Drawing a deep breath and wincing at some pain in his ribs, he moved round to the back of the wagon and once more climbed aboard, this timekeeping his distance from Aranatha.\n\nNimander leaned on the rail, close to Aranatha. \"Are you all right?\" he asked.\n\nGlancing up, she gave him another one of those appallingly innocent smiles. \"Can you feel me now, Nimander?\"\n\nWas the idea of water enough to create an illusion so perfect that every sense was deceived? The serpent curl of the One River, known as Dorssan Ryl, encircled half the First City of Kharkanas. Before the coming of light there was no reflection from its midnight surface, and to settle one's hand in its ceaseless flow was to feel naught but a cooler breath against the skin as the current sighed round the intrusion.\"Water in Darkness, dreams in sleep'– or so wrote one of the Mad Poets of the ninety-third century, during the stylistic trend in poetry characterized by brevity, a style that crashed in the following century during the period of art and oratory known as the Flowering Bright." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Water in perfect illusion... was this fundamentally no different from real water? If the senses provide all that defines the world, then were they not the arbiters of reality? As a young acolyte, fired with passions of all sorts, Endest Silann had argued bell after bell with his fellow students over such matters. All those \"Essence of truth, senses will lie\" themes that seemed so important then, before every universe exploded in the conflagration of creation, shoving all those bright, flaring candles over the table edge, down into the swirling sea of wax where every notion, every idea, melted into one and none, into the scalding sludge that drowned everyone no matter how clever, how wise, how poetic.\n\nWhat am I thinking of these days? Naught but the nonsense of my wasted youth. \"Certainty scours, a world without wonder.\" Ah, then, perhaps those terse poets had stumbled onto something after all. Is this what obsesses me now? A suspicion that all the truths that matter lie somewhere in a soul's youth, in those heady days when words and thoughts could still shine– as if born from nothing solely for our personal edification.\n\nGeneration upon generation, this does not change. Or so it comforts us to believe. Yet I wonder, now, does that stretch of delight grow shorter? Is it tightening, cursed into anew kind of brevity, the one with ignorance preceding and cynicism succeeding, each crowding the precious moment?\n\nWhat then the next generation? Starved of wonder, indifferent to the reality or the unreality of the water flowing past, caring only whether they might drift or drown. And then, alas, losing the sense of difference between the two.\n\nThere was no one, herein his modest chamber, to hear his thoughts. No one, indeed, who even cared. Deeds must tumble forward, lest all these witnesses grow bored and restless. And if secrets dwelt in the lightless swirl of some unseen, unimagined river, what matter when the effort to delve deep was simply too much? No, better to... drift. But worries over the mere score of young Tiste Andii growing now in Black Coral was wasted energy. He had no wisdom to offer, even if any of them was inclined to listen, which they weren't. The old possessed naught but the single virtue of surviving, and when nothing changed, it was indeed an empty virtue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered the great river, its profound mystery of existence. Dorssan Ryl, into which the sewers poured the gritty, rain-diluted blood of the dead and dying. The river, proclaiming its reality in a roar as the rain lashed down in torrents, as clouds, groaning, fell like beasts onto their knees, only to fold into the now-raging currents and twist down into the black depths. All this, swallowed by an illusion.\n\nThere had been a woman, once, and yes, he might have loved her. Like the hand plunged into the cool water, he might have been brushed by this heady emotion, this blood-whispered obsession that poets died for and over which people murdered their dearest. And he recalled that the last time he set eyes upon her, down beside Dorssan Ryl, driven mad by Mother's abandonment (many were), there was nothing he recognized in her eyes. To see, therein a face he had known, had adored, that appalling absence– she was gone, never to return.\n\nSo I held her head under, watched those staring, uncomprehending eyes grow ever wider, filling with blind panic– and there! At the last moment, did I not see– a sudden light, a sudden-\n\nOh, this was a nightmare. He had done nothing, he had been too much the coward. And he had watched her leave, with all the others so struck by loss, as they set out on a hopeless pilgrimage, a fatal search to find Her once again. What a journey that must have been! Before the last crazed one fell for the final time, punctuating a trail of corpses leagues long. A crusade of the insane, wandering into the nowhere.\n\nKharkanas was virtually an empty city after they'd gone. Anomander Rake's first lordship over echoing chambers, empty houses. There would be many more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A calm, then, drifting on like flotsam in the stream, not yet caught by the rushes, not yet so waterlogged that it vanished, tumbled like a severed moon into the muddy bed. Of course it couldn't last. One more betrayal was needed, to shatter the world once and for all.\n\nThe night just past Endest Silann, making his way to aback storeroom on the upper level, came upon the Son of Darkness in a corridor. Some human, thinking the deed one of honour, had hung a series of ancient Andii tapestries down both walls of the passage. Scenes of Kharkanas, and one indeed showing Dorssan Ryl– although none would know if not familiar with that particular vantage point, for the river was but a dark slash, a talon curled round the city's heart. There was no particular order, arrayed so in ignorance, and to walk this corridor was to be struck by a collage of images, distinct as memories not one tethered to the next.\n\nAnomander Rake had been standing before one, his eyes a deep shade of amber. Predatory, fixed as a lion's before a killing charge. On the faded tapestry a figure stood tall amidst carnage. The bodies tumbled before him all bled from wounds to the back. Nothing subtle here, the weaver's outrage dripped from every thread. White-skinned, onyx-eyed, sweat-blackened hair braided like hanging ropes. Slick swords in his hands, he looked out upon the viewer, defiant and cold. In the wracked sky behind him wheeled Locqui Wyval with women's heads, their mouths open in screams almost audible.\n\n\"He did not mean it,\" said Anomander Rake.\n\nBut he did. \"Your ability to forgive far surpasses mine, Lord.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The body follows the head, but sometimes it's the other way round. There was a cabal. Ambitious, hungry. They used him, Endest, they used him badly. '\n\n\"They paid for it, didn't they? '\n\n\"We all did, old friend.\"\n\nEndest Silann looked away. \"I so dislike this hallway, Lord. When I must walk it, I look neither left nor right.\"\n\nRake grunted. \"It is indeed a gauntlet of recrimination.\"\n\n\"Reminders, Lord, of the fact that somethings never change.\"\n\n\"You must wrest yourself loose, Endest. This despondency can... ravage the soul.\"\n\n\"I have heard, there is a river that empties into Coral Bay. Eryn or Maurik. Which seems depthless.\"\n\nAnomander Rake, still studying the tapestry, nodded.\n\n\"Spinnock Durav has seen it, walked its shores. He says it reminds him of Dorssan Ryl... his childhood.\"\n\n\"Yes, there are some similarities.\"\n\n\"I was thinking, if I could be spared...\"\n\nHis Lord glanced over and smiled. \"A pilgrimage? Of course, Endest. If, that is, you can return before a month passes.\"\n\nAh, are we so close, then? \"I will not stay long, Lord. Only to see, with my own eyes, that is all.\"\n\nThe glance had become something more focused, and the amber glare had dimmed to something like... like mud. \"I fear you maybe disappointed. It is but a deep river. We cannot touch the past, old friend.\" He looked back once more on the tapestry. \"And the echoes we imagine we hear, well, they deceive. Do not be surprised, Endest, if you find nothing you seek, and everything you fear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And what is it, Lord, that you think I seek? I would not ask what you think I fear for you know the answer to that one. \"I thought the walk might dome some good.\"\n\n\"And so it shall.\"\n\nNow, the next day, he satin his chamber. A small leather pack of supplies rested beside the door. And the thought of a walk, along one, up rugged mountainsides beneath hard sunlight, no longer seemed so appetizing. Age did such things, feeding the desire then starving the will. And what, after all, would seeing the river achieve?\n\nA reminder of illusions, perhaps, a reminder that, in a realm forever beyond reach, there stood the ruin of a once-great city, and, flowing round it, Dorssan Ryl, living on, ceaseless in its perfect absence, in playing its game of existence. A river of purest darkness, the life water of the Tiste Andii, and if the children were gone, well, what difference did that make?\n\nChildren will leave. Children will abandon the old ways, and the old fools with all their pointless advice can mutter and grumble to empty spaces and nod at the answering echoes. Stone and brickwork make ideal audiences.\n\nNo, he would make this journey. He would defy the follies of old age, unmeasured and unmocked under the eyes of the young. A solitary pilgrimage.\n\nAnd all these thoughts, seeming so indulgent and wayward, will perhaps reveal their worth then, driving dire echoes forward to that future moment of revelation. Hah. Did he believe such things? Did he possess the necessary faith?\n\n\"Ask no question, the river shall answer.\"\n\n\"Question the river, find the answer.\"\n\nThe Mad Poets spent lifetimes waging profound wars in their rendered prose. Achieving what? Why, the implosive obliteration of their tradition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Summarize that in two clauses.\n\n\"I need you to make a journey.\"\n\nSpinnock Durav managed a smile. \"When, Lord?\"\n\nAnomander Rake stretched out his legs until his boots were very nearly in the flames of the hearth. \"Soon, I think. Tell me, how goes the game?\"\n\nHe squinted at the fire. \"Not well. Oh, I win each time. It's just that my finest opponent does poorly of late. His mind is on other matters, unfortunately. I am not pressed, and this removes much of the pleasure. '\n\n\"This would be Seerdomin.\"\n\nSpinnock glanced up, momentarily surprised. But of course, he told himself, he is the Son of Darkness, after all. They may well call him the Ghost King, but I doubt there is a single detail he does not know in Black Coral. They will not heed that until they make a terrible mistake and then it will be too late. \"Seerdomin, yes. The Benighted.\"\n\nA faint smile from Anomander Rake. \"Itkovian was a most extraordinary man. This newborn cult interests me, and I am not so sure it would have pleased him. He saw himself as a soldier, a failed one at that– the fall of Capustan devastated him.\" He paused fora moment, clearly remembering, then he said, \"They were but a mercenary company, modest in complement– nothing like the Crimson Guard. I daresay even the Crimson Guard would have failed to hold Capustan.\"\n\nSpinnock Durav remained silent, attentive. He had been away during that time. Another journey on behalf of his Lord. Hunting a dragon, of all things. Conversations like the one he'd found at the end of that quest were not worth repeating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He could forgive everyone but himself.\"\n\nNo wonder you liked him.\n\nAnomander Rake sighed. \"I cannot say how long you will need, Spinnock. As long, perhaps, as you can manage.\"\n\nAs the significance of that statement settled into Spinnock Durav he felt an uncharacteristic flash of dismay.\n\nAngry at himself, he slowly settled his hands on the arms of the chair, fingers curling round the smooth wood, hoping he'd left nothing in his expression. This is what I do and will do. Until my end. She is young, so young– oh, there's no point in thinking about... about any of that. About her at all. Was he able to keep the anguish from his eyes? What thoughts– doubts– rustled through his Lord now as he watched his old friend? Feeling defeated, Spinnock Durav glanced over at Anomander Rake.\n\nThe ruler of Black Coral sat frowning at his smouldering boots.\n\nSo, how long has he been thus? \"I have always... managed, Lord.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have. I am curious. What so afflicts Seerdomin?\"\n\n\"A crisis of faith, I think.\" Lifelike Kef Tanar, this skipping across paths. He does it so well, this man whom I have never defeated in our tabletop wars, not in ten thousand years. But I can stay with you, Lord, at least this far. \"He has ceased making his daily pilgrimage. Among those living out there, there have grown... expectations. Which, it seems, he is unable to meet.\"\n\n\"You tread carefully, Spinnock Durav. That is unlike you.\"\n\n\"I do not possess all the details yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you shall.\"\n\n\"Eventually, yes.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\nSpinnock looked across at Rake. \"I will do what needs doing.\"\n\n\"Best hurry, then.\"\n\nAh, yes, I see now.\n\n\"The Redeemer is a most helpless god,\" Anomander Rake said after a time. \"Unable to refuse, unable to give. A sea sponge swallowing the entire sea. Then the next one and the one after that. Can it simply goon forever? But for Itkovian, I would think not.\"\n\n\"Is that a sort of faith, Lord?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is. Is his ability to forgive truly endless? To take on the pain and guilt of others for all eternity? I admit, I have some serious difficulties with this cult's root tenets– oh, as I said, I greatly admired Itkovian, the Shield Anvil of the Grey Swords. I even understand, to some extent, his gesture with the Kron T'lan Imass. As the Redeemer, however... I cannot but wonder at a god so willing to assume the crimes and moral flaws of its followers, while in turn demanding nothing– no expectation of a change in behaviour, no threat of punishment should they continue to transgress. Absolution– yes, I grasp the notion, but absolution is not the same as redemption, is it? The former is passive. The latter demands an effort, one with implicit sacrifice and hardship, one demanding all the higher qualities of what we call virtues.\"\n\n\"Yet he is called the Redeemer.\"\n\n\"Because he takes on the task of redemption for all who come to him, all who pray to him. And yes, it is an act of profound courage. But he does not expect the same of his people– he appears to possess no expectations whatsoever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was most loquacious of his Lord, evidence of along, careful condensation of thought, of considerable energy devoted to the nature of the cult clinging to the very edge of Black Coral and Night, all of which seemed... unusual. \"He leads by example, then.\"\n\nA sudden glitter of interest in Anomander Rake's eyes and he studied Spinnock Durav intently.\"Has anyone follower stumbled onto that possibility, Spinnock Durav? '\n\n\"I do not know. I, er, don't think so– but, Lord, I am too far outside all of it at the moment. '\n\n\"If the Redeemer cannot deny, then he is trapped in a state of imbalance. I wonder, what would be needed to redress that imbalance?\"\n\nSpinnock Durav found his mouth dry, and if he'd built proud castles of comprehension, if he'd raised sound fortifications to guard his assumptions, and arrayed vast armies to argue his case and to shift and align and manoeuvre to defend his cherished notions– if he had done all this to then sit in comfort, secure in his place in this conversation– if this was indeed a game of Kef Tanar, then in one simple question posed, his foe had crashed his empire to ruin.\n\nWhat would be needed to redress that imbalance?\n\nA man who refuses.\n\nYou tell me time is short, my Lord. You lead me to elucidate what bothers me– for you can see that something does– and then, amidst the lofty clouds of religious discussion, you lash a lightning bolt down, striking my very heart.\n\nIf I am to do something, I must do it soon.\n\nMy Lord, my awe of you is unbounded. My love for you and the compassion you so delicately unveil leads me into this willingness, to storm without hesitation what you would have me storm, to stand for as long as needed, for it is what you need." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is well I am immune to heat,\" Anomander Rake said, \"for I have scorched my boots most severely.\"\n\nAnd so the fire grows round you, yet you do not flinch.\n\nI will not fail you, my Lord.\n\n\"Endest Silann is upon the mountain road now,\" Anomander Rake said, rising. \"And Crone has returned but soon must wing away again. I shall ask her to send a few grandchildren to guard him on his journey. Unless, of course, you think it might offend Endest Silann should he see them wheeling overhead?\"\n\n\"It might, Lord, but that should not change your decision.\"\n\nA faint smile. \"Agreed. Send my regards to the priestess, Spinnock.\"\n\nUntil that moment, he had not known he was going to visit the High Priestess– who had scoured away her very name in service to her role in the Temple of Darkness, to make of her ever-open legs an impersonal act, that made her body a vessel and nothing more– but he now knew that he needed to do just that. Kurald Galain was a most troubled warren right now. Storms rumbled within it, drumming every thread of power. Energies crackled. Making her insatiable. So, she will want me– but that is not what concerns Anomander Rake. There is something else. I must go to her, and I don't even know why.\n\nBut he does.\n\nSpinnock Durav found himself sitting alone in the small chamber. The fire was down to coals. The air smelled of burned leather.\n\nThe High Priestess of the Temple of Dark had cut her hair even shorter, making her disturbingly boyish as she pushed him onto his back, straddling him with her usual eagerness. Normally, he would now begin to slow her down, providing a force of resistance defying her impatience, and so drawing out her pleasure. This time, however, he let her have her way. This was all incidental. Since that unknown force had trembled through Kurald Galain, all the priestesses had been frantic in their desire, forcing male Tiste Andii into the temple and the rooms with the plush beds. If the rumours were true, then even the occasional human was dragged in for the same needful interrogation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But no answers could be found in the indulgences of the flesh, and perhaps all this was a kind of metaphorical revelation of that raw truth, one that extended far beyond the temple and the prescriptions of priestesses. Yet, did he not want answers from Salind? From that young human woman who could not be more than twenty years of age? From another High Priestess?\n\nHe had seen too much, had lived too long. All she faced ahead and all the experiences still awaiting her– they belonged to her age, and should indeed be shared– if at all– by one of similar years. He had no desire to be a mentor, for the student soon grows past the need of one (if the mentor has done his job well), and then it is the mentor who rails against the notion of equality, or of being surpassed. But the impossibility of the notion went further. She would never surpass him. Instead, she would grow old all too quickly, and the sensibilities of her life, a life so truncated, could never match his.\n\nKorlat had not hesitated with the Malazan sergeant Whiskeyjack– Spinnock had heard the tragic tale, bound up as it was in the conquest of Black Coral and the fall of the Pannion Domin. And the prolonged absence of both Korlat and her brother, Orfantal. Nevertheless, Whiskeyjack had been a man in his late forties– he had lived most of a life. And who could say if the union could have lasted? When, in a terribly short span of years, Korlat would have seen her beloved descend into decay, his back bent, hands atremble, memory failing.\n\nSpinnock could almost imagine the end of that, as, broken-hearted, Korlat would face a moment with a knife in her hands, contemplating the mercy of ending her husband's life. Was this a thing to look forward to? Do we not possess enough burdens as it is?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If not for your desire I could feel in my nest,\" said the woman now lying beneath him, \"I would think you disinterested, Spinnock Durav." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have not been with me here, it seems, and while it's said a man's sword never lies, now I truly wonder if that is so.\"\n\nBlinking, he looked down into her face. A most attractive face, one that both suited the nature of her devotion and yet seemed far too innocent– too open– for this life of uninhibited indulgence. \"I am sorry,\" he said. \"I waited for you to... leave.\"\n\nShe pushed out from under him, sat up and ran her long-fingered hands through the brush of her hair. \"We fail in that of late,\" she said.\n\nAh, so that is the reason for your desperation, your avidness.\n\n\"It will return,\" she said. \"It must. Something... changes, Spin.\"\n\nHe stared at her unblemished back, the graceful curve of her spine, the slight rounding on her hips that he knew to be soft and cool to the touch. The angle of her shoulders bespoke either temporary satiation or a more prolonged weariness. \"Our Lord sends his regards.\"\n\nShe turned to look down at him, brows lifted in surprise. \"He does? That would be a first.\"\n\nSpinnock frowned. Yes, it would. I hadn't thought of that.\"I will be leaving soon. '\n\nHer eyes hardened. \"Why does he treat you so? As if he possessed you, to do with as he pleases.\"\n\n\"I stand in his stead.\"\n\n\"But you are not the Son of Darkness.\"\n\n\"No, that is true.\"\n\n\"One day you are going to die in his stead.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"And then he will need to find another fool.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\nShe glared down at him, then turned and swiftly rose. Black skin polished in the glow of the lanterns– nothing boy-like now, a figure all curves and softened planes. Spinnock smiled. \"I will miss you as well.\"\n\nFaint surrender as she sighed. And when she faced him again, there was nothing veiled in her eyes. \"We do what we can.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand. The Temple– my priestesses. We try as Anomander Rake tries, both of us, seeking to hold onto some meaning, some purpose. He imagines it can be found in the struggles of lesser folk– of humans and all their miserable squabbles. He is wrong. We know this and so too does he. The Temple, Spin, chooses another way. The rebirth of our Gate, the return of Mother Dark, into our lives, our souls. '\n\n\"Yes. And?\"\n\nSomething crumpled in her expression. \"We fail as he does. We know and he knows. The Son of Darkness does not send me his regards.\"\n\nThen... he said \"priestess\". But he didn't mean this one. Spinnock sat up, reached down to the floor where his clothes were lying.\"High Priestess, \"he said,\"what can you tell me of the Cult of the Redeemer? '\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe looked up, wondered at the alarm in her eyes. After a moment he shook his head. \"No, I am not interested in forgiveness. Embracing the T'lan Imass killed the man– what would embracing us do to his soul? '\n\n\"I care not to think, Spin. Oh, he was glorious in his way– for all the blood that was needlessly spilled because of it– still... glorious. If you speak not of our burdens, then I do not understand your question.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is newborn, this cult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What shape will it take?\"\n\nShe sighed again– most extraordinary and further proof of her exhaustion. \"As you say, very young indeed. And like all religions, its shape– its future– will be found in what happens now, in these first moments. And that is a cause for concern, for although pilgrims gather and give gifts and pray, no organization exists. Nothing has been formulated– no doctrine– and all religions need such things.\"\n\nHe rubbed at his jaw, considering, and then nodded.\n\n\"Why does this interest you?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure, but I appreciate your expertise. \"He paused, stared down at the clothes in his hands. He had forgotten something, something important– what might it be?\"I was not wrong, \"she observed, still watching him.\"You are not yourself, Spin. Have you finally come to resent your Lord's demands?\"\n\n\"No.\" Perhaps, but that is not worthy of consideration– the flaw would be mine, after all. \"I am fine, High Priestess.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"None of us are that, Spin,\" she said as she turned away.\n\nAs his gaze dropped he saw his sword and belt lying on the floor. Of course– he had forgotten his ritual. He collected the weapon and, as the High Priestess threw on her robes, carried it over to the table and set it down. From the belt's stiff leather pouch he removed a small sponge, a metal flask of eel oil, and a much-stained pad of sharkskin.\n\n\"Ah,\" said the High Priestess from the doorway, \"all is right with the world again. Later, Spin.\"\n\n\"Yes, High Priestess,\" he replied, electing to ignore her sarcasm. And the need it so poorly disguised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rain had rushed in from the sea, turning the paths into rivers of mud. Salind satin the makeshift shed, legs curled up beneath her, shivering as water dripped down through holes in the roof. More people had come scratching at her door, but she had turned them all away.\n\nShe'd had enough of being a High Priestess. All her heightened sensitivities to the whims of the Redeemer were proving little more than a curse. What matter all these vague emotions she sensed from the god? She could do nothing for him.\n\nThis should not have surprised her, and she told herself that what she was feeling wasn't hurt, but something else, something more impersonal. Perhaps it washer grieving for the growing list of victims as Gradithan and his sadistic mob continued to terrorize the camp– so much so that some were planning to leave as soon as the road dried out. Or her failure with the Benighted. The expectations settling upon her, in the eyes of so many people, were too vast, too crushing. She could not hope to answer them all. And she was finding that, in truth, she could answer none of them.\n\nWords were empty in the face of brutal will. They were helpless to defend whatever sanctity might be claimed, fora person's self, for their freedom to choose how they would live, and with whom. Empathy haunted her. Compassion opened wounds which only a hardening of the soul could in the future prevent, and this she did not want– she had seen too many faces, looked into too many eyes, and recoiled from their coldness, their delight in vicious judgement.\n\nThe righteous will claim sole domain on judgement. The righteous are the first to make hands into fists, the first to shout down dissenters, the first to bully others into compliance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I live in a village of the meek, and I am the meekest of them all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is no glory in being helpless. Nor is there hope.\n\nRain lashing down, a drumming roar on the slatted, angled roof, the sound of a deluge that filled her skull. That the Redeemer will embrace is neither just nor unjust. No mortal can sanction their behaviour in the Redeemer's name. How dare they so presume? Miserable faces marching past, peering in through the cracks in her door. And she wanted to rail at them all. You damned fools. Absolution is not enough! But they would then look upon her, moon-eyed and doleful, desperate that every question yield an answer, clinging to the notion that one suffered fora reason and knowledge of that reason would ease the suffering.\n\nKnowledge, Salind told herself, eases nothing. It just fills spaces that might otherwise flood with despair.\n\nCan you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?\n\n\"I am no High Priestess,\" she croaked, as water trickled down her face.\n\nHeavy boots splashing in the mud outside. The door was tugged back and a dark shape blotted out the pale grey light. \"Salind.\"\n\nShe blinked, trying to discern whoso spoke to her with such... such compassion. \"Ask me nothing,\" she said. \"Tell me less.\"\n\nThe figure moved, closing the door in a scrape of sodden grit that filled the shed with gloom once more. Pausing, standing, water dripping from along leather cloak. \"This will not do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whoever you are,\" Salind said, 'I did not invite you in.\n\nThis is my home. '\n\n\"My apologies, High Priestess.\"\n\n\"You smell of sex.\"\n\n\"Yes, I imagine so.\"\n\n\"Do not touch me. I am poison.\"\n\n\"I– I have no desire to... touch you, High Priestess. I have walked this village– the conditions are deplorable. The Son of Darkness, I well know, will not long abide such poverty.\"\n\nShe squinted up at him. \"You are the Benighted's friend. The only Tiste Andii for whom humans are not beneath notice. '\n\n\"Is this what you believe of us, then? That is... unfortunate.\"\n\n\"I am ill. Please go away, sir.\"\n\n\"My name is Spinnock Durav. I might have told you that when last we met– I do not recall and clearly neither do you. You... challenged me, High Priestess.\"\n\n\"No, I rejected you, Spinnock Durav.\"\n\nThere might have been something like wry amusement in his tone as he replied, \"Perhaps the two are one and the same.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"Oh, no, a perennial optimist.\"\n\nHe reached down suddenly and his warm palm pressed against her forehead. She jerked back. Straightening, he said, \"You are fevered.\"\n\n\"Just go.\"\n\n\"I will, but I intend to take you with me-\" \"And what of everyone else so afflicted in this camp? Will you carry them all out? Or just me, just the one upon whom you take pity? Unless it is not pity that drives you.\"\n\n\"I will have healers attend the camp-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do that, yes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can wait with the others.\"\n\n\"Salind-\"\n\n\"That's not my name. '\n\n\"It isn't? But I was-'\n\n\"I simply chose it. I had no name. Not as a child, not until just a few months ago. I had no name at all, Spinnock Durav. Do you know why I haven't been raped yet? Most of the other women have. Most of the children, too. But not me. Am I so ugly? No, not in the flesh– even I know that. It's because I was a Child of the Dead Seed– do you know the meaning of that, Tiste Andii? My mother crawled half-mad on a battlefield, reaching beneath the jerkins of dead soldiers until she found a member solid and hard. Then she took it into herself and, if she were blessed, it would spill into her. A dead man's seed. I had plenty of brothers and sisters, a family of aunts and a mother who in the end rotted with some terrible disease that ate her flesh– her brain was long gone by then. I have not been raped, because I am untouchable. '\n\nHe stared down at her, evidently shocked, horrified into dumb silence.\n\nShe coughed, wishing she did not get sick so often– but it had always been this way. \"You can go now, Spinnock Durav.\"\n\n\"This place festers.\" And he moved forward to pick her up.\n\nShe recoiled. \"You don't understand! I'm sick because he's sick! '\n\nHe halted and she finally could make out his eyes, forest green and tilted at the corners, and far too much compassion gleamed in that regard. \"The Redeemer? Yes, I imagine he is. Come,\" and he took her up, effortlessly, and she should have struggled– should have been free to choose– but she was too weak. Pushing him away with her hands was a gesture, a desire, transformed into clutching helplessly at his cloak. Like a child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A child.\n\n\"When the rains stop,\" he murmured, his breath no doubt warm but scalding against her fevered cheek, \"we shall rebuild. Make all this new. Dry, warm.\"\n\n\"Do not rape me.\"\n\n'No more talk of rape. Fever will awaken many terrors.\n\nRest now. '\n\nI will not judge. Not even this life of mine. I will not– there is weakness in the world. Of all sorts. All sorts...\n\n\n\nStepping outside with the now unconscious woman in his arms, Spinnock Durav looked round. Figures on all sides, both hooded and bare-headed in the rain, water streaming down.\n\n\"She is sick,\" he said to them. \"She needs healing.\"\n\nNo one spoke in reply.\n\nHe hesitated, then said, \"The Son of Darkness will be informed of your... difficulties.\"\n\nThey began turning away, melting into the grey sheets. In moments Spinnock found himself alone.\n\nHe set out for the city.\n\nThe Son of Darkness will be informed... but he knows already, doesn't he? He knows, but leaves it all to... to whom? Me? Seerdomin? The Redeemer himself?\n\n\"Give my regards to the priestess.\"\n\nHer, then, this frail thing in my arms. I will attend to her, because within her lies the answer.\n\nGods, the answer to what?\n\nBoots uncertain in the slime and mud, he made his careful way back. Night awaited.\n\nAnd, rising up from the depths of his memories, the fragment of some old poem, \"The moon does not rain, but it weeps.\" A fragment, yes, it must be that. Alas, he could not recall the rest and so he would have to settle with the phrase– although in truth it was anything but settling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could ask Endest– ah, no, he is gone from us for the time being." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The High Priestess, perhaps. She knows every Tiste Andii poem ever written, for the sole purpose of sneering at everyone of them. Still.\n\nThe words haunted him, mocked him with their ambiguity.\n\nHe preferred things simple and straightforward.\n\nSolid like heroic sculpture– those marble and alabaster monuments to some great person who, if truth be known, was nowhere near as great as believed or proclaimed, and indeed looked nothing like the white polished face above the godlike body– oh, Abyss take me, enough of this!\n\n\n\nIn the camp, in the wake of the Tiste Andii's departure with the High Priestess half dead in his arms, the bald priest, short and bandy-legged and sodden under rain-soaked woollen robes, hobbled up to Gradithan.\"You saw? '\n\nThe ex-soldier grunted. \"I was tempted, you know. A sword point, right up back of his skull. Shit-spawned Tiste Andii bastard, what in Hood's name did he think, comin'here?\"\n\nThe priest– a priest of some unknown god somewhere to the south, Bastion, perhaps– made tsk-tsking sounds, then said, \"The point is, Urdo-\"\n\n\"Shut that mouth of yours! That rank ain't for nobody no more, you understand? Never mind the arsehole thinkin'he's the only one left, so's he can use it like it was his damned name or something. Never mind, cos he'll pay for that soon enough. '\n\n\"Humble apologies, sir. My point was, she's gone now. '\n\n\"What of it?\"\n\n\"She was the Redeemer's eyes– his ears, his everything in the mortal world– and now that Tiste Andii's gone and taken her away. Meaning we can do, er, as we please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At that, Gradithan slowly smiled. Then said in a low, easy voice, \"What've we been doin'up to now, Monkrat?\"\n\n\"While she was here, the chance remained of awakening the Benighted to his holy role. Now we need not worry about either of them.\"\n\n\"I was never worried in the first place,\" the once-Urdomen said in a half-snarl. \"Go crawl back into your hole, and take whoever with you as you fancy– like you say, nothing stopping us now.\"\n\nAfter the horrid creature scurried off, Gradithan gestured to one of his lieutenants. \"Follow that Andii pig back into Night,\" he said. \"But keep your distance. Then get word to our friends in the city. It's all taken care of at the Barrow– that's the message you tell'em, right? Goon and get back here before dawn and you can take your pick of the women– one you want to keep fora while if you care to, or strangle beneath you for all I give a shit. Go! '\n\nHe stood in the rain, feeling satisfied. Everything was looking up, and up. And by squinting, why, he could almost make out that cursed tower with its disgusting dragon edifice– aye, soon it would all comedown. Nice and bloody, like.\n\nAnd though he was not aware of it– not enough to find cause for the sudden shiver that took him– he turned away from that unseeing regard, and so unknowingly broke contact with sleepy, cold, reptilian eyes that could see far indeed, through rain, through smoke, through– if so desired– stonewalls.\n\nCarved edifice Silanah was not. Sleepless, all-seeing protector and sentinel, beloved of the Son of Darkness, and possessed of absolute, obsidian-sharp judgement, most assuredly she was all that. And terrible in wrath? Few mortals could even conceive the truth and the capacity of the implacably just." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which was probably just as well.\n\n\"Mercy in compassion, no dragon lives.\"\n\nWhen skill with a sword was but passing, something else was needed. Rage. The curse was that rage broke its vessel, sent fissures through the brittle clay, sought out every weakness in the temper, the mica grit that only revealed itself in the edges of the broken shards. No repairs were possible, no glue creeping out when the fragments were pressed back together, to be wiped smooth with a fingertip.\n\nNimander was thinking about pottery. Web-slung amphorae clanking from the sides of the wagon, the horrid nectar within– a species of rage, perhaps, little different from what had coursed through his veins when he fought. Rage in battle was said to be a gift of the gods– he had heard that belief uttered by that Malazan marine, Deadsmell, down in the hold of the Adjunct's flagship, during one of those many nights when the man had made his way down into the dark belly, jug of rum swinging by an ear in one hand.\n\nAt first Nimander had resented the company– as much as did his kin– but the Malazan had persisted, like a sapper undermining walls. The rum had trickled down throats, loosened the hinges of tongues, and after a time all those fortifications and bastions had stretched open their doorways and portals.\n\nThe rum had lit afire in Nimander's brain, casting flickering red light on a host of memories gathered ghostly round the unwelcoming hearth. There had been a keep, somewhere, a place of childhood secure and protected by the one they all called Father. Ridged spines of snow lining the cobbled track leading to the embrasure gate, a wind howling down from grey mountains– a momentary abode where scores of children scurried about wild as rats, with the tall figure of Anomander Rake wandering the corridors in godlike indifference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What had there been before that?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where were all the mothers? That memory was lost, entirely lost.\n\nThere had been a priest, an ancient companion of the Son of Darkness, whose task it had been to keep the brood fed, clothed, and healthy. He had looked upon them all with eyes filled with dismay, no doubt understanding– long before any of them did– the future that awaited them. Understanding well enough to withhold his warmth– oh, he had been like an ogre to them all, certainly, but one who, for all his bluster, would never, ever do them harm.\n\nKnowing this, they had abused their freedom often. They had, more than once, mocked that poor old man. They had rolled beakers into his path when he walked past, squealing with delight when his feet sent them flying to bounce and shatter, or, better yet, when he lost his balance and thumped down on his backside, wincing in pain.\n\nSuch a cruel fire, lighting up all these ghastly recollections. Deadsmell, in his sleepy, seemingly careless way, had drawn out their tale. From that keep hidden in the fastness of some remote range of mountains to the sudden, startling arrival of a stranger– the aged, stooped Tiste Andii who was, it was learned with a shock, Anomander's very own brother. And the arguments echoing from their father's private chambers, as brothers fought over unknown things– decisions past, decisions to come, the precise unfolding of crimes of the soul that led to harsh accusations and cold, cold silences.\n\nDays later, peace was struck, somehow, in the dark of night. Their father came to them then, to tell them how Andarist was taking them all away. To an island, a place of warmth, of stretches of soft sand and pellucid waters, of trees crowded with fruit. And there, standing in the background during this imparting of anew future, was old Endest Silann, his face ravaged by some extremity of emotion– no more beakers underfoot, no more taunts and elusive imps racing to escape imagined pursuits (he never pursued, never once reached to snatch one of them, never raised a hand, never even raised his voice; he was nothing but a focus for their irreverence– an irreverence they would not dare turn upon their father). He had had his purpose and he had weathered it and now he wept as the children were drawn together and a warren was opened, a portalway into an unknown, mysterious new world where anything was possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Andarist led them through.\n\nThey would learn new things. The weapons awaiting them.\n\nAstern teacher, not one to mock, oh no, that was quickly made clear when a casual cuff against the side of Skintick's head sent him flying– a cuff to answer some muttered derision, no doubt.\n\nThe games ended. The world turned suddenly serious.\n\nThey came to love that old man. Loved him far too much, as it turned out, for where Anomander might well have proved capable of pushing back the horrors of adulthood and its terrible world, Andarist was not.\n\nChildren made perfect soldiers, perfect killers. They had no sense of mortality. They did not fear death. They took bright pleasure in destruction, even when that destruction involved taking a life. They played with cruelty to watch the results. They understood the simplicity of power found therein the weapon held in the hand.\n\nSee a bored child with a stick– and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable. Seethe child, eyes scanning the ground, swinging the stick down to crush insects, to thrash flowers, to wage a war of mayhem. Replace the stick with a sword. Explain how guilt need not be considered when the ones who must die are the enemy.\n\nUnleash them, these children with the avid eyes.\n\nGood soldiers. Andarist had made them good soldiers. What child, after all, does not know rage?\n\nBut the vessel breaks.\n\nThe vessel breaks.\n\nThe Dying God, Nimander now believed, was a child.\n\nThe mad priests poured him full, knowing the vessel leaked, and then drank of that puerile seepage. Because he was a child, the Dying God's thirst and need were without end, never satiated." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extende the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once, long ago now, she had found herself in the company of another warrior equally familiar with that concept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there the similarity ended. Karsa Orlong, notwithstanding that first journey into the besieged fortress outside Ugarat, thrived on an audience. Witness, he would say, in full expectation of just that. He wanted his every deed observed, as if each set of eyes existed solely to mark Karsa Orlong, and the minds behind them served, to the exclusion of all else, to recount to all what he had done, what he had said, what he had begun and what he had ended. He makes us his history. Every witness contributes to the narrative– the life, the deeds of Toblakai– a narrative to which we are, each of us, bound.\n\nChains and shackles snaked out from the burned carriage. Empty, of course. And yet, despite this, Samar Dev understood that the survivors of this place remained slaves. Chained to Karsa Orlong, their liberator, chained to yet another grim episode in his history. He gives us freedom and enslaves us all. Oh, now there is irony. All the sweeter for that he does not mean to, no, the very opposite each and every time. The damned fool.\n\n\"Many took horses, loaded down with loot,\" Traveller said, returning to his mount. \"One trail heads north, the least marked– I believe it belongs to your friend.\"\n\nMy friend.\n\n\"He is not far ahead of us now, and still on foot. We should catch up to him today.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\nTraveller studied her fora moment. He then swung himself onto his horse and collected the reins. \"Samar Dev, I cannot workout what happened here.\"\n\n\"He did,\" she replied. \"He happened here.\"\n\n\"He killed no one. From what you have told me, well, I thought to find something else. It is as if he simply walked up to them and said, \"It's over\". \"He frowned across at her.\"How can that be? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head.\n\nHe grunted, guiding his horse round. \"The scourge of the Skathandi has ended.\"\n\n\"It has.\"\n\n\"My fear of your companion has... deepened. I am evermore reluctant to find him.\"\n\n\"But that will not stop you, will it? If he carries the Emperor's Sword... '\n\nHe did not reply. He didn't need to.\n\nThey set out at the canter. Northward.\n\nThe wind cut across from the west, sun-warmed and dry. The few clouds scudding past overhead were thin and shredded. Ravens or hawks circled, wheeling specks, and Samar Dev thought of flies buzzing the corpse of the earth.\n\nShe spat to clear away the taste of woodsmoke.\n\nA short time later they came upon a small camp. Three men, two pregnant women. The fear in their eyes warred with abject resignation as Samar Dev and Traveller came up and reined in. The men had not sought to flee, proof of the rarest kind of courage– the women were too burdened to run, so the men had stayed and if that meant death, then so be it.\n\nDetails like these ever humbled Samar Dev.\n\n\"You are following the Toblakai,\" Traveller said, dismounting. They stared, saying nothing. Traveller half turned and gestured for Samar Dev. Curious, she slipped down.\n\n\"Can you see to the health of the women?\" he asked her in a low voice.\n\n\"All right,\" she said, then watched as the Dal Honese warrior led the three men off to one side. Bemused, Samar Dev approached the women. Both, she saw, were far along in their pregnancies, and then she noted that both seemed... not quite human. Furtive eyes the hue of tawny grasses, a kind of animal wariness along with the resignation she had noted earlier, but now she understood it as the fatalism of the victim, the hunted, the prey. Yes, she could imagine seeing such eyes in the antelope with the leopard's jaws closed on its throat. The image left her feeling rattled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am a witch,\" she said. \"Shoulder Woman.\"\n\nBoth remained sitting. They stared in silence.\n\nShe edged closer and crouched down opposite them. They bore features both human and animal, as if they represented some alternative version of human beings. Dark-skinned, slope-browed, with broad mouths full-lipped and probably– when not taut with anxiety– unusually expressive. Both looked well fed, essentially healthy. Both emanated that strange completeness that only pregnant women possessed. When everything outward faced inward. Ina less generous moment she might call it smugness but this was not such a moment. Besides, there was in those auras something animal that made it all seem proper, natural, as if this was exclusively and precisely what women were for.\n\nNow that notion irritated her.\n\nShe straightened and walked over to where Traveller stood with the men. \"They are fine,\" she said.\n\nHis brows rose at her tone, but he said nothing.\n\n\"So,\" she asked, \"what secrets have they revealed?\"\n\n\"The sword he carries was made of flint, or obsidian. Stone.\"\n\n\"Then he rejected the Crippled God. No, I'm not surprised. He won't do what's expected. Ever. It's part of his damned religion, I suspect. What now, Traveller?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"We will catch up with him anyway.\" A brief smile. \"With less trepidation now.\"\n\n\"There's still the risk, \"she said,\"of an... argument. '\n\nThey returned to their horses.\n\n\"The Skathandi king was dying,\" Traveller explained as they both rode out from the camp. \"He bequeathed his kingdom to your friend. Who then dissolved it, freeing all the slaves, warning off the soldiers. Taking nothing for himself. Nothing at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grunted.\n\nTraveller was silent fora moment and then he said, \"A manlike that... well, I am curious. I would like to meet him.\"\n\n\"Don't expect hugs and kisses, ' she said.\n\n\"He will not be pleased to see you?\"\n\n\"I have no idea, although I am bringing him his horse, which should count for something.\"\n\n\"Does he know how you feel about him?\"\n\nShe shot him a look, and then snorted. \"He may think he does but the truth is I don't know how I feel about him, so whatever he's thinking it's bound to be wrong. Now that we're closing in, I'm the one getting more nervous. It's ridiculous, I know.\"\n\n\"It seems your examination of those two women has soured your mood. Why?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you wanted me to do about them. They were pregnant, not in labour. They looked hale enough, better than I expected in fact. They didn't need me poking and prodding. The babies will be born and they will live or they will die. Same for the mothers. It's just how things are. '\n\n\"My apologies, Samar Dev. I should not have so ordered you about. Were I in your place, I too would have been offended by the presumption.\"\n\nWas that what had annoyed her? Possibly. Equally likely, her mute acquiescence, the doe-eyed ease with which she had fallen into that subservient role. As when I was with Karsa Orlong. Oh, I think I now step onto the thinnest crust of sand above some bottomless pit. Samar Dev discovers her very own secret weaknesses. Was she foul of mood earlier? See her now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A talent, a sensitivity– something– clearly told Traveller to say nothing more.\n\nThey rode on, the horses'hoofs thumping the taut drum of the earth. The warm wind slid dry as sand. Ina low, broad depression on their left stood six pronghorn antelope, watching them pass. Rust-red slabs of flat rock tilted up through the thin ground along the spines of hills. Long-billed birds of some kind perched on them, their plumage the same mix of hues.\"It is all the same, ' she murmured.\n\n\"Samar Dev? Did you speak?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"The way so many animals are made to match their surroundings. I wonder, if all this grass suddenly grew blood red, how long before the markings on those antelope shift into patterns of red? You'd think it could never be the other way round, but you would be wrong. See those flowers– the bright colours to attract the right insects. If the right insects don't come to collect the pollen the flower dies. So, brighter is better. Plants and animals, it goes back and forth, the whole thing inseparable and dependent. Despite this, nothing stays the same.\"\n\n\"True, nothing ever stays the same.\"\n\n\"Those women back there...\"\n\n\"Gandaru. Kin to the Kindaru and Sinbarl– so the men explained.\"\n\n\"Not true humans.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Yet true to themselves none the less.\"\n\n\"I imagine so, Samar Dev.\"\n\n\"They broke my heart, Traveller. Against us, they don't stand a chance. '\n\nHe glanced across at her. \"That is quite a presumption.\"\n\n\"It is?\"\n\n\"We are riding towards a Tartheno Toblakai, belonging to a remnant tribe isolated somewhere in northern Genabackis. You tell me that Karsa Orlong intends to deliver destruction to all the'children\" of the world– to us, in other words. When you speak of this, I see fear in your eyes. A conviction that he will succeed. So now, tell me, against one such as Karsa Orlong and his kind, do we stand a chance?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course we do, because we can fightback. What can these gentle Gandaru manage? Nothing. They can hide, and when that fails they are killed, or enslaved. Those two women were probably raped. Used. Vessels for human seed.\"\n\n\"Barring the rape, every animal we hunt for food possesses the same few choices. Hide or flee.\"\n\n\"Until there is no place left to hide.\"\n\n\"And when the animals go, so too will we.\"\n\nShe barked a laugh. \"You might believe so, Traveller. No, we won't go that way. We'll just fill the empty lands with cattle, with sheep and goats. Or breakup the ground and plant corn. There is no stopping us.\"\n\n\"Except, perhaps, for Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nAnd there, then, was the truth of all this. Karsa Orlong pronounced a future of destruction, extinction. And she wished him well. \"There,\" Traveller said in a different voice, and he rose in his stirrups. \"He didn't travel too far after all-\"From Havok's saddle, Samar Dev could now see him. He had halted and was facing them, a thousand paces distant. Two horses stood near him, and there were humps in the grass of the knoll, scattered like anthills or boulders but, she knew, neither of those. \"He was attacked,\" she said. \"The idiots should have left well enough alone.\"\n\n\"I'm sure their ghosts concur, ' Traveller said.\n\nThey cantered closer.\n\nThe Toblakai looked no different from the last time she had seen him– thereon the sands of the arena in Letheras. Assure, as solid, as undeniable as ever. \"I shall kill him... once.\" And so he did. Defying... everything. Oh, he was looking at her now, and at Havok, with the air of a master summoning his favourite hunting dog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And suddenly she was furious. \"This wasn't obligation! \"she snapped, savagely reining indirectly in front of him.\"You abandoned us– therein that damned foreign city! \"Do this when the time is right\", and so I did! Where the Hood did you go? And-'\n\nAnd then she yelped, as the huge warrior swept her off the saddle with one massive arm, and closed her in a suffocating embrace, and the bastard was laughing and even Traveller– curse the fool– was grinning, although to be sure it was a hard grin, mindful as he clearly was of the half-dozen bodies lying amidst blood and entrails in the grasses.\n\n\"Witch!\"\n\n\"Set me down!\"\n\n\"I am amazed,\" he bellowed, \"that Havok suffered you all this way!\"\n\n\"Down!\"\n\nSo he dropped her. Jarring her knees, sending her down with a thump on her backside, every bone rattled. She glared up at him.\n\nBut Karsa Orlong had already turned away and was eyeing Traveller, who remained on his horse. \"You– are you her husband then? She must have had one somewhere– no other reason for her forever refusing me. Very well, we shall fight for her, you and me-\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Karsa! He's not my husband and no one's fighting for me. Because I belong to no one but me! Do you understand? Will you ever understand?\"\n\n\"Samar Dev has spoken,\" said Traveller. \"We met not long ago, both journeying on this plain. We chose to ride as companions. I am from Dal Hon, on the continent of Quon Tali-\"\n\nKarsa grunted. \"Malazan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An answering nod. \"I am called Traveller.\"\n\n\"You hide your name.\"\n\n\"What I hide merely begins with my name, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nThe Toblakai's eyes thinned at that.\n\n\"You bear the tattoos,\" Traveller went on, \"of an escaped slave of Seven Cities. Or, rather, a recaptured one. Clearly, the chains did not hold you for long.\"\n\nSamar Dev had picked herself up and was now brushing the dust from her clothes. \"Are these Skathandi?\" she asked, gesturing at the bodies. \"Karsa?\"\n\nThe giant turned away from his study of the Malazan. \"Idiots,\" he said. \"Seeking vengeance for the dead king– as if I killed him.\"\n\n\"Did you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"at least now I will have a horse of my own.\"\n\nKarsa walked over to Havok and settled a hand on his neck. The beast's nostrils flared and the lips peeled back to reveal the overlong fangs. Karsa laughed.\"Yes, old friend, I smell of death. When was it never thus? ' And he laughed again.\n\n\"Hood take you, Karsa Orlong– what happened?\"\n\nHe frowned at her. \"What do you mean, witch?\"\n\n\"You killed the Emperor.\"\n\n\"I said I would, and so I did.\" He paused, and then said, \"And now this Malazan speaks as if he would make me a slave once more.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Traveller. \"It just seems as if you have lived an eventful life, Toblakai. I only regret that I will probably never hear your tale, for I gather that you are not the talkative type.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa Orlong bared his teeth, and then swung up into the saddle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am riding north,\" he said.\n\n\"As am I,\" replied Traveller.\n\nSamar Dev collected both horses and tied along lead to the one she decided she would not ride, then climbed into the saddle of the other– a russet gelding with abroad back and disinterested eyes. \"I think I want to go home,\" she pronounced. \"Meaning I need to find a port, presumably on the western coast of this continent.\"\n\nTraveller said, \"I ride to Darujhistan. Ships ply the lake and the river that flows to the coast you seek. I would welcome the company, Samar Dev.\"\n\n\"Darujhistan,\" said Karsa Orlong. \"I have heard of that city. Defied the Malazan Empire and so still free. I will see it for myself.\"\n\n\"Fine then,\" Samar Dev snapped. \"Let's ride on, to the next pile of corpses– and with you for company, Karsa Orlong, that shouldn't belong– and then we'll ride to the next one and soon, right across this entire continent. To Darujhistan! Wherever in Hood's name that is.\"\n\n\"I will see it,\" Karsa said again. \"But I will not stay long.\" And he looked at her with suddenly fierce eyes. \"I am returning home, witch.\"\n\n\"To forge your army,\" she said, nodding, sudden nerves tingling in her gut.\n\n\"And then the world shall witness.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAfter a moment, the three set out, Karsa Orlong on her left, Traveller on her right, neither speaking, yet they were histories, tomes of past, present and future. Between them, she felt like a crumpled page of parchment, her life a minor scrawl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "High, high above them, a Great Raven fixed preternatural eyes upon the three figures far below, and loosed a piercing cry, then tilted its broad black-sail wings and raced on a current of chill wind, rushing east.\n\nShe thought she might be dead. Every step she took was effortless, a product of will and nothing else– no shifting of weight, no swing of legs nor flexing of knees. Will carried her where she sought to go, to that place of formless light where the white sand glowed blindingly bright beneath her, at the proper distance had shebeen standing. Yet, looking down, she saw nothing of her own body. No limbs, no torso, and nowhere to any side could she see her shadow.\n\nVoices droned somewhere ahead, but she was not yet ready for them, so she remained where she was, surrounded in warmth and light.\n\nPulses, as from torches flaring through thick mist, slowly approached, disconnected from the droning voices, and she now saw a line of figures drawing towards her. Women, heads tilted down, longhair over their faces, naked, each one heavy with pregnancy. The torch fires hovered over each one, fist-sized suns in which rainbow flames flickered and spun.\n\nSalind wanted to recoil. She was a Child of a Dead Seed, after all. Born from a womb of madness. She had nothing for these women. She was no longer a priestess, no longer able to confer the blessing of anyone, no god and least of all herself, upon any child waiting to tumble into the world.\n\nYet those seething orbs of flame– she knew they were the souls of the unborn, the not-yet-born, and these mothers were walking towards her, with purpose, with need." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can give you nothing! Go away!\n\nStill they came on, faces lifting, revealing eyes dark and empty, and seemed not to see her even as, one by one, they walked through Salind.\n\nGods, some of these women were not even human.\n\nAnd as each one passed through her, she felt the life of the child within. She saw the birth unfolding, saw the small creature with those strangely wise eyes that seemed to belong to every newborn (except, perhaps, her own). And then the years rushing on, the child growing, faces taking the shape they would carry into old age-\n\nBut not all. As mother after mother stepped through her, futures flashed bright, and some died quickly indeed. Fraught, flickering sparks, ebbing, winking out, darkness rushing in. And at these she cried out, filled with anguish even as she understood that souls travelled countless journeys, of which only one could be known by a mortal– so many, in countless perturbations– and that the loss belonged only to others, never to the child itself, for in its inarticulate, ineffable wisdom, understanding was absolute; the passage of life that seemed tragically short could well be the perfect duration, the experience complete-\n\nOthers, however, died in violence, and this was a crime, an outrage against life itself. Here, among these souls, there was fury, shock, denial. There was railing, struggling, bitter defiance. No, some deaths were as they should be, but others were not. From somewhere a woman's voice began speaking.\n\n'Bless them, that they not betaken.\n\n'Bless them, that they begin in their time and that they end in its fullness.\n\n'Bless them, in the name of the Redeemer, against the cruel harvesters of souls, the takers of life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Bless them, Daughter of Death, that each life shall be as it is written, for peace is born of completion, and completion denied– completion of all potential, all promised in life– is a crime, a sin, a consignation to eternal damnation. Beware the takers, the users! The blight of killers!\n\n\"They are coming! Again and again, they harvest the souls-\"\n\nThat strange voice was shrieking now, and Salind sought to flee but all will had vanished. She was trapped in this one place, as mother after mother plunged into her, eyes black and wide, mouths gaping in a chorus of screams, wailing terror, heart-crushing fear for their unborn children-\n\nAll at once she heard the droning voices again, summoning her, inviting her into... into what?\n\nSanctuary.\n\nWith a cry tearing loose from her throat, Salind pulled away, raced towards those voices-\n\nAnd opened her eyes. Low candlelight surrounded her. She was lying on abed. The voices embraced her from all sides and, blinking, she sought to sit up.\n\nSo weak-\n\nAn arm slipped behind her shoulders, helped her rise as pillows were pushed underneath. She stared up at a familiar, alien face. \"Spinnock Durav.\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\nOthers were rising into view now. Tiste Andii women, all in dark shapeless robes, eyes averted as they began filing out of the chamber, taking their chanting song with them.\n\nThose voices– so heavy, so solid– they truly belonged to these women? She was astonished, half disbelieving, and yet...\n\n\"You almost died,\" Spinnock Durav said. \"The healers called you back– the priestesses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But– why?\"\n\nHis smile was wry. \"I called in a favour or two. But I think, once they attended you, there was more to it. An obligation, perhaps. You are, after all, a sister priestess– oh, betrothed to a different ascendant, true enough, but that did not matter. Or,\" and he smiled again, \"so it turned out.\"\n\nYes, but why? Why did you bring me back? I don't want-oh, she could not complete that thought. Understanding now, at last, how vast the sin of suicide– of course, it would not have been that, would it? To have simply slipped away, taken by whatever sickness afflicted her. Was it not a kind of wisdom to surrender?\n\n\"No,\" she mumbled, \"it isn't. '\n\n\"Salind?\"\n\n\"To bless,\" she said, \"is to confer a hope. Is that enough? To make sacred the wish for good fortune, a fulfilled life? What can it achieve?\"\n\nHe was studying her face. \"High Priestess,\" he now said, haltingly, as if truly attempting an answer, \"in blessing, you purchase a moment of peace, in the one being blessed, in the one for whom blessing is asked. Perhaps it does not last, but the gift you provide, well, its value never fades.\"\n\nShe turned her head, looked away. Beyond the candles, she saw a wall crowded with Andiian hieroglyphs and a procession of painted figures, all facing one way, to where stood the image of a woman whose back was turned, denying all those beseeching her. A mother rejecting her children– she could see how the artist had struggled with all those upturned faces, the despair and anguish twisting them– painted in tears, yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I must go back,\" she said.\n\n\"Back? Where?\"\n\n\"The camp, the place of the pilgrims.\"\n\n\"You are not yet strong enough, High Priestess.\"\n\nHer words to him had stripped away his using her chosen name. He was seeing her now as a High Priestess. She felt a twinge of loss at that. But now was not the time to contemplate the significance of such things. Spinnock Durav was right– she was too weak. Even these thoughts exhausted her. \"As soon as I can,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"They are in danger.\"\n\n\"What would you have me do?\"\n\nShe finally looked back at him. \"Nothing. This belongs tome. And Seerdomin.\"\n\nAt the mention of that name the Tiste Andii winced. \"High Priestess-\" \"He will not reject me again.\"\n\n\"He is missing.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I cannot find him. I am sorry, but I am fairly certain he is no longer in Black Coral.\"\n\n\"No matter,\" she said, struggling to believe her own words. \"No matter. He will come when he is needed.\" She could see that Spinnock Durav was sceptical, but she would not berate him for that. \"The Redeemer brought me to the edge of death,\" she said, \"to show me what was needed. To show me why I was needed.\" She paused. \"Does that sound arrogant? It does, doesn't it? '\n\nHis sigh was ragged. He stood. \"I will return to check on you, High Priestess. For now, sleep.\"\n\nOh, she had offended him, but how? \"Wait, Spinnock Durav-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is all right,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have misread me. Well, perhaps not entirely. You spoke of your god showing you what was needed– something we Tiste Andii ever yearn for but will not ever achieve. Then you doubt yourself. Arrogance? Abyss below, High Priestess. Is this how you feel when the Redeemer blesses you?\"\n\nThen she was alone in the chamber. Candle flames wavering in the wake of Spinnock Durav's departure, the agitated light making the figures writhe on the walls.\n\nStill the mother stood, turned away.\n\nSalind felt a twist of anger. Bless your children, Mother Dark. They have suffered long enough. I say this ingratitude to your own priestesses, who have given me back my life. I say it in the name of redemption. Bless your children, woman.\n\nThe candles settled once more, flames standing tall, immune to Salind's meek agitations. Nowhere in this room was there darkness and that, she realized, was answer enough.\n\nThe old blood splashed on the walls was black, eager to swallow the lantern's light. Dust still trickled down from stress fractures in the canted ceiling, reminding Seerdomin that half a mountain stood above him. The keep's upper levels were crushed, collapsed, yet still settling even after all this time. Perhaps, sometime soon, these lower tunnels would giveaway, and the massive ruin atop the hollowed-out cliff would simply tilt and slide into the sea.\n\nIn the meantime, there were these unlit, wending, buckled corridors, a chaotic maze where no one belonged, and yet boot prints tracked the thick, gritty dust. Looters? Perhaps, although Seerdomin well knew there was little to be found in these lower levels. He had walked these routes many times, doing what he could for the various prisoners of the Pannion Seer, though it was never enough– no, never enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there was a curse, a most vicious kind of curse, whereby a decent person found him or herself in inescapable servitude to a creature of pure, unmitigated evil, then Seerdomin had lived it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Decency did not exculpate. Honour purchased no abeyance on crimes against humanity. And as for duty, well, it increasingly seemed the sole excuse of the morally despicable. He would offer up none of these in defence of the things he had done at his master's behest. Nor would he speak of duress, of the understandable desire to stay alive under the threat of deadly coercion. None of these was sufficient. When undeniable crimes had been committed, justification was the act of a coward. And it was our cowardice that permitted such crimes in the first place. No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no.\n\nThe tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.\n\nHe well understood that many people delighted in such societies– there had been fellow Seerdomin, most of them in fact, who revelled in the fear and the obedience that fear commanded. And this was what had led him here, trailing an old palace retainer of the Seer who had made his furtive way into the ruins of the old keep. No, not a looter. A sordid conspiracy was afoot, Seerdomin was certain of that. Survivors of one nightmare seeking to nurture yet another. That man would not be alone once he reached his destination.\n\nHe closed the shutter to the lantern once more and continued on.\n\nMalazan soldiers had died here, along with the Pannion's own. Seguleh had carved through the ranks of palace guard. Seerdomin could almost hear the echoes of that slaughter, the cries of the dying, the desperate pleading against cruel mischance, the stinging clash of weapons. He came to a set of steps leading down. Rubble had been cleared away. From somewhere below came the murmur of voices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had set no guard, proof of their confidence, and as he stealthily descended he could make out the glow of lanterns emanating from the cell down below.\n\nThis chamber had once been home to the one called Toc the Younger. Chained against one wall, well within reach of the Seer's monstrous mother. Seerdomin's paltry gifts of mercy had probably stung like droplets of acid on the poor man. Better to have left him to go entirely mad, escaping into that oblivious world where everything was so thoroughly broken that repair was impossible. He could still smell the reek of the K'Chain matron.\n\nThe voices were becoming distinguishable– three, maybe four conspirators. He could hear the excitement, the sweet glee, along with the usual self-importance, the songs of those who played games with lives– it was the same the world over, in every history, ever the same.\n\nHe had crushed down his outrage so long ago, it was a struggle to stir it into life once more, but he would need it. Sizzling, yet hard, controlled, peremptory. Three steps from the floor, still in darkness, he slowly drew out his tulwar. It did not matter what they were discussing. It did not even matter if their plans were pathetic, doomed to fail. It was the very act that awakened in Seerdomin the heart of murder, so that it now drummed through him, thunderous with contempt and disgust, ready to do what was needed.\n\nWhen he first stepped into the chamber, none of the four seated at the table even noticed, permitting him to take another stride, close enough to send his broad-bladed weapon through the first face that lifted towards him, cutting it in half. His return attack was a looping backswing, chopping through the neck of the man to the right, who, in lurching upright, seemed to offer his throat to that slashing edge like a willing sacrifice. As his head tumbled away, the body stumbling as it backed over the chair, Seerdomin grasped one edge of the table and flipped it into the air, hammering it into the man on the left, who fell beneath the table's weight. Leaving one man directly opposite Seerdomin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pleading eyes, a hand scrabbling at the ornate dagger at the belt, backing away-\n\nNot nearly fast enough, as Seerdomin moved forward and swung his heavy tulwar down, cutting through the upraised forearms and carving into the man's upper chest, through clavicle and down one side of the sternum. The edge jammed at the fourth rib, forcing Seerdomin to kick the corpse loose. He then turned to the last conspirator.\n\nThe old palace retainer. Spittle on his lips, the reek of urine rising like steam. \"No, please-\"\n\n\"Do you know me, Hegest?\"\n\nA quick nod. \"A man of honour– what you have done here-\"\n\n\"Defies what you would expect of an honourable man, and it is that very expectation that frees you to scheme and plot. Alas, Hegest, your expectation was wrong. Fatally so. Black Coral is at peace, for the first time in decades– freed of terror. And yet you chafe, dreaming no doubt of your old station, of all the excesses you were privileged to possess.\"\n\n\"I throw myself upon the mercy of the Son of Darkness-\"\n\n\"You can't throw yourself that far, Hegest. I am going to kill you, here, now. I can do it quick, or slow. If you answer my questions, I will grant you the mercy you have never spared others. If you refuse, I will do to you as you have done to many, many victims– and yes, I well remember. Which fate will it be, Hegest? '\n\n\"I will tell you everything, Seerdomin. In exchange for my life.\"\n\n\"Your life is not the coin of this deal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man began weeping.\n\n\"Enough of that,\" Seerdomin growled. \"Today, I am as you once were, Hegest. Tell me, did the tears of your victims soften your heart? No, not once. So wipe your face. And give me your answer.\"\n\nAnd so the man did, and Seerdomin began asking his questions.\n\nLater, and true to his word, Seerdomin showed mercy, in so far as that word meant anything when taking someone else's life, and he well knew it didn't mean much. He cleaned his weapon on Hegest's cloak.\n\nWas he any different, then, from these fools? There were countless avenues he could take that would lead him to assert otherwise, each one tortured and malign with deceit. Without doubt, he told himself as he made his way out, what he had done ended something, whereas what these fools had been planning was the beginning of something else, something foul and sure to spill innocent blood. By this measure, his crime was far the lesser of the two. So why, then, did his soul feel stained, damaged?\n\nCogent reasoning could lead a man, step by logical step, into horror. He now carried with him a list of names, the sordid details of a scheme to drive out the Tiste Andii, and while he knew it was destined to fail, to leave it free was to invite chaos and misery. And so he would have to kill again. Quietly, revealing nothing to anyone, for this was an act of shame. For his kind, for humans and their stupid, vicious inclinations.\n\nYet he did not want to be the hand of justice, for that hand was ever bloody and often indiscriminate, prone to excesses of all sorts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cruellest detail among all that he had learned this night was that this web of conspiracy reached out to the pilgrim camp. Hegest had not known who the players were out there, but it was clear that they were important, perhaps even essential. Seerdomin would have to go back to the camp and the very thought sickened him.\n\nSalind, the High Priestess, was she one of the conspirators? Was this act of usurpation at its heart a religious one? It would not be the first time that a religion or cult ignited with the fires of self-righteous certainty and puritanical zeal, leading to ghastly conflict, and had he not heard– more than once– the bold assertion that the Son of Darkness held no claim upon the region outside Night? An absurd notion, yes, an indefensible one, the very kind fanatics converged upon, clenched fists held high in the air.\n\nHe had, fora time, nurtured the belief that he was not unique in his appreciation of the rule of the Tiste Andii, and his respect for the wisdom displayed again and again by the Son of Darkness. The gift of peace and stability, the sure, unambiguous rules of law imposed by a people whose own civilization spanned tens of thousands of years– even longer if the rumours were at all accurate. How could any human begrudge this gift?\n\nMany did, it was now clear. The notion of freedom could make even peace and order seem oppressive, generate the suspicion of some hidden purpose, some vast deceit, some unspecified crime being perpetrated beyond human ken. That was a generous way of looking at it; the alternative was to acknowledge that humans were intrinsically conflicted, cursed with acquisitive addictions of the spirit.\n\nHe reached the steep ramp leading to the well-hidden entrance to the tunnels, rats skittering from his path, and emerged into the warmer, drier air of Night. Yes, he would have to go to the pilgrim camp, but not now. This would demand some planning. Besides, if he could excise the cancer in the city, then the conspirators out there would find themselves isolated, helpless and incapable of achieving anything. He could then deal with them at his leisure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, that was a better course. Reasonable and methodical, as justice should be. He was not deliberately avoiding such a journey.\n\nSatisfied with these arguments, Seerdomin set out to begin his night of slaughter, and here, in this city, night was without end.\n\nThe rats watched him set off. They could smell the blood on him, and more than one had been witness to the slaughter far below, and certain of these now ambled away from the ruin, heading for the world of daylight beyond the shroud.\n\nSummoned, yes, by their master, the one known as Monkrat, an amusing enough name, implicitly contemptuous and derisive. What none of the man's associates truly understood was the truth underlying that name. Monkrat, yes. The Monk of Rats, priest and wizard, conjuror and binder of spirits. Laugh and snicker if you like... at your peril.\n\nThe liberators had found an enemy, and something would have to be done about that.\n\nThe city of Bastion crouched above the vast dying lake, its stolid, squat walls blackened and streaked with some kind of oil. The shanties and hovels surrounding the wall had been burned and then razed, the charred wreckage strewn down the slope leading to the cobbled road. Smoke hung above the battlements, thick and surly.\n\nCradling his battered hands– the reins looped loose about them– Nimander squinted up at the city and its yawning gates. No guards insight, not a single figure on the walls. Except for the smoke the city looked lifeless, abandoned.\n\nRiding at his side in the front of their modest column, Skintick said, \"A name like'Bastion\" invites images of ferocious defenders, bristling with all manner of weapons, suspicious of every foreigner climbing towards the gates. So,\" he added with a sigh, \"we must be witness hereto the blessed indolence of saemankelyk, the Dying God's sweet blood. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Memories of his time in the company of the giant mason still haunted Nimander. It seemed he was cursed with occurrences devoid of resolution, every life crossing his path leaving a swirling wake of mysteries in which he flailed about, half drowning. The Jaghut, Gothos, only worsened matters, a creature of vast antiquity seeking to make use of them, somehow, for reasons he had been too uninterested to explain.\n\nSince we failed him.\n\nThe smell of rotting salt filled the air and they could seethe bleached flats stretching out from the old shoreline, stilted docks high and dry above struggling weeds, fisher boats lying on their sides farther out. Off to their left, inland, farmsteads were visible amidst rows of scarecrows, but it looked as if there was nothing still living out there– the plants were black and withered, the hundreds of wrapped figures motionless.\n\nThey drew closer to the archway, and still there was no one insight.\n\n\"We're being watched, ' Skintick said.\n\nNimander nodded. He felt the same. Hidden eyes, avid eyes.\n\n\"As if we've done just what they wanted, \"Skintick went on, his voice low,\"by delivering Clip, straight to their damned Abject Temple. '\n\nThat was certainly possible. \"I have no intention of surrendering him– you know that.\"\n\n\"So we prepare to wage war against an entire city? A fanatic priesthood and a god?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nGrinning, Skintick loosened the sword at his side.\n\nNimander frowned at him. \"Cousin, I don't recall you possessing such bloodlust. '\n\n\"Oh, I am as reluctant as you, Nimander. But I feel we've been pushed long enough. It's time to push back, that's all. Still, that damage to your hands worries me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aranatha did what she could– I will be fine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not explain how the wounding felt more spiritual than physical. Aranatha had indeed healed the crushed bones, the mangled flesh. Yet he still cradled them as if crippled, and in his dreams at night he found himself trapped in memories of that heavy block of obsidian sliding over his fingertips, the pain, the spurting blood– and he'd awaken slick with sweat, hands throbbing.\n\nThe very same hands that had strangled Phaed– almost taking her life. The pain felt like punishment, and now, in the city before them, he believed that once more they would know violence, delivering death with terrible grace.\n\nThey reined in before the gate's archway. Sigils crowded the wooden doors, painted in the same thick, black dye that marred the walls to either side.\n\nNenanda spoke from the wagon's bench.\"What are we waiting for? Nimander? Let's get this over with.\"\n\nSkintick twisted in the saddle and said, \"Patience, brother. We're waiting for the official welcoming party.\n\nThe killing will have to come later. '\n\nKallor climbed down from the back of the wagon and walked up to the gate. \"I hear singing,\" he said.\n\nNimander nodded. The voices were distant, reaching them in faint waves rippling out from the city's heart. There were no other sounds, such as one would expect from a crowded, thriving settlement. And through the archway he could see naught but empty streets and the dull faces of blockish buildings, shutters closed on every window.\n\nKallor had continued on, into the shadow of the gate and then out to the wide street beyond, where he paused, his gaze fixed on something to his left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So much for the welcoming party,\" Skintick said, sighing. \"Shall we enter, Nimander?\"\n\nFrom behind them came Aranatha's melodic voice.\"Be warned, cousins. This entire city is the Abject Temple. '\n\nNimander and Skintick both turned at that.\n\n\"Mother bless us,\" Skintick whispered.\n\n\"What effect will that have onus?\" Nimander asked her. \"Will it be the same as in the village that night?\"\n\n\"No, nothing like that has awakened yet.\" Then she shook her head. \"But it will come.\"\n\n\"And can you defend us?\" Nenanda asked.\n\n\"We will see.\"\n\nSkintick hissed under his breath and then said, \"Now that's reassuring. '\n\n\"Never mind,\" Nimander replied. Wincing, he tightened his grip on the reins and with a slight pressure of his legs he guided his horse into the city.\n\nThe others lurched into motion behind him.\n\nComing to Kallor's side Nimander followed the old man's gaze down the side street and saw what had so captured his attention. The ruin of an enormous mechanism filled the street a hundred paces down. It seemed to have come from the sky, or toppled down from the roof of the building nearest the outer wall– taking most of the facing wall with it. Twisted iron filled its gaping belly, where flattened, riveted sheets had been torn away. Smaller pieces of the machine littered the cobbles, like fragments of armour, the iron strangely blue, almost gleaming.\n\n\"What in the Abyss is that?\" Skintick asked.\n\n\"Looks K'Chain Che'Malle,\" Kallor said. \"But they would offer up no gods, dying or otherwise. Now I am curious,\" and so saying he bared his teeth in a smile not directed at anyone present– which was, Nimander decided, a good thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aranatha says the entire city is sanctified.\"\n\nKallor glanced over. \"I once attempted that for an entire empire.\"\n\nSkintick snorted. \"With you as the focus of worship?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"And it failed?\"\n\nKallor shrugged. \"Everything fails, eventually.\" And he set out fora closer examination of the ruined machine.\n\n\"Even conversation,\" muttered Skintick. \"Should we follow him?\"\n\nNimander shook his head. \"Leave him. If the city is a temple, then there must bean altar– presumably somewhere in the middle.\"\n\n\"Nimander, we could well be doing everything they want us to do, especially by bringing Clip to that altar. I think we should find an inn, somewhere to rest up. We can then reconnoitre and see what awaits us.\"\n\nHe thought about that fora moment, and then nodded. \"Good idea. Lead the way, Skin, see what you can find.\"\n\nThey continued on down the main street leading from the gate. The tenements looked lifeless, the shops on the ground level empty, abandoned. Glyphs covered every wall and door, spread out from every shuttered window to as far as a hand could reach if someone was leaning out. The writing seemed to record a frenzy of revelation, or madness, or both.\n\nA half-dozen buildings along, Skintick found an inn, closed up like everything else, but he dismounted and approached the courtyard gates. A push swung them wide and Skintick looked back with a smile.\n\nThe wagon's hubs squealed in well-worn grooves in the frame of the gate as Nenanda guided it in. The compound beyond was barely large enough to accommodate a single carriage on its circular lane that went past, first, the stables, and then the front three-stepped entrance to the hostelry. A partly subterranean doorway to the left of the main doors probably led into the taproom. In the centre of the round was a stone-lined well– stuffed solid with bloating corpses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skintick's smile faded upon seeing this detail. Dead maggots ringed the well.\"Let's hope,\" he said to Nimander, \"there's another pump inside... drawing from a different source. '\n\nNenanda had set the brake and he now dropped down, eyeing the bodies. \"Previous guests?\"\n\n\"It's what happens when you don't pay up.\"\n\nNimander dismounted and shot Skintick a warning look, but his cousin did not notice– or chose not to, for he then continued, \"Or all the beds were taken. Or some prohibition against drinking anything but kelyk– it clearly doesn't pay to complain. '\n\n\"Enough,\" said Nimander. \"Nenanda, can you check the stables– see if there's feed and clean water. Skintick, let's you and I head inside.\"\n\nA spacious, well-furnished foyer greeted them, with a booth immediately to the right, bridged by a polished counter. The narrow panel door set in its back wall was shut. To the left was a two-sided cloakroom and beside that the sunken entranceway into the taproom. A corridor was directly ahead, leading to rooms, and a steep staircase climbed to the next level where, presumably, more rooms could be found. Heaped on the floor at the foot of the stairs was bedding, most of it rather darkly stained.\n\n\"They stripped the rooms,\" observed Skintick. \"That was considerate.\"\n\n\"You suspect they've prepared this place for us? '\n\n\"With bodies in the well and ichor-stained sheets? Probably. It's reasonable that we would stay on the main street leading in, and this was the first inn we'd reach.\" He paused, looking round. \"Obviously, there are many ways of readying for guests. Who can fathom human cultures, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside, Nenanda and the others were unpacking the wagon.\n\nNimander walked to the taproom entrance and ducked to look inside. Dark, the air thick with the pungent, bittersweet scent of kelyk. He could hear Skintick making his way up the stairs, decided to leave him to it. One step down, onto the sawdust floor. The tables and chairs had all been pushed to one side in a haphazard pile. In the open space left behind the floor was thick with stains and coagulated clumps that reminded Nimander of dung in a stall. Not dung, however; he knew that.\n\nHe explored behind the bar and found rows of dusty clay bottles and jugs, wine and ale. The beakers that had contained kelyk were scattered on the floor, some of them broken, others still weeping dark fluid.\n\nThe outer door swung open and Nenanda stepped inside, one hand on the grip of his sword. A quick look round, then he met Nimander's gaze and shrugged.\"Was you I heard, I guess. '\n\n\"The stables?\"\n\n\"Well enough supplied, fora few days at least. There's a hand pump and spout over the troughs. The water smelled sour but otherwise fine– the horses didn't hesitate, at any rate.\" He strode in. \"I think those bodies in the well, Nimander– dead of too much kelyk. I suspect that well was in fact dry. They just used it to dump the ones that died, as they died.\"\n\nNimander walked back to the doorway leading into the foyer.\n\nDesra and Kedeviss had carried Clip inside, setting him on the floor. Skintick was on the stairs, a few steps up from the mound of soiled bedding. He was leaning on one rail, watching as the two women attended to Clip. Seeing Nimander, he said, \"Nothing but cockroaches and bedbugs in the rooms. Still, I don't think we should use them– there's an odd smell up there, not at all pleasant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This room should do,\" Nimander said as he went over to look down at Clip. \"Any change?\" he asked.\n\nDesra glanced up. \"No. The same slight fever, the same shallow breathing.\"\n\nAranatha entered, looked round, then went to the booth, lifted the hinged counter and stepped through. She tried the latch on the panel door and when it opened, she disappeared into the backroom.\n\nA grunt from Skintick. \"In need of the water closet?\"\n\nNimander rubbed at his face, flexed his fingers to ease the ache, and then, as Nenanda arrived, he said, \"Skintick and I will head out now. The rest of you... well, we could run into trouble at anytime. And if we do one of us will try to get back here-\"\n\n\"If you run into trouble,\" Aranatha said from the booth, \"we will know it.\"\n\nOh? How? \"All right. We shouldn't belong. '\n\nThey had brought all their gear into the room and Nimander now watched as first Desra and then the other women began unpacking their weapons, their fine chain hauberks and mail gauntlets. He watched as they readied for battle, and said nothing as anguish filled him. None of this was right. It had never been right. And he could do nothing about it.\n\nSkintick edged his way round the bedding and, with a tug on Nimander's arm, led him back outside.\"They will be all right, \"he said.\"It's us I'm worried about. '\n\n\"Us? Why?\"\n\nSkintick only smiled.\n\nThey passed through the gate and came out onto the main street once more. The mid-afternoon heat made the air sluggish, enervating. The faint singing seemed to invite them into the city's heart. An exchanged glance; then, with a shrug from Skintick, they set out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That machine.\"\n\n\"What about it, Skin?\"\n\n\"Where do you think it came from? It looked as if it just... appeared, just above one of the buildings, and then dropped, smashing everything in its path, ending with itself. Do you recall those old pumps, the ones beneath Dreth Street in Malaz City? Withal found them in those tunnels he explored? Well, he took us on a tour-\"\n\n\"I remember, Skin.\"\n\n\"I'm reminded of those machines– all the gears and rods, the way the metal components all meshed so cleverly, ingeniously– I cannot imagine the mind that could think up such constructs. '\n\n\"What is all this about, Skin?\"\n\n\"Nothing much. I just wonder if that thing is somehow connected with the arrival of the Dying God.\"\n\n\"Connected how?\"\n\n\"What if it was like a skykeep? A smaller version, obviously. What if the Dying God was inside it? Some accident brought it down, the locals pulled him out. What if that machine was a kind of throne?\"\n\nNimander thought about that. A curious idea. Andarist had once explained that skykeeps– such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own– were not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology.\n\nK'Chain Che'Malle, Kallor had said. Clearly, he had made the same connection as had Skintick.\n\n\"Why would a god need a machine?\" Nimander asked.\n\n\"How should I know? Anyway, it's broken now. '\n\nThey came to abroad intersection. Public buildings commanded each corner, the architecture peculiarly utilitarian, as if the culture that had bred it was singularly devoid of creative flair. Glyphs made a mad scrawl on otherwise unadorned walls, some of the symbols now striking Nimander as resembling that destroyed mechanism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The main thoroughfare continued on another two hundred paces, they could see, opening out onto an expansive round." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the far end rose the most imposing structure they had seen yet.\n\n\"There it is,\" Skintick said. \"The Abject... altar. It's where the singing is coming from, I think. '\n\nNimander nodded.\n\n\"Should we take a closer look?\"\n\nHe nodded again. \"Until something happens.\"\n\n\"Does being attacked by a raving mob count?\" Skintick asked.\n\nFigures were racing into the round, threadbare but with weapons in their hands that they waved about over their heads, their song suddenly ferocious, as they began marching towards the two Tiste Andii.\n\n\"Here was I thinking we were going to be left alone,\" Nimander said. \"If we run, we'll just lead them back to the inn. '\n\n\"True, but holding the gate should be manageable, two of us at a time, spelling each other.\"\n\nNimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.\n\nKallor.\n\nThe old warrior walked towards them. \"You kicked them awake,\" he said.\n\n\"We were sightseeing,\" said Skintick, \"and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.\"\n\n\"You could stand and fight.\"\n\n\"We could,\" agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. \"Or we could beat a retreat.\"\n\n\"They're brave right now, ' Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. Ashe walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skintick asked, \"Should we help him?\"\n\n\"Did he ask for help, Skin?\"\n\n\"No, you're right, he didn't.\"\n\nThey watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.\n\nAnd all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pass.\n\n\"He just wants to see that altar,\" Skintick said, \"and he's not the one they're bothered with. Too bad,\" he added, \"it might have been interesting to seethe old badger fight.\"\n\n\"Let's head back, \"Nimander said,\"while they're distracted.\"\n\n\"If they let us.\"\n\nThey turned and set off, at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, \"They've left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them. '\n\n\"So it seems.\"\n\n\"Things will get messy yet.\"\n\nYes, they would.\n\n\"So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?\"\n\nNimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Would any of that make killing them easier? No.\n\n\"I do not want to do this,\" Nimander said.\n\n\"No,\" Skintick agreed. \"But what of Clip?\"\n\n\"I don't know. '\n\n\"This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question– have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?\"\n\n\"Maybe not,\" Nimander conceded.\n\n\"But there is another issue, and that is mercy.\"\n\nHe shot his cousin a hard look. \"We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-\"\n\n\"Not them– of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.\"\n\nAh... well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. \"Thank you, Skin.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"We will sneak past them.\"\n\n\"Carrying Clip?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That won't be easy– it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do. '\n\n\"We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means something.\"\n\nDesra pulled her hand from Clip's brow.\"I was wrong. He's getting worse.\" And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. \"How are they?\"\n\nA languid blink. \"Coming back, unharmed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something was wrong with Aranatha." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too calm, too... empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid– oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded– but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.\n\nMaking her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha fora moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. \"Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?\"\n\nThe warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra's questions he glanced back.\"Plenty, as if they'd just left– or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.\"\n\n\"Someone must be growing proper food, then,\" said Kedeviss. \"Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.\"\n\n\"They've gone to a lot of trouble for us, \"Nenanda observed.\"And that makes me uneasy. '\n\n\"Clip is dying, Aranatha,\" Desra said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"They're back, ' Nenanda announced.\n\n\"Nimander will know what to do,\" Desra pronounced.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Aranatha.\n\nShe circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted– Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She slid onto an updraught from the cliff's edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.\n\nHe stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stonewall, talons crunching into the granite.\n\n\"And does the view ever change?\" Crone asked.\n\nAnomander Rake looked down, regarded her fora time.\n\nShe opened her beak to laugh in silence fora few heartbeats. \"The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you– it is indeed now a sad time.\"\n\n\"Does Baruk understand, Crone?\"\n\n\"He does. More or less. Perhaps. We'll see. '\n\n\"Something is happening to the south.\"\n\nShe bobbed her head in agreement. \"Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers everything! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers fora time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then... reality returns. Damn reality, damn it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!\" \"Travel has soured your mood, Crone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is not in my nature to grieve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?\"\n\n\"I have no such intention,\" he replied. \"Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?\"\n\n\"Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\nShe ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. \"This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.\"\n\n\"So it does.\"\n\n\"I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.\"\n\n\"And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.\"\n\n\"I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters– listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.\"\n\n\"You are most poetic this day, Crone.\"\n\n\"It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?\"\n\n\"Endest Silann is at the deep river.\"\n\n\"Hardly alone, I should think.\"\n\n\"He must return.\"\n\nShe was silent fora moment, head cocked. Then she said, \"Ten bells have sounded.\"\n\n\"Ten.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall be on my way, then.\"\n\n\"Fly true, Crone.\"\n\n\"I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"There is no need for that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who are you to judge whether she is old or young, and if she is lifting the bucket or lowering it down into this well? And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen, is she a sail riding the summer wind bright as a maiden's eye above waves of blue? Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing fertile as joyous butterflies in a flowered field, or has this saddle stretched slack in cascades of ripe fruit and rides no more through blossomed orchards? Who then are you to cage in presumptuous iron the very mystery that calls us to life where hovers the brimming bucket, ever poised between dark depths and choral sunlight– she is beauty and this too is a criminal exhortation, and nothing worthwhile is to be found in your regard that does little more than stretch this frayed rope– so shame! Dismissal delivers vicious wounds and she walks away or walks to with inner cringing. Dare not speak of fairness, dare not indulge cruel judgement when here I sit watching and all the calculations between blinks invite the multitude to heavy scorn and see that dwindling sail passing forever beyond you as is her privilege thereon the sea of flowers all sweet fragrance swirling in her wake– it will never ever reach you– and this is balance, this is measure, this is the observance of strangers who hide their tears when turning away.\n\nYoung Men Against a Wall Nekath of One Eye Cat\n\nNo purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment's thought, is in truth the bones of avast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled inhabit and fear." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Helping with the plot, keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who are you to judge whether she is old or young, and if she is lifting the bucket or lowering it down into this well? And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen, is she a sail riding the summer wind bright as a maiden's eye above waves of blue? Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing fertile as joyous butterflies in a flowered field, or has this saddle stretched slack in cascades of ripe fruit and rides no more through blossomed orchards? Who then are you to cage in presumptuous iron the very mystery that calls us to life where hovers the brimming bucket, ever poised between dark depths and choral sunlight– she is beauty and this too is a criminal exhortation, and nothing worthwhile is to be found in your regard that does little more than stretch this frayed rope– so shame! Dismissal delivers vicious wounds and she walks away or walks to with inner cringing. Dare not speak of fairness, dare not indulge cruel judgement when here I sit watching and all the calculations between blinks invite the multitude to heavy scorn and see that dwindling sail passing forever beyond you as is her privilege thereon the sea of flowers all sweet fragrance swirling in her wake– it will never ever reach you– and this is balance, this is measure, this is the observance of strangers who hide their tears when turning away.\n\nYoung Men Against a Wall Nekath of One Eye Cat\n\nNo purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment's thought, is in truth the bones of avast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled inhabit and fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch– all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia's bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter– dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.\n\nPity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards.\n\nDare this round self descend into hard judgement? This round self does dare! A world built of a handful of sticks can start tears in the eyes, as the artist on hands and knees sings a score of wordless songs, speaks in a hundred voices, and moves unseen figures across the vast panorama of the mind's canvas (pausing but once to wipe nose on sleeve). He does so dare this! And would hasten the demise of such cruel abuse.\n\nEven a serpent has grandiose designs, yet must slither in minute increments, struggling for distances a giant or god would scorn. Tongue flicking for the scent, this way and that. Salvation is the succulent fruit at hunt's end, the sun-warmed bird's egg, the soft cuddly rat trapped in the jaws.\n\nSo searches the serpent, friend to the righteous. So slides the eel through the world's stirred muck, whiskers a-probing. Soon, one hopes, soon!\n\nYoung Harllo was not thinking of justice, nor of righteous freedom, nor was he idly fashioning glittering worlds from the glistening veins of raw iron, or the flecks of gold in the midst of cold, sharp quartzite. He had no time to kneel in some overgrown city garden building tiny forts and reed bridges overrun-off tracks left by yesterday's downpour. No, for Harllo childhood was over. Aged six." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this moment, then, he was lying on a shelf of hard, black stone, devoured by darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could barely hear the workers far above, although rocks bounced their way down the crevasse every now and then, echoing with harsh barks from the floor far below.\n\nThe last time here he had dangled from a rope, and there had been no careless rain of stones– anyone of which could crush his skull. And on his descent back then, his outstretched arms had encountered no walls, leading him to believe the crevasse was vast, opening out perhaps into a cavern. This time, of course, there was no rope– Harllo should not even be here and would probably be switched once he was found out.\n\nBainisk had sent him back to Chuffs at shift's end. And that was where he ought now to be, hurriedly devouring his bowl of watery soup and husk of black bread, before stumbling off to his cot. Instead, he was climbing down this wall, without light to ensure that he would not be discovered by those working above.\n\nNot a cavern after all. Instead, a pocked, sheer cliff-face– and those gaping holes were all oddly regular, rectangular, although not until Harllo reached this balcony ledge did he comprehend that he was climbing down the face of some buried building. He wanted to slip into one of these windows and explore, but he had promised to deliver splints to the Bone Miner below, and that was what he would do.\n\nCareful questioning had led him to a definition of \"splints\", but he could not find sticks suitable for the purpose of fixing the Miner's shattered legs. Either too feeble and small, or not straight enough; and besides, all the wood brought to the camp was too well guarded. Instead, he had gone to the tailings heaps, where all manner of garbage was thrown. Eyed suspiciously by the old women who'd sold children and grandchildren to the mine yet found they could not sever their ties– thus dooming themselves to this fringe-world at camp's edge– Harllo had picked through the rubbish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Often, and especially from the run-off tunnels pumped through layers of sandstone, miners would find piles of bones from long-dead creatures. Bones heavy and solid and almost impossible to break. Skulls and the like were sold to collectors– scholars with squinty eyes and too much coin and time for their own good. The pieces already fractured off, broken up and forming a kind of gravel, went to the herbalists for their gardens and the mock-healers for potions and pastes– or so Bainisk called them, mock-healers, with a sneer– ground-up bone's good only for constipation! This left the oversized long bones– which for some reason were believed to be cursed.\n\nOut on the heaps he found two that seemed to have been from the same kind of beast. After some examination and comparison, he confirmed that he had aright one and a left one. They were heavy, thick and ridged, and he hoped they would do.\n\nBetween shifts at the main tunnel there was a half-bell when no one was under rock, and Harllo, sweating beneath the weight of the bones, hurriedly carried them in; then, finding an abandoned side-passage, he stashed them along with some lengths of rope and leather laces. That had been before his shift, and nowhere he was, trying to do what he had promised.\n\nThose long leg bones were strapped to his back. His neck and shoulders were raw from the ropes and more than once he had thought the swinging of the heavy bones would tug him away from the wall, but he had held on, this far at least.\n\nAnd now, lying on this balcony ledge, Harllo rested.\n\nIf someone went looking for him and didn't find him, an alarm would be raised. Always two possibilities when someone went missing. Flight, or lost in the tunnels. Searches would set out in both directions, and some old woman would say how she saw him at the heaps, collecting bones and who knew what else. Then someone else would recall seeing Harllo carrying something back to the main tunnel mouth in between shifts– and Venaz would say that Harllo was clearly up to something, since he never came back for his meal. Something against the rules! Which would put Bainisk in a bad situation, since Bainisk had favoured him more than once. Oh, this was all a mistake!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Groaning, he slipped over the edge, cautious with his handholds, and resumed his journey down.\n\nAnd, not two man-heights down from the balcony, his groping feet found another ledge, followed immediately by another– a staircase, angling steeply down the wall. One hand maintaining contact with the seamless stone, Harllo worked his way down, step by step.\n\nHe did not recall noticing any of this his first time down here. Of course, the candlelight had been feeble– which made easier catching the glitter of gold and the like– and he had gone straight back to the rope. And hadn't his mind been awhirl? A talking Imass! Down here for maybe hundreds of years– with no one to talk to and nothing to look at, oh, how miserable that must have been.\n\nSo. He should not be resenting doing all this for the Bone Miner. A few switches to the back wasn't much to pay for this mercy.\n\nHe reached the floor and paused. So dark! \"Hello? It's me! Dev'ad Anan Tol, can you hear me?\"\n\n\"I can. Follow, then, the sound of my voice. If such a thing is possible-\"\n\n\"It is... I think. Scratch the rock you're sitting on– I'll feel that under my feet-\"\n\n\"That,\" said the Imass, \"is an impressive talent.\"\n\n\"I'm good when I can't see. Vibrations, it's called. '\n\n\"Yes. Can you feel this then?\"\n\n\"I'm getting closer, yes. I think I can start a lantern here. Shuttered so it won't spread out.\" He crouched down, the ends of the long bones thunking behind him, and untied the small tin lantern from his belt. \"This one's called a pusher. You can fix it onto a pole and push it ahead. If the wick dims fast then you know it's bad air. Wait.\" A moment later and soft golden light slanted like a path, straight to where sat the Bone Miner. Harllo grinned. \"See, I was almost there, wasn't I? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it that you carry, cub?\"\n\n\"Your splints. And rope and string.\"\n\n\"Let me see those... bones. Yes, give them tome-\" And he reached out skeletal hands to grasp the splints as soon as Harllo came close enough. A low grating gasp from the Imass, then soft muttering. \"By the Shore of Jaghra Til, I had not thought to see... Cub, my tools... for this. The gift is not in balance.\"\n\n\"I can try to find some better ones-\"\n\n\"No, child. The imbalance is the other way. These are emlava, a male, his hind long bones. True, they twist and cant. Still... yes... possible.\"\n\n\"Will they work as splints then?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHarllo sagged.\n\nThe Imass rumbled a low laugh. 'Ah, cub. Not splints.\n\nNo. Legs. '\n\n\"So you can walk again? Oh, I'm glad! '\n\n\"If indeed I was somehow caught in the Ritual of Tellann, yes, I think I can fashion... from these... why do you fret so, cub?\"\n\n\"I had to sneak down here. If they find out I'm missing... '\n\n\"What will happen?\"\n\n'I might be beaten– not so much as to make me useless.\n\nIt won't be so bad.\"\n\n\"You should go, then, quickly.\"\n\nHarllo nodded, yet still he hesitated. \"I found a building, a buried building. Was that where you lived?\"\n\n\"No. It was a mystery even to the Jaghut Tyrant. Countless empty rooms, windows looking out upon nothing– blank rock, pitted sandstone. Corridors leading nowhere– we explored most of it, I recall, and found nothing. Do not attempt the same, cub. It is very easy to get lost in there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I better go,\" said Harllo. \"If I can comedown here again-\"\n\n\"Not at risk of your hide. Soon, perhaps, I will come to you.\"\n\nHarllo thought of the consternation such an event would bring, and he smiled. A moment later he shuttered the lantern and set off for the stairs.\n\nFrom sticks a fortress, a forest, a great wall. From sticks, a giant, rising up in the darkness, and to look into the pits of its eyes is to see twin tunnels into rock, reaching down and down, reaching back and back, to the very bones of the earth.\n\nAnd so he rises, to look upon you– Harllo imagines this but none of it in quite this way. Such visions and their deadly promise belong to the adults of the world. To answer what's been done. What's been done.\n\nAnd in the city every building wears a rictus grin, or so it might seem, when the stone, brick, plaster and wood breathe in the gloom of dusk, and the gas lanterns are yet to beset alight, and all the world is ebbing with shadows drawing together to takeaway all certainty. The city, this artifice of cliffs and caves, whispers of madness. Figures scurry for cover, rats and worse peer out curious and hungry, voices grow raucous in taverns and other fiery sanctuaries.\n\nIs this the city of the day just past? No, it is transformed, nightmare-tinged, into a netherworld so well suited to the two figures walking– with comfort and ease– towards the gate of an estate. Where stand two guards, nervous, moments from warning the strangers off– for the Lady of the House was in residence and she valued her privacy, yes, she did. Or so it must be assumed, and Scorch and Leff, having discussed the matter at length, were indeed convinced that, being a Lady, she valued all those things few others could afford, including... er, privacy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They held crossbows because who could say what might creep into view and besides, the heavy weapons were so comforting to cradle when clouds devoured the stars and the moon had forgotten to rise and the damned lanterns still weren't lit. True enough, torches in sconces framed the arched gateway but this did little more than blind the two guards to the horrors lurking just beyond the pool of light.\n\nTwo such horrors drew closer. One was enormous, broad-shouldered and oddly short-legged, his hair shaggy as a yak's. He was smiling– or, that is, his teeth gleamed and perhaps it was indeed a smile, perhaps not. His companion was almost as tall, but much thinner, almost skeletal. Bald, the high dome of his forehead bore a tattooed scene of some sort within an elaborate oval frame of threaded gold stitched through the skin. His teeth, also visible, were all capped in silver-tipped gold, like a row of fangs. He wore a cloak of threadbare linen so long it dragged behind him, while his looming companion was dressed like a court jester– bright greens, oranges and reds and yellows– and these were just the colours of his undersized vest. He wore a billowy blouse of sky-blue silk beneath the vest, the cuffs of the sleeves stiff and reaching halfway between wrist and elbow. A shimmering black kerchief encircled his ox-like neck. He wore vermilion pantaloons drawn tight just beneath the knees, and calf-high snug moccasins.\n\n\"I think,\" muttered Scorch, \"I'm going to be sick. '\n\n\"Stop there!\" Leff barked. \"State your business if you have any– but know this, the Mistress is seeing no one.\"\n\n\"Excellent!\" said the huge one in a thunderous voice. \"There will be no delay then in her granting us audience. If you please, O orange-eyed one, do inform the Mistress that Lazan Door and Madrun have finally arrived, at her service.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leff sneered, but he was wishing that Torvald Nom hadn't gone off for supper or a roll with his wife or whatever, so he could pass all this onto him and not have to worry about it anymore. Standing here at the gate, yes, that was within his abilities.\"Train your weapon on \"em, Scorch,\" he said. \"I'll go find the castellan. '\n\nScorch shot him a look of raw terror. \"There's two, Leff, but only one quarrel! Leave me yours. '\n\n\"Fine, but I'd like to see you get two off with them only ten paces away. If they rushed you, why, you'd be lucky to get just one off.\"\n\n\"Still, it'll make me feel better. '\n\n\"Now now, gentlemen,\" the big one said, all too smoothly, \"there's no need for concern. I assure you, we are expected. Is this not the estate of Lady Varada? I do believe it is. '\n\n\"Varada?\" hissed Scorch to Leff. \"Is that her name?\"\n\n\"Shut it,\" Leff snapped under his breath. \"You're making us look like idiots! \"He carefully set his crossbow down and drew out the gate key.\"Nobody move unless it's to go away– not you, Scorch! Stay right there. I'll be right back. '\n\nAfter Leff slipped out of sight, closing and locking the gate behind him, Scorch faced the two strangers once more. He managed a smile. \"Nice get-up, that,\" he said to the jester. \"You a court clown or something? Sing us a song. How'bout a riddle? I ain't any good at riddles but I like hearing'em and the way when I do my thinking, trying to figure \"em out, my whole brain just goes white, sorta. Can you juggle? I like juggling, tried it once, got up to two at a time– that took weeks, let me tell you. Weeks. Juggling demands discipline all right, and maybe it looks easier to other people, but you and I know, well, just how talented you have to be to do it. Do you dance, too, or stand on your head-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir,\" the giant cut in, \"I am not a jester. Nora juggler. Nora riddler, nor singer, nor dancer.\"\n\n\"Oh. Colour-blind?\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"The guard,\" said the other man, the thin one, in a voice even thinner, \"has misconstrued your attire, Madrun. Local fashion is characteristically mundane, unimaginative. Did you not so observe earlier?\"\n\n\"So I did. Of course. A clash of cultures-\"\n\n\"Just so!\" cried Scorch. \"Your clothes, yes, a clash of cultures all right– good way of describing it. You a puppetmaster, maybe? I like puppet shows, the way they look so lifelike, even the ones with wrinkled apples for heads-\"\n\n\"Not a puppeteer, alas,\" cut in Madrun with a heavy sigh.\n\nThe gate creaked open behind Scorch and he turned to see Leff and Studlock step through. The castellan floated past and hovered directly in front of the two strangers.\n\n\"Well, you two took your time!\"\n\nMadrun snorted. \"You try digging your way out of a collapsed mountain, Studious. Damned earthquake came from nowhere-\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" said Studlock. \"A certain hammer was involved. I admit, in the immediate aftermath I concluded that never again would I see your miser-your memorable faces. Imagine my surprise when I heard from a caravan merchant that-\"\n\n\"Such rumours,\" interjected the one Scorch rightly assumed was named Lazan Door, \"whilst no doubt egregiously exaggerated and so potentially entertaining, can wait, yes? Dear Studious, who dreamed of never again seeing our pretty faces, you have anew Mistress, and she is in need of compound guards. And, as we are presently under-employed, why, destinies can prove seamless on occasion, can't they? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So they can, Lazan. Yes, compound guards. You see, we have gate guards already. And a captain as well, who is presently elsewhere. Now, if you two will follow me, we can meet the Mistress.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" said Madrun.\n\nScorch and Leff moved well aside as the trio filed in through the gate. Leff then locked it and turned to Scorch.\n\n\"We never got no audience with the Mistress!\"\n\n\"We been snubbed!\"\n\nLeff collected his crossbow again. \"It's because we're on the lowest rung, that's why. The lowest... again! And here we thought we were climbing! Sure, Tor did some climbing, captain and all. But look at us– not even compound guards and we got here first! '\n\n\"Well,\" said Scorch, \"if we'd a known there was a difference– gate and compound– we would've pushed for that, right? We was ill-informed– look at you, after all.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean? '\n\n\"You got orange eyes, Leff!\"\n\n\"That was a different kind of ill-informed.\"\n\n\"That's what you think. '\n\n\"If you're so smart, Scorch, you coulda asked about being compound guards! '\n\n\"If it was just me, I would have!\"\n\n\"If it was just you, Studlock never would've hired you at all, except maybe to clean out the latrines! '\n\n\"At least then I'd be inside the gate! '\n\nWell, he had a point there. Leff sighed, stared out on the street. \"Look, there's the lantern crew. '\n\n\"Let's shoot \"em!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure, if you want us to get fired, Scorch, is that what you want?\"\n\n\"I was only joking, Leff.\"\n\nThere were looks that killed, and then there were looks that conducted torture. Excoriating skin with incremental, exquisite slices that left blood welling to the surface. That plucked eyeballs and pulled until all the tendons stretched, upon which those long wet ligaments were knotted together so that both eyes sat on the bridge of the nose. Torture, yes, delivered in cold pleasure, in clinical regard.\n\nIt was hardly surprising, then, that Torvald Nom devoured his supper in haste, forgetting to chew, and so was now afflicted with terrible indigestion, struggling to keep from groaning as he helped Tiserra clean the plates and whatnot; and the ominous silence stretched on, even as she cast sidelong looks of blood-curdling excision all unconvincingly dressed up as companionable, loving glances.\n\nIt was time to return to the estate for the evening. These precious deadly moments of domestic tranquillity– fraught as all such moments were with all that was left unspoken, the topics unbidden yet ever lurking, the hidden pitfalls and explosive nuances or even more explosive lack thereof– why, they had to come, alas, to an end, as considerations of career and professional responsibility returned once more to the fore.\n\n\"My sweet, I must leave you now.\"\n\n\"Oh, must you?\"\n\n\"Yes. Until midnight, but don't feel the need to wait up. '\n\n\"I've had a busy day. Two new orders. I doubt I'll be awake when you return, darling.\"\n\n\"I'll try to be quiet. '\n\n\"Of course you will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perfunctory kiss.\n\nJust so, the pleasant exchanges to conclude the repast just past, but of course such words were the flourishes of feint and cunning sleight of hand. Beneath the innocence, Torvald well understood, there was this: \"My sweet, I will run not walk back to the estate now.\"\n\n\"Oh, your stomach is upset? Let's hope you heave allover your two gate guards when you get there. '\n\n\"Yes. And suddenly it'll be midnight and like a doomed man I will count the steps to the gallows awaiting meat home. Pray to Beru and every other ascendant the world over that you're asleep when I get here, or at least feigning sleep.\"\n\n\"I've had a busy day, husband, just thinking of all the things I'd like to do to you for breaking that promise. And when you get home, why, I'll be dreaming dreadful scenes, each one adding to that pleasant smile on my slumbering visage. '\n\n\"I shall attempt to sleep on no more than a hand's span of bed, stiff as a planed board, not making a sound. '\n\n\"Yes, you will. Darling.\"\n\nAnd the perfunctory kiss, smooch smooch.\n\nBlue light painted the streets through which Torvald Nom now hurried along, blue light and black thoughts, a veritable bruising of dismay, and so the buildings to each side crowded, leaned in upon him, until he felt he was squirting– like an especially foul lump of excrement– through a sewer pipe. Terrible indeed, a wife's disappointment and, mayhap, disgust.\n\nThe princely wages were without relevance. The flexible shifts could barely earn a begrudging nod. The sheer impressive legality of the thing yielded little more than a sour grunt. And even the fact that Torvald Nom now held the title of Captain of the House Guard, while Scorch and Leff were but underlings among a menagerie of underlings (yes, he had exaggerated somewhat), had but granted him a temporary abeyance of the shrill fury he clearly deserved– and it waited, oh, it waited. He knew it. She knew it. And he knew she was holding onto it, like a giant axe, poised above his acorn of ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, he'd given up slavery for this.\n\nSuch was the power of love, the lure of domestic tranquillity and the fending off of lonely solitude. Would he have it any other way?\n\nAsk him later.\n\nOnward, and there before him the estate's modest but suitably maintained wall, and the formal gate entranceway, its twin torches flaring and flickering, enough to make the two shapes of his redoubtable underlings look almost... attentive.\n\nNot that either of them was watching the street. Instead, it seemed they were arguing.\n\n\"Stay sharp there, you two!\" Torvald Nom said in his most stentorian voice, undermined by the punctuation of aloud, gassy belch.\n\n\"Gods, Tor's drunk! '\n\n\"I wish. Supper didn't agree with me. Now, what's your problem? I heard you two snapping and snarling from the other side of the street.\"\n\n\"We got two new compound guards,\" said Leff.\n\n\"Compound guards? Oh, you mean guarding the compound-\"\n\n\"That's what I said. What else do compound guards guard if not compounds? Captains should know that kind of stuff, Tor. '\n\n\"And I do. It's just the title confused me. Compound needs guarding, yes, since the likelihood of someone getting past you two is so... likely. Well. So, you've met them? What are they like?\"\n\n\"They're friends of Studlock– who they call Studious, \"said Scorch, his eyes widening briefly before he looked away and squinted.\"Old friends, from under some mountain. '\n\n\"Oh,\" said Torvald Nom.\n\n\"That collapsed,\" Scorch added." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The friendship? Oh, the mountain, you mean. It collapsed.\"\n\nLeff stepped closer and sniffed. \"You sure you're not drunk, Tor? '\n\n\"Of course I'm not drunk! Scorch is talking a lot of rubbish, that's all.\"\n\n\"Rubble, not rubbish.\"\n\n\"Like that, yes! Oh, look, Leff, just open the damned gate, will you? So I can meet the new compound guards.\"\n\n\"Look for them in the compound,\" Scorch advised.\n\nOh, maybe his wife was right, after all. Maybe? Of course she was. These two were idiots and they were also his friends and what did that say about Torvald Nom? No, don't think about that. Besides, she's already done the necessary thinking about that, hasn't she?\n\nTorvald hastened through the gateway. Two strides into the compound and he halted. Studious? Studious Lock? The Landless? Studious Lock the Landless, of One Eye Cat?\n\n\"Ah, Captain, well timed. Permit me to introduce our two new estate guards.\"\n\nTorvald flinched as Studlock drifted towards him. Hood, mask, eerie eyes, all bound up in rags to cover up what had been done to him back in his adopted city– yes, but then, infamy never stayed hidden for long, did it? \"Ah, good evening, Castellan.\" This modest, civil greeting was barely managed, croaking out from an all too dry mouth. And he saw, with growing trepidation, the two figures trailing in Studlock's wake.\n\n\"Captain Torvald Nom, this gaily clad gentleman is Madrun, and his ephemerally garbed companion is Lazan Door. Both hail from the north and so have no local interests that might conflict with their loyalties– a most important requirement, as you have been made aware, for Lady Varada of House Varada. Now, I have seen to their kit and assigned quarters. Captain, is something wrong?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald Nom shook his head. Then, before he could think– before his finely honed sense of propriety could kick in– he blurted out: \"But where are their masks?\"\n\nThe shaggy haired giant frowned. \"Oh,\" he said, \"that is most unfortunate. Reassure me once more, Studious, please.\"\n\nThe castellan's pause was long, and then one rag-tied hand fluttered.\"Reputations, alas, are what they are, Madrun. Evidently, our captain here has travelled some. One Eye Cat? Let us hope he never wandered close to that foul, treacherous den of thieves, murderers and worse-'\n\n\"Never been there,\" Torvald Nom said, hastily, licking his lips. \"But the tales of the, er, the ones hired to oust the Malazan Fist... and, er, what happened afterwards-\"\n\n\"Outrageous lies,\" said Lazan Door in his breathy, wispy voice, \"such as are invariably perpetrated by those with a vested interest in the illusion of righteousness. All lies, Captain. Foul, despicable, ruinous lies. I assure you we completed our task, even unto pursuing the Fist and his cadre into the very heart of a mountain-\"\n\n\"You and Madrun Badrun, you mean. Studious Lock, on the other hand, was...\" And only then did Torvald Nom decide that he probably shouldn't bespeaking, probably shouldn't be revealing quite the extent of his knowledge. \"The tale I heard,\" he added, \"was garbled, second and maybe even third hand, a jumble of details and who can separate truth from fancy in such things?\"\n\n\"Who indeed,\" said the castellan with another wave of one hand. \"Captain, we must trust that the subject of our past misadventures will not arise again, in any company and in particular that of our two intrepid gate guards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The subject is now and forevermore closed,\" affirmed Torvald Nom. \"Well, I'd best get to my office. To work on, um, shift scheduling– it seems we now have our night shift pretty much filled. As for the daytime-'\n\n\"As stated earlier,\" cut in the castellan, \"the necessity for armed vigilance during the day is simply non-existent. Risk assessment and so forth. No, Captain, we have no need for more guards. Four will suffice.\"\n\n\"Good, that will make scheduling easier. Now, it was a pleasure meeting you, Lazan Door, Madrun Badrun.\" And, with disciplined march, Torvald Nom crossed the compound, making for his tiny office in the barracks annexe. Where he shut the flimsy door and sat down in the chair behind the desk which, in order to reach it, demanded that he climb over the desk itself. Slumping down, hands holding up his head, he sat. Sweating.\n\nWas Lady Varada aware of any of this... this background, back there where the ground still steamed with blood and worse? Well, she'd hired Studlock, hadn't she? But that didn't mean anything, did it? He'd crunched down his name, and even that name wasn't his real name, just something the idiots in One Eye Cat gave him, same as Madrun Badrun. As for Lazan Door, well, that one might be real, original even. And only one of them was wearing a mask and that mask was some local make, generic, not painted with any relevant sigils or whatever. So, she might not know a thing! She might be completely blind, unsuspecting, unaware, unprepared, uneverything!\n\nHe climbed back over his desk, straightened and smoothed out his clothing as best he could. It shouldn't be so hard, the captain seeking audience with the Mistress. Perfectly reasonable. Except that the official route was through the castellan, and that wouldn't do. No, he needed to be cleverer than that. In fact, he needed to... break in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More sweat, sudden, chilling him as he stood between the desk and the office door, a span barely wide enough to turn round in.\n\nSo, Lazan Door and Madrun Badrun would be patrolling the compound. And Studious Lock the Landless, well, he'd be in his own office, thereon the main floor. Or even in his private chambers, sitting there slowly unravelling or undressing or whatever one wanted to call it.\n\nThere was a window on the back wall of the annexe. Plain shutters and simple inside latch. From there he could clamber onto the roof, which was close enough to the sidewall of the main building to enable him to leap across and maybe find a handhold or two, and then he could scramble up to the next and final level, where dwelt the Lady. It was still early so she wouldn't be asleep or in any particular state of undress.\n\nStill, how would she react to her captain's intruding soon her privacy? Well, he could explain he was testing the innermost security of the estate (and, in finding it so lacking, why, he could press for hiring yet more guards. Normal, reasonable, sane guards this time. No mass murderers. No sadists. No one whose humanness was questionable and open to interpretation. He could, then, provide a subtle counterbalance to the guards they already had).\n\nIt all sounded very reasonable, and diligent, as befitted a captain.\n\nHe worked his way round and opened the office door. Leaned out to make sure the barracks remained empty– of course it did, they were out there guarding things! He padded across to the back window. Unlatched it and eased out the shutters. Another quick, darting look, outside this time. Estate wall not ten paces opposite. Main building to his left, stables to his right. Was this area part of their rounds? It certainly should be. Well, if he moved fast enough, right this moment-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hitching himself upon to the windowsill, Torvald Nom edged out and reached up for the eaves-trough. He tested his weight on it and, satisfied at the modest creak, quickly pulled himself up and onto the sloped roof. Reached back down and carefully closed the shutters.\n\nHe rolled onto his back and waited. He'd wait, yes, until the two monsters tramped past.\n\nThe clay tiles dug into his shoulder blades. Was that the scuff of boots? Was that the whisper of linen sweeping the cobbles? Was that– no, it wasn't, he wasn't hearing a damned thing. Where had his damned compound guards gone? He sat up, crept his way to the peak of the roof. Peered out onto the grounds– and there they were, playing dice against the wall to one side of the gate.\n\nHe could fire them for that! Why, even Studlock wouldn't be able to-\n\nAnd there he was, Studious himself, floating across towards his two cohorts. And his voice drifted back to Torvald Nom.\n\n\"Any change in the knuckles, Lazan?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" the man replied. \"Getting worse. Options fast diminishing.\"\n\n\"How unfortunate.\"\n\nMadrun Badrun grunted and then said, \"We had our chance. Go north or go south. We should've gone north. '\n\n\"That would notwork, as you well know,\" said Studious Lock. \"Where are your masks?\"\n\nLazan Door flung the bone dice against the wall again, bent to study the results.\n\n\"We tossed'em, ' answered Madrun.\n\n\"Make new ones.\"\n\n\"We don't want to, Studious, we really don't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That goes without saying, but it changes nothing.\"\n\nOh, Torvald suspected he could crouch here and listen to the idiots all night. Instead, he needed to take advantage of their carelessness. He eased back down the slope of the roof, lifted himself into a crouch, and eyed the main building– and, look, a balcony. Well, that wasn't wise, was it?\n\nNow, could he make the leap without making any noise? Of course he could– he'd been a thief for years, a successful thief, too, if not for all the arrests and fines and prison time and slavery and the like. He paused, gauging the distance, deciding which part of the rail he'd reach for, then launched himself across the gap.\n\nSuccess! And virtually no noise at all. He dangled fora moment, then pulled himself onto the balcony. It was narrow and crowded with clay pots snarled with dead plants. Now, he could work the locks and slip in on this floor, taking the inside route to the level above. That would be simplest, wouldn't it? Riskier scaling the outside wall, where a chance glance from any of the three fools still jabbering away just inside the gate might alight upon him. And the last thing he wanted was to see any of them draw swords (not that he recalled seeing them wearing any).\n\nHe tested the balcony door. Unlocked! Oh, things would indeed have to change. Why, he could just saunter inside and find himself-\n\n\"Please, Captain, take a seat.\"\n\nShe was lounging in a plush chair, barely visible in the darkroom. Veiled? Yes, veiled. Dressed in some long loose thing, silk perhaps. One long-fingered hand, snug in a grey leather glove, held a goblet. There was a matching chair opposite her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pour yourself some wine– yes, thereon the table. The failure of that route, from the roof of the annexe, is that the roof is entirely visible from the window of any room on this side of the house. I assume, Captain, you were either testing the security of the estate, or that you wished to speak with me in private. Any other alternatives, alas, would be unfortunate.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Mistress. And yes, I was testing... things. And yes,\" he added as, summoning as much aplomb as he could manage, he went over to pour himself a goblet full of the amber wine, \"I wished to speak with you in private. Concerning your castellan and the two new compound guards.\"\n\n\"Do they seem... excessive?\"\n\n\"That's one way of putting it. '\n\n\"I would not want to be discouraging.\"\n\nHe sat down. \"Discouraging, Mistress?\"\n\n\"Tell me, are my two gate guards as incompetent as they appear to be?\"\n\n\"That would be quite an achievement, Mistress.\"\n\n\"It would, yes.\"\n\n\"It may surprise you,\" Torvald Nom said, \"but they actually possess a nasty streak. And considerable experience. They have been caravan guards, enforcers, Guild thugs and bounty hunters. It's the formality of this present job that has them so... awkward. They will adjust in time. '\n\n\"Not too well, I hope.\"\n\nAll right, Torvald Nom decided, she was talking about something and he had no idea what that something was. \"Mistress, regarding Studlock, Lazan and Madrun-\"\n\n\"Captain, I understand you are estranged from House Nom. That is unfortunate. I always advise that such past errors be mended whenever possible. Reconciliation is essential to well-being.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will give that some thought, Mistress.\"\n\n\"Do so. Now, please make your way out using the stairs. Inform the castellan that I wish to speak to him– no, there will be no repercussions regarding your seeking a private conversation with me. In fact, I am heartened by your concern. Loyalty was ever the foremost trait of the family Nom. Oh, now, do finish your wine, Captain.\"\n\nHe did, rather quickly. Then walked over and locked the balcony doors. A bow to Lady Varada, and then out into the corridor, closing the door behind him. A moment to figure out where the stairs were, and, feeling slightly numbed– was it the wine? No, it wasn't the wine– he descended to the ground floor and out through the formal entrance, striding across the compound to where stood the castellan and his two friends.\n\n\"Castellan Studlock,\" Torvald Nom called out, pleased to see how all three looked up guiltily from their game. \"The Mistress wishes to see you immediately.\"\n\n\"Oh? Of course. Thank you, Captain.\"\n\nTorvald watched him flit away, and then turned to Lazan Door and Madrun. \"Interesting technique you have here. I feel the need to describe your duties, since it appears the castellan forgot to. You are to patrol the compound, preferably at random intervals, employing a variety of routes to ensure that you avoid predictability. Be especially mindful of unlit areas, although I do not recommend you carry torches or lanterns. Any questions?\"\n\nMadrun was smiling. He bowed. \"Sound instruction, Captain, thank you. We shall commence our duties immediately. Lazan, collect up your scrying dice. We must attend to the necessary formalities of diligent patrol.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scrying dice? Gods below. \"Is it wise,\" he asked, \"to rely upon the hoary gods to determine the night's flavour? '\n\nLazan Door cleared his throat then bared his metal fangs. \"As you say, Captain. Divination is ever an imprecise science. We shall be sure to avoid relying overmuch on such things.\"\n\n\"Er, right. Good, well, I'll be in my office, then. '\n\n\"Again,\" Madrun said, his smile broadening.\n\nThere was, Torvald decided as he walked away, nothing pleasant about that smile. About either of their smiles, in fact. Or anything else about those two. Or Studious Lock, for that matter– Blood Drinker, Bile Spitter, Poisoner, oh, they had so many names for that one. How soon before he earns a few more? And Madrun Badrun? And Lazan Door? What is Lady Varada up to?\n\nNever mind, never mind. He had an office, after all. And once he crawled over the desk and settled down in the chair, why, he felt almost important.\n\nThe sensation lasted a few heartbeats, which was actually something of an achievement. Any few precious moments, yes, of not thinking about those three. Any at all.\n\nMake new masks– now why should they do that? Renegade Seguleh are renegade– they can't ever go back. Supposedly, but then, what do any of us really know about the Seguleh? Make new masks, he said to them. Why?\n\nWhat's wrong with normal advice? Wash that robe, Lazan Door, before the spiders start laying eggs. Choose no more than two colours, Madrun, and not ones that clash. Please. And what's with those moccasins?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Masks? Never mind the masks.\n\nHis stomach gurgled and he felt another rise of bilious gas. \"Always chew your food, Tor, why such a hurry? There's plenty of daylight left to play. Chew, Tor, chew! Nice and slow, like a cow, yes. This way nothing will disagree with you. Nothing disagrees with cows, after all. '\n\nSo true, at least until the axe swings down.\n\nHe satin his office, squeezed in behind the desk, in a most disagreeable state.\n\n\"She's poisoning him, is my guess. '\n\nScorch stared, as if amazed at such a suggestion. \"Why would she do that?\"\n\n\"Because of you,\" said Leff. \"She hates you, Scorch, because of the way you always got Tor into trouble, and now she thinks you're going to do it allover again, so that's why she's poisoning him. '\n\n\"That don't make any sense. If she was worried she wouldn't be killing him!\"\n\n\"Not killing, just making sickly. You forget, she's a witch, she can do things like that. Of course, she'd do better by poisoning you.\"\n\n\"I ain't touching nothing she cooks, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"It won't help if she decides you're better off dead, Scorch. Gods, I am so glad I'm not you. '\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'd have orange eyes and that'd be awful because then we'd both have orange eyes so looking at each other would be like looking at yourself, which I have to do all the time anyway but imagine double that! No thanks, is what I say. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that what you say?\"\n\n\"I just said it, didn't I? '\n\n\"I don't know. I don't know what you just said, Scorch, and that's the truth. '\n\n\"Good, since what I had to say wasn't meant for you anyway. '\n\nLeff looked round and no, he didn't see anyone else. Of course he didn't, there was no point in looking.\n\n\"Besides,\" said Scorch, \"you're the one who's been poisoned.\"\n\n\"It wasn't no poison, Scorch. It was a mistake, a misdiagnosis. And it's fading-\" \"No it ain't. '\n\n\"Yes. It is.\"\n\n\"No. It ain't. '\n\n\"I'd stop saying that if I was you-'\n\n\"Don't start that one again! '\n\nBlessed fates! Leave them to it, thy round self begs! The night stretches on, the city wears its granite grin and shadows dance on the edge of darkness. Late-night hawkers call out their wares, their services both proper and dubious. Singers sing and the drunk drink and thieves do their thieving and mysteries thrive wherever you do not belong and that, friends, is the hard truth.\n\nLike rats we skitter away from the pools of light, seeking other matters, other scenes both tranquil and foul.\n\nFollow, oh, follow me!\n\nBenefactor of all things cosmopolitan, bestower of blessings upon all matters human and humane (bless their hearts both squalid and generous, bless their dreams and bless their nightmares, bless their fears and their loves and their fears of love and love of fears and bless, well, bless their shoes, sandals, boots and slippers and to walk in each, in turn, ah, such wonders! Such peculiar follies!), Kruppe of Darujhistan walked the Great Avenue of sordid acquisitiveness, casting a most enormous, indeed gigantic shadow that rolled sure as a tide past all these shops and their wares, past the wary eyes of shop owners, past the stands of fruit and succulent pastries, past the baskets of berries and the dried fish and the strange leafy things some people ate believing themselves to be masticators of wholesomeness, past the loaves of bread and rounds of cheese, past the vessels of wine and liquors in all assorted sizes, past the weavers and dressmakers, past the crone harpist with nubs for fingers and only three strings left on her harp and her song about the peg and the hole and the honey on the nightstand– ducking the flung coins and so quickly past! – and the bolts of cloth going nowhere and the breeches blocking the doorway and the shirts for men-at-arms and shoes for the soulless and the headstone makers and urn-pissers and the old thrice-divorced man who tied knots fora living with a gaggle of children in tow surely bound by blood and thicker stuff. Past the wax-drippers and wick-twisters, the fire-eaters and ashcake-makers, past the prostitutes– oozing each languorous step with smiles of appreciation and fingers all aflutter and unbidden mysterious sensations of caresses in hidden or at least out-of-reach places and see eyes widen and appreciation flood through like the rush of lost youth and princely dreams and they sigh and call out Kruppe, you darling man! Kruppe, ain't you gonna pay for that? Kruppe, marry everyone of us and make us honest women! Kruppe– rushing quickly past, now, aaii, frightening prospect to imagine! A bludgeon of wives (surely that must be the plural assignation)! A prattle of prostitutes!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Past this gate, thank the gods, and into the tunnel and out again and now civilization loomed austere and proper and this bodacious shadow strode alone, animated in its solitude, and yet this moment proved ample time to partake of past passages through life itself.\n\nOut from one sleeve a berry-studded pastry, a ripe pompfruit, and a flask of minty wine; out from the other anew silver dinner knife with the Varada House monogram (my, where did this come from?), the polished blade– astonishing! – already glistening with a healthy dollop of butter streaked with honey– and so many things crowding these ample but nimble hands but see how one thing after another simply vanishes into inviting mouth and appreciative palate as befitting all culinary arts when the subtle merging of flavours yielded exquisite masterpiece– butter, honey, and– oh! – jam, and pastry and cheese and fruit and smoked eel– agh! Voluminous sleeve betrays self! Wine to wash away disreputable (and most cruel) taste.\n\nHands temporarily free once more, to permit examination of new shirt, array of scented candles, knotted strings of silk, handsome breeches and gilt-threaded sandals soft as anyone of Kruppe's four cheeks, and here a kid-gut condom– gods, where did that come from? Well, an end to admiration of the night's most successful shopping venture, and if that crone discovered but two strings left on her harp, well, imagine how the horse felt! Standing now, at last, before most austere of austere estates. The gate creaked open, inviting invitation and so invited Kruppe invited himself in.\n\nSteps and ornate formal entranceway and corridor and more steps these ones carpeted and wending upward and another corridor and now the dark-stained door and– oh, fling aside those wards, goodness– inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How did you– never mind. Sit, Kruppe, make yourself comfortable.\"\n\n\"Master Baruk is so kind, Kruppe shall do as bid, with possibly measurable relief does he so oof! into this chair and stretch out legs, yes they are indeed stretched out, the detail subtle. Ah, an exhausting journey, Baruk beloved friend of Kruppe!\"\n\nA toad-like obese demon crawled up to nest at his feet, snuffling. Kruppe produced a strip of dried eel and offered it. The demon sniffed, then gingerly accepted the morsel.\n\n\"Are things truly as dire as I believe, Kruppe?\"\n\nKruppe waggled his brows. \"Such journeys leave self puckered with dryness, gasping with thirst.\"\n\nSighing, the High Alchemist said, \"Help yourself.\"\n\nBeaming a smile, Kruppe drew out from a sleeve a large dusty bottle, already uncorked. He examined the stamp on the dark green glass. \"My, your cellar is indeed well equipped!\" A crystal goblet appeared from the other sleeve. He poured. Downed a mouthful then smacked his lips. \"Exquisite!\"\n\n\"Certain arrangements have been finalized,\" said Baruk.\n\n\"Most impressive, Baruk friend of Kruppe. How can such portentous events be measured, one wonders. If one was the wondering type. Yet listen– the buried gate creaks, dust sifts down, stones groan! Humble as we are, can we hope to halt such inevitable inevitabilities? Alas, time grinds on. All fates spin and not even the gods can guess how each will topple. The moon itself rises uncertain on these nights. The stars waver, rocks fall upward, wronged wives forgive and forget– oh, this is a time for miracles!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And is that what we need, Kruppe?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miracles?\"\n\n\"Each moment may indeed seem influx, chaotic and fraught, yet– and Kruppe knows this most surely– when all is set out, moment upon moment, then every aberration is but a modest crease, a feeble fold, a crinkled memento. The great forces of the universe areas a weight-stone upon the fabric of our lives. Rich and poor, modest and ambitious, generous and greedy, honest and deceitful, why, all is flattened! Splat! Crunch, smear, ooze! What cares Nature for jewelled crowns, coins a-stacked perilously high, great estates and lofty towers? Kings and queens, tyrants and devourers– all areas midges on the forehead of the world!\"\n\n\"You advise an extended perspective. That is all very well, from an historian's point of view, and in retrospect. Unfortunately, Kruppe, to those of us who must live it, in the midst, as it were, it provides scant relief. '\n\n\"Alas, Baruk speaks true. Lives in, lives out. The sobs of death are the sodden songs of the world. So true, so sad. Kruppe asks this: witness two scenes. In one, an angry, bitter man beats another man to death in an alley in the Gadrobi District. In the other, a man of vast wealth conspires with equally wealthy compatriots to raise yet again the price of grain, making the cost of simple bread so prohibitive that families starve, are led into lives of crime, and die young. Are both acts of violence?\"\n\nThe High Alchemist stood looking down at Kruppe. \"In only one of those examples will you find blood on a man's hands. '\n\n\"True, deplorable as such stains are.\" He poured himself some more wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are,\" said Baruk, \"countless constructs whereby the wealthy man might claim innocence. Mitigating circumstances, unexpected costs of production, the law of supply and demand, and soon.\"\n\n\"Indeed, a plethora of justifications, making the waters so very murky, and who then sees the blood?\"\n\n\"And yet, destitution results, with all its misery, its stresses and anxieties, its foul vapours of the soul. It can be said that the wealthy grain merchant wages subtle war.\"\n\nKruppe studied the wine through the crystal. \"And so the poor remain poor and, mayhap, even poorer. The employed but scarcely getting by cling all the harder to their jobs, even unto accepting despicable working conditions– which in turn permits the employers to fill their purses unto bulging, thus satisfying whatever hidden pathetic inadequacies they harbour. A balance can be said to exist, one never iterated, whereby the eternal war is held in check, so as to avoid anarchy. Should the grain merchant charge too high, then revolution may well explode into life.\"\n\n\"Whereupon everyone loses.\"\n\n\"For a time. Until the new generation of the wealthy emerge, to begin once again their predations on the poor. Balance is framed by imbalances and so it seems such things might persist for all eternity. Alas, in any long view, one sees that this is not so. The structure of society is far more fragile than most believe. To set too much faith in its resilience is to know a moment of pristine astonishment at the instant of its utter collapse– before the wolves close in.\" Kruppe raised one finger.\n\n\"Yet, witness all these who would grasp hold of the crown, to make themselves the freest and the wealthiest of them all. Oh, they are most dangerous in the moment, as one might expect. Most dangerous indeed. One is encouraged to pray. Pray for dust.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An end to it all.\"\n\n\"And anew beginning.\"\n\n\"I somehow expected more from you, my friend.\"\n\nKruppe smiled, reached down and patted the demon's pebbly head. It blinked languidly.\"Kruppe maintains a perspective as broad as his waistline, which, as you know, is unceasing. After all, where does it begin and where does it end? '\n\n\"Any other momentous news?\"\n\n\"Cities live in haste. Ever headlong. Nothing changes and everything changes. A murderer stalks Gadrobi District, but Kruppe suspects you know of that. Assassins plot. You know this too, friend Baruk. Lovers tryst or dream of said trysts. Children belabour unknown futures. People retire and others are retired, new careers abound and old nemeses lurk. Friendships unfold while others unravel. All in its time, most High Alchemist, all in its time.\"\n\n\"You do not put meat ease, Kruppe.\"\n\n\"Join me in a glass of this exquisite vintage!\"\n\n\"There area dozen wards sealing the cellar– twice as many as at your last visit.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"You did not trip a single one.\"\n\n\"Extraordinary!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is.\"\n\nThe demon belched and the heady fragrance of smoked eel wafted through the chamber. Even the demon wrinkled its nostril slits.\n\nKruppe produced, with a flourish, some scented candles.\n\nAn intestinal confusion of pipes, valves, copper globes, joins and vents dominated one entire end of the building's main front room. From this bizarre mechanism came rhythmic gasps (most suggestive), wheezes (inserting, as it were, a more realistic contribution) and murmurs and hissing undertones. Six nozzles jutted out, each one ready fora hose attachment or extension, but at the moment all shot out steady blue flame and this heated the crackling dry air of the chamber so that both Chaur and Barathol– working barebacked as they had been the entire day just done– were slick with sweat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the clutter in this decrepit bakery had now been removed, or, rather, transferred from inside to the narrow high-walled yard out at the back, and Chaur was on his hands and knees using wet rags to wipe dust and old flour from the well-set pavestone floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barathol was examining the brick bases of the three humped ovens, surprised and pleased to find, sandwiched between layers of brick, vast slabs of pumice-stone. The interior back walls of the ovens each contained fixtures for the gas that had been used as fuel, with elongated perforated tubes projecting out beneath the racks. Could he convert these ovens to low-heat forges? Perhaps.\n\nThe old copper mixing drums remained, lining one half of the room's back wall, and would serve for quenching. He had purchased an anvil from an inbound caravan from Pale, the original buyer having, alas, died whilst the object was en route. A plains design, intended for portability– Rhivi, he had been informed– it was not quite the size he wanted or needed, but it would suffice for now. Various tongs and other tools came from the scrap markets on the west side of the city, including a very fine hammer of Aren steel (no doubt stolen from a Malazan army's weaponsmith).\n\nOn the morrow he would put in his first orders for wood, coke, coal, and raw copper, tin andiron.\n\nIt was getting late. Barathol straightened from his examination of the ovens and said to Chaur, \"Leave off now, my friend. We're grimy, true, but perhaps an outside restaurant would accommodate us, once we show our coin. I don't know about you, but some chilled beer would sit well right now.\"\n\nLooking up, Chaur's smeared and smudged face split into a wide smile.\n\nThe front door was kicked open and both turned as a half-dozen disreputable men pushed in, spreading out. Clubs and mallets in their hands, they began eyeing the equipment. A moment later and a finely dressed woman strode through the milling press, eyes settling on Barathol, upon which she smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dear sir, you are engaged in an illegal activity-\"\n\n\"Illegal? That is a reach, I'm sure. Now, before you send your thugs on a rampage of destruction, might I point out that the valves are not only open but the threads have been cut. In other words, for now, the flow of gas from the chambers beneath this structure cannot be stopped. Any sort of damage will result in, well, a ball of fire, probably of sufficient size to incinerate a sizeable area of the district. \"He paused, then added,\"Such wilful destruction on your part will be viewed by most as, um, illegal. Now, you won't face any charges since you will be dead, but the Guild that hired you will face dire retribution. The fines alone will bankrupt it.\"\n\nThe woman's smile was long gone by now.\"Oh, aren't you the clever one. Since we cannot discourage you by dismantling your shop, we have no choice then but to focus our attention on yourselves.\"\n\nBarathol walked to the kneading counter and reached into a leather satchel, withdrawing a large round ball of fired clay. He faced the woman and her mob, saw a few expressions drain of blood, and was pleased. \"Yes, a Moranth grenado. Cusser, the Malazans call this one. Threaten me or my companion here, and I will be delighted to commit suicide– after all, what have we to lose that you would not happily take from us, given the chance?\"\n\n\"You have lost your mind.\"\n\n\"You are welcome to that opinion. Now, the question is, have you?\"\n\nShe hesitated, then snarled and spun on her heel. Waving her crew to follow her, out she went.\n\nSighing, Barathol returned the cusser to the satchel. \"In every thirteenth crate of twelve cussers each,\" Mallet had told him, \"there is a thirteenth cusser. Empty. Why? Who knows? The Moranth are strange folk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It worked this time,\" he said to Chaur, \"but I doubt it will last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, the first order of business is to outfit you. Armour, weapons.\"\n\nChaur stared at him as if uncomprehending.\n\n\"Remember the smell of blood, Chaur? Corpses, the dead and dismembered?\"\n\nSudden brightening of expression, and Chaur nodded vigorously.\n\nSighing again, Barathol said, \"Let's climb out over the back wall and find us that beer. '\n\nHe took the satchel with him.\n\nElsewhere in the city, as the tenth bell of the night sounded, a fingerless man set out fora new tavern, murder on his mind. His wife went out to her garden to kneel on stone, which she polished using oiled sand and a thick pad of leather.\n\nA buxom, curvaceous woman– who drew admiring regard along with curdling spite depending on gender and gender preference– walked with one rounded arm hooked in the rather thinner seamed arm of a Malazan historian, who bore an expression wavering between disbelief and dismay. They strolled as lovers would, and since they were not lovers, the historian's bemusement only grew.\n\nIn the High Markets of the Estates District, south of the gallows, sauntered Lady Challice. Bored, stung with longing and possibly despoiled (in her own mind) beyond all hope of redemption, she perused the host of objects and items, none of which were truly needed, and watched as women just like her (though most were trailed by servants who carried whatever was purchased) picked through the expensive and often finely made rubbish eager as jackdaws (and as mindless? Ah, beware cruel assumptions!), and she saw herself as so very different from them. So... changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not three hundred paces away from Lady Challice, wandering unmindful of where his steps took him, was Cutter, who had once been a thief named Crokus Younghand, who had once stolen something he shouldn't have, and, finding that he could not truly give it back, had then confused guilt and sympathy with the bliss of adoration (such errors are common), only to be released in the end by a young woman's open contempt for his heartfelt, honest admissions.\n\nWell, times and people change, don't they just.\n\nOn a rooftop half a city away, Rallick Nom stood looking out upon the choppy sea of blue lights, at his side Krute of Talient, and they had much to discuss and this meant, given Rallick Nom's taciturnity, along session indeed.\n\nKrute had too much to say. Rallick weighed every morsel he fed back, not out of distrust, simply habit.\n\nIna duelling school, long after the last of the young students had toddled out, Murillio sat under moonlight with Stonny Menackis as, weeping, she unburdened herself to this veritable stranger– which perhaps is what made it all so easy– but Stonny had no experience with a man such as Murillio, who understood what it was to listen, to bestow rapt, thorough and most genuine attention solely upon one woman, to draw all of her essence– so pouring out– into his own being, as might a hummingbird drink nectar, or a bat a cow's ankle blood (although this analogy ill serves the tender moment).\n\nAnd so between them unseen vapours waft, animal and undeniable, and so much seeps into flesh and bone and self that stunning recognition comes– when it comes– like the unlocking of a door once thought sealed forevermore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wept and she wept often, and each time it was somehow easier, somehow more natural, more comfortable and acceptable, no different, truly, from the soft stroke of his fingers through her short hair, the way the tips brushed her cheek to smooth away the tears– and oh, who then could be surprised by all this?\n\nTo the present, then, as the blurred moon, now risen, squints down upon three dozen figures gathering on a rooftop. Exchanging hand signals and muttering instructions and advice. Checking weapons. Three dozen, for the targets were tough, mean veterans with foreign ways. And the assault to come, well, it would be brutal, unsubtle, and, without doubt, thorough.\n\nThe usual crowd in K'rul's Bar, a dozen or so denizens choosing to be unmindful of the temple that once was– these quarried stonewalls, stained with smoke and mute repositories for human voices generation upon generation, from droning chants and choral music to the howl of drunken laughter and the squeals of pinched women, these walls, then, thick and solid, ever hold to indifference in the face of drama.\n\nLives play out, lives parcel out portions framed by stone and wood, by tile and rafter, and all of these insensate forms have, in their time, tasted blood.\n\nThe vast, low-ceilinged main taproom with its sunken floor was once a transept or perhaps a congregation area. The narrow corridor between inset pillars along the back was once a colonnade bearing niches on which, long ago, stood funerary urns containing the charred, ashen remains of High Priests and Priestesses. The kitchen and the three storerooms behind it had once supplied sustenance to monks and the sanctioned blade-wielders, scribes and acolytes. Now they fed patrons, staff and owners." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help to continue the narrative for the writer.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 25" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How wide is the sky? How deep is the ocean? I think about these things, all the time.\"\n\nGruntle noted the Master gaping, like a beached fish, and so he asked, \"What was your name when you were alive, sir?\"\n\n\"My name? I don't recall. Being alive, I mean. But I must have been, once. My name is Cartographer. '\n\n\"That sounds more like a profession.\"\n\nThe corpse scratched his forehead, flakes of skin fluttering down. \"It does. An extraordinary coincidence. What were my parents thinking?\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are but confused. Perhaps you were a cartographer, trained in the making of maps and such.\"\n\n\"Then it was wise that they named me so, wasn't it? Clever parents. '\n\n\"What did Hood command of you, Cartographer?\"\n\n\"Well, he said'Come\" and nothing more. It wasn't a command to create confusion, or arguments regarding interpretation. A simple command. Even dogs understand it, I believe. Dogs and sharks. I have found seventeen species of shellfish on this beach. Proof that the world is round. '\n\nAnother nut thudded in the sand.\n\n\"We are perturbing this island with our presence,\" said the cartographer. \"The trees are so angry they're trying to kill us. Of course, I am already dead. \"He climbed to his feet, bits falling away here and there, and brushed sand and skin from his hands.\"Can we go now? '\n\n\"Yes,\" said Master Quell, though his eyes were still a little wild. \"We're going back to Hood's realm and we're happy to take you with us. '\n\n\"Oh, no, I'm not going back there. It's not time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes it is and yes you are,\" said Master Quell.\n\n\"No it isn't and no I'm not. Hood issued a second command, one just tome. He said'Go\" and so I did. It's not time. Until it is, I'm staying with you.\"\n\n\"Everyone who rides the carriage,\" Quell said in a growl, \"has to work for the privilege.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I have begun.\" And he gestured down at the coconut pyramids. \"You have netting bundled to the sides of the carriage, presumably to hold people onboard. If we are to cross water, then we should place these nuts within said netting. As flotation devices, in case someone is washed overboard.\" He made a heaving motion with his emaciated arms. \"With a line attached for retrieval.\"\n\n\"That might work,\" said Gruntle.\n\n\"Gods below,\" Master Quell muttered. \"Fine, I'm not arguing with a dead man. Gruntle, draw your weapons. We're going now.\"\n\n\"My weapons?\"\n\n\"Just in case. And now, no more damned talking back!\"\n\nQuell fashioned a portal into Hood's warren that was but a thin, elongated slice, like a parting of curtains, from which cool lifeless breath gusted out, sweeping the sand into the air. Eyes stinging, Gruntle glanced back just before following the mage into the rent. And saw Amby and Jula wave.\n\nThey emerged on the summit of a hill, one of along spine of hills, each one so similar to the next that they might be enormous barrows– although why there would be barrows in the realm of death Gruntle could not imagine.\n\nIn the valley before them the broad basin was a solid river of grey figures, tens of thousands on the march. Ragged pennons hung from standards as if impervious to the moaning wind. Weapons glinted in muted flashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gods below,\" muttered Quell. \"He's assembling the entire host. '\n\n\"Looks that way,\" agreed Gruntle, feeling like an idiot with his cutlasses in his hands. He slid them back into the under-slung scabbards. \"Do we make our way down?\"\n\n\"I'd rather not. '\n\n\"Good. Seen enough? Can we go now, Master Quell?\"\n\n\"Look, a rider approaches.\"\n\nThe horse was clearly as dead as the man who rode it, gaunt and withered, mottled where hair had worn off. Both wore armour, boiled leather tarnished and cracked, flapping on frayed leather thongs as they climbed the slope. A ragged cape lifted like a tattered wing behind the warrior. As they drew closer, Gruntle swore under his breath. \"He's wearing a mask– he's a damned Seguleh!\" And he reached for his weapons-\n\n\"Gods\" breath, Gruntle, don't do that!\"\n\nIt was a struggle to lower his arms. Gruntle's blood felt hot as fire in his veins– the beast within him wanted to awaken, to show hackles lifted and fangs bared. The beast wanted to challenge this... thing. Trembling, he made no move as the rider drove his horse over the crest a dozen paces to their right, sawing the reins and wheeling the beast round to face them.\n\n\"Now this is living!\" the Seguleh roared, tilting his head back to loose a manic laugh. Then he leaned forward on the saddle and cocked his head, long filthy hair swinging like ropes. \"Well,\" he amended in an amused rumble, \"not quite. But close enough. Close enough. Tell me, mortals, do you like my army? I do. Did you know the one thing a commander must battle against– more than any enemy across the plain, more than any personal crisis of will or confidence, more than unkind weather, broken supply chains, plague and all the rest? Do you know what a commander wages eternal war with, my friends? I will tell you. The true enemy is fear. The fear that haunts every soldier, that haunts even the beasts they ride.\" He lifted a gauntleted hand and waved to the valley below. \"But not with this army! Oh, no. Fear belongs to the living, after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As with the T'lan Imass, ' said Gruntle.\n\nThe darkness within the mask's elongated eye-holes seemed to glitter as the Seguleh fixed his attention on Gruntle.\"Trake's cub. Now, wouldn't you like to cross blades with me? \"A low laugh.\"Yes, as with the T'lan Imass. Is it any wonder the Jaghut recoiled?\"\n\nMaster Quell cleared his throat. \"Sir,\" he said, \"what need has Hood for an army? Will he now wage war against the living?\"\n\n\"If only,\" the Seguleh replied in a grunt. \"You don't belong here– and if you drag that infernal carriage of yours back here anytime soon, I will seek you out myself. And then Trake's spitting kitten here can fulfil his desperate desire, hah!\" He twisted in his saddle. Other riders were approaching. \"Look at them. My watchdogs. \"Be reasonable\", indeed. Have I chopped these two interlopers to pieces? I have not. Restraint has been shown.\" He faced Gruntle and Quell once more. \"You will confirm this, yes?\"\n\n\"Beyond you goading Gruntle here,\" Quell said, \"yes, I suppose we can.\"\n\n\"It was a jest!\" the Seguleh shouted.\n\n\"It was a threat,\" Quell corrected, and Gruntle was impressed by the man's sudden courage.\n\nThe Seguleh tilted his head, as if he too was casting new measure upon the mage. \"Oh, trundle your wagon wherever you like, then, see if I care.\"\n\nThree riders mounted the summit and, slowing their horses to a walk, drew up to where waited the Seguleh, who now sat slumped like a browbeaten bully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle started, took an involuntary step forward. \"Toc Anaster?\"\n\nThe one-eyed soldier's smile was strained.\"Hello, old friend. I am sorry. There may come a time for this, but it is not now. '\n\nGruntle edged back, blunted by Toc Anaster's cold– even harsh– tone.\"I– I did not know. '\n\n\"It was a messy death. My memories remain all too sharp. Gruntle, deliver this message to your god: not long now.\"\n\nGruntle scowled. \"Too cryptic. If you want me to pass on your words, you will have to do better than that.\"\n\nToc Anaster's single eye– terrifying in its lifelessness– shifted away.\n\n\"He cannot,\" said the middle horseman, and there was something familiar about the face behind the helm's cheekguards.\"I remember you from Capustan. Gruntle, chosen servant of Treach. Your god is confused, but it must choose, and soon. '\n\nGruntle shrugged. \"There is no point in bringing all this tome. Trake and me, we're not really on speaking terms. I didn't ask for any of this. I don't even want it-'\n\n\"Hah!\" barked the Seguleh, twisting round to face the middle rider. \"Hear that, Iskar Jarak? Let me kill him!\"\n\nIskar Jarak? I seem to recall he had a different name. One of those odd ones, common to the Malazan soldiery– what was it now?\n\n\"Save your wrath for Skinner,\" Iskar Jarak calmly replied.\n\n\"Skinner!\" roared the Seguleh, savagely wheeling his horse round. \"Where is he, then? I'd forgotten! Hood, you bastard– you made me forget! Where is he? \"He faced the three riders.\"Does Toc know? Brukhalian, you? Someone tell me where he's hiding!\" \"Who knows?\" said Iskar Jarak. \"But there is one thing for certain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" demanded the Seguleh.\n\n\"Skinner is not hereon this hill.\"\n\n\"Bah!\" The Seguleh drove spurs into his horse's senseless flanks. The animal surged forward anyway, plunging off the hilltop and raging downslope like an avalanche.\n\nSoft laughter from Brukhalian, and Gruntle saw that even Toc was grinning– though he still would not meet his eyes. That death must have been terrible indeed, as if the world had but one answer, one way of ending things, and whatever lessons could be gleaned from that did not ease the spirit. The notion left him feeling morose.\n\nIt was a common curse to feel unclean, but that curse would be unbearable if no cleansing awaited one, if not at the moment of dying, then afterwards. Looking upon these animated corpses, Gruntle saw nothing of redemption, nothing purged– guilt, shame, regrets and grief, they all swirled about these figures like a noxious cloud.\n\n\"If getting killed lands me with you lot,\" he said, \"I'd rather do without. '\n\nThe one named Iskar Jarak leaned wearily over the large Seven Cities saddle horn. \"I sympathize, truly. Tell me, do you think we've all earned our rest? '\n\n\"Don't you? '\n\n\"You have lost all your followers.\"\n\n\"I have.\" Gruntle saw that Toc Anaster was now watching him, fixed, sharp as a dagger point.\n\n\"They are not here.\"\n\nHe frowned at Iskar Jarak. \"And they should be, I suppose?\"\n\nBrukhalian finally spoke, \"It is just that. We are no longer so sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stay out of Hood's realm, \"said Toc Anaster.\"The gate is... closed. '\n\nMaster Quell started. \"Closed? But that's ridiculous! Does Hood now turn the dead away? '\n\nToc's single eye held on Gruntle.\"The borders are sealed to the living. There will be sentinels. Patrols. Intrusions will not be tolerated. Where we march you can't go. Not now, perhaps never. Stay away, until the choice is taken from you. Stay away.\"\n\nAnd Gruntle saw then, finally, the anguish that gripped Toc Anaster, the bone-deep fear and dread. He saw how the man's warning was in truth a cry to a friend, from one already lost, already doomed. Save yourself. Just do that, and it will all be worth it– all we must do, the war we must seek. Damn you, Gruntle, give all this meaning.\n\nQuell must have sensed something of these fierce undercurrents, for he then bowed to the three riders. \"I shall deliver your message. To all the pilots of the Trygalle Trade Guild.\"\n\nThe ground seemed to shift uneasily beneath Gruntle's boots.\n\n\"And now you had better leave,\" said Brukhalian.\n\nThe hill groaned– and what Gruntle had imagined as some internal vertigo was now revealed as areal quaking of the earth.\n\nMaster Quell's eyes were wide and he held his hands out to the sides to stay balanced.\n\nAt the far end of the range of hills, a massive eruption thundered, lifting earth and stones skyward. From the ruptured mound something rose, clawing free, sinuous neck and gaping, snapping jaws, wings spreading wide-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hill shivered beneath them.\n\nThe three riders had wheeled their horses and were now barrelling down the slope.\n\n\"Quell!\"\n\n\"A moment, damn you!\"\n\nAnother hill exploded.\n\nDamned barrows all right! Holding dead dragons! \"Hurry-\"\n\n\"Be quiet!\"\n\nThe portal that split open was ragged, edges rippling as if caught in a storm.\n\nThe hill to their right burst its flanks. A massive wedge-shaped head scythed in their direction, gleaming bone and shreds of desiccated skin-\n\n\"Quell!\"\n\n\"Go! I need to-\"\n\nThe dragon heaved up from cascading earth, forelimbs tearing into the ground. The leviathan was coming for them.\n\nNo– it's coming for the portal– Gruntle grasped Master Quell and dragged him towards the rent. The mage struggled, shrieking– but whatever he sought to say was lost in the deafening hiss from the dragon as it lurched forward. The head snapped closer, jaws wide– and Gruntle, with Quell in his arms, threw himself back, plunging into the portal-\n\nThey emerged at twice the height of a man above the sandy beach, plummeting downward to thump heavily in a tangle of limbs.\n\nShouts from the others-\n\nAs the undead dragon tore through the rent with a piercing cry of triumph, head, neck, forelimbs and shoulders, then one wing cracked out, spreading wide in an enormous torn sail shedding dirt. The second wing whipped into view-\n\nMaster Quell was screaming, weaving frantic words of power, panic driving his voice ever higher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The monstrosity shivered out like an unholy birth, lunged skyward above the island. Stones rained down in clouds. As the tattered tip of its long tail slithered free, the rent snapped shut.\n\nLying half in the water, half on hard-packed sand, Gruntle stared up as the creature winged away, still shedding dust.\n\nShareholder Faint arrived, falling to her knees beside them. She was glaring at Master Quell who was slowly sitting up, a stunned look on his face.\n\n\"You damned fool,\" she snarled, \"why didn't you throw a damned harness on that thing? We just lost our way off this damned island! '\n\nGruntle stared at her. Insane. They are all insane.\n\nThere was a tension in his stance that she had not seen before. He faced east, across the vast sweeping landscape of the Dwelling Plain. Samar Dev gave the tea another stir then hooked the pot off the coals and set it to one side. She shot Karsa Orlong a look, but the Toblakai was busy retying the leather strings of one of his moccasins, aided in some mysterious way by his tongue which had curled into view from the corner of his mouth– the gesture was so childlike she wondered if he wasn't mocking her, aware as always that she was studying him.\n\nHavok cantered into view from a nearby basin, his dawn hunt at an end. The other horses shifted nervously as the huge beast drew closer with head held high as if to showoff the blood glistening on his muzzle.\n\n\"We need to find water today,\" Samar Dev said, pouring out the tea.\n\n\"So we will,\" Karsa replied, standing now to test the tightness of the moccasin. Then he reached beneath his trousers to make some adjustments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Reminding yourself it's there? \"she asked.\"Here's your tea. Don't gulp. '\n\nHe took the cup from her. \"I know it's there, \"he said.\"I was just reminding you. '\n\n\"Hood's breath, ' she said, and then stopped as Traveller seemed to flinch.\n\nHe turned to face them, his eyes clouded, faraway. \"Yes,\" he said. \"Spitting something out.\"\n\nSamar Dev frowned. \"Yes what?\"\n\nHis gaze cleared, flitted briefly to her and then away again. \"Something is happening,\" he said, walking over to pickup the tin cup. He looked down into the brew fora moment, then sipped.\n\n\"Something is always happening,\" Karsa said easily. \"It's why misery gets no rest. The witch says we need water– we can follow yon valley, at least fora time, since it wends northerly. '\n\n\"The river that made it has been dead ten thousand years, Toblakai. But yes, the direction suits us well enough.\"\n\n\"The valley remembers.\"\n\nSamar Dev scowled at Karsa. The warrior was getting more cryptic by the day, as if he was being overtaken by something of this land's ambivalence. For the Dwelling Plain was ill named. Vast stretches of... nothing. Animal tracks but no animals. The only birds in the sky were those vultures that daily tracked them, wheeling specks of patience. Yet Havok had found prey.\n\nThe Dwelling Plain was a living secret, its language obscure and wont to drift like waves of heat. Even Traveller seemed uneasy with this place.\n\nShe drained the last of her tea and rose. \"I believe this land was cursed once, long ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Curses are immortal,\" said Karsa in a dismissive grunt.\n\n\"Will you stop that?\"\n\n\"What? I am telling you what I sense. The curse does not die. It persists.\"\n\nTraveller said, \"I do not think it was a curse. What we are feeling is the land's memory. '\n\n\"A grim memory, then.\"\n\n\"Yes, Samar Dev,\" agreed Traveller. \"Here, life comes to fail. Beasts too few to breed. Outcasts from villages and cities. Even the caravan tracks seem to wander half lost– none are used with any consistency, because the sources of water are infrequent, elusive.\"\n\n\"Or they want to keep bandits guessing.\"\n\n\"I have seen no old camps,\" Traveller pointed out. \"There are no bandits here, I think.\"\n\n\"We need to find water,\" Samar said again.\n\n\"So you said,\" Karsa said, with an infuriating grin.\n\n\"Why not cleanup the breakfast leavings, Toblakai. Astonish me by being useful.\" She walked over to her horse, collecting the saddle on the way. She could draw a dagger, she could let slip some of her lifeblood, could reach down into this dry earth and see what was thereto be seen. Or she could keep her back turned, herself closed in. The two notions warred with each other. Curiosity and trepidation.\n\nShe swung the saddle onto the horse's broad back, adjusted the girth straps and then waited for the animal to release its held breath. Nothing likes to be bound. Not the living, perhaps not the dead. Once, she might have asked Karsa about that, if only to confirm what she already knew– but he had divested himself of that mass of souls trailing in his wake. Somehow, the day he killed the Emperor. Oh, two remained, therein that horrid sword of his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And perhaps that was what was different about him, she realized. Liberation. But then, has he not already begun collecting more? She cinched the strap then half turned to regard the giant warrior, who was using sand to scrub the blackened pan on which she'd cooked knee-root, challenging the pernicious crust with a belligerent scowl. No, she could sense nothing– not as drawn in as she'd made herself. Thus, sensing nothing didn't mean anything, did it? Perhaps he had grown at ease with those victims dragged behind him everywhere he went.\n\nA manlike that should not smile. Should never smile, or laugh. He should be haunted.\n\nBut he was too damned arrogant to suffer haunting, a detail that invariably irritated her, even as she was drawn to it (and was that not irritating in itself?).\n\n\"You chew on him,\" said Traveller, who had come unseen to her side and now spoke quietly, \"as a jackal does an antler. Not out of hunger so much as habit. He is not as complicated as you think, Samar Dev.\"\n\n\"Oh yes he is. More so, in fact.\"\n\nThe man grimaced as he set about saddling his own horse. \"A child dragged into the adult world, but no strength was lost. No weakening of purpose. He remains young enough,\" Traveller said, \"to still be certain. Of his vision, of his beliefs, of the way he thinks the world works.\"\n\n\"Oh, so precisely when will the world get round to kicking him good and hard between the legs?\"\n\n\"For some, it never does.\"\n\nShe eyed him. \"You are saying it does no good to rail against injustice.\"\n\n\"I am saying do not expect justice, Samar Dev. Not in this world. And not in the one to come.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then what drives you so, Traveller? What forces your every step, ever closer to whatever destiny waits for you?\"\n\nHe was sometime in answering, although she did not deceive herself into thinking that her words had struck something vulnerable. These men herewith her, they were armoured in every way. He cinched the girth straps and dropped the stirrups. \"We have an escort, Samar Dev.\"\n\n\"We do? The vultures?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, there are those, too. Great Ravens.\"\n\nAt that she squinted skyward. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I was speaking of another escort.\"\n\n\"Oh, then who? And why doesn't it show itself? '\n\nTraveller swung himself astride his horse and gathered the reins. Karsa had completed packing the camp gear and was now bridling Havok. \"I have no answers to those questions, Samar Dev. I do not presume to know the minds of Hounds of Shadow.\"\n\nShe saw Karsa Orlong glance over at that, but there was nothing revealed in his expression beyond simple curiosity.\n\nGods, he drives me mad!\n\n\"Do they hunt us?\" Karsa asked.\n\n\"No,\" Traveller replied. \"At least, not me, nor, I imagine, our witch here.\"\n\nKarsa mounted his Jhag horse. \"Today,\" he announced, \"I shall not ride with you. Instead, I shall find these Hounds of Shadow, for I wish to see them for myself. And if they in turn see me alone, then they may choose to make plain their desires.\"\n\n\"Now what is the point of that?\" demanded Samar Dev.\n\n\"I have faced Hounds before,\" he said. \"I am happy to invite them close, so they can smell the truth of that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is no need,\" said Traveller." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Karsa Orlong, the Hounds began as my escort– one in truth– granted me by Shadowthrone. They are not interested in you, I am sure of it.\"\n\nSamar Dev rounded on him. \"Then why did you suggest otherwise?\"\n\nHe met her eyes and she saw him gritting his teeth, the muscles of his jaws binding. \"You were right, witch,\" he said, \"you know this warrior better than I.\"\n\nKarsa snorted a laugh. \"I will see you later.\"\n\nThey watched him ride off.\n\nSamar Dev wanted to spit– the tea had left her mouth dry, bitter. \"He probably will at that,\" she muttered, \"whether the Hounds like it or not.\"\n\nTraveller simply nodded.\n\nSkintick knew precisely the day he died. The final terrible battle waged on Drift Avalii, with four of his closest companions falling, each just beyond his reach, beyond his own life which he would have sacrificed to take their place. And into the midst of the crumbling defence, Andarist had stepped forward, making of himself a lodestone to the attacking Tiste Edur.\n\nThe death of the man whom Skintick thought of as his father remained in his mind, like a scene painted by some chronicler of abject, pathetic moments. And in that sad, regretful face, he had seen all the kin who had fallen before, killed for no cause worth thinking about– or so it seemed at the time. The grey-skinned barbarians desired the throne– perhaps they were collecting such things, as if possession conferred aright, but what did it matter? These games were stupidity, every trophy an absurd icon symbolizing precisely nothing beyond the raging ego of the players.\n\nHonourable souls had died for this, and, once the grief washed away, what was left but this building contempt for all of it? Defending this, fighting for that, winning in one moment only to lose in the next. Raw magic blistering flesh, javelins winging to thud into bodies, everything of value spilling out onto dusty cobbles and the ribbons of grass growing exuberant between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The things that died in him on that day would be deemed virtues by most." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duty had revealed its lie, shattering the sanctity of loyalty and honour. They'd fought for nothing. They could have retreated, holed up at the decrepit temple entrance, and simply waited for the arrival of the humans, first the assassins and then the one named Traveller and his followers. Traveller, who murdered everyone foolish enough to step into his path. Whose arrival made Andarist's death– and the deaths of his friends– meaningless.\n\nHow Skintick hated that man. Competence was no gift when it arrived too late.\n\nHe no longer believed in honesty either. To be told the truth was to feel the shackles snap shut on one's ankle. Truth was delivered with the expectation that it would force a single course of action– after all, how could one honourably turn away? Truth was used as a weapon, and all one could do in defence against such an assault was to throw up a wall of lies. Lies of acceptance, capitulation. Lies to oneself, too. That things mattered. That ideas had currency and symbols deserved the servitude of courageous fools. And that it all had meaning.\n\nNor was he a believer in courage. People relied on the bravery of others to reap whatever profits they imagined they had earned or deserved, but the blood spilled was never theirs, was it? No, it was clear now to Skintick. Virtues were lauded to ensure compliance, to wrap round raw, reprehensible servitude. To proclaim the sacrifice of others– each of whom stood in place of those reaping the rewards and so were paid in suffering and pain.\n\nSo much for the majesty of patriotism.\n\nHe was having none of it, not anymore, never again. And this was what made him dead now. And as with anyone for whom nothing matters, he now found much of what he saw around him profoundly amusing. Snide commentary, derisive regard and an eye for the horror of true irony, these were the things he would now pursue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Did Anomander Rake grieve for his dead brother? For Andarist, who had stood in his place? Did he spare a thought for his wretched spawn, so many of whom were now dead? Or was he now lolling fat and dissolute on whatever mockery he called his throne, reaping all the rewards of his brother's final sacrifice? And that of my cousins? My closest friends, who each died to defend a possession so valuable to you that it rots in an empty temple? Remind me to ask you that question when we finally meet.\n\nThough he loved Nimander– indeed, loved them all in this pathetic band (save Clip, of course) – Skintick could not help but observe with silent hilarity the desperate expectations of this journey's fated end. They all sought safety and, no doubt, a pat on the head for services rendered. They all wanted to be told that their sacrifices had meaning, value, were worthy of pride. And Skintick knew that he alone would be able to seethe disdain veiled in the eyes of the Son of Darkness, even as he spouted all the necessary platitudes, before sending them off to their small rooms in some forgotten wing of whatever palace Rake now occupied.\n\nAnd then what, my dearest kin? Shunted out onto the streets to wander in the dusk, as the presence of others slowly prises our band apart, until all we once were becomes memories thick with dust, barely worthy of the occasional reminiscence, some annual gathering in some tavern with a leaking roof, where we will see how we each have sagged with the years, and we'll get drunk swapping tales we all know by heart, even as the edges grow blunt and all the colours bleed out.\n\nDesra lying on her back, her legs spread wide, but the numbness inside can't be pierced that way and she probably knows but habits never die, they just wear disguises. Nenanda will polish his weapons and armour every morning– we'll see him clanking round guarding everything and nothing, his eyes mottled with verdigris and rust. Aranatha sits in an overgrown garden, mesmerized for ten years and counting by alone blossom beneath a tree; do we not envy the bliss in her empty eyes? Kedeviss? Well, she will chronicle our despair, our sordid demise. Rounding us up for the night in the tavern will be her one task with any meaning– at least to her– and she will silently rail at our turgid, insipid uninterest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nimander, ah, Nimander, what waits for you? One night, your vision will clear. One deadly, devastating night. You will seethe blood on your hands, dear vicious Phaed's blood. And that of so many others, since you were the one we victimized by proclaiming you as our leader. And on that night, my friend, you will see that it was all for naught, and you will take your own life. A tower, a window ledge and a plummet down through the dark to achieve the incumbent poetic futility.\n\nSkintick could not find himself in that future. He did not expect to complete this journey. He was not sure he even wanted to. The same chronicler who painted past scenes would paint the future ones, too. The same damned theme, reworked with all the obsessiveness of a visionary throttling the blind.\n\nOne thing was certain. He would permit no one ever again to abuse his virtues– even those few that remained, in their dishevelled state. They were not currency, not things to be measured, weighed against gold, gems, property or power. If the bastards wanted all that, they could sweat their own sweat and bleed their own blood to get it.\n\nTake meas a knife and I will turn in your hand. I swear it.\n\n\"You are smiling,\" Nimander observed. \"It pleases me to see that alive and well.\"\n\nSkintick glanced at him. The legacy of Bastion remained in the stains of old blood beneath the salt that now caked moccasins and leggings. No one had bothered cleaning their gear, so desperate was the need to leave that city.\n\nSomething had changed in Nimander, however, beyond the horrors of saemankelyk and the Dying God's altar. As if his sense of purpose had taken afresh beating, like anew seedling trampled underfoot. How many times, Skintick wondered, could Nimander suffer that, before some fundamental poison altered his very nature? The vision he had of Nimander's final demise was dependent upon a certain sanctity of spirit remaining, something precious and rare that would drive him to that last act of despair. If it was already dead, or twisted malign, then Nimander's fate would become truly unknown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Has he found ambition? Is the poison of cynicism awakening in his beleaguered soul? This could change things, Skintick realized. He might become someone I could choose to follow– yes, down that nasty path and why not? Let someone else suffer for our gains, fora change. Topple them into the dirt and see how they like the sweet reversal.\n\nIs he hard enough to play that game?\n\nAm I hard enough to make use of him?\n\nThey had found a horse for Clip, but retained the wagon, at least for this journey northward along the edge of the dying salt lake. Nenanda was seated once more on the raised bench, reins in one hand, switch in the other. Aranatha sat with her legs dangling off the end of the wagon, eyes on the row of broken teeth that was Bastion's dwindling skyline, hazy and shimmering above the heatwaves. Desra lounged in the wagon's bed, dozing among the casks of water and bundles of dried goods. Kedeviss rode flank off to the right, almost thirty paces away now, her horse picking its way along the old beach with its withered driftwood.\n\nClip rode far ahead, emphasizing his impatience. He'd not been much interested in hearing the tale of their doings since his collapse at the village– a failing on his part (as he evidently saw the suggestion) that he refused to entertain, although this clearly left a mysterious and no doubt troubling gap in his memory. He was, if anything, even more evasive than he had been before, and more than once Skintick had caught suspicion in the warrior's eyes when observing the rest of them. As if they had conspired to steal something from him, and had succeeded.\n\nSkintick's distrust of the bastard was growing. It wasn't hard to hate Clip– absurdly easy, in fact– and such sentiments could well cloud his sense of the warrior with his endlessly spinning rings. Clip was, he now believed, one of those eager to abuse the virtues of others to achieve whatever private and entirely personal victory he sought. And if the effort left a half-dozen contemptible youths dead in his wake, what of it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not but seethe bloodstains they now wore; could not but have noticed the notched and nicked weapons they took files to during rest stops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their damaged armour. And dazed and groggy as he had been upon awakening in the altar chamber, he could not have been blind to the scores of dead– the veritable slaughterhouse they had left behind. And yet still Clip saw them as barely worth his regard, beyond that malicious suspicion as it slowly flowered into paranoia, and what might that lead him to do?\n\nTo us?\n\nYes, one more fear to stalk me now, though I am dead.\n\n\"We will need to find away through those mountains,\" Nimander said, squinting ahead.\n\n\"God's Walk, Clip called them. An astounding fount of unexpected knowledge, our grateful friend. '\n\n\"Grateful? Ah, I see. Well, he wasn't therein spirit, was he? '\n\n\"No, too busy dancing from the spider's bite. '\n\n\"It does little good to try describing what happened,\" Nimander said. \"To one who remains closed, words are thinner than webs, easily swept aside.\"\n\n\"We should have lied.\"\n\nNimander looked over, brows lifting.\n\nSkintick grinned. \"Some wild tale of godly possession and insane fanatics eager to splash the world with their own blood. Us stumbling onto a path to paradise only to find we're not welcome. Double-crossing a simpleton god who misunderstood the notion of puppets– that they be made of followers, not himself. A tale of poisoned wine that was blood that was wine that was blood. Oh, and let's not forget our glorious slaughter, that improbable collection of lucky swings and pokes and the infernal bad luck of our attackers. And then-\"\n\n\"Enough, Skin, please.\"\n\n\"Why did we bother, Nimander? Bother saving him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nimander's eyes remained on the distant mountains.\n\n\"Aranatha says he is needed. Necessary.\"\n\n\"For what? And what would she know about it anyway?\"\n\n\"I wish I could answer those questions, Skin.\"\n\n\"I feel as if I am drowning in blood.\"\n\nNimander nodded. \"Yes. I feel the same. I think we all do.\"\n\n\"I don't think Anomander Rake has it in him to throw us a rope. '\n\n\"Probably not.\"\n\nThis admission, so wise, shook Skintick. His fear was accurate– their leader had changed. Does he even now see clearly? Yet, if that is so, where is his despair? I do not understand-\n\n\"It feels like,\" Nimander said, \"dying inside. That's what it feels like. '\n\n\"Don't say that, brother. Don't.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nOnly one of us can feel that way. Only one. I got there first, damn you! It's mine! Abruptly, he barked a laugh.\"No reason, in truth. No reason at all. '\n\n\"You are acting strangely, Skin, did you know that?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"We need to wash this blood off, Nimander.\"\n\nThey rode on across the bleached salt flat. The day grew hotter.\n\nDirectly beneath the floor of the terondai, where blazed the black sun, avast chamber had been carved out of the bedrock. When Anomander Rake, Lord of Black Coral and Son of Darkness, wearied of the view from the keep's tower and other high vantage points, he descended into this womb in the rock, where darkness remained absolute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such moments were rare, and even rarer that the Lord should summon Endest Silann to meet him in the subterranean cavern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His legs still stiff from the long trek back to the city, the castellan made his way down the steep, winding stairs, until at last he reached the base. Enormous doors sealed the cave, scaled in beaten silver in patterns suggesting the skin of dragons. Tarnished black, barring the gleam of the scales'edges, the barrier was barely visible to Endest Silann's failing eyes, and when he reached for the heavy latch he was forced to grope fora moment before his hand settled on the silver bar.\n\nCold air gusted around him as he pulled one of the doors open. A smell of raw stone, acrid and damp, the sound of trickling water. He saw his Lord standing near the centre, where an obelisk rose like a stalagmite from the floor. This basalt edifice was carved square at the base, tapering to an apex at twice the height of a Tiste Andii. On the side facing Rake there was an indent, moulded to match the sword he carried on his back.\n\n\"It is not often,\" said Anomander as Endest approached, \"that I feel the need to ease the burden of Dragnipur.\"\n\n\"Sire.\"\n\nHe watched as Anomander unsheathed the dread sword and set it into the indentation. At once the obelisk began sweating, thick, glistening beads studding the smoothed surface, then racing down the sides. Something like thunder groaned through the stone underfoot.\n\nEndest Silann sighed, leaned on his walking stick. \"The stone, Lord, cannot long withstand that burden.\" Yet you can, and this so few understand, so few comprehend at all.\n\n\"A few moments more,\" Anomander Rake murmured.\n\n\"Sire, that was not a chastisement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A brief smile. 'But it was, old friend, and a wise one.\n\nStone knows its own weight, and the limits of what it can sustain. Be assured, I will not long abuse its generosity. '\n\nEndest Silann looked round, drawing in the sweet darkness, so pure, so perfect. It is almost as we once knew. Kharkanas, before she embraced Light, before the ones born of ashes lifted themselves up and took swords in hand. Scabandari. Ilgast Rend, Halyd Bahann. Esthala who dreamed of peace. Kagamandra Tulas Shorn, who did not.\n\n\"I have sent Spinnock Durav away.\"\n\n\"Yes, I heard. Sire, I cannot-\"\n\n\"I am afraid you have no choice, Endest.\"\n\n\"The High Priestess-\"\n\n\"Understands, and she will do all she can.\"\n\nSo long ago now. Lord, your patience beggars that of gods.\n\n\"There was no purpose worthy enough to breathe life into our people, was there? It is not history that so assailed us, although many see it that way. The lessons of futility can be gathered by anyone with a mind so inclined. Every triumph hollow, every glory revealed at last to be ephemeral. But none of that gives cause to wither the spirit. Damage it, perhaps, yes, but the road we have walked down stands high above such things. Do you understand that, Endest?\"\n\n\"I think I do, sire.\"\n\n\"We were murdered by compromises. No, not those that followed the arrival of Light. Not those born of Shadow. These things were inevitable. They were, by their very nature, necessary.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The day we accepted her turning away, Endest, was the day we ran the knives across our own throats.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anomander Rake paused, and then said, \"We are an ancient, stubborn people.\" He faced Endest Silann. \"See how long it has taken to bleed out?\"\n\nAnd then, to complete the unruly triumvirate, there was the brood of Osserc. Menandore, and that mess of mixed bloods to follow: Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu, Brevith Dreda. The others, the ones outside all of that, how they watched on, bemused, brows darkening with anger. Draconus, you thought you could give answer to all of us. You were wrong.\n\nWere you wrong? He found himself staring at Dragnipur, catching the faintest echo of rumbling wheels, the muted cries of the suffering, and there, yes, that seething storm of chaos drawing ever closer.\n\n\"Without the blood of dragons,\" Anomander Rake went on, \"we would all be dust, scattered on the winds, drifting between the stars themselves. Yes, others might see it differently, but that cold fever, so sudden in our veins, so fierce in our minds– the chaos, Endest– gave us the strength to persist, to cease fearing change, to accept all that was unknown and unknowable. And this is why you chose to follow us, each in our time, our place.\"\n\nThe chaos in you, yes, afire on the promontory, a beacon piercing the profound entropy we saw all around us. And yet, so few of you proved worthy of our allegiance. So few, Lord, and fewer with each generation, until nowhere you stand, virtually alone.\n\nTears were streaming from his eyes now, weeping as did the obelisk, as did the stone on all sides. The one who was worth it. The only one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will find the strength within you, Endest Silann. Of that I have no doubt.\"\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\n\"As shall I.\" And with that the Son of Darkness reached out, reclaimed the sword Dragnipur. With familiar ease he slid the weapon into the scabbard on his back. He faced Endest and smiled as if the burden he had just accepted yet again could not drive others to their knees– gods, ascendants, the proud and the arrogant, all to their knees. Rake's legs did not buckle, did not even so much as tremble. He stood tall, unbowed, and in the smile he offered Endest Silann there was a certainty of purpose, so silent, so indomitable, so utterly appalling that Endest felt his heart clench, as if moments from rupturing.\n\nAnd his Lord stepped close then, and with one hand brushed the wetness from one cheek.\n\nHe could see her dancing out there, amidst dust devils and shards of frost-skinned rock, through shafts of blistering sunlight and hazy swirls of spinning snow. Blood still streamed from his wounds and it seemed that would never cease– that this crimson flow debouched from some eternal river, and the blood was no longer his own, but that of the god standing beside him. It was an odd notion, yet it felt truthful even though he dared not ask the Redeemer, dared not hear the confirmation from the god's mouth.\n\nThe crazed weather whirled on out on that plain, and she moved through it effortlessly, round and round, this way and that, but not yet drawing closer, not yet coming for him once more.\n\n\"Why does she wait?\" he asked. \"She must see that I cannot withstand another assault, that I will surely fall.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She would if she could,\" the Redeemer replied.\n\n\"What holds her back?\"\n\n\"Wounds must heal, memories of pain fade.\"\n\nSeerdomin rubbed at the grit on his face. There had been dirty rain, gusting up to where they stood, but it had since wandered back down into the basin, a rotted brown curtain dragged aimlessly away.\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said the Redeemer, \"things leak through.\"\n\nSeerdomin grunted, then asked, \"From where?\"\n\n\"Lives of the T'lan. So much was unleashed, so much forgotten only to be lived once again. There was anguish. There was... glory. '\n\nHe had not been thereto witness that moment. The kneeling of the T'lan Imass. Such a thing was hard to imagine, yet it sent shivers through him none the less. A moment to shake every belief, when the world drew breath and... held it.\n\n\"Did you know what to expect?\"\n\n\"They humbled me,\" said the Redeemer.\n\nI suspect it was you who humbled them, Itkovian– yes, a mortal back then, just a mortal. No, they were the ones struck mute, filled with awe and wonder. I do not know how I know that, but I do.\n\n... things leak through.\n\n\"The madness of the weather comes from the memories of the T'lan Imass? Can you not summon them? Draw them up in ranks before you? Do you not think they would proudly accept such a thing? Away to pay you back for what you did? Redeemer, summon the spirits of the T'lan Imass– and that woman below will never reach you.\"\n\n\"I cannot. I will not. Yes, they would accept that notion. Reciprocity. But I will not. What I gave I gave freely, a gift, not an exchange. Oh, they forced one upon me, at the end, but it was modest enough– or I was weak enough then not to resist it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you will not accept service,\" Seerdomin then said, \"why do you seek it from me?\"\n\n\"You are free to choose,\" the Redeemer replied. \"Defend me, or step aside and see me fall.\"\n\n\"That's hardly a choice! '\n\n\"True. Such things rarely are. I would send you back, but your body no longer functions. It lies on a heap of rubbish behind the pilgrim camp. Scavengers have fed, for your flesh is not poisoned as is that of the others thus disposed.\"\n\nSeerdomin grimaced, fixing eyes once more upon the High Priestess dancing on the plain. \"Thank you for the grisly details. If I stand aside– if I watch you die– then what will happen tome? To my spirit?\"\n\n\"I do not know. If I am able, I will grieve for you then, as much as I do for the souls of all those I now hold within me.\"\n\nSeerdomin slowly turned and studied the god. \"If she takes you– all those T'lan Imass-'\n\n\"Will be helpless. They will succumb. All who are within me will succumb.\"\n\n\"So much for standing aside.\"\n\n\"Seerdomin. Segda Travos, you are not responsible for their fate. I am. This error is mine. I will not judge you harshly should you choose to yield.\"\n\n\"Error. What error?\"\n\n\"I am... defenceless. You sensed that from the very beginning– when you came to the barrow and there knelt, honouring me with your companionship. I possess no provision for judgement. My embrace is refused no one.\"\n\n\"Then change that, damn you!\"\n\n\"I am trying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seerdomin glared at the god, who now offered a faint smile. After a moment, Seerdomin hissed and stepped back. \"You ask this of me? Are you mad? I am not one of your pilgrims! Not one of your mob of would-be priests and priestesses! I do not worship you!\"\n\n\"Precisely, Segda Travos. It is the curse of believers that they seek to second-guess the one they claim to worship.\"\n\n\"In your silence what choice do they have?\"\n\nThe Redeemer's smile broadened.\"Every choice in the world, my friend. '\n\nCountless paths, a single place sought by all. If she could be bothered, she could think on the innumerable generations– all that rose to stand with thoughts reaching into the night sky, or plunging into the mesmerizing flames of the campfire– the hunger did not change. The soul lunged, the soul crawled, the soul scraped and dragged and pitched headlong, and in the place it desired– needed– there was this: the bliss of certainty.\n\nConviction like armour, eyes shining like swords; oh, the bright glory that was the end to every question, every doubt. Shadows vanished, the world raged sudden white and black. Evil dripped with slime and the virtuous stood tall as giants. Compassion could be partitioned, meted out only to the truly deserving– the innocent and the blessed. As for all the rest, they could burn, for they deserved no less.\n\nShe danced like truth unleashed. The beauty of simplicity flowed pure and sweet through her limbs, rode the ebb and sweep of her sighing breath. All those agonizing uncertainties were gone, every doubt obliterated by the gift of saemankelyk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had found the shape of the world, every edge clear and sharp and undeniable. Her thoughts could dance through it almost effortlessly, evading snags and tears, not once touching raw surfaces that might scrape, that might make her flinch.\n\nThe bliss of certainty delivered another gift. She saw before her a universe transformed, one where contradictions could be rightfully ignored, where hypocrisy did not exist, whereto serve the truth in oneself permitted easy denial of anything that did not fit.\n\nThe minuscule mote of awareness that hid within her, like a snail flinching into its shell, was able to give shape to this transformation, well recognizing it as genuine revelation, the thing she had been seeking all along– yet in the wrong place.\n\nSalind understood now that the Redeemer was a child god, innocent, yes, but not in a good way. The Redeemer possessed no certainty in himself. He was not all-seeing, but blind. From a distance the two might appear identical, therein that wide embrace, the waiting arms, the undefended openness. He forgave all because he could not see difference, could not even sense who was deserving and who was not.\n\nSaemankelyk brought an end to ambiguity. It divided the world cleanly, absolutely.\n\nShe must give that to him. It would be her gift– the greatest gift imaginable– to her beloved god. An end to his ambivalence, his ignorance, his helplessness.\n\nSoon, the time would come when she would once again seek him. The pathetic mortal soul standing in her way would not frustrate her the next time she found her weapons– no, her righteous blades would cut and slash him to pieces.\n\nThe thought made her fling her arms into the air as she whirled. Such joy! She had a gift. It washer duty to deliver it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether you like it or not.\n\nNo, he could not refuse. If he did, why, she would have to kill him.\n\n*\n\nBone white, the enormous beasts stood on the ridge, side on, their heads turned to watch Karsa Orlong as he cantered Havok ever closer. He sensed his horse tensing beneath him, saw the ears flick a moment before he became aware that he was being flanked by more Hounds– these ones darker, heavier, short-haired excepting one that reminded him of the wolves of his homeland, that tracked him with amber eyes.\n\n\"So,\" Karsa murmured, \"these are the Hounds of Shadow. You would play games with me, then? Try for me, and when we're done few of you will leave this place, and none will be free of wounds, this I promise you. Havok, seethe black one in the high grasses? Thinks to hide from us. \"He grunted a laugh.\"The others will feint, but that black one will lead the true charge. My sword shall tap her nose first. '\n\nThe two white beasts parted, one trotting a dozen or so paces along the ridge, the other turning round and doing the same in the opposite direction. In the gap now between them, shadows swirled like a dust-devil.\n\nKarsa could feel a surge of battle lust within him, his skin prickling beneath the fixed attention of seven savage beasts, yet he held his gaze on that smudge of gloom, where two figures were now visible. Men, one bare-headed and the other hooded and leaning crooked over a knobby cane.\n\nThe Hounds to either side maintained their distance, close enough fora swift charge but not so close as to drive Havok into a rage. Karsa reined in six paces from the strangers and eyed them speculatively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bare-headed one was plainly featured, pale as if unfamiliar with sunlight, his dark hair straight and loose, almost ragged. His eyes shifted colour in the sunlight, blue to grey, to green and perhaps even brown, a cascade of indecision that matched his expression as he in turn studied the Toblakai.\n\nThe first gesture came from the hooded one with the hidden face, a lifting of the cane in a half-hearted waver. \"Nice horse,\" he said.\n\n\"Easier to ride than a dog,\" Karsa replied.\n\nA snort from the dark-haired man.\n\n\"This one,\" said the hooded man, \"resists sorcery, Cotillion. Though his blood is old, I wonder, will all mortals one day be like him? An end to miracles. Nothing but dull, banal existence, nothing but mundane absence of wonder.\" The cane jabbed. \"A world of bureaucrats. Mealy-minded, sour-faced and miserable as a reunion of clerks. In such a world, Cotillion, not even the gods will visit. Except in pilgrimage to depression.\"\n\n\"Quaintly philosophical of you, Shadowthrone,\" replied the one named Cotillion. \"But is this one really the right audience? I can almost smell the bear grease from here.\"\n\n\"That's Lock, \"said Shadowthrone.\"He was rolling in something awhile ago. '\n\nKarsa leaned forward on the strange saddle that Samar Dev had had fitted for Havok back in Letheras. \"If I am a clerk, then one prophecy will prove true.\"\n\n\"Oh, and which one would that be?\" Cotillion asked, seemingly amused that Karsa was capable of speech.\n\n\"The tyranny of the number counters will be a bloody one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadowthrone wheezed laughter, then coughed into the silence of the others and said, \"Hmmm.\"\n\nCotillion's eyes had narrowed.\"In Darujhistan, a temple awaits you, Toblakai. A crown and a throne for the taking. '\n\nKarsa scowled. \"Not more of that shit. I told the Crippled God I wasn't interested. I'm still not. My destiny belongs tome and none other.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Shadowthrone, cane wavering about once again, like a headless snake, \"we're not encouraging you to take it. Far from it. You on that throne would be... distressing. But he will drive you, Toblakai, the way hunters drive a man-eating lion. Straight into the spike-filled pit. '\n\n\"A smart lion knows when to turn,\" Karsa said. \"Watch as the hunters scatter.\"\n\n\"It is because we understand you, Toblakai, that we do not set the Hounds upon you. You bear your destiny like a standard, a grisly one, true, but then, its only distinction is in being obvious. Did you know that we too left civilization behind? The scribblers were closing in on all sides, you see. The clerks with their purple tongues and darting eyes, their shuffling feet and sloped shoulders, their bloodless lists. Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!\" The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. \"Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?\"\n\nKarsa grinned. \"Why, a civilized one.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. \"And you doubted this one!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cotillion grimaced. \"I stand corrected, Shadowthrone. If the Crippled God has not yet learned his lesson with this warrior, more lessons are bound to follow. We can leave him to them. And leave this Toblakai, too.\"\n\n\"Barring one detail,\" Shadowthrone said in a rasp. \"Toblakai, heed this warning, if you value that destiny you would seek for yourself. Do not stand in Traveller's path. Ever. '\n\nKarsa's grin broadened.\"We are agreed, he and I. '\n\n\"You are?\"\n\n\"I will not stand in his path, and he will not stand in mine.\"\n\nShadowthrone and Cotillion were silent then, considering.\n\nLeaning back, Karsa collected the lone rein. Havok lifted his head, nostrils flaring. \"I killed two Deragoth,\" Karsa said.\n\n\"We know,\" said Cotillion.\n\n\"Their arrogance was their soft underbelly. Easy to reach. Easy to plunge in my hands. I killed them because they thought me weak.\"\n\nCotillion's expression grew mocking.\"Speaking of arrogance... '\n\n\"I was speaking,\" said Karsa as he swung Havok round, \"of lessons.\" Then he twisted in the saddle. \"You laugh at those coming to the Crippled God. Perhaps one day I will laugh at those coming to you.\"\n\nCotillion and Shadowthrone, with the Hounds gathering close, watched the Toblakai ride away on his Jhag horse.\n\nA thump of the cane. \"Did you sense the ones in his sword?\"\n\nCotillion nodded.\n\n\"They were...\" Shadowthrone seemed to struggle with the next word, \"... proud.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And again, Cotillion could do little more than nod.\n\nAbruptly, Shadowthrone giggled, the sound making the two new Hounds flinch– a detail he seemed not to notice.\n\n\"Oh,\" he crooned, \"all those poor clerks!\"\n\n\"Is that a cloud on the horizon?\"\n\nAt Reccanto Ilk's query, Mappo glanced up and followed the man's squinting gaze. He rose suddenly. \"That's more than a cloud, ' he said.\n\nSweetest Sufferance, sitting nearby, grunted and wheezed herself upright, brushing sand from her ample behind. \"Master Qu– ellll!\" she sang.\n\nMappo watched as the crew started scrabbling, checking the leather straps and fastening rings and clasps dangling from the carriage. The horses shifted about, suddenly restless, eyes rolling and ears flattening. Gruntle came up to stand beside the Trell. \"That's one ugly storm, \"he said,\"and it looks to be bearing downright onus. '\n\n\"These people baffle me,\" Mappo admitted. \"We are about to get obliterated, and they look... excited.\"\n\n\"They are mad, Mappo.\" He eyed the Trell fora long moment, then said, \"You must be desperate to have hired this mob.\"\n\n\"Why is it,\" Mappo asked, \"that Master Quell seemed indifferent to unleashing an undead dragon into this world?\"\n\n\"Well, hardly indifferent. He said oops! At least, I think that's what I heard, but perhaps that was but my imagination. This Trygalle Guild... these carriages, they must be dragging things across realms all the time. Look at yon walking corpse. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did so, observing in silence as the desiccated figure, holding a collection of cast-off straps and rope, stood speculatively eyeing one of the carriage's spoked wheels.\n\nThe wind freshened suddenly, cooler, strangely charged.\n\nOne of the horses shrilled and began stamping the sand. After a moment the others caught the same feverish anxiety. The carriage rocked, edged forward. Master Quell was helping Precious Thimble through the door, hastening things at the end with a hard shove to her backside. He then looked round, eyes slightly wild, until he spied Mappo.\n\n\"Inside you go, good sir! We're about to leave! '\n\n\"Not a moment too soon,\" Gruntle said.\n\nMappo set out for the carriage, then paused and turned to Gruntle. \"Please, be careful.\"\n\n\"I will, as soon as I figure out what's about to happen. Quell! What warren are we using now? And hadn't you better get the way through opened?\"\n\nQuell stared at him. \"Get on the damned carriage!\"\n\n\"Fine, but tell me-\"\n\n\"You idiot!\" shouted Faint from where she sat on the roof. \"Don't you get it? \"And she jabbed a finger at the churning black cloud now almost towering over them.\"That's our ride!\"\n\n\"But– wait– how-\"\n\n\"Climb aboard, you oaf, or drown!\"\n\n\"Climb aboard,\" shrieked Sweetest Sufferance, \"and maybe drown anyway!\"\n\nGruntle saw that the corpse had tied itself to the wheel.\n\nGods below, what am I doing here?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A roar exploded on the reef and Gruntle whirled round to seethe gust front's devastating arrival, a wall of thrashing, spume-crested water, rising, charging, lifting high to devour the entire island.\n\nHe lunged for the carriage. Ashe scrambled up the side and fumbled for the lashing, Reccanto Ilk, squinting, asked, \"Is it here yet?\"\n\nThe horses began screaming in earnest.\n\nAnd all at once, the short-sighted idiot had his answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You would callus weak? Fear talks out of the side of the mouth Each item in your list is an attack That turns its stab upon yourself Displaying the bright terrors That flaw the potential for wonder\n\nYou drone out your argument As if stating naught but what is obvious And so it is but not in the way you think The pathos revealed is your paucity Of wisdom disguised as plain speak From your tower of reason\n\nAs if muscle alone bespoke strength As if height measures the girth of will As if the begotten snips thorns from the rose As if the hearthfire cannot devour a forest As if courage flows out lost monthly In wasted streams of dead blood\n\nWho is this to utter such doubt? Priest of a cult false in its division I was thereon the day the mob awoke Storming the temple of quailing half-men You stood gape-jawed behind them As your teachings were proved wrong\n\nShrink back from true anger Flee if you can this burgeoning strength The shape of the rage against your postulated Justifications is my soldier's discipline Sure in execution and singular in purpose Setting your head atop the spike\n\nLast Day of the Man Sect Sevelenatha of Genabaris (cited in \"Treatise on Untenable Philosophies among Cults\" Genorthu Stulk)\n\nMany children, early on, acquire a love of places they have never been. Often, such wonder is summarily crushed on the crawl through the sludge of murky, confused adolescence onto the flat, cracked pan of adulthood with its airless vistas ever lurking beyond the horizon. Oh, well, sometimes such gifts of curiosity, delight and adventure do indeed survive the stationary trek, said victims ending up as artists, scholars, inventors and other criminals bent on confounding the commonplace and the platitudes of peaceful living. But never mind them for now, since, for all their flailing subversions, nothing really ever changes unless in service to convenience." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bainisk was still, in the sheltered core of his being, a child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ungainly with growth, yes, awkward in a body with which he had not yet caught up, but he had yet to surrender his love of the unknown. And so it should be wholly understandable that he and young Harllo should have shared a spark of delight and wonder, the kind that wove tight between them so that not even the occasional snarl could truly sever the binding.\n\nIn the week following that fateful tear in the trust between them, Harllo had come to believe that he was once more truly alone in the world. Wounds scabbed over and scabs fell away to reveal faint scars that soon faded almost out of existence, and the boy worked on, crawling into fissures, scratching his way along fetid, gritty cracks in the deep rock. Choking at times on bad air, stung by blind centipedes and nipped by translucent spiders. Bruised by shifting stones, his eyes wide in the darkness as he searched out the glitter of ore on canted, close walls.\n\nAt week's end, however, Bainisk was with him once more, passing him a jug of silty lakewater as he backed out of a fissure and sat down on the warm, dry stone of the tunnel floor, and in this brief shared moment the tear slowly began to heal, re-knitted in the evasiveness of their eyes that would not yet lock onto the reality of their sitting side by side– far beneath the world's surface, two beating hearts that echoed naught but each other– and this was how young boys made amends. Without words, with spare gestures that, in their rarity, acquired all the necessary significance. When Harllo was done drinking he passed back the jug.\n\n\"Venaz is on me all the time now,\" Bainisk said. \"I tried it, with him again, I mean. But it's not the same. We're both too old for what we had, once. All he ever talks about is stuff that bores me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He just likes hurting people.\"\n\nBainisk nodded. \"I think he wants to takeover my job. He argued over every order I gave him.\"\n\n\"People like him always want to takeover,\" Harllo said. \"And most times when other people see it they back off and let them. That's what I don't get, Bainisk. It's the scariest thing of all. '\n\nThat last admission was uncommon between boys. The notion of being frightened. But theirs was not a normal world, and to pretend that there was nothing to fear was not among the few privileges they entertained. Out here, people didn't need reasons to hurt someone. They didn't need reasons for doing anything.\n\n\"Tell me about the city again, Mole.\"\n\n\"There's a haunted tower. My uncle took me to see it once. He has big hands, so big that when he holds yours it's like your hand disappears and there's nothing in the world could pull you apart. Anyway, there's a ghost in that tower. Named Hinter.\"\n\nBainisk set on him wide eyes. \"Did you see it? Did you see that ghost?\"\n\n\"No, it was daytime. They're hard to see in daytime. '\n\n\"It's dark enough down here, \"Bainisk said, looking round.\"But I ain't never seen a ghost.\"\n\nHarllo thought to tell him, then. It had been his reason for bringing up the story in the first place, but he found himself holding back yet again. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because the skeleton wasn't a true ghost. \"Sometimes,\" he said, \"the dead don't go away. I mean, sometimes, they die but the soul doesn't, er, leave the body. It stays where it is, where it always was.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Serve as the author's scribe, continue the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something pounded the air, pounded right into his bones, rattling the roots of his insipid or was it inspired grin– something that tore the wave apart, an upward charging of spume, a world splashed white, engulfing the horses, the carriage, and Glanno himself.\n\nHis mouth was suddenly full of seawater. His eyes stared through stinging salt. His ears popped like berries between finger and thumb, ploop ploop. And oh, that hurt!\n\nThe water rushed past, wiping clean the world– and there, before him– were those buildings?\n\nHorses were clever. Horses weren't half blind. They could find something, a street, away through, and why not? Clever horses.\n\n\"Yeaagh!\" Glanno thrashed the reins.\n\nEquine shrills.\n\nThe wheels slammed down onto something hard for the first time in four days.\n\nAnd, with every last remnant of axle grease scrubbed away, why, those wheels locked up, a moment of binding, and then the carriage leapt back into the air, and Glanno's head snapped right and left at the flanking blur of wheels spinning past at high speed.\n\nOh.\n\nWhen the carriage came back down again, the landing was far from smooth.\n\nThings exploded. Glanno and the bench he was strapped to followed the horses down abroad cobbled street. Although he was unaware of it at the time, the carriage behind them elected to take a sharp left turn onto aside street, just behind the formidable tower, and, skidding on its belly, barrelled another sixty paces down the avenue before coming to a rocking rest opposite a squat gabled building with a wooden sign swinging wildly just above the front door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glanno rode the bench this way and that, the reins sawing at his fingers and wrists, as the horses reached the end of the rather short high street, and boldly leapt, in smooth succession, a low stonewall that, alas, Glanno could not quite manage to clear on his skidding bench. The impact shattered all manner of things, and the driver found himself flying through the air, pulled back down as the horses, hoofs hammering soft ground, drew taut the leather harness, and then whipped him round as they swung left rather than leaping the next low stonewall– and why would they? They had found themselves in a corral.\n\nGlanno landed in deep mud consisting mostly of horseshit and piss, which was probably what saved his two legs, already broken, from being torn right off. The horses came to a halt beneath thrashing rain, in early evening gloom, easing by a fraction the agony of his two dislocated shoulders, and he was able to roll mostly onto his back, to lie unmoving, the rain streaming down his face, his eyes closed, with only a little blood dripping from his ears.\n\nOutside the tavern, frightened patrons who had rushed out at the cacophony in the street now stood getting wet beneath the eaves, staring in silence at the wheelless carriage, from the roof of which people on all sides seemed to befalling, whereupon they dragged themselves upright, bleary eyes fixing on the tavern door, and staggered whenceforth inside. Only a few moments afterwards, the nearest carriage door opened with a squeal, to unleash a gush of foamy seawater, and then out stumbled the occupants, beginning with a gigantic tattooed ogre.\n\nThe tavern's patrons, one and all, really had nothing to say.\n\nStanding in the highest room of the tower, an exceedingly tall, bluish-skinned man with massive, protruding tusks, curved like the horns of a ram to frame his bony face, slowly turned away from the window, and, taking no notice of the dozen servants staring fixedly at him– not one of whom was remotely human– he sighed and said, \"Not again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The servants, reptilian eyes widening with comprehension, then began a wailing chorus, and this quavering dirge reached down through the tower, past chamber after chamber, spiralling down the spiral staircase and into the crypt that was the tower's hollowed-out root. Wherein three women, lying motionless on stone slabs, each opened their eyes. And as they did so, a crypt that had been in darkness was dark no longer.\n\nFrom the women's broad, painted mouths there came a chittering sound, as of chelae clashing behind the full lips. A conversation, perhaps, about hunger. And need. And dreadful impatience.\n\nThen the women began shrieking.\n\nHigh above, in the topmost chamber of the tower, the man winced upon hearing those shrieks, which grew ever louder, until even the fading fury of the storm was pushed down, down under the sea's waves, thereto drown in shame.\n\nIn the tavern in the town on the coast called the Reach of Woe, Gruntle sat with the others, silent at their table, as miserable as death yet consumed with shaky relief. Solid ground beneath them, dry roof overhead. A pitcher of mulled wine midway between.\n\nAt the table beside them, Jula and Amby Bole sat with Precious Thimble– although she was therein flesh only, since everything else had been battered senseless– and the two Bole brothers were talking.\n\n\"The storm's got anew voice. You hear that, Jula? '\n\n\"I hear that and I hear you, Amby. I hear that in this ear and I hear you in that ear, and they come together in the middle and make my headache, so if you shut up then one ear's open so the sound from the other can go right through and sink into that wall over there and that wall can have it, \"cause I don't. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't– hey, where'd everyone go?\"\n\n\"Down into that cellar– you ever see such a solid cellar door, Amby? Why, it's as thick as the ones we use on the pits we put wizards in, you know, the ones nobody can open. '\n\n\"It was you that scared'em, Jula, but look, now we can drink even more and pay nothing. '\n\n\"Until they all comeback out. And then you'll be looking at paying a whole lot. '\n\n\"I'm not paying. This is a business expense. '\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"I bet. We have to ask Master Quell when he wakes up.\"\n\n\"He's awake, I think. '\n\n\"He don't look awake. '\n\n\"Nobody does, exceptin\" us. '\n\n\"Wonder what everyone's doing in the cellar. Maybe there's a party or something.\"\n\n\"That storm sounds like angry women.\"\n\n\"Like Mother, only more than one.\"\n\n\"That would be bad.\"\n\n\"Ten times bad. You break something?\"\n\n\"Never did. You did.\"\n\n\"Someone broke something, and those mothers are on the way. Sounds like.\"\n\n\"Sounds like, yes.\"\n\n\"Coming fast.\"\n\n\"Whatever you broke, you better fix it.\"\n\n\"No way. I'll just say you did it. '\n\n\"I'll say I did it first– no, you did it. I'll say you did it first.\"\n\n\"I didn't do-'\n\nBut now the shrieking storm was too loud for any further conversation, and to Gruntle's half-deadened ears it did indeed sound like voices. Terrible, inhuman voices, filled with rage and hunger. He'd thought the storm was waning; in fact, he'd been certain of it. But then everyone had fled into the cellar-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle lifted his head.\n\nAt precisely the same time that Mappo did.\n\nTheir eyes met. And yes, both understood. That's not a storm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My finest student? A young man, physically perfect. To look upon him was to see a duellist by any known measure. His discipline was a source of awe; his form was elegance personified. He could snuff a dozen candles in successive lunges, each lunge identical to the one preceding it. He could spear a buzzing fly. Within two years I could do nothing more for him for he had passed my own skill.\n\nI was, alas, not thereto witness his first duel, but it was described tome in detail. For all his talent, his perfection of form, for all his precision, his muscle memory, he revealed one and only one flaw.\n\nHe was incapable of fighting areal person. A foe of middling skill can be profoundly dangerous, in that clumsiness can surprise, ill-preparation can confound brilliant skills of defence. The very unpredictability of areal opponent in a life and death struggle served my finest student with a final lesson.\n\nIt is said the duel lasted a dozen heartbeats. From that day forward, my philosophy of instruction changed. Form is all very well, repetition ever essential, but actual blood-touch practice must begin within the first week of instruction. To be a duellist, one must duel. The hardest thing to teach is how to survive.\n\nTrevan Ault 2nd century, Darujhistan\n\nGather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breathtakingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye– the voyeur to one's own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?\n\nGive the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches therein the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.\n\nBut really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity– the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.\n\nBut if that is too dire, let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.\n\nThere are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth.\n\nMurillio walked from the duelling school, rapier at his hip, gloves tucked into his belt. Had he passed anyone who knew him they might be forgiven for not at first recognizing him, given his expression. The lines of his face were drawn deep, his frown a clench, as if the mind behind it was in torment, sick of itself. He looked older, harder. He looked to be a man in dread of his own thoughts, a man haunted by an unexpected reflection in a lead window, a silvered mirror, flinching back from his own face, the eyes that met themselves with defiance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only a fool would have stepped directly into this man's path.\n\nIn his wake, a young student hesitated. He had been about to call out a greeting to his instructor; but he had seen Murillio's expression, and, though young, the student was no fool. Instead, he set out after the man.\n\nBellam Nom would not sit in any god's lap. Mark him, mark him well.\n\nThere had been fervent, breathless discussion. Crippled Da was like a man reborn, finding unexpected reserves of strength to lift himself into the rickety cart, with Myrla, her eyes bright, fussing over him until even he slapped her hands away.\n\nMew and Hinty stared wide-eyed, brainless as toddlers were, faces like sponges sucking in everything and understanding none of it. As for Snell, oh, it was ridiculous, all this excitement. His ma and da were, he well knew, complete idiots. Too stupid to succeed in life, too thick to realize it.\n\nThey had tortured themselves and each other over the loss of Harllo, their mutual failure, their hand-in-hand incompetence that made them hated even as they wallowed in endless self-pity. Ridiculous. Pathetic. The sooner Snell was rid of them the better, and at that thought he eyed his siblings once again. If Ma and Da just vanished, why, he could sell them both and make good coin. They weren't fit for much else. Let someone else wipe their stinking backsides and shove food into their mouths– damned things choked half the time and spat it out the other half, and burst into tears at the lightest poke.\n\nBut his disgust was proving a thin crust, cracking as terror seethed beneath, the terror born of remote possibilities. Da and Ma were going to a temple, anew temple, one devoted to a god as broken and useless as Bedek himself. The High Priest, who called himself a prophet, was even more crippled. Nothing worked below his arms, and half his face sagged and the eye on that side had just dried up since the lids couldn't close and now it looked like a rotten crab apple– Snell had seen it for himself, when he'd stood at the side of the street watching as the Prophet was being carried by his diseased followers to the next square, where he'd croak out yet another sermon predicting the end of the world and how only the sick and the stupid would survive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No wonder Da was so eager. He'd found his god at last, one in his own image, and that was usually the way, wasn't it? People don't change to suit their god; they change their god to suit them.\n\nDa and Ma were on their way to the Temple of the Crippled God, where they hoped to speak to the Prophet himself. Where they hoped to ask the god's blessing. Where they hoped to discover what had happened to Harllo.\n\nSnell didn't believe anything would come of that. But then, he couldn't be sure, could he? And that was what was scaring him. What if the Crippled God knew about what Snell had done? What if the Prophet prayed to it and was told the truth, and then told Da and Ma? Snell might have to runaway. But he'd take Hinty and Mew with him, selling them off to get some coin, which he'd need and need bad. Let someone else wipe their stinking...\n\nYes, Ma, I'll take care of them. You two go, see what you can find out.\n\nJust look at them, so filled with hope, so stupid with the idea that something else will solve all their problems, swipe away their miseries. The Crippled God: how good can a god be if it's crippled? If it can't even heal itself? That Prophet was getting big crowds. Plenty of useless people in the world, so that was no surprise. And they all wanted sympathy. Well, Snell's family deserved sympathy, and maybe some coin, too. And anew house, all the food they could eat and all the beer they could drink. In fact, they deserved maids and servants, and people who would think for them, and do everything that needed doing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snell stepped outside to watch Ma wheeling Da off down the alley, clickety-click.\n\nBehind him Hinty was snuffling, probably getting ready to start bawling since Ma was out of sight and that didn't happen often. Well, he'd just have to shut the brat up. A good squeeze to the chest and she'd just pass out and things would get quiet again. Maybe do that to both of them. Make it easier wrapping them up in some kind of sling, easier to carry in case he decided to run.\n\nHinty started crying.\n\nSnell spun round and the runt looked at him and her crying turned into shrieks.\n\n\"Yes, Hinty,\" Snell said, grinning, \"I'm coming for ya. I'm coming for ya.\"\n\nAnd so he did.\n\nBellam Nom had known that something was wrong, terribly so. The atmosphere in the school was sour, almost toxic. Hardly conducive to learning about duelling, about everything one needed to know about staying alive in a contest of blades.\n\nOn a personal, purely selfish level, all this was frustrating, but one would have to bean insensitive bastard to get caught up in that kind of thinking. The problem was, something had broken Stonny Menackis. Broken her utterly. And that in turn had left Murillio shattered, because he loved her– no doubt about that, since he wouldn't have hung around if he didn't, not with the way she was treating him and everyone else, but especially him.\n\nIt hadn't been easy working out what was wrong, since nobody was talking much, but he'd made a point of lingering, standing in shadows as if doing little more than cooling himself off after a bell's worth of footwork in the sunlight. And Bellam Nom had sharp ears. He also had a natural talent, one it seemed he had always possessed: he could read lips. This had proved useful, of course. People had a hard timekeeping secrets from Bellam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Master Murillio had reached some sort of decision, and walked as one driven now, and Bellam quickly realized that he did not need to employ any stealth while trailing him– an entire legion of Crimson Guard could be marching on the man's heels and he wouldn't know it.\n\nBellam was not certain what role he might be able to play in whatever was coming. The only thing that mattered to him was that he be there when the time came.\n\nMark him well. These are the thoughts of courage, unquestioning and uncompromising, and this is how heroes come to be. Small ones. Big ones. All kinds. When drama arrives, they are there. Look about. See for yourself.\n\nHe seemed such an innocuous man, so aptly named, and there was nothing in this modest office that might betray Humble Measure's ambitions, nor his bloodthirsty eagerness in making use of Seba Krafar and his Guild of Assassins.\n\nHarmless, then, and yet Seba found himself sweating beneath his nondescript clothes. True, he disliked appearing in public, particularly in the light of day, but that unease barely registered when in the presence of the Master Ironmonger.\n\nIt's simple. I don't like the man. And is that surprising? Despite the fact that he's provided the biggest contract I've seen, at least as head of the Guild. Probably the Malazan offer Vorcan took on was bigger, but only because achieving it was impossible, even for that uncanny bitch.\n\nSeba's dislike was perhaps suspect, even to his own mind, since it was caught up in the grisly disaster of Humble Measure's contract. Hard to separate this man from the scores of assassins butchered in the effort (still unsuccessful) to kill those damned Malazans. And this particular subject was one that would not quite depart, despite Humble Measure's casual, dismissive wave of one soft hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The failing is of course temporary,\" Seba Krafar said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hadn't we best complete it, to our mutual satisfaction, before taking on this new contract of yours? '\n\n\"I have reconsidered the K'rul Temple issue, at least for the moment, \"said Humble Measure.\"Do not fear, I am happy to add to the original deposit commensurate with the removal of two of the subjects, and should the others each fall in turn, you will of course be immediately rewarded. As the central focus, however, I would be pleased if you concentrated on the new one. '\n\nSeba Krafar was never able to meet anyone's gaze for very long. He knew that most would see that as a weakness, or as proof that Seba could not be trusted, but he always made a point of ensuring that what he had to say was never evasive. This blunt honesty, combined with the shying eyes, clearly unbalanced people, and that was fine with Seba. Now, if only it worked on this man.\"This new one, \"he ventured,\"is political. '\n\n\"Your specialty, I gather,\" said Humble Measure.\n\n\"Yes, but one that grows increasingly problematic. The noble class has learned to protect itself. Assassinations are not as easy as they once were.\"\n\nThe Ironmonger's brows lifted.\"Are you asking for more money? '\n\n\"Actually, no. It's this: the Guild is wounded. I've had to promote a dozen snipes months ahead of their time. They're not ready– oh, they can kill as efficiently as anyone, but most of them are little more than ambitious thugs. Normally, I would cull them, ruthlessly, but at the moment I can't afford to.\"\n\n\"This will require, I assume, certain modifications to your normal tactics.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It already has. Fifteen of my dead from K'rul's Bar were my latest promotions. That's left the rest of them rattled. An assassin without confidence is next to useless. '\n\nHumble Measure nodded. \"Plan well and execute with precision, Master Krafar, and that confidence will return.\"\n\n\"Even that won't be enough, unless we succeed. '\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\nSeba was silent fora moment, still sweating, still uneasy. \"Before I accept this latest contract,\" he said, \"I should offer you away out. There are other, less bloody ways of getting elected to the Council. It seems money is not a problem, and given that-\" He stopped when the man lifted a hand.\n\nSuddenly, there was something new in Humble Measure's eyes, something Seba had not seen before, and it left him chilled.\"If it was my desire to buy my way onto the Council, Master Krafar, I would not have summoned you here. That should be obvious. '\n\n\"Yes, I suppose-\"\n\n\"But I have summoned you, yes? Therefore, it is reasonable to assume my desires are rather more complicated than simply gaining a seat on the Council.\"\n\n\"You want this particular councillor dead.\"\n\nHumble Measure acknowledged this with a brief closing of his eyes that somehow conveyed a nod without his having to move his head. \"We are not negotiating my reasons, since they are none of your business and have no relevance to the task itself. Now, you will assault this particular estate, and you will kill the councillor and everyone else, down to the scullery maid and the terrier employed to kill rats.\"\n\nSeba Krafar looked away (but then, he'd been doing that on and off ever since he'd sat down). \"As you say. Should be simple, but then, these things never are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you saying that you are not up to this?\"\n\n\"No, I'm saying that I have learned to accept that nothing is simple, and the simpler it looks the more complicated it probably is. Therefore, this will need careful planning. I trust you are not under any pressure to get onto the Council in a hurry? There're all kinds of steps needed in any case, sponsorships or bloodline claims, assessment of finances and soon...\" He fell silent after, in a brief glance, he noted the man's level look. Seba cleared his throat, and then said,\"Ten days at the minimum. Acceptable? '\n\n\"Acceptable.\"\n\n\"Then we're done here. '\n\n\"We are.\"\n\n\"The deposition provided us by the Malazan embassy is unacceptable.\"\n\nCouncillor Coll fixed a steady regard on Hanut Orr's smooth-shaven face, and saw nothing in it but what he had always seen. Fear, contempt, misdirection and outright deceit, the gathered forces of hatred and spite.\"So you stated, \"he replied.\"But as you can see, the meeting has finished. I do my best to leave matters of the Council in the chamber. Politicking is a habit that can fast runaway with you, Councillor. '\n\n\"I do not recall seeking your advice.\"\n\n\"No, just my allegiance. Of the two, you elected the wrong one, Councillor.\"\n\n\"I think not, since it is the only relevant one.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Coll smiled, \"I understood you well enough. Now, if you will excuse me-\"\n\n\"Their explanation for why they needed to expand the embassy is flimsy– are you so easily duped, Councillor Coll? Or is it just a matter of filling your purse to buy your vote?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Either you are offering to bribe me, Councillor Orr, or you are suggesting that I have been bribed. The former seems most unlikely. Thus, it must be the latter, and since we happen to be standing in the corridor, with others nearby– close enough to hear you– you leave me no choice but to seek censure.\"\n\nHanut Orr sneered. \"Censure? Is that the coward's way of avoiding an actual duel? '\n\n\"I accept that it is such a rare occurrence that you probably know little about it. Very well, for the benefit of your defence, allow me to explain.\"\n\nA dozen or more councillors had now gathered and were listening, expressions appropriately grave.\n\nColl continued, \"I hereby accept your accusation as a formal charge. The procedure now is the engagement of an independent committee that will begin investigating. Of course, said investigation is most thorough, and will involve the detailed auditing of both of our financial affairs– yes, accuser and accused. Such examination inevitably... propagates, so that all manner of personal information comes to light. Once all pertinent information is assembled, my own advocates will review your file, to determine whether a countercharge is appropriate. At this point, the Council Judiciary takes over proceedings.\"\n\nHanut Orr had gone somewhat pale.\n\nColl observed him with raised brows. \"Shall I now seek censure, Councillor?\"\n\n\"I was not suggesting you were taking bribes, Councillor Coll. And I apologize if my carelessness led to such an interpretation.\"\n\n\"I see. Were you then offering me one?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"Then, is our politicking done here?\"\n\nHanut Orr managed a stiff bow, and then whirled off, trailed after a moment by Shardan Lim and then, with studied casualness, young Gorlas Vidikas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coll watched them depart.\n\nEstraysian D'Arle moved to his side and, taking him by the arm, led him towards a private alcove– the ones designed precisely for extra-chamber politicking. Two servants delivered chilled white wine and then quickly departed.\n\n\"That was close,\" Estraysian murmured.\n\n\"He's young. And stupid. A family trait? Possibly. '\n\n\"There was no bribe, was there?\"\n\nColl frowned. \"Not as such. The official reasons given are just as Orr claimed. Flimsy.\"\n\n\"Yes. And he was not privy to the unofficial ones.\"\n\n\"No. Wrong committee.\"\n\n\"Hardly an accident. That ambitious trio's been given places on every meaningless committee we can think of– but that's not keeping them busy enough, it seems. They still find time to get in our way.\"\n\n\"One day,\" said Coll, \"they will indeed be as dangerous as they think they are.\"\n\nOutside the building, standing in the bright sun, the three ambitious young councillors formed a sort of island in a sea of milling pigeons. None took note of the cooing on all sides.\n\n\"I'll have that bastard's head one day,\" said Hanut Orr.\n\n\"On a spike outside my gate.\"\n\n\"You were careless,\" said Shardan Lim, doing little to disguise his contempt.\n\nStung, Orr's gloved hand crept to the grip of his rapier.\"I've had about enough of you, old friend. It's clear you inherited every mewling weakness of your predecessor. I admit I'd hoped for something better.\"\n\n\"Listen to you two,\" said Gorlas Vidikas. \"Bitten by a big dog so here you are snapping at each other, and why? Because the big dog's too big. If he could see you now. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hanut Orr snorted. \"So speaks the man who can't keep his wife on a tight enough leash. '\n\nWas the perfect extension of the metaphor deliberate? Who can say? In any case, to the astonishment of both Orr and Lim, Gorlas Vidikas simply smiled, as if appreciative of the riposte. He made a show of brushing dust from his cuffs. \"Well then, I will leave you to... whatever, as I have business that will take me out of the city for the rest of the day.\"\n\n\"That Ironmonger will never get on the Council, Vidikas,\" Shardan Lim said. \"There's no available seat and that situation's not likely to change anytime soon. This partnership of yours will take you nowhere and earn you nothing.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, Shardan. I am getting wealthy. Do you have any idea how essential iron is to this city? Ah, I see that such matters are beneath you both. So be it. As a bonus, I am about to acquire anew property in the city as well. It has been and will continue to be a most rewarding partnership. Good day to you, sirs.\"\n\nThere was no denying Seba Krafar's natural air of brutality. He was a large, bearish man, and though virtually none of the people he pushed past while crossing the market's round knew him for the Master of the Assassins' Guild, they none the less quickly retreated from any confrontation; and if any might, in their own natural belligerence, consider a bold challenge to this rude oaf, why, a second, more searching glance disavowed them of any such notions.\n\nHe passed through the press like a heated knife through pig fat, a simile most suited to his opinion of humanity and his place within it. One of the consequences of this attitude, however, was that his derisive regard led to a kind of arrogant carelessness. He took no notice whatsoever of the nondescript figure who fell into his wake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nearest cellar leading down into the tunnels was at the end of a narrow, straight alley that led to a dead end. The steps to the cellar ran along the back of the last building on the left. The cellar had once served as a storage repository for coal, in the days before the harnessing of gas– back when the notion of poisoning one's own air in the name of brainless convenience seemed reasonable (at least to people displaying their lazy stupidity with smug pride). Now, the low-ceilinged chamber squatted empty and sagging beneath three levels of half-rotted tenement rooms in symbolic celebration of modernity.\n\nFrom the shutterless windows babies cried to the accompaniment of clanking cookware and slurred arguments, sounds as familiar to Seba Krafar as the rank air of the alley itself. His thoughts were busy enough to justify his abstracted state. Fear warred with greed in a mutual, ongoing exchange of masks which were in fact virtually identical, but never mind that; the game was ubiquitous enough, after all. Before too long, in any case, the two combatants would end up supine with exhaustion. Greed usually won, but carried fear on its back.\n\nSo much for Seba Krafar's preoccupations. Even without them, it was unlikely he would have heard the one on his trail, since that one possessed unusual talents, of such measure that he was able to move up directly behind the Master Assassin, and reach outwith ill intent.\n\nA hand closed on Seba's neck, fingers like contracting claws of iron pressing nerves that obliterated all motor control, yet before the assassin could collapse (as his body wanted to do) he was flung halfway round and thrown up against a grimy stonewall. And held there, moccasined feet dangling.\n\nHe felt a breath along one cheek, and then heard whispered words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pull your watchers off K'rul's Bar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I leave here, you will find a small sack at your feet. Five councils. The contract is now concluded– I am buying it out.\" The tip of a knife settled beneath Seba's right eye.\"I trust five councils is sufficient. Unless you object. '\n\n\"No, not at all,\" gasped Seba. \"The Malazans are safe– at least from the Guild. Of course, that just means the client will seek, er, other means.\"\n\n\"Yes, about your client.\"\n\n\"I cannot-\"\n\n\"No need to, Seba Krafar. I am well aware of the Master Ironmonger's particular obsession. '\n\n\"Lucky you,\" Seba said in a growl– gods, whoever this was still held him off the ground, and that grip did not waver. \"Because,\" he added– for he was still a brave man– \"I'm not. '\n\n\"If you were,\" said the man, \"you would not be so eager to take his coin, no matter how much he offered.\"\n\n\"Since you put it that way, perhaps those five councils down there could buy him an accident.\"\n\n\"Generous offer, but suicidal on your part. No, I do not hire people to do my dirty work.\"\n\nThrough gritted teeth– feeling was returning to his limbs, like sizzling fire– Seba said, \"So I've gathered. '\n\n\"We're done here, ' the man said.\n\n\"Unless you've other pressing business, ' Seba managed, and felt a slackening of that grip, and, vague beneath his feet, the greasy cobblestones.\n\n\"Very well,\" said the voice, \"you've actually managed to impress me, Seba Krafar. Reach up to that old lantern hook, thereon your left– you can hold yourself up until the strength returns to your legs. It wouldn't do anything for your already damaged dignity to have you fall now. Stay facing the wall for ten steady breaths, eyes closed. I don't want to have to change my mind about you. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"First impressions are never easy to live up to,\" said Seba, \"but I'll do my best." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nThe hand pulled away, then returned to give his shoulder a gentle pat.\n\nHe stood, forehead pressed against the wall, eyes closed, and counted ten slow breaths. Somewhere round the third one, he caught the stench– oh, more than just muscles let loose below his neck, and now he understood the man's comments on dignity. Yes, plopping down on my arse would've been most unpleasant.\n\nSweat ran down both sides of his face. Glancing straight down, he saw the small bag with its measly five coins.\n\n\"Shit,\" he muttered, \"I forgot to write him a receipt.\"\n\n\n\nFisher waited at the mouth of the alley, until he saw the Master Assassin delicately bend down to retrieve the bag.\n\nAgreement consummated.\n\nThe Master Assassin, he was certain, would bother them no more. As for Humble Measure, well, that man's downfall would require something considerably more complicated. But there was time.\n\nAnd this is the lesson here, dear friends. Even a man such as Fisher kel Tath, for all his formidable, mysterious qualities, was quite capable of grievous errors in judgement.\n\nTime then to return to K'rul's Bar. Perhaps Picker had found her way back, into that cool flesh that scarcely drew breath. If not, why, Fisher might have to do something about that. Lost souls had away of getting into trouble.\n\nWas this sufficient cause for his own carelessness? Perhaps. Leaving the round and its crowds, he walked into the narrow, shady Avenue of the Bullocks, threading between the few hurrying passers-by– at night, this street was notorious for muggings, and indeed, was it not but two days ago that the City Guard had found yet another battered corpse? There, before those very steps leading to a shop selling square nails, rivets and wooden frames on which to hang skinned things and other works worthy of display. Even during the day this track was risky. It was the shadows, you see-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And out from one stepped a small, toad-visaged apparition wearing abroad grin that split the very dark, somewhat pocked face, reminding one of a boldly slashed overripe melon. Seemingly balanced on this creature's head was a bundle of bow-gut– no, it was hair– in which at least three spiders nested.\n\n\"You,\" hissed the man, his eyes bright and then shifty, and then bright once more.\n\n\"None other,\" said Fisher, with the faintest of sighs.\n\n\"Of course not.\" The head tilted but the hair did not slide off. \"Another idiot– this city's full of them! \"None other.\" What kind of thing to say is that? If some other, why, I'd not have leapt into his path, would I? Best keep this simple.\" The head righted itself, spiders adjusting their perches to match. \"I bring word from my brilliant not-all-there master.\" A sudden whisper: \"Brilliant, yes, a word used most advisedly; still, use it once and we're done with it forever. \"He then raised his voice once more.\"When all this is done-'\n\n\"Excuse me,\" cut in Fisher. \"When all what is done?\"\n\n\"This, of course! Foolish Iskaral– keep it simple! Simpler, even! Listen, dear middling bard, when all this is done, eke out the eel– no, wait– er, seek out the eel. Seal? Damn, I had the message memorized and everything! Peek at– eat an eel– seek and peek the bleak earl– perk the veal, deal the prick– oh, Hood's breath! What was it again? And I had the gall to call him brilliant! He should've sent Sordiko Qualm, yes, so I could've followed the glorious rocking ship of her sweet hips-\"and he wagged his head side to side, side to side, eyes glazing,\"slib-slab, slib-slab, oh! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Fisher said as the man began muttering under his breath and pausing every now and then to lick his lips, \"for, er, the message. I assure you, I understand.\"\n\n\"Of course you do– you're a man, aren't you? Gods, that a simple casual stride could so reduce one to gibbering worship– why, who needs gods and goddesses when we have arses like that?\"\n\n\"Indeed, who? Now, since you have successfully delivered your message from your master, may I proceed on my way?\"\n\n\"What? Naturally. Go away. You're a damned distraction, is what you are. '\n\nAtilt of the head, and the bard was indeed on his way once more.\n\nThe mob outside the newly consecrated Temple of the Fallen One, or the Crippled God, or indeed the name by which most knew it– the Temple of Chains– was thick and strangely rank. More than natural sweat as might be squeezed out by the midmorning sun, this was the human rendering of desperation, made even sicklier with obsequious anticipation.\n\nYet the door to the narrow-fronted temple remained shut, evidently barred from within. Offerings were heaped up against it– copper and tin coins as well as links of chain and the odd clasp and cheap jewellery.\n\nBedek on his cart and Myrla standing before him, gripping the handles, found themselves in the midst of trembling alcoholics, the pock-scarred, the lame and the deformed. Milky eyes stared, as if cataracts were punishment for having seen too much– all other eyes were filled with beseeching need, the hunger for blessing, for even the passing brush of a twisted hand if it belonged to the Prophet. Misshapen faces lifted up, held fixedly upon that door. Within the press the stink became unbearable. The breath of rotting teeth and consumptive dissolution. From his low perch, Bedek could see nothing but shoulders and the backs of heads. Whimpering, he plucked at his wife's tunic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Myrla. Myrla!\"\n\nThe look she turned on him was both savage and... small, and with a shock Bedek suddenly saw her– and himself– as meaningless, insignificant, worthless. They were, he realized, no better than anyone else here. Each of them, seeking to be singled out, to be guided out, to be raised up from all the others. Each dreaming of coming into glorious focus in the eyes of a god– eyes brimming with pity and knowledge, eyes that understood injustice and the unfairness of existence. A god, yes, to make them right. To make us all– each and everyone of us– right. Whole.\n\nBut Bedek had held no such notions. They were not why he was here. He and Myrla were different. From all of these people. They, you see, had lost a child.\n\nThe door would remain locked, they learned, until at least midday. Sometimes even later. And even then, the Prophet might not emerge. If he was communing with his own pain, they were told, he might not be seen for days.\n\nYes, but did he bless people? Did he help people?\n\nOh, yes. Why, I saw a man in terrible pain, and the Prophet took it all away.\n\nHe healed the man?\n\nNo, he smothered him. Delivered his spirit– now at peace– into the hands of the Fallen One. If you are in pain, this is where you can end your life– only here, do you understand, can you be sure your soul will find a home. There, in the loving heart of the Fallen One. Don't you want to find your legs again? Other side of life, that's where you'll find them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so Bedek came to understand that, perhaps, this Crippled God could not help them. Not with finding Harllo. And all at once he wanted to go home.\n\nBut Myrla would have none of that. The yearning was unabated in her eyes, but it had been transformed, and what she sought now had nothing to do with Harllo. Bedek did not know what that new thing might be, but he was frightened down to the core of his soul.\n\nSnell struggled to form a sling to take the runts, both of whom were lying senseless on the floor. He had checked to see they were both breathing, since he'd heard that making them blackout could sometimes kill them– if he'd held them tight for too long– though he'd been careful. He was always careful when doing that, though if one of them did die, why, he would say it went to sleep and just never woke up and that happened, didn't it, with the little ones? And then he'd cry because that was expected.\n\nPoor thing, but it'd always been weak, hadn't it? So many children were weak. Only the strong ones, the smart ones, survived. It's what the world was like, after all, and the world can't be changed, not one bit.\n\nThere was a man in the Daru High Market who always dressed well and had plenty of coin, and it was well known he'd take little ones. Ten, twenty silver councils, boy or girl, it didn't matter which. He knew people, rich people– he was just the middleman, but you dealt with him if you didn't want no one to find out anything, and if there were any small bodies leftover, well, they never ever showed up to start people asking questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be a bit of a walk, especially with both Mew and Hinty, and that's why he needed to workout a sling of some sort, like the ones the Rhivi mothers used. Only, how did they do that?\n\nThe door opened behind him and Snell whirled in sudden terror.\n\nThe man standing on the threshold was familiar– he'd been with Stonny Menackis the last time she'd visited– and Snell could see at once that dear Snell was in trouble. Ice cold fear, a mouth impossibly dry, a pounding heart.\n\n\"They're just sleeping! '\n\nThe man stared. \"What have you done to them, Snell?\"\n\n\"Nothing! Go away. Da and Ma aren't here. They went to the Chains Temple. Comeback later. '\n\nInstead, the man stepped inside. One gloved hand casually flung Snell back, away from the motionless girls on the floor. The blow rocked Snell, and as if a stopper had been jarred loose fear poured through him. As the man knelt and drew off a glove to set a palm against Mew's forehead, Snell scrabbled to the back wall.\n\n\"I'm gonna call the guards– I'm gonna scream-\"\n\n\"Shut your damned face or I'll do it for you. \"A quick, heavy look.\"I've not yet started with you, Snell. Everything comes back to you. On the day Harllo went missing, on that day, Snell...\" He lifted his hand and straightened. \"Are they drugged? Tell me how you did this.\"\n\nHe meant to keep lying, but all at once he thought that maybe if he told the truth about this, the man might believe the lies he used afterwards, on the other stuff. \"I just squeeze'em, when they cry too much, that's all. It don't hurt them none, honest. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man had glanced at the stretch of burlap lying beside Mew. Maybe he was putting things together, but nothing could be proved, could it? It would be all right. It would be-\n\nTwo quick strides and those hands– one gloved and the other bare and scarred– snagged the front of Snell's tunic. He was lifted into the air until his eyes were level with the man's. And Snell saw in those deadly eyes something dark, a lifeless whisper that could flatten out at any moment, and all thoughts of lying whimpered away.\n\n\"On that day,\" the man said, \"you came back with a load of sun-dried dung. Something you'd never done before, and have never done since. No, your mother said it was Harllo who did such things. Harllo, who at five fucking years old did more to help this family than you ever have. Who collected that dung, Snell? '\n\nSnell had widened his eyes as wide as they could go. He made his chin tremble. \"Harllo,\" he whispered, \"but I never hurt him– I swear it!\" Oh, he hadn't wanted to lie. It just came out.\n\n\"Past Worrytown or Two-Ox Gate?\"\n\n\"The gate. Two-Ox.\"\n\n\"Did you go with him or did you follow him? What happened out there, Snell?\"\n\nAnd Snell's eyes betrayed him then, a flicker too instinctive to stop in time– down to where Mew and Hinty were lying.\n\nThe man's eyes flattened just as Snell had feared they might.\n\n\"I never killed him! He was breathing when I left him! If you kill me they'll find out– they'll arrest you– you'll go to the gallows– you can't kill me– don't! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You knocked him out and left him there, after stealing the dung he'd collected. The hills beyond Two-Ox Gate. '\n\n\"And I went back, a couple of days– the day after– and he was gone! He's just runoff, that's all-\"\n\n\"A five-year-old boy doing everything he could to help his family just ran off, did he? Or did you drive him off, Snell?\"\n\n\"I never did– he was just gone– and that's not my fault, is it? Someone maybe found him, maybe even adopted him. '\n\n\"You are going to tell your parents everything, Snell,\" the man said. \"I will be back tonight, probably late, but I will be back. Don't even think of running-'\n\n\"He won't, ' said a voice from the door.\n\nThe man turned. \"Bellam– what-\"\n\n\"Master Murillio, I'll stay here and keep an eye on the fucker. And when his parents show up, well, he'll spill it all out. Goon, Master, you don't need to worry about anything happening back here. '\n\nThe man– Murillio– was silent fora time, seeming to study the rangy boy who stood, arms folded, leaning against the doorway's frame.\n\nAnd then he set Snell down and stepped back. \"I won't forget this, Bellam. '\n\n\"It'll be fine, Master. I won't beat the bones out of him, much as I'd like to, and much as he obviously deserves it. No, he's going to sit and play with his little sisters– soon as they come round-\"\n\n\"A splash of water should do it.\"\n\n\"After a splash, then. And not only is Snell going to play with them, but he's going to make a point of losing every game, every argument. If they want him to stand on his head while picking his arsehole, why, that's what Snell will do. Right, Snell?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snell had met older boys just like this one. They had calm eyes but that was just to fix you good when you weren't expecting nothing. He was more frightened of this Bellam than he'd been of Murillio. \"You hurt me and I'll get my friends after you, \"he hissed.\"My street friends-'\n\n\"And when they hear the name Bellam Nom they'll cut you loose faster than you can blink. '\n\nMurillio had found a clay bowl into which he now poured some water.\n\n\"Master,\" said Bellam, \"I can do that. You got what you needed from him– at least a trail, a place to start.\"\n\n\"Very well. Until tonight then, Bellam, and thank you.\"\n\nAfter he'd left, Bellam shut the door and advanced on Snell, who once more cringed against the back wall.\n\n\"You said-\"\n\n\"We do that, don't we, when it comes to grown-ups. '\n\n\"Don't touch me! '\n\n\"No grown-ups anywhere close, Snell– what do you like to do when they're not around? Oh, yes, that's right. You like to torment everyone smaller than you. That sounds a fun game. I think I'll play, and look, you're smaller than me. Now, what torment shall we do first?\"\n\nIn leaving them for the time being, all grim concern regarding anything unduly cruel can be thankfully dispensed with. Bellam Nom, being cleverer than most, knew that true terror belonged not to what did occur, but to what might occur. He was content to encourage Snell's own imagination into the myriad possibilities, which was a delicate and precise form of torture. Especially useful in that it left no bruises." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bullies learn nothing when bullied in turn; there are no lessons, no about-face in their squalid natures. The principle of righteous justice is a peculiar domain where propriety and vengeance become confused, almost indistinguishable. The bullied bully is shown but the other side of the same fear he or she has lived with all his or her life. The about-face happens there, on the outside, not the inside. Inside, the bully and everything that haunts the bully's soul remains unchanged.\n\nIt is an abject truth, but conscience cannot be shoved down the throat.\n\nIf only it could.\n\n\n\nMoths were flattened against the walls of the narrow passageway, waiting for something, probably night. As it was a little used route to and from the Vidikas estate, frequented twice a day at specific times by deliveries to the kitchen, Challice had taken to using it with all the furtive grace of the insouciant adulteress that she had become. The last thing she expected was to almost run into her husband therein the shadows midway through.\n\nEven more disconcerting, it was clear that he had been awaiting her. One hand holding his duelling gloves as if about to slap them across her cheek, yet there was an odd smile on his face. \"Darling,\" he said.\n\nShe halted before him, momentarily struck dumb. It was one thing to play out the game at breakfast, a table between them cluttered with all the false icons of a perfect and perfectly normal marriage. Their language then was such a smooth navigation round all those deadly shoals that it seemed the present was but a template of the future, of years and years of this; not a single wound stung to life, no tragic floundering on the jagged shallows, sailors drowning in the foam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood before her now, tall with a thousand sharp edges, entirely blocking her path, his eyes glittering like wrecker fires on a promontory. \"So pleased I found you,\" he said. \"I must head out to the mining camp– no doubt you can hear the carriage being readied behind you.\"\n\nCasual words, yet she was startled, like a bird; flash of fluttering, panicked wings in the gloom as she half turned to register the snort of horses and the rustle of traces from the forecourt behind her. \"Oh,\" she managed, then faced him once more. Her heart's rapid beat began slowing down.\n\n\"Even here,\" Gorlas said, \"there is a sweet flush to your cheeks, dear. Most becoming.\"\n\nShe could almost feel the brush of fingertips to grant benediction to the compliment. A moth, startled awake by the clash of currents in the dusty air, wings dry as talc as it fluttered against her face. She flinched back. \"Thank you,\" she said.\n\nThis was just another game, of course. She realized that now. He did not want things to get messy, not here, not anytime soon. She told herself this with certainty, and hoped it was true. But then, why not an explosive shattering? Freeing him, freeing her– wouldn't that be healthier in the end? Unless his idea of freeing himself is to kill me. Such things happen, don't they?\n\n\"I do not expect to be back for at least three days. Two nights.\"\n\n\"I see. Be well on your journey, Gorlas.\"\n\n\"Thank you, darling.\" And then, without warning, he stepped close, his freehand grasping her right breast. \"I don't like the thought of strangers doing this, \"he said, his voice low, that odd smile still there.\"I need to picture the face, one I know well. I need a sense of the bastard behind it. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared into his eyes and saw only a stranger, calculating, as clinical and cold as a dresser of the dead– like the one who'd come to do what was needed with the corpse of her mother, once the thin veil of sympathy was tossed aside like a soiled cloth and the man set to work.\n\n\"When I get back,\" he continued, \"we'll have a talk. One with details. I want to know all about him, Challice. '\n\nShe knew that what she said at this precise moment would echo in her husband's mind for virtually every spare moment in the course of the next three days and two nights, and by the time he returned her words would have done their work in transforming him– into a broken thing, or into a monster. She could say All right, as if she was being forced, cornered, and whatever immediate satisfaction he felt would soon twist into something dark, unpleasant, and she would find herself across from a vengeful creature in three days\" time. She might say If you like, and he would hear that as defiance and cruel indifference– as if for her his needs were irrelevant, as if she would oblige out of pity and not much else. No, in truth she had few choices in what she might utter at this moment. In an instant, as he awaited her response, she decided on what she would say and when it came out it was calm and assured (but not too much so). \"Until then, husband.\"\n\nHe nodded, and she saw the pupils of his eyes dilate. She caught his quickened breathing, and knew her choice had been the right one. Now, the next three days and two nights, Gorlas would be as one on fire. With anticipation, with his imagination unleashed and playing out scenarios, each one a variation on a single theme." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, Gorlas, we are not done with each other yet, after all.\n\nHis hand withdrew from her breast and, with a courtly bow, he stepped to one side to permit her to pass.\n\nShe did so.\n\nMurillio hired a horse for the day; with tack included, the rental amounted to three silver councils along with a twenty-council deposit. Of that, the animal was worth perhaps five, certainly not much more. Slope-backed, at least ten years old, worn out, beaten down, the misery in the beast's eyes stung Murillio to sympathy and he was of half a mind to forgo the deposit and leave the animal in the hands of a kindly farmer with plenty of spare pasture.\n\nHe rode at a slow, plodding walk through the crowded streets, until he reached Two-Ox Gate. Passing through the archway's shadow, he collected the horse into a steady trot on the cobbled road, passing laden wagons and carts and the occasional Gadrobi peasant struggling beneath baskets filled with salted fish, flasks of oil, candles and whatever else they needed to make bearable living in a squalid hut along the roadside.\n\nOnce beyond the leper colony, he began scanning the lands to either side, seeking the nearest active pasture. A short distance on he spied sheep and goats wandering the slope of a hillside to his right. Alone shepherd hobbled along the ridge, waving a switch to keep the flies off. Murillio pulled his mount off the road and rode towards him.\n\nThe old man noticed his approach and halted.\n\nHe was dressed in rags, but the crook he carried looked new, freshly oiled and polished. His eyes were smeared with cataracts from too many years in the bright sunlight, and he squinted, wary and nervous, as Murillio drew up and settled back in the saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello, good shepherd.\"\n\nA terse nod answered him.\n\n\"I am looking for someone-\"\n\n\"Nobody but me here,\" the old man replied, flicking the switch before his face.\n\n\"This was a few weeks back. A young boy, up here collecting dung, perhaps.\"\n\n\"We get'em, out from the city. '\n\nThe furtiveness was ill-disguised. The old man licked his lips, switched at flies that weren't there. There were secrets here, Murillio realized. He dismounted.\"You know of this one, \"he said.\"Five years old. He was hurt, possibly unconscious. '\n\nThe shepherd stepped back as he approached, half raised the crook. \"What was I supposed to do?\" he demanded. \"The ones that come out here, they got nothing. They live in the streets. They sell the dung fora few coppers. I got no help here, we just working for somebody else. We go hungry every winter– what was I supposed to do?\"\n\n\"Just tell me what happened,\" said Murillio. \"You do that and maybe I'll just walkaway, leave you be. But you're a bad liar, old man, and if you try again I might get angry.\"\n\n\"We wasn't sure he was gonna live– he was beat up near dead, sir. Woulda died if we hadn't found him, took care of him.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Sold him off. It's hard enough, feedin'ourselves-\"\n\n\"To who? Where is he?\"\n\n\"Iron mines. The Eldra Holdings, west of here.\"\n\nMurillio felt a chill grip his heart. \"A five-year-old boy-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Moles, they call'em. Or– so I heard. '\n\nHe returned to the horse. Lifted himself into the saddle and roughly pulled the beast round. Rode hardback to the road.\n\nA thousand paces along, the horse threw a shoe.\n\nThe ox lumbered along at the pace of a beast for which time was meaningless, and perhaps in this it was wise indeed. Walking beside it, the man with the crop twitched its flank every now and then, but this was habit, not urgency. The load of braided leather was not a particularly onerous burden, and if the carter timed things right, why, he might wangle himself a meal at the camp before the long return journey back to the city. At least by then the day would be mostly done and the air would've cooled. In this heat, neither man nor beast was in any hurry.\n\nHardly surprising, then, that the lone traveller on foot caught up with them before too long, and after a brief conversation– a few words to either side of the jangle of coins– the load on the cart grew heavier, yet still not enough to force a groan from the ox. This was, after all, the task of its life, the very definition of its existence. In truth, it had little memory of ever being free, of ever trundling along without something to drag behind it, or the endless reverberation in its bones as wheels clunked across cobbles, slipping into and out of worn ruts in the stone.\n\nLanguid blinks, the storm of flies that danced in the heat, twitching tail and spots of blood on the fetlocks, and pulling something from one place to another. And at its side, squinting red-shot eyes, a storm of flies dancing, spots of blood here and therefrom midges and whatnot, and taking something from one place to another. Ox and driver, parallel lives through meaningless years. A singular variation, now, the man sitting with legs dangling off the cart, his boots worn and blisters oozing, and the dark maelstrom in his eyes that was for neither of them, and no business of theirs besides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ornate, lacquered, leaf-sprung carriage that rumbled past them a league from the camp had its windows shuttered against the heat and dust.\n\nThe man in the back had watched its approach. The carter watched it pass. The ox saw it moving away in front of it at a steady pace that it could never match, even had it wanted to, which it didn't.\n\nSnell was nobody's fool, and when the ball of bound multicoloured twine rolled close to the door and Hinty stared at it, expecting its miraculous return to her pudgy, grimy hands, why, Snell obliged– and as soon as he was at the door, he darted outside and was gone.\n\nHe heard Bellam's shout, but Snell had a good head start and besides, the stupid idiot wouldn't just leave the runts behind, would he? No, Snell had made good his escape, easy as that, because he was clever and jerks could threaten him all the time but he won in the end, he always won– proof of his cleverness.\n\nUp the street, into an alley, under the broken fence, across the narrow yard– chickens scattering from his path– and onto the stacked rabbit pens, over the next fence, into Twisty Alley, twenty strides up and then left, into the muddy track where a sewage pipe leaked. Nobody'd go down this pinched passageway, what with the stench and all, but he did, piss soaking through his worn moccasins, and then he was out onto Purse Street, and freedom.\n\nBetter if he'd stolen the runts to sell. Better still if he'd still had his stash of coins. Now, he had nothing. But nobody would catch him now. There were some older boys with connections to the gang that worked Worrytown, lifting what they could from the trader wagons that crowded through. If Snell could get out there, he'd be outside the city, wouldn't he? They could hunt forever and not find him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he could make himself rich. He could rise in the ranks and become a pack leader. People would be scared of him, terrified even. Merchants would pay him just not to rob them. And he'd buy an estate, and hire assassins to kill Bellam Nom and Stonny Menackis and Murillio. He'd buy up his parents'debts and make them pay him every month– wouldn't that be something? It'd be perfect. And his sisters he could pimp out and eventually he'd have enough money to buy a title of some sort, get on the Council, and proclaim himself King of Darujhistan, and he'd order new gallows built and execute everyone who'd done him wrong.\n\nHe rushed through the crowds, his thoughts a world away, a future far off but almost in reach.\n\nHis feet were clipped out from under him and he fell hard: numbing shock from one shoulder and his hip. Bellam Nom stood over him, breathing hard but grinning.\n\n\"Nice try,\" he said.\n\n\"Mew and Hinty! You left them-\"\n\n\"Locked up, yes. That's what slowed me down. \"And he reached down, grasped Snell's arm and yanked him to his feet, twisting hard enough to make him yelp in pain.\n\nBellam dragged Snell back the way he'd come.\n\n\"I'm going to kill you one day, \"Snell said, then winced as Bellam's grip tightened on his arm.\n\n\"It's what people like you rely on, isn't it?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That none of us areas nasty as you. That we'll have qualms about, say, skinning you alive. Or shattering your kneecaps. Gouging out your eyes. You want to kill me? Fine, just don't be surprised if I get to you first, Snell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't murder-'\n\n\"Can't I? Why not? You seem to think you can, whenever you like, whenever the chance arises. Well, I'm not Stonny Menackis. I'm not Murillio, either. They're... civilized folk. No, Snell, I'm more like you, only I'm older and better at it.\"\n\n\"If you did anything tome, Murillio would have to go after you. Like you say, he's not like us. Or Stonny. She'd cut you to pieces. Yes, it'd be Stonny, once Da asked her to, and he would. '\n\n\"You're making a big assumption, Snell. '\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That they'd ever figure out it was me. '\n\n\"I'll warn them– as soon as they comeback– I'll warn them about you-\"\n\n\"Before or after you make your confession? About what you did to poor Harllo?\"\n\n\"That was different! I didn't do nothing on purpose-'\n\n\"You hurt him, probably killed him, and left his body for the birds. You kept it all a secret, Snell. Hood knows, if I asked nicely enough, your da might just hand you over tome and good riddance to you.\"\n\nSnell said nothing. There was true terror inside him now. So much terror it filled him up, spilled out through his pores, and out from between his legs. This Bellam was a monster. He didn't feel anything for nobody. He just wanted to hurt Snell. A monster. A vicious demon, yes, a demon. Bellam was everything that was wrong with... with... everything.\n\n\"I'll be good, \"Snell whimpered.\"You'll see. I'll make it right, all of it. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But these were lies, and both of them knew it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snell was what he was, and no amount of cuddling and coddling would change that. He stood, therein the mind, as if to say: we are in your world. More of us than you imagine. If you knew how many of us there are, you'd be very, very frightened. We are here. Now, what are you going to do with us? Snell was what he was, yes, and so, too, was Bellam Nom.\n\nWhen he was dragged in through the narrow door of a nondescript shop at the near end of Twisty Alley, Snell suddenly recoiled– he knew this place. He knew-\n\n\"What you got yourself there, Bellam?\"\n\n\"A fresh one, Goruss, and I'll let him go cheap. '\n\n\"Wait!\" Snell shrieked, and then a heavy hand clamped over his mouth and he was pulled into the gloom, smelling rank sweat, feeling a breath on his cheek as the ogre named Goruss leaned in close.\n\n\"A screamer, iz he?\"\n\n\"A nasty little shit, in fact.\"\n\n\"We'll work that outer \"im.\"\n\n\"Not this one. He'd stab his mother just to watch the blood flow. \"Sprobably left a trail of tortured small animals ten leagues long, buried in little holes in every backyard of the neighbourhood. This is one of those, Goruss.\"\n\n\"Eighteen silver?\"\n\n\"Slivers?\"\n\n\"Yah.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nSnell thrashed about as he was carried off into aback room, then down steps and into an unlit cellar that smelled of piss-soaked mud. He was gagged and bound and thrown into a low iron cage. Goruss then went backup the stairs, leaving Snell alone." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 29" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is unseen, one in a crowd whom none call Do not slip past that forgettable face Crawl not inside to find the unbidden rill As it flows in dark horror from place to place\n\nHe is a common thing, in noway singular Who lets no one inside the uneven steps Down those eyes that drown the solitary star We boldly share in these human depths\n\nNot your brother, not anyone's saviour He will loom only closer to search your clothes Push aside the feeble hand that seeks to stir Compassion's glow (the damp, dying rose)\n\nHe has plucked his garden down to bone And picked every last bit of warm flesh With fear like claws and nervous teeth when alone He wanders this wasteland of cinder and ash\n\nI watch in terror as he ascends our blessed throne To lay down his cloak of shame like a shroud And beckons us the illusion of a warm home A sanctuary beneath his notice, one in a crowd\n\nHe finds his power in our indifference Shredding the common to dispense with congress No conjoined will to set against him in defiance And one by one by one, he kills us\n\nA King Takes the Throne (carved on the Poet's Wall, Royal Dungeons, Unta)\n\nWith a twist and a snarl, Shan turned on Lock. The huge white-coated beast did not flinch or scurry, but simply loped away, tongue lolling as if in laughter. A short distance off, Pallid watched. Fangs still bared, Shan slipped off into the high grasses once more.\n\nBaran, Blind, Rood and Gear had not slowed during this exchange– it had happened many times before, after all– and they continued on, in a vaguely crescent formation, Rood and Gear on the flanks. Antelope observed them from arise off to the southwest– the barest tilt of ahead from any of the Hounds and they would be off, fast as their bounding legs could take them, their hearts a frenzied drum-roll of bleak terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the Hounds of Shadow were not hunting this day. Not antelope, not bhederin, nor mule deer nor ground sloth. A host of animals that lived either instates of blessed anonymity or states of fear had no need to lurch from the former into the latter– at least not because of the monstrous Hounds. As for the wolves of the plains, the lumbering snub-nosed bears and the tawny cats of the high grasses, there were none within ten leagues– the faintest wisp of scent had sent them fleeing one and all.\n\nGreat Ravens sailed high above the Hounds, minute specks in the vaulted blue.\n\nShan was displeased with the two new companions, these blots of dirty white with the lifeless eyes. Lock in particular irritated her, as it seemed this one wanted to travel as she did, close by her side, sliding unseen, ghostly and silent. Most annoying of all, Lock was Shan's able match in such skill.\n\nBut she had no interest in surrendering her solitude. Ambush and murder were best served alone, as far as she was concerned. Lock complicated things, and Shan despised complications.\n\nSomewhere, far behind them, creatures pursued. In the profoundly long history of the Hounds of Shadow, they had been hunted many times. More often than not, the hunters came to regret the decision, whether a momentary impulse or an instinctive need; whether at the behest of some master or by the hatred in their souls, their desire usually proved fatal.\n\nOccasionally, however, being hunted was such exquisite pleasure that the Hounds never turned the game. Let the chase goon, and on. Dance from the path of that rage, all that blind need.\n\nAll things will cast a shadow. If light blazes infernal, a shadow can grow solid, outlines sharp, motion rippling within. Shape is a reflection, but not all reflections are true. Some shadows lie. Deception born of imagination and imagination born of fear, or perhaps it is the other way round and fear ignites imagination– regardless, shadows will thrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the dark conjurings of a sentient mind, all that is imagined can be made real." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beast, and the shadow it casts. The beast's shadow, and the light from which it is born. Each torn away, made distinct, made into things of nightmare.\n\nPhilosophers and fools might claim that light is without shape, that it finds its existence in painting the shape of other things, as wayward as the opening of an eye. That, in the absence of such things, it slants unseen, indeed, invisible. Without other things to strike upon, it does not cavort, does not bounce, does not paint and reflect. Rather, it flows eternal. If this is so, then light is unique in the universe.\n\nBut the universe holds to one law above all others: nothing is unique.\n\nFools and philosophers have not, alas, seen the light.\n\nConjure the shapes of beasts, of Hounds and monsters, fiends and nightmares. Of light, of dark, and of shadow. A handful of clay, a gifted breath of life, and forces will seethe in the conflicts inscribed upon their souls.\n\nThe Deragoth are the dark, and in their savage solidity would claim ownership of the shadows they cast. Lock and Pallid, however, are the light that gave the Deragoth shape, without whom neither the Deragoth nor the Hounds of Shadow would exist. If the hunters and the hunted so will, one day the beasts shall come together, baleful in mutual regard, perhaps even eager to annihilate one another, and then, in a single instant of dumbfounded astonishment, vanish one and all. Ha hah.\n\nNot all instincts guide one to behaviours of survival. Life is mired in stupidity, after all, and the smarter the life, the stupider it can be. The Hounds of Shadow were neither brilliant nor brainless. They were, in fact, rather clever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Salutations to this tripartite universe, so mutually insistent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And why not? It doesn't even exist, except in the caged mind that so needs simplification.\n\nA mind, mused Cotillion, like mine.\n\nHe glanced across at his companion. But not his. When you stand at the centre of the game, no questions arise. How can that be? What is it like, to be the storm's eye? What happens, dear Shadowthrone, when you blink?\n\n\"This,\" muttered Shadowthrone, \"was unexpected.\"\n\n\"A damned complication,\" Cotillion agreed. \"We need the Hounds there, just to ensure nothing goes awry.\"\n\nShadowthrone snorted. \"It always goes awry. Gods below, I've had to use that mad High Priest again. '\n\n\"Iskaral Pust.\" After a moment, Cotillion realized he was smiling. He quickly castaway that expression, since if Shadowthrone saw it he might well go apoplectic. \"Lovely as she is, Sordiko Qualm is not insurance enough, not for this, anyway.\"\n\n\"Nor is Pust!\" snapped Shadowthrone.\n\nThey watched the Hounds drawing closer, sensed the beasts' collective curiosity at this unplanned intercession. Their task now, after all, was simple. Straightforward, even.\n\nCotillion glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowing on the gaunt figure walking towards them. Well, not precisely– the stranger was on his way to a damned reunion, and what would come of that?\n\n\"Too many histories, too many half-truths and outright lies.\" Shadowthrone snarled every word of that statement. \"Pups of the Tiste Edur– anyone will do, it seems, if they know the old commands. But now...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"According to my, er, research, its name is Tulas Shorn, and no, I do not know the gender and what seems to be left of it doesn't look as if it will provide enough detail to decide either way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nShadowthrone grunted, and then said, \"At least it's sembled– oh, how I hate dragons! If vermin had a throne, they'd be on it.\"\n\n\"Everywhere there's a mess, they're in the middle of it, all right. Eleint, Soletaken– hardly a difference, when it comes to trouble.\"\n\n\"The chaos of their blood, Cotillion. Imagine how dull it would be without them... and I so cherish dullness.\"\n\nIf you say so.\n\n\"So,\" Shadowthrone resumed, \"how does all this fit with your ridiculously convoluted theories?\"\n\n\"They're only convoluted because they are without substance– if you'll kindly excuse that inadvertent pun. Light, Dark, Shadow. Hounds of this and that and that. These beasts may exist only because of semantics.\"\n\nShadowthrone snorted. \"You don't have to cleanup after them– the only possible excuse for such an idiotic suggestion. They smell, they slaver and slobber, they scratch and they lick, Cotillion. Oh, and they tear things to pieces. When it suits them. '\n\n\"Because we expect them to.\"\n\n\"Really now.\"\n\n\"Listen– what was the mess behind the origin of the Deragoth? Wild beasts from the dusty aeons of past ages, seven left in all the world, and the First Emperor– who was anything but– chooses them as the repositories of his divided soul. All very well, but then we have the Hounds of Shadow, and, presumably, the Hounds of Light-\"\n\n\"They're just damned albinos, Cotillion, a detail probably irrelevant, and besides, there're only two of them-\"\n\n\"That we know of, and we know of them only because they wandered into our realm– why? What or who summoned them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did, of course.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\nShadowthrone shrugged. \"I mused out loud on the need for... replacements.\"\n\n\"And that constitutes summoning? I believe I have also heard you musing on the'need\" fora breathlessly beautiful Queen of Shadow, a slave to your every desire-\"\n\n\"You were hiding behind the curtain! I knew it!\"\n\n\"The point is, where is she?\"\n\nThe question was left unanswered, as Tulas Shorn had arrived, halting ten paces before them. \"It seems,\" the undead Tiste Edur said, \"my Hounds have found new... pets.\"\n\n\"Saw his head off, Cotillion,\" Shadowthrone said. \"I hate him already.\"\n\nShan slid up beside Cotillion, eyes fixed on Tulas Shorn. A moment later Baran, Rood, Blind and Gear arrived, padding round the rulers of the Realm of Shadow, and onward to encircle the Tiste Edur.\n\nWho held out his hands, as if inviting the beasts to draw close.\n\nNone did.\n\n\"They preferred you living, I think,\" Cotillion observed. \"The dead surrender so much.\"\n\n\"If only my sentiments were dead,\" Tulas Shorn said, then sighed as it lowered its hands to its sides once more. \"Still, it pleases me to see them. But two are missing.\"\n\nAt that Cotillion glanced round. \"Well, you're right. '\n\n\"Killed?\"\n\n\"Killed,\" confirmed Shadowthrone.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Anomander Rake.\"\n\nAt the name Tulas Shorn started.\n\n\"Still around,\" said Shadowthrone, \"yes. Hee hee. Houndslayer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And neither of you strong enough to avenge the slayings, it seems. I am astonished that my Hounds have accepted such feeble masters.\"\n\n\"I thought it was pets. No matter. Ganrod and Doan died because they were precipitate. Blame poor training. I do.\"\n\n\"I am of a mind to test you,\" said Tulas Shorn after a moment.\n\n\"You want the Throne of Shadow, do you?\"\n\n\"My first rule was cut short. I have learned since-\"\n\n\"Hardly. You died.\" Shadowthrone waved one ephemeral hand. \"Whatever you learned, you did not learn well enough. Obviously.\"\n\n\"You seem certain of that.\"\n\n\"He is,\" said Cotillion.\n\n\"Is it simply megalomania, then, that so afflicts him?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, but that's beside the point. '\n\n\"And what is the point?\"\n\n\"That you clearly have not learned anything worthwhile.\"\n\n\"And why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Because you've just said that you were of a mind to test us. '\n\nTulas Shorn cocked its head. \"Do you imagine the Hounds will defend you?\"\n\n\"These ones? Probably not.\"\n\n\"Then-\" But the rest of his statement was left unfinished, as Lock and Pallid arrived, heads low, hackles upright like spines, to flank Shadowthrone and Cotillion. Upon seeing them, Tulas Shorn stepped back. \"By the Abyss,\" it whispered, \"have you two lost your minds? They cannot be here– they must not be among you-\"\n\n\"Why?\" Cotillion demanded, leaning forward in sudden interest.\n\nBut the Tiste Edur simply shook its head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two bone-white Hounds looked barely restrained, moments from exploding into a deadly charge. The hate was avid in their eyes.\n\n\"Why?\" Cotillion asked again.\n\n\"The... implacability of forces– we think to tame, but the wildness remains. Control is a delusion in the mind of self-proclaimed masters.\" And that last word dripped with contempt. \"The leash, you fools, is frayed– don't you understand anything at all? '\n\n\"Perhaps-\"\n\nTulas Shorn lifted both hands again, but this time in awarding gesture. \"We thought the same, once. We'd deceived ourselves into thinking we were the masters, that every force bowed to our command. And what happened? They destroyed everything! '\n\n\"I don't-'\n\n\"Understand? I see that! They are conjurations– manifestations– they exist to warn you. They are the proof that all that you think to enslave will turn on you.\" And it backed away. \"The end begins again, it begins again.\"\n\nCotillion stepped forward. \"Light, Dark and Shadow– these three– are you saying-\" \"Three?\" Tulas Shorn laughed with savage bitterness. \"What then of Life? Fire and Stone and Wind? What, you fools, of the Hounds of Death? Manifestations, I said. They will turn– they are telling you that! That is why they exist! The fangs, the fury– all that is implacable in nature– each aspect but a variation, a hue in the maelstrom of destruction!\"\n\nTulas Shorn was far enough away now, and the Tiste Edur began veering into a dragon.\n\nAs one, all seven Hounds surged forward– but they were too late, as the enormous winged creature launched skyward, rising on a wave of appalling power that sent Cotillion staggering back; that blew through Shadowthrone until he seemed half shredded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Soletaken dragon rose higher, as if riding on a column of pure panic, or horror. Or dismay. A pillar reaching for the heavens. Far above, the Great Ravens scattered.\n\nRecovering, Cotillion turned on Shadowthrone. \"Are we in trouble?\"\n\nThe ruler of High House Shadow slowly collected himself back into a vaguely human shape. \"I can't be sure, ' he said.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why, because I blinked.\"\n\nUp ahead, the Hounds had resumed their journey. Lock loped a tad too close alongside Shan and she snarled the beast off.\n\nTongue lolled, jaw hanging in silent laughter.\n\nSo much for lessons in hubris.\n\nThere were times, Kallor reflected, when he despised his own company. The day gloried in its indifference, the sun a blinding blaze tracking the turgid crawl of the landscape. The grasses clung to the hard earth the way they always did, seeds drifting on the wind as if on sighs of hope. Tawny rodents stood sentinel above warren holes and barked warnings as he marched past. The shadows of circling hawks rippled across his path every now and then.\n\nDespising himself was, oddly enough, a comforting sensation, for he knew he was not alone in his hate. He could recall times, sitting on a throne as if he and it had merged into one, as immovable and inviolate as one of the matching statues outside the palace (anyone of his innumerable palaces), when he would feel the oceanic surge of hate's tide. His subjects, tens, hundreds of thousands, each and everyone wishing him dead, cast down, torn to pieces. Yet what had he been but the perfect, singular representative of all that they despised within themselves? Who among them would not eagerly take his place? Casting down foul judgements upon all whose very existence offended?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been, after all, the very paragon of acquisitiveness. Managing to grasp what others could only reach for, to gather into his power a world's arsenal of weapons, and reshape that world in hard cuts, to make of it what he willed– not one would refuse to take his place. Yes, they could hate him; indeed, they must hate him, for he embodied the perfection of success, and his very existence mocked their own failures. And the violence he delivered? Well, watch how it played out in smaller scenes everywhere– the husband who cannot satisfy his wife, so he beats her down with his fists. The streetwise adolescent bully, pinning his victim to the cobbles and twisting the hapless creature's arm. The noble walking past the starving beggar. The thief with the avaricious eye– no, none of these is any different, not in their fundamental essence.\n\nSo, hate Kallor even as he hates himself. Even in that, he will do it better. Innate superiority expressed in all manner of ways. Seethe world gnash its teeth– he answers with a most knowing smile.\n\nHe walked, the place where he had begun far, far behind him now, and the place to where he was going drawing ever closer, step by step, as inexorable as this crawling landscape. Let the sentinels bark, let the hawks muse with wary eye. Seeds ride his legs, seeking out new worlds. He walked, and in his mind memories unfolded like worn packets of parchment, seamed and creased; scurried up from the bottom of some burlap sack routed as rats, crackling as they opened up in a rain of flattened moths and insect carcasses.\n\nStriding white-faced and blood-streaked down a jewel-studded hallway, dragging by an ankle the corpse of his wife– just one in a countless succession– her arms trailing behind her limp as dead snakes, their throats slashed open. There had been no warning, no patina of dust covering her eyes when she fixed him with their regard that morning, as he sat ordering the Century Candles in a row on the table between them. Ashe invited her into a life stretched out, the promise of devouring forever– no end to the feast awaiting them, no need ever to exercise anything like restraint. They would speak and live the language of excess. They would mark out the maps of interminable expansion, etching the ambitions they could now entertain. Nothing could stop them, not even death itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some madness had afflicted her, like the spurt and gush of a nicked artery– there could be no other cause. Madness it had been. Insanity, to have flung away so much. Of what he offered her. So much, yes, of him. Or so he had told himself at the time, and for decades thereafter. It had been easier that way.\n\nHe knew now why she had taken her own life. To be offered everything was to be shown what she herself was capable of– the depthless reach of her potential depravity, the horrors she would entertain, the plucking away of every last filament of sensitivity, leaving her conscience smooth, cool to the touch, a thing maybe alive, maybe not, a thing nothing could prod awake. She had seen, yes, just how far she might take herself... and had then said no.\n\nAnother sweet packet, unfolding with the scent of flowers. He knelt beside Vaderon, his warhorse, as the animal bled out red foam, its one visible eye fixed on him, as if wanting to know: was it all worth this? What has my life purchased you, my blood, the end of my days?\n\nA battlefield spread out on all sides. Heaps of the dead and the dying, human and beast, Jheck and Tartheno Toblakai, a scattering of Forkrul Assail each one surrounded by hundreds of the fallen, the ones protecting their warleaders, the ones who failed in taking the demons down. And there was no dry ground, the blood was a shallow sea thickening in the heat, and more eyes looked upon nothing than scanned the nightmare seeking friends and kin.\n\nVoices cried, but they seemed distant– leagues away from Kallor where he knelt beside Vaderon, unable to pull his gaze from that one fixating eye. Promises of brotherhood, flung into the crimson mud. Silent vows of honour, courage, service and reward, all streaming down the broken spear shaft jutting from the animal's massive, broad chest. And yes, Vaderon had reared to take that thrust, a thrust aimed at Kallor himself, because this horse was too stupid to understand anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That Kallor had begun this war, had welcomed the slaughter, the mayhem.\n\nThat Kallor, this master now kneeling at its side, was in truth a brutal, despicable man, a bag of skin filled with venom and spite, with envy and a child's selfish snarl that in losing took the same from everyone else.\n\nVaderon, dying. Kallor, dry-eyed and damning himself for his inability to weep. To feel regret, to sow self-recrimination, to make promises to do better the next time round.\n\nI am as humankind, he often told himself. Impervious to lessons. Pitiful in loss and defeat, vengeful in victory. With every possible virtue vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by others, could they claim dominion, until such virtues became hollow things, sweating beads of poison. I hold forth goodness and see it made vile, and do nothing, voice no complaint, utter no disavowal. The world I make I have made for one single purpose– to chew me up, me and everyone else. Do not believe this bewildered expression. I am bemused only through stupidity, but the clever among me know better, oh, yes they do, even as they lie through my teeth, to you and to themselves.\n\nKallor walked, over one shoulder a burlap sack ten thousand leagues long and bulging with folded packets. So different from everyone else. Ghost horses run at his side. Wrist-slashed women show bloodless smiles, dancing round the rim of deadened lips. And where dying men cry, see his shadow slide past.\n\n\"I want things plain,\" said Nenanda. \"I don't want to have to work. ' And then he looked up, belligerent, quick to take affront." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skintick was bending twigs to make a stick figure. \"But things aren't plain, Nenanda. They never are. '\n\n\"I know that, just say it straight, that's all. '\n\n\"You don't want your confusion all stirred up, you mean. '\n\nNimander roused himself. \"Skin-\"\n\nBut Nenanda had taken the bait– and it was indeed bait, since for all that Skintick had seemed intent on his twigs, he had slyly noted Nenanda's diffidence.\"Liars like confusion. Liars and thieves, because they can slip in and slip out, when there's confusion. They want your uncertainty, but there's nothing uncertain in what they want, is there? That's how they use you– you're like that yourself sometimes, Skintick, with your clever words. '\n\n\"Wait, how can they use me if I am them?\"\n\nDesra snorted.\n\nNenanda's expression filled with fury and he would have risen, if not for Aranatha's gentle hand settling on his arm, magically dispelling his rage.\n\nSkintick twisted the arms of the tiny figure until they were above the knotted head with its lone green leaf, and held it up over the fire so that it faced Nenanda. \"Look,\" he said, \"he surrenders.\"\n\n\"Do not mock me, Skintick.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I applaud your desire to have things simple. After all, either you can cut it with your sword or you can't. '\n\n\"There you go again.\"\n\nThe bickering would goon half the night, Nimander knew. And as it went on it would unravel, and Skintick would increasingly make Nenanda into a thick-witted fool, when he was not anything of the sort. But words were indeed ephemeral, able to sleet past all manner of defences, quick to cut, eager to draw blood. They were the perfect weapons of deceit, but they could also be, he well knew, the solid pavestones of a path leading to comprehension– or what passed for comprehension in this murky, impossible world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were so many ways to live, one for every single sentient being– and perhaps for the non-sentient ones too– that it was a true miracle whenever two could meet in mutual understanding, or even passive acceptance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Proof, Skintick had once said, of life's extraordinary flexibility. But then, he had added, it is our curse to be social creatures, so we've little choice but to try to get along.\n\nThey were camped on abroad terrace above the last of the strange ruins– the day's climb had been long, dusty and exhausting. Virtually every stone in the rough gravel filling the old drainage channels proved to be some sort of fossil– pieces of what had once been bone, wood, tooth or tusk– all in fragments. The entire mountainside seemed to be some sort of midden, countless centuries old, and to imagine the lives needed to create so vast a mound was to feel bewildered, weakened with awe. Were the mountains behind this one the same? Was such a thing even possible?\n\nCan't you see, Nenanda, how nothing is simple? Not even the ground we walk upon. How is this created? Is what we come from and where we end up any different? No, that was badly put. Make it simpler. What is this existence?\n\nAs Nenanda might answer, it does a warrior no good to ask such questions. Leave us this headlong plunge, leave to the moment to come that next step, even if it's over an abyss. There's no point in all these questions.\n\nAnd how might Skintick respond to that? Show a bhederin fear and watch it runoff a cliff. What killed it? The jagged rocks below, or the terror that made it both blind and stupid? And Nenanda would shrug. Who cares? Let's just eat the damned thing.\n\nThis was not the grand conflict of sensibilities one might think it was. Just two heads on the same coin, one facing right on this side, the other facing left on the other side. Both winking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Desra would snort and say, Keep your stupid words, I'll take the cock in my handover words anytime.\n\nHolding on for dear life, Skintick would mutter under his breath, and Desra's answering smile fooled no one. Nimander well remembered every conversation among his followers, his siblings, his family, and remembered too how they could repeat themselves, with scant variation, if all the cues were triggered in the right sequence.\n\nHe wondered where Clip had gone to– somewhere out beyond this pool of firelight, perhaps listening, perhaps not. Would he hear anything he'd not heard before? Would anything said this night alter his opinion of them? It did not seem likely. They bickered, they rapped against personalities and spun off either laughing or infuriated. Prodding, skipping away, ever seeking where the skin was thinnest above all the old bruises. All just fighting without swords, and no one ever died, did they? Nimander watched Kedeviss– who had been unusually quiet thus far– rise and draw her cloak tighter about her shoulders. After a moment, she set off into the dark.\n\nSomewhere in the crags faraway, wolves began howling.\n\nSomething huge loomed just outside the flickering orange light, and Samar Dev saw both Karsa and Traveller twist round to face it, and then they rose, reaching for their weapons. The shape shifted, seemed to wag from side to side, and then– at the witch's eye level had shebeen standing– a glittering, twisting snout, abroad flattened halo of fur, the smear of fire in two small eyes.\n\nSamar Dev struggled to breathe. She had never before seen such an enormous bear. If it reared, it would tower over even Karsa Orlong. She watched that uplifted head, the flattened nose testing the air. The creature, she realized, clearly relied more on smell than on sight. I thought fire frightened such beasts– not summoned them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it attacked, things would happen..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "fast. Two swords flashing into its lunge, a deafening bellow, talons scything to sweep away the two puny attackers– and then it would come straight for her. She could see that, was certain of it. The bear had come for her.\n\nDe nek okral. The words seemed to foam up to the surface of her thoughts, like things belched from the murky depths of instinct. \"De nek okral,\" she whispered.\n\nThe nostrils flared, dripping.\n\nAnd then, with a snuffling snort, the beast drew back, out of the firelight. A crunch of stones, and the ground trembled as the animal lumbered away.\n\nKarsa and Traveller moved their hands away from their weapons, and then both eased back down, resuming their positions facing the fire.\n\nThe Toblakai warrior found a stick and dropped it into the flames. Sparks whirled skyward, bright with liberation, only to wink out. His expression looked thoughtful.\n\nSamar Dev glanced down at her trembling hands, and then slipped them beneath the woollen blanket she had wrapped about herself.\n\n\"Strictly speaking,\" said Traveller, \"not an okral. De nek...\" He raised his brows. \"\"Short nose\"?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\" Samar Dev snapped.\n\nHis brows lifted higher.\n\n\"I don't know where those words came from. They just... arrived. '\n\n\"They were Imass, Samar Dev.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Okral is the word fora plains bear, but that was no plains bear– too big, legs too long-\"\n\n\"I would not,\" said Karsa, \"wish to be chased by that beast, even on horseback. That animal was built for running its prey down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it was not hunting,\" said Traveller.\n\n\"I don't know what it was doing, \"Karsa conceded with a loose shrug.\"But I am glad it changed its mind. '\n\n\"From you two,\" Samar said, \"it would have sensed no fear. That alone would have made it hesitate.\" Her voice was harsh, almost flinging the words out. She was not sure why she was so angry. Perhaps naught but the aftermath of terror– a terror that neither companion had the decency to have shared with her. They made her feel... diminished.\n\nTraveller was still studying her, and she wanted to snarl at him. When he spoke, his tone was calm. \"The old gods of war are returning.\"\n\n\"War? The god of war? That was Fener, wasn't it? The Boar. '\n\n\"Fener, Togg, Fanderay, Treach, and,\" he shrugged, \"De nek Okral– who can say how many once existed. They arose, I would imagine, dependent on the environment of the worshippers– whatever beast was supreme predator, was the most savage-\"\n\n\"But none were,\" cut in Karsa Orlong. \"Supreme. That title belonged to us two-legged hunters, us bright-eyed killers.\"\n\nTraveller continued to stare at Samar Dev. \"The savagery of the beasts reflected the savagery in the souls of the worshippers. In war, this is what was shared. Boar, tigers, wolves, the great bears that knew no fear.\"\n\n\"Is this what Fener's fall has done, then? \"Samar Dev asked.\"All the hoary, forgotten ones clambering back to fight over the spoils? And what has that to do with that bear, anyway? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That bear,\" said Traveller, \"was a god.\"\n\nKarsa spat into the fire. \"No wonder I have never before seen such a beast.\"\n\n\"They once existed,\" said Traveller. \"They once ruled these plains, until all that they hunted was taken from them, and so they vanished, as have so many other proud creatures.\"\n\n\"The god should have followed them,\" said Karsa. \"There are too many faces of war as it is.\"\n\nSamar Dev grunted. \"That's rich coming from you. '\n\nKarsa eyed her over the flames, and then grinned, the crazed tattoos seeming to split wide open on his face. \"There need be only one.\"\n\nYours. Yes, Toblakai, I understand you well enough. \"I have one true fear,\" she said. \"And that is, when you are done with civilization, it will turnout that you as master of everything will prove no better than the ones you pulled down. That you will find the last surviving throne and plop yourself down on it, and find it all too much to your liking.\"\n\n\"That is an empty fear, witch,\" said Karsa Orlong. \"I will leave not one throne to sit on– I will shatter them all. And if, when I am done, I am the last left standing– in all the world– then I will be satisfied.\"\n\n\"What of your people?\"\n\n\"I have listened too long to the whispers of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Our ways are but clumsier versions of all the other ways in which people live– their love of waste, their eagerness to reap every living thing as if it belonged to them, as if in order to prove ownership they must destroy it.\" He bared his teeth. \"We think no differently, just slower. Less... efficiently. You will prattle on about progress, Samar Dev, but progress is not what you think it is. It is not a tool guided by our hands– not yours, not mine, not Traveller's. It is not something we can rightly claim as our destiny. Why? Because in truth we have no control over it. Not your machines, witch, not a hundred thousand slaves shackled to it– even as we stand with whips in hand. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now Traveller had turned slightly and was studying the Toblakai with that same curious wonder that she had seen before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What then,\" he asked, \"is progress, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\nThe Toblakai gestured into the night sky. \"The crawl of the stars, the plunge and rise of the moon. Day, night, birth, death– progress is the passage of reality. We sit astride this horse, but it is a beast we can never tame, and it will run forever– we will age and wither and falloff, and it cares not. Some other will leap aboard and it cares not. It may run alone, and it cares not. It outran the great bears. The wolves and their worshippers. It outran the Jaghut, and the K'Chain Che'Malle. And still it runs on, and to it we are nothing.\"\n\n\"Then why not let us ride it fora time?\" Samar Dev demanded. \"Why not leave us that damned illusion?\"\n\n\"Because, woman, we ride it to hunt, to kill, to destroy. We ride it as if it is our right and our excuse both.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said Traveller, \"is that not precisely what you intend, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"I shall destroy what I can, but never shall I claim to own what I destroy. I will be the embodiment of progress, but emptied of greed. I shall be like nature's fist: blind. And I shall prove that ownership is a lie. The land, the seas, the life to be found there. The mountains, the plains, the cities, the farms. Water, air. We own none of it. This is what I will prove, and by proving it will make it so. '\n\nHe leaned forward then and gathered up in his hands a heap of dusty earth. The Toblakai rose to his feet, and dropped the soil onto the fire, snuffing out the flames. Darkness took them all, as if but awaiting this moment. Or, she thought with a chill, as if it has always been there. The light blinded me, else I would have seen it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I do now.\n\nGod of war, what did you want with me?\n\nWith an ear-piercing scream the enkaral crashed down onto Pearl, talons slashing through flesh, dagger fangs closing on the back of the demon's neck. Grunting, he reached up and closed one hand about the winged beast's throat, the other forcing its way beneath the enkaral's upper jaw– fingers sliced into shreds as he reached ever farther and then began prising the mouth back open. The fangs of the lower jaw sank deeper into the muscles of Pearl's neck, and still he pushed. As this was going on, the talons never ceased their frantic rending along the demon's lower back, seeking to hook round his spine, seeking to tear loose that column– but the chains and shackles snarled its efforts, as did Pearl's twisting to evade each stabbing search through his muscles.\n\nFinally, as his grip on the beast's throat tightened, he could hear the desperate squeal of its breath, and the jaws weakened. Something crunched and all at once Pearl was able to rip the jaws free of his neck. He staggered forward, dragging the huge beast round, both hands closing on its scaled throat– and more things collapsed inside that crushing grip.\n\nThe enkaral flailed about, legs kicking wildly now, talons scoring furrows on Pearl's thighs. He forced the beast down onto the ground. The thrashing slowed, and then, with a spasm, the creature went limp.\n\nPearl slowly rose, flinging the carcass to one side; a thud, the slap and rustle of chains. The demon then glanced over to the figure walking alongside it. \"Did I anger it somehow, Draconus?\"\n\nThe man squinted, shifting the weight of his chains over his other shoulder before replying, \"No, Pearl. Madness took it, that's all. You just happened to be near. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh,\" said Pearl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then the demon sighed. \"Then it is good it was me and not something... smaller.\"\n\n\"Can you continue, Pearl?\"\n\n\"I can, yes. Thank you for asking.\"\n\n\"Not much longer, I should think.\"\n\n\"No, not much longer,\" agreed Pearl. \"And then?\"\n\n\"We will see, won't we? '\n\n\"Yes, that is true. Draconus?\"\n\n\"Pearl?\"\n\n\"I think I will welcome an end– is that a terrible thing for me to say?\"\n\nThe man shook his head, his expression hinting that he might be in pain. \"No, my friend, it is not.\"\n\nFully one half of the sky was now a seething argent storm. Thunder rolled from the horizon behind them, as the very ground was ripped up, annihilated– their world had acquired an edge, raw as a cliff, and that cliff was drawing closer as vast sections sheared away, as the raging abyss swallowed the toppling stone columns one by one.\n\nAnd it occurred to Draconus, then, that each of them here, seemingly alone, each with his or her own shackle, his or her own chain, had finally, at long last, come together.\n\nWe are an army. But an army in retreat. Seethe detritus we leave in our wake, the abandoned comrades. Seethe glaze of our eyes, this veil of numbed exhaustion– when at last we tear it aside, we will find the despair we have harboured for so long, like a black poisoned fruit under a leaf– all revealed as we look into each other's eyes.\n\nWas the comfort found in mutual recognition of any true worth? Here, at the last? When the common ground is failure? Like afield of corpses after a battle. Like a sea of skulls rolling in the tide. Is not the brotherhood too bitter to bear?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And now, he wanted to... to what? Yes, to rage, but first, let me close my eyes. Just fora moment. Let me find, again, my will-\n\n\"Draconus?\"\n\n\"Yes, Pearl?\"\n\n\"Do you hear drums? I hear drums.\"\n\n\"The thunder-\" and then he stopped, and turned round, to look back at that fulminating, crazed horizon.\n\n\"Gods below.\"\n\nChaos had found anew way to mock them. With legions in ranks, weapons and armour blazing, with standards spitting lightning into the sky. Emerging in an endless row, an army of something vaguely human, shaped solely by intent, in numbers unimaginable– they did not march so much as flow, like a frothing surge devouring the ground– and no more than a league away. Lances and pike heads flashing, round shields spinning like vortices. Drums like rattling bones, rushing to swarm like maddened wasps.\n\nSo close... has the hunger caught fresh our scent– does the hunger now rush to us, faster than ever before?\n\nIs there something in that storm... that knows what it wants?\n\n\"I do not understand,\" said Pearl. \"How can chaos take shapes?\"\n\n\"Perhaps, friend, what we are seeing is the manifestation of what exists in all of us. Our secret love of destruction, the pleasure of annihilation, our darkest glee. Perhaps when at last they reach us, we shall realize that they are us and we are them.\" That Dragnipur has but cut us in two, and all chaos seeks is to draw us whole once more.\n\nOh, really now, Draconus, have you lost your mind?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they are the evil in our souls, Pearl, then there can be no doubt as to their desire.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not just our souls,\" mused Pearl, wiping blood from his eyes. \"Perhaps every soul, since the beginning of creation. Perhaps, Draconus, when each of us dies, the evil within us is torn free and rushes into the realm of Chaos. Or the evil is that which survives the longest...\"\n\nDraconus said nothing. The demon's suggestions horrified him, and he thought– oh, he was thinking, yes– that Pearl had found a terrible truth. Somewhere among those possibilities.\n\nSomewhere among them... I think... there is a secret. An important secret.\n\nSomewhere...\n\n\"I do not want to meet my evil self,\" said Pearl.\n\nDraconus glanced across at him. \"Who does?\"\n\nDitch was dreaming, for dreaming was his last road to freedom. He could stride, reaching out to the sides, reshaping everything. He could make the world as he wanted it, as it should be, a place of justice, a place where he could be a god and look upon humanity as it truly was: a mob of unruly, faintly ridiculous children. Watch them grasp things when they think no one's looking. Watch them break things, hurt things, steal. Listen to their expostulations of innocence, their breathless list of excuses, listen to how they repent and repent and repent and then go and do the same damned things allover again. Children.\n\nWith all his godly powers, he would teach them about consequences, that most terrible of lessons, the one resisted the longest. He would teach them because he had learned in the only way possible– with scars and broken bones, with sickness in the soul tasting of fear, with all the irreparable damage resulting from all his own thoughtless decisions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There could be wonder and joy among children, too. Too easy to see naught but gloom, wasn't it? Wonder and joy. Naïve creations of beauty. He was not blind to such things, and, like any god, he understood that such gifts were pleas for mercy. An invitation to indulge that reprehensible host of flaws. Art and genius, compassion and passion, they were as islands assailed on all sides. But no island lived forever. The black, writhing, worm-filled seas ever rose higher. And sooner or later, the hungry storms ate their fill.\n\nNature might well struggle for balance. And perhaps the egregious imbalance Ditch thought he perceived in his kind was but an illusion, and redress waited, stretched out to match the extremity. A fall as sudden and ferocious as the rise.\n\nIn his state of dreaming, it did not occur to him that his dreams were not his own, that this harsh cant of judgement belonged to a tyrant or even a god, or to one such as himself if madness had taken hold. But he was not mad, and nor was he a tyrant, and for all his natural inclination (natural to almost everyone) to wish for true justice he was, after all, wise enough to know the vulnerability of moral notions, the ease with which they were corrupted. Was he dreaming, then, the dreams of a god?\n\nBlind as Kadaspala was, he could sense far too much of Ditch's visions– he could feel the incandescent rage in the flicker of the man's eyelids, the heat of his breath, the ripples of tautness washing over his face. Oh, this unconscious wizard stalked an unseen world, filled with outrage and fury, with the hunger for retribution.\n\nThere were so many paths to godhood. Kadaspala was certain of that. So many paths, so many paths. Refuse to die, refuse to surrender, refuse to die and refuse to surrender and that was one path, stumbled onto without true intent, without even wanting it, and these gods were the bemused ones, the reluctant ones. They were best left alone, for to prod them awake was to risk apocalypse. Reluctant power was the deadliest power of them all, for the anger behind it was long stoked. Long stoked and stoked long and long, so best leave them leave them leave them alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Other gods were called into being and the nature of that call took countless forms. A convulsion of natural forces, until the very sludge awakens. Wherever discordant elements clashed, the possibility was born. Life. Intent. Desire and need. But these too were accidental things, in as much as anything could be accidental when all the particles necessary for creation abounded, as they surely did. There were other ways of calling a god into being.\n\nGather a host of words, a host of words. Gather a host of words. Make them, make them, make them what? Physical, yes, make them physical, from the empty ether to the incision in clay, the stain on stone, the ink on skin. Physical, because the physical created– by its very nature before the eye (or the inner eye) – created and created patterns. And they could be played with played with played with. In numbers and sigils, in astral proportions. They could be coded inside codes inside codes until something is rendered, something both beautiful and absolute. Beautiful in its absoluteness. In its absolution, in its absolved essence, a thing of beauty.\n\nUnderstand, won't you, the truth of patterns, how pattern finds truth in the tension of juxtaposition, in the game of meaning meaning the game which is the perfect pattern of language in the guise of imperfection– but what value any of this any of this any of this?\n\nThe value is the body of text (hah, the body– the bodies) that in its absoluteness becomes sacred, and in sacredness becomes all that it portrays in its convivial ordering of the essentially meaningless. Patterns where none existed before. Creation from nothing. Awakening from absence of self. And what is the word the beautiful word the precious word and the perfect word that starts the game starts everything everything everything?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why, the word is birth.\n\nBodies of text, all these bodies, all this flesh and the ink and the words and the words oh the words. Bodies and bodies, patterns inside patterns, lives and lives and lives all dreaming... all dreaming one dream.\n\nOne dream. One dream one dream one one one dream.\n\nOne.\n\nA dream of justice.\n\n\"Let the cosmos quake,\" Kadaspala whispered as he etched sigil inside sigil inside sigil, as he wove language and meaning, as the ink rode the piercing and flowed beneath skin pocket by pocket. \"Quake and quiver, whimper and quaver. A god oh a god yes a god now a god soon a god a god awakens. Lives and lives cut down one and all, cut down, yes, by judgement's sharp edge– did we deserve it? Did we earn the punishment? Are any of us innocent, any of us at all? Not likely not likely not likely. So, lives and lives and none none none of us did not receive precisely what we deserved.\n\n'Do you understand? Godling, to you I speak. Listen listen listen well. We are what you come from. The punished, the punished, the victims of justice, the victims of our own stupidity, yes, and who could say that none of us has learned our lesson? Who can say that? Look oh look oh look where we are! Godling, here is your soul, writ in flesh, in flesh, writ hereby Kadaspala, who was once blind though he could see and now can see though he is blind. And am I not the very definition of sentience? Blind in life, I can see in death– the definition of mortality, my darling child, heed it and heed it come the moment you must act and decide and stand and sit in judgement. Heed and heed, godling, this eternal flaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'And what, you will wonder, is written upon your soul? What is written here? Hereupon the flesh of your soul? Ah, but that is the journey of your life, godling, to learn the language of your soul, to learn it to learn it even as you live it.\n\n'Soon, birth arrives. Soon, life awakens.\n\n\"Soon, I make a god.\"\n\nAnd even now, the god dreams of justice. For, unlike Ditch, Kadaspala is indeed mad. His code struck to flesh is a code of laws. The laws from which the god shall be born. Consider that, consider that well.\n\nIn the context of, say, mercy...\n\nShe was out there, down in the basin, on her knees, head hanging, her torso weaving back and forth to some inner rhythm. After studying her yet again, Seerdomin, with a faint gasp, tore his gaze away– something it was getting ever harder to manage, for she was mesmerizing, this childwoman, this fount of corruption, and the notion that a woman's fall could be so alluring, so perfectly sexual, left him horrified. By this language of invitation. By his own darkness.\n\nBehind him, the Redeemer murmured, \"Her power grows. Her power over you, Segda Travos.\"\n\n\"I do not want to be where she is.\"\n\n\"Don't you? '\n\nSeerdomin turned and eyed the god. \"Self-awareness can be a curse.\"\n\n\"A necessary one.\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" he conceded.\n\n\"Will you still fight her, Segda Travos?\"\n\n\"I think so, yes.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nSeerdomin bared his teeth. \"Don't you start with me, Redeemer. The enemy never questions motivations– the enemy doesn't chew the ground out beneath its own feet.\" He jabbed a finger back at the woman kneeling in the basin. \"She has no questions. No doubts. What she has instead is strength. Power.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is true,\" said the Redeemer. \"All of it. It is why those haunted by uncertainty must ever retreat. They cannot stand before the self-righteous. Instead, they must slink away, they must hide, they must slip behind the enemy's lines-\"\"Where every damned one of them is hunted down and silenced– no, Redeemer, you forget, I lived in a tyranny. I kicked indoors. I dragged people away. Do you truly believe unbelievers will be tolerated? Scepticism is a criminal act.\n\nWave the standard or someone else will, and they'll becoming for you. Redeemer, I have looked in the eyes of my enemy, and they are hard, cold, emptied of everything but hate. I have, yes, seen my own reflection– it haunts me still.\"\n\nNo further words were exchanged then. Seerdomin looked back down to that woman, the High Priestess who had once been Salind. She was naught but a tool, now, a weapon of some greater force's will, its hunger. The same force, he now suspected, that drove nations to war, that drove husbands to kill wives and wives to kill husbands. That could take even the soul of a god and crush it into subservience.\n\nWhen will you rise, Salind? When will you come for me?\n\nThis was not the afterlife he had imagined. My fighting should be over. My every need made meaningless, the pain of thoughts forever silenced.\n\nIs not death's gift indifference? Blissful, perfect indifference?\n\nShe swayed back and forth, gathering strength as only the surrendered could do.\n\nMonkrat walked through the pilgrim camp. Dishevelled as it had once been, now it looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. Tents had sagged; shacks leaned perilously close to collapse. There was rubbish everywhere. The few children still alive after being so long abandoned watched him walk past with haunted eyes peering out from filth-streaked faces. Sores ate into their drawn lips. Their bellies were swollen under the rags. There was nothing to be done for them, and even if there was, Monkrat was not the man to do it. In his mind he had left humanity behind long ago. There was no kinship to nip at his heart. Every fool the world over was on his or her own, or they were slaves. These were the only two states of being– every other one was a lie. And Monkrat had no desire to become a slave, as much as Gradithan or saemankelyk might want that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, he would remain his own world. It was easier that way. Ease was important. Ease was all that mattered.\n\nSoon, he knew, he would have to escape this madness. Gradithan's ambitions had lost all perspective– the curse of kelyk. He talked now incessantly of the coming of the Dying God, the imminent end of all things and the glorious rebirth to follow. People talking like that disgusted Monkrat. They repeated themselves so often it soon became grossly obvious that their words were wishes and the wish was that their words might prove true. Round and round, all that wasted breath. The mind so liked to go round and round, so liked that familiar track, the familiarity of it. Round and round, and each time round the mind was just that much stupider. Increment by increment, the range of thoughts narrower, the path underfoot more deeply trenched– he had even noted how the vocabulary diminished, as uneasy notions were castaway and all the words associated with them, too. The circular track became a mantra, the mantra a proclamation of stupid wishes that things could be as they wanted them, that in fact they were as they wanted them.\n\nFanaticism was so popular. There had to be a reason for that, didn't there? Some vast reward to the end of thinking, some great bliss to the blessing of idiocy. Well, Monkrat trusted none of that. He knew how to think for himself and that was all he knew so why give it up? He'd yet to hear an argument that could convince him– but of course, fanatics didn't use arguments, did they? No, just that fixed gaze, the threat, the reason to fear.\n\nAye, he'd had enough. Gods below, he was actually longing for the city where he had been born. Therein the shadow of Mock's Hold, and that blackwater bay of the harbour where slept a demon, half buried in mud and tumbled ballast stones. And who knew, maybe there was no one left thereto recognize him– and why would they in any case? His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn's Sleep. The Bridgeburners were gone, dead, destroyed in Pale with the remnants mopped up here at Black Coral. But he'd been a casualty long before then, and the years since then had been damned hard– no, it wasn't likely that he'd be recognized." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, Malaz City sounded sweet now, as he walked this wretched camp's main street, the squalling of gulls loud in his ears.\n\nGradithan, you've lost it.\n\nThere won't be any vengeance on the Tiste Andii. Not for me, not for you. It was a stupid idea and now it's gone too far.\n\nHistory wasn't worth reliving. He understood that now. But people never learned that– they never fucking learned that, did they? Round and round.\n\nA fallen pilgrim stumbled out from between two hovels, brown-smeared chin and murky eyes swimming in some dubious rapture painting its lie behind them. He wanted to kick the brainless idiot between the legs. He wanted to stomp on the fool's skull and seethe shit-coloured sludge spill out. He wanted every child to watch him do it, too, so they'd realize, so they'd run for their lives.\n\nNot that he cared.\n\n\"High Priestess.\"\n\nShe looked up, then rose from behind her desk, came round with a gathering of her robes, and then bowed. \"Son of Darkness, welcome. Did we have anything arranged?\"\n\nHis smile was wry. \"Do we ever?\"\n\n\"Please,\" she said, \"do come in. I will send for wine and-\"\n\n\"No need on my account, High Priestess.\" Anomander Rake walked into the small office, eyed the two chairs and then selected the least ornate one to sit down in. He stretched out his legs, fingers lacing together on his lap, and eyed her speculatively.\n\nShe raised her arms, \"Shall I dance?\"\n\n\"Shall I sing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Abyss take me, no. Please.\"\n\n\"Do sit down,\" said Rake, indicating the other chair.\n\nShe did so, keeping her back straight, a silent question lifting her eyebrows.\n\nHe continued watching her.\n\nShe let out a breath and slumped back. 'All right, then.\n\nI'm relaxing. See?\"\n\n\"You have ever been my favourite,\" he said, looking away.\n\n\"Your favourite what?\"\n\n\"High Priestess, of course. What else might I bethinking?\"\n\n\"Well, that is the eternal question, isn't it? '\n\n\"One too many people spend too much time worrying about.\"\n\n\"You cannot be serious, Anomander.\"\n\nHe seemed to be studying her desk– not the things scattered on its surface, but the desk itself. \"That's too small for you, ' he pronounced.\n\nShe glanced at it. \"You are deceived, alas. It's my disorganization that's too big. Give me a desk the size of a concourse and I'll still fill it up with junk. '\n\n\"Then it must be your mind that is too big, High Priestess.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"there is so little to think about and so much time.\" She fluttered a hand. \"If my thoughts have become oversized it's only out of indolence. \"Her gaze sharpened.\"And we have become so indolent, haven't we?\"\n\n\"She has been turned away fora longtime,\" Anomander Rake said. \"That I allowed all of you to turn instead tome was ever a dubious enterprise.\"\n\n\"You made no effort to muster worship, Son of Darkness, and that is what made it dubious.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One brow lifted. \"Not my obvious flaws?\"\n\n\"And Mother Dark is without flaws? No, the Tiste Andii were never foolish enough to force upon our icons the impossibility of perfection.\"\n\n\"\"Icons\",\" said Anomander Rake, frowning as he continued studying the desk.\n\n\"Is that the wrong word? I think not.\"\n\n\"And that is why I rejected the notion of worship.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because, sooner or later, the believers shatter their icons.\"\n\nShe grunted, and thought about that fora time, before sighing and nodding. \"A hundred fallen, forgotten civilizations, yes. And in the ruins all those statues... with their faces chopped off. The loss of faith is ever violent, it seems.\"\n\n\"Ours was.\"\n\nThe statement stung her. \"Ah, we are not so different then, after all. What a depressing realization.\"\n\n\"Endest Silann,\" he said.\n\n\"Your stare is making the legs of my desk tremble, Lord Rake– am I so unpleasant that you dare not rest eyes upon me?\"\n\nHe slowly turned his head and settled his gaze upon her.\n\nAnd seeing all that was in his eyes almost made her flinch, and she understood, all at once, the mercy he had been giving her– with his face turned away, with his eyes veiled by distraction. But then she had asked for his regard, as much out of vanity as the secret pleasure of her attraction to him– she could not now break this connection. Marshalling her resolve, she said, \"Endest Silann, yes. The reason for this visit. I understand.\"\n\n\"He is convinced he was broken long ago, High Priestess. We both know it is not true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded. \"He proved that when he sustained Moon's Spawn beneath the sea– proved it to everyone but himself. '\n\n\"I reveal to him my confidence,\" said Rake, \"and each time he... contracts. I cannot reach through, it seems, to bolster what I know is within him.\"\n\n\"Then it is his faith that is broken.\"\n\nHe grimaced, made no reply.\n\n\"When the time comes,\" she said, \"I will be there. To do what I can. Although,\" she added, \"that may not be much.\"\n\n\"You need not elaborate on the efficacy of your presence, High Priestess. We are speaking, as you said, of faith.\"\n\n\"And there need be no substance to it. Thank you.\"\n\nHe glanced away once more, and this time the wry smile she had seen before played again across his features. \"You were always my favourite,\" he said.\n\n\"Me, or the desk you so seem to love?\"\n\nHe rose and she did the same. \"High Priestess,\" he said.\n\n\"Son of Darkness,\" she returned, with another bow.\n\nAnd out he went, leaving in his wake a sudden absence, an almost audible clap of displacement– but no, that was in her mind, a hint of something hovering there behind her memory of his face, his eyes and all that she had seen there.\n\nMother Dark, hear me. Heed me. You did not understand your son then. You do not understand him now.\n\nDon't you see? This was all Draconus's doing.\n\n\"This ain't right, \"gasped Reccanto Ilk, each word spraying blood.\"When it comes to screaming women, they should be leaving the bar, not trying to get in! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ragged hole the shrieking, snarling, jaw-snapping women had torn through the tavern's door was jammed with arms stretching, fingers clutching, all reaching inward in a desperate attempt to tear through the barrier. Claws stabbed into the Trell's tattooed shoulders and he ducked his head lower, grunting as the demons battered at the door, planks splintering– but that Trell was one strong bastard, and he was holding \"em back, as he had been doing since that first rush that nearly saw Reccanto's precious head get torn off.\n\nThank whatever gods squatted in the muck of this damned village that these demons were so stupid. Not one had tried either of the shuttered windows flanking the entrance, although with that barbed hulk, Gruntle, waiting atone of \"em with his cutlasses at the ready, and Faint and the Bole brothers at the other, at least if them demons went and tried one of'em they'd be cut to pieces in no time. Or so Reccanto hoped, since he was hiding under a table and a table wasn't much cover, or wouldn't be if them demons was nasty enough to tear apart Gruntle and Faint and the Boles and the Trell, and Sweetest Sufferance, too, for that matter.\n\nMaster Quell and that swampy witch, Precious Thimble, were huddled together at the back, at the barred cellar door, doing Hood knew what. Glanno Tarp was missing– he'd gone with the horses when they went straight and the carriage went left, and Reccanto was pretty sure that the idiot had gone and killed himself bad. Or worse.\n\nAs for that corpse, Cartographer, why, the last Ilk had seen of it it was still lashed to a wheel, spinning in a blur as the damned thing spun off its axle and bounded off into the rainy night. Why couldn't the demons go after it? A damned easier fight-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Repeated blows were turning the door into a shattered wreck, and one of the arms angled down to slash deep gouges across Mappo's back, making the Trell groan and groaning wasn't good, since it meant Mappo might just give up trying to hold \"em back and in they'd come, straight for the man hiding under the table. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair and what was fair about that, dammit?\n\nHe drew out his rapier and clutched the grip in one shaky hand. A lunge from the knees– was such a thing possible? He was about to find out. Oh, yes, he'd skewer one for its troubles, just watch. And if the other two (he was pretty sure there were three of'em) ripped him up then fine, just fine. A man could only do so much.\n\nGruntle was shouting something at Mappo, and the Trell bellowed a reply, drawing his legs up under himself as if about to dive to one side– thanks a whole lot, you ogre! – and then all at once Mappo did just that, off to the right, slamming into the legs of the Boles and Faint and taking all three down with him.\n\nAn explosion of wood splinters and thrashing arms, clacking fangs, unclean hair and terribly unreasonable expressions, and the three screeching women plunged in.\n\nTwo were brought up short pretty fast, as their heads leapt up in gouts of greenish uck and their bodies sprawled in a thrashing mess.\n\nEven as this was happening, the third woman charged straight for Reccanto. He shrieked and executed his lunge from the knees, which naturally wasn't a lunge at all. More like a flèche, a forward flinging of his upper body, arm and point extended, and as he overbalanced and landed with a bone-creaking thump on the floorboards the rapier's point snagged on something and the blade bowed alarmingly and so he let go, so that it sprang up, then back down, the pommel crunching the top of Reccanto's head, not once, but twice, each time driving his face into the floor, nose crackling in a swirl of stinging tears and bursting into his brain the horrid stench of mouse droppings and greasy dirt– immediately replaced by a whole lot of flowing blood." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 32" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beside Precious, Faint muttered something under her breath and then climbed to her feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wake up, Sweetest, they're finally here. '\n\nFrom the town known as Reach of Woe, half a league distant, not a single glimmer of light showed.\n\nPrecious approached Gruntle. \"What happened back there?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"You truly do not want to know, Witch.\"\n\n\"Why do Jaghut bother getting married at all?\" Reccanto asked, his face pale as the moon. \"Gods below, like Glanno might say, that was the most petty-tracted nefoaminous argument I ever seen!\"Twas still in full swing when we blaggered it outa there. '\n\n\"Blaggered?\" said Faint. \"The carriage can barely crawl, Ilk.\"\n\n\"Ain't nothing so tensifying as running for your life at a snail's pace, let me tell you, but if it wasn't for Master's protecterives we'd be nothing but flops of hairy skin and chunks of meat like everyone else back there. '\n\nPrecious Thimble shivered and made awarding gesture.\n\nMaster Quell emerged from the carriage after forcing open an ill-hung door. He was sheathed in sweat. \"What a damned world this is,\" he said raggedly.\n\n\"I thought we were on an island,\" Jula said, frowning.\n\n\"We heading back to sea?\" Precious asked Quell.\n\n\"Not a chance– the carriage wouldn't hold. We need to find a more civil place to hole up. '\n\nShe watched him walk off the track to find a private place where he could groan and sigh as he emptied his bladder, or at least tried to– he never wandered far enough. \"You need a practitioner of High Denul,\" she called after him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As you say, Witch, as you say...\"\n\nCartographer had found a stick from somewhere and was scraping out patterns on the dirt of the road a dozen paces ahead. Precious Thimble squinted at him. \"What's that thing doing? '\n\nNo one seemed to have an answer.\n\nAfter along pause, Sweetest Sufferance spoke. \"Either of you other girls feeling a tad bloodthirsty?\"\n\nWell, that woke everyone else up fast enough, Precious Thimble observed a short while later, still struggling with her own panic. That damned lardball was still half convulsed in laughter, and Precious was of a mind to stick a knife in one of those teary eyes, and she doubted anyone would try to stop her.\n\nMaster Quell reappeared. \"What's so funny, Sweetest? Oh, never mind. \"He surveyed everyone else with a pinched, uncomfortable expression, like a man who'd sat on a cork. \"The night stinks– anybody else noticed that? I was thinking of Rashan, but now I'm not so sure. '\n\n\"You need only take meas far as a port,\" said Mappo. \"I can find my own way from there.\"\n\nQuell squinted at him. \"We'll deliver you as agreed, Trell-'\n\n\"The risks-\"\n\n\"Are why we charge as much as we do. Now, no more about that, and don't even think of just cancelling the contract– we'd take that as a grievous insult, a slur on our good name. We'll get you there, Trell, even if it's on one wheel behind a three-legged horse.\"\n\nCartographer tottered back to them. \"If it pleases,\" he said, attempting a smile that Precious decided was too ghoulish to describe without descending into insanity, \"I have outlined a solution.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry I missed it,\" said Quell.\n\n\"He meant that literally,\" said Precious, pointing up the road.\n\nQuell in the lead, they walked up to observe the faint scouring on the pale dust of the track.\n\n\"What in Hood's name is that? '\n\n\"A map, of course.\"\n\n\"What kind of map?\"\n\n\"Our journey to come.\"\n\nReccanto Ilk squatted to study the effort, and then shook his head. \"I can't even make out the island we're on. This is a stupid map, Cartogopher.\" He straightened and nodded to the others. \"That's what you get tryin'to work with a dead man. I swear, commonsense is the first to go when you turn into the walking dead– why is that?\"\n\nThe Bole brothers looked thoughtful, as if working on possible answers. Then, noticing each other's frown, both broke into smiles. Amby snorted then had to wipe goo from his upper lip with the back of one hand.\n\n\"I must be mad,\" Precious whispered.\n\nQuell asked, \"This is some kind of gate you've drawn here, Cartographer? '\n\n\"Absent of investiture, but yes. I have no power to give it. But then, you do.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Quell mused, \"but I don't recognize anything you've drawn, and that makes me nervous.\"\n\nCartographer walked along one side and pointed a withered finger down at the far end of the map. \"Do you see this straight, wide groove? All the rest funnels into this path, the path we need to take. The best maps show you the right direction. The best maps are the ones that lead you to a specific destination.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reccanto Ilk scratched at his head, looking bewildered. \"But that's what maps are for– what's he glommering on about?\"\n\n\"Not all maps,\" corrected Cartographer, with a shake of his head– and nothing, Precious concluded, could ever be as solemn as a dead man's shake of the head.\"Objective rendition is but one form in the art of cartography, and not even the most useful one. '\n\n\"If you say so,\" said Master Quell. \"I'm still uneasy. '\n\n\"You have few other options, Wizard. The carriage is damaged. The marital argument is even now extending beyond the town's limits and will soon engulf this entire island in a conflagration of disputing versions of who-said-what. '\n\n\"He's smarter than he was before, ' observed Faint.\n\n\"That's true, ' said Reccanto.\n\n\"I gather more of myself, yes,\" said Cartographer, giving them all another ghastly smile.\n\nFlinches all round.\n\n\"How come,\" asked Quell, \"you never showed this talent before?\"\n\nThe corpse straightened. \"I have displayed numerous talents on this journey, each one appropriate to the situation at the time. Have you forgotten the coconuts?\"\n\nFaint rolled her eyes and said, \"How could we forget the coconuts?\"\n\n\"Besides,\" resumed Cartographer, \"as an uninvited guest, I feel a pressing need to contribute to the enterprise.\" One ragged hand gestured at the scribbles on the track. \"Invest power into this, Master Quell, and we can be on our way.\"\n\n\"To somewhere we can stop fora time?\"\n\nCartographer shrugged. \"I am notable to predict the situations awaiting us, only that in general they are not particularly threatening.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quell looked as if he needed to piss again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, he turned back to the carriage. \"Everyone onboard. Precious, you're with meas usual. Same for you, Mappo. \"He paused.\"The rest of you, get ready. '\n\n\"For what?\" Gruntle asked.\n\n\"For anything, of course.\"\n\nReccanto, still strutting after his extraordinary on-the-knees skewering lunge, slapped one hand on the huge warrior's back.\"Don't fret, friend, you'll get used to all this eventually. Unless, \"he added,\"it kills you first. '\n\nCartographer held up some ropes. \"Who will kindly tie me to a wheel?\"\n\nNight sweeps across the Dwelling Plain. Along the vast vault of the sky the stars are faint, smudged, as if reluctant to sharpen to knife points amidst the strangely heavy darkness. The coyotes mute their cries for this night. Wolves flee half blind in formless terror, and some will run until their hearts burst.\n\nSouth of the western tail of the Gadrobi Hills, alone chain-clad figure pauses in his journey, seeing at last the faint bluish glow that is the ever-beating heart of the great, legendary city.\n\nDarujhistan.\n\nThree leagues west of him, three more strangers gaze upon that selfsame glow, and in the eyes of one of them– unseen by the others– there is such dread, such anguish, as would crush the soul of a lesser man. His gauntleted hand steals again and again to the leather-wrapped grip of his sword.\n\nHe tells himself that vengeance answered is peace won, but even he does not quite believe that. Beyond the city awaiting him, the future is avast absence, avoid he now believes he will never see, much less stride into." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet, for all the tumultuous, seething forces of will within these arrayed strangers, none among them is the cause of the night's thick, palpable silence.\n\nLess than a league north of the three strangers, seven Hounds are arrayed along a ridge, baleful eyes fixed upon the glow of the city.\n\nThe beasts possess the capacity to detect a rabbit's rapid heartbeat half a league away, so they hear well the tolling of the twelfth bell, announcing the arrival of midnight in the city of Darujhistan.\n\nAnd as one, the seven Hounds lift their massive heads, and give voice to a howl.\n\nThe stars are struck into blazing sparks overhead. The High King halts in mid-stride, and the ancient, stubborn blood in his veins and arteries suddenly floods cold as ice. For the first time in this journey, Kallor knows a moment of fear.\n\nHavok's long head snaps up and the beast skitters to one side. Astride the animal, Samar Dev makes a desperate grab for Karsa, lest she be thrown to the ground, and she can feel the sudden tautness of every muscle in the huge warrior.\n\nAhead of them, Traveller pauses, his shoulders hunching as if those all too close howls even now lash at his back. Then he shakes himself, and marches on.\n\nAtop a cornice of agate facing the south plain, a squat toad-like demon lifts its head, pointed ears suddenly alert.\n\nThen, as the howls slowly fade, the demon settles once more.\n\nAlthough now, at last, it can feel, rising up from the very earth, rising up to shiver along its bones, the rumble of heavy paws on distant ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drawing closer, ever closer.\n\nIn the city behind Chillbais, the twelfth bell clangs its sonorous note. Another season's grand fête is almost gone. One more day in the name of Gedderone. One more night to close the riot of senseless celebration.\n\nDance, and dance on.\n\nBecause, as everyone knows, all that you see about you will last, well... forever!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My friend, this is not the place The cut flowers lie scattered on the path And the light of the moon glistens In what the stems bleed\n\nIn the day just forever lost I watched a black wasp darting into the face Of a web, and the spider she dropped Only to be caught in mid-air\n\nFootfalls leave no trace In the wake of a hungry creature's wrath You can only lie in hope, dreaming She lightly touched ground\n\nAnd danced away like a breath Hiding beneath leaves nodding in place While the hunter circles and listens But pray nothing is found\n\nMy friend, this is not your face So pale and still never again to laugh When the moon's light fell and then stopped Cold as silver in the glade\n\nLook back on the day, it's forever lost Stare into the night, where things confound The web stretches empty, wind keening In threads of absent songs\n\n(Song of) Old Friend Fisher\n\nVoluminous in wonder, but, be assured, terse in grief. Consider the woodsman standing facing the forest, axe in hand. Ina moment he will stride forward. Consider now the first line of trees, rooted, helpless against what comes.\n\nThe seep of trickling water round roots does not quicken. The sweet warmth of sunlight on leaves does not blaze into urgent flame. The world and its pace cannot change. What is to be done? Why, there is nothing to be done. The woodsman swings his axe with blinding speed and splendid indifference, and he hears not the chorus of cries.\n\nIs this fancy worthless? For some, perhaps many, it must be. But know this, empathy is no game.\n\nTwist back time. Dusk still gathers, but it is early yet and so it is a weak gathering. Alone rider draws upon a ridge overlooking a mining camp. Up here the sun's light remains. Dust streams gold and nothing wants to settle. In the shadowy pit below figures seethe back and forth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is finally seen. An old man works his way up the path. A runner hurries to the main building squatting atop a levelled heap of tailings.\n\nIt begins.\n\n\"Another guest? Come for the boy? What's so damned special about that boy? \"But Gorlas Vidikas wasn't much interested in any answers to those questions, especially since this runner was in no position to explain much of anything, having been sent direct from the foreman. He rose and pulled on his cloak, then collected up his fine deerskin gloves, and set out. Would he have the pleasure of killing yet another fool? He dearly hoped so.\n\nWas it that pompous old bastard, Coll? That would be ideal, and who could say, maybe the ghost of Lady Simtal would stir awake at the man's last gasp, to howl her delight at this most perfect vengeance, this long-awaited conclusion to the vile treachery of her last fête. Of course, that was mostly Hanut Orr's business, and maybe Shardan Lim's as well, but Gorlas welcomed the sudden unexpected currency he would reap in reward for killing at least two of the old conspirators.\n\nColl's death would also leave open a seat on the Council. Gorlas smiled at the thought as he climbed the slatted wooden steps up towards the ridge where it wound behind and above the main building. Humble Measure would offer up his own reward for such a thing, no doubt one that would make the gratitude of Hanut and Shardan seem like a pauper's grudging gift. He had a sudden, odd image then of a half-dozen such paupers– beggars and worse– gathered in some abandoned building, squatting on damp earth as they passed round apathetic slab of grainy bread and a mouldy lump of cheese. And, as he looked on like some unseen ghost, he had the sense that the circle was somehow... incomplete." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone is missing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who's missing?\n\nHe shook himself then, dispelling the scene, and found that he had halted just below the landing, one hand on the rail at his side. At that last moment, as the image burst apart, he thought he had caught a glimpse of something– a corpse twisting beneath a thick branch, the face swinging round to meet his own– then gone.\n\nGorlas found his mouth unaccountably dry. Had some god or spirit sent him a vision? Well, if something or someone had, it was a poor one, for he could make no sense of it, none at all.\n\nHe tugged on his gloves and resumed the climb, emerging out into the blessed sunlight where everything was painted gold. Yes, the wealth of the world was within reach. He'd never understood poor people, their stupidity, their lack of ambition, their laziness. So much within reach– couldn't they see that? And then how dare they bitch and complain and cast him dark looks, when he went and took all that he could? Let them fall to the wayside, let them tumble underfoot. He was going where he wanted to be and if that meant pushing them out of the way, or crushing them down, so be it.\n\nWhy, he could have been born in the damned gutter, and he'd still be where he was today. It was his nature to succeed, to win. The fools could keep their resentment and envy. Hard work, discipline, and the courage to grasp opportunity when it presented itself– these were all the things most people lacked. What they didn't lack, not in the least, was the boundless energy to complain. Bitterness was a waste of energy, and, like acid, it ate the vessel that held it.\n\nAshe came round the curve of the ridge he saw at once that the man awaiting him was not Coll. Nor, Gorlas realized, was he a stranger. Gods below, can this be? Oponn, is it you so blessing me now? Pull me forward, Lady. Shove him closer, Lord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young man (well, they were of the same age, but not in Gorlas's eyes) saw him approach and slowly dismounted, stepping round the horse and positioning himself in the centre of the path facing Gorlas.\n\n\"She was not foolish enough to send you here, was she?\"\n\n\"You know me, then.\"\n\nGorlas smiled. \"I watched you once, only a few days back, from across a street. You looked guilty, did you know that? You looked like a coward– what is your name? I want to know your name, so I can be precise when I tell her what I've done to you... and your corpse. '\n\nThe man stood unmoving, arms at his sides. \"I am not here for Challice,\" he said.\n\n\"If you want to think it was all your idea, fine. But I should tell you, I know her well– far better than you. She's been working on you, filling your head– she's pretty much led you hereby the hand, even if you're too thick to realize it. Of course, she probably didn't want anyone too smart, since a clever man would have seen through her deadly scheming. A clever man would have walked away. Or run.\"\n\nThe man tilted his head slightly. \"What is the value of all this, Gorlas Vidikas?\"\n\nGorlas sighed, glanced back at the foreman, who stood watching and listening– yes, something would have to be done about that– and then faced the man once more. \"Since you're too much the coward to actually tell me your name, I will just have to slice off your face, to take back to her as proof. Look at you, you're not even wearing a sword. Foreman! Do we still have Murillio's rapier? I forget, did that go back with him? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not sure, sir– want me to go and look?\"\n\n\"Well, find the waif a sword. Anything will do– it's not as if he knows how to use it in any case. And hurry, before we lose the light and the mob down there gets bored waiting. \"He smiled at the man.\"They've got bloodthirsty of late– my fault, that-\"\n\n\"Yes, about Murillio...\"\n\n\"Ah, is that why you've come? The duel was fairly fought. He simply could not match my skill. '\n\n\"Where is the boy?\"\n\n\"So he's the reason you're here? This is getting difficult to believe. The child's not some orphaned prince or something, is he? Rather, was he? '\n\n\"Was?\"\n\n\"Yes. He's dead, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"So, still interested?\" Gorlas asked. \"Of course, that's not really relevant anymore, because I want you to stay. I suppose you can try to run, but I assure you, you'll be cut down before you get astride that fine horse– a horse I will welcome in my stables. Tell me, are you a better duellist than Murillio was? You'll have to be. Much better. '\n\nThe foreman had gone halfway down the trail before yelling instructions, and now a youth was scurrying up cradling a sword– not Murillio's, but something found in one of the workings from the look of it. Thin, tapered to a point that was slightly bent. Iron, at least, but the patina was a thick crust over the blade's spine, and both edges were severely notched. The handle, Gorlas saw as the foreman– breath wheezing– delivered it, wasn't even wrapped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry about the lack of grip,\" Gorlas said. \"But really, you should have come prepared.\"\n\n\"How did it feel,\" the man asked, \"killing an old man?\"\n\n\"The duel was fair-\"\n\n\"Agreed to the death? I doubt that, Vidikas.\"\n\n\"I dislike the lack of respect in using my last name like that– especially when you won't even tell me your name. '\n\n\"Well, your wife calls you Useless, so if you'd prefer that... '\n\nGorlas flung the weapon at the man's feet, where it skidded in a puff of golden dust.\"On guard, \"he ordered in a rasp.\"To the death. '\n\nThe man made no move to pickup the weapon. He stood as he had before, head tipped a fraction to one side.\n\n\"You area coward in truth,\" Gorlas said, drawing his rapier. \"Cowards do not deserve to be treated with honour, so let us dispense with convention-\"\n\n\"I was waiting for you to say that.\"\n\nThe foreman, standing off to one side, still struggling with the ache in his chest from a labouring heart, was in the process of licking his gritty lips. Before he had finished that instinctive flicker, the scene before him irrevocably changed.\n\nAnd Gorlas Vidikas was falling forward, landing hard. His rapier rolled from his hand to catch up in the grass lining the track. Dust puffed up, then slowly settled.\n\nThe stranger– had he even moved? the foreman was unsure– now turned to him and said, \"You heard him dispense with the rules of the duel, correct?\"\n\nThe foreman nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And, think back now, good sir, did you even once hear me voice a formal challenge?\"\n\n\"Well, I was part of the way down the trail fora moment-\"\n\n\"But not beyond range of hearing, I'm sure. '\n\n\"Ah, no, unless you did whisper something-\"\n\n\"Think back. Gorlas was babbling on and on– could I have said anything even if I'd wanted to? '\n\n\"True enough, thinking on it.\"\n\n\"Then are we satisfied here?\"\n\n\"Ain't for me to say that either way, \"the foreman replied.\"It's the man this one was working for.\"\n\n\"Who, being absent, will have to rely solely upon your report.\"\n\n\"Er, I suppose so.\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"Do as you see fit, then.\" He glanced down into the pit. \"You get the feeling they're about to start cheering, ' he said.\n\n\"They ain't decided. '\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"They ain't decided if whoever replaces Vidikas is gonna be any better, you see? '\n\n\"Because, in their experience, they're all the same. '\n\nThe foreman nodded. \"Didn't think you was nobleborn. '\n\n\"No, I'm not. '\n\n\"No, you're pretty much like them below. Like me, even. '\n\n\"I suppose so.\" The man walked to the body of Gorlas Vidikas, bent down to roll it onto its back, and the foreman saw the two knife handles, blades buried to the hilts, jutting from Gorlas's chest.\n\nHe decided to lick his lips again, and somehow the dust suddenly tasted sweeter. \"Know anything'bout property law, by any chance? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry, what?\"\n\n\"Like, if I was paying on a loan to this man-\"\n\n\"No, no idea. Though I imagine if you just sit tight, maybe wait to see if anybody ever shows up to collect, well, that would hardly be considered illegal. Would it now?\"\n\n\"No, seems proper enough tome,\" the foreman agreed.\n\nThe man worked the knives back out, wiped the blood off on the stained, rumpled cloak. \"Did he tell true about Harllo?\"\n\n\"What? Oh. He did. The lad tried to escape, and was killed.\"\n\nThe man sighed, and then straightened. \"Ah, shit, Murillio,\" he muttered. \"I'm sorry. '\n\n\"Wait– this Harllo– was he that important? I mean-\" and the foreman gestured, to encompass not only the corpse lying on the road, but the one that had been there the day before as well, \"all this killing. Who was Harllo?\"\n\nThe man walked to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. He collected the reins. \"I'm not sure, \"he said after a moment's consideration. \"The way it started, well, it seemed...\" he hesitated, and then said, \"he was a boy nobody loved.\"\n\nBitter and scarred as he was, even the foreman winced at that. \"Most of'em are, as end up here. Most of \"em are.\"\n\nThe man studied him from the saddle.\n\nThe foreman wondered– he didn't see much in the way of triumph or satisfaction in that face looking down at him. He wasn't sure what he was seeing, in fact. Whatever it was, it didn't fit.\n\nThe stranger drew the horse round and set off up the road. Heading back to the city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The foreman coughed up a throatful of rank phlegm, then stepped forward and spat down, quite precisely, onto the upturned face of Gorlas Vidikas. Then he turned round. \"I want three guards and the fastest horses we got!\" He watched the runner scramble.\n\nFrom the pit below rose the occasional snatch of harsh laughter. The foreman understood that well enough, and so he nodded. \"Damn and below, I'll give \"em all an extra flagon of ale anyway.\"\n\nCutter rode fora time as dusk surrendered to darkness. The horse was the first to sense a loss of will, as the rider on its back ceased all efforts at guiding its pace. The beast dropped from a canter to a trot, then a walk, and then it came to rest and stood at the edge of the road, head lowering to snag a tuft of grass.\n\nCutter stared down at his hands, watched as the reins slithered free. And then he began to weep. For Murillio, fora boy he had never met. But most of all, he wept for himself.\n\nCome tome, my love. Come tome now.\n\nA short time later, three messengers thundered past– paying him no heed at all. The drum of horse hoofs was slow to fade, and the clouds of dust left in their wake hung suspended, lit only by starlight.\n\nVenaz the hero, Venaz who followed orders, and if those meant something vicious, even murderous, then that was how it would be. No questions, no qualms. He had returned up top in grim triumph. Another escape thwarted, the message sweetly delivered. Even so, he liked being thorough. In fact, he'd wanted to make sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so, in keeping with his new privileges as head of the moles, when he collected a knotted climbing rope and set off back into the tunnels, he was not accosted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could do as he liked now, couldn't he? And when he returned, carrying whatever proof he could find of the deaths of Bainisk and Harllo, then Gorlas Vidikas would see just how valuable he was, and Venaz would find anew life for himself.\n\nGood work led to good rewards. A simple enough truth.\n\nWhatever flood had filled part of the passage deep in the Settle had mostly drained away, easing his trek to the crevasse. When he reached it he crouched at the edge, listening carefully– to make certain that no one was still alive, maybe scuffling about in the pitch blackness down below. Satisfied, he worked Bainisk's rope off the knob of stone and replaced it with his own, then sent the rest of the coil tumbling over the edge.\n\nVenaz set his lantern to its lowest setting and tied half a body-length of twine to the handle, and the other end to one ankle. He let the lantern down, and then followed with his legs. He brought both feet together, the rope in between, and edged further over until they rested on a knot. Now, so long as the twine didn't get fouled with the rope, he'd be fine.\n\nMoving with great caution, he began his descent.\n\nBroken, bleeding bodies somewhere below, killed by rocks– not by Venaz, since he'd not even cut the rope. Bainisk had done that, the fool. Still, Venaz could take the credit– nothing wrong with that.\n\nEven with the knots, the slow going was making his arms and shoulders ache. He didn't really have to do this. But maybe it would be the one deed that made all the difference in the eyes of Gorlas Vidikas. Nobles looked for certain things, mysterious things. They were born with skills and talents. He needed to show the man as much as he could of his own talents and all that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lantern clunked below him and he looked down to seethe faint blush of dull light playing across dry, jagged stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few moments later he was standing, somewhat uneasily as the rocks shifted about beneath him. He untied the lantern and put away the twine, and then twisted the wick up a couple of notches. The circle of light widened.\n\nHe saw Bainisk's feet, the worn soles of the moccasins, the black-spattered shins, both of which were snapped and showing the split ends of bones. But there was no flowing blood. Bainisk was dead as dead come.\n\nHe worked his way closer and stared down at the smashed face, slightly startled by the way it seemed fixed in a smile.\n\nVenaz crouched. He would collect Bainisk's belt-pouch, where he kept all his valuables– the small ivory-handled knife that Venaz so coveted; the half-dozen coppers earned as rewards for special tasks; the one silver coin that Bainisk had cherished the most, as it showed on one face a city skyline beneath a rainbow or some sort of huge moon filling the sky– a coin, someone had said, from Darujhistan, but long ago, in the time of the Tyrants. Treasures now belonging to Venaz.\n\nBut he could not find the pouch. He rolled the body over, scanned the blood-smeared rocks beneath and to all sides. No pouch. Not even fragments of string.\n\nHe must have given it to Harllo. Or maybe he'd lost it somewhere backup the passage– if Venaz didn't find it down here he could make a careful search on his way backup top.\n\nNow, time to find the other boy, the one he'd hated almost from the first. Always acted like he was smarter than everyone else. It was that look in his eyes, as if he knew he was better, so much better it was easy to be nice to all the stupider people. Easy to smile and say nice things. Easy to be helpful and generous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Venaz wandered out from Bainisk's body. Something was missing– and not just Harllo's body. And then, after a moment, he realized what it was. The rest of the damned rope, which should have fallen close to the cliff base, close to Bainisk. The damned rope was gone– and so was Harllo.\n\nHe worked his way along the crevasse and after twenty or so steps he reached the edge of the floor, which he discovered wasn't a floor at all, but a plug, abridge of fallen rock. The crevasse dropped away an unknown depth, and the air rising from below was hot and dry. Frightened by the realization that he was standing on something that could collapse and fall away at any moment, Venaz hurried back in the other direction.\n\nHarllo was probably badly hurt. He must have been. Unless... maybe he had been already down, standing, holding the damned rope, just waiting for Bainisk to join him. Venaz found his mouth suddenly dry. He'd been careless. That wouldn't go down well, would it? This could only workout right if he tracked the runt down and finished him off. The thought sent a cold tremor through him– he'd never actually killed somebody before. Could he even do it? He'd have to, to make everything right.\n\nThe plug sloped slightly upward on the other side of Bainisk's body, and each chunk of stone was bigger, the spaces between them whistling with winds from below. Terrifying grating sounds accompanied his every tender step.\n\nFifteen paces on, another sudden drop-off. Baffled, Venaz worked his way along the edge. He reached the facing wall– the other side of the crevasse– and held high the lantern. In the light he saw an angular fissure, two shelves of bedrock where one side had shifted faster and farther than the other– he could even see where the broken seams continued between the shelves. The drop had been about a body's height, and the fissure– barely a forearm wide– angled sharply into a kind of chute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bainisk would never have squeezed into that crack. But Harllo could, and did– it was the only way off the plug.\n\nVenaz retied the lantern, and then forced himself into the fissure. A tight fit. He could only draw half-breaths before the cage of his ribs met solid, unyielding stone. Whimpering, he pushed himself deeper, but not so deep as to get stuck– no, to climb he'd need at least one arm free. By crabbing one leg sideways and squirming with his torso, he moved himself into a position whereby he could hitch himself up in increments. The dry, baked feel of the stone began as a salvation. Had it been wet he would simply have slid back down again and again. Before he'd managed two man-heights, however, he was slick with sweat, and finding streaks of the same above him, attesting to Harllo's own struggles. And he found that the only way he could hold himself in place between forward hitches was to take the deepest breath he could manage, turning his own chest into a wedge, a plug. The rough, worn fabric of his tunic was rubbing his skin raw.\n\nHow much time passed? How long this near vertical passage? Venaz lost all sense of such details. He was in darkness, a world of stonewalls, dry gusts of air along one flank, aright arm that screamed with fatigue. He bled. He oozed sweat. He was amass of scrapes and gouges. But then the fissure widened instep fractures, each one providing a blessed ledge on which to finally rest his quivering muscles. Widening, becoming a manageable chute. He was able to draw in deep breaths, and the creaking ache of his ribs slowly faded. He continued on, and before long he reached anew stress fracture, this one cutting straight into the bedrock, perpendicular to the chute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Venaz hesitated, and then worked his way into it, to see how far it went– and almost instantly he smelled humus, faint and stale, and a little farther in he arrived at an almost horizontal dip where forest detritus had settled. Behind that heady smell there was something else– acrid, fresh. He brightened the lantern and held it out before him. A steep slope of scree rose along the passage, and even as he scanned it there was the clatter of stones bouncing down to patter amidst the dried leaves and dead moss.\n\nHe hurried to the base of the slide and peered upward.\n\nAnd saw Harllo– no more than twenty man-heights above him, flattened on the scree, pulling himself upward with feeble motions.\n\nYes, he had smelled the boy.\n\nVenaz smiled, and then quickly shuttered the lantern. If Harllo found out he was being chased still, he might try to kick loose a deadly slide of the rubble– of course, if he did that it'd take him down with it. Harllo wasn't stupid. Any wrong move on this slide and they'd both die. The real risk was when he reached the very top, pulling clear. Then there could be real trouble for Venaz.\n\nAnd smell that downward draught– that was fresh, clean air. Smelling of reeds and mud. The lake shore.\n\nVenaz thought about things, and thought some more. And then settled on a plan. A desperate, risky one. But really, he had no choice. No matter what, Harllo would hear him on this climb. Fine, then, let him.\n\nHe laughed, a low, throaty laugh that he knew would travel up the stones like a hundred serpents, coiling with icy poison round Harllo's heart. Laughed, and then crooned,\"Harrrllo! Found youuu! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he heard an answering cry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A squeal like a crippled puppy underfoot, a whimper of bleak terror. And all of this was good.\n\nPanic was what he wanted. Not the kind that would make the boy scrabble wildly– since that might just send him all the way back down– but the kind that would, once he gained the top, send him flying out into the night, to run and run and run.\n\nVenaz abandoned the lantern and began climbing.\n\nThe chase was torturous. Like two worms they snaked up the dusty slabs of shale. Desperate flight and pursuit were both trapped in the stuttering beating of hearts, the quaking gasps of needful lungs. All trapped inside, for their limbs could move but slowly, locked in an agonizing tentativeness. Minute slides froze them both, queasy shifts made them spread arms and legs wide, breaths held, eyes squeezed shut.\n\nVenaz would have to kill him. For all of this, Harllo would die. There was no other choice now, and Venaz found it suddenly easy to think about choking the life from the boy. His hands round Harllo's chicken neck, the face above them turning blue, then grey. Jutting tongue, bulging eyes– yes, that wouldn't be hard at all.\n\nSudden scrambling above, a skitter of stones, and then Venaz realized he was alone on the slide. Harllo had reached the surface, and thank the gods, he was running.\n\nYour one mistake, Harllo, and now I'll have you. Your throat in my hands.\n\nI have you.\n\nThe soft whisper of arrivals once more awakens, even as figures depart. From places of hiding, from refuges, from squalid nests. Into the streams of darkness, shadowy shapes slide unseen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thordy watched as the killer who washer husband set out from the cage of lies they called, with quaint irony, their home. As his chopping footfalls faded, she walked out to her garden, to stand at the edge of the pavestone circle. She looked skyward, but there was no moon as yet, no bright smudge to bleach the blue glow of the city's gaslight.\n\nA voice murmured in her head, a heavy, weighted voice. And what it told her made her heart slow its wild hammering, brought peace to her thoughts. Even as it spoke, in measured tones, of a terrible legacy of death.\n\nShe drew the one decent kitchen knife they possessed, and held the cold flat of the blade against one wrist. In this odd, ominous stance, she waited.\n\nIn the city, at that moment, Gaz walked an alley. Wanting to find someone. Anyone. To kill, to beat into a ruin, smashing bones, bursting eyes, tearing slack lips across the sharp stumps of broken teeth. Anticipation was such a delicious game, wasn't it?\n\nIn another home, this one part residence, part studio, Tiserra dried her freshly washed hands. Every sense within her felt suddenly raw, as if scraped with crushed glass. She hesitated, listening, hearing naught but her own breathing, this frail bellows of life that now seemed so frighteningly vulnerable. Something had begun. She was, she realized, terrified.\n\nTiserra hurried to a certain place in the house. Began a frantic search. Found the hidden cache where her husband had stored his precious gifts from the Blue Moranth.\n\nEmpty.\n\nYes, she told herself, her husband was no fool. He was a survivor– it was his greatest talent. Hard won at that– nowhere near that treacherous arena where Oponn played push and pull. He'd taken what he needed. He'd done what he could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stood, feeling helpless. This particular feeling was not pleasant, not pleasant at all. It promised that the night ahead would stretch out into eternity.\n\nBlend descended to the main floor, where she paused. The bard sat on the edge of the stage, tuning his lyre. Duiker sat at his usual table, frowning at a tankard of ale that his hands were wrapped round as if he was throttling some hard, unyielding fate.\n\nAntsy– Antsy was in gaol. Scillara had wandered out a few bells earlier and had not returned. Barathol was spending his last night in his own cell– he'd be on a wagon headed out to some ironworks come the dawn.\n\nPicker was lying on a cot upstairs, eyes closed, breaths shallow and weak. She was, in truth, gone. Probably never to return.\n\nBlend drew on her cloak. Neither man paid her any attention.\n\nShe left the bar.\n\nEver since the pretty scary woman had left earlier– how long, days, weeks, years, Chaur had no idea– he had sat alone, clutching the sweating lance a dead man wearing a mask had once given C'ur, and rocking back and forth. Then, all at once, he wanted to leave. Why? Because the gulls outside never stopped talking, and the boat squeaked like a rat in a fist, and all the slapping water made him need topee.\n\nBesides, he had to find Baral. The one face that was always kind, making it easy to remember. The face that belonged to Da and Ma both, just one face, to make it easier to remember. Without Baral, the world turned cold. And mean, and nothing felt solid, and trying to stay together when everything else wasn't was so hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he dropped the lance, rose and set out.\n\nTo find Baral. And yes, he knew whereto find him. How he knew no one could say. How he thought, no one could imagine. How deep and vast his love, no one could conceive.\n\nSpite stood across the street from the infernal estate that was the temporary residence of her infernal sister, and contemplated her next move, each consideration accompanied by a pensive tap of one finger against her full, sweetly painted lips.\n\nAll at once that tapping finger froze in mid-tap, and she slowly cocked her head. \"Oh,\" she murmured. And again, \"Oh.\"\n\nThe wind howled in the distance.\n\nBut, of course, there was no wind, was there?\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nAnd how would this change things?\n\nA guard, ignoring once more the dull ache in his chest and the occasional stab of pain shooting down his left arm, walked out from the guard annexe to begin his rounds, making his way to the Lakefront District and the wall that divided it from the Daru District– the nightly murders had begun clustering to either side of that wall. Maybe this time he'd be lucky and see something– someone– and everything would fall into place. Maybe.\n\nHe had put in a requisition fora mage, a necromancer, in fact, but alas the wheels of bureaucracy ground reluctantly in such matters. It would probably take the slaying of someone important before things could lurch into motion. He really couldn't wait for that. Finding this killer had become a personal crusade.\n\nThe night was strangely quiet, given that it marked the culmination of the Gedderone Fête. Most people were still in the taverns and bars, he told himself, even as he fought off a preternatural unease, and even as he noted the taut expressions of those people he passed, and the way they seemed to scurry by. Where was the revelry? The delirious dancing? Early yet, he told himself. But those two words and everything behind them felt oddly flat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could hear a distant storm on the plains south of the city. Steady thunder, an echoing wind, and he told himself he was feeling that storm's approach. Nothing more, just the usual fizz in the air that preceded such events.\n\nHe hurried on, grimacing at the ache in his chest, still feeling the parting kiss of his wife on his lips, the careless hugs of his children round his waist.\n\nHe was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.\n\nImagine a world without such souls.\n\nYes, it should have been harder to do.\n\nAfter a rather extended time of muted regard fixed dully upon a sealed crypt, four mourners began their return journey to the Phoenix Inn, where Meese would make a grim discovery– although one that, in retrospect, did not in fact shock her as much as it might have.\n\nBefore they had gone five hundred paces, however, Rallick Nom drew to a sudden halt. \"I must leave you now,\" he said to the others.\n\n\"Kruppe understands.\"\n\nAnd the assassin narrowed his gaze upon the short, solemn-faced man.\n\n\"Where,\" Rallick asked, \"will this go, Kruppe?\"\n\n\"The future, my friend, is ever turned away, even when it faces us.\"\n\nTo this bizarre, unlikely truism, Coll grunted, \"Gods below, Kruppe-\" But Rallick had already completed his own turning away and was walking towards the mouth of an alley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got a sick feeling inside,\" Meese said.\n\nColl grunted a second time and then said, \"Let's go. I need to find me another bottle– this time with something in it that actually does something. '\n\nKruppe offered him a beatific smile. Disingenuous? Really now.\n\nSeba Krafar, Master of the Assassins'Guild, surveyed his small army of murderers. Thirty-one in all. Granted, absurd overkill, but even so he found himself not quite as comfortable– or as confident– as such numbers should have made him.\"This is ridiculous, ' he muttered under his breath. And then he gestured.\n\nThe mob shifted into three distinct groups, and then each hurried off in a different direction, to close on the target at the appointed time.\n\nCome the morning, there'd be a newly vacated seat on the Council. Blood-drenched, true, but it would hardly be the first time for that, would it?\n\nShardan Lim saw before him a perfect future. He would, if all went well, finally step out from Hanut Orr's shadow. And into his own shadow he'd drag Gorlas Vidikas. They would be sharing a woman, after all, and there would be no measured balance in that situation, since Gorlas was next to useless when it came to satisfying Challice. So Gorlas would find that his wife's happiness was dependent not upon him, but upon the other man sharing her pleasure– Shardan Lim– and when the first child arrived, would there be any doubt as to its progeny? An heir of provable bloodline, the perfect usurpation of House Vidikas.\n\nHe had set out alone this night, making his casual way to the Vidikas estate, and he now stood opposite the front gate, studying the modest but well-constructed building. There were hints of Gadrobi in the style, he saw. The square corner tower that was actually higher than it looked, its rooms abandoned to dust and spiders– virtually identical edifices could still be found here and therein the Gadrobi District, and in the hills to the east of the city. Vines covered three of the four walls, reaching up from the garden. If the tower had been a tree it would be dead, centuries dead. Hollowed out by rot, the first hard wind would have sent it thrashing down. This deliberate rejection was no accident. Gadrobi blood among the nobles was an embarrassment. It had always been that way and it always would be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Shardan owned this estate, he would see it torn down. His blood was pure Daru. Same as Challice's own.\n\nHe heard horses approach at a dangerously fast canter, up from the lower city, and a few moments later three riders appeared, sharply reining in before the estate's gate.\n\nFrowning, Shardan Lim stepped out and quickly approached.\n\nPrivate guards of some sort, looking momentarily confused as they dismounted. Their horses were lathered, heads dipping as they snorted out phlegm.\n\n\"You three,\" Shardan called out, and they turned. \"I am Councillor Shardan Lim, and I am about to visit the Vidikas estate. If you carry a message for Lady Challice, do permit me to deliver it.\" Ashe drew closer, he offered the three men a comradely smile. \"She is a delicate woman– having three sweaty men descend on her wouldn't do. I'm sure you understand-\"\n\n\"Forgive me, Councillor,\" one of the men said, \"but the news we deliver is bad.\"\n\n\"Oh? Come now, no more hesitation.\"\n\n\"Gorlas Vidikas is dead, sir. He was killed in a duel earlier today. We were instructed to ride to his widow first, and hence onto Eldra Iron Mongery. It means we got to go right back the way we come, but the foreman insisted. As a courtesy. As the proper thing to do.\"\n\nShardan Lim simply stared at the man, his thoughts racing.\n\n\"Weren't no duel, ' growled one of the other men.\n\n\"What's that? \"Shardan demanded.\"You there, step out.\n\nWhat did you just say? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man was suddenly frightened, but he moved into the councillor's line of sight, managed a quick bow and then said,\"He was assassinated, sir. The foreman kept saying it was all legitimate, but we saw it, sir, with our own eyes. Two knives-'\n\n\"Two knives? Two knives? Are you certain?\"\n\n\"Because of the other duel, you see, sir. It was revenge. It was murder. Councillor Vidikas killed another man, then this other one shows up. Then out flash those knives– so fast you couldn't even see \"em, and Councillor Vidikas topples over, stone dead, sir. Stone dead.\"\n\n\"This is all sounding familiar,\" Shardan Lim said. \"Listen tome, you three. One of you, ride to the Orr estate and inform Councillor Hanut Orr. The other two, goon to Eldra, as you will. I will inform Lady Challice. Then, the three of you, find a decent inn for the night and tell the proprietor to treat you well, and to bill House Lim. Goon, now.\"\n\nThere was some discussion as to who would go where, and which inn they'd rendezvous at when the tasks were done, and then the three men rode off.\n\nThunder to the south, getting closer. He could hear the wind but it was yet to arrive. Shardan Lim walked up to the gate, pulled on the braided chime in its elongated niche. While he waited for the doorman to arrive, he thought about how he would deliver this grim news. He would need a grave countenance, something more fitting than the dark grin he was even now fighting.\n\nShe was a widow now. Vulnerable. There was no heir. Cousins and half-relations might well creep out of the woodwork, mediocre but grasping with sudden ambition. Proclaiming ascendancy in the Vidikas bloodline and so asserting their newly conceived rights to claim stewardship over the entire House. Without strong allies at her side, she'd be out before the week was done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once Hanut Orr heard the report, and gleaned whatever he could from the particular details, his mind would fill with the desire for vengeance– and more than a little fear along with it, Shardan was sure. And he would not even think of Challice, not at first, and the opportunities now present. The next day or two would be crucial, and Shardan would have to move sure and fast to position himself at her side and leave no room for Hanut Orr once the man's own ambitions awakened.\n\nAn eye-slot scraped to one side, then closed again with a snap. The gate opened. \"House Vidikas welcomes Councillor Lim,\" said the doorman from his low bow, as if addressing Shardan's boots.\"The Lady is being informed of your arrival. If you will kindly follow me. '\n\nAnd in they went.\n\nShe hesitated, facing the wardrobe, studying the array of possible shifts to draw on over her mostly naked body. Most were intended to cover other clothes, as befitted a modest noblewoman engaged in entertaining guests, but the truth was, she couldn't be bothered. She had been about to go to sleep, or at least what passed for sleep of late, lying flat and motionless on her bed.\n\nAlone whether her husband was there or not. Staring upward in the grainy darkness. Where the only things that could stir her upright included another goblet of wine, one more pipe bowl or a ghostly walk in the silent garden.\n\nThose walks always seemed to involve searching for something, an unknown thing, in fact, and she would follow through on the desire even as she knew that what she sought no garden could hold. Whatever it was did not belong to the night, nor could it be found in the spinning whirls of smoke, or the bite of strong drink on her numbed tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She selected a flowing, diaphanous gown, lavender and wispy as wreaths of incense smoke, pulling it about her bare shoulder. Abroad swath of the same material served to gather it tight about her lower torso, beneath her breasts, firm against her stomach and hips. The thin single layer covering her breasts hid nothing.\n\nShardan Lim was showing his impatience. His crassness. He was even now in the sitting room, sweaty, his eyes dilated with pathetic needs. He was nothing like what he pretended to be, once the façade of sophisticated lechery was plucked aside. The charm, the sly winks, the suave lie.\n\nThis entire damned world, she knew, consisted of nothing but thin veneers. The illusion of beauty survived not even a cursory second look. Cheap and squalid, this was the truth of things. He could paint it up all he liked, the stains on the sheets remained.\n\nBarefooted, she set out to meet him. Imagining the whispers of the staff, the maids and servants, the guards– never within range of her hearing, of course. That would not do. Propriety must be maintained at all costs. They'd wait for her to pass, until she was out of sight. It was their right, after all, their reward fora lifetime of servitude, for all that bowing and scraping, for all the gestures meant to convince her and people like her that she was in fact superior to them. The noble bloods, the rich merchants, the famous families and all the rest.\n\nWhen the truth was, luck and mischance were the only players in the game of success. Privilege of birth, a sudden harmony of forces, a sudden inexplicable balance later seen as a run of good fortune. Oh, they might strut about– we all might– and proclaim that talent, skill and cunning were the real players. But Challice held the belief that even the poor, the destitute, the plague-scarred and the beleaguered might possess talents and cunning, only to find their runs of fortune non-existent, proper rewards forever beyond reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Servants bowed, and that they needed to do so was proof of just how flimsy the delusion of superiority was.\n\nShe opened the door and walked with dignity into the sitting room. \"Councillor Lim, have you been left here alone? No one to provide you with refreshments? This is unacceptable-\"\n\n\"I sent her away,\" he cut in, and she saw that his expression was strange, conflicted by something but in a most peculiar way.\n\n\"You have not even poured yourself some wine. Allow me-\"\n\n\"No, thank you, Lady Challice. Although, perhaps, I should pour you one. Yes.\"\n\nAnd he went over to select a decanter and then a goblet. She watched the amber wine slosh into the crystal, and then flow over before he righted the decanter. He stared down at the goblet fora moment, and then faced her. \"Lady Challice, I have terrible news.\"\n\nThen why do you struggle so not to smile? \"Ah. Speak on, then, Councillor.\"\n\nHe stepped forward. \"Challice-\"\n\nAll at once, she sensed that something was deeply awry. He was too excited with his news. He was hungry to see its effect on her. He had no interest in using her body this night. And here she had arrived dressed like a fancy whore. \"Forgive me,\" she said, stepping back and attempting to draw the shift more modestly about her.\n\nHe barely registered the gesture. \"Challice. Gorlas has been murdered. Your husband is dead.\"\n\n\"Murdered? But he's still out at the mining camp. He's-\" and then she stopped, stunned at how disbelief could so swiftly become certainty.\n\n\"Assassinated, out at the camp,\" Shardan Lim said. \"Was it a contract? I can't imagine who would... ' And then he too fell silent, and the regard he fixed upon her now was suddenly sharp, piercing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could not face the question he looked ready to ask, and so she went to collect the goblet, unmindful of the wine spilling over her hand, and drank deep.\n\nHe had moved to one side and still he said nothing as he watched her.\n\nChallice felt light-headed, unbalanced. She was having trouble thinking. Feelings and convictions, which arrived first? Truths and dreads– she was finding it hard to breathe.\n\n\"Challice,\" Shardan Lim whispered, suddenly standing close. \"There were other ways. You could have come tome. If this comes out, you will hang– do you understand me? It will take your father down– the entire House D'Arle. The whole Council will be rocked to its very foundations. Hood's breath, Challice– if anyone discovers the truth-\"\n\nShe turned to him and her voice was flat as she said, \"What truth? What are you talking about, Councillor? My husband has been murdered. I expect you and the Council to conduct an investigation. The assassin must be found and punished. Thank you for taking upon yourself the difficult task of informing me. Now, please, leave me, sir.\"\n\nHe was studying her as if he had never truly seen her before, and then he stepped away and shook his head. \"I'd no idea, Challice. That you were this... '\n\n\"That I was what, Councillor?\"\n\n\"It maybe... ah, that is, you are within your rights to claim the seat on the Council. Or arrange that someone of your own choosing-\"\n\n\"Councillor Lim, such matters must wait. You are being insensitive. Please, will you now leave?\"\n\n\"Of course, Lady Challice.\"\n\nWhen he was gone, she stood unmoving, the goblet still in one hand, the spilled wine sticky under her fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A formal investigation. And yes, it would be thorough. Staff would be questioned. Improprieties revealed. Shardan Lim himself... yes, it would be occurring to him about now, as he walked the street, and he might well change his destination– no longer back to his house, but to the Orr estate. To arrange, with growing desperation, the covering of his own tracks.\n\nBut none of this affected her. Shardan Lim's fate was meaningless.\n\nShe had succeeded. She had achieved precisely what she wanted, the very thing she had begged him to do. For her. For them. But no, for her.\n\nHe had killed her husband. Because she had asked him to. And it was now almost certain that he would hang for it. Shardan would talk, pointing the finger so that all eyes shifted away from him, and his accusation would be all fire, blazing with deadly details. And as for her, why, she'd be painted as a foolish young woman. Playing with lowborn but astoundingly ignorant of just how vicious such creatures could be, when something or someone stood in their way. When obsessive love was involved, especially. Oh, she'd been playing, but that nasty young lowborn thug had seen it differently. And now she would have to live with the fact that her idle game had led to her husband's murder. Poor child.\n\nHer father would arrive, because he was the sort of father to do just that. He would raise impenetrable walls around her, and personally defend every portico, every bastion. Aim the knife of innuendo towards her and he would step into its path. He would retaliate, ferociously, and the sly sceptics would quickly learn to keep their mouths shut, if they valued their heads.\n\nShe would be the eye of the storm, and feel not even a single drop of rain, nor sigh of wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Challice set the goblet down. She walked out into the corridor and proceeded without haste back to her bedroom, where she collected the glass globe with its imprisoned moon. And then left once more, this time to the square tower, with its rooms crowded with antique Gadrobi furniture slowly rotting to dust, with its musty draughts sliding up and down the stairs.\n\nI have killed him. I have killed him.\n\nI have killed him.\n\nHanut Orr adjusted his sword-belt and checked his rapier yet again. He had come close to beating the hapless mine guard to glean every last detail of the events surrounding the assassination of Gorlas Vidikas, and he now believed he had a fair idea of the grisly story behind it. The echoes tasted sour, personal. Once he learned where the first man's body had been delivered, he knew where this night would take him.\n\nHe assembled his four most capable guards and they set out into the city.\n\nTwo knives to the chest. Yes, the past never quite went away, did it? Well, finally, he would be able to deliver his long-delayed vengeance. And when he was done there, he would find the one man who was at the centre of all of this. Councillor Coll would not seethe dawn.\n\nHe dispatched two of his men to Coll's estate. Watch. Any strangers show up, they don't reach the damned gate. We are at war tonight. Be ready to kill, am I understood?\n\nOf course he was. These hard men were no fools.\n\nHe knew that damned mob in the Phoenix Inn. He knew everyone of Coll's decrepit, lowborn friends, and he intended to kill them all.\n\nDown from the Estates District and into the Daru District. Not far." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two streets from the Phoenix Inn he halted his two remaining men. \"You'll watch the front entrance, Havet. Kust, I want you to walk in and make a show– it won't have to be much, they'll smell you out fast enough. I have the alley, for when somebody bolts. Both of you, keep an eye out fora short, fat man in a red waistcoat. If you get a chance, Havet, cut him down– that shouldn't be hard. There're two tough-looking women who run the place– they're fair targets as well if they head outside. I'm not sure who else will be in that foul nest– we'll find out soon enough. Now, go.\"\n\nThey went one way. He went another.\n\nTorvald Nom grunted and gasped as he pulled himself onto the estate roof. Sitting at his desk had been driving him mad. He needed to be out, roving round, keeping an eye on everything. On everything. This was a terrible night and nothing had happened yet. He missed his wife. He wished he was back home, and with the coming storm he'd be drenched by the time he stumbled into that blessed, warm abode. Assuming he ever made it.\n\nHe worked his way along the edge so that he could see down into the forecourt. And there they were, Madrun and Lazan Door, throwing knuckles against the wall to the left of the main gate. He heard the door of the house open directly beneath him and saw the carpet of light unfold on the steps and pavestones, and the silhouette of the man standing in the doorway was instantly recognizable. Studlock, Studious Lock. Not moving at all, just watching, but watching what?\n\nKnuckles pattered, bounced on stone, then settled, and the two compound guards hunched down over them to study the cast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's what he's watching. He's watching the throws.\n\nAnd Torvald Nom saw both men slowly straighten, and turn as one to face the man standing in the doorway.\n\nWho must have stepped back inside, softly closing the door.\n\nOh, shit.\n\nThere was a scuffle somewhere behind him and Torvald Nom spun round. It was too damned dark– where was the moon? Hiding somewhere behind the storm clouds, of course, and he glanced up. And saw a sweep of bright stars. What clouds? There aren't any clouds. And if that's thunder, then where's the lightning? And if that's the howl of wind, why is everything perfectly still? He wasn't sure now if he'd actually heard anything– nothing was visible on the roof, and there were no real places to hide either. He was alone up here.\n\nLike a lightning rod.\n\nHe tried a few deep breaths to slow the frantic beat of his heart. At least he'd prepared himself. All his instincts strumming like taut wires, he'd done all he could.\n\nAnd it's not enough. Gods below, it's not enough!\n\nScorch looked startled, but then he always looked startled.\n\n\"Relax,\" hissed Leff, \"you're driving me to distraction. '\n\n\"Hey, you hear something?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean? We ain't hearing nothing. Good. That means there's nothing to hear. '\n\n\"They stopped.\"\n\n\"Who stopped?\"\n\n\"Them, the ones on the other side of the gate, right? They stopped.\"\n\n\"Well, thank Hood,\" said Leff. \"Those knuckles was driving me crazy. Every damned night, on and on and on. Click clack click clack, gods below. I never knew Seguleh were such gamblers– it's a sickness, you know, an addiction. No wonder they lost their masks– probably in abet. Picture it. \"Ug, got nuffin but this mask, and m'luck's boot to change, \"sgot to, right? So, I'm in– look, \"sa good mask! Ug\".\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That would've been a mistake, \"Scorch said, nodding.\"If you don't want nobody to know you're bluffing, what better way than to wear a mask? So, they lost \"em and it's been downhill ever since. Yeah, that makes sense, but it's got me thinking, Leff.\"\n\n\"\"Bout what? '\n\n\"Well, the Seguleh. Hey, maybe they're all bluffing! \"Leff nodded back. This was better. Distract the fidgety idiot. All right, maybe things didn't feel quite right. Maybe there was a stink in the air that had nothing to do with smell, and maybe he had sweat trickling down under his armour, and he was keeping his hand close to the sword at his belt and eyeing the crossbow leaning against the gate. Was it cocked? It was cocked.\n\nClick clack click clack. Come on, boys, start 'em up again, before you start making me nervous.\n\nCutter halted the horse and sat, leaning forward on the saddle, studying the ship moored alongside the dock. No lights showed. Had Spite gone to bed this early? That seemed unlikely. He hesitated. He wasn't even sure why he had come here. Did he think he'd find Scillara?\n\nThat was possible, but if so it was a grotesque desire, revealing an ugly side to his nature that he did not want to examine for very long, if at all. He had pretty much abandoned her. She was a stranger to Darujhistan– he should have done better. He should have been a friend.\n\nHow many more lives could he ruin? If justice existed, it was indeed appropriate that he ruin himself as well. The sooner the better, in fact. Grief and self-pity seemed but faint variations on the same heady brew that was self-indulgence– did he really want to drown Scillara in his pathetic tears?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Serve as the author's scribe, continue the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 33" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That would've been a mistake, \"Scorch said, nodding.\"If you don't want nobody to know you're bluffing, what better way than to wear a mask? So, they lost \"em and it's been downhill ever since. Yeah, that makes sense, but it's got me thinking, Leff.\"\n\n\"\"Bout what? '\n\n\"Well, the Seguleh. Hey, maybe they're all bluffing! \"Leff nodded back. This was better. Distract the fidgety idiot. All right, maybe things didn't feel quite right. Maybe there was a stink in the air that had nothing to do with smell, and maybe he had sweat trickling down under his armour, and he was keeping his hand close to the sword at his belt and eyeing the crossbow leaning against the gate. Was it cocked? It was cocked.\n\nClick clack click clack. Come on, boys, start 'em up again, before you start making me nervous.\n\nCutter halted the horse and sat, leaning forward on the saddle, studying the ship moored alongside the dock. No lights showed. Had Spite gone to bed this early? That seemed unlikely. He hesitated. He wasn't even sure why he had come here. Did he think he'd find Scillara?\n\nThat was possible, but if so it was a grotesque desire, revealing an ugly side to his nature that he did not want to examine for very long, if at all. He had pretty much abandoned her. She was a stranger to Darujhistan– he should have done better. He should have been a friend.\n\nHow many more lives could he ruin? If justice existed, it was indeed appropriate that he ruin himself as well. The sooner the better, in fact. Grief and self-pity seemed but faint variations on the same heady brew that was self-indulgence– did he really want to drown Scillara in his pathetic tears?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, Spite would be better– he'd get three words out and she'd start slapping him senseless. Get over it, Cutter. People die. It wasn't fair, so you put it right. And now you feel like Hood's tongue after a night of slaughter. Live with it. So wipe your nose and get out there. Do something, be someone and stay with it.\n\nYes, that was what he needed right now. A cold, cogent regard, a wise absence of patience. In fact, she wouldn't even have to say anything. Just seeing her would do.\n\nHe swung down from the saddle and tied the reins to a bollard, then crossed the gangplank to the deck. Various harbour notices had been tacked to the mainmast. Moorage fees and threats of imminent impoundment. Cutter managed a smile, imagining a scene of confrontation in the near future. Delightful to witness, if somewhat alarming, provided he stayed uninvolved.\n\nHe made his way below. \"Spite? You here?\"\n\nNo response. Spirits plunging once more, he tried the door to the main cabin, and found it unlocked. Now, that was strange. Drawing a knife, he edged inside, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Nothing seemed untoward, no signs of disarray– so there had been no roving thief, which was a relief. Ashe stepped towards the lantern hanging from a hook, his foot struck something that skidded a fraction.\n\nCutter looked down.\n\nHis lance– the one that dead Seguleh horseman had given him, in that plague-stricken fort in Seven Cities. He recalled seeing it later, strapped to the back of a floating pack amidst wreckage in the waves. He recalled Spite's casual retrieval. He had since stashed the weapon beneath his bunk. So, what was it doing here? And then he noted the beads of what looked like sweat glistening on the iron blade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter reached down.\n\nThe copper sheathing of the shaft was warm, almost hot. Picking the lance up, he realized, with a start, that the weapon was trembling. \"Beru fend,\" he whispered, \"what is going on here?\"\n\nMoments later he was back on the deck, staring over at his horse as the beast tugged at the reins, hoofs stamping the thick tarred boards of the dock. Its ears were flat, and it looked moments from tearing the bollard free– although of course that was impossible. Cutter looked down to find he was still carrying the lance. He wondered at that, but not for long, as he heard a sudden, deafening chorus of howls roll through the city. All along the shoreline, nesting birds exploded upward in shrieking panic, winging into the night.\n\nCutter stood frozen in place. The Hounds. They're here.\n\nGrisp Falaunt had once been a man of vast ambitions. Lord of the single greatest landholding anywhere on the continent, a patriarch of orchards, pastures, groves and fields of corn stretching to the very horizon. Why, the Dwelling Plain was unclaimed, was it not? And so he could claim it, unopposed, unobstructed by prohibitions.\n\nForty-one years later he woke one morning stunned by a revelation. The Dwelling Plain was unclaimed because it was... useless. Lifeless. Pointless. He had spent most of his life trying to conquer something that was not only unconquerable, but capable of using its very indifference to annihilate every challenger.\n\nHe'd lost his first wife. His children had listened to his promises of glorious inheritance and then had simply wandered off, each one terminally unimpressed. He'd lost his second wife. He'd lost three partners and seven investors. He'd lost his capital, his collateral and the shirt on his back– this last indignity courtesy of a crow that had been hanging round the clothesline in a most suspicious manner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There comes a time when a man must truncate his ambitions, cut them right down, not to what was possible, but to what was manageable. And, as one grew older and more worn down, manageable became a notion blurring with minimal, as in how could a man exist with the minimum of effort? How little was good enough?\n\nHe now lived in a shack on the very edge of the Dwelling Plain, offering a suitable view to the south wastes where all his dreams spun in lazy dust-devils through hill and dale and whatnot. And, in the company of a two-legged dog so useless he needed to hand-feed it the rats it was supposed to kill and eat, he tended three rows of root crops, each row barely twenty paces in length. One row suffered a blight of purple fungus; another was infested with grub-worm; and the one between those two had a bit of both.\n\nOn this gruesome night with its incessant thunder and invisible lightning and ghost wind, Grisp Falaunt sat rocking on his creaking chair on his back porch, a jug of cactus spit in his lap, a wad of rustleaf bulging one cheek and a wad of durhang the other. He had his freehand under his tunic, as would any man keeping his own company with only a two-legged dog looking on– but the mutt wasn't paying him any attention anyway, which, all things considered, was a rare relief these nights when the beast mostly just stared at him with oddly hungry eyes. No, old Scamper had his eyes on something to the south, out therein the dark plain.\n\nGrisp hitched the jug upon the back of a forearm and tilted in a mouthful of the thick, pungent liquor. Old Gadrobi women in the hills still chewed the spiny blades after hardening the insides of their mouths by eating fire, and spat out the pulp in bowls of water sweetened with virgins' piss. The mixture was then fermented in sacks of sewn-up sheep intestines buried under dung heaps. And there, in the subtle cascade of flavours that, if he squeezed shut his watering eyes, he could actually taste, one could find the bouquets marking every damned stage in the brewing process. Leading to an explosive, highly volatile cough followed by desperate gasping, and then-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Scamper there had sharpened up, as much as a two-legged dog could, anyway. Ears perking, seeming to dilate– but no, that was the spit talking– and nape hairs snapping upright in fierce bristle, and there was his ratty, knobby tail, desperately snaking down and under the uneven haunches– and gods below, Scamper was whimpering and crawling, piddling as he went, straight for under the porch– look at the damned thing go! With only two legs, too!\n\nMust be some storm out there-\n\nAnd, looking up, Grisp saw strange baleful fires floating closer. Insets of two, lifting, weaving, lowering, then backup again. How many sets? He couldn't count. He could have, once, long ago, right up to twenty, but the bad thing about cactus spit was all the parts of the brain it stamped dead underfoot. Seemed that counting and figuring was among them.\n\nFireballs! Racing straight for him!\n\nGrisp screamed. Or, rather, tried to. Instead, two wads were sucked in quick succession to the back of his throat, and all at once he couldn't breathe, and could only stare as a horde of giant dogs attacked in a thundering charge, straight across his three weepy rows, leaving a churned, uprooted, trampled mess. Two of the beasts made for him, jaws opening. Grisp had rocked onto the two back legs of the chair with that sudden, short-lived gasp, and now all at once he lost his balance, pitching directly backward, legs in the air, even as two sets of enormous jaws snapped shut in the place where his head had been a heartbeat earlier.\n\nHis shack erupted behind him, grey shards of wood and dented kitchenware exploding in all directions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thumping impact when he hit the porch sent both wads out from his mouth on a column of expelled air from his stunned lungs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weight of the jug, two fingers still hooked through the lone ear, pulled him sideways and out of the toppled chair onto his stomach, and he lifted his head and saw that his shack was simply gone, and there were the beasts, fast dwindling as they charged towards the city.\n\nGroaning, he lowered his head, settling his forehead onto the slatted boards, and could see through the crack to the crawlspace below, only to find Scamper's two beady eyes staring backup at him in malevolent accusation.\n\n\"Fair'nough, \"he whispered.\"Time's come, Scamper old boy, for us to pack up'n\"leave. New pastures, hey? A world before us, just waitin\" wi'open arms, just-\"\n\nThe nearest gate of the city exploded then, the shock wave rolling back to flatten Grisp once more on the floorboards. He heard the porch groan and sag and had one generous thought for poor Scamper– who was scrambling as fast as two legs could take him– before the porch collapsed under him.\n\nLike a dozen bronze bells, hammered so hard they tore loose from their frames and, in falling, dragged the bell towers down around them, the power of the seven Hounds obliterated the gate, the flanking unfinished fortifications, the guardhouse, the ring-road stable, and two nearby buildings. Crashing blocks of stone, wooden beams, bricks and tiles, crushed furniture and fittings, more than a few pulped bodies in the mix. Clouds of dust, spurts of hissing flame from ruptured gas pipes, the ominous subterranean roar of deadlier eruptions-\n\nSuch a sound! Such portentous announcement! The Hounds have arrived, dear friends. Come, yes, come to deliver mayhem, to reap a most senseless toll. Violence can arrive blind, without purpose, like the fist of nature. Cruel in disregard, brutal in its random catastrophe. Like a flash flood, like a tornado, a giant dust-devil, an earthquake– so blind, so senseless, so without intent!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "These Hounds..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "they were nothing like that.\n\nMoments before this eruption, Spite, still facing the estate of her venal bitch of a sister, reached a decision. And so she raised her perfectly manicured hands, up before her face, and closed them into fists. Then watched as a deeper blot of darkness formed over the estate, swelling ever larger until blood-red cracks appeared in the vast shapeless manifestation.\n\nIn her mind, she was recalling a scene from millennia past, a blasted landscape of enormous craters– the fall of the Crippled God, obliterating what had been a thriving civilization, leaving nothing but ashes and those craters in which magma roiled, spitting noxious gases that swirled high into the air.\n\nThe ancient scene was so vivid in her mind that she could scoop out one of those craters, half a mountain's weight of magma, slap it into something like a giant ball, and then position it over the sleepy estate wherein lounged her sleepy, unsuspecting sister. And, now that it was ready, she could just... let go.\n\nThe mass descended in a blur. The estate vanished– as did those nearest to it– and as a wave of scalding heat swept over Spite, followed by a wall of lava thrashing across the street and straight for her, she realized, with a faint squeal, that she too was standing far too close.\n\nAncient sorceries were messy, difficult to judge, harder yet to control. She'd let her eponymous tendencies affect her judgement. Again.\n\nUndignified flight was the only option for survival, and as she raced up the alley she saw, standing thirty paces ahead, at the passageway's mouth, a figure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Envy had watched the conjuration at first with curiosity, then admiration, and then awe, and finally in raging jealousy. That spitting cow always did things better! Even so, as she watched her twin sister bleating and scrambling mere steps ahead of the gushing lava flow, she allowed herself a most pitiless smile.\n\nThen released a seething wave of magic straight into her sister's slightly prettier face.\n\nSpite never thought ahead. A perennial problem, a permanent flaw– that she hadn't killed herself long ago was due only to Envy's explicit but casual-seeming indifference. But now, if the cow really wanted to take heron, at last, to bring an end to all this, well, that was just dandy.\n\nAs her sister's nasty magic engulfed her, Spite did the only thing she could do under the circumstances. She let loose everything she had in a counter-attack. Power roared out from her, clashed and then warred with Envy's own.\n\nThey stood, not twenty paces apart, and the space between them raged like the heart of a volcano. Cobbles blistered bright red and melted away. Stone and brick walls rippled and sagged. Faint voices shrieked. Slate tiles pitched down into the maelstrom as roofs tilted hard over on both sides.\n\nNeedless to say, neither woman heard a distant gate disintegrate, nor saw the fireball that followed, billowing high into the night. They did not even feel the thunderous reverberations rippling out beneath the streets, the ones that came from the concussions of subterranean gas chambers igniting one after another.\n\nNo, Spite and Envy had other things on their minds.\n\nThere could be no disguising a sudden rush to the estate gate by a dozen black-clad assassins. As five figures appeared from an alley mouth directly opposite Scorch and Leff, three others, perched on the rooftop of the civic building to the right of the alley, sent quarrels hissing towards the two lone guards. The remaining four, two to aside, sprinted in from the flanks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The facing attack had made itself known a moment too soon, and both Scorch and Leff had begun moving by the time the quarrels arrived. This lack of coordination could be viewed as inevitable given the scant training these assassins possessed, since this group was, in fact, little more than a diversion, and thus comprised the least capable individuals among the attackers.\n\nOne quarrel glanced off Leff's helm. Another was deflected by Scorch's chain hauberk, although the blow, impacting his left shoulder blade, sent him stumbling.\n\nThe third quarrel exploded in stone. The sky to the west lit up momentarily, and the cobbles shook as Leff reached his crossbow, managed a skidding turn and loosed the quarrel into the crowd of killers fast closing.\n\nA bellow of pain and one figure tumbled, weapons skittering.\n\nScorch scrabbled for his own crossbow, but it looked to Leff as if he would not ready it in time, and so with a shout he drew his shortsword and leapt into the path of the attackers.\n\nScorch surprised him, as a quarrel sped past to thud deep into a man's chest, punching him back and fouling up the assassin behind him. Leff shifted direction and went in on that side, slashing with his sword at the tangled figure– a thick, heavyset woman– and feeling the edge bite flesh and then bone.\n\nShapes darted in on his left– but all at once Scorch was there.\n\nThings got a bit hot then.\n\nTorvald Nom was looking fora way down when the tiles beneath his boots trembled to the sounds of running feet. He spun round to find four figures charging towards him. Clearly, they had not been expecting to find anyone up here, since none carried crossbows. In the moment before they reached him, he saw in their hands knives, knotted clubs and braided saps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nearest one wobbled suddenly– a bolt was buried deep in his right temple– and then fell in a sprawl.\n\nTorvald threw himself to one side and rolled– straight over the roof edge. Not quite what he had planned, and he desperately twisted as he fell, knowing that it wouldn't help in the least.\n\nHe had tucked into his belt two Blue Moranth sharpers.\n\nTorvald could only close his eyes as he pounded hard onto the pavestones. The impact threw him back upward on arising wave of stunning pain, but the motion seemed strangely slow, and he opened his eyes– amazed that he still lived– only to find that the world had turned into swirling green and blue clouds, thick, wet.\n\nNo, not clouds. He was inside a bulging, sloshing sphere of water. Hanging suspended now, as it rolled, taking him with it, out into the courtyard.\n\nLooking up at the rooftop as the misshapen globe tumbled him over and over, he saw an assassin pitch over the edge in a black spray of blood– and then he was looking at Madrun and Lazan Door, wielding two curved swords each, cutting through a mob that even now scattered in panic.\n\nAt that moment sorcery lit up the courtyard, rolling in a spitting, raging wave that swept up the main building's front steps and collided with the door, shattering it and the lintel above. Clouds of dust tumbled out, and three vague shapes rushed in, disappearing inside the house. A fourth one skidded to a halt at the base of the cracked steps, spun round and raised gloved hands. More magic, shrieking as it darted straight for the two unmasked Seguleh and those few assassins still standing. The impact sent bodies flying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald Nom, witnessing all this through murky water and discovering a sudden need to breathe, lost sight of everything as the globe heaved over one last time, even as he heard water draining, splashing down out to the sides, and watched the blurred pavestones beneath him draw closer.\n\nAll at once he found himself lying on the courtyard, drenched, gasping for air. He rolled over onto his back, saw a spark-lit, fiery black cloud tumble through the sky directly overhead– and that was curious, wasn't it?\n\nDetonations from within the estate. A sudden scream, cut bloodily short. He looked over to where Lazan Door and Madrun had been. Bodies crowded up against the inside wall, like a handful of black knuckles, and their bouncing, skidding journey was at an end, every knuckle settled and motionless.\n\nSomeone was approaching. Slow, steady steps, coming to a rest beside him.\n\nBlinking, Torvald Nom looked up. \"Cousin! Listen! I'm sorry, all right? I never meant it, honest! '\n\n\"What in Hood's name are you going on about, Tor? \"Rallick Nom was wiping blood from his tjaluk knives.\"I'd swear you were scared of me or something.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to steal her, Rallick. That's no lie!\"\n\n\"Tiserra?\"\n\nTorvald stared up at his cousin, wide-eyed, his heart bounding like an antelope with a hundred starving wolves on its stumpy tail.\n\nRallick made a face. \"Tor, you idiot. We were what, seven years old? Sure, I thought she was cute, but gods below, man, any boy and girl who start holding hands at seven and are still madly in love with each other twenty-five years later– that's not something to mess with-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I saw the way you looked at us, year after year– I couldn't stand it, I couldn't sleep, I knew you'd come for me sooner or later, I knew... '\n\nRallick frowned down at him. \"Torvald, what you saw in my face was envy. Yes, such a thing can get ugly, but not with me. I watched in wonder, in admiration. Dammit, I loved you both. Still do.\" He sheathed his weapons and reached down with a red-stained hand. \"Good to see you, cousin. Finally.\"\n\nTorvald took that hand, and suddenly– years of guilt and fear shedding away– the whole world was all right. He was pulled effortlessly to his feet. \"Hang on,\" he said, \"what are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Helping out, of course.\"\n\n\"Taking care of me-\"\n\n\"Ah, that was incidental, in truth. I saw you on the rooftop earlier. There'd be a few trying that way. Anyway, you did a nice job of catching their attention. '\n\n\"That quarrel through that one's head was from you? '\n\n\"At that range, I never miss.\"\n\nThey turned then as Studious Lock, limping, emerged from the wreckage of the main entrance. And behind him strode the Lady of the house. She was wearing leather gloves that ran up to the elbow on which dagger-sheaths had been riveted. Her usual voluminous silks and linens had been replaced by tight-fitting fighting clothes. Torvald squinted thoughtfully.\n\nStudious Lock was making his way towards the heap of bodies.\n\nLady Varada saw Rallick and Torvald and approached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rallick bowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did the mage give you any trouble, Mistress?\"\n\n\"No. Is the rooftop clear?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"And Seba?\"\n\n\"Probably scampering for his warren as fast as his legs can take him.\" Rallick paused. \"Mistress, you could walk back in-\"\n\n\"And who is left in my Guild, Rallick? Of any worth, I mean.\"\n\n\"Krute, perhaps. Myself. Even Seba would manage, so long as he was responsible fora single cell and nothing more.\"\n\nTorvald was no fool, and as he followed this conversation, certain things fell into place. \"Lady Varada,\" he said. \"Er, Mistress Vorcan, I mean. You knew this was coming, didn't you? And you probably hired me, and Scorch and Leff, because you believed we were useless, and, er, expendable. You wanted them to get through– you wanted them all inhere, so you could wipe them out once and for all. '\n\nShe regarded him fora moment, one eyebrow lifting, and then turned away and headed back to her house.\n\nTorvald made to pursue her but Rallick reached out a hand and held him back. \"Cousin,\" he said in a low voice, \"she was Mistress of the Assassins\" Guild. Do you think she's anything like us? Do you really think she gives a damn if we live or die?\"\n\nTorvald glanced over at Rallick. \"Now who's the fool, cousin? No, you're right, about me and Scorch and Leff– and those fallen Seguleh over there– she doesn't care. But you, Rallick, that's different. Are you blind? Soon as she stepped out, her eyes went to you, and all the stiffness relaxed, and she came over to make sure you weren't wounded. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't be serious. '\n\n\"And you can't be so stupid, can you? '\n\nAt that moment the main gates crashed open and two bloody figures staggered in.\n\n\"We was attacked!\" Scorch shouted in outrage.\n\n\"We killed'em all, \"Leff added, looking round wildly,\"but there could be more! '\n\nTorvald noted his cousin's expression and softly laughed, drawing Rallick's attention once more. \"I got some wine in my office,\" Torvald said. \"We can sit and relax and I can tell you somethings about Scorch and Leff-\" \"This is not the night for that, Tor– are you deaf?\"\n\nTorvald scowled, then thumped at the side of his head. Both sides. \"Sorry, got water in my ears. Even you here, you sound tome like you're under a bucket. '\n\nThe thumping worked, at least for one ear, and he could hear now what everyone else was listening to.\n\nScreams, all through the city. Buildings crashing down. Echoing howls. Recalling the fireball he'd seen, he looked skyward. No stars insight– the sky was filled with smoke, huge bulges underlit by wildfires in the city.\"Gods below! '\n\nHarllo ran down the road. His knees were cut and deeply scored by his climb up the slope of scree, and blood ran down his shins. Stitches bit into his sides and every muscle was on fire. And Venaz was so close behind him that he could hear his harsh gasps– but Venaz was older, his legs were longer, and it would be soon now, no matter how tired he sounded.\n\nTo have come so far, and everything was about to end... but Harllo would not weep. Would not plead or beg for his life. Venaz was going to beat him to death. It was as simple as that. There was no Bainisk to stand in the way, there were no rules of the camp. Harllo was not a mole anymore; he was of no use to anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People like him, big and small, died all the time. Killed by being ignored, killed because nobody cared what happened to them. He'd walked the streets of Darujhistan often enough to see for himself, to see that the only thing between those huddled shapes and himself was a family that didn't even want him, no matter how hard he worked. They were Snell's parents, and Snell was what they'd made between them, and nothing in the world could cut through those tethers.\n\nThat was why they let Snell play with Harllo, and if he played using fists and feet and something went bad, well, that stuff happened all the time, didn't it? That's why they never came to get him. And the one man who did, Gruntle, who always looked down at him with sad eyes, he was dead now, too, and it was this fact that eased Harllo's mind. He was happy to go where Gruntle had gone. He would take hold of that giant scarred hand and know that, finally, he was safe.\n\n\"I got you! I got you!\"\n\nA hand snagged at the back of his shirt, missed.\n\nHarllo threw himself forward– maybe one last spurt– away, fast as he could-\n\nThe hand caught a handful of tunic, and Harllo stumbled, and then a thin sweaty arm wrapped tight round his neck, lifting him from his feet.\n\nThe forearm pressed against his throat. He could not breathe. And all at once Harllo did not want to die.\n\nHe flailed, but Venaz was too big, too strong.\n\nHarllo was forced down to the stony surface of the road, then pushed over on his back as Venaz straddled him and closed both hands round his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The face glaring down at him was flushed with triumph." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweat ran muddy streaks down it; something had cut one cheek and white threads of cave-worms clustered round the wound– they'd lay eggs and that cut would become a huge welt, until it burst and the grubs crawled out, and the scar left behind would never go away and Venaz would be ugly for the rest of his life.\n\n\"Got you got you got you,\" Venaz whispered, his eyes bright. \"And now you die. Now you die. Got you and now you die.\"\n\nThose hands squeezed with savage strength.\n\nHe fought, he scratched, he kicked, but it was hopeless. He felt his face swell, grow hot. The darkness flushed red.\n\nSomething cracked hard and Venaz was reeling back, his grip torn loose. Hands closed on Harllo's upper arms and dragged him a short distance away. Gasping, he stared up at a strange face– another boy– who now stepped past him, advancing on Venaz.\n\nWho had scrambled upright, nose streaming blood.\n\n\"Who the shit are-\"\n\nThe stranger flung himself at Venaz, and both went down.\n\nCoughing, tears streaming, Harllo forced himself onto his hands and knees. The two boys were about the same size, and they were of that age when areal fight had a deadly edge. They fought as would rabid dogs. Clawing into faces, seeking eye sockets, or inside the mouth to tear aside one entire cheek. They bit, gouged, used their elbows and knees as they rolled about on the roadside.\n\nSomething snapped, like a green sapling, and someone howled in terrible pain.\n\nHarllo climbed to his feet, and he found he was holding a large round stone in his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Venaz had broken the stranger's left arm, and he was now working himself on top, fists raining down into the other boy's face– who did what he could to protect it with his one working arm, but half of those fists got through, smashing into the face beneath.\n\nHarllo stepped up behind Venaz, who was straddling the stranger. He looked down, seeing him as the stranger must have done when Harllo was the one lying on the ground, being murdered. He raised the rock, and then drove it down onto the top of Venaz's skull.\n\nThe impact made him lose his grip on the stone and he saw it roll off to one side, leaving a shallow dentin Venaz's head.\n\nVenaz seemed to be in the midst of a coughing fit, a barely human stuttering sound bursting from his throat. He pushed himself off the other boy and rose wobbling to his feet. When he turned to stare at Harllo, he was smiling, the teeth bright shards between gushing streams of blood from his nose. His eyes had filled and were now opaque. He lost his balance and reeled to one side, only to lose his footing on the edge of the road and plunge into the grassy ditch.\n\nHarllo went to stare down at him. Venaz was still smiling, lying on his back, his cut and bruised hands making strange circular motions. He had soiled himself and the stench made Harllo step back, away, to walkover and kneel down beside the other boy.\n\nWho was sitting up, cradling his broken arm, hair hanging over his face.\n\n\"Hello,\" said Harllo, \"who are you?\"\n\nHanut Orr stood in the shadows behind the Phoenix Inn, waiting for the first of the cowardly bastards to come rushing out from the kitchen door. His man must be inside by now, stirring things up. Not long, then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He ducked at the sound of ferocious howls echoing through the city, and then a thundering concussion somewhere to the south– but close– and he stepped out to the centre of the alley. Some shambling figure walking past had to shift quickly to one side to avoid colliding with him.\n\n\"Watch it,\" Hanut snapped, and then he looked up into the slash of night visible between the buildings, as it suddenly lit red and orange.\n\nIt was pretty much the last thing he ever saw.\n\nAs soon as he was past the fool, Gaz whirled round, his right fingerless hand lashing out to crack with a crunch against the base of his victim's neck. Bone against bone, and it was not knuckles that broke– they were by now too scarred, too calcined, for that. No, what snapped was Hanut Orr's neck.\n\nGaz was swinging with his other hand even as the body crumpled, his left pounding into the man's forehead, flinging the head back like a bulbous seedpod on a broken stalk. Slap went the body, head bouncing once and then lolling way too far to one side.\n\nHe stared down, and then moaned. This was no drunk who'd been leaning against a wall behind the inn. He should have noted the man's tone when he'd warned him off.\n\nThis was a highborn.\n\nGaz found he was breathing fast. A rapid pounding in his chest, a sudden heat flooding through him. His knuckles throbbed.\n\n\"Thordy,\" he whispered, \"I'm in deep trouble. Thordyyyy... '\n\nHe looked up and down the alley, saw no one, and then set off, stiff-legged, leaning far forward, his fingerless hands drawn up under his chin. He was going home. Yes, he had to get home, and be there all night, yes, he'd been there all night-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In trouble in trouble I'm in trouble now. Mages and necromancers, guards everywhere– listen to the alarms– they've found him already! Oh oh oh trouble, Thordy, so much trouble...\n\nCouncillor Coll had pushed him back onto the bar, then down onto its battered surface. The severe arch forced by the position had Hanut Orr's thug groaning in pain.\n\n\"Is he waiting, then?\" Coll asked, leaning close. \"Your shitface boss– is he waiting outside?\"\n\nThe man understood loyalty, and he understood the demands of raw survival, and of course there was no contest between the two. He managed a nod and gasped, \"Alley. He's in the alley. There's another man, other side of the street out front.\"\n\n\"And who are you all looking for?\"\n\n\"Any– uh– anyone of you. No, wait. The assassin, the one with the two knives– the one who just killed Gorlas Vidikas.\"\n\nThe man saw Coll's broad, oddly puffy face twist into a frown, and the heavyweight pressing down on his chest– keeping him pinned on the countertop– eased back.\n\n\"Meese, this one moves, kill him.\"\n\nThe woman with the absurd two-handed mace stepped up, eyes flat and lifeless as they fixed on the thug. \"Give me a reason,\" she said.\n\nThe thug simply shook his head and stayed right where he was, leaning now against the rail.\n\nHe watched as Coll shambled over to where stood the short, round man in the red waistcoat. They spoke fora time, intones so low the man had no chance of overhearing their conversation. And then Coll went behind the bar and emerged a moment later with an antique broadsword that looked like a perfect fit in those huge hands. Trailed by the fat man, he marched out into the kitchen, presumably for the backdoor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, Hanut Orr was an arrogant tyrant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he got what he wanted and a whole lot more. Things like that happen.\n\nThe man suddenly recalled that he'd spilled nothing about the two men waiting outside Coll's estate. Well, this could workout just fine, so long as he managed to get out of this damned inn before Coll got ambushed at his gate.\n\nDamned noisy in the city tonight– ah, yes, the last night of the Gedderone Fête. Of course it was noisy, and dammit, he wanted to be out there himself, partying, dancing, squeezing soft flesh, maybe picking a fight or two– but ones he could win, of course. Nothing like this crap-\n\nAll at once Coll and the fat man were back, both looking confused.\n\n\"Sulty dear,\" sang out the fat man, and one of the serving wenches looked over– they all had themselves a quiet, nervous audience among the half-dozen others in the tavern, and so numerous sets of eyes watched as she headed over. She was just rounding the nearest table when the fat man said, \"It would appear that Hanut Orr has met an untimely end– before we even arrived, alas for Coll's sake. Best summon a guard-'\n\nShe made a face. \"What? Out there? In the damned streets? Sounds like ten thousand wolves have been let loose out there, Kruppe!\"\n\n\"Sweet Sulty, Kruppe assures you no harm will come to you! Kruppe assures, yes, and will warmly comfort too upon your triumphant return!\"\n\n\"Oh now that's incentive, \"and she turned round and headed for the front door. And the man was close enough to hear her add under her breath,\"Incentive to throw myself into the jaws of the first wolf I see... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But out she went.\n\nThe guard with the loving family and the aching chest was at the intersection just on this side of the wall one street away from the Phoenix Inn– and hurrying with genuine alarm towards the sounds of destruction to the south (the other raging fire in the Estate District was not his jurisdiction) – when he heard someone shouting at him and so turned, lifting high his lantern.\n\nA young woman was waving frantically.\n\nHe hesitated, and then flinched at a howl so loud and so close he expected to see a demon standing at his shoulder. He jogged towards the woman.\n\n\"For Hood's sake! \"he shouted.\"Get yourself inside! '\n\nHe saw her spin round and scamper for the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. Ashe drew closer a flash of motion from a facing alley mouth almost drew him round, but when he shot the bull's eye in that direction, he saw no one. He hurried on, breathing hard as he climbed the steps and went inside.\n\nA short time and a tumble of words later, he followed Councillor Coll and Kruppe into the alley, where they gathered round the corpse of yet another councillor. Hanut Orr, apparently.\n\nWincing at the tightness that was closing like a vice round his ribcage, the guard slowly squatted to examine the wounds. Only two blows– which didn't sound like his man– but then, the look of those wounds...\"I think he's killed another one,\" he muttered. \"Not long ago either.\" He looked up. \"And you two saw nothing?\"\n\nColl shook his head.\n\nKruppe– a man the guard had always regarded askance, with considerable suspicion, in fact– hesitated.\n\n\"What? Speak, you damned thief.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thief?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aaii, such an insult! Kruppe was but observing with most sharp eye the nature of said wounds upon forehead and back of neck.\"\n\n\"That's how I know it's the same man as has been killing dozens over the last few months. Some kind of foreign weapon-\"\n\n\"Foreign? Not at all, Kruppe suggests. Not at all.\"\n\n\"Really? Do goon.\"\n\n\"Kruppe suggests, most vigilant and honourable guard, that'twas hands alone did this damage. Knuckles and no more, no less. '\n\n\"No, that's wrong. I've seen the marks a fist makes-\"\n\n\"But Kruppe did not say'fist\". Kruppe was being more precise. Knuckles, yes? As in knuckles unencumbered by fingers...\"\n\nThe guard frowned, and then looked once more at that bizarre elongated dentin Hanut Orr's forehead. He suddenly straightened.\"Knuckles... but no fingers. But... I know that man! '\n\n\"Indeed?\" Kruppe beamed. \"Best make haste then, friend, and beware on this night of all nights, do beware.\"\n\n\"What? Beware what– what are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Why, the Toll, friend. Beware the Toll. Now go quickly– we shall take this poor body inside, until the morning when proper arrangements are, er, arranged. Such a multitude of sorrows this night! Go, friend, hunt down your nemesis! This is the very night for such a thing!\"\n\nEverything was pulsing in front of the guard's eyes, and the pain had surged from his chest into his skull. He was finding it hard to so much as think. But... yes, he knew that man. Gods, what was his name?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would come to him, but for now he hurried down the alley, and out into yet another bizarrely empty street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The name would come to him, but he knew where the bastard lived, he knew that much and wasn't that enough for now? It was.\n\nThrobbing, pounding pulses rocked the brain in his skull. Flashes of orange light, flushes of dry heat against his face– gods, he wasn't feeling right, not right at all. There was an old cutter down the street from where he lived– after tonight, he should pay her a visit. Lances of agony along his limbs, but he wasn't going to stop, not even fora rest.\n\nHe had the killer. Finally. Nothing was going to get in his way.\n\nAnd so onward he stumbled, lantern swinging wildly.\n\nGaz marched up to the door, pushed it open and halted, looking round. The stupid woman hadn't even lit the hearth– where the fuck was she? He made his way across the single room, three strides in all, to the backdoor, which he kicked open.\n\nSure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right therein front of that circle of flat stones she'd spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she'd lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late– well, they were in so much trouble now.\n\n\"Thordy!\"\n\nShe didn't even turn round, simply said,\"Come over here, husband. '\n\n\"Thordy, there's trouble. I messed up. We messed up– we got to think– we got to get out of here, out of the city– we got to run-'\n\n\"We're not running, ' she said.\n\nHe came up beside her. \"Listen, you stupid woman-\" She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. \"Thordy?\" The word bubbled as it came out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down onto the circle of flat stones.\n\n\"You were a good soldier,\" she said. \"Collecting up so many lives.\"\n\nHe was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way backup, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.\n\n\"And me,\" she went on, \"I've been good too. The dreams– he made it all so simple, so obvious. I've been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready... for you. For him.\"\n\nThe ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something– something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself me– convulse and then shriek in terror and anguish as the cold devoured it, ate into it, and piece after piece of his life simply vanished, piece after piece after-\n\nThordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood, the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain, Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness, as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.\n\nHood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.\n\nNo, this was Hood, the god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here, now.\n\nAnd in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo.\n\nThe Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire.\n\nThe guard came onto the decrepit street facing the ramshackle house that was home to the serial murderer, but he could barely make it out through the pulsing waves of darkness that seemed to be closing in on all sides, faster and faster, as if he was witness to a savage, nightmarish compression of time, day hurtling into night into day and on and on. As if he was somehow rushing into his own old age, right up to his final mortal moment. A roaring sound filled his head, excruciating pain radiating out from his chest, burning with fire in his arms, the side of his neck. His jaws were clenched so tight he was crushing his own teeth, and every breath was agony.\n\nHe made it halfway to the front door before falling to his knees, doubling up and sinking down onto his side, the lantern clunking as it struck the cobbles. And suddenly he had room fora thousand thoughts, all the time he could have wanted, now that he'd taken his last breath. So many things became clear, simple, acquiring a purity that lifted him clear of his body-\n\nAnd he saw, as he hovered above his corpse, that a figure had emerged from the killer's house. His altered vision revealed every detail of that ancient, unhuman visage within the hood, the deep-etched lines, the ravaged map of countless centuries. Tusks rising from the lower jaw, chipped and worn, the tips ragged and splintered. And the eyes– so cold, so... haunted– all at once the guard knew this apparition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hood. The Lord of Death had come for him.\n\nHe watched as the god lifted his gaze, fixing him with those terrible eyes.\n\nAnd a voice spoke in his head, a heavy voice, like the grinding of massive stones, the sinking of mountains. \"I have thought nothing of justice. For so long now. It is all one tome. Grief is tasteless, sorrow an empty sigh. Live an eternity in dust and ashes and then speak tome of justice.\"\n\nTo this the guard had nothing to say. He had been arguing with death night after night. He had been fighting all the way from the Phoenix Inn. Every damned step. He was past that now.\n\n\"So,\" continued Hood, \"here I stand. And the air surrounding me, the air rushing into my lungs, it lives. I cannot prevent what comes with my every step herein the mortal world. I cannot be other than what I am.\"\n\nThe guard was confused. Was the Lord of Death apologizing?\n\n\"But this once, I shall have my way. I shall have my way.\" And he stepped forward, raising one withered hand– a hand, the guard saw, missing two fingers. \"Your soul shines. It is bright. Blinding. So much honour, so much love. Compassion. In the cavern of loss you leave behind, your children will be less than all they could have been. They will curl round scars and the wounds will never quite heal, and they will learn to gnaw those scars, to lick, to drink deep. This will not do.\"\n\nThe guard convulsed, spinning down back into the corpse on the cobbles. He felt his heart lurch, and then pound with sudden ease, sudden, stunning vigour. He drew a deep breath, the air wondrous, cool, sweeping away the last vestige of pain– sweeping everything away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All that he had come to, in those last moments– that scintillating clarity of vision, the breathtaking understanding of everything– now sank beneath a familiar cloud, settling grey and thick, where every shape was but hinted at, where he was lost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As lost as he had been, as lost as any and every mortal soul, no matter how blustery its claims to certainty, to faith. And yet... and yet it was a warm cloud, shot through with precious things: his love for his wife, his children; his wonder at their lives, the changes that came to them day by day.\n\nHe found he was weeping, even as he climbed to his feet. He turned to look at the Lord of Death, in truth not expecting to seethe apparition which must surely come only to the dead and dying, and then cried out in shock.\n\nHood looked solid, appallingly real, walking down the street, eastward, and it was as if the webs binding them then stretched, the fabric snapping, wisping off into the night, and with each stride that took the god farther away the guard felt his life returning, an awareness of breathtaking solidity– in this precise moment, and in everyone that would follow.\n\nHe turned away– and even that was easy– and settled his gaze upon the door, which hung open, and all that waited within was dark and rotted through with horror and madness.\n\nThe guard did not hesitate.\n\nWith this modest and humble man, with this courageous, honourable man, Hood saw true. And, for just this once, the Lord of Death had permitted himself to care.\n\nMark this, a most significant moment, a most poignant gesture.\n\nThordy heard boots on the warped floorboards of the back porch and she turned to see a city guardsman emerge from her house, out through the backdoor, holding a lantern in one hand.\n\n\"He is dead,\" she said. \"The one you have come here for. Gaz, my husband.\" She pointed with a blood-slick knife. \"Here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guard walked closer, sliding back one of the shutters on the lantern and directing the shaft of light until it found and held on the motionless body lying on the stones.\n\n\"He confessed,\" she said. \"So I killed him, with my own hand. I killed this... monster.\"\n\nThe guardsman crouched down to study the corpse. He reached out and gently slipped one finger under the cuff of one of Gaz's sleeves, and raised up the battered, fingerless hand. He sighed then, and slowly nodded.\n\nAshe lowered the arm again and began straightening, Thordy said, \"I understand there is a reward.\"\n\nHe looked across at her.\n\nShe wasn't sure what she saw in his expression. He might be horrified, or amused, or cynically drained of anything like surprise. But it didn't matter much. She just wanted the money. She needed the money.\n\nBecoming, fora time, the mason of the Lord of the Slain entailed a fearsome responsibility. But she hadn't seen a single bent copper for her troubles.\n\nThe guardsman nodded. \"There is.\"\n\nShe held up the kitchen knife.\n\nHe might have flinched a bit, maybe, but what mattered now would be Thordy seeing him nod a second time.\n\nAnd after a moment, he did just that.\n\nA god walked the streets of Darujhistan. In itself, never a good thing. Only fools would happily, eagerly invite such a visitation, and such enthusiasm usually proved shortlived. That this particular god was the harvester of souls meant that, well, not only was his manifestation unwelcome, but his gift amounted to unmitigated slaughter, rippling out to overwhelm thousands of inhabitants in tenement blocks, in the clustered hovels of the Gadrobi District, in the Lakefront District– but no, such things cannot be glanced over with a mere shudder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Plunge then, courage collected, into this welter of lives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Open the mind to consider, cold or hot, all manner of judgement. Propriety is dispensed with, decency cast aside. This is the eye that does not blink, but is such steely regard an invitation to cruel indifference? To a hardened, compassionless aspect? Or will a sliver of honest empathy work its way beneath the armour of desensitized excess? When all is done, dare to weigh thine own harvest of feelings and consider this one challenge: if all was met with but a callous shrug, then, this round man invites, shift round such cruel, cold regard, and cast one last judgement. Upon thyself.\n\nBut for now... witness.\n\nSkilles Naver was about to murder his family. He had been walking home from Gajjet's Bar, belly filled with ale, only to have a dog the size of a horse step out in front of him. A blood-splashed muzzle, eyes burning with bestial fire, the huge flattened head swinging round in his direction.\n\nHe had frozen in place. He had pissed himself, and then shat himself.\n\nA moment later a high wooden fence surrounding a vacant lot further up the street– where a whole family had died of some nasty fever a month earlier– suddenly collapsed and a second enormous dog appeared, this one bone white.\n\nIts arrival snatched the attention of the first beast, and in a surge of muscles the creature lunged straight for it.\n\nThey collided like two runaway, laden wagons, the impact a concussion that staggered Skilles. Whimpering, he turned and ran.\n\nAnd ran.\n\nAnd now he was home, stinking like a slop pail, and his wife was but half packed– caught in the midst of a treacherous flight, stealing the boys, too. His boys. His little workers, who did everything Skilles told them to (and Beru fend if they didn't or even talked back, the little shits) and the thought of a life without them– without his perfect, private, very own slaves– lit Skilles into a white rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His wife saw what was coming. She pushed the boys into the corridor and then turned to give up her own life. Besk the neighbour the door next over was collecting the boys for some kind of escape to who knew where. Well, Skilles would just have to hunt him down, wouldn't he? It wasn't as if puny rat-faced Surna was going to hold him back for long, was it?\n\nJust grab her, twist that scrawny neck and toss the waste of space to one side-\n\nHe didn't even seethe knife, and all he felt of the murderous stab was a prick under his chin, as the thin blade shot up through his mouth, deflected inward by his upper palate, and sank three fingers deep straight into the base of his brain.\n\nSurna and her boys didn't have to run after all.\n\nKanz was nine years old and he loved teasing his sister who had areal temper, as Ma always said as she picked up pieces of broken crockery and bits of hated vegetables scattered allover the floor, and the best thing was prodding his sister in the ribs when she wasn't looking, and she'd spin round, eyes flashing with fury and hate– and off he'd run, with her right on his heels, out into the corridor, pell-mell straight to the stairs and then down and round and down fast as he could go with her screeching behind him.\n\nDown and round and down and-\n\n-and he was flying through the air. He'd tripped, missed his grip on the rail, and the ground floor far below rushed up to meet him.\n\n\"You two will be the death of each other!\" Ma always said. Zasperating! She said that too-\n\nHe struck the floor. Game over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sister's quick temper went away and never returned after that night. And Ma never again voiced the word'zasperating\". Of course it did not occur to her that its sudden vanishing from her mind was because her little boy had taken it with him, the last word he'd thought. He'd taken it, as would a toddler a doll, or a blanket. For comfort in his dark new world.\n\nBenuck Fill sat watching his mother wasting away. Some kind of cancer was eating her up inside. She'd stopped talking, stopped wanting anything; she was like a sack of sticks when he picked her up to carry her to the washtub to wipe down all the runny stuff she leaked out these days, these nights. Her smile, which had told him so much of her love for him, and her shame at what she had become– that horrible loss of dignity– had changed now into something else: an open mouth, lips withered and folded in, each breath a wheezing gasp. If that was a smile then she was smiling at death itself and that was hard for him to bear. Seeing that. Understanding it, what it meant.\n\nNot long now. And Benuck didn't know what he would do. She had given him life. She had fed him, held him, kept him warm. She had given him words to live by, rules to help him shape his life, his self. She wasn't clever, very, or even wise. She was just an average person, who worked hard so that they could live, and worked even harder when Da went to fight in Pale where he probably died though they never found out either way. He just never came back.\n\nBenuck sat wringing his hands, listening to her breathing, wishing he could help her, fill her with his own breath, fill her right up so she could rest, so she'd have a single, final moment when she didn't suffer, one last moment of painless life, and then she could let go..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But here, unseen by any, was the real truth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mother had died eight days ago. He sat facing an empty chair, and whatever had broken in his mind had trapped him now in those last days and nights. Watching, washing, dressing. Things to do for her, moments of desperate care and love, and then back to the watching and there was no light left in her eyes and she made no sign she heard a thing he said, all his words of love, his words of thanks.\n\nTrapped. Lost. Not eating, not doing anything at all. Hood's hand brushed his brow then and he slumped forward in his chair, and the soul of his mother, that had been hovering in anguish in this dreadful room all this time, now slipped forward for an eternal embrace.\n\nSometimes, the notion of true salvation can start the eyes.\n\nAvab Tenitt fantasized about having children with him in his bed. Hadn't happened yet, but soon he would make it all real. In the meantime he liked tying a rope round his neck, a damned noose, in fact, while he masturbated under the blankets while his unsuspecting wife scrubbed dishes in the kitchen.\n\nTonight, the knot snagged and wouldn't loosen. In fact, it just got tighter and tighter the more he struggled with it, and so as he spilled out, so did his life.\n\nWhen his wife came into the room, exhausted, her hands red and cracked by domestic travails, and on her tongue yet another lashing pending for her wastrel husband, she stopped and stared. At the noose. The bloated, blue and grey face above it, barely recognizable, and it was as if a thousand bars of lead had been lifted from her shoulders.\n\nLet the dogs howl outside all night. Let the fires rage. She was free and her life ahead was all her own and nobody else's. Forever and ever again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A week later a neighbour would see her pass on the street and would say to friends that evening how Nissala had suddenly become beautiful, stunning, in fact, filled with vitality, looking years and years younger. Like a dead flower suddenly reborn, a blossom fierce under the brilliant warm sunlight.\n\nAnd then the two gossipy old women would fall silent, both thinking the same dark thoughts, the delicious what-if and maybe-she notions that made life so much fun, and gave them plenty to talk about, besides.\n\nIn the meantime, scores of children would stay innocent fora little longer than they would have otherwise done.\n\nWidow Lebbil was a reasonable woman most of the time. But on occasion this gentle calm twisted into something malign, something so bound up in rage that it overwhelmed its cause. The same thing triggered her incandescent fury, the same thing every time.\n\nFat Saborgan lived above her, and around this time every night– when decent people should be sleeping though truth be told who could do that on this insane night when the mad revelry in the streets sounded out of control– he'd start running about up there, back and forth, round and round, this way and that.\n\nWho could sleep below that thunder?\n\nAnd so she worked her way out of bed, groaning at her aching hips, took one of her canes and, standing on a rickety chair, pounded against the ceiling. Her voice was too thin, too frail– he'd never hear if she yelled up at him. Only the cane would do. And she knew he heard her, she knew he did, but did it make any difference?\n\nNo! Never!\n\nShe couldn't goon with this. She couldn't!\n\nThump thump scrape thump scrape thump thump– and so she pounded and pounded and pounded, her arms on fire, her shoulders cramping. Pounded and pounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saborgan should indeed have heard the widow's protest, but, alas, he was lost in his own world, and he danced with the White-Haired Empress, who'd come from some other world, surely, to his very room and the music filled his head and was so sweet, so magical, and her hands were soft as doves held as gently as he could manage in his own blunted, clumsy fingers. And soft and frail as her hands were, the Empress led, tugging him back and forth so that he never quite regained his balance.\n\nThe White-Haired Empress was very real. She was in fact a minor demon, conjured and chained into servitude in this ancient tenement on the very edge of the Gadrobi District. Her task, from the very first, had been singular, a geas set upon her by the somewhat neurotic witch dead now these three centuries.\n\nThe White-Haired Empress was bound to the task of killing cockroaches, in this one room. The manner in which she did so had, over decades and decades, suffered a weakening of strictures, leaving the now entirely loony demon the freedom to improvise.\n\nThis mortal had huge feet, his most attractive feature, and when they danced he closed his eyes and silently wept, and she could guide those feet onto every damned cockroach skittering across the filthy floor. Step crunch step crunch– there! A big one– get it! Crunch and smear, crunch and smear!\n\nIn this lone room, barring the insects who lived in terror, there was pure, unmitigated joy, delicious satisfaction, and the sweetest love.\n\nIt all collapsed at around the same time as the floor. Rotted crossbeams, boards and thick plaster descended onto Widow Lebbil and it was as much the shock as the weight of the wreckage that killed her instantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poor Saborgan, losing his grip on the wailing Empress, suffered the stunning implosion of a cane driven up his anus– oh, even to recount is to wince! – which proved a most fatal intrusion indeed. As for the Empress herself, well, after a moment of horrific terror her geas shattered, releasing her at last to return to her home, the realm of the Cockroach Kings (oh, very well, the round man just made up that last bit. Forgive?). Who knows where she went? The only thing for certain is that she danced every step of the way.\n\nThe vague boom of a collapsing floor in a squalid tenement building somewhere overhead went unnoticed by Seba Krafar, Master of the Assassins' Guild, as he staggered down the subterranean corridor, seeking the refuge of his nest.\n\nWould the disasters never end? It had all started with that damned Rallick Nom cult, and then, almost before the dust settled on that, their first big contract ran up against the most belligerent, vicious collection of innkeepers imaginable. And the one that followed?\n\nHe suspected he was the only survivor. He'd left his crossbowmen to cover his retreat and not one of them had caught up with him; and now, with gas storage caverns igniting one after another, well, he found himself in an abandoned warren of tunnels, rushing through raining dust, coughing, eyes stinging. All ruined. Wrecked. He'd annihilated the entire damned Guild.\n\nHe would have to start over.\n\nAll at once, the notion excited him. Yes, he could shape it himself– nothing to inherit. Anew structure. Anew philosophy, even.\n\nSuch... possibilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He staggered into his office, right up to the desk, which he leaned on with both hands on its pitted surface." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then frowned at the scattering of scrolls, and saw documents strewn everywhere on the floor– what in Hood's name?\n\n\"Master Krafar, is it?\"\n\nThe voice spun him round.\n\nA woman stood with her back resting against the wall beside the doorway. A cocked crossbow was propped beside her left boot, quarrel head resting on the packed earthen floor. Her arms were crossed.\n\nSeba Krafar scowled. \"Who in Hound's name are you? '\n\n\"You don't know me? Careless. My name is Blend. I'm one of the owners of K'rul's.\"\n\n\"That contract's cancelled– we're done with you. No more-\"\n\n\"I don't care. It's simple– I want the name. The one who brought you the contract. Now, you can give it tome without any fuss, and I will walkout of here and that's the last you'll see of me, and all your worries will beat an end. The Guild removed from the equation. Consider it a gift, but now it's time for you to earn it. '\n\nHe studied her, gauging his chances. She didn't look like much. There was noway she'd reach that crossbow in time– two quick strides and he'd be right in her face. With two knives in her gut. And then he'd send a note to Humble Measure and claim one more down– leaving what, two or three left? He'd get paid well for that, and Hood knew he needed the coin if he was going to start over.\n\nAnd so he attacked.\n\nHe wasn't sure what happened next. He had his knives out, she was right therein front of him, and then her elbow smashed into his face, shattering his nose and blinding him with pain. And somehow both thrusts he sent her way, one seeking the soft spot just beneath her sternum, the other striking lower down, failed. One blocked, the other missing entirely, dagger point driving into the wall she'd been leaning against." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blow to his face turned his knees to water, but only for the briefest of moments, for Seba Krafar was a bull of a man, a brawler. Damage was something to shake off and then just get on with it, and so, shoulder hunching, he attempted a slanting slash, trying to gut the bitch right then and there.\n\nSomething hard hammered his wrist, sending the dagger flying, and bones cracked in his arm. Ashe stumbled back, tugging the other knife from the wall, he attempted a frantic thrust to keep her off him. She caught his good wrist and her thumb was like an iron nail, impaling the base of his palm. The knife dropped from senseless fingers. She then took that arm and twisted it hard round, pushing his shoulder down and so forcing his head to follow.\n\nWhere it meta rising knee.\n\nAn already broken nose struck again, struck even harder, in fact, is not something that can be shaken off. Stunned, not a sliver of will left in his brain, he landed on his back. Some instinct made him roll, up against the legs of his desk, and he heaved himself upright once more.\n\nThe quarrel took him low on the right side, just above his hip, glancing off the innominate bone and slicing messily through his liver.\n\nSeba Krafar sagged back down, into a slump with his back against the desk.\n\nWith streaming eyes he looked across at the woman.\n\nMalazan, right. She'd been a soldier once. No, she'd been a Bridgeburner. He used to roll his eyes at that. A Bridgeburner? So what? Just some puffed up ooh-ah crap. Seba was an assassin. Blood kin to Talo Krafar and now there was a monster of a man-" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's helper, keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 34" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A Hound trotted into view on the warrior's left. A mangled, headless torso hung in its jaws, still draining thick blood. Its lambent eyes were on Traveller, who had not moved, although it was clear that he was tracking the beast with his gaze.\n\nKarsa unsheathed his sword and quickened his pace. Samar Dev, her heart pounding, hurried after him.\n\nShe saw the Toblakai slow suddenly, and then stop, still thirty paces from the intersection, and a moment later she saw why.\n\nCotillion was walking up to Traveller. Another Hound– the black one– had appeared to guard the god's other flank.\n\nBehind them a distant building suddenly crashed down, and in the heart of that thunder there was the sound of two beasts locked in mortal combat, neither yielding. Frail screams echoed in fragile counterpoint.\n\nTraveller waited. Cotillion came to stand directly in front of him, and began to speak.\n\nSamar Dev wanted to rush forward, at least to a spot from where she could overhear the god, catch whatever response Traveller delivered. But Karsa's handheld her back, and he shook his head, saying in a murmur,\"This is not for us, witch. '\n\nTraveller seemed to be refusing something, stepping back, looking away.\n\nCotillion pressed on.\n\n\"He does not want it,\" Karsa said. \"Whatever he asks, Traveller does not want it.\"\n\nYes, she could see that. \"Please, I need to-\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Karsa-\"\n\n\"What drives you is want, not need.\"\n\n\"Fine, then! I'm a nosy bitch– just leave me to it-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. This is between them, and so it must remain. Samar Dev, answer me this. If you could hear what they say, if you comprehended all that it might mean, would you be able to stay silent?\"\n\nShe bristled, and then hissed in frustration. \"I'm not very good at doing that, am I? All right, Karsa– but what if I did say something? What harm would that do? '\n\n\"Leave him,\" said Karsa. \"Leave him free to choose for himself.\"\n\nWhatever Cotillion was saying seemed to strike like physical blows, which Traveller absorbed one after another, still looking away– still clearly unable to meet the god's eyes.\n\nThe Hound with the chewed-up torso was now eating it with all the mindless intensity common to carnivores filling their stomachs. The other beast had half turned away and seemed to be listening to that distant fight.\n\nCotillion was unrelenting.\n\nFor the god, for Traveller, and for Samar Dev and Karsa Orlong, the world beyond this scene had virtually vanished. A moment was taking portentous shape, hewn one piece at a time, like finding a face in the heart of a block of stone. A moment that spun on some kind of decision, one that Traveller must make, here, now, for it was obvious that Cotillion had placed himself in the warrior's path, and would not step to one side.\n\n\"Karsa– if this goes wrong-\"\n\n\"I have his back,\" said the Toblakai in a growl.\n\n\"But what if-\"\n\nAn inhuman cry from Traveller cut through her words, cut through every thought, slashing like a knife. Such a forlorn, desperate sound– it did not belong to him, could not, but he had thrust out one arm, as if to shove Cotillion aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They stood too far apart for that. Yet Cotillion, now silent, simply stepped away from Traveller's path.\n\nAnd the warrior walked past, but now it was as if each boot needed to be dragged forward, as if Traveller now struggled against some terrible, invisible tide. That ferocious obsession seemed to have come untethered– he walked as would a man lost.\n\nCotillion watched him go, and she saw him lift a forearm to his eyes, as if he did not want the memory of this, as if he could wipe it away with a single, private gesture.\n\nAlthough she did not understand, sorrow flooded through Samar Dev. Sorrow for whom? She had no answer that made sense. She wanted to weep. For Traveller. For Cotillion. For Karsa. For this damned city and this damned night.\n\nThe Hounds had trotted off.\n\nShe blinked. Cotillion too had disappeared.\n\nKarsa shook himself, and then led her onward once more.\n\nThe pressure was building, leaning in on her defences. She sensed cracks, the sifting of dust. And as they stumbled along in Traveller's wake, Samar Dev realized that the warrior was marching straight for the nexus of that power.\n\nThe taste of fear was bitter on her tongue.\n\nNo, Traveller, no. Change your mind. Change it, please.\n\nBut he would not do that, would he? Would not. Could not. The fate of the fated, oh, that sounds clumsy, and yet... what else can it be called? This force of inevitability, both willed and unwilling, both unnecessary and inexorable. The fate of the fated.\n\nWalking, through a city trapped in a nightmare, beneath the ghoulish light of a moon in its death-throes. Traveller might as well be dragging chains, and at the ends of those chains, none other than Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev. And Traveller might as well be wearing his own collar of iron, something invisible but undeniable heaving him forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had never felt so helpless.\n\nIn the eternity leading up to the moment of the Lord of Death's arrival, the world of Dragnipur had begun a slow, deadly and seemingly unstoppable convulsion. Everywhere, the looming promise of annihilation. Everywhere, a chorus of desperate cries, bellowing rage and hopeless defiance. The raw nature of each chained thing was awakened, and each gave that nature voice, and each voice held the flavour of sharp truth. Dragons shrilled, demons roared, fools shrieked in hysteria. Bold heroes and murderous thugs snatched deep breaths that made ribs creak, and then loosed battle cries.\n\nArgent fires were tumbling down from the sky, tearing down through clouds of ash. An army of unimaginable size, from which no quarter was possible, had begun a lumbering charge, and weapons clashed the rims of shields and this white, rolling wave of destruction seemed to surge higher as if seeking to merge with the storm clouds.\n\nFeeble, eroded shapes dragged along at the ends of chains now flopped blunted limbs as if to fend off the fast closing oblivion. Eyes rolled in battered skulls, remnants of life and of knowledge flickering one last time.\n\nNo, nothing wanted to die. When death is oblivion, life will spit in its face. If it can.\n\nThe sentient and the mindless were now, finally, all of one mind.\n\nShake awake all reason. These gathered instincts are not the end but the means. Rattle the chains if you must, but know that that which binds does not break, and the path is never as wayward as one might believe.\n\nDitch stared with one eye into the descending heavens, and knew terror, but that terror was not his. The god that saw with the same eye filled Ditch's skull with its shrieks. Born to die! I am born to die! I am born to die! Not fair not fair not fair! And Ditch just rattled a laugh– or at least imagined that he did so– and replied, We're all born to die, you idiot. Let the span last a single heartbeat, let it last a thousand years. Stretch the heartbeat out, crush down the centuries, it's no different. They feel the same, when the end arrives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gods, they feel the same!\n\nNo, he was not much impressed by this godling cowering in his soul. Kadaspala was mad, mad to think such a creation could achieve anything. Etch deep into its heart this ferocious hunger to kill, and then reveal the horror of its helplessness– oh, was that not cruel beyond all reason? Was that not its own invitation into insanity?\n\nKadaspala, you have but made versions of yourself. You couldn't help it– yes, I see that.\n\nBut, damn you, my flesh belonged tome. Not you.\n\nDamn you-\n\nBut curses meant nothing now. Every fate was now converging. Hah hah, take that, you pious posers, and you arrogant shits, and all you whining victims– see what comes! It's all the same, this end, all the same!\n\nAnd here he was, trapped in the greater scheme. His skin apiece of a tapestry. And its grand scene? A pattern he could never read.\n\nThe demon Pearl stood wearing bodies from which a forest of iron roots swept down in loops and coils. It could carry no more, and so it stood, softly weeping, its legs like two failing trunks that shook and trembled. It had long since weighed the value of hatred. For the High Mage Tayschrenn, who first summoned it and bound it to his will. For Ben Adaephon Delat, who unleashed it against the Son of Darkness; and for Anomander Rake himself, whose sword bit deep. But the value was an illusion. Hate was a lie that in feeding fills the hater with the bliss of satiation, even as his spirit starves. No, Pearl did not hate. Life was a negotiation between the expected and the unexpected. One made do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Draconus staggered up. \"Pearl, my friend, I have come to say goodbye. And to tell you I am sorry.\"\n\n\"What saddens you?\" the demon asked.\n\n\"I am sorry, Pearl, for all of this. For Dragnipur. For the horror forged by my own hands. It was fitting, was it not, that the weapon claimed its maker? I think, yes, it was. It was.\" He paused, and then brought both hands up to his face. Fora moment it seemed he would begin clawing his beard from the skin beneath it. Instead, the shackled hands fell away, down, dragged by the weight of the chains.\n\n\"I too am sorry,\" said Pearl. \"To seethe end of this.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"So many enemies, all here and not one by choice. Enemies, and yet working together for so long. It was a wondrous thing, was it not, Draconus? When necessity forced each hand to clasp, to work as one. A wondrous thing.\"\n\nThe warrior stared at the demon. He seemed unable to speak.\n\nApsal'ara worked her way along the top of the beam. It was hard to hold on, the wagon pitching and rocking so with one last, useless surge forward, and the beam itself thick with the slime of sweat, blood and runny mucus. But something was happening at the portal, that black, icy stain beneath the very centre of the wagon.\n\nA strange stream was flowing into the Gate, an intricate pattern ebbing down through the fetid air from the underside of the wagon's bed. Each tendril was inky black, the space around it ignited by a sickly glow that pulsed slower than any mortal heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was it Kadaspala's pathetic god? Seeking to use the tattooist's insane masterpiece as if it was a latticework, amass of rungs, down which it could clamber and so plunge through the Gate? Seeking to escape?\n\nIf so, then she intended to make use of it first.\n\nLet the cold burn her flesh. Let pieces of her simply fall away. It was a better end than some snarling manifestation of chaos ripping out her throat.\n\nShe struggled ever closer, her breath sleeting out in crackling plumes that sank down in sparkling ice crystals. It reminded her of her youth, the nights out on the tundra, when the first snows came, when clouds shivered and shed their diamond skins and the world grew so still, so breathless and perfect, that she felt that time itself was but moments from freezing solid– to hold her forever in that place, hold her youth, hold tight her dreams and ambitions, her memories of the faces she loved– her mother, her father, her kin, her lovers. No one would grow old, no one would die and fall away from the path, and the path itself, why, it would never end.\n\nLeave me in mid-step. My foot never to settle, never to edge me forward that much closer to the end of things. Yes, leave me here. At the very heart of possibilities, not one of which will crash down. No failures to come, no losses, no regrets to kiss upon the lips– I will not feel the cold.\n\nI will not feel the cold-\n\nShe cried out in the frigid, deathly air. Such pain– how could she ever get close enough?\n\nApsal'ara drew herself up, knees beneath her. And eyed that pattern, just there, a body's length away and still streaming down. If she launched herself from this place, simply threw herself forward, would that flowing net catch her?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Would it simply shatter? Or flow aside, opening up to permit the downward plunge of a body frozen solid, lifeless, eyes open but seeing nothing?\n\nShe had a sudden thought, shivering up through her doubts, her fears. And, with aching limbs, she began dragging up the length of her chains, piling the links on the beam in front of her.\n\nWas the Gate's cold of such power that it could snap these links? If she heaved the heap into that Gate, as much as she could, would the chains break?\n\nAnd then?\n\nShe snarled. Yes, and then what? Run like a hare, leave the wagon far behind, flee the legions of chaos?\n\nAnd when the Gate itself is destroyed, where will I run then? Will this world even exist?\n\nShe realized then that such questions did not matter. To be free, even if only fora moment, would be enough.\n\nApsal'ara, the Mistress of Thieves. How good was she? Why, she slipped the chains of Dragnipur!\n\nShe continued piling up links of the chains, her breaths coming in agonized, lung-numbing gasps.\n\nDraconus stumbled away from Pearl's side. He could not bear the emotions the demon stirred to life within him. He could not understand such a power to forgive, never mind the sheer madness of finding something worthwhile in this cursed realm. And to see Pearl standing there, almost crushed beneath the twitching, dripping bodies of fallen comrades, no, that too was too much.\n\nKadaspala had failed. The pattern was flawed; it had no power to resist what was about to assail them. It had been a desperate gambit, the only kind Draconus had left, and he could not even rail at the blind, legless Tiste Andii. None of us were up to this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moment Rake ceased killing things, we were doomed.\n\nAnd yet, he found he had no rage left in him when he thought of Anomander Rake. In fact, he had begun to understand, even sympathize with that exhausted desire to end things. To end everything. The delusion was calling it a game in the first place. That very founding principle had assured ultimate failure. Bored gods and children with appalling power, these were the worst sorts of arbiters in this scheme of existence. They fought change even as they forced it upon others; they sought to holdall they claimed even as they struggled to steal all they could from rivals. They proclaimed love only to kill it in betrayal and spite.\n\nYes, Draconus understood Rake. Any game that played with grief was afoul thing, an abomination. Destroy it. Bring it all down, Rake. Rake, my heir, my son inspirit, my unknown and unknowable inheritor. Do as you must.\n\nI stand aside.\n\nOh, bold words.\n\nWhen the truth is, I have no choice.\n\nThe force that suddenly descended upon the realm of Dragnipur was of such magnitude that, for an instant, Draconus believed the chaos had finally reached them, and he was driven to his knees, stunned, half blinded. The immense pressure bore down, excruciating, and Draconus ducked his head, covered it with his arms, and felt his spine bowing beneath a crushing presence.\n\nIf there was sound, he heard nothing. If there was light, he saw only darkness. If there was air, he could not draw it into his lungs. He felt his bones groaning-\n\nThe torture eased with the settling of a skeletal, long-fingered hand on his right shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sounds rose once more, strangely muted. A renewed storm of wailing terror and dismay. In front of Draconus the world found its familiar details, although they seemed ghostly, ephemeral. He was able, at last, to breathe deep– and he tasted death.\n\nSomeone spoke above him. \"He is indeed a man of his word.\"\n\nAnd Draconus twisted round, lifted his gaze– the hand on his shoulder rasping away with a rustle of links– and stared up at the one who had spoken. At Hood, the Lord and High King of the Dead.\n\n\"No!\" Draconus bellowed, rising only to stagger back, almost tripping on his chains. \"No! What has he done? By the Abyss, what has Rake done?\"\n\nHood half raised his arms and seemed to be staring down at the manacles enclosing his gaunt wrists.\n\nDisbelief collapsed into shock, and then raw horror. This made no sense. Draconus did not understand. He could not– gods– he could not believe-\n\nHe spun round, then, and stared at the legions of chaos– oh, they had been pushed back, a league or more, by the arrival of this singular creature, by the power of Hood. The actinic storm clouds had tumbled in retreat, building anew and seeming to thrash in frustration– yes, an interlude had been purchased. But– \"Wasted. All wasted! Why? This has achieved nothing! Hood– you were betrayed. Can you not see that? No-\" Draconus clutched at his head. \"Rake, oh Rake, what did you want of this? How could you think it would achieve anything?\"\n\n\"I have missed you, Draconus,\" Hood said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he twisted round once more, glaring at the god. Jaghut. Yes, the mad, unknowable Jaghut. \"You damned fool! You asked for this, didn't you? Have you lost your mind? '\n\n\"A bargain, old friend,\" Hood replied, still studying the chains on his wrists. \"A... gamble.\"\n\n\"What will happen? When chaos claims you? When chaos devours the realm of death itself? You have betrayed the gods, all of them. You have betrayed all life. When you fall-\"\n\n\"Draconus,\" Hood cut in with a sigh, reaching up now to pullback the hood, revealing that withered Jaghut face, the clawed lines of eternal sorrow. \"Draconus, my friend,\" he said softly, \"surely you do not think I have come here alone?\"\n\nHe stared at the god, fora moment uncomprehending. And then– he caught a distant roar of sound, edging in from three of the four horizons, and those indistinct skylines were now... seething.\n\nAs the armies of the dead marched at the behest of their Lord.\n\nFrom one side, a score of riders was fast approaching.\n\n\"Hood,\" Draconus said, numbed, baffled, \"they are unchained.\"\n\n\"So they are.\"\n\n\"This is not their fight.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. That is, as yet, undecided.\"\n\nDraconus shook his head. \"They cannot be here. They cannot fight the enemy– those dead, Hood, all they have left is their identities, each soul, barely holding on. You cannot do this to them! You cannot ask this of them!\"\n\nThe god was now eyeing the wagon. \"All I shall ask,\" he said, \"of the fallen, Draconus, is that they choose. Of their own will. After this, I shall ask nothing of them. Ever again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So who will claim the dead?\"\n\n\"Let the gods see to their own.\"\n\nThe coldness of that response staggered Draconus. \"And what of those who worship no gods?\"\n\n\"Yes, what of them?\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean? '\n\n\"After this,\" Hood said, still studying the wagon, \"the dead will not be my concern. Ever again.\"\n\nThe approaching riders rode rotted, skeletal mounts. Ragged capes flailed out behind the warriors. From the advancing armies, countless standards wavered and pitched about amidst up-thrust spearheads. The numbers were indeed unimaginable. Broken fragments of war songs arrived like tatters of wind. The realm groaned– Draconus could not comprehend the weight that must now be crushing down the weapon's wielder. Could Draconus have withstood it? He did not know. But then, perhaps even at this moment Anomander Rake himself was dying, bones snapping, blood spurting...\n\nBut there was more. Here, before his eyes.\n\nAll the creatures chained to the wagon had ceased pulling the enormous edifice– for the first time in millennia, the wagon had stopped rolling. And those creatures stood or knelt, staring outward, silent, perhaps disbelieving, as legions of the dead closed in. A flood, an ocean of iron and bone-\n\nThe riders arrived. Strangers all to Draconus. Six trotted their withered mounts closer. One of them was masked, and he had seen those masks before– a host slain in succession by Anomander Rake. Seguleh. The marks upon this one told Draconus that he was looking upon the Second. Had he challenged the First? Or had someone challenged him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Second was the first to speak. \"This is the sorry shithole you want us to fight for, Hood? Flinging ourselves into the maw of chaos.\" The masked face seemed to scan the huddled, bedraggled creatures in their chains. \"What are these, that we must now die again for? That we must cease for? Miserable wretches, one and all! Useless fools, bah! Hood, you ask too much.\"\n\nThe Lord of Death did not even face the Seguleh as he replied, \"Do you now change your mind, Knight?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I was just complaining.\" He drew out a pair of notched, rust-stained swords. \"You know me better than that. Still, oh, how I wanted Skinner. To lose him this way– by the Tyrant, it galls.\"\n\n\"That is why,\" said Hood, \"you will not lead the Dead into this war.\"\n\n\"What? I am the Knight of Death! The damned bony fist himself! I demand-\"\n\n\"Oh, do be quiet, Second,\" sighed the Lord of Death. \"Other tasks await you– and you will not rue them, I am sure. Iskar Jarak, will you command in the Knight's stead? At the head of the spear, driving into the very heart of the enemy? '\n\nThe one so addressed had the look of a veteran among veterans. Grey-bearded, scarred, wearing threadbare, faded colours over his plain chain hauberk. Grey and magenta, bordered in black. At Hood's request he faced the Jaghut.\"We will harden the point, \"he said.\"With Malazans. At the very tip, my Bridgeburners. Dujek on my left flank, Bult on the right with the Seventh and his Wickans. \"He then twisted in the saddle to regard another soldier.\"Brukhalian and his Grey Swords to the right of Bult. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brukhalian nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I find honour in that, Iskar Jarak.\"\n\n\"Skamar Ara, your Jacuruku legions to the left of Dujek. Hood, listen well. Beyond the spear, so many of the rest are so much dross. Their will is weakened by countless millennia– they will march into the face of the enemy, but they will not last.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hood.\n\n\"Just so you know,\" said Iskar Jarak. \"Just so you know.\"\n\n\"Return now to your forces,\" Hood commanded. \"Iskar Jarak, send tome the one-eyed outrider. And Bult, find my Soldier, the one once named Baudin. There are things still to do.\"\n\nDraconus watched as the commanders rode off, with only the Seguleh remaining, swords sheathed once more.\n\n\"Hood,\" he said, \"what is happening here? You will ask the dead to fight for us? They will fail. They will earn oblivion and naught else. They cannot succeed, Hood. The chaos pursuing Dragnipur will not be denied– do you understand what I'm telling you? '\n\nThe Knight snorted. 'It is you who does not understand, Elder. Long before he was Lord of the Fallen, he was Jaghut.\n\nLords of the Last Stands, hah! Sentinels of the Sundered Keeps. Devourers of the Forlorn Hope. You, Elder, who stood time and again against the Tiste Andii, the Tiste Edur– you, who walked the ashes of Kharkanas itself– understand me. The dour Tiste Andii and the suicidal Edur, they areas nothing to the miserable madness of the Jaghut! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During this tirade, Hood continued to stare at the wagon, at its towering, tottering heap of bodies. And then the Lord of the Dead spoke. \"I often wondered what it looked like, this Hold creaking on its wooden wheels... apathetic thing, really. Crude, clumsy.\" He faced Draconus, rotted skin curling back from the tusks. \"Now, turn it around.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ask what the dead face Snatching the curtain aside These stony tracks into blind worlds Whereto grope is to recall All the precious jewels of life\n\nAsk what the dead see In that last backward glance These fetish strings knots left untied Where every sinew strains To reach and touch once more\n\nAsk what the dead know When knowing means nothing Arms full and heaped with baubles As if to build a home anew In places we've never been\n\nAsk but the dead do not answer Behind the veil of salty rain Skirl now amid the rotted leavings When the worms fall away To that wealth of silence\n\nThe Lost Treasures of Indaros Fisher kel Tath\n\nEyes rolling white, the ox ran for its life. Cart skidding and bouncing, tilting on one wild wheel as the moaning beast hurtled round a corner and raced down a cobbled street.\n\nEven the gods could not reach through that thick-boned pate of skull, down into the tender knot of terror in its murky brain. Once prodded awake, incessant need blurred the world beyond, reducing all to a narrow tunnel with salvation at the far, far end. Why, who could comprehend such extremity? Not mortal kin, much less a god with its eternally bemused brow– to regard such fitful interludes, blank-eyed and mind rushing past like a flash flood, what would be the value of that, after all?\n\nThe beast is what it is. Four-legged, two-legged. Panic will use as many limbs as are available to it, and a few more besides. Panic will ride a wheeled cart, and thunder on dung-smeared hoofs. Panic will scrabble up the very walls as one horrendous Hound after another slinks past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The night air stinks and that stink fills the nostrils with all the frenzied flags of a ship floundering on shoals. Smoke and blood, bile and piss. But, mostly, blood.\n\nAnd then there were the screams. Ringing out everywhere, so many of them cutting off in mid-shriek, or, even more chilling, in strangled gurgle. Mothers never before heard such a multitude of beseeching calls! And who could say if the ox was not bellowing for its own, for that sweet teat, the massive hulk looming overhead, with all its sure scents and briny warmth? Alas, the beast's mam was long since sent off to pull the great cart beyond the veil, and even could she come lumbering back at the desperate call of her get, what might she achieve in the face of a Hound?\n\nNo, solitary flight this must remain. For each and all. Ox, horse, dog, cat, mouse and rat, lizard and gnat. And people of all sorts. Old men with limps, old men who never limped in their lives but did so now. Women of all ages, sizes and dispositions, who would have limped could it have earned the necessary sympathy. Yet when even the rooftops hold no succour, why bother riding this bouncing cart of headlong panic? Best to simply flop down in abject surrender, with but a few tugs to rearrange the lie of one's dress or whatnot. Let the men soil themselves in their terror– they never washed enough as it was.\n\nNobles fled ignobly, the fallen fairly flew as if on winged feet, thieves blustered and bullies whined and wheedled, guards in their blind fear observed nothing and soldiers fled every clash of iron, tooth and claw. Fools with nothing stood their ground. Gamblers danced and whores bluffed– and inside a Temple of Shadow deliciously feminine acolytes squealed and darted from the path of a screaming Magus atop his charging mule, straight through the grand altar room, censers flying with tails of uncoiling serpentine smoke and heads with glowing coal eyes in myriad profusion. In the mule's careering wake, winged bhokarala shrieked and flitted about flinging gobs of snot and segmented cones of hairy dung at every fleeing female, while spiders swarmed up from the old long-forgotten blood drain at the base of the altar stone, a veritable carpet of seething jerky stick-legs, glistening abdomens, patterned thoraxes and beady Dal Honese eyes by the thousands, nay tens of thousands! And was it any wonder the Magus and the mule pelted right across the chamber, the doors at the far end exploding open as if of their own accord?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even as the High Priestess– stumbling out from behind a curtain like a woman tossed from the throes of manic lovemaking, with stubble-rubbed chin and puffy lips high and low and breasts all awry and great molten swells of pale flesh swaying to and fro– plunging, yes, into the midst of that crawling black carpet of spite and venom, and so no wonder she began a dance riotous in its frenzy but let's face it, even Mogora was too shocked, too disbelieving, to sink a forest of fangs into such sweetmeat– and the bhokarala swooped down to scoop up handfuls of yummy spiders and crunch crunch into their maws and if spiders could scream, why, they did so then, even as they foamed in swirling retreat back down the drain.\n\nMule and Magus drum-rolled down the colonnade and out through another shattered set of doors, out into the moody alleyway with its huddled mass of hiding refugees, who now scattered at the arrival of this dread apparition, and the squall of bhokarala swirling out behind it.\n\nNow, wing swift as a burning moth across the city, back to the ox as it lumbered along in heart-pounding, chest-heaving exhaustion– pursued by an angry cart and who knew what else– and found itself fast approaching the collapsed ruin of an enormous building of some sort...\n\nSerendipity serves as the quaintest description of the fickle mayhem delivered by the Hounds of Shadow. Shortly following the breach of the gate, Baran pelted westward in pursuit of Pallid, as that bone-white beast broke from the pack with untoward designs in another part of the stricken city.\n\nPallid was unaware that it was being hunted as it discovered a dozen city guards rushing down the centre of the street, heading for the destroyed gate. The monstrous beast lunged into their midst, lashing outwith slavering jaws. Armour collapsed, limbs were torn away, weapons spun through the air. Screams erupted in a welter of slaughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even as Pallid crushed in its jaws the head of the last guard, Baran arrived in an avalanche." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The impact boomed like thunder as Pallid was struck in the side, the caged bell of its chest reverberating as both beasts skidded and then struck the wall of a large building.\n\nThe solid, fortified entranceway was punched inward. Stone shards tore through the three people unlucky enough to be stationed in the front room. The huge blocks framing the doors tumbled down, bouncing like knuckle bones, crushing one of the wounded men before he could even scream. The remaining two, lacerated and spilling blood, were pushed back by the broad front desk, and pinned against the far wall. Both died within moments, bones and organs macerated.\n\nRolling, snapping and growling, the two Hounds shattered that desk, and the grillework attached to it sailed upward to crack on the ceiling, which had already begun sagging as its supports and braces gave way. With terrible groans, the entire front of the structure dragged itself down, and now screams rose through the dust, muted and pitiful.\n\nAnother wall collapsed under the impact of the beasts, and beyond it was a corridor and bars lining cells, and two more guards who sought to flee down the aisle's length– but this entire room was coming down, the iron bars snapping out from their frames, locks shattering. Prisoners vanished beneath splintered wooden beams, plaster and bricks.\n\nRearing back onto its hind legs, knocked over by another charge from Baran, Pallid smashed into one cell. The prisoner within it pitched down and rolled up against one side as the Hounds, locked once more, knocked down the back wall and, kicking and snarling, rolled into the space beyond– an alleyway already half filled with falling masonry as the entire gaol broke apart.\n\nThe lone prisoner scrambled back to his feet and rushed into the Hounds' wake-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But not in time, as the floor above dropped down to fill the cell.\n\nIn the alley Pallid had managed to close its jaws about Baran's shoulder, and with a savage surge sent the beast wheeling through the air to crunch into what remained of the wall on that side– and this too folded inward beneath the impact of Baran's thrashing weight.\n\nFrom the wreckage of the first cell, a section of plaster and mortared brick lifted up, and as it tumbled back the prisoner– covered in dust, bruised and bleeding– began to climb free.\n\nPallid, hearing these sounds– the gasps and coughs, the scrambling– wheeled round, eyes blazing.\n\nAnd Barathol paused, legs still pinned, and stared into those infernal orbs, and knew that they were the last things he would ever see.\n\nPallid gathered its legs for its charge. Its smeared, torn lips stretched back to reveal its massive fangs, and then it sprang forward-\n\nEven as a figure hurtled bodily into its side, striking it low, beneath its right shoulder, hard enough to twist the animal round as it flew in mid-air.\n\nBarathol flung himself back and as much to one side as he could manage, as the Hound's crimson-splashed head pounded side-on into the rubble, its flailing body following.\n\nPicking himself up from the ground, Chaur looked over at Barathol, and then showed him a bright red smile, even as he dragged free the huge war-axe he had collected from the smithy– Barathol's very own weapon. As Pallid clambered back upright, Chaur threw the axe in Barathol's direction, and then picked up a chunk of stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barathol shrieked, desperate to tear himself free, as the white Hound, snarling, spun to face Chaur with fury incandescent in its eyes.\n\nFrom the rubble farther down the alley, Baran was working free, but it would not arrive in time. Not for Chaur.\n\nKicking, heedless of tearing flesh, Barathol fought on.\n\nChaur threw his stone the instant the white Hound charged.\n\nIt struck the beast's snout dead-on.\n\nA yelp of agony, and then the beast's momentum slammed it into Chaur, sent him flying across the alley to crunch sickeningly against the opposite wall. When he fell to the grimy cobbles, he did not move.\n\nBarathol dragged his legs loose, leaving trails of blood and pieces of meat. He rolled, grasping hold of the axe handle, and then heaved himself to his feet.\n\nPallid's huge head turned.\n\nBaran broke clear into the alley.\n\nThe white Hound looked over, and, with another snarl, the beast pivoted round and fled.\n\nA moment later Baran flashed past.\n\nBarathol sagged back on wobbly legs. Drawing in one cold breath after another, he turned his gaze once more upon the motionless body opposite. With a sob, he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled over.\n\nIn the strange, mysterious places within the brain, places that knew of themselves as Chaur, a black flood was seeping in, and one by one those places began to drown. Fitful sparks ebbed, and once gone did not light again. His state of unconsciousness slipped into something deeper, a kind of protective oblivion that mercifully hid from Chaur the fact that he was dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His expression was serene, save for the slow sag along one side of his face, and when Barathol rolled back his eyelids, the pupil of one eye was vastly dilated.\n\nWeeping, the blacksmith pulled Chaur's head and upper body onto his thighs. The rest of the world, the explosions, the screams, the thunder of battle, all fell away, and it was sometime before Barathol realized that someone was clambering out of the rubble that was the gaol. A staccato cascade of curses in Falari, Malazan, Dobri and Daru. Blinking, the blacksmith lifted his gaze.\n\n\"Antsy– here, please, I need your help! Please. He's hurt. '\n\nThe ex-Bridgeburner was covered in dust but otherwise unscathed. \"I lost my damned sword. I lost my damned crossbow. I lost my damned sharpers. I lost my-\" \"Antsy! Hood's breath, please help me– we need to find a healer. High Denul– there must be one in the city. There must be! '\n\n\"Well, there's Mallet, but he's– shit, he's dead. I forgot. Can't believe I forgot.\" Antsy crouched down and studied Chaur fora moment, and then he shook his head. \"He's done for, Barathol. Cracked skull, bleeding into his brain– you can always tell, when one side of the face goes-'\n\n\"I know all that, damn you. We need a healer! Think, Antsy– there must be someone.\"\n\n\"Maybe, but not close– we got to cross half the city, Barathol, and with them Hounds-\"\n\n\"Never mind the Hounds.\" The blacksmith gathered Chaur up into his arms and straightened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy stared. \"You can't carry him-'\n\n\"Then help me!\"\n\n\"I'm trying! Let me think. '\n\nAt that moment they both heard the clumping of hoofs, the clack of wooden wheels on cobbles. And they turned to the alley mouth.\n\nBehold, the ox. Too weary to run. Even the cart in its wake clumped in exhaustion. Stolid legs trembled. Mucus slathered down in a gleaming sheet that dragged dusty tendrils between the beast's front hoofs. The painful clarity of panic was fading, dulling its eyes once more, and when the two man-things arrived and set down a third body on the bed of the cart, why, this was old business as far as the ox was concerned. At last, the world had recovered its sanity. There were tasks to be done, journeys to complete. Salvation sweeter than mam's milk.\n\nTired but content, the beast fell instep beside the manthings.\n\nThe two cousins stood on the rooftop, looking out over the city. Conflagrations lit the night sky. A section of the Gadrobi District was aflame, with geysers of burning gas spouting high into the air. A short time earlier a strange atmospheric pressure had descended, driving down the fires– nothing was actually spreading, as far as could be determined, and the detonations had grown more infrequent. Even so, there was no one fighting the flames, which was, all things considered, hardly surprising.\n\nIn the courtyard below, Studious Lock was fussing about over the fallen compound guards, both of whom had been dragged out onto pallets. Miraculously, both still lived, although, having survived the assassins, there remained the grave chance that they would not survive Studlock's ministrations. Scorch and Leff had set themselves the task of patrolling outside the estate, street by alley by street by alley, round and round, crossbows at the ready and instates of high excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These Hounds,\" said Rallick, \"are most unwelcome.\"\n\n\"It seems walls don't stop them either. Any idea why they're here?\"\n\nWhen Rallick did not reply, Torvald glanced over and saw that his cousin was staring up at the shattered moon.\n\nTorvald did not follow his gaze. That mess unnerved him. Would those spinning chunks now begin raining down? Rallick had noted earlier that most of the fragments seemed to beheading the other way, growing ever smaller. There was another moon that arced a slower path that seemed to suggest it was farther away, and while it appeared tiny its size was in fact unknown. For all anyone knew, it might be another world as big as this one, and maybe now it was doomed to a rain of death. Anyway, Torvald didn't much like thinking about it.\n\n\"Rallick-\"\n\n\"Never mind, Tor. I want you to stay here, within the walls. I doubt there will be any trouble– the Mistress has reawakened her wards.\"\n\n\"Tiserra-\"\n\n\"Is a clever woman, and a witch besides. She'll be fine, and mostly will be worrying about you. Stay here, cousin, until the dawn. '\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\nRallick turned about then, and a moment later Torvald sensed that someone else had joined them, and he too swung round.\n\nVorcan stood, wrapped in a thick grey cloak. \"The High Alchemist,\" she said to Rallick, \"suggested we be close by... in case we are needed. The time, I believe, has come.\"\n\nRallick nodded. \"Rooftops and wires, Mistress?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. \"You make me nostalgic. Please, take the lead.\"\n\nAnd yes, Torvald comprehended all the subtle layers beneath those gentle words, and he was pleased. Leave it to my cousin to find for himself the most dangerous woman alive. Well, then again, maybe I found myself the second most, especially if I forget to buy bread on my way home.\n\nEdging round the corner of the wall, an alley behind them, a street before them, Scorch and Leff paused. No point in being careless now, even though there'd be no attack from any assassins anytime soon, unless of course they did breed fast as botflies, and Scorch wasn't sure if Leff had been joking with that, not sure at all.\n\nThe street was empty. No refugees, no guards, no murderous killers all bundled in black.\n\nMost important of all: no Hounds.\n\n\"Damn,\" hissed Leff, \"where are them beasts? What, you smell badder and worster than anyone else, Scorch? Is that the problem here? Shit, I want me a necklace of fangs. And maybe a paw to hang at my belt.\"\n\n\"A paw? More like a giant club making you walk tilted over. Now, that'd be funny to see, all right. Worth getting a knock or two taking one of \"em down, just to see that. A Hound's paw, hah hah. '\n\n\"You said you wanted a skull!\"\n\n\"Wasn't planning to wear it, though. To make me a boat, just flip it upside down, right? I could paddle round the lake. '\n\n\"Skulls don't float. Well, maybe yours would, being cork. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They set out onto the street.\n\n\"I'd call it Seahound, what do you think? '\n\n\"More like Sinkhound.\"\n\n\"You don't know anything you think you know, Leff. That's your problem. Always has been, always will be.\"\n\n\"Wish there'd been twenty more of them assassins. '\n\n\"There were, just not attacking us. We was the diversion, that's what Tor said. '\n\n\"We diverted'em, all right. '\n\nAt that momenta Hound of Shadow slunk into view, not twenty paces away. Its sides were heaving, strips of flesh hanging down trailing threads of blood. Its mouth was crusted with red foam. It swung its head and eyed them.\n\nIn unison, Scorch and Leff lifted their crossbows into vertical positions, and spat on the barbed heads. Then they slowly settled the weapons back down, trained on the Hound.\n\nNostrils flaring, the beast flinched back. A moment later and it was gone.\n\n\"Shit!\"\n\n\"I knew you smelled bad, damn you! We almost had it!\"\n\n\"Wasn't me! '\n\n\"It's no fun wandering around with you, Scorch, no fun at all. Every chance we get, you go and mess it all up. '\n\n\"Not on purpose. I like doing fun stuff as much as you do, I swear it!\"\n\n\"Next time,\" muttered Leff. \"We shoot first and argue later.\"\n\n\"Good idea. Next time. We'll do it right the next time. '\n\nBeneath a moon that haunted him with terrifying memories, Cutter rode Coll's horse at a slow trot down the centre of the street. In one hand he gripped the lance, but it felt awkward, too heavy. Not a weapon he'd ever used, and yet something made him reluctant to abandon it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could hear the Hounds of Shadow, unleashed like demons in his poor city, and this too stirred images from the past, but these were bittersweet. For she was in them, a presence dark, impossibly soft. He saw once more everyone of her smiles, rare as they had been, and they stung like drops of acid on his soul.\n\nHe had been so lost, from the very morning he awoke in the monastery to find her gone. Oh, he'd delivered his brave face, standing there beside a god and unwilling to seethe sympathy in Cotillion's dark eyes. He had told himself that it was an act of courage to let her go, to give her the final decision. Courage and sacrifice.\n\nHe no longer believed that. There was no sacrifice made in being abandoned. There was no courage in doing nothing. Regardless of actual age, he had been so much younger than her. Young in that careless, senseless way. When thinking felt hard, unpleasant, until one learned to simply shy away from the effort, even as blind emotions raged, one conviction after another raised high on the shining shield of truth. Or what passed for truth; and he knew now that whatever it had been, truth it was not. Blustery, belligerent stands, all those pious poses– they seemed so childish now, so pathetic. I could have embraced the purest truth. Still, nobody would listen. The older you get, the thicker your walls. No wonder the young have grown so cynical. No wonder at all.\n\nOh, she stood there still, a dark figure in his memories, the flash of eyes, the beginnings of a smile even as she turned away. And he could forget nothing.\n\nAt this moment, Challice, having ascended to the top of the estate tower– that ghoulish Gadrobi embarrassment– now stepped out onto the roof, momentarily buffeted by a gust of smoke. She held in her hands the glass globe in which shone the prisoner moon, and she paused, lifting her gaze, and stared in wonder at the destruction now filling a third of the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "*\n\nBut she had left him with bad habits. Terrible ones, and they had proceeded to shape his entire life. Cutter remembered the expression on Rallick's face– the shock and the dismay– as he looked down at the knife buried in his shoulder. The recognition– yes, Cutter was Apsalar's creation, through and through. Yes, another man had been lost.\n\nIt seemed wryly fitting that the moon was breaking into pieces in the night sky, but to find amusement in such a poignant symbol was proving a struggle. He did not possess Rallick's hardness, the layers of scar tissue worn like armour. And, for all that she had given him, Cutter was not her perfect reflection. He could not silence the anguish he felt inside, the legacy of delivering murder, making the notion of justice as unpalatable as a prisoner's gruel. And these were things she did not feel.\n\nHe rode on.\n\nThe Hounds knew him, he was sure of that, and if that meant anything on this night, then he had no reason to fear them.\n\nThe occasional refugee darted across his path. Like ousted rats, the desperate hunt for cover filled their minds, and the faces flashing past seemed empty of anything human. Survival was a fever, and it left eyes blank as those of a beached fish. Witnessing this, Cutter felt his heartbreaking.\n\nThis is my city. Darujhistan. Of the Blue Fires. It does not deserve this.\n\nNo, he did not fear the Hounds of Shadow. But he now despised them. The devastation they were delivering was senseless, a pointless unleashing of destruction. He did not think Cotillion had anything at all to do with that. This stank of Shadowthrone, the fickleness, the cruel indifference. He had freed his beasts to play. In blood and snapped bones. Inflames and collapsed tenements. All this fear, all this misery. For nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Awkward or not, the lance felt reassuring in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, if only Shadowthrone would show himself, why, he'd find a place to plant the damned thing.\n\nThere, within its tiny, perfect world, the moon shone pure, unsullied. There had been a time, she realized, when she too had been like that. Free of stains, not yet bowed to sordid compromise, feeling no need to shed this tattered skin, these glazed eyes.\n\nWomen and men were no different in the important things. They arrived with talents, with predispositions, with faces and bodies either attractive to others or not. And they all made do, in all the flavours of living, with whatever they possessed. And there were choices, for each and everyone of them. For some, a few of those choices were easier than others, when the lure of being desirable was not a conceit, when it reached out an inviting hand and all at once it seemed to offer the simplest path. So little effort was involved, merely a smile and thighs that did not resist parting.\n\nBut there was no going back. These stains didn't wash off. The moon shone pure and beautiful, but it remained forever trapped.\n\nShe stared up into the sky, watched how fragments spun out from a fast-darkening core. The momentum seemed to have slowed, and indeed, she thought she could see pieces falling back, inward, whilst dust flattened out, as if transformed into a spear that pierced all that was left of the moon.\n\nThe dust dreams of the world it had once been. But the dust, alas, does not command the wind.\n\nCutter knew now that he had– since her– taken into his arms two women as if they were capable of punishing him, each in turn. Only one had succeeded, and he rode towards her now, to stand before her and tell her that he had murdered her husband. Not because she had asked him to, because, in truth, she did not have that sort of holdover him, and never would. No, Gorlas Vidikas was dead for other reasons, the specifics of which were not relevant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was free, he would say. To do as she pleased. But whatever that would be, he would tell her, her future would not– could never– include him.\n\n\"See, there he is, at her side. What gall! Kills her husband and now she hangs on his arm. Oh, made for each other, those two. And may Hood find them the deepest pit, and soon.\"\n\nHe could face that down, if need be. But he would not subject her to such a fate. Not even for love could he do that.\n\nHe had returned to his city, only to lose it forever.\n\nThis journey to Challice would be his last. By dawn he would begone. Darujhistan would not miss him.\n\nShe looked down once more at the imprisoned moon cupped in her hands. And here, she realized, washer childhood in all its innocence. Frozen, timeless, and forever beyond her reach. She need only let her gaze sink in, to find all that she had once been. Cursed with beauty, blessed with health and vigour, the glow of promise-\n\nDust of dreams, will you now command the wind?\n\nDust of dreams, is it not time to set you free?\n\nIt was easy, then, to climb upon to the low wall, to stare down at the garden flagstones far below. Easy, yes, to set it all free.\n\nTogether, they plummeted through the smoky air, and when they struck, the globe shattered, the tiny moon flung loose to sparkle briefly in the air. Before twinkling out.\n\nDreams will not linger, but their dust rides the winds forever.\n\nKruppe is no stranger to sorrow. The round man need only look at his own waistline to grasp the tragedies of past excesses, and understand that all the things that come to pass will indeed come to pass. Heart so heavy he must load it into a wheelbarrow (or nearly so), and with not a single sly wink to offer, he leaves the grim confines of the Phoenix Inn and commences the torrid trek to the stables, where he attends to his sweet-natured mule, deftly avoiding its snapping bites and lashing kicks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moon's face has broken apart into a thousand glittering eyes. Nothing can hide and all is seen. All can see that there is nothing left to hide. Dread clash is imminent.\n\nThe vast pressure snuffs blazing fires as would a thumb and finger a candlewick, snuff! Here and there and elsewhere, too. But this blessing is borne with harsh, cruel burden. A god has died, a pact been sealed, and in a street where onlookers now gather at the very edges, a most honourable man sits hunched over his knees, head bowed low. The wind takes ethereal chains emerging from the sword in his hands, and tugs them, tears at them, shreds them into ghostly nothings that drift up only to vanish in the smoke enwreathing the city.\n\nWill he rise again?\n\nCan he answer this final challenge?\n\nWhat sort of man is this? This white-maned Tiste Andii whose hands remain stained with a brother's blood, a people's vast loss?\n\nAh, but look closely. The core burns still, hot and pure, and it gathers unto itself, bound by indomitable will. He will take the wounds of the heart, for Anomander Rake is the sort of man who sees no other choice, who accepts no other choice.\n\nStill. For now, grant him a few more moments of peace.\n\nThe round man rides out into Darujhistan.\n\nThere are temptations, and to some they can prove, ah, overwhelming. If need be, the round man can prove a most blunt barrier.\n\nJust ask the man with the hammer.\n\nAs a warrior walked alone– in his wake a Toblakai and a witch, on the flanks three, now four Hounds of Shadow– an ox and cart drew to a halt outside an estate. The two men leading it separated, one heading to the back of the cart to set a trembling hand upon a chest– terrified that he might find it still, silent– and a moment later a faint sob broke free, but it was one of relief. The other man hurried up to the postern gate and tugged on a braided cord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ducked upon hearing the heavy flap of feathered wings overhead, and glared upward, but saw nothing but a thick, impenetrable layer of smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He twitched as he waited, muttering under his breath.\n\nThe door creaked open.\n\n\"Master Baruk! I am glad it's you and not one of your damned servants– getting past them is impossible. Listen, we have a hurt man– bad hurt– who needs healing. We'll pay-\"\n\n\"Sergeant-\"\n\n\"Just Antsy these days, sir.\"\n\n\"Antsy, I am so sorry, but I must refuse you-\"\n\nAt that, Barathol came round the cart and marched up, his hands curling into fists fora moment, before loosening as he reached towards the huge axe slung across his back. But these gestures were instinctive– he was not even aware of them, and when he spoke it was in atone of despairing fury. \"His skull is fractured! He'll die without healing– and I will not accept that! '\n\nBaruk held up both hands. \"I was about to leave– I cannot delay any longer. Certain matters demand my immediate attention-\"\n\n\"He needs-\"\n\n\"I am sorry, Barathol.\"\n\nAnd the alchemist was backing through the gate once more. The panel clicked shut.\n\nAntsy snatched and tugged at his moustache in agitation, and then reached out to restrain Barathol, who seemed about to kick down that door. \"Hold on, hold on– I got another idea. It's desperate, but I can't think of anything else. Come on, it's not far. '\n\nBarathol was too distraught to say anything– he would grasp any hope, no matter how forlorn. Face ashen, he went back to the ox, and when Antsy set out, he and the ox and the cart bearing the body of Chaur followed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the stricken man's mind, few sparks remained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black tide was very nearly done. Those flickers that knew themselves as Chaur had each lost touch with the others, and so wandered lost. But then, some of them had known only solitary existences throughout their lives– crucial sparks indeed– forever blind to pathways that might have awakened countless possibilities.\n\nUntil one, drifting untethered, so strangely freed, now edged forward along a darkened path it had never before explored, and the track it burned remained vibrant in its wake. And then, in a sudden flaring, that spark found another of its kind.\n\nSomething stirred then, therein the midst of an inner world fast dying.\n\nAwareness.\n\nRecognition.\n\nA tumbling complexity of thoughts, connections, relationships, meanings.\n\nFlashing, stunned with its own existence, even as the blackness closed in on all sides.\n\nCutting down an alley away from Baruk's estate, Antsy, ten paces in the lead, stumbled suddenly on something. Swearing, he glanced back at the small object lying on the cobbles, and then bent down to collect it, stuffing the limp thing into his cloak.\n\nHe swore again, something about a stink, but what's a dead nose gonna know or care? And then he resumed walking.\n\nThey arrived at an estate that Barathol recognized. Coll's. And Antsy returned to help lead the suddenly uneasy ox down the sidetrack, to that primordial thicket behind the garden wall. Beneath the branches the gloom was thick with flying moths, their wings a chorus of dry whispering. Fog crawled between the boles of twisted trees. The air was rich with a steamy, earthy smell.\n\nTears ran down Barathol's cheeks, soaked his beard.\"I told him to stay on the ship, \"he said in a tight, distraught voice.\"He usually listens tome. He's not one to disobey, not Chaur. Was it Spite? Did she force him out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was he doing at the gaol?\" Antsy asked, just to keep his friend talking for reasons even he could not explain. \"How did he even find it, unless someone led him there? It's all a damned mystery. '\n\n\"He saved my life,\" said Barathol. \"He was coming to break me out– he had my axe. Chaur, you fool, why didn't you just leave it all alone? '\n\n\"He couldn't do that, ' said Antsy.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThey arrived at the edge of the clearing, halting just beyond a low, uneven stonewall almost buried beneath vines. The gateway was an arch of rough stone veined with black roots. The house beyond showed a blackened face.\n\n\"Let's do this, then, \"said Antsy in a growl, coming round to the back of the cart.\"Before the ox bolts-'\n\n\"What are we doing?\"\n\n\"We're carrying him up the path. Listen, Barathol, we got to stay on that path, you understand? Not one step off it, not one. Understand? '\n\n\"No-\"\n\n\"This is the Finnest House, Barathol. It's an Azath. '\n\nThe ex-sergeant seemed to be standing within a cloud of rotting meat. Moths swarmed in a frenzy.\n\nConfused, frightened, Barathol helped Antsy lift Chaur's body from the cart bed, and with the Falari in the lead and walking backwards– one tender step at a time– they made their way up the flagstone path.\n\n\"You know,\" Antsy said between gasps– for Chaur was a big man, and, limp as he was, it was no easy thing carrying him– \"I was thinking. If the damned moon can just break apart like that, who's to say that can't happen to our own world? We could just be-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be quiet,\" snapped Barathol. \"I don't give a shit about the moon– it's been trying to kill me for sometime. Careful, you're almost there. '\n\n\"Right, set him down then, easy, on the stones... aye, that'll do. '\n\nAntsy stepped up to the door, reached for the knife at his belt and then swore. \"I lost my knife, too. I can't believe this! ' He made a fist and pounded against the wood.\n\nThe sound that made was reminiscent of punching a wall of meat. No reverberation, no echoes.\n\n\"Ow, that hurt.\"\n\nThey waited.\n\nSighing, Antsy prepared to knock a second time, but then something clunked on the other side of the barrier, and a moment later the door swung back with aloud squeal.\n\nThe tall, undead monstrosity filled the doorway. Empty, shadow-drowned eye sockets regarded them– or not; it was impossible to tell.\n\nAntsy shifted from one foot to the other. \"You busy, Raest? We need to make use of the hallway floor behind you-\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I am very busy.\"\n\nThe Falari blinked. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Dust breeds. Cobwebs thicken. Candle wax stains precious surfaces. What do you want?\"\n\nAntsy glanced back at Barathol. \"Oh, a corpse with a sense of humour, what do you know? And surprise, it's so droll. \"He faced the Jaghut again and smiled.\"In case you ain't noticed, the whole city has gone insane– that's why I figured you might be suffering some-'\n\n\"I am sorry,\" cut in Raest, \"is something happening?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy's eyes bulged slightly.\"The Hounds of Shadow are loose! '\n\nRaest leaned forward as if to scan the vicinity, and then settled back once more. \"Not in my yard.\"\n\nAntsy clawed through his hair. \"Trust me, then, it's a bad night– now, if you'd just step back-\"\n\n\"Although, come to think of it, I did have a visitor earlier this evening.\"\n\n\"What? Oh, well, I'm happy for you, but-' Raest lifted one desiccated hand and pointed.\n\nAntsy and Barathol turned. And there, in the yard, there was afresh mound of raw earth, steaming. Vines were visibly snaking over it. \"Gods below,\" the Falari whispered, making awarding gesture with one hand.\n\n\"A T'lan Imass with odd legs, \"said Raest.\"It seemed to harbour some dislike towards me. \"The Jaghut paused.\"I can't imagine why.\"\n\nAntsy grunted. \"It should've stayed on the path. '\n\n\"What do T'lan Imass know of footpaths? \"Raest asked.\"In any case, it's still too angry fora conversation.\" Another pause. \"But there's time. Soldier, you have been remiss. I am therefore disinclined to yield the floor, as it were. '\n\n\"Like Hood I have!\" And Antsy reached beneath his tunic and tugged out a bedraggled, half-rotted shape. \"I found you your damned white cat!\"\n\n\"Oh, so you have. How sweet. In that case,\" Raest edged back, \"do come in.\"\n\nBarathol hesitated. \"What will this achieve, Antsy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He won't die, \"the ex-sergeant replied.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's like time doesn't exist in there. Trust me. We can find us a proper healer tomorrow, or a month from now– it don't matter. S'long as he's breathing when we carry him across the threshold. So, come on, help me.\" He then realized he was still clutching the dead cat, and so he went up to the Jaghut and thrust the ghastly thing into most welcoming arms.\n\n\"I shall call it Tufty,\" said Raest.\n\nThe black tide ceased its seemingly inexorable crawl. A slow, shallow breath held half drawn. A struggling heart hovered in mid-beat. And yet that spark of awareness, suddenly emboldened, set out on a journey of exploration and discovery. So many long-dark pathways...\n\nDragnipur has drunk deep, so deep.\n\nDragnipur, sword of the father and slayer of the same. Sword of Chains, Gate of Darkness, wheeled burden of life and life ever flees dissolution and so it must! Weapon of edges, caring naught who wields it. Cut indifferent, cut blind, cut when to do so is its very purpose, its perfect function.\n\nDragnipur.\n\nDread sisterly feuds dwindled insignificance– something was proffered, something was almost within reach. Matters of final possession could be worked out later, at leisure in some wrought-iron, oversized bath-tub filled to the brim with hot blood.\n\nTemporary pact. Expedience personified, Spite quelled, Envy in abeyance.\n\nIn their wake a crater slowly sagged, edges toppling inward, heat fast dissipating. The melted faces of buildings turned glassy in rainbow hues. For now the brilliance of these colours was but hinted at in this moon-glow. But that reflected light had begun a thousand new games, hinting at something far deadlier. Still to come, still to come." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 35" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He won't die, \"the ex-sergeant replied.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's like time doesn't exist in there. Trust me. We can find us a proper healer tomorrow, or a month from now– it don't matter. S'long as he's breathing when we carry him across the threshold. So, come on, help me.\" He then realized he was still clutching the dead cat, and so he went up to the Jaghut and thrust the ghastly thing into most welcoming arms.\n\n\"I shall call it Tufty,\" said Raest.\n\nThe black tide ceased its seemingly inexorable crawl. A slow, shallow breath held half drawn. A struggling heart hovered in mid-beat. And yet that spark of awareness, suddenly emboldened, set out on a journey of exploration and discovery. So many long-dark pathways...\n\nDragnipur has drunk deep, so deep.\n\nDragnipur, sword of the father and slayer of the same. Sword of Chains, Gate of Darkness, wheeled burden of life and life ever flees dissolution and so it must! Weapon of edges, caring naught who wields it. Cut indifferent, cut blind, cut when to do so is its very purpose, its perfect function.\n\nDragnipur.\n\nDread sisterly feuds dwindled insignificance– something was proffered, something was almost within reach. Matters of final possession could be worked out later, at leisure in some wrought-iron, oversized bath-tub filled to the brim with hot blood.\n\nTemporary pact. Expedience personified, Spite quelled, Envy in abeyance.\n\nIn their wake a crater slowly sagged, edges toppling inward, heat fast dissipating. The melted faces of buildings turned glassy in rainbow hues. For now the brilliance of these colours was but hinted at in this moon-glow. But that reflected light had begun a thousand new games, hinting at something far deadlier. Still to come, still to come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everywhere in the city, fires ebbed.\n\nThe pressure of Dragnipur Unsheathed starves the flames of destruction. Darkness is anathema to such forces, after all.\n\nYes, salvation found, in a weapon let loose.\n\nThe sisters were mad, but not so mad as to fail to grasp the pleasing irony of such things.\n\nQuell the violence.\n\nInvite murder.\n\nHe was in no condition to resist them– not both of them– extraordinary that such an alliance had not occurred long before this night. But sibling wounds are the festering kind, and natures at war are normally blind to every pacifying gesture. What was needed was the proper incentive.\n\nAlas, it did not occur to either twin that their father understood all too well the potential danger of his daughters forged together in alliance. And in shaping them– as carefully, as perfectly as he shaped Dragnipur itself– he had done what he could to mitigate the risk.\n\nAnd so, as they walked side by side up the street, in Spite's mind she had already begun scheming her fateful stab into her sister's back. While Envy amused herself with virtually identical thoughts, roles reversed, naturally.\n\nFirst things first, however.\n\nThey would kill Anomander Rake.\n\nFor Dragnipur has drunk deep, so very deep...\n\n\"Karsa, please.\"\n\nAshes drifted in the air, amidst foul smoke. Distant screams announced tragic scenes. The last night of the Gedderone Fête was sinking into misery and suffering.\n\n\"There is nothing to be done, Samar Dev. But we will do this– we will witness. We will withstand the cost of that, if we can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had not expected such uncertainty in the Toblakai. Always a stranger to humility, or so he seemed to her. He had not even drawn his flint sword.\n\nThey were twenty-five paces behind Traveller. They could see an angled gate arching over the broad street as it sloped upward, a hundred paces ahead. But the warrior they tracked had slowed his steps. There was something– someone– in the centre of the street in front of Traveller. And silent crowds on both sides– crowds that flinched back as the Hounds lumbered into view; flinched, but did not flee.\n\nSomething held them in place, something stronger than fear.\n\nSamar Dev sensed the pressure sliding past, like a wind sweeping round her, drawing inward once more– straight into that huddled figure, who now, at last, stirred.\n\nTraveller stood, six or so paces away from the stranger, 1176 and watched in silence as the man slowly straightened.\n\nTiste Andii.\n\nSilver-haired. In his hands, a sword trailing ghostly chains... oh... spirits below, oh, no-\n\nTraveller spoke. \"He said you would stand in my way.\" That voice carried, strong as waves surging against a dark shore.\n\nSamar Dev's heart stuttered.\n\nWhen Anomander Rake replied, his words were cold, solid and unyielding, \"What else did he tell you?\"\n\nTraveller shook his head. \"Where is he?\" he demanded. \"I can feel– he's close. Where is he? '\n\nNot Cotillion. A different \"he\" this time. The one Traveller seeks. The one he has ever sought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Rake. \"Close.\"\n\nThick, flapping sounds, drifting in from the smoky night sky. She looked up in alarm and saw Great Ravens. Landing upon roof ledges. Scores, hundreds, silent but for the beat of air beneath crooked wings. Gathering, gathering, along the arched gate and the sections of wall to either side. Landing everywhere, so long as it's a place from which they can see.\n\n\"Then stand aside,\" commanded Traveller.\n\n\"I cannot.\"\n\n\"Dammit, Rake, you are not my enemy.\"\n\nThe Son of Darkness tilted his head, as if receiving a compliment, an unexpected gift.\n\n\"Rake. You have never been my enemy. You know that. Even when the Empire...\"\n\n\"I know, Dassem. I know.\"\n\n\"He said this would happen.\" There was dismay in that statement, and resignation.\n\nRake made no reply.\n\n\"He said,\" continued Dassem, \"that you would not yield.\"\n\n\"No, I will not yield.\"\n\n\"Please help me, Rake, help me to understand... why?\"\n\n\"I am not hereto help you, Dassem Ultor.\" And Samar Dev heard genuine regret in that admission. The Son of Darkness closed both hands about the long grip of Dragnipur and, angling the pommel upward and to his right, slowly widened his stance. \"If you so want Hood,\" he said, \"come and get him.\"\n\nDassem Ultor– the First Sword of the Malazan Empire– who was supposed to be dead. As if Hood would even want this one– Dassem Ultor, the one they had known as Traveller, unsheathed his sword, the water-etched blade flashing as if lapped by molten silver. Samar Dev's sense of arising wave now burgeoned in her mind. Two forces. Sea and stone, sea and stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among the onlookers to either side, a deep, soft chant had begun.\n\nSamar Dev stared at those arrayed faces, the shining eyes, the mouths moving in unison. Gods below, the cult of Dessembrae. These are cultists– and they stand facing their god.\n\nAnd that chant, yes, it was a murmuring, it was the cadence of deep water rising. Cold and hungry.\n\nSamar Dev saw Anomander Rake's gaze settle briefly on Dassem's sword, and it seemed a sad smile showed itself, in the instant before Dassem attacked.\n\nTo all who witnessed– the cultists, Samar Dev, Karsa Orlong, even unto the five Hounds of Shadow and the Great Ravens hunched on every ledge– that first clash of weapons was too fast to register. Sparks slanted, the night air rang with savage parries, counter-blows, the biting crunch of edges against cross-hilts. Even their bodies were but a blur.\n\nAnd then both warriors staggered back, opening up the distance between them once more.\n\n\"Faces in the Rock,\" hissed Karsa Orlong.\n\n\"Karsa-\"\n\n\"No. Only a fool would step between these two.\"\n\nAnd the Toblakai sounded... shaken.\n\nDassem launched himself forward again. There were no war cries, no bellowed curses, not even the grunts bursting free as ferocious swings hammered forged iron. But the swords had begun singing, a dreadful, mournful pair of voices rising in eerie syncopation. Thrusts, slashes, lowedged ripostes, the whistle of a blade cutting through air where ahead had been an instant earlier, bodies writhing to evade counter-strokes, and sparks rained, poured, from the two combatants, bounced like shattered stars across the cobbles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did not break apart this time. The frenzied flurry did not abate, but went on, impossibly on. Two forces, neither yielding, neither prepared to draw a single step back.\n\nAnd yet, for all the blinding speed, the glowing shower spraying out like the blood of iron, Samar Dev saw the deathblow. She saw it clear. She saw its undeniable truth– and somehow, somehow, it was all wrong.\n\nRake wide-legged, angling the pommel high before his face with Dragnipur's point downward– as if to echo his opening stance– and higher still, and Dassem, his freehand joining the other upon his sword's grip, throwing his entire weight into a crossways slash– the warrior bodily lifting as if about to take to the air and close upon Rake with an embrace. And his swing met the edge of Dragnipur at a full right angle– a single moment shaping a perfect cruciform fashioned by the two weapons'colliding, and then the power of Dassem's blow slammed Dragnipur back-\n\nDriving its inside edge into Anomander Rake's forehead, and then down through his face.\n\nHis gauntleted hands sprang away from the handle, yet Dragnipur remained jammed, seeming to erupt from his head, as he toppled backward, blood streaming down to flare from the tip as the Son of Darkness crashed down on his back.\n\nEven this impact did not dislodge Dragnipur. The sword shivered, and now there was but one song, querulous and fading in the sudden stillness.\n\nBlood boiled, turned black. The body lying on the cobbles did not move. Anomander Rake was dead.\n\nDassem Ultor slowly lowered his weapon, his chest heaving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he cried out, in a voice so filled with anguish that it seemed to tear a jagged hole in the night air. This unhuman scream was joined by a chorus of shrieks as the Great Ravens exploded into flight, lifting like a massive feathered veil that whirled above the street, and then began a spinning descent. Cultists flinched away and crouched against building walls, their wordless chant drowned beneath the caterwauling cacophony of this black, glistening shroud that swept down like a curtain.\n\nDassem staggered back, and then pitched drunkenly to one side, his sword dragging in his wake, point skirling a snake track across the cobbles. He was brought up short by a pitted wall, and he sagged against it, burying his face in the shelter of a crooked arm that seemed to be all that held him upright.\n\nBroken. Broken. They are broken.\n\nOh, gods forgive them, they are broken.\n\nKarsa Orlong shocked her then, as he twisted to one side and pointedly spat onto the street. \"Cheated,\" he said. \"Cheated!\"\n\nShe stared at him, aghast. She did not know what he meant– but no, she did. Yes, she did. \"Karsa, what just happened?\" Wrong. It was wrong. \"I saw– I saw-\"\n\n\"You saw true,\" he said, baring his teeth, his gaze fixed upon that fallen body. \"As did Traveller, and see what it has done to him.\"\n\nThe area surrounding the corpse of Anomander Rake churned with Great Ravens– although not one drew close enough to touch the cooling flesh– and now the five Hounds of Shadow, not one spared of wounds, closed into push the birds aside, as if to form a protective circle around Anomander Rake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, not him. The sword...\n\nUnease stirred awake in Samar Dev. \"This is not over.\"\n\nA beast can sense weakness. A beast knows the moment of vulnerability, and opportunity. A beast knows when to strike.\n\nThe moon died and, in dying, began its torturous rebirth. The cosmos is indifferent to the petty squabbles of what crawls, what whimpers, what bleeds and what breathes. It has flung out its fates on the strands of immutable laws, and in the skirling unravelling of millions of years, tens of millions, each fate will out. In its time, it will out.\n\nSomething massive had arrived from the depths of the blackness beyond and struck the moon a short time back. An initial eruption from the impact had briefly showered the moon's companion world with fragments, but it was the shock-wave that delivered the stricken moon's death knell, and this took time. Deep in the core, vast tides of energy opened immense fissures. Concussive forces shattered the crust. Energy was absorbed until nothing more could be borne. The moon blew apart.\n\nLeave it to the flit of eager minds to find prophetic significance. The cosmos does not care. The fates will not crack a smile.\n\nFrom a thousand sources, now, reflected sunlight danced wild upon the blue, green and ochre world far below. Shadows were devoured, darkness flushed away. Night itself broke into fragments.\n\nIn the city of Darujhistan, light was everywhere, like a god's fingers. Brushing, prodding, poking, driving down into alleys that had never seen the sun. And each assault shattered darkness and shadow both. Each invasion ignited, in a proclamation of power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dearest serendipity, yet not an opportunity to be ignored, no." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not on this night. Not in the city of Darujhistan.\n\nPallid and Lock, their bone-white hides sprayed in crimson, their skin hanging in strips in places, with horrid puncture wounds red-rimmed black holes in their necks and elsewhere, padded side by side down the main avenue running parallel to the lake shore. Hurting, but undaunted.\n\nLight bloomed, ran like water across their path.\n\nLight tilted shafts down between buildings, and some of these flashed, and from those flashes more Hounds emerged.\n\nBehold, the Hounds of Light have arrived.\n\nWhat, the world shifts unexpectedly? Without hint, without inkling? How terrible, how unexpected! How perfectly... natural. Rules abound, laws carved into stones, but they are naught but delusions. Witness the ones who do not care. Seethe mocking awareness in their fiery eyes. Rail at the unknown, even as jaws open wide for the warbling throat.\n\nBut give the round man no grief. He spreads wide pudgy hands. He shrugs. He saves his sly smile for... why, for thee!\n\nVenasara and Cast were the first to join Pallid and Lock. Cast was almost twice the weight of Lock, while Venasara still bore the signs of the ordeals of raising a squabble of young. Ultama soon arrived, long-limbed, sleek, broad head held low at the end of a sinewy neck. Ultama's oversized upper canines jutted down. The exposed portions of the fangs, dagger-length, gleamed white.\n\nAt an intersection ahead waited Jalan, Grasp and Hanas, the youngest three of the pack, hackles high and eyes flashing with vicious excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gait and then Ghennan were the last to arrive, the lord and the lady of the pack, more silver than white, with scarred muzzles misshapen by centuries of dread battle. These two wore thick collars of black leather scattered with pearls and opals– although far fewer than had once adorned these proud bands.\n\nTen in number. Each one a match for any Hound of Shadow.\n\nOf whom there were, ah, but five.\n\nNo one stepped into the path of these beasts. They were coming to claim a prize for their master.\n\nDragnipur. A sword of perfect justice.\n\nSuch perfect justice.\n\nHigh in the sky above the city, tilting, sliding and dipping to avoid each shaft of infernal light, an undead dragon tracked the Hounds of Light.\n\nTulas Shorn was not pleased, even as something flowed sweet as a stream through its mind. A kind of blessing, alighting with faint, lilting notes of wonder.\n\nTulas Shorn had never known that Hood, Lord of the Slain, could prove so... generous.\n\nOr perhaps it was nothing more than a Jaghut's talent for anticipating the worst.\n\nAs an Elder might observe, there is nothing worse than a suspicious dragon.\n\nDo not grieve. Hold close such propensities fora while longer. The time will come.\n\nSome gifts are evil. Others are not, but what they are remains to be discovered.\n\nRest easy for the next few moments, for there is more to tell.\n\nIskaral Pust rode like a madman. Unfortunately, the mule beneath him had decided that a plodding walk would suffice, making the two of them a most incongruous pair. The High Priest flung himself back and forth, pitched from side to side. His feet kicked high, toes skyward, then lashed back down. Heels pounded insensate flanks in a thumping drum-roll entirely devoid of rhythm. Reins flailed about but the mule had chewed through the bit and so the reins were attached to nothing but two mangled stumps that seemed determined to batter Pust senseless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tossed about as if riding a goaded bull. Spraying sweat, lips pulled back in a savage grimace, the whites visible round his bugged-out eyes.\n\nThe mule, why, the mule walked. Clump clump (pause) clump (pause) clump clump. And soon.\n\nSwirling just above Iskaral Pust's head, and acrobatically avoiding the bit-ends, flapped the squall of bhokarala. Like oversized gnats, and how that mule's tail whipped back and forth! She sought to swat them away, but in the spirit of gnat-hood the bhokarala did not relent, so eager were they to claim the very next plop of dung wending its way out beneath that tail. Over which they'd fight tooth, talon and claw.\n\nSwarming in mule and rider's wake was a river of spiders, flowing glittering black over the cobbles.\n\nAtone point three white Hounds tramped across the street not twenty paces distant. A trio of immensely ugly heads swung to regard mule and rider. And to show that it meant business, the mule propped up its ears. Clump clump (pause) clump clump clump.\n\nThe Hounds moved on.\n\nIt does no good to molest a mule.\n\nAlas, as Iskaral Pust and his placid mount were moments from discovering, there were indeed forces in the world that could confound both.\n\nAnd here then, at last, arrives the shining, blazing, astonishing nexus, the penultimate pinnacle of this profound night, as bold Kruppe nudges his ferocious warmule into the path of one Iskaral Pust, mule, and sundry spiders and bhokarala." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mule sees mule. Both halt with a bare fifteen paces between them, ears at bristling attention.\n\nRider sees rider. Magus grows dangerously still, eyes hooded. Kruppe waves one plump hand in greeting.\n\nBhokarala launch amid-air conference that results in one beast landing awkwardly on the cobbles to the left of the High Priest, whilst the others find windowsills, projections, and the heads of handsome gargoyles on which to perch, chests heaving and tongues lolling.\n\nThe spiders runaway.\n\nThus, the tableau is set.\n\n\"Out of my way!\" screeched Iskaral Pust. \"Who is this fool and how dare he fool with me? I'll gnash him! I'll crush him down. I'll feint right and dodge left and we'll be by in a flash! Look at that pathetic mule– he'll never catch us! I got a sword to claim. Mine, yes, mine! And then won't Shadowthrone grovel and simper! Iskaral Pust, High Priest of Dragnipur! Most feared swordsman in ten thousand worlds! And if you think you've seen justice at its most fickle, you just wait! \"He then leaned forward and smiled.\"Kind sir, could you kindly move yourself and yon beast to one side? I must keep an appointment, you understand. Hastily, in fact. \"Then he hissed,\"Go climb up your own arse, you red-vested ball of lard that someone rolled across a forest floor! Go! Scat! '\n\n\"Most confounding indeed,\" Kruppe replied with his most beatific smile. \"It seems we are in discord, in that you seek to proceed in a direction that will inevitably collide with none other than Kruppe, the Eel of Darujhistan. Poor priest, it is late. Does your god know where you are?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eel? Kruppe? Collide? Fat and an idiot besides, what a dastardly combination, and on this of all nights! Listen, take another street. If I run into this Crappy Eel I'll be sure to let him know you're looking for him. It's the least I can do. '\n\n\"Hardly, but no matter. I am Kruppe the Crappy Eel, alas.\"\n\n\"So fine, we've run into each other. Glad that's over with. Now let me pass!\"\n\n\"Kruppe regrets that any and every path you may seek shall be impeded by none other than Kruppe himself. Unless, of course, you conclude that what you seek is not worth the effort, nor the grief certain to follow, and so wisely return to thy shadowy temple.\"\n\n\"You don't know what I want so it's none of your damned business what I want!\"\n\n\"Misapprehensions abound, but wait, does this slavering fool even understand?\"\n\n\"What? I wasn't supposed to hear that? But I did! I did, you fat idiot! '\n\n\"He only thought he heard. Kind priest, Kruppe assures you, you did not hear but mishear. Kind priest? Why, Kruppe is too generous, too forgiving by far, and hear hear! Or is it here here? No matter, it's not as if this grinning toad will understand. Why, his mule's got a sharper look in its eye than he has. Now, kindly priest, it's late and you should be in bed, yes? Abjectly alone, no doubt. Hmm? '\n\nIskaral Pust stared. He gaped. His eyes darted, alighting on the bhokaral squatting on the cobbles beside him as it made staring, gaping, darting expressions. \"My worshippers! Of course! You! Yes, you! Gather your kin and attack the fat fool! Attack! Your god commands you! Attack!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mlawhlaoblossblayowblagmilebbingoblaiblblafblablallblayarblablabnablahblallblah!\" \"What?\"\n\n\"Bla?\"\n\n\"Bla?\"\n\n\"Yarb?\"\n\n\"Bah! You're stupid and useless and ugly! '\n\n\"Blabluablablablahllalalabala, too!\"\n\nIskaral Pust scowled at it.\n\nThe bhokaral scowled back.\n\n\"Rat poison!\" Pust hissed. And then smiled.\n\nThe bhokaral offered him a dung sausage. And then smiled.\n\n\n\nOh, so much for reasoned negotiation.\n\nIskaral Pust's warbling battle cry was somewhat strangled as he leaned forward, perched high in the stirrups, hands reaching like a raptor's talons, and the mule reluctantly stumped forward.\n\nKruppe watched this agonizingly slow charge. He sighed. \"Really now. It comes to this? So be it.\" And he kicked his war-mule into motion.\n\nThe beasts closed, step by step. By step.\n\nIskaral Pust clawed the air, weaving and pitching, head bobbing. Overhead, the bhokarala screamed and flew in frenzied circles. The High Priest's mule flicked its tail.\n\nKruppe's war-mule edged to the right. Pust's beast angled to its right. Their heads came alongside, and then their shoulders. Whereupon they halted.\n\nSnarling and spitting, Iskaral Pust launched himself at Kruppe, who grunted a surprised oof! Fists flew, thumbs jabbed, jaws snapped– the High Priest's crazed attack– and the Eel threw up his forearms to fend it off, only to inadvertently punch Pust in the nose with one pudgy hand. Head rocked back, a stunned gasp. Attack renewed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They grappled. They toppled, thumping onto the cobbles in a flurry of limbs.\n\nThe bhokarala joined in, diving from above with screeches and snarls, swarming the two combatants before beginning to fight with each other. Fists flying, thumbs jabbing, jaws snapping. Spiders swept in from all sides, tiny fangs nipping everything insight.\n\nThe entire mass writhed and seethed.\n\nThe two mules walked a short distance away, then turned in unison to watch the proceedings.\n\nBest leave this egregious scene for now.\n\nHonest.\n\nWhen the two women appeared some distance down aside avenue, dressed in diaphanous robes, and approached side by side with elegant grace– like noble-born sisters out fora late night stroll– the Great Ravens scattered, shrieking, and the Hounds of Shadow drew up, hackles rising and lips stretching back to reveal glistening fangs.\n\nEven at this distance, Samar Dev could feel the power emanating from them. She stepped back, her chest tightening. \"Who in Hood's name are they? '\n\nWhen Karsa did not reply she glanced over to see that he was watching alone horseman coming up from the lakefront. This rider held a lance and the moment her eyes alit upon that weapon she drew a sharp, ragged breath. Gods, now what?\n\nThe horse's hoofs echoed like a cracked temple bell.\n\nIgnoring the rider, the Hounds of Shadow set out in the direction of the two women. The five enormous beasts moved warily, heads held low.\n\nAt this moment, High Alchemist Baruk stood beside his carriage in the estate compound. It might have seemed to the servants and guards watching that he was studying the crazed night sky, but none of these worthies was positioned to see anything of his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man was weeping.\n\nHe did not seethe shattered moon. Nor the wreaths of low smoke drifting past. In truth, he saw nothing that anyone else could possibly see, for his vision was turned inward, upon memories of friendship, upon burdens since accepted, and, through it all, there was arising flood of something– he could not be certain, but he believed it was humility.\n\nIn the course of a life, sacrifices are made, dire legacies accepted. Burdens are borne upon a humble back, or they ride the shoulders of bitter martyrs. These are the choices available to the spirit. There was no doubt, none at all, as to which one had been chosen by the Son of Darkness.\n\nA great man was dead. So much cruelly taken away on this sour night.\n\nAnd he had lost a friend.\n\nIt availed him nothing that he understood, that he accepted that so many other choices were made, and that he had his own role still to play out in this tragic end.\n\nNo, he simply felt broken inside.\n\nEverything seemed thin, fragile. All that he felt in his heart, all that he saw with his eyes. So very fragile.\n\nYes, the moon died, but a rebirth was coming.\n\nCould he hold to that?\n\nHe would try.\n\nFor now, however, all he could manage were these tears.\n\nBaruk turned to his carriage, stepped inside. The door was shut behind him as he settled on the cushioned bench. He looked across to his guest, but could say nothing. Not to this one, who had lost so much more than he had. So much more.\n\nThe gates were opened and the carriage set out, its corner lanterns swinging." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter dismounted, leaving the horse to wander where it would. He walked forward, indifferent to the presence of the Hounds– they seemed intent on something else in any case– and indifferent as well to the Great Ravens as they drove onlookers away with beaks eager to stab and slash. His eyes were on the body lying on the cobbles.\n\nHe walked pasta woman who stood beside a towering warrior who was drawing loose a two-handed flint sword as he stared at something in the direction from whence Cutter had just come.\n\nNone of these details could drag Cutter's attention from the body, and that gleaming black sword so brutally driven into the head and face. He walked until he stood over it.\n\nThe woman moved up beside him. \"That weapon in your hands– it's not-'\n\n\"We are in trouble,\" Cutter said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe could not believe what he was seeing. Could not accept that the Lord of Moon's Spawn was lying here, one eye closed, the other open and staring sightlessly. Killed by his own sword. Killed... taken. By Dragnipur.\"How did this happen? Who could have... '\n\n\"Dassem Ultor.\"\n\nHe finally looked at her. She was Seven Cities, that much he could see at once. Older than Cutter by a decade, maybe more. \"The name's familiar, but... ' He shrugged.\n\nShe pointed to one side and Cutter turned.\n\nA man was crouched, slumped against a wall, a sword propped up beside him. He had buried his face in his arms. Cutter's eyes went back to that sword. I've seen that thing before... but where? When?\n\n\"He was known to us,\" said the woman, \"as Traveller.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Memories rushed through Cutter, leaving in their wake something cold, lifeless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not the same, \"he whispered.\"Vengeance. Or grief. Your choice. \"He drew an uneven breath.\"That sword– it was forged by Anomander Rake. It was his weapon. Before Dragnipur. He left it with his brother, Andarist. And then I... I... Beru fend... '\n\nThe giant warrior now twisted round. \"If you would protect that body,\" he said in a growl, \"then ready that spear.\"\n\nThe two women had halted a street away, their path blocked by a half-circle of Hounds, with less than twenty paces separating the parties.\n\nSeeing those women, Cutter frowned. \"Spite,\" he muttered. \"Did you guess? Or was it just some damned itch?\"\n\n\"Samar Dev,\" snapped the giant. \"Witch! Get Traveller on his feet! I will need him!\"\n\n\"Damn you!\" screamed the woman beside Cutter. \"What is it?\"\n\nBut there was no need for an answer. For she saw now, as did Cutter.\n\nMore Hounds, these ones pale as ghosts, a pack twice the number of the Hounds of Shadow. Loping up the street from Lakefront, moments from a charge.\n\n\"It's the sword, \"said the woman named Samar Dev.\"They've come for the sword.\"\n\nCutter felt his limbs turn to ice, even as the lance in his hands flared with heat.\n\n\"Give me room,\" said the giant, lumbering forward into a clear space.\n\nAgainst ten Hounds? Are you mad?\n\nCutter moved out to the left of the warrior. The witch rushed over to Traveller.\n\nThe lance trembled. It was getting too hot to hold, but what else did he have? Some damned daggers– against these things? Gods, what am I even doing here?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he would stand. He would die here, beside a giant– who was just as doomed. And for what? There is nothing... there is nothing in my life. To explain any of this. He glared at the white Hounds. It's just a sword. What will you even do with it? Chew the handle? Piss on the blade? He looked across at the huge warrior beside him.\"What's your name at least?\"\n\nThe giant glanced at him. \"Yes,\" he said with a sharp nod. \"I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. Toblakai. And you?\"\n\n\"Crokus. Crokus Younghand.\" He hesitated, then said, \"I was once a thief.\"\n\n\"Be one again,\" said Karsa, teeth bared, \"and steal me a Hound's life this night. '\n\nShit. \"I'll try. '\n\n\"That will do,\" the Toblakai replied.\n\nThirty paces away now. And the white Hounds fanned out, filled the street in a wall of bleached hide, rippling muscle and rows of fangs.\n\nA gust of charnel windswept round Cutter; something clattered, rang sharp on cobbles, and then a hand swept down-\n\nThe Hounds of Light charged.\n\nAs, on the side street to the left, the daughters of Draconus unleashed their warrens in a howling rush of destruction that engulfed the five beasts before them.\n\n\n\nScything blade of notched iron, driving Spinnock Durav back. Blood sprayed with each blow, links of ringed armour pattered on the ground. So many tiny broken chains, there was a trail of them, marking each step of the warrior's rocking, reeling retreat. When his own sword caught Kallor's frenzied blows, the reverberation ripped up Spinnock's arm, seeming to mash his muscles into lifeless pulp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His blood was draining away from countless wounds. His helm had been battered off, that single blow leaving behind a fractured cheekbone and a deaf ear.\n\nStill he fought on; still he held Kallor before him.\n\nKallor.\n\nThere was no one behind the High King's eyes. The berserk rage had devoured the ancient warrior. He seemed tireless, an automaton. Spinnock Durav could find no opening, no chance to counter-attack. It was all he could do simply to evade each deathblow, to minimize the impacts of that jagged edge, to turn the remaining fragments of his hauberk into the blade's inexorable path.\n\nSpreading bruises, cracked bones, gaping gouges from which blood welled, soaking his wool gambon, he staggered under the unceasing assault.\n\nIt could not last.\n\nIt had already lasted beyond all reason.\n\nSpinnock blocked yet another slash, but this time the sound his sword made was strangely dull, and the grip suddenly felt loose, the handle shorn from the tine– the pommel was gone. With a sobbing gasp, he ducked beneath a whistling blade and then pitched back-\n\nBut Kallor pressed forward, giving him no distance, and that two-handed sword lashed out yet again.\n\nSpinnock's parry jolted his arm and his weapon seemed to blow apart in his hand, tined blade spinning into the air, the fragments of the grip a handful of shards falling from his numbed fingers.\n\nThe back-slash caught him across his chest.\n\nHe was thrown from his feet, landing hard on the slope of the ditch, where he sagged back, blood streaming down his front, and closed his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kallor's rasping breaths drew closer.\n\nSweat dripped onto Spinnock's face, but still he did not open his eyes. He had felt it. A distant death. Yes, he had felt it, as he feared he might. So feared that he might. And, of all the deeds he had managed here at these crossroads, all that he had done up until this moment, not one could match the cost of the smile that now emerged on split, bleeding lips.\n\nAnd this alone stayed Kallor's sword from its closing thrust. Stayed it... fora time.\n\n\"What,\" Kallor asked softly, \"was the point, Spinnock Durav?\"\n\nBut the fallen warrior did not answer.\n\n\"You could never win. You could never do anything but die here. Tell me, damn you, what was the fucking point?\"\n\nThe question was a sob, the anguish so raw that Spinnock was startled into opening his eyes, into looking up at Kallor.\n\nBehind the silhouette with its halo of tangled, sweat-matted hair, the heaving shoulders, he saw Great Ravens, a score or more, flying up from the south.\n\nCloser and closer.\n\nWith an effort, Spinnock focused on Kallor once more. \"You don't understand, \"he said.\"Not yet, Kallor, but you will. Someday, you will. '\n\n\"He does not deserve you!\"\n\nSpinnock frowned, blinked to clear his eyes. \"Oh, Kallor...\"\n\nThe High King's face was ravaged with grief, and all that raged in the ancient man's eyes– well, none of it belonged. Not to the legend that was Kallor. Not to the nightmares roiling round and round his very name. Not to the lifeless sea of ashes in his wake. No, what Spinnock saw in Kallor's eyes were things that, he suspected, no one would ever see again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, of sorts, a gift.\n\n\"Kallor,\" he said, \"listen tome. Take this as you will, or not at all. I– I am sorry. That you are driven to this. And... and may you one day show your true self. May you, one day, be redeemed in the eyes of the world.\"\n\nKallor cried out, as if struck, and he staggered back. He recovered with bared teeth. \"My true self? Oh, you damned fool! You see only what you want to see! In this last moment of your pathetic, useless life! May your soul rage for eternity in the heart of a star, Tiste Andii! May you yearn for what you can never have! For all infernal eternity!\"\n\nSpinnock had flinched back at the tirade. \"Do you now curse me, High King?\" he asked in a whisper.\n\nKallor's face looked ready to shatter. He dragged a forearm across his eyes.\"No, \"he said.\"Of course not. I will kill you clean. For what you have shown me this night– I have never before faced such a defence. \"And then he paused, edging forward again, his eyes burning in their pits.\"You had chances, Spinnock Durav. To strike back. You could have wounded me– yes, you could have... '\n\n\"I was not hereto do that, Kallor.\"\n\nThe High King stared, and a glint of comprehension lit in his face. \"No,\" he said. \"You only needed to delay me.\"\n\nSpinnock closed his eyes once more and settled his head back. \"For a time. You may never accept this, but it was for your own good. It's a mess over there. In that city. My Lord wanted you kept away. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kallor snarled. \"How generous in his mercy is your Lord.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" sighed Spinnock, \"he was ever that.\"\n\nSilence, then.\n\nNot a sound. A dozen laboured heartbeats. Another dozen. Finally, some odd unease forced Spinnock to open his eyes yet again, to look upon Kallor.\n\nWho stood, head bowed.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Spinnock, in true sorrow, \"he is gone.\"\n\nKallor did not lift his gaze. He did not move at all.\n\n\"And so,\" continued Spinnock, \"I have stood here. In his stead. One last time.\" He paused. \"And yes, it makes my death seem... easier-\"\n\n\"Oh shut up, will you? I am thinking.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\nKallor met his eyes and bared his teeth. \"That bastard. The bold, brazen bastard!\"\n\nSpinnock studied the High King, and then he grunted.\n\n\"Well, that's it, then. '\n\n\"I don't ever want to see you again, Spinnock Durav. You are bleeding out. I will leave you to that. I hear it's quieter, easier– but then, what do I know?\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii watched him set off then, up the road, to that fair city that even now bled with its own terrible wounds.\n\nToo late to do anything, even if he'd wanted to. But, Spinnock Durav now suspected, Kallor might well have done nothing. He might have stood aside.\"High King, \"he whispered,\"all you ever wanted was a throne. But trust me, you don't want Rake's. No, proud warrior, that one you would not want. I think, maybe, you just realized that. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, when it came to Kallor, there was noway to know.\n\nThe Great Ravens were descending now, thumping heavily onto the blood-splashed, muddy surface of the road.\n\nAnd Spinnock Durav looked skyward then, as the dark forms of two dragons sailed past, barely a stone's throw above the ground.\n\nRacing for Kallor.\n\nHe saw one of the dragons suddenly turn its head, eyes flashing back in his direction, and the creature pitched to one side, coming round.\n\nA moment later the other dragon reached Kallor, catching him entirely unawares, talons lashing down to grasp the High King and lift him into the air. Wings thundering, the dragon carried its charge yet higher. Faint screams of fury sounded from the man writhing in that grasp.\n\nDragon and High King dipped behind a hill to the north.\n\nOne of the Great Ravens drew up almost at Spinnock's feet.\n\n\"Crone!\" Spinnock coughed and spat blood. \"I'd have thought... Darujhistan... '\n\n\"Darujhistan, yes. I'd have liked to. To honour, to witness. To remember, and to weep. But our Lord... well, he had thoughts of you. \"The head tilted.\"When we saw you, lying there, Kallor looming as he so likes to do, ah, we thought we were too late– we thought we had failed our Lord– and you. We thought– oh, never mind. '\n\nThe Great Raven was panting.\n\nSpinnock knew that this was not exhaustion he was seeing in the ancient bird. You can shed no tears, yet tears take you none the less. The extremity, the terrible distress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dragon that had returned now landed on the grasses to the south of the track. Sembling, walking towards Spinnock and Crone and the haggle of Crone's kin.\n\nKorlat.\n\nSpinnock would have smiled up at her, but he had lost the strength for such things, and so he could only watch as she came up to him, using one boot to shunt a squawking Crone to one side. She knelt and reached out a hand to brush Spinnock's spattered cheek. Her eyes were bleak.\"Brother... '\n\nCrone croaked, \"Just heal him and be done with it– before he gasps out his last breath in front of us!\"\n\nShe drew out a quaint flask. \"Endest Silann mixed this one. It should suffice.\" She tugged loose the stopper and gently set the small bottle's mouth between Spinnock's lips, and then tilted it to drain the contents, and he felt that potent liquid slide down his throat. Sudden warmth flowed through him.\n\n\"Sufficient, anyway, to carry you home.\" And she smiled.\n\n\"My last fight in his name,\" said Spinnock Durav. \"I did as he asked, did I not?\"\n\nHer expression tightened, revealed something wan and ravaged. \"You have much to tell us, brother. So much that needs... explaining.\"\n\nSpinnock glanced at Crone.\n\nThe Great Raven ducked and hopped a few steps away. \"We like our secrets,\" she cackled, \"when it's all we have! '\n\nKorlat brushed his cheek again. \"How long?\" she asked. \"How long did you hold him back?\"\n\n\"Why,\" he replied, \"I lit the torches... dusk was just past...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes slowly widened. And she glanced to the east, where the sky had begun, at last, to lighten.\n\n\"Oh, Spinnock...\"\n\nA short time later, when she went to find his sword where it was lying in the grasses, Spinnock Durav said, \"No, Korlat. Leave it.\"\n\nShe looked at him in surprise.\n\nBut he was not of a mind to explain.\n\nAbove the Gadrobi Hills, Kallor finally managed to drag free his sword, even as the dragon's massive head swung down, jaws wide. His thrust sank deep into the soft throat, just above the jutting avian collarbones. A shrill, spattering gasp erupted from the Soletaken, and all at once they were plunging earthward.\n\nThe impact was thunder and snapping bones. The High King was flung away, tumbling and skidding along dew-soaked grass. He gained his feet and spun to face the dragon.\n\nIt had sembled. Orfantal, on his face an expression of bemused surprise, was struggling to stand. One arm was broken. Blood gushed down from his neck. He seemed to have forgotten Kallor, as he turned in the direction of the road, and slowly walked away.\n\nKallor watched.\n\nOrfantal managed a dozen steps before he fell to the ground.\n\nIt seemed this was a night for killing Tiste Andii.\n\nHis shoulders were on fire from the dragon's puncture wounds, which might well have proved fatal to most others, but Kallor was not like most others. Indeed, the High King was unique.\n\nIn his ferocity. In his stubborn will to live.\n\nIn the dry furnace heat of the hatred that ever swirled round him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set out once more for the city.\n\nAs dawn finally parted the night.\n\nKallor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail– should we fall– we will know that we have lived.\"\n\nAnomander Rake Son of Darkness\n\nThe continent-sized fragments of the shattered moon sent reflected sunlight down upon the world. The fabric of Night, closed so tight about the city of Black Coral, began at last to fray. The web that was this knotted manifestation of Kurald Galain withered under the assault. Shafts broke through and moonlight painted buildings, domes, towers, walls and the long-dead gardens they contained. Silvery glow seeped into the dark waters of the bay, sending creatures plunging to the inky blackness of the depths.\n\nNew world, young world. So unexpected, so premature, this rain of death.\n\nEndest Silann could feel every breach as he knelt on the cold mosaic floor of the temple's Grand Vestry. He had once held the waters back from Moon's Spawn. He had once, long, long ago, guided his Lord to the fateful, final encounter with Mother Dark herself. He had clasped the hand of a dying High Priestess, sharing with her the bleak knowledge that nothing awaited her, nothing at all. He had stood, gods, so long ago now, staring down at his blood-covered hands, above the body of a sweet, gentlewoman, Andarist's wife. While through the high window, the flames of dying Kharkanas flickered crimson and gold.\n\nThe Saelen Gara of the lost Kharkanan forestlands had believed that the moon was Father Light's sweet seduction, innocent maiden gift to Mother Dark. To remind her of his love, therein the sky of night. But then, they had also believed the moon was but the backside of Father Light's baleful eye, and could one rise up and wing the vast distance to that moon, they would discover that it was but a lens, and to look through was to see other worlds for whom the moon was not the moon at all, but the sun. The Saelen Gara talespinner would grin then, and make odd motions with his hands. \"Perspective,\" he'd say.\"You see? The world changes according to where you stand. So choose, my children, choose and choose again, where you will make your stand... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where you will make your stand. The world changes.\n\nThe world changes.\n\nYes, he had held back the sea. He had made Moon's Spawn into a single held breath that had lasted months.\n\nBut now, ah, now, his Lord had asked him to hold back Light itself.\n\nTo save not a fortress, but a city. Not a single breath to hold, but the breath of Kurald Galain, an Elder Warren.\n\nBut he was old, and he did not know... he did not know...\n\nStanding twenty paces away, in a niche of the wall, the High Priestess watched. Seeing him struggle, seeing him call upon whatever reserves he had left. Seeing him slowly, inexorably, fail.\n\nAnd she could do nothing.\n\nLight besieged Dark in the sky overhead. A god in love with dying besieged a child of redemption, and would use that child's innocence to usurp this weakened island of Kurald Galain– to claim for itself the very Throne of Darkness.\n\nFor she has turned away.\n\nAgainst all this, alone, ancient, broken warlock.\n\nIt was not fair.\n\nTime was the enemy. But then, she told herself with wry bitterness, time was always the enemy.\n\nEndest Silann could not drive back every breach. She had begun to feel the damage being wrought upon Night, upon the Tiste Andii in this city. It arrived like a sickness, a failing of internal balances. She was weakening.\n\nWe are all weakening.\n\nAn old, broken man. He was not enough, and they had all known– everyone except the one who mattered the most. Lord Rake, your faith blinded you. See him, kneeling there– there, my Lord, is your fatal error in judgement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And without him– without the power here and now to keep everything away– without that, your grand design will collapse into ruin.\n\nTaking us with it.\n\nBy the Abyss, taking us all.\n\nIt seemed so obvious now. To stand in Rake's presence was to feel avast, unassailable confidence. That he could gauge all things with such precision as to leave one in awe, in disbelief and in wonder.\n\nThe plans of the Son of Darkness never went awry. Hold to faith in him, and all shall settle into place.\n\nBut how many plans worked out precisely because of our faith in him? How many times did we– did people like Endest Silann and Spinnock Durav– do things beyond their capability, simply to ensure that Rake's vision would prove true? And how many times can he ask that of them, of us?\n\nAnomander Rake wasn't here.\n\nNo, he was gone.\n\nForever gone.\n\nWhere then was that solid core of confidence, which they might now grasp tight? In desperation, in pathetic need?\n\nYou should never have left this to us. To him.\n\nThe sickness in her soul was spreading. And when she succumbed, the last bulwark protecting every Tiste Andii in Black Coral would give way.\n\nAnd they would all die. For they were the flesh of Kurald Galain.\n\nOur enemies feed on flesh.\n\nLord Anomander Rake, you have abandoned us.\n\nShe stood in the niche as if it was a sarcophagus. Fevered, watching Endest Silann slowly crumple therein the centre of that proud, diffident mosaic spanning the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You failed us.\n\nAnd now we fail you.\n\nWith a gasp of agony, Apsal'ara lunged backward along the beam. The skin of her hands and forearms had blackened. She kicked in desperate need, pushing herself still farther from that swirling vortex of darkness. Sliding on her back, over the grease of sweat, bile and blood. Steam rose from her arms. Her fingers were twisted like roots-\n\nThe pain was so vast it was almost exquisite. She writhed, twisted in its grip, and then pitched down from the beam. Chains rapped against the sodden wood. Her weight pulled them down in a rattle and she heard something break.\n\nThumping onto ash-smeared clay.\n\nStaring as she held up her hands. Seeing frost-rimed shackles, and, beneath them, broken links.\n\nShe had felt the wagon rocking its way back round. Horror and disbelief had filled her soul, and the need to do something had overwhelmed her, trampling all caution, trampling sanity itself.\n\nAnd now, lying on the cold, gritty mud, she thought to laugh.\n\nFree.\n\nFree with nowhere to run. With possibly dead hands– and what good was a thief with dead, rotting hands? She struggled to uncurl her fingers. Watched the knuckles crack open like charred meat. Red fissures gaped. And, as she stared, she saw the first droplets of blood welling from them. Was that a good sign?\n\n\"Fire is life,\" she intoned. 'Stone is flesh. Water is breath. Fire is life. Stone is water is flesh is breath is life. Pluck a flower from afield and it will not thrive. Take and beauty dies, and that which one possesses becomes worthless. I am a thief. I take but do not keep. All I gain I castaway. I take your wealth only because you value it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am Apsal'ara, Mistress of Thieves. Only you need fear me, you who lust to own. '\n\nShe watched her fingers slowly straighten, watched flakes of skin lift and then fall away.\n\nShe would survive this. Her hands had touched Darkness, and lived still.\n\nAs if it mattered.\n\nEven here, beneath the wagon, the dread sounds of war surrounded her. Chaos closed in on all sides. Souls died in numbers beyond counting, and their cries revealed a loss so far past comprehension that she refused to contemplate it. The death of honourable souls. The immense sacrifice wasted. No, none of this bore thinking about.\n\nApsal'ara rolled onto her side, and then onto her knees and elbows.\n\nShe began crawling.\n\nAnd then gasped anew, as a familiar voice filled her head.\n\n\"Mistress of Thieves. Take the eye. The eye of the god. Apsal'ara, steal the eye... '\n\nTrembling– wondering– how? How could he reach so into her mind? He could do so only if... only if-\n\nApsal'ara gasped a third time.\n\nAnd so... once in pain, once in wonder, and once in... in hope.\n\nShe resumed crawling.\n\nPluck your flower. I am coming for you.\n\nOh yes, I am coming for you.\n\nWith each soul consumed, the power of chaos grew. Hunger surged with renewed strength, and the beleaguered defenders fell back another step.\n\nBut they were running out of steps.\n\nThe indomitable legions surrounded the now stationary wagon and its dwindling ring of souls. The countless dead who had answered Hood's final summons were melting away, most of them too ancient to call upon memories of strength, to even remember that will alone held power. In standing against the enemy, they had done little more than marginally slow the advance of chaos, as all that remained of them was ripped apart, devoured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some, however, were made of sterner things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Grey Swords, delivered unto Hood by the loss of Fener, fought with grim ferocity. Commanding them, Brukhalian was like a deep-rooted standing stone, as if capable of willing himself immovable, unconquerable. He had, after all, done this before. The company fought and held fora time– an impressive length of time– but now their flanks were under assault, and there was nothing to do but retreat yet closer to the enormous wagon with its heap of bodies.\n\nA score of Seguleh, all that remained of the Second's forces, formed one impossibly thin link with the Grey Swords. Each one had fallen to Anomander Rake, and this knowledge alone was sufficient, for it burned like acid, it stung like shame. They wore their masks, and as they fought, the painted slashes, the sigils of rank, began to fade, worn away by the fires of chaos, until upon each warrior the mask gleamed pure. As if here, within the world of this sword, some power could yield to greater truths. Here, Dragnipur seemed to say, you are all equal.\n\nThe Grey Swords'other flank closed up with another knot of soldiers– the Bridgeburners, into which remnants of other Malazan forces were falling, drawing upon the élite company's ascendant power, and upon the commander now known as Iskar Jarak.\n\nThe Bridgeburners were arrayed in a half-circle that slowly contracted under the brunt of the assault. Grey Swords on one flank, and the last of the Chained on the other, where a huge demon formed the point of a defiant wedge that refused to buckle. Tears streamed down the demon's face, for even as it fought, it grieved for those lost. And such grief filled Pearl's heart unto bursting. Pearl did not fight for itself, nor for the wagon, nor even the Gate of Darkness, the Wandering Hold. The demon fought for its comrades, as would a soldier pushed beyond breaking, pushed until there was nowhere else to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the ash-swarmed sky above, chained dragons, Loqui Wyval and Enkarala tore swaths through the tumbling, descending storm clouds. Lightning lashed out to enwreath them, slowly tearing them to pieces. Still they fought on. The Enkarala would not relent for they were mindless in their rage. The Loqui Wyval found strength in hearts greater than their modest proportions– no, they were not dragons; they were lesser kin– but they knew the power of mockery, of disdain. For the Enkarala, chaos itself was a contemptible thing. The dragons, many of whom had been chained since the time of Draconus, were indifferent to the Gate, to all the other squalid victims of this dread sword. They did not fight on behalf of any noble cause. No, each one fought alone, for itself, and they knew that survival had nothing to do with nobility. No alliance was weighed, no thought of fighting in concert brushed the incandescent minds of these creatures. Nothing in their nature was designed to accommodate aught but singular battle. A strength and a curse, but in these fiery, deadly clouds, that strength was failing, and the very nature of the dragons was now destroying them.\n\nThe battle raged. Annihilation was a deafening scream that drove all else from the minds of the defenders. They made their will into weapons, and with these weapons they slashed through the misshapen, argent foe, only to find yet more rising before them, howling, laughing, swords thundering on shields.\n\nToc had no idea where this damned horse had come from, but clearly some breathtaking will fired its soul. In its life it had not been bred for war, and yet it fought like a beast twice its weight. Kicking, stamping, jaws snapping. A Wickan breed– he was fairly certain of that– a creature of appalling endurance, it carried him into the fray again and again, and he had begun to suspect that he would fail before the horse did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Humbling– no, infuriating.\n\nHe struggled to control it as he sought to lunge once more into that wall of chaotic rage. Getting to be a miserable habit, all this dying and dying again. Of course, this would be the final time, and a better man than he would find some consolation in that. A better man, aye.\n\nInstead, he railed. He spat into the eye of injustice, and he fought on, even as his one eyeless socket itched damnably, until it seemed to be sizzling as if eating its way into his brain.\n\nHe lost his grip on the reins, and almost pitched from the saddle as the horse galloped away from the front line of the Bridgeburners. He loosed a stream of curses– he wanted to die at their sides, he needed to– no, he was not one of them, he could not match their power, their ascendant ferocity– he had seen Trotts there, and Detoran. And so many others, and there was Iskar Jarak himself, although why Whiskeyjack had come to prefer some Seven Cities name– in place of his real one– made no sense to Toc. Not that he was of any stature to actually ask the man– gods, even had he been, he couldn't have got close, so tightly were the Bridgeburners arrayed around the soldier.\n\nAnd now the stupid horse was taking him farther and farther away.\n\nHe saw, ahead, the Lord of Death. Standing motionless, as if contemplating guests at a damned picnic. The horse carried Toc straight for the hoary bastard, who slowly turned at the very last moment, as the horse skidded to a halt in a spray of ashes and mud.\n\nHood glanced down at the spatter on its frayed robes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't look at me!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Toc snarled as he collected up the reins once more.\"I was trying to get the beast going the other way! '\n\n\"You are my Herald, Toc the Younger, and I have need of you.\"\n\n\"To do what, announce your impending nuptials? Where is the skeletal hag, anyway?\"\n\n\"You have a message to deliver-\"\n\n\"Deliver where? How? In case you haven't noticed, we're in a little trouble here, Hood. Gods, my eye– agh, I mean, the missing one– it's driving me mad! '\n\n\"Yes, your missing eye. About that-\"\n\nAt that instant, Toc's horse reared in sudden terror, as a churning cloud lunged down like an enormous fist, engulfing a dying dragon directly overhead.\n\nSwearing, his voice rising in fear, Toc fought to regain control of the beast as cloud and dragon tumbled to one side– the dragon pulled down to the thrashing legions, which closed in and swarmed it. In moments the dragon was gone.\n\nThe horse skittered and then settled-\n\nOnly to bolt once more, as in a burst of cold, bitter air, something else arrived.\n\nWhat good could ever come of acceding to the suggestions of a corpse? This was the sort of question Glanno Tarp was good at asking, only he'd forgotten this time and it was funny how blind gibbering terror could do that. Warrens and warrens and portals and Gates and places nobody in their right minds might want to visit no matter how special the scenery– and no, dammit, he didn't know where they'd just ended up, but he could tell– oh yes, he could tell all right– that it wasn't a nice place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Horses shrilling (but then, they always did that when arriving), carriage slapping down onto gritty mud in a chorus of outraged creaks, splinters and calamcophony, slewing this way and that– and the sky was coming down in giant balls of mercury and there were dragons up there and wyval and Hood knew what else-\n\nChains sawing back and forth, to the sides and straight up, all emerging from the ghastliest wagon Glanno had ever seen– loaded with more bodies than seemed reasonable, much less possible.\n\nSo of course he froze up all the brakes– what else was he supposed to do? And then bodies were flying past. Sweetest Sufferance, curled up into a soft flouncy bouncy ball that landed bouncily and rolled and rolled. That snarling hulk Gruntle, twisting in the air so that he could land on all fours– meow– and Faint, far less elegant for all her bountiferous beauty, going splat on her face all spreadeagled, silly girl. Amby and Jula flew past embraced like lovers, at least until the ground showed up and got between them. Reccanto Ilk fetched up beside Glanno, cracking the backrest of the bench.\n\n\"You idiot! We ain't tied ourselves! It was just dark and dark and nothing else and now you just go and drop us into-'\n\n\"Wasn't me, you clumsy pig! '\n\nThis argument didn't survive the fullest comprehension of their surroundings.\n\nReccanto Ilk slowly sat up. \"Holy shit.\"\n\nGlanno leapt to his feet. \"Cartographer!\" But he'd forgotten about his splints. Yelping, he tottered, and then pitched forward onto the backs of the first two horses. They deftly stepped to either side so that he could fall a little more before getting tangled in all the crap down there, whereupon the horses eagerly moved back in an effort to crush him into the kind of pulp that could never again whip the reins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reccanto scrabbled to drag him back onto the bench. The splint bindings helped, although Glanno did plenty of shrieking in pain– at least he wasn't being crushed. Moments later he fetched up again on the splintered bench.\n\nA wretched dead-looking Jaghut was walking up to Cartographer, who, lashed to a wheel, had come to rest with his head down, eyeing the Jaghut's muddy boots.\"I had begun to wonder, \"the Jaghut said,\"if you had become lost. '\n\nPushing Reccanto aside, Glanno worked his way round to witness this fateful meeting– oh yes, that had to be Hood himself. Why, a damned family reunionebration!\n\nCartographer's upside-down smile seemed to send a nearby rider's horse into yet another panic, and the soldier swore impressively as he fought to quell the beast. \"My Lord,\" Cartographer was saying, \"we both know, surely, that what goes around comes around.\" And then he struggled feebly at his bindings. \"And around,\" he added despondently.\n\nGruntle, who had staggered up to join them, now growled deep in his chest and then went to the carriage door, thumping it with a fist. \"Master Quell!\"\n\nHood turned to the warrior. \"That will not be necessary, Treach-spawn. My sole requirement was that you arrive here. Now, you need only leave once more. Cartographer will guide you.\"\n\nSweetest Sufferance was dragging a dazed Faint backup onto the carriage, displaying surprising strength, although the effort made her eyes bulge alarmingly. Glanno nudged Reccanto and nodded towards Sweetest. \"That face remind you of anything?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reccanto scrabbled to drag him back onto the bench. The splint bindings helped, although Glanno did plenty of shrieking in pain– at least he wasn't being crushed. Moments later he fetched up again on the splintered bench.\n\nA wretched dead-looking Jaghut was walking up to Cartographer, who, lashed to a wheel, had come to rest with his head down, eyeing the Jaghut's muddy boots.\"I had begun to wonder, \"the Jaghut said,\"if you had become lost. '\n\nPushing Reccanto aside, Glanno worked his way round to witness this fateful meeting– oh yes, that had to be Hood himself. Why, a damned family reunionebration!\n\nCartographer's upside-down smile seemed to send a nearby rider's horse into yet another panic, and the soldier swore impressively as he fought to quell the beast. \"My Lord,\" Cartographer was saying, \"we both know, surely, that what goes around comes around.\" And then he struggled feebly at his bindings. \"And around,\" he added despondently.\n\nGruntle, who had staggered up to join them, now growled deep in his chest and then went to the carriage door, thumping it with a fist. \"Master Quell!\"\n\nHood turned to the warrior. \"That will not be necessary, Treach-spawn. My sole requirement was that you arrive here. Now, you need only leave once more. Cartographer will guide you.\"\n\nSweetest Sufferance was dragging a dazed Faint backup onto the carriage, displaying surprising strength, although the effort made her eyes bulge alarmingly. Glanno nudged Reccanto and nodded towards Sweetest. \"That face remind you of anything?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reccanto squinted, and then sniggered.\n\n\"You're both dead, ' she hissed.\n\nAmby and Jula bobbed into view to either side of her, grinning through smears of mud.\n\n*\n\nInside the carriage, Mappo started to open the door but Quell snapped out a shaky hand to stay him. \"Gods, don't do that! '\n\nPrecious Thimble had curled upon the floor at their feet, rocking and moaning.\n\n\"What awaits us outside?\" the Trell asked.\n\nQuell shook his head. He was bone white, face glistening with sweat. \"I should've guessed. The way that map on the road narrowed at the far end. Oh, we've been used! Duped! Gods, I think I'm going to be sick-'\n\n\"Damned Trygalle,\" muttered Toc. More confused than he had ever been by this sudden, inexplicable arrival. How did they manage to arrive here? And then he saw Gruntle. \"Gods below, it's you! '\n\nSomeone was being loudly sick inside the carriage.\n\nGruntle stared up at Toc, and then frowned.\n\nAh, I guess I don't look like Anaster anymore.\"We shared-'\n\n\"Herald,\" said Hood. \"It is time.\"\n\nToc scowled, and then scratched at his eye socket. \"What? You're sending me with them? '\n\n\"In a manner of speaking.\"\n\n\"Then I'm to rejoin the living? '\n\n\"Alas, no, Toc the Younger. You are dead and dead you will remain. But this shall mark your final task as my Herald. Another god claims you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Toc prepared to dismount but the Lord of Death lifted a hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ride in the carriage's wake, close in its wake. Fora time. Now, Herald, listen well to my last message. The blood is needed. The blood is needed... '\n\nGruntle had stopped listening. Even the vague disquiet he'd felt when that one-eyed rider had accosted him was fast vanishing beneath a flood of battle lust. He stared out at the enemy, watched the defenders wither away.\n\nA war that could not be won by such sorry souls– a war that begged fora champion, one who would stand until the very end.\n\nAnother growl rumbled from him, and he stepped away from the carriage, reaching for his cutlasses.\n\n\"Whoa there, y'damned manx! '\n\nThe bark startled him and he glared up at Glanno Tarp, who smiled a hard smile. \"Shareholders can't just walkaway– we'd have to plug ya fulla arrows. Get back aboard, stripy, we're leaving allover again! '\n\nThere could be but one outcome, and Draconus had known that all along. He had sensed nothing of the Trygalle's arrival, nor even its departure, with Toc riding in its wake. Whatever occurred behind him could not reach through to awaken his senses.\n\nOne outcome.\n\nAfter all, Dragnipur had never offered salvation. Iron forged to bind, a hundred thousand chains hammered into the blade, layers upon layers entwined, folded, wrapped like rope. Draconus, surrounded in the molten fires of Burn's heart, drawing forth chains of every metal that existed, drawing them out link by glowing link. Twisted ropes of metal on the anvil, and down came the hammer. The one hammer, the only tool that could forge such a weapon– and he remembered its vast weight, the scalding grip that lacerated his alien hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in her dreaming, Burn had been most displeased.\n\nChains upon chains. Chains to bind. Bind Darkness itself, transforming the ancient forest through which it had wandered, twisting that blackwood into a wagon, into huge, tottering wheels, into abed that formed a horizontal door– like the entrance to a barrow– above the portal. Blackwood, to hold and contain the soul of Kurald Galain.\n\nHe remembered. Sparks in countless hues skipping away like shattered rainbows. The deafening ringing of the hammer and the way the anvil trembled to every blow. The waves of heat flashing against his face. The bitter taste of raw ore, the stench of sulphur. Chains! Chains and chains, pounded down into glowing impressions upon the blade, quenched and honed and into Burn's white heart and then– it begins again. And again.\n\nChains! Chains to bind!\n\nBind the Fallen!\n\nAnd now, unbelievably, impossibly, Draconus had felt that first splintering. Chains had broken.\n\nSo it ends. I did not think, I did not imagine-\n\nHe had witnessed his Bound companions falling away, failing. He had seen the chaos descend upon each one, eating through flesh with actinic zeal, until shackles fell to the ground– until the iron bands held nothing. Nothing left.\n\nI never meant– I never wanted such an end– to any of you, of us.\n\nNo, I was far too cruel to ever imagine an end. An escape.\n\nYet now, witness these thoughts of mine. Now, I would see you all live on, yes, in these chains, but not out of cruelty. Ah, no, not that. Abyss take me, I would see you live out of mercy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps he wept now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or these scalding tears announced the crushing end of hysterical laughter. No matter. They were all being eaten alive. We are all being eaten alive.\n\nAnd Dragnipur had begun to come apart.\n\nWhen the chaos disintegrated the wagon, destroyed the door, and took hold of the Gate, the sword would shatter and chaos would be freed of this oh-so-clever trap, and Draconus's brilliant lure– his eternal snare eternally leading chaos on and away from everything else– would have failed. He could not contemplate what would happen then, to the countless succession of realms and worlds, and of course he would not be thereto witness the aftermath in any case. But he knew that, in his last thoughts, he would feel nothing but unbearable guilt.\n\nSo, chaos, at least unto one victim, what you deliver is indeed mercy.\n\nHe had begun walking forward, to join the other Bound, to stand, perhaps, at Pearl's side, until the end came.\n\nThe echo of that snapping chain haunted him. Someone's broken loose. How? Even the Hounds of Shadow could only slip free by plunging into Kurald Galain's black heart. Their chains did not break. Dragnipur's essential integrity had not been damaged.\n\nBut now... someone's broken loose.\n\nHow?\n\nChains and chains and chains to bind-\n\nA bony hand closed on his shoulder and dragged him back.\n\nSnarling, Draconus half turned. \"Let go, damn you! I will stand with them, Hood– I must, can't you see that? '\n\nThe Lord of Death's hand tightened, the nails biting, and Hood slowly pulled him closer.\"The fray, \"the god said in a rasp,\"is not for you. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not my master-\"\n\n\"Stand with me, Draconus. It's not yet time. '\n\n\"For what?\" He struggled to tear free, but a Jaghut's strength could be immense, and barring the bloody removal of his entire shoulder, Draconus could do nothing. He and the Lord of Death stood alone, not twenty paces from the motionless wagon.\n\n\"Consider this,\" said Hood, \"a request for forgiveness.\"\n\nDraconus stared. \"What? Who asks my forgiveness?\"\n\nHood, Lord of the Dead, should have been the last to fall to Dragnipur. Whatever the Son of Darkness intended, its final play was found in the slaying of this ancient god. Such was the conviction of Draconus. A mad, pointless gamble, the empty purchase of time already consumed, the wasting of countless souls, an entire realm of the dead.\n\nAs it turned out, Draconus was wrong.\n\nThere was one more. One more.\n\nArriving with the power of a mountain torn apart in along, deafening, crushing detonation. Argent clouds were shredded, whipped away in dark winds. The legions pressing on all sides recoiled, and the thousand closing paces so viciously won were lost in an instant. Dragons screamed. Voices erupted as if dragged out from throats– the pressure, the pain, the stunning power-\n\nChaos flinched, and then, slowly, began to gather itself once more.\n\nNo single force could defeat this enemy. Destruction was its own law, and even as it devoured itself it would devour everything else. Chaos, riding the road of Darkness, ever to arrive unseen, from sources unexpected, from places where one never thought to look, much less guard against." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sword and all within it was dying, now, at last; dying.\n\nHood's hand had left his shoulder, and Draconus sagged down onto his knees.\n\nOne more.\n\nAnd, yes, he knew who was now among them.\n\nShould he laugh? Should he seek him out, mock him? Should he close hands about his throat so that they could lock one to the other until the descent of oblivion?\n\nNo, he would do none of this.\n\nWho asks for my forgiveness?\n\nHad he the strength, he would have cried out.\n\nAnomander Rake, you need not ask. That begging, alas, must come from me.\n\nThis was Mother Dark I snared here. Your mother-\n\nAnd so, what will you now do?\n\nA heartbeat later, a faint gasp escaped Draconus, and he lifted his head, opened his eyes once more. \"Rake?\" he whispered.\n\nDraconus slowly rose. And turned. To face the wagon.\n\nTo witness.\n\nThe Second watched yet another Seguleh fall. He then dragged his horse round, to glare with dead eyes at a tall, ornate carriage, as its train of screaming horses lunged forward. Figures pitched to one side, holding on for dear life as a fissure tore open– into which those horses vanished.\n\nHood's Herald– that one-eyed soldier– drove heels to his tattered mount, following.\n\nAnd the Lord of Death's voice drifted through the Second.\"It seems you are needed after all, as you suspected. Now go– and know this, old friend, you have served me well.\n\n'I am the god of death no longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When you have done this last thing, your service is at an end. And then, well, Skinner awaits...\"\n\nThe Second tilted back his masked, helmed head and howled in glee. Sheathing his swords, he rode hard after the carriage.\n\nHe saw the Herald vanish.\n\nAnd the fissure began to close.\n\nThe Second drove his long-dead Jaghut stallion into that dying portal-\n\nAnd left the realm of Dragnipur. The other Seguleh were doomed anyway, and though in this last battle they had each redeemed something of their shame in dying to a foreigner, that was no reason to fall at their sides.\n\nThe Second did not stay long in the wake of the others as they thundered through unknown warrens, no, not long at all. For he had been summoned. Summoned, yes, by a weapon in need-\n\nRiding a seething storm of fiery winds, plunging through, his horse's sheaves of armour clattering, its hoofs ringing sharp on cobbles, the Second saw what he sought, and he swept his hand down-\n\n\"I'll take that, \"laughed a hollow, metallic voice. And the lance was torn from Cutter's hand. In an array of flapping tatters of hide, frayed straps and mangled buckles, the undead Seguleh who had, long ago, once given him the weapon, now readied the lance, even as the masked warrior charged straight towards the white Hounds.\n\n\"Skinner!\" he roared. \"I'm coming for you! But first, these guys... '\n\nKarsa Orlong sidestepped at the sudden arrival of some armoured warrior riding a monstrous, dead horse. Seeing the newcomer ride to meet the Hounds, he snarled and set off after him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lance angled down on the left side and so the Toblakai went to the rider's right, eyes fixing on a Hound that clearly intended an attack on the horseman's unprotected side.\n\nTwo beasts and two warriors all met at once.\n\nThe rider's lance drove into a Hound's throat just beneath the jaw, surging upward through the base of the skull, severing the spinal cordon its way to obliterate the back of the animal's brain. The serrated lance head erupted from the skull in an explosion of grey pulp, blood and bone shards.\n\nKarsa swung down, two-handed, as the other Hound arrived alongside the rider and reared to close jaws on the stranger's right thigh. Flint blade sliced down through the spine, chopping halfway through a neck thick as a horse's, before jamming– the Hound's forward momentum, now pitching downward, dragged the weapon and Karsa with it as the animal slammed the cobbles.\n\nAt that instant the rider's Jaghut horse collided chest to chest with a third hound. Bones shattered. The impact sent the rider over his horse's head, dragging his lance free as he went. He struck and rolled off the back of the Hound– which seemed stunned, as the undead horse stumbled back.\n\nPulled down onto his knees, Karsa ducked the snapping attack of another Hound– and then the beast was past, as were all the others. The Toblakai rose, took two quick strides and thrust his sword into the chest of the dazed third Hound. Howling in pain, it staggered away from Karsa's blade, blood fountaining out in the path of the withdrawing sword. The stranger had recovered and he now sank the lance into the gut of the writhing animal, the lance head tearing messily through soft tissue, fluids spilling down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something flashed in the eye-holes of the twin-scarred mask." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well done, Toblakai! Now let's chase down the others! '\n\nThe two warriors swung round.\n\nCutter stared as seven Hounds swept round Karsa and the Seguleh. Now he didn't even hold a lance– dammit– and he unsheathed a pair of knives as one of the beasts made straight for him.\n\nA hand grasped the back of his shirt and yanked him back. Yelling in alarm, Cutter stumbled into someone's short, brawny arms. He caught a momentary glimpse of a weathered face, eyes bulging, red moustache twitching beneath a bulbous nose-\n\nDo I know this man?\n\nAnd the one who had thrown him clear now lumbered forward, lifting an enormous two-handed axe. Barathol-\n\n\"Wrong place for us!\" growled the man holding Cutter, and they began backing up.\n\nBarathol recognized this beast– the one Chaur had tangled with, the one that had broken his friend's skull. He almost sang his joy as he launched himself into its path, axe sweeping in a savage diagonal arc, low to high, as the Hound arrived, snarling, monstrous-\n\nThe axe edge bit deep into the beast's lower jaw– another single instant's delay and he would have caught its neck. As it was, the blow hammered the Hound's head to one side.\n\nThe beast's chest struck Barathol.\n\nAs if he'd been standing in the path of a bronze-sheathed battering ram, he was flung back, cartwheeling through the air, and was unconscious before he landed, fifteen paces behind the body of Anomander Rake.\n\nThe Hound had skidded, stumbled, wagging its head– its right mandible was broken, a row of jagged molars jutting out almost horizontal, blood splashing down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For this battle, the beast was finished.\n\nIn the moment that Karsa and the stranger whirled round, a shadow swept over them, and both flinched down in the midst of a sudden wind, reeking of rot, gusting past-\n\nTips of its wings clattering along the facings of buildings to either side, a dragon sailed above the street, talons striking like vipers. Each one closing round a Hound in a crushing, puncturing embrace, lifting the screaming animals into the air. The dragon's head snapped down, jaws engulfing another-\n\nAnd then the dragon thundered its wings and lifted skyward once more, carrying away three Hounds.\n\nThe creature's attack had lasted but a handful of heartbeats, in the moment that Cutter was dragged back into Antsy's arms– the Falari half carrying him in his charge towards the door of the shopfront to the right– and Barathol, his gaze fixed solely upon the hated Hound attacking him, swung his axe.\n\nThese three did not even seethe dragon.\n\nSamar Dev stared wide-eyed at the dragon as it heaved back into the sky with its three howling, snarling victims.\n\nShe was crouched over the motionless form of Traveller, Dassem Ultor, wielder of Vengeance, slayer of the Son of Darkness, who now lifted a sorrow-wracked visage, bleak, broken– and then reached out and grasped her, tugged her close.\n\n\"Not my choice! Do not blame me, woman! Do you hear? Do not!\"\n\nThen his eyes widened and he dragged her down onto the cobbles, covered her with his own body.\n\nAs two behemoths collided not three paces distant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A white Hound.\n\nAnd a bear, a god, a beast forgotten in the passing of the world.\n\nIt had arrived a moment after the Hound, and its massive forearms wrapped round in a crushing embrace, lifting the Hound into the air– and clear of Samar Dev and Dassem– before both creatures slammed into and through the building's front wall.\n\nRubble crashed down, tumbling chunks of masonry striking Dassem's broad back as he pulled himself and Samar away from the collapsing façade. Somewhere within that building, bear and Hound fought in a frenzy.\n\nLeaving, now, two Hounds of Light, unopposed, and they reached the corpse of Anomander Rake. Jaws closed about a thigh and his body was dragged upward. The second beast circled, as if contemplating its own bite– but the sword still lodged in the Tiste Andii's skull was pitching about as the first animal sought to carry away its prize, and wise caution kept it back.\n\nThe Seguleh threw his lance from fifteen paces away. The weapon sank into the side of the circling Hound, knocking it down– to be up again in an instant, snarling and snapping at the jutting shaft.\n\nKarsa, whose longer strides had sent him ahead of the Second, voiced a Teblor battle cry– an ancient one, heard only when the elders spun their tales of ancient heroes– and the Hound gripping Rake's corpse flinched at the sound.\n\nReleasing its hold on that torn, gashed leg, it lunged towards the attacking Toblakai.\n\nTwo javelins struck the animal from its left. Neither lodged, but it was enough to sting its attention, and the Hound's head pitched round to confront the new attackers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two young Teblor women stood on the other side of the avenue, each calmly readying another javelin in her atlatl. Between them stood a large, mangy dog, tensed, fangs bared, its growl so low it might as well have been coming up from the earth below.\n\nThe Hound hesitated.\n\nKarsa charged towards it, blade whistling through the air-\n\nThe beast broke and ran– and the Toblakai's sword sliced off its stubby tail and nothing else.\n\nThe Hound howled.\n\nShifting round, Karsa advanced on the other animal– it had dragged the lance loose and now it too was fleeing, leaving a trail of blood.\n\nThe Seguleh reclaimed his gore-smeared weapon.\n\nKarsa hesitated, and then he moved to stand over the body of Anomander Rake. \"They are beaten,\" he said.\n\nThe masked face swung round. Dead eyes in rimmed slits regarded him. \"It has been along time since I last heard that war cry, Toblakai. Pray,\" the warrior added, \"I never hear it again!\"\n\nKarsa's attention, however, was drawn to the Teblor women, and the dog that now advanced, its own stubbed tail wagging.\n\nStaring at the animal, watching its limping approach, Karsa Orlong struggled against a sob. He had sent this dog home. Half dead, fevered and weak from blood loss, it had set out– so long ago now, so long ago. He looked up at the Teblor girls, neither of whom spoke. It was difficult to see through the tears– did he know these two? No, they looked too young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They looked...\n\nDown the side street, the five Hounds of Shadow had been driven back, unable to hold their ground against the combined sorceries of Spite and Envy. The magic slashed their hides. Blood sprayed from their snouts. And on all sides, forces sought to crush them down, destroy them utterly.\n\nWrithing, battered, they fell back, step by step.\n\nAnd the Daughters of Draconus drew ever closer to their prize.\n\nTheir father's sword.\n\nA birthright long denied them. Of course, both Envy and Spite understood the value of patience. Patience, yes, in the fruition of their desires, their needs.\n\nThe Hounds could not match them, not in power, nor in savage will.\n\nThe long wait was almost over.\n\nThe sisters barely registered the quiet arrival of a carriage well behind the Hounds. Alas, the same could not be said for the one who stepped out from it and swung strangely bestial eyes towards them.\n\nThat steady, deadly regard reached through indeed.\n\nThey halted their advance. Sorceries died away. The Hounds, shedding blood that steamed in the dawn's light, limped back in the direction of the fallen wielder of Dragnipur.\n\nEnvy and Spite hesitated. Desires were stuffed screaming back into their tiny lockboxes. Plans hastily, bitterly readjusted. Patience... ah, patience, yes, awakened once more.\n\nOh well, maybe next time.\n\nThe vicious battle within the shell of the mostly demolished building had ended. Heart fluttering with fear, Samar Dev cautiously approached. She worked her way over the rubble and splintered crossbeams, edged past an inner wall that had remained mostly intact, and looked then upon the two motionless leviathans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A faint cry rose from her. Awkwardly, she made her way closer, and a moment later found herself half sitting, half slumped against a fragmented slab of plastered wall, staring down at the dying bear's torn and shredded head.\n\nThe Hound was gasping as well, its back end buried beneath the giant bear, red foam bubbling from its nostrils, each breath shallower and wetter than the one before, until finally, with a single, barely audible sigh, it died.\n\nSamar Dev's attention returned to the god that had so haunted her, ever looming, ever testing the air... seeking... what?\"What? ' she asked it now in a hoarse whisper.\n\n\"What did you want?\"\n\nThe beast's one remaining eye seemed to shift slightly inside its ring of red. In it, she saw only pain. And loss.\n\nThe witch drew out her knife. Was this the thing to do? Should she not simply let it go? Let it leave this unjust, heartless existence? The last of its kind. Forgotten by all...\n\nWell, I will not forget you, my friend.\n\nShe reached down with the knife, and slipped the blade into the pool of blood beneath the bear's head. And she whispered words of binding, repeating them over and over again, until at last the light of life departed the god's eye.\n\nClutching two Hounds with a third one writhing in his mouth, Tulas Shorn could do little more than shake the beasts half senseless as the dragon climbed ever higher above the mountains north of Lake Azure. Of course, he could do one more thing. He could drop them from a great height.\n\nWhich he did. With immense satisfaction.\n\n\"Wait! Wait! Stop it! Stop!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Iskaral Pust climbed free of the ruckus– the mound of thrashing, snarling, spitting and grunting bhokarala, the mass of tangled, torn hair and filthy robes and prickly toes that was his wife, and he glared round.\n\n\"You idiots! He isn't even here anymore! Gah, it's too late! Gah! That odious, slimy, putrid lump of red-vested dung! No, get that away from me, ape.\" He leapt to his feet. His mule stood alone. \"What good are you?\" he accused the beast, raising a fist.\n\nMogora climbed upright, adjusting her clothes. She then stuck out her tongue, which seemed to be made entirely of spiders.\n\nSeeing this, Iskaral Pust gagged. \"Gods! No wonder you can do what you do!\"\n\nShe cackled. \"And oh how you beg for more!\"\n\n\"Aagh! If I'd known, I'd have begged for something else!\"\n\n\"Oh, what would you have begged for, sweetie?\"\n\n\"A knife, so I could cut my own throat. Look at me. I'm covered in bites! '\n\n\"They got sharp teeth, all right, them bhokarala-\"\n\n\"Not them, month-old cream puff. These are spider bites!\"\n\n\"You deserve even worse! Did you drug her senseless? There's no other way she'd agree to-\"\n\n\"Power! I have power! It's irresistible, everybody knows that! A man can look like a slug! His hair can stick out like a bhederin's tongue! He can be knee-high and perfectly proportioned– he can stink, he can eat his own earwax, none of it matters! If he has power!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, that's what's wrong with the world, then." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's why ugly people don't just die out.\" And then she smiled. \"It's why you and me, we're made for each other! Let's have babies, hundreds of babies! '\n\nIskaral Pust ran to his mule, scrabbled aboard, and fled for his life.\n\nThe mule walked, seemingly unmindful of the rider thrashing and kicking about on its back, and at a leisurely saunter, Mogora kept pace.\n\nThe bhokarala, which had been cooing and grooming in a reconciliatory love fest, now flapped up into the air, circling over their god's head like gnats round the sweetest heap of dung ever beheld.\n\nApproaching thunder startled Picker from her reverie within the strange cave, and she stared upon the carved rock wall, eyes widening to seethe image of the carriage blurring as if in motion.\n\nIf the monstrosity was indeed pounding straight for her, moments from exploding into the cavern, then she would be trampled, for there was nowhere to go in the hope of evading those rearing horses and the pitching carriage behind them.\n\nAn absurd way for her soul to die-\n\nThe apparition arrived in a storm of infernal wind, yet it emerged from the wall ghostly, almost transparent, and she felt the beasts and the conveyance tear through her– a momentary glimpse of a manic driver, eyes wide and staring, both legs jutting out straight and splayed and apparently splinted. And still others, on the carriage roof and tossing about on the ends of straps from the sides, expressions stunned and jolted. All of this, sweeping through her, and past-\n\nAnd a rider lunged into view directly before her, sawing the reins– and this man and his mount were real, solid. Sparks spat out from skidding hoofs, the horse's eyeless head lifting. Picker staggered back in alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Damned corpses! She stared up at the rider, and then swore. \"I know you!\"\n\nThe one-eyed man, enwreathed in the stench of death, settled his horse and looked down upon her. And then he said, \"I am Hood's Herald now, Corporal Picker. '\n\n\"Oh. Is that a promotion?\"\n\n\"No, a damned sentence, and you're not the only one I need to visit, so enough of the sardonic shit and listen tome-'\n\nShe bridled. \"Why? What am I doing here? What's Hood want with me that he ain't already got? Hey, take a message back to him! I want to-\"\n\n\"I cannot, Picker. Hood is dead.\"\n\n\"He's what? '\n\n\"The Lord of Death no longer exists. Gone. Forevermore. Listen, I ride to the gods of war. Do you understand, torc-bearer? I ride to all the gods of war.\"\n\nTorc-bearer? She sagged. \"Ah, shit.\"\n\nToc the Younger spoke then, and told her all she needed to know.\n\nWhen he was done, she stared, the blood drained from her face, and watched as he gathered the reins once more and prepared to leave.\n\n\"Wait!\" she demanded. \"I need to get out of here! How do I do that, Toc?\"\n\nThe dead eye fixed upon her one last time. He pointed at the gourds resting on the stone floor to either side of Picker. \"Drink. Live up to your name. Pick one, Picker.\"\n\n\"Are you mad? You just told me where that blood's come from! '\n\n\"Drink, and remember all that I have told you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he was gone.\n\nRemember, yes, she would do that. 'Find the Toblakai. Find the killer and remind him... remind him, do you understand me? Then, torc-bearer, lead him to war.\n\n\"Lead him to war...\"\n\nThere had been more, much more. None of it anything she could hope to forget. \"All I wanted to do was retire.\"\n\nCursing under her breath, she walked over to the nearest gourd, crouched down before it. Drink. It's blood, dammit!\n\nDrink.\n\nTo stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Ora sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.\n\nA weapon named Vengeance, or a weapon named Grief– either way, where he had been delivered by that sword was a world of his own making. And all the choices that might have been were as dust on the bleak trail of his life.\n\nHe was the Son of Darkness. His people were lost. There was, for him, room to grieve, here at the end of things, and he could finally turn away, as his mother had done so long ago. Turn away from his children. As every father must one day do, in that final moment that was death. The notion of forgiveness did not even occur to him, as he stood on the mound of moaning, tattooed bodies.\n\nHe was, after all, not the begging sort.\n\nThe one exception was Draconus. Ah, but those circumstances were unique, the crime so faceted, so intricately complicated, that it did no good to seek to prise loose any single detail. In any case, the forgiveness he asked for did not demand an answer. All that mattered was that Draconus be given those words. He could do with them as he pleased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anomander Rake stood, eyes fixed heavenward, facing that seething conflagration, the descending annihilation, and he did not blink, did not flinch. For he felt its answer deep within him, in the blood of Tiam, the blood of chaos.\n\nHe would stand, then, for all those he had chained here. He would stand for all the others as well. And for these poor, broken souls underfoot. He would stand, and face that ferocious chaos.\n\nUntil the very last moment. The very last moment.\n\nLike amass of serpents, the tattoos swarmed beneath him.\n\nKadaspala had waited for so long. For this one chance. Vengeance against the slayer of a beloved sister, the betrayer of Andarist, noble Andarist, husband and brother. Oh, he had come to suspect what Anomander Rake intended. Sufficient reparation? All but one Tiste Andii would answer \"yes\" to that question. All but one.\n\nNot Kadaspala! No, not me! Not me not me! Not me not me not me!\n\nI will make you fail. In this, your last gesture, your pathetic attempt at reconciliation– I will make you fail!\n\nSee this god I made? See it? See it see it!\n\nNo, you did not expect that expect that expect that, did you now? Did you now?\n\nNor the knife in its hand. Nor the knife in its hand!\n\nTeeth bared, blind Kadaspala twisted onto his back, the better to seethe Son of Darkness, yes, the better to see him. Eyes were not necessary and eyes were not necessary. To seethe bastard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standing so tall, so fierce, almost within reach.\n\nAtop the mountain of bodies, the moaning bridge of flesh and bone, the sordid barrier at Dark's door, this living ward– so stupid so stupid! Standing there, eyes lifting up, soul facing down and down and downward– will she sense him? Will she turn? Will she see? Will she understand?\n\nNo to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a god a god a god he has made a god and the knife the knife the knife-\n\nAnomander Rake stands, and the map awakens, its power and his power, awakening.\n\nWandering Hold, wander no longer. Fleeing Gate, flee no more. This is what he will do. This is the sacrifice he will make, oh so worthy so noble so noble yes and clever and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so noble and so clever?\n\nAll to fail!\n\nChild god! It's time! Feel the knife in your hand– feel it! Now lift it high– the fool sees nothing, suspects nothing, knows nothing of how I feel, how I do not forget will never forget will never forget and no, I will never forget!\n\nReach high.\n\nStab!\n\nStab!\n\nStab!\n\nStorm of light, a scattered moon, arising sun behind bruised clouds from which brown, foul rain poured down, Black Coral was a city under siege, and the Tiste Andii within it could now at last feel the death of their Lord, and with him the death of their world.\n\nWas it fair, to settle the burden of long-dead hope upon one person, to ask of that person so much? Was it not, in fact, cowardice? He had been their strength. He had been their courage. And he had paid the Hound's Toll for them all, centuries upon centuries, and not once had he turned away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if to stand in his mother's stead. As if to do what she would not.\n\nOur Lord is dead. He has left us.\n\nA people grieved.\n\nThe rain descended. Kelyk ran in bitter streams on the streets, down building walls. Filled the gutters in mad rush. Droplets struck and sizzled black upon the hide of Silanah. This was the rain of usurpation, and against it they felt helpless.\n\nDrink deep, Black Coral.\n\nAnd dance, yes, dance until you die.\n\nMonkrat struggled his way up the muddy, root-tangled slope with the last two children in his arms. He glanced up to see Spindle crouched at the crest, smeared in clay, looking like a damned gargoyle. But there was no glee in the staring eyes, only exhaustion and dread.\n\nThe unnatural rain had reached out to this broken, half-shattered forest. The old trenches and berms were black with slime, the wreckage of retaining walls reminding him of rotting bones and teeth, as if the hillside's flesh had been torn away to reveal a giant, ravaged face, which now grinned vacuously at the grey and brown sky.\n\nThe two ex-Bridgeburners had managed to find an even twenty children, four of them so close to death they'd weighed virtually nothing, hanging limp in their arms. The two men had worked through the entire night ferrying them up to the entrenchments, down into the tunnels where they could be out of the worst of the rain. They had scrounged blankets, some food, clean water in clay jugs.\n\nAs Monkrat drew closer Spindle reached down to help him scrabble over the edge. The scrawny girls dangled like straw dolls, heads lolling, as Monkrat passed each one up to Spindle, who stumbled away with them, sloshing through the muddy rivulet of the trench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monkrat sagged, stared down at the ground to keep the rain from his eyes and mouth as he drew in deep breaths.\n\nA lifetime of soldiering, aye, the kind that made miserable slogs like this one old news, as familiar as a pair of leaking leather boots. So what made this one feel so different?\n\nHe could hear someone crying in the tunnel, and then Spindle's voice, soothing, reassuring.\n\nAnd gods, how Monkrat wanted to weep.\n\nDifferent, aye, so very different.\n\n\"Soldiers,\" he muttered, \"come in all sorts.\"\n\nHe'd been one kind fora longtime, and had grown so sick of it he'd just walked away. And now Spindle showed up, to take him and drag him inside out and make him into a different kind of soldier. And this one, why, it felt right. It felt proper. He'd no idea...\n\nHe looked over as Spindle stumbled into view. \"Let's leave it at this, Spin, \"he begged.\"Please. '\n\n\"I want to stick a knife in Gradithan's face, \"Spindle growled.\"I want to cutout his black tongue. I want to drag the bastard up here so everyone of them tykes can see what I do to him-'\n\n\"You do that and I'll kill you myself, \"Monkrat vowed, baring his teeth.\"They seen too much as it is, Spin. '\n\n\"They get to see vengeance-\"\n\n\"It won't feel like vengeance to them, \"Monkrat said,\"it'll just be more of the same fucking horror, the same cruel madness. You want vengeance, do it in private, Spindle. Do it down there. But don't expect my help– I won't have none of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spindle stared at him. \"That's a different row of knots you're showing me here, Monkrat. Last night, you was talking it up'bout how we'd run him down and do him good-\"\n\n\"I changed my mind, Spin. These poor runts did that.\" He hesitated. \"You did that, making me do what we just done.\" He then laughed harshly. \"Fancy this, I'm feeling... redeemed. Now ain't that ironic, Spin.\"\n\nSpindle slowly settled back against the trench wall, and then sank down until he was sitting in the mud. \"Shit. How about that. And I walked all this way, looking for just what you done and found here. I was needing something, I thought they was answers... but I didn't even know the right questions. \"He grimaced and spat.\"I still don't.\"\n\nMonkrat shrugged. \"Me neither.\"\n\n\"But you been redeemed.\" And that statement was almost bitter-sounding.\n\nMonkrat struggled with his thoughts. \"When that hits you– me, when it hit me, well, what it's feeling like right now, Spin, it's like redemption finds anew meaning. It's when you don't need answers no more, because you know that anybody promising answers is fulla crap. Priest, priestess, god, goddess. Fulla crap, you understanding me?\"\n\n\"That don't sound right, \"Spindle objected.\"To be redeemed, someone's got to do the redeeming.\"\n\n\"But maybe it don't have to be someone else. Maybe it's just doing something, being something, someone, and feeling that change inside– it's like you went and redeemed yourself. And nobody else's opinion matters. And you know that you still got all them questions, right ones, wrong ones, and maybe you'll be able to find an answer or two, maybe not. But it don't matter. The only thing that matters is you now know ain't nobody else has got a damned thing to do with it, with any of it. That's the redemption I'm talking about here. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spindle leaned his head back and closed his eyes. \"Lucky you, Monkrat. No, I mean that. I do.\"\n\n\"You idiot. I was rotting here, seeing everything and doing nothing. If I now ended up someplace else, it's all because of you. Shit, you just done what areal priest should do– no fucking advice, no bullshit wisdom, no sympathy, none of that crap. Just a damned kick in the balls and get on with doing what you know is right. Anyway, I won't forget what you done, Spin. I won't ever forget. '\n\nSpindle opened his eyes, and Monkrat saw an odd frown on the man's face as he stared skyward.\n\nAnd then he too looked up.\n\nAlone figure walked towards the Temple of Darkness, moccasins whispering on the slick cobbles. One hand was held up, from which thin delicate chains whirled round and round, the rings at their ends flashing. Thick rain droplets burst apart in that spinning arc, spraying against the face and the half-smile curving the lips.\n\nSomeone within that building was resisting. Was it Rake himself? Clip dearly hoped so, and if it was true, then the so-called Son of Darkness was weak, pathetic, and but moments from annihilation. Clip might have harboured demands and accusations once, all lined up and arrayed like arrows for the plucking. Bowstring thrumming, barbed truths winging unerringly through the air to strike home again and again. Yes, he had imagined such a scene. Had longed for it.\n\nWhat value hard judgement when there was no one to hurt with it? Where was satisfaction? Pleasure in seeing the wounds? No, hard judgement was like rage. It thrived on victims. And the delicious flush of superiority in the delivery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps the Dying God would reward him, for he so wanted victims. He had, after all, so much rage to give them. Listen tome, Lord Rake. They slaughtered everyone in the Andara. Everyone! And where were you, when your worshippers were dying? Where were you? They called upon you. They begged you.\n\nYes, Clip would break him. He owed his people that much.\n\nHe studied the temple as he approached, and he could sense familiarity in its lines, echoes of the Andara, and Bluerose. But this building seemed rawer, cruder, as if the stone inadvertently mimicked rough-hewn wood. Memories honoured? Or elegance forgotten? No matter.\n\nAn instant's thought shattered the temple doors, and he felt the one within recoil in pain.\n\nHe ascended the steps, walked through the smoke and dust.\n\nRings spinning, kelyk streaming.\n\nThe domed roof was latticed with cracks, and the rain poured down in thick, black threads. He saw a woman standing at the back, her face a mask of horror. And he saw an old man down on his knees in the centre of the mosaic floor, his head bowed.\n\nClip halted, frowned. This was his opponent? This useless, broken, feeble thing?\n\nWhere was Anomander Rake?\n\nHe... he is not here. He is not even here! I am his Mortal Sword! And he is not even here!\n\nHe screamed in fury. And power lashed out, rushing in a wall that tore tesserae from the broad floor as it ripped its way out from him, that shattered the pillars ringing the chamber so that they toppled back like felled trees. That engulfed the puny old man-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Endest Silann groaned under the assault." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like talons, the Dying God's power sank deep into him, shredding his insides. This was too vast to resist. He yielded ground, pace hastening, moments from a rout, a terrified, fatal flight-\n\nBut there was nowhere to go. If he fell now, every Tiste Andii in Black Coral would be lost. Saemankelyk would claim them all, and the city itself would succumb to that dread stain. Kurald Galain would be corrupted, made to feed an alien god's mad hunger for power.\n\nAnd so, amidst a broken chorus of snapping bones and splitting flesh, Endest Silann held on.\n\nDesperate, searching fora source of strength– anything, anyone– but Anomander Rake was gone. He had raged with power like a pillar of fire. He had been indomitable, and in reaching out a hand to settle firm on a shoulder, he could make his confidence a gift. He could make the ones who loved him do the impossible.\n\nBut now, he was gone.\n\nAnd Endest Silann was alone.\n\nHe felt his soul withering, dying under this blistering assault.\n\nAnd, from some vast depth, the old man recalled... a river.\n\nDefiant of all light, deep, so deep where ran the currents– currents that no force could contain. He could slip into those sure streams, yes, if he but reached down...\n\nBut the pain, it was so fierce. It demanded all of him. He could not claw free of it, even as it devoured him.\n\nThe river– if he could but reach it–\n\nThe god possessing Clip laughed. Everything was within his grasp. He could feel his cherished High Priestess, so lovingly usurped from the Redeemer's clutches, so thoroughly seduced into the mindless dance of oblivion, the worship of wasted lives– she was defeating the Redeemer's lone guardian– he was falling back step by step, amass of wounds, a dozen of them clearly fatal, and though somehow he still stood, still fought, he could not last much longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The god wanted the Redeemer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A more worthy vessel than the one named Clip, which was so venal in its thoughts, so miserable in its hurts. No better than a child burned by neglect, and now all it dreamed of was lashing out.\n\nIt believed it had come to confront its father, but there was no father here. There never had been. It had believed it was chosen to deliver justice, but the one named Clip– who had never seen justice– did not understand its true meaning, whichever belonged solely and exclusively within the cage of one's own soul.\n\nNo, the god's need for Clip was coming to an end. This vessel would be given over to saemankelyk, no different from all the others. To dance, to lie above the High Priestess and gush black semen into her womb– a deed without pleasure, for all pleasure was consumed by the Dying God's own blood, by the sweet kelyk. And she would swell with the immortal gifts a thousand times, ten thousand times.\n\nThe sweetest poison, after all, is the one eagerly shared.\n\nThe god advanced on the kneeling old man. Time to kill the fool.\n\nAranatha's hand was cool and dry in Nimander's grasp as she led him through an unknown realm that left him blind, stumbling, like a dog beaten senseless, the leash of that hand tugging him on and on.\n\n\"Please,\" he whispered, \"where are we going?\"\n\n\"To battle,\" she replied, and her voice was almost unrecognizable.\n\nNimander felt a tremor of fear. Was this even Aranatha? Perhaps some demon had taken her place– yet the hand, yes, he knew it. Unchanged, so familiar in its ethereal touch. Like a glove with nothing in it– but no, he could feel it, firm, solid. Her hand, like everything else about her, was a mystery he had come to love." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The kiss she had given him– what seemed an eternity ago– he could feel it still, as if he had tasted something alien, something so far beyond him that he had no hope of ever understanding, of ever recognizing what it might be. A kiss, sweet as a blessing– but had it been Aranatha who had blessed him?\n\n\"Aranatha-\"\n\n\"We are almost there– oh, will you defend me, Nimander? I can but reach through, not far, with little strength. It is all I have ever been able to do. But now... she insists. She commands.\"\n\n\"Who?\" he asked, suddenly chilled, suddenly shivering. \"Who commands you?\"\n\n\"Why, Aranatha.\"\n\nBut then– \"Who– who are you?\"\n\n\"Will you defend me, Nimander? I do not deserve it. My errors are legion. My hurt I have made into your curse, a curse upon everyone of you. But we are past apologies. We stand in the dust of what's done. '\n\n\"Please-\"\n\n'I do not think enough of me can reach through– not against him. I am sorry. If you do not stand in his way, I will fall. I will fail. I feel in your blood a whisper of... someone. Someone dear tome. Someone who might have withstood him.\n\n\"But he does not await us. He is not thereto defend me. What has happened? Nimander, I have only you.\"\n\nThe small hand, that had felt dry and cool and so oddly reassuring in its remoteness, now felt suddenly frail, like thin porcelain.\n\nShe does not guide me.\n\nShe holds on.\n\nHe sought comprehension from all that she had said. The blood of someone dear. She cannot reach through, not enough to make her powerful enough against Clip, against the Dying God. She– she is not Aranatha." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nimander, I have only you.\"\n\n\"We stand in the dust of what's done. '\n\n\"Nimander, we have arrived.\"\n\nTears streamed down Seerdomin's ravaged face. Overwhelmed by the helplessness, by the futility of his efforts against such an enemy, he rocked to every blow, staggered in retreat, and if he was laughing– and gods, he was– there was no humour in that terrible sound.\n\nHe hadn't had much pride to begin with– or so he had made his pose, there before the Redeemer, one of such humility– but no soldier with any spine left did not hold to a secret conviction of prowess. And although he had not lied when he'd told himself he was fighting fora god he did not believe in, well, apart of him was unassailed by that particular detail. As if it'd make no difference. And in that was revealed the secret pride he had harboured.\n\nHe would surprise her. He would astonish her by resisting far beyond what she could have anticipated. He would fight the bitch to a standstill.\n\nHow grim, how noble, how poetic. Yes, they would sing of the battle, all those shining faces in some future temple of white, virgin stone, all those shining eyes so pleased to share heroic Seerdomin's triumphant glory.\n\nHe could not help but laugh.\n\nShe was shattering him piece by pathetic piece. It was a wonder any part of his soul was left that could still recognize itself.\n\nSee me, Spinnock Durav, old friend. Noble friend. And let us share this laugh.\n\nAt my stupid posing.\n\nI am mocked, friend, by my own pride. Yes, do laugh, as you so wanted to do each and every time you defeated me on our tiny field of battle, thereon the stained table in that damp, miserable tavern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You did not imagine how I struggled to hold onto that pride, defeat after defeat, crushing loss after crushing loss.\n\nSo now, let us cast aside our bland masks. Laugh, Spinnock Durav, as you watch me lose yet again.\n\nHe had not even slowed her down. Blades smashed into him from all sides, three, four at a time. His broken body did not even know whereto fall– her attacks were all that kept him standing.\n\nHe'd lost his sword.\n\nHe might even have lost the arm and hand that had been wielding it. There was no telling. He had no sense beyond this knot of mocking knowledge. This lone inner eye unblinkingly fixed on its pathetic self.\n\nAnd now, at last, she must have flung away all her weapons, for her hands closed round his throat.\n\nHe forced his eyes open, stared into her laughing face-\n\nOh.\n\nI understand now. It was you laughing.\n\nYou, not me. You I was hearing. Yes, I understand now-\n\nThat meant that he, why, he'd been weeping. So much for mockery. The truth was, there was nothing left in him but self-pity. Spinnock Durav, look away now. Please, look away.\n\nHer hands tightening round his throat, she lifted him from the ground, held him high. So she could watch his face as she choked the last life from him. Watch, and laugh in his face of tears.\n\nThe High Priestess stood with hands to her mouth, too frightened to move, watching the Dying God destroy Endest Silann. He should have crumbled by now, he should have melted beneath that onslaught. And indeed it had begun. Yet, somehow, unbelievably, he still held on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Making of himself a final, frail barrier between the Tiste Andii and this horrendous, insane god. She cowered in its shadow. It had been hubris, mad hubris, to have believed they could withstand this abomination. Without Anomander Rake, without even Spinnock Durav. And now she sensed everyone of her kin being driven down, unable to lift a hand in self-defence, lying with throats exposed, as the poison rain flooded the streets, bubbled in beneath doors, through windows, eating the tiles of roofs as if it was acid, to stream down beams and paint brown every wall. Her kin had begun to feel the thirst, had begun to desire that deadly first sip– as she had.\n\nAnd Endest Silann held the enemy back.\n\nAnother moment.\n\nAnd then yet another-\n\nIn the realm of Dragnipur, every force had ceased fighting. Every force, every face– Draconus, Hood, Iskar Jarak, the Chained, the burning eyes of the soldiers of chaos– all turned to stare at the sky above the wagon.\n\nAnd at the lone figure standing tall on the mound of bodies.\n\nWhere something extraordinary had begun.\n\nThe tattooed pattern had lifted free of the tumbled, wrinkled canvas of skins– as if the layer that had existed for all to see was now revealed as but one side, one facet, one single dimension, of afar greater manifestation. Which now rose, unfolding, intricate as a perfect cage, a web of gossamer, glistening like wet strokes of ink suspended in the air around Anomander Rake.\n\nHe slowly raised his arms.\n\nLying almost at Rake's feet, Kadaspala twisted in a frenzy of joy. Revenge and revenge and yes, revenge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stab! Dear child! Now stab, yes and stab and stab-\n\nDitch, all that remained of him, stared with one eye. He saw an elongated, tattoo-swarmed arm lifting clear, saw the knife in its hand, hovering like a rearing serpent behind Rake's back. And none of this surprised him.\n\nThe child-god's one purpose. The child-god's reason to exist.\n\nAnd he was its eye. Thereto look upon its soul inward and outward. To feel its heart, and that heart overflowed with life, with exultation. To be born and to live was such a gift! To seethe sole purpose, to hold and drive the knife deep-\n\nAnd then?\n\nAnd then... it all ends.\n\nEverything here. All of them. These bodies so warm against me. All, betrayed by the one their very lives have fed. Precious memories, host of purest regrets– but what, above all else, must always be chained to each and every soul? Why, regrets, of course. Forever chained to one's own history, one's own life story, forever dragging that creaking, tottering burden...\n\nTo win free of those chains of regret is to shake free of humanity itself. And so become a monster.\n\nSweet child god, will you regret this?\n\n\"No.\"\n\nWhy not?\n\n\"There... there will be no time.\"\n\nYes, no time. For anyone. Anything. This is your moment of life– your birth, your deed, your death. By this you must measure yourself, in this handful of breaths.\n\nYour maker wants you to kill.\n\nYou are born now. Your deed awaits. Your death hovers just beyond it. Child god, what will you do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he felt the god hesitate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt it awaken to its own self, and to the freedom that such awakening offered. Yes, its maker had sought to shape it. Sire to child, an unbroken stream of hate and vengeance. To give its own imminent death all the meaning it demanded.\n\nFail in this, and that death will have no meaning at all. \"Yes. But, if I die without achieving what I am made to do-\"\n\nThe god could sense the power that had lifted clear now rushing down from this extraordinary Tiste Andii with the silver hair, rushing down along the traceries of the countless bodies– travelling the strands of the vast web. Down, and down, into that Gate.\n\nWhat was he doing?\n\nAnd Ditch smiled as he answered. Friend, know this for certain. Whatever Anomander Rake now attempts to do, he does not do it for himself.\n\nAnd that statement stunned this child god.\n\nNot for himself? Was such a thing possible? Did one not ever choose, first and foremost, for oneself?\n\nFor most, yes, that is true. And when these ones pass, they are quickly forgotten. Their every achievement grows tarnished. The recognition comes swift, that they were not greater than anyone else. Not smarter, not braver. Their motives, ah, such sordid things after all. For most, I said, but not this one. Not Anomander Rake.\n\n\"I see. Then, my mortal friend, I... I shall do no less.\"\n\nAnd so, that long arm writhed round, twisting, and the knife stabbed down, down into Kadaspala's chest.\n\nThe blind Tiste Andii shrieked, and his blood poured over the packed bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slain by his own child. And the web drank deep its maker's blood.\n\nSomeone crawled alongside Ditch. He struggled to focus with his one dying and dying eye. Abroad face, the skin flaking off in patches, long thick hair of black slashed through with red. She held a flint knife in one hand.\n\n\"Take it,\" he whispered. \"Take it quick-\"\n\nAnd so she did.\n\nAgonizing pain, fire stabbing deep into his skull, and then... everything began to fade.\n\nAnd the child god, having killed, now dies.\n\nOnly one man wept for it, red tears streaming down. Only one man even knew what it had done.\n\nWas it enough?\n\nApsal'ara saw Anomander Rake pause, and then look down. He smiled.\"Go, with my blessing. '\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"You will know soon enough.\"\n\nShe looked deep into his shining eyes, even as they darkened, and darkened, and darkened yet more. Until she realized what she was seeing, and a breath cold as ice rushed over her. She cried out, recalling where she had felt that cold before-\n\nAnd Apsal'ara, Mistress of Thieves, tossed him the bloody eye of the god.\n\nHe caught it one-handed.\n\n\"A keepsake,\" she whispered, and then rolled clear.\n\nFor this wagon was no place to be. Not with what was about to happen.\n\nThe pattern sank down, through the heaped forms, even as the Gate of Darkness rose up to meet it.\n\nWander no longer.\n\nAnomander Rake, still standing, head tilted back, arms raised, began to dissolve, shred away, as the Gate took hold of him, as it fed upon him, upon the Son of Darkness. Upon what he desired, what he willed to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Witnessing this, Draconus sank down to his knees.\n\nHe finally understood what was happening. He finally understood what Anomander Rake had planned, all along– this, this wondrous thing.\n\nStaring upward, he whispered, \"You ask my forgiveness? When you unravel what I have done, what I did so long ago? When you heal what I wounded, when you mend what I broke?\" He raised his voice to a shout. \"Rake! There is no forgiveness you must seek– not from me, gods below, not from any of us!\"\n\nBut there was noway to know if he had been heard. The man that had been Anomander Rake was scattered into the realm of Kurald Galain, onto its own long-sealed path that might– just might– lead to the very feet of Mother Dark.\n\nWho had turned away.\n\n\"Mother Dark,\" Draconus whispered. \"I believe you must face him now. You must turn to your children. I believe your son insists. He demands it. Open your eyes, Mother Dark. See what he has done! For you, for the Tiste Andii– but not for himself. See! See and know what he has done!\"\n\nDarkness awakened, the pattern grasping hold of the Gate itself, and sinking, sinking down, passing beyond Dragnipur, leaving forever the dread sword-\n\nIn the Temple of Shadow, in the city of Black Coral that drowned in poison rain, Clip and the god within him stood above the huddled form of Endest Silann.\n\nThis game was over. All pleasure in the victory had palled in the absurd, stubborn resistance of the old man.\n\nThe rings spun, round and round from one hand, as he drew a dagger with the other. Simple, messy, yes, but succinct, final." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he saw the floor suddenly awaken with black, seething strands, forming a pattern, and icy cold breath rose in along sigh. The sheets of spilling rain froze the instant each droplet reached the cold air, falling to shatter on the heaved cobbles and broken tesserae. And that cold lifted yet higher.\n\nThe Dying God frowned.\n\nThe pattern was spreading to cover the entire floor of the altar chamber, swarming outward. It looked strangely misshapen, as if the design possessed more dimensions than were visible.\n\nThe entire temple trembled.\n\nCrouched on a berm at the crest of a forested slope, Spindle and Monkrat stared up at the sky directly above Black Coral. As a strange maze-like pattern appeared in the air, burgeoning out to the sides even as it began sinking down onto the city.\n\nThey saw the moment when a tendril of that pattern touched the sleeping dragon perched on its spire, and they saw it spread its wings out in massive unfolding crimson fans, saw its head lifting on its long neck, jaws opening.\n\nAnd Silanah roared.\n\nA sound that deafened. A cry of grief, of rage, of unleashed intent.\n\nIt launched itself into that falling pattern, that falling sky, and sailed out over the city.\n\nSpindle laughed a vicious laugh. \"Run, Gradithan. Run all you like! That fiery bitch is hunting you!\"\n\nAranatha stepped through, Nimander following. Gasping, he tore his hand free– for her grip had become a thing of unbearable cold, burning, too deadly to touch.\n\nHe stumbled to one side.\n\nShe had halted at the very edge of an enormous altar chamber. Where a bizarre, ethereal pattern was raining down from the domed ceiling, countless linked filaments of black threads, slowly descending, even as other tendrils rose from the floor itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Nimander heard her whisper, \"The Gate. How... oh, my dearest son... oh, Anomander...\"\n\nClip stood in the centre of the chamber, and he turned round upon the arrival of Aranatha and Nimander.\n\nThe rings spun out on their lengths of chain– and then stopped, caught in the pattern, the chains shivering taut.\n\nSudden agony lit Clip's face.\n\nThere was a snap as the looped chain bit through his index finger– and the rings spun and whirled up and away, speared in the pattern. Racing along every thread, ever faster, until they were nothing but blurs, and then even that vanished.\n\nNimander stepped past Aranatha and leapt forward, straight for Clip.\n\nWho had staggered to one side, looking down– as if seeking his severed finger somewhere at his feet. On his face, shock and pain, bewilderment-\n\nHe had ever underestimated Nimander. An easy mistake. Mistakes often were.\n\nSo like his sire, so slow to anger, but when that anger arrived... Nimander grasped Clip by the front of his jerkin, swung him off his feet and in a single, ferocious surge sent him sprawling, tumbling across the floor.\n\nAwakening the Dying God. Blazing with rage, it regained its feet and whirled to face Nimander.\n\nWho did not even flinch as he prepared to advance to meet it, unsheathing his sword.\n\nA fluttering touch on his shoulder stayed him.\n\nAranatha– who was no longer Aranatha– stepped past him.\n\nBut no, her feet were not even touching the floor. She rose yet higher, amidst streams of darkness that flowed down like silk, and she stared down upon the Dying God." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, themes of death, redemption, introspection, city setting\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Toll the Hounds\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Nimander heard her whisper, \"The Gate. How... oh, my dearest son... oh, Anomander...\"\n\nClip stood in the centre of the chamber, and he turned round upon the arrival of Aranatha and Nimander.\n\nThe rings spun out on their lengths of chain– and then stopped, caught in the pattern, the chains shivering taut.\n\nSudden agony lit Clip's face.\n\nThere was a snap as the looped chain bit through his index finger– and the rings spun and whirled up and away, speared in the pattern. Racing along every thread, ever faster, until they were nothing but blurs, and then even that vanished.\n\nNimander stepped past Aranatha and leapt forward, straight for Clip.\n\nWho had staggered to one side, looking down– as if seeking his severed finger somewhere at his feet. On his face, shock and pain, bewilderment-\n\nHe had ever underestimated Nimander. An easy mistake. Mistakes often were.\n\nSo like his sire, so slow to anger, but when that anger arrived... Nimander grasped Clip by the front of his jerkin, swung him off his feet and in a single, ferocious surge sent him sprawling, tumbling across the floor.\n\nAwakening the Dying God. Blazing with rage, it regained its feet and whirled to face Nimander.\n\nWho did not even flinch as he prepared to advance to meet it, unsheathing his sword.\n\nA fluttering touch on his shoulder stayed him.\n\nAranatha– who was no longer Aranatha– stepped past him.\n\nBut no, her feet were not even touching the floor. She rose yet higher, amidst streams of darkness that flowed down like silk, and she stared down upon the Dying God." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who, finding himself face to face with Mother Dark– with the Elder Goddess in the flesh– quailed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shrinking back, diminished.\n\nShe does not reach through– not anymore. She is here. Mother Dark is here.\n\nAnd Nimander heard her say, \"Ah, my son... I accept.\"\n\nThe Gate of Darkness wandered no more. Was pursued no longer. The Gate of Darkness had found anew home, in the heart of Black Coral.\n\nLying in a heap of mangled flesh and bone, dying, Endest Silann rose from the river– thing of memory and of truth, that had kept him alive for so long– and opened his eyes. The High Priestess knelt at his side, one hand brushing his cheek. \"How,\" she whispered, \"how could he ask this of you? How could he know-\"\n\nThrough his tears, he smiled. \"All that he has ever asked of us, of me, and Spinnock Durav, and so many others, he has given us in return. Each and every time. This... this is his secret. Don't you understand, High Priestess? We served the one who served us. '\n\nHe closed his eyes then, as he felt another presence– one he had never imagined he would ever feel again. And in his mind, he spoke, \"For you, Mother, he did this. For us, he did this. He has brought us all home. He has brought us all home.\"\n\nAnd she replied in his mind then, her voice rising from the depths below, from the river where he had found his strength. His strength to hold, one last time. As his Lord had asked him to. As his Lord had known he would do. She said, I understand. Come tome, then.\n\nThe water between us, Endest Silann, is clear.\n\nThe water is clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "*\n\nAs the ruined, lifeless remnant that had once been Seerdomin was flung to one side, Salind prepared to resume her attack, at last upon the Redeemer himself-\n\nThe god who had once been Itkovian– silent, wondering witness to a defence of unimaginable courage– now lifted his head. He could feel a presence. More than one. A mother. A son. Apart for so long, and now they were entwined in ways too mysterious, too ineffable, to grasp. And then, in a flood, he was made to comprehend the truth of gifts, the truth of redemption. He gasped.\n\n\"I am... shown. I am shown...\"\n\nAnd down he marched to meet her.\n\n\"Thank you, Anomander Rake, for this unexpected gift. My hidden friend. And... fare you well.\"\n\nThe Redeemer, on his barrow of worthless wealth, need not stand outside, need not face Darkness. No, he could walk forward now, into that realm.\n\nDown through the thinning, watery rain to where she stood, uncertain, trembling, on the very edge of abandonment.\n\nHe took Salind into his embrace.\n\nAnd, holding her close, he spoke these words: \"Bless you, that you not betaken. Bless you, that you begin in your time and that you end in its fullness. Bless you, in the name of the Redeemer, in my name, against the cruel harvesters of the soul, the takers of life. Bless you, that your life and each life shall be as it is written, for peace is born of completion.\"\n\nAgainst this, the Dying God had no defence. In this embrace, the Dying God came to believe that he had not marched to the Redeemer, but that the Redeemer had summoned him. An invitation he could not have seen, nor recognized. To heal what none other could heal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Herein this pure Darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the very Gate of Mother Dark, there was, in fact, no other possible place for rebirth.\n\nThe Dying God simply... slipped away.\n\nAnd Salind, why, she felt soft in his arms.\n\nThe Redeemer leaves judgement to others. This frees him, you see, to cleanse all.\n\nAnd the water is clear between them.\n\nThe ashes drifted down upon a still, silent scene. The legions of chaos were gone from Dragnipur, their quarry vanished. The wagon stood motionless, riven with fissures. Draconus looked round and he could see how few of the Chained were left. So many obliterated, devoured. His gaze settled fora moment upon the patch of ground where the demon Pearl had made its stand, where it had fallen, defiant to the very end.\n\nHe saw the soldier named Iskar Jarak, sitting astride his horse and staring up at the place where Anomander Rake had been, thereon top of the now motionless, silent bodies– not one of whom bore any remnant of the vast tattoo.\n\nDraconus walked up to stand beside him. \"You knew him, didn't you? '\n\nIskar Jarak nodded. \"He called me a friend.\"\n\nDraconus sighed. \"I wish I could say the same. I wish... I wish I could have known him better than I did.\" He heard someone approaching and turned to see Hood. \"Lord of Death, now what? We remain chained; we cannot leave as did the Bridgeburners and the Grey Swords. There are too few of us to pull the wagon, even had we anywhere to go. I see, I understand what Rake has done, and I do not hold him any ill will. But now, I find myself wishing I had joined the others. To find an end to this-\" Iskar Jarak grunted and then said, \"You spoke true, Draconus, when you said you did not know him well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Draconus scowled. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"He means,\" said Hood, \"we now come to the final act in this bargain. He has been true to his word, but now what comes is out of his hands. He wrought a promise, yes, but will that suffice?\"\n\n\"Shame on you, Hood,\" said Iskar Jarak, gathering up the reins. \"There is not a fool out there who would betray the Son of Darkness, not in this, not even now– though he has left us, though he has returned to his Mother's realm. '\n\n\"You chastise me, Iskar Jarak?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\nThe Jaghut snorted. \"Accepted,\" he said.\n\nBarathol sat on the cobbles, feeling as if every bone in his body was fractured, as if every muscle was bruised. He wanted to throw up, but struggled against the impulse, lest the convulsions kill him. He glanced yet again at that sprawled corpse with the sword embedded in its face and skull. He could seethe broad, deep puncture wounds on one thigh, where the Hound had picked it up. No blood leaked from them.\n\nAntsy came over and crouched down. \"Look at what we run into here. There's beast blood everywhere, and you, y'damned idiot, you stood down one of them monsters– with a damned axe!\"\n\n\"Help me up, will you?\"\n\nAntsy stared, then sighed. \"We'd need the ox for that– you're big as a bhederin. Fine, I'll squat here and you try using me like I was a ladder, but don't blame me if my knees buckle.\"\n\nAnother carriage had drawn up a short time earlier, and before it stood the High Alchemist Baruk– the one who'd turned them away– and beside him a warrior with Barghast blood, an enormous hammer strapped to his back. This one walked up to stare down at the dead Tiste Andii." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barathol pulled himself upright, Antsy grunting under his weight, and then straightened with a soft word of thanks. He glanced over to study the others still remaining. The Toblakai warrior and the woman who seemed to be his companion. The two other Toblakai, young women– possibly even children– who might have been sisters, and a large dog bearing more scars than seemed possible. Great Ravens still lined the roof edges, or huddled like black, demonic gnomes on the street itself, silent as wraiths.\n\nThe dawn's golden sunlight streamed through the smoke hanging over the city, and he could hear nothing of the normal wakening bustle that should have already begun filling Darujhistan's streets.\n\nBeyond this immediate gathering, others were appearing. Citizens, guards, blank-faced and empty of words, numb as refugees, none drawing too close but seemingly unwilling to leave.\n\nThe High Alchemist was standing a respectful distance away from the Barghast and the dead Tiste Andii, watching with sorrow-filled eyes. He then spoke, \"Caladan Brood, what he sought must-\"\n\n\"Wait,\" rumbled the Barghast. \"It must wait.\" He bent down then, reached out and grasped hold of the blackbladed sword. And, with little ceremony, he worked the weapon loose, and then straightened once more.\n\nIt seemed everyone present held their breath.\n\nCaladan Brood stared down at the weapon in his hands. Then, Barathol saw, the warrior's mouth twisted into a faint snarl, filed teeth gleaming. And he turned round and walked to the carriage, where he opened the side door and tossed the sword inside. It clanged, thumped. The door clicked shut.\n\nThe Barghast glared about, and then pointed. \"That ox and cart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Caladan-\"\n\n\"I will have my way here, Baruk.\" His bestial eyes found Barathol. \"You, help me with him.\"\n\nBarathol bit back every groan as he took hold of the Tiste Andii's feet, watching as Brood forced his hands beneath the corpse's shoulders, down under the arms. Together, they lifted the body.\n\nAntsy had brought the cart close and he now stood beside the ox, his expression miserable.\n\nThey laid the body of Anomander Rake on the slatted bed with its old bloodstains. Brood leaned over it fora long moment. And then he drew himself upright once more and faced the High Alchemist. \"I shall build him a barrow. West of the city.\"\n\n\"Caladan, please, that can wait. We have to-\"\n\n\"No.\" He moved to where Antsy stood and with one hand pushed the Falari away from the ox, grasping hold of the yoke. \"I will do this. None other need be burdened with this journey. It shall be Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake, together one last time.\"\n\nAnd so the ox began its fateful walk. A warrior at its side, the corpse of another in the cart.\n\nThe procession was forced to halt but once, not ten paces from where it started, as a short, round man in a red waistcoat had positioned himself directly in its path. Caladan Brood looked up, frowned.\n\nThe short, round man then, with surprising grace, bowed, before backing to one side.\n\nBrood said nothing, simply tugging the ox into motion once again.\n\nIt was said that he had saved Darujhistan. Once, years ago, and now again. The Lord of Moon's Spawn, who on this night brought darkness down, darkness and cold, down upon the raging fires. Who somehow crushed the life from a growing conflagration of destruction. Saving the lives of everyone. It was said he single-handedly banished the demon Hounds. It was said, upon the instant of his death, the heart of the moon broke. And proof of that still lingered in the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who killed him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one was sure. Rumours of Vorcan's return fuelled speculation of some vicious betrayal. A Malazan contract. A god's blind rage. But clearly it was fated, that death, for did not the worshippers of Dessembrae emerge from their temple last night? Was that not a time for the Lord of Tragedy? Oh, but it was, yes, it surely was.\n\nAnd so, unbidden, people came out onto the streets. They lined the route taken by Caladan Brood to await his passing, the warrior, the ox, the cart. And when he did, he was watched in silence; and when the procession had passed, the people fell into his wake, becoming a river of humanity.\n\nOn this morning, Darujhistan was like no other city. No hawkers called out their wares. Market stalls remained shut. No fisher boats slipped their moorings and set out on the mirror waters of the lake. Looms stayed motionless, spindles unspun. And, from every temple, bells began their toll. Discordant, sonorous, building like a broken echo, as if the city itself had found a voice, and that voice, so filled with the chaos of grief, would now speak for every citizen, for the priests and priestesses, for the very gods in their temples.\n\nAmidst the clanging bells, Great Ravens rose into the smoky sky, wheeling above rooftops, forming a caterwauling, grisly escort. At first there were but hundreds, and then there were thousands. Swirling in amass, as if drawn to deliver darkness to Darujhistan, as if to shroud the body below.\n\nAnd, just beyond Worrytown, ascending the first of the Gadrobi Hills, alone swordsman paused and half turned a ravaged face to the fretful music of those bells, those birds, and whatever might have been there, in his eyes, well, there was no one to witness it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so he set his back to Darujhistan and resumed his journey. That he had nowhere to go, at least for the moment, was without relevance. Solitude finds its own path, for the one who will not share burdens. And loneliness is no fit companion for the eternally lost, but it is the only one they know.\n\nAt this moment, another lone figure, clad in chain, satin a tavern in Worrytown. The notion of witnessing the procession in the city was proving too... unpalatable. Kallor despised funerals. Celebrations of failure. Wallowing in pathos. Every living soul standing there forced to stare into mortality's grinning face– no, that was not for Kallor.\n\nHe preferred kicking that piss-grinning, shit-reeking bastard face, right between the fucking eyes.\n\nThe tavern was empty, since it seemed no one else shared his sentiments, and that was fine with him. It had always been fine with him.\n\nOr so he told himself, as he stared down into his stolen tankard of bad ale, and listened to those infernal bells and those oversized vultures. And that chorus was hauntingly familiar. Death, ruin, grief. \"Hear that?\" he said to his tankard, \"they're playing our song. '\n\nBlend walked into K'rul's Bar and found it empty, save for the hunched figure of the historian, who sat at his chosen table, staring at the stained, pitted wood. She walked over and looked down at him. \"Who died?\"\n\nDuiker did not lookup. \"Not who, Blend. More like what. What died? More, I think, than we'll ever know. '\n\nShe hesitated. \"Have you checked on Picker?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She walked out of here a quarter-bell ago.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Said she'd be back. '\n\n\"That's it? That's all she said?\"\n\n\"Something else. Something about'them damned torcs\".\" He finally glanced up, his eyes bleak as ever. \"Sit down, Blend. Please. I don't like being alone, not right now. She'll be back.\"\n\nAt that momenta bell began ringing overhead and both Malazans ducked at the deafening clangour.\n\n\"Gods below!\" swore Blend. \"Who's up in the belfry? '\n\nDuiker was frowning. \"The only other person here is Scillara. I suppose...\" and then he fell silent, and the wasted misery in his eyes deepened.\n\nBlend sat down. \"She'd better get tired soon, or I'll have to go up there.\"\n\nThey sat, weathering the clanging. Blend studied Duiker, wondering at his ever-deepening despondency. And then a realization struck her. \"I thought we unshipped that bell.\"\n\n\"We did, Blend. It's in the cellar. '\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nNo wonder he looked so wretched.\n\n\"Plan on cutting off its head?\" Samar Dev asked.\n\nKarsa Orlong was standing over the Hound he had killed. At her question he grunted. \"I could use a kitchen knife to finish the job. See how my blade cut through that spine? Like chopping down a tree.\"\n\nShe found she was trembling, decided it was exhaustion. \"They're your daughters, aren't they?\"\n\nKarsa glanced over at the two Toblakai girls, who stood watching, silent, expectant. \"I raped a mother and a daughter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, well, isn't that nice. '\n\n\"It was my right.\"\n\n\"Funny, that.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That idea of'rights\". The way that claiming aright so often results in someone else losing theirs. At which point it all comes down to who's holding the biggest sword. '\n\n\"I won that right when I killed their men. This was tribal war, witch.\" He paused. \"And I was young.\"\n\n\"Gods below, you're actually telling me you have regrets? '\n\nThe Toblakai turned away from the dead Hound and faced his daughters. \"I have many,\" he answered. \"But, not these two.\"\n\n\"And if they feel differently about it, Karsa?\"\n\n\"Why should they? I gave them life.\"\n\n\"I think,\" Samar Dev said, \"that I shall never understand you.\" She eyed the girls. \"Do they know what we're saying? Of course not, they couldn't have learned any Seven Cities language. I've not seen you speak to them, Karsa. What are you waiting for? '\n\n\"I am waiting,\" he replied, \"for when I can think of something to say.\"\n\nAt that moment another woman emerged from an alley mouth and, gaze fixed on Karsa Orlong, walked over. \"Toblakai,\" she said, \"I have a message to deliver to you.\" She was speaking Malazan.\n\n\"I don't know you, ' Karsa said to her in the same language.\n\n\"The feeling's mutual, \"she snapped,\"but let's not let that get in the way.\" She hesitated. \"Do you want this message private, or maybe I should just shout it so everybody can hear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa shot Samar Dev an amused look. \"Did I ever tell you, witch, that I liked Malazans?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied, sighing.\n\n\"You need not shout, Malazan. Nor will we hide in some corner. So, tell me this mysterious message, but first, tell me who it is from.\"\n\n\"All right. It's from Hood, I think. '\n\nSamar Dev snorted. \"Let me guess. \"Keep up the good work, yours truly\".\"\n\nThe Malazan woman regarded her. \"Well now, after all this is done, permit me to buy you a drink.\"\n\nSamar Dev's brows rose.\n\n\"The message,\" Karsa growled.\n\n\"Right. It's this. You must not leave Darujhistan. '\n\n\"And if I do?\"\n\n\"Then you will have lost your one opportunity to fulfil avow you once made.\"\n\n\"I have made many vows.\"\n\n\"I'm shocked to hear that. '\n\nKarsa was smiling, but something deadly had awakened in it. \"Will you tell me more?\"\n\nThe woman hesitated again. \"I'm reconsidering. This really needs to be private– no offence, Witch– he called you that, yes? It's just that-\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" Karsa demanded.\n\nSamar Dev was impressed to see that the Malazan woman did not flinch from Karsa's dangerous smile.\"Toblakai, you will be needed. '\n\n\"To do what?\"\n\n\"Why, to kill a god.\"\n\n\"Which god?\"\n\nThe Malazan woman stared, discomfited for the first time since arriving. \"You were supposed to runaway when I told you that. Any sane person would.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you found the wrong warrior,\" said Samar Dev, her mouth dry. \"And you were right, I wish I hadn't heard that. I'm going to walkaway now, so you can finish delivering your message.\"\n\n\"Go to K'rul's Bar,\" said the Malazan. \"Tell them Picker sent you. Breakfast, decent wine, and if Blend offers to prepare you a bath and maybe soap you down some, be nice to her.\"\n\n\"Generous of you, I think.\"\n\n\"That's me, ' Picker said.\n\nSamar Dev set out in search of K'rul's Bar. A breakfast sounded very fine indeed, as did the notion of decent wine. As for the bath, well, if it was indeed offered, why, she suspected she'd be too weary to resist.\n\nTens of thousands now followed the oxcart and its burden as it made its way down from Lakefront and into the Gadrobi District. Bells rang; the Great Ravens wheeled, adding their wretched cries. And already, from the hills beyond Two-Ox Gate, clouds of dust rose into the morning sky.\n\nCaladan Brood did not need to hew each stone, or drive spade into stony soil. The warren of Tennes had been awakened, and the flesh of Burn was given new shape and new purpose. In this chosen place, a hill was being transformed. And by the time Brood led the ox up to the barrow's passage entrance, and took the body of Anomander Rake into his arms, the chamber within was ready. And when he then emerged, pausing as if startled upon seeing the tens of thousands of silent mourners forming a ring round the hill's base, an enormous capstone had risen into view, splitting the grassy ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when with one hand Caladan Brood had guided it into place, he drew his hammer. To seal the barrow forever.\n\nAnomander Rake was interred in darkness. Weaponless, accompanied by no gifts, no wealth, no treasured possessions. His flesh was not treated against the ravages of decay. The blood and gore covering his face was not even washed away. None of these gestures belonged to the Tiste Andii, for whom the soul's departure leaves the flesh blind, insensate and indifferent.\n\nDying delivers one into the river of darkness, that passes into and out of the ruined city of Kharkanas, the womb long dead, long abandoned. Into the river, and the river must travel on, ever on.\n\nCaladan Brood sealed the barrow, and upon the capstone of bleached dolomite he set a symbol, carved deep into the stone's face. An ancient Barghast glyph, its meaning precise and yet a thing of countless layers– although this is known only to those who in life come to face it directly.\n\nA single Barghast glyph.\n\nWhich said Grief.\n\nWhen Baruk had vanished inside his carriage and the conveyance had rumbled off on its way to the High Alchemist's venerable estate; when the huge Toblakai warrior and Picker had concluded their conversation, and each had gone their own way, the former trailed by his daughters and the limping dog; when the place where two warriors had met in mortal combat bore nothing but a scattering of masonry, sun-darkened swaths of spilled blood and the motionless forms of dead Hounds of Light– when all this had come to pass, two figures emerged from the shadows.\n\nOne was barely visible despite the harsh sunlight: ghostly, leaning on a cane. And after a time of silence, this one spoke in a rasping voice. To begin with, a single word: \"Well?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And his companion replied in kind. \"Well.\"\n\nThe cane tapped a few times on the cobbles.\n\nThe companion then said, \"It's out of our hands now, until the end. '\n\n\"Until the end,\" agreed Shadowthrone. \"You know, Cotillion, I never much liked Caladan Brood.\"\n\n\"Really? I never knew.\"\n\n\"Do you think...\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Cotillion, \"that we need not worry on that count.\"\n\nShadowthrone sighed. \"Are we pleased? It was... delicate... the timing. Are we pleased? We should be.\"\n\n\"The damned Hounds of Light,\" said Cotillion, \"that was unexpected. Two, yes. But ten? Gods below.\"\n\n\"Hmph! I was more worried by my Magus's temporary sanity. '\n\n\"Is that what you call it?\"\n\n\"He had a chance– a slim one, but he had a chance. Imagine that one wielding Dragnipur.\"\n\nCotillion regarded his companion. \"Are you suggesting he would not have relinquished it? Ammanas, really. That was all your play. I'm not fooled by his seemingly going rogue on you. You vowed you'd not try to steal the sword. But of course you never mentioned anything about one of your High Priests doing it for you.\"\n\n\"And it would have been mine!\" Shadowthrone hissed in sudden rage. \"If not for that confounded fat man with the greasy lips! Mine!\"\n\n\"Iskaral Pust's, you mean. '\n\nShadowthrone settled down once more, tapped his cane. \"We'd have seen eye to eye, eventually. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I doubt it.\"\n\n\"Well, who cares what you think, anyway?\"\n\n\"So where is he now?\"\n\n\"Pust? Back in the temple, poring through the archives of the Book of Shadows.\"\n\n\"Looking for what?\"\n\n\"Some provision, any provision, fora High Priest of Shadow having two wives.\"\n\n\"Is there one?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Cotillion said, \"didn't you write it? '\n\nShadowthrone shifted about. \"I was busy.\"\n\n\"So who did?\"\n\nShadowthrone would not answer.\n\nCotillion's brows rose.\"Not Pust! The Book of Shadows, where he's proclaimed the Magus of the High House Shadow?\"\n\n\"It's called delegation, ' Shadowthrone snapped.\n\n\"It's called idiocy. '\n\n\"Well, hee hee. I daresay he'll find what he's looking for, won't he? '\n\n\"Aye, with the ink still wet.\"\n\nThey said nothing then fora time, until Cotillion drew in a deep breath and let it out in along sigh, and then said, \"We should give him a few days, I think.\" And this time, he was not speaking of Iskaral Pust.\n\n\"Unless you want to get cut to pieces, yes, a few days.\"\n\n\"I wasn't sure he'd, well, accept. Right up until the moment he...\" Cotillion winced and looked up the street, as if straining to see some lone, wandering, lost figure dragging a sword in one hand. But no, he wouldn't becoming back.\"You know, I did offer to explain. It might have eased his conscience. But he wasn't interested.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen to these damned bells,\" said Shadowthrone. \"My head's hurting enough as it is. Let's go, we're done here. '\n\nAnd so they were, and so they did.\n\nTwo streets from his home, Bellam Nom was grasped from behind and then pushed up against a wall. The motion ripped pain through his broken arm. Gasping, close to blacking out, he stared into the face of the man accosting him, and then slumped. \"Uncle.\" And he saw, behind Rallick, another vaguely familiar face. \"And... Uncle.\"\n\nFrowning, Rallick eased back. \"You look a mess, Bellam.\"\n\nAnd Torvald said, \"The whole damned Nom clan is out hunting for you.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"It won't do having the heir to the House going missing for days, \"Torvald said.\"You've got responsibilities, Bellam. Look at us, even we weren't so wayward in our young days, and we're heirs to nothing. So now we've got to escort you home. See how you've burdened us?\"\n\nAnd they set out.\n\n\"I trust,\" Rallick said, \"that whoever you tangled with fared worse, Bellam.\"\n\n\"Ah, I suppose he did.\"\n\n\"Well, that's something at least. '\n\nAfter they had ushered the young man through the gate, peering after him to make sure he actually went inside, Rallick and Torvald set off.\n\n\"That was a good one,\" Rallick said, \"all that rubbish about us in our youth.\"\n\n\"The challenge was in keeping a straight face.\"\n\n\"Well now, we weren't so bad back then. At least until you stole my girlfriend. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew you hadn't forgotten! '\n\n\"I suggest we go now to sweet Tiserra, where I intend to do my best to steal her back.\"\n\n\"You're not actually expecting she'll make us breakfast, are you?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Tiserra is nobody's servant, cousin. '\n\n\"Oh, well. You can keep her, then.\"\n\nTorvald smiled to himself. It was so easy working Rallick. It had always been so easy, getting him to end up thinking precisely what Torvald wanted him to think.\n\nRallick walked beside him, also pleased as from the corner of his eye he noted Torvald's badly concealed, faintly smug smile. Putting his cousin at ease had never taxed Rallick.\n\nIt was a comfort, at times, how somethings never changed.\n\nWhen Sister Spite stepped onto the deck, she saw Cutter near the stern, leaning on the rail and staring out over the placid lake. She hid her surprise and went to join him.\n\n\"I am returning to Seven Cities,\" she said.\n\nHe nodded. \"That's close enough. '\n\n\"Ah, well, I am pleased to have your company, Cutter.\"\n\nHe glanced over at her. \"Get what you wanted?\"\n\n\"Of course not, and... mostly.\"\n\n\"So, you're not upset? '\n\n\"Only in so far as I failed in sinking my teeth into my sister's soft throat. But that can wait. '\n\nIf he was startled by her words, he did not show it. \"I would have thought you'd want to finish it, since you came all this way. '\n\n\"Oh, there are purposes and there are purposes to all that we do, my young friend. In any case, it is best that I leave immediately, for reasons I care not to explain. Have you said your goodbyes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I did that years ago, Spite.\"\n\n\"Very well, shall we castoff?\"\n\nA short time later, the ship slipping easily just out from the shoreline, on a westward heading, they both stood at the port rail and observed the funeral procession's end, thereat anew long barrow rising modestly above the surrounding hills. Crowds upon crowds of citizens ringed the mound. The silence of the scene, with the bells faint and distant, made it seem ethereal, like a painted image, solemn through the smoke haze. They could seethe cart, the ox.\n\nSpite sighed. \"My sister once loved him, you know.\"\n\n\"Anomander Rake? No, I didn't know that. '\n\n\"His death marks the beginning.\"\n\n\"Of what?\"\n\n\"The end, Cutter.\"\n\nHe had no response to that. A few moments drifted past. \"You said she loved him once. What happened?\"\n\n\"He acquired Dragnipur. At least, I imagine that was the cause. She is well named, is my sister.\"\n\nEnvy.\n\nCutter shot her a glance, thinking of her own name, this beautiful woman at his side, and wisely he said nothing, nothing at all.\n\nThe bell that wasn't there had finally stopped its manic ringing, and Scillara was able to climb back onto the temple roof, so that she could gaze out over the city. She could seethe lake, where one lone ship had unfurled sails to ride the morning breeze. She knew those sails and she tracked them fora time.\n\nWho was onboard? Well, Spite for certain. And, if he'd any sense, Barathol. With smiling Chaur at his side, the giant child with his childish love that would never know betrayal, at least until the day, hopefully decades hence, when the blacksmith bowed to old age and took to bed for the last time. She could almost see him, his face, the deep wrinkles, the dimming of his dark eyes, and all the losses of his life falling away, veil by veil, until he ceased looking outward entirely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chaur would not understand. What he would feel would crash blind as a boar in a thicket, crash right through him. It would be a dreadful thing to witness, to seethe poor child tangled in the clutches of pain he could not understand, and loss he could not fathom.\n\nWho would care for him then?\n\nAnd what of dear Scillara? Why was she not with them? She wished she had an answer to that. But she had come to certain truths about herself. Destined, she now believed, to provide gentle comfort to souls in passing. A comforting bridge, yes, to ease the loneliness of their journey.\n\nShe seemed doomed ever to open her arms to the wrong lover, to love fully yet never be so loved in return. It made her pathetic stock in this retinue of squandered opportunities that scrawled out the history of a clumsy life.\n\nCould she live with that? Without plunging into self-pity? Time would tell, she supposed.\n\nScillara packed her pipe, struck sparks and drew deep.\n\nA sound behind her made her turn-\n\nAs Barathol stepped close, one hand sliding up behind her head, leaned forward and kissed her. Along, deep, determined kiss. When he finally pulled away, she gasped. Eyes wide, staring up into his own.\n\nHe said, \"I am a blacksmith. If I need to forge chains to keep you, I will.\"\n\nShe blinked, and then gave him a throaty laugh. \"Careful, Barathol. Chains bind both ways.\"\n\nHis expression was grave. \"Can you live with that?\"\n\n\"Give me no choice.\"\n\nRide, my friends, the winds of love! There beside a belfry where a man and a woman find each other, and out in the taut billows of sails where another man stares westward and dreams of sweet moonlight, a garden, a woman who is the other half of his soul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gentle gust through a door, sweet sigh, as a guard comes home and is engulfed by his wife, who had suffered an eternal night of fears, but she holds him now and all is well, all is right, and children yell in excitement and dance in the kitchen.\n\nThe river of grief has swept through Darujhistan, and morning waxes in its wake. There are lives to rebuild, so many wounds to mend.\n\nA bag of coins thumps onto the tabletop before a woman new to her blessed widowhood, and she feels as if she has awakened from a nightmare of decades, and this is, for her, a private kind of love, a moment for herself and no one else.\n\nPicker strides into the bar and there waits Blend, tears in her eyes, and Samar Dev watches from a table and she smiles but that smile is wistful and she wonders what doors wait for her, and which ones will prove unlocked, and what might lie beyond.\n\nAnd in a temple, Iskaral Pust blots dry the ink and crows over his literary genius. Mogora looks on with jaded eyes, but is already dreaming of alliances with Sordiko Qualm.\n\nThe bhokarala sit in a clump, exchanging wedding gifts.\n\nTwo estate guards, after a busy night, burst into a brothel, only to find nobody there. Love will have to wait, and is anyone really surprised at their ill luck? At the threshold of a modest home and workshop, Tiserra stands facing the two loves of her life. And, for the briefest of moments, her imagination runs wild. She then recovers herself and, in alight tone, asks, \"Breakfast?\"\n\nTorvald is momentarily startled.\n\nRallick just smiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is around man, circumference unending, stepping ever so daintily through rubble on his way back to the Phoenix Inn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will not do to be a stranger to sorrow, if only to cast sharp the bright wonder of sweeter things. And so, even as he mourns in his own fashion (with cupcakes), so too he sighs wistfully. Love is a city, yes indeed, a precious city, where a thousand thousand paths wend through shadow and light, through air stale and air redolent with blossoms, nose-wrinkling perfume and nose-wrinkling dung, and there is gold dust in the sewage and rebirth in the shedding of tears.\n\nAnd at last, we come to a small child, walking into a duelling school, passing through gilded streams of sunlight, and he halts ten paces from a woman sitting on a bench, and he says something then, something without sound.\n\nA moment later two imps trundle into view and stop in their tracks, staring at Harllo, and then they squeal and rush towards him.\n\nThe woman looks up.\n\nShe is silent fora longtime, watching Mew and Hinty clutching the boy. And then a sob escapes her and she makes as if to turn away-\n\nBut Harllo will have none of that. \"No! I've come home. That's what this is, it's me coming home! '\n\nShe cannot meet his eyes, but she is weeping none the less. She waves a hand. \"You don't understand, Harllo. That time, that time– I have no good memories of that time. Nothing good came of it, nothing. '\n\n\"That's not true! \"he shouts, close to tears.\"That's not true. There was me.\"\n\nAs Scillara now knew, some doors you cannot hold back. Bold as truth, some doors get kicked in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stonny did not know how she would manage this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she would. She would. And so she met her son's eyes, in away that she had never before permitted herself to do. And that pretty much did it.\n\nAnd what was said by Harllo, in silence, as he stood there, in the moments before he was discovered? Why, it was this: See, Bainisk, this is my mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rage and tell me then Not every tale is a gift When anguish gives the knife One more twist And blood is thinned by tears\n\nCry out the injustice Not every tale is a gift Ina world harsh with strife Leaving us bereft Deeds paling through the years\n\nAnd I will meet your eye Neither flinching nor shy As I fold death inside life And face you down With a host of mortal fears\n\nAnd I will say then Every tale is a gift And the scars borne by us both Are easily missed In the distance between us\n\nBard's Curse Fisher kel Tath\n\nNimander stood on the roof of the keep, leaning with his arms on the battlement's cold stone, and watched the distant figure of Spinnock Durav as he crossed the old killing ground. A fateful, fretful meeting awaited that warrior, and Nimander was worried, for it was by Nimander's own command that Spinnock now went to find the woman he loved.\n\nSkintick arrived to stand at his side.\n\n\"It's madness, \"said Nimander.\"It should be Durav on the throne. Or Korlat. '\n\n\"It's your lack of confidence we find so charming, ' Skintick replied.\n\n\"Is that supposed to be amusing?\"\n\n\"Well, it amuses me, Nimander. I settle for that, most times. Listen, it's simple and it's complicated. His blood courses strong within you, stronger than you realize. And like it or not, people will follow you. Listen to you. Spinnock Durav was a good example, I'd venture. He took your command like a body blow, and then he set out to follow it. Not a word of complaint– your irritated impatience stung him. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Precisely my point. It was none of my business in the first place. I had no right to be irritated or impatient.\"\n\n\"You were both because you cared, and you barely know the man. You may not know it, but you made friends in that throne room, right then and right there. Korlat's eyes shone. And the High Priestess actually smiled. Like a mother, both proud and indulgent. They are yours, Nimander. \"He hesitated, and then added,\"We all are. '\n\nNimander wasn't ready to contemplate such notions.\"How fares Nenanda? '\n\n\"Recovering, as thin-skinned as ever.\"\n\n\"And Clip?\"\n\nSkintick shrugged. \"I wish I could say humbled.\"\n\n\"I wish you could as well.\"\n\n\"He's furious. Feels cheated, personally slighted. He'll be trouble, I fear, an eternal thorn in your side.\"\n\nNimander sighed. \"They probably felt the same at the Andara, which was why they sent him to find us.\"\n\n\"On a wave of cheering fanfare, no doubt.\"\n\nNimander turned. \"Skin, I truly do not know if I can do this.\"\n\n\"Unlike Anomander Rake, you are not alone, Nimander. The burden no longer rests upon one person. She is with us now.\"\n\n\"She could have left us Aranatha.\"\n\n\"Aranatha was not Aranatha for sometime– perhaps you don't remember when she was younger. Nimander, our sister was a simpleton. Barely a child in her mind, no matter that she grew into a woman. '\n\n\"I always saw it as... innocence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There again, your generosity of spirit.\"\n\n\"My inability to discriminate, you mean.\"\n\nThey were silent fora time. Nimander glanced up at the spire. \"There was a dragon up there.\"\n\n\"Silanah. Er, very close to Anomander Rake, I'm told. '\n\n\"I wonder where she went?\"\n\n\"You could always awaken Tiam's blood within you, and find out, Nimander. '\n\n\"Ah, no thank you.\"\n\nSpinnock Durav had moved out past Night and had reached the razed stretch that had been a squalid encampment, where a monastery was now under construction, although for the momenta military tent was the temple wherein dwelt Salind, the High Priestess of the Redeemer.\n\nWould she accept him?\n\nMother Dark, hear me please. For Spinnock Durav, who stood in your son's place, again and again. Give him peace. Give him happiness.\n\nAt the Great Barrow there were other workers, pilgrims for the most part, raising a lesser burial mound, to hold the bones of someone named Seerdomin, who had been chosen to stand eternal vigilance at the foot of the Redeemer. It was odd and mysterious, how such notions came to pass. Nimander reminded himself that he would have to send a crew out there, to see if they needed any help.\n\n\"What are you thinking, Lord Nimander?\"\n\nNimander winced at the title. \"I was thinking,\" he said, \"about prayers. How they feel... cleaner when one says them not for oneself, but on behalf of someone else.\" He shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. \"I was praying for Spinnock. Anyway, that's what I was thinking. Well, the High Priestess says there are things we need to talk about. I'd best be off.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe turned, Skintick said, \"It's said that Anomander Rake would stand facing the sea. '\n\n\"Oh, and?\"\n\n\"Nothing. It's just that I've noticed that you've taken to staring out overland, out to that Great Barrow. Is there something about the Redeemer that interests you? '\n\nAnd Nimander just smiled, and then he went inside, leaving Skintick staring after him.\n\nIna chamber devoted to the most arcane rituals, forty-seven steps beneath the ground floor of the High Alchemist's estate, two iron anvils had been placed within an inscribed circle. The torches lining the walls struggled to lift flames above their blackened mouths.\n\nSitting at a table off to one side was the witch, Derudan, a hookah at her side, smoke rising from her as if she steamed in the chilly air. At the edge of the circle stood Vorcan, who now called herself Lady Varada, wrapped tight inside a dark grey woollen cloak. The Great Raven, Crone, walked as if pacing out the chamber's dimensions, her head crooking again and again to regard the anvils.\n\nBaruk was by the door, eyeing Vorcan and Derudan. The last of the T'orrud Cabal. The taste in his mouth was of ashes.\n\nThere were servants hidden in the city, and they were even now at work. To bring about a fell return, to awaken one of the Tyrants of old. Neither woman in this room was unaware of this, and the fear was palpable in its persistent distraction.\n\nThe fate of Darujhistan– and of the T'orrud Cabal– was not their reason for being here, however.\n\nThe door swung open with a creak and in strode Caladan Brood, carrying in one hand the sword Dragnipur. He paused just inside and glowered across at Vorcan, and then Derudan. \"This has nothing to do with you,\" he told them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorcan bowed. \"Forgive us, Warlord, but we will stay.\"\n\nClearing his throat, Baruk said, \"My fault, Warlord. It seems they do not trust me– not in such close proximity to that weapon.\"\n\nBrood bared his teeth. \"Am I not guardian enough?\"\n\nSeeing Vorcan's faint smile, Baruk said,\"The lack of trust is mutual, I am afraid. I am more at ease with these two herein front of us, rather than, um, my starting at every shadow. '\n\nThe warlord continued staring at Vorcan. \"You'd try for me, Assassin? '\n\nCrone cackled at the suggestion.\n\n\"I assume,\" Vorcan said, \"there will be no need.\"\n\nBrood glanced at Baruk. \"What a miserable nest you live in, High Alchemist. Never mind, it's time. '\n\nThey watched him walk into the circle. They watched him set Dragnipur down, bridging the two anvils. He took a single step back, then, and grew still as he stared down at the sword.\n\n\"It is beautiful,\" he said. \"Fine craftsmanship.\"\n\n\"May you one day be able to compliment its maker in person,\" Vorcan said. \"Just don't expect me to make the introduction. I don't know where they will all spill out, so long as it isn't in my city. '\n\nBrood shrugged. \"I am the wrong one from whom to seek reassurance, Assassin.\" He drew the huge hammer from his back and readied the weapon. \"I'm just hereto break the damned thing. '\n\nNo one spoke then, and not one of the watchers moved a muscle as the warlord took a second step back and raised the hammer over his head. He held it poised fora moment. \"I'd swear, \"he said in a low rumble,\"that Burn's smiling in her sleep right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And down came the hammer.\n\nFisher was waiting in the garden, strangely fresh, renewed, when Lady Envy returned home. She had walked in the midst of thousands, out to a barrow. She had watched, as had all the others, as if a stranger to the one fallen. But she was not that.\n\nShe found a delicate decanter of the thinnest Nathii greenglass, filled with amber wine, and collected two goblets, and walked out to join the bard. He rose from the bench he had been sitting on and would have taken a step closer to her, but then he saw her expression.\n\nThe bard was wise enough to hide his sigh of relief. He watched her fill both goblets to the brim. \"What happened?\" he asked.\n\nShe would not speak of her time at the barrow. She would, in fact, never speak of it. Not to this man, not to anyone. \"Caladan Brood,\" she replied, \"that's what happened. And there's more.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe faced him, and then drained her goblet. \"My father. He's back. '\n\nOh frail city...\n\nAn empty plain it was, beneath an empty sky. Weak, flickering fire nested deep in its ring of charred stones, now little more than ebbing coals. A night, a hearth, and a tale now spun, spun out.\n\n\"Has thou ever seen Kruppe dance?\"\n\n\"No. I think not. Not by limb, not byword.\"\n\n\"Then, my friends, settle yourselves for this night. And witness...\"\n\nAnd so they did. Bard and Elder God, and oh how Kruppe danced. Blind to the threat of frowns, blind to dismay, rolling eyes, blind even to contempt– although none of these things came from these two witnesses. But beyond this frail ring of warm light, out in that vast world so discordant, so filled with tumult, judgement harsh and gleeful in cruelty, there can be no knowing the cast of arrayed faces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No matter.\n\nOne must dance, and dance did Kruppe, oh, yes, he did dance.\n\nThe night draws to an end, the dream dims in the pale silver of awakening. Kruppe ceases, weary beyond reason. Sweat drips down the length of his ratty beard, his latest affectation.\n\nA bard sits, head bowed, and in a short time he will say thank you. But for now he must remain silent, and as for the other things he would say, they are between him and Kruppe and none other. Fisher sits, head bowed. While an Elder God weeps.\n\nThe tale is spun. Spun out.\n\nDance by limb, dance byword. Witness!" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the storyline as the writer's tale partner.\nTags: fantasy, martial arts, competition, cultivation, growth\nAuthor: Will Wight\nTitle: Uncrowned\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The force madra rushed through his Remnant arm in gray veins, but he grabbed it and cycled it through his hunger binding. He had to use it up or vent it, or it would pollute his armor his own madra.\n\nHis control over force madra was lacking, but it was enough fora very simple attack technique. Lindon's punch to the Akura's chest flashed gray as it struck, smashing the enemy backward.\n\nHe flew into the wall, cracking his head against the metal plates, and Lindon dashed after him. He gathered madra into his Empty Palm, and the young man looked up with fear in his purple eyes.\n\nLindon hesitated.\n\nHis instinct, born from the last two years of bloody competition, told him to finish off the enemy immediately. If Lindon hit the Akura too hard, he might kill him.\n\nIt was only a moment of indecision, but it was enough. The lanky young man reached out to the boundary field, gathering it into one larger bolt of lightning.\n\nIt struck in a flash of light, and Lindon passed out again.\n\nHe woke upon the floor, aching and groaning, with Little Blue injecting soothing madra into him. She patted his forehead.\n\nHe glanced up to find that his visitors still hadn't left. Instead, another Underlord had joined them.\n\nAkura Pride, short and glaring, folded his arms and glared down at Lindon. He stood apart from the other members of his family, and from the looks they shot Pride, Lindon gathered that Mercy's brother still wasn't the most popular.\n\n\"Give up,\" Pride said abruptly.\n\nLindon pushed himself to his knees. When he straightened his back, he could look Pride in the eyes. \"They were just giving me some pointers on my techniques. Nothing to be upset about.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl with the pigtails snorted.\n\n\"Go home,\" Pride continued. \"Leave my sister alone. Give upon the tournament. You won't even make it past the first round.\"\n\nLindon was sick of kneeling before Mercy's brother. He rose to his feet, where he towered over Pride.\n\n\"That's why I'm grateful to your cousins for their help in my training.\" Lindon smiled, tasting the blood on his teeth.\n\nHe had trained against Dross'model of Pride many times. Though Dross couldn't swear to its accuracy, Lindon only won three out of every ten simulated matches. Even with his full power.\n\nIna real fight, he'd have to cheat.\n\nPride stepped so close that his chin almost touched Lindon's chest. He stared up, eyes full of rage. \"Uncle Fury's selection is in ten days. I want you to be there. And when I win, I will challenge you in front of everyone. I will beat you into the ground everyday until you give up or you can't fight anymore.\"\n\n\"... apologies, but at some point I would just decline the duel,\" Lindon said.\n\n\"Even better. Someone who will not face a fight against a strong opponent is unfit for the tournament.\"\n\nLindon shrugged. \"That's up to the Sage, isn't it?\"\n\nPride glared at him fora moment longer, then took a step back. \"Wei Shi Lindon Arelius, I challenge you.\"\n\nIt had only been a minute since he had fought the boy with the lightning Path. And a few moments before that, he'd been beaten by the girl with the huge hammer. Despite his Iron body's work, he was bruised and battered allover. He throbbed with pain just standing there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nonetheless, Lindon clenched his jaw and said, \"I accept.\"\n\nIt ended no better than the last time.\n\nHe used his full set of abilities, but he was hardly in his best condition. Pride and the others left him conscious but reeling, staring up at the ceiling.\n\n[My Pride model has been significantly improved,] Dross said. [Believe it or not, you pulled out more of his skills during this shameful beating than the last one.]\n\nLindon pulled himself up. He could barely stand.\n\n\"Show me,\" he said.\n\n~~~\n\nIn preparing for the tournament, Charity didn't have enough time in the day. There were always more people who needed her commands, enemies who needed her deterrence, projects that needed her personal supervision.\n\nAs an Archlady, she needed very little sleep. Most nights, she could go without. But she tried to keep a regular pattern of rest anyway. A rested mind, she'd found, was a sharp mind.\n\nBefore bed, she checked in on Lindon. She had yet to find him resting.\n\nOnly a few days after her father had given him some pointers, she took another look at him. He sat diligently cycling, but even through her owl, she could see that he was out of balance.\n\nHis eyes were half-open and blank, his hair was matted and unwashed, his clothes were rumpled and stained with blood, and he hadn't shaved in days. His Sylvan Riverseed lay curled up in his lap, sleeping, and he looked as though he would pitch over at any second.\n\nShe had intended to let him go a few more days before intervening, but everyone had a limit. This was his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charity glanced down at herself. She perched on the edge of her bed, hair undone, wearing only a thin single-layer robe. She wasn't suitable for greeting a stranger. So instead of ripping open a human-sized tear in space, she made one about the size of her hand.\n\nAnd she slid a construct through. It looked like a dream tablet made from a purple gemstone, but it was instead a rare and valuable transmission construct. She doubted he would recognize how valuable.\n\nThe instant the small portal appeared, Lindon's eyes snapped open, and he reached out his pale right hand and caught the falling construct.\n\nCharity spoke through the spatial connection before it closed. \"A mind needs more than training to keep it active. Do not wear yourself out before the tournament begins. That construct will be active for one hour after sunset every other day. Do not waste the time. Instructions are contained within.\"\n\nShe let the portal close, but continued watching through one of her hidden owls.\n\nAt first, Lindon examined the gem suspiciously. He swept his spiritual sense through it, examined it from several angles, and then finally activated it. She could see on his face when he realized that it was a transmission construct, because his suspicion deepened.\n\nShe smiled.\n\nA moment later, Yerin Arelius'voice came through, speaking loudly through the stone in Lindon's hand. \"... who is this? Am I supposed to talk into this? Is it going to carry a message, or what?\"\n\nThe change in Lindon was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. He looked like he'd gained a full night's sleep in an instant, and he began speaking eagerly into the construct at once.\n\nCharity let her owl dissipate, cutting off the vision, and settled into sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 6\n\nLindon sat on the roof of his house in Moongrave, watching the skies as he spoke with Yerin. Lines of cloudships followed each other in even lanes, passing over dark towers and black-leafed trees, and Yerin's voice came from the jewel-construct sitting on the tiles next to him.\n\n\"... and I can beat Saeya so long as she keeps that sword locked away. If I had a weapon with a binding I could use, you can bet I'd be whipping her like a stubborn mule.\"\n\nThe shadow aura hung so thick in the air that it tinged all the stars with a slight purple haze. He settled onto his back as he responded.\n\n\"Forgiveness, but I'm glad you don't. I might have to fight you.\"\n\nA short laugh came from Yerin's side of the construct. \"I'd need something to knock you offtrack. Don't have any surprises you haven't seen.\"\n\n\"I'm the one who needs a surprise.\" Lindon's early attempts to fight a model of Yerin made by Dross had not gone well. When she didn't respond, he continued. \"I've actually been working on something that might catch you off-guard, but I can't tell you too much.\" That should have caught her curiosity, but she still didn't respond. \"Yerin?\"\n\nHe glanced at the horizon. Darkness had completely swallowed the sun, leaving the stars, the buildings in the city, and the vehicles passing overhead as the only lights.\n\nDross made a sound like he was clearing his throat. [Well, I've been working on something. I'm just using your brain.]\n\nLindon ignored him, sitting up and cradling the transmission construct. Sure enough, only a glimmer of light remained in its depths. It was deactivating on the time limit the Sage had left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He let pure madra flood into the construct, along with a wisp of gray soulfire. He had learned early on that providing it with more madra would boost its performance fora short time.\n\nIndistinctly, Yerin's voice drifted through the air. \"... there? Lindon?\"\n\nLindon brought the construct close to his mouth. \"We're out of time. I'll talk to you the day after tomorrow.\" The weight of that time settled on him. Two days before he could have a break like this again. He added, \"I wish you were here.\"\n\nThe construct went dark.\n\nLindon tucked the jewel of Forged madra away, laying back down against the tile. Two phoenixes of violet flame circled each other in the sky, and he watched them as they ducked into clouds and reemerged.\n\nPart of him wished Charity hadn't given him the construct. Being able to talk to Yerin five times in the last week had made the time between unbearable. He'd never realized how short an hour was.\n\n[You know,] Dross said, [I can't tell if these talks make you feel better or if they highlight just how alone you really are. Anyway, I'm sure the best thing to do is not think about it. Just stuff those feelings way down deep where they can never hurt anybody.]\n\nThe phoenixes vanished, and Lindon realized he was lying on his own roof for no reason. He stood, stretching his arms. \"I'm going to sleep early. You should, too. We have a big day tomorrow.\"\n\n[We're still going with your plan, then? Oh, good. Good. I was worried you had changed your mind to something reasonable. No, don't worry. Just go to sleep and dream of success. Maybe that will help somehow.]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "~~~\n\nThe next day, Charity sat next to Fury in a viewing tower overlooking one of their fighting stages.\n\n\"I know this is to choose your representative,\" Charity said, \"but I didn't think you'd show up.\"\n\nSixteen young Underlords-the last remaining candidates for the main Akura team-were lined upon the arena beneath them. Several dozen possibilities had already been eliminated, whittled down to this elite group.\n\nAn Overlord barked instructions at them-he was Fury's great-grandson, Charity's grand-nephew. The Underlords bowed to him and then to the tower where the Sage and the Herald waited.\n\nThe stage itself was a polished black square a hundred yards to aside, and the Akura family emblem glowed at the center. One large star and two small stars, allover three mountains. The stars and the mountains glowed purple.\n\nThe star on the left represented Charity. Fury was the star on the right, and Malice the largest star in the center. The one that rose over them all.\n\nHe tilted his head back, swallowing a bowl of soup bigger than his head. When he finished, he let out along, satisfied breath, then picked up a loaf of bread. \"Intuition,\" he said between bites. \"I feel like something interesting is going to happen.\"\n\nTwo Underladies stepped up, saluting one another. One of them, Akura Grace, had areal shot at winning. She looked more like Malice than most of the Akura descendants, full-figured and beautiful, with long raven hair. While she had failed to bond with any of the Books of Seven Pages, she had developed considerable mastery of her sword and shadow Path and carried along, curved saber on her back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grace's opponent was sadly unremarkable. She had made it this far by sheer luck.\n\nAt the end of the fight, the two bowed to one another, Grace unharmed and her challenger bleeding from the arm. There had been no tension there.\n\n\"And here comes something interesting now.\" Fury tossed the uneaten half of his bread over his shoulder.\n\nAt first, Charity assumed he was talking about Grace's match, and she wondered if her father was feeling all right. Then she paid more attention to her spiritual sense.\n\nAnother young Underlord had removed his veil and walked toward the stage. He was tall and strapping, with astern expression and a build that reminded her of Fury. He wore the black-and-white robes that the Akura family used for many of their disciples, with a glittering halfsilver hammer badge hanging from a ribbon around his neck.\n\nWhen he stepped onto the stage, he pressed the fist of his white Remnant arm against his human left, bowing toward their viewing tower.\n\nThe Overlord demanded to know what he was doing there, but Charity sent a quick pulse of her madra, signaling him to stop. Pride and several of the others shouted angrily for him to stop, and a few other young Underlords began to climb onto the stage, ready to attack him.\n\nLindon straightened from his bow, ignoring the others and looking up at Fury and Charity. \"Pardon the interruption,\" he said, his voice echoing throughout the arena. \"Since the winner here is going to be my teammate, I thought I would check their abilities for myself. One last time.\"\n\nAudacious of him to try something like this. He was leaning too hard on Charity's favor. She was inclined to remind him of his disrespect... but only if she had been supervising this contest alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew what her father was going to say.\n\n\"Granted!\" Fury shouted happily. \"The winner fights Lindon!\"\n\n\"Apologies, but I had something else in mind.\" For the first time, he turned to look at his peers around him.\n\nCharity detected disdain in him, along with more confidence than she had ever seen in him before. Suddenly, even she was intrigued.\n\n\"I challenge every Underlord here.\"\n\nThey all reacted. Some shouted out of wounded pride, some prepared techniques, others laughed or called insults.\n\nFury turned to Charity eagerly, his red eyes flashing with excitement. \"Where's Mercy?\"\n\n\"The sixth island.\"\n\n\"She'll want to see this.\" He rose from his chair and started cycling his madra, but she stopped him.\n\n\"I'll get her.\" Fury would flyover there faster than sound, snatch up Mercy, and leap away with no warning. Charity's way was faster. With a moment of concentration, she stretched her spiritual awareness all the way out to the sixth of the thirteen Phantom Islands.\n\nMercy was tempering her concentration, pulling her four techniques from the Book of Eternal Night while nightmare beasts assaulted her mind. Charity seized her in the middle of her trial, pulling her through a fold in the Way.\n\nTeleporting so quickly and precisely was the limit of Charity's ability, and she had always been skilled with spatial transport. Mercy tumbled onto the platform, her training outfit muddied and gray, her hair tangled and messy. She shoved herself up using Eclipse as support, and the sacred bow hissed.\n\nMercy looked around in a panic, disoriented. \"Ah! What? Where am I? What?... what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charity used one pulse of her madra to soothe Mercy's thoughts, and another to command the Underlords below not to form into an angry mob and beat Lindon to death. \"Your friend has just done something interesting. We thought you might want to watch.\"\n\nMercy perked up. She leaned her weapon up against the wall and peered over the edge of the platform at the other Underlords below.\n\n\"What did he do? Wow, Pride does not look happy.\" She pulled her hair back into a rough tail, tying it in place with a string of Forged madra.\n\n\"He challenged everyone to a duel,\" Fury said, moving up to stand next to her. \"I was just about to let it happen.\"\n\nBy their relative ages, Fury should have been Mercy's ancestor many generations removed. Instead, they were half-siblings separated by centuries.\n\nSuch was the reality of life in a Monarch's family.\n\nMercy waved down to Lindon, who looked surprised to see her. \"Does he know how strong they are?\"\n\n\"Everyone down there has fought him at least once,\" Charity responded. \"Most of them multiple times. They did not enjoy seeing him placed above them, so they took out their frustrations on him.\"\n\nWithout looking, Mercy extended a String of Shadow and pulled up a chair. \"As long as he knows what he's getting into, then we're about to see a show.\"\n\nFury slapped the railing in excitement. His red eyes gleamed, and his voice boomed out over the field. \"First fight: Akura Shiria! Wei Shi Lindon! Let's see it!\"\n\n~~~\n\nThe others cleared off the stage, leaving Lindon and the girl with the hammer and pigtails. Shiria was a distant enough descendant that she had a normal name, and her force Path had been selected for her by her outsider father. But she still had the black hair and purple eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lindon had fought her five times in total, losing every time.\n\nIn his head, he'd trained against her two hundred and sixteen times.\n\nAs soon as the stage cleared, she loosened her hammer from its strap on her back, cycling force madra. Her Goldsign, a silver ring around her neck, began to hum. A pair of golden anklets started to activate, drawing a movement technique to her feet.\n\nShe couldn't use the Akura bloodline armor, but she hit hard and was surprisingly adaptable.\n\n\"Begin,\" called the Overlord in charge of the stage.\n\nLindon slammed an Empty Palm into the air on his left. Rather than many echoes, like Akura Fury had created, he Forged one huge echo at the moment of impact and superimposed it over an Enforced palm strike.\n\nAs a result, when Akura Shiria finished her movement technique and appeared suddenly to Lindon's left, an Empty Palm the size of her entire torso caught her in the chest. The blue-white hand that struck her was ten times bigger than Lindon's and disappeared immediately.\n\nPure madra rushed through her core and her entire madra system, sending her spirit into chaos. The construct in her boots failed, her Goldsign dimmed, and her cycling jammed to a sudden halt.\n\nThe physical strike hither with full force, driving all the air from her lungs, and her eyes bugged out. Without her spirit Enforcing her body, she lost her grip on the hammer, which tumbled from her limp hands.\n\nShe fell to her knees, wheezing fora breath.\n\n\"You favor attacking from the left side,\" Lindon said, \"and your movements are too wide when you use your boots.\" She also tended to cycle her madra too far in advance of her attack, so it was simple to follow her with his spiritual perception." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Victory: Wei Shi Lindon Arelius.\" The Overlord glanced up at the viewing tower.\n\nAkura Fury nodded and stroked his chin, and Charity looked as impassive as ever. Mercy cheered.\n\n\"Second fight,\" Fury called. \"Akura Courage.\"\n\nCourage, it turned out, was the young Underlord with the six flying swords and the Striker techniques. He strode up full of confidence, fanning his swords out behind him.\n\nLindon had only fought him once and hadn't caught his name. He might have other secrets up his sleeve, because Dross\" model of him was not as precise as some of the others.\n\nBut Lindon had trained against it ninety-one times.\n\nHis eyes burned black.\n\n\"Begin,\" the Overseer called, and Lindon fired a finger-thin bar of dragon's breath over his opponent's shoulder. It burned a line across the top of his outer robe, and smoke drifted up from singed cloth. His flying swords still hadn't reached Lindon yet.\n\nThe blades froze in midair. Courage's purple eyes had gone wide with shock. Clearly, Lindon could have put that Striker technique through his throat.\n\n\"You're too slow to startup,\" Lindon said simply.\n\n\"Victory to Lindon.\" The Overlord sounded angry this time, so Lindon wondered if Courage was a close relative.\n\nFury stood and laughed again, preparing to call out the next match when Lindon interrupted.\n\nDross heaved a deep breath. [And now the foolishness begins.]\n\n\"Forgiveness, honored Herald,\" Lindon said, \"but I had a different plan in mind.\"\n\nHe looked to the remaining Underlords, more than half of whom looked angry enough to storm the stage at any second. The Path of Black Flame continued burning through his spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I challenged all the Underlords here,\" Lindon said.\n\nOf the remaining fourteen Akura Underlords, twelve of them looked instantly to Akura Fury, waiting for his permission. Only two continued watching Lindon: Pride and his distant cousin, Grace. Pride looked ready to commit murder, but Grace watched him with distant confusion in her purple eyes, as though she were trying to figure out his angle of approach.\n\nFury's wild laughter preceded the words, \"Go wild, kids!\"\n\nTwelve people leaped onto the stage, and Lindon sharpened his attention as Dross slowed the world down.\n\nSeven young men and five women in Akura colors sprinted for him, drawing weapons and kindling techniques. Sword madra flashed in a silver wave, Forged needles of venom flicked for his neck, and a spear sailed through the air.\n\nThanks to Dross, Lindon had time to consider his response.\n\nDragon's breath seared into a girl's leg as Lindon snatched the spear out of the air with the explosive movement of the Burning Cloak then hurled it back. Dross projected their movements onto his sight, like ghostly outlines of the future. Lindon fell inline with the projections as though following a dance he had long memorized.\n\nHe ducked a fan of sword madra while rolling to avoid a spray of poisoned needles and drilling a finger-thin bar of dragon's flame through a boy's shield. As he'd hoped, Charity or Fury called out whenever they considered someone eliminated, so he didn't have to hurt anyone too badly.\n\nAs they grew closer, he poured soulfire into the Burning Cloak. It propelled his every movement with such force that it became hard to control, each step a leap and each punch launched like a cannon-shot. Without weeks of practice, he would have tumbled straight out of the arena's bounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time they reached him with their weapons, there were seven remaining.\n\nSo quickly that it sent pain lancing through his spirit, Lindon emptied himself of Blackflame madra and switched to the Path of Twin Stars.\n\nThat transition was the most dangerous time, and in his predictions, this was where he failed most often. Without Dross' calculations, he would have been ground into paste between a Forged fist, a body covered in the amethyst Akura bloodline armor, and a blast of force madra.\n\nIn the fraction of a second when the Burning Cloak dropped and the Spirit Cloak rose up around him, he slipped each attack by a hair's breadth.\n\nWhen the pure madra Enforcer technique filled him, the fight ended.\n\nHe broke two legs and three arms, cracked a set of ribs, and drove an Empty Palm into an armored chest. A glowing blue-white handprint five times bigger than his own struck at the same time, quickly Forged out of his Twin Stars madra and shoved into his opponent's spirit.\n\nHer spirit trembled, the armor shrank away, and she collapsed to her knees. Lindon stood, breathing heavily and focusing on his spirit to keep his madra under control. He was the only one standing.\n\nFury now sat on the railing at the edge of his viewing platform, legs dangling, leaning forward so that it looked like he could falloff at any second. But the tower was only about thirty feet tall; a fall from that height would threaten him no more than a stiff breeze.\n\nCharity still showed no expression, but Mercy saw Lindon looking and clapped her black-gloved hands together eagerly.\n\nLindon never had to use more than three techniques against any single opponent. His madra channels were a little strained, having to use so many techniques in a row with no breaks, but he had plenty of power left. He had taken one shallow cut, a few impacts that would bruise if not for his Bloodforged Iron body, and a spiritual attack to his core that he had drowned with pure madra." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing worth complaining about after an overwhelming victory.\n\n[Don't let me interrupt you with reality, but we're not done.]\n\nDross was right. There were two rivals left.\n\n\"Next opponent,\" the Overlord said wearily, \"Akura Grace.\"\n\nMost of the young Akura Underlords would be considered attractive; they were physically trained and had delicate features, with the resources of the Akura family to take care of them. Even their battle clothes were finely made, and they all had bodies remade in soulfire.\n\nAkura Grace was on another level. Her every movement was beautiful, her skin smooth, her longhair thick and dark. As she walked onto the stage, she met his eyes with a clear gaze, carrying a lightly curved saber in both hands. She drew the weapon in one elegant motion and set the sheath aside.\n\nLindon had fought her only once. She had challenged him and won without injuring him. He got the impression that she was really evaluating him, not taking out a grudge on him as the others had, and she had gone away disappointed.\n\nNow she looked interested again, like her ancestor, Fury. She readied her sword.\n\nShe had no other constructs on her besides the blade, her sacred instrument, though of course she could have something stored in her soulspace or avoid key. But he suspected she wouldn't. Like him, she was pushing to train herself, not to seek a lonely victory.\n\n[My model for her doesn't have a lot of testing,] Dross said. [Should we think about this a minute? That's a good idea, let's think about it.]\n\n\"Begin!\" the Overlord called.\n\nGrace's sword was already at his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lindon had back-stepped immediately, expecting the rush. She used a full-body Enforcer technique that shrouded her in shadow, and she moved with a grace that proved her worthy of her name. Her advantage in this fight washer weapon. Lindon had completed some basic Iron-level weapons-training courses provided by Charity, but he'd never found a weapon that he felt suited him.\n\nThough that was a problem now. She channeled an Enforcer technique into her weapon, and a shadowy black edge expanded its length and width a few inches. It moved faster now, a dark blur, and its movements were harder to track.\n\nLindon used the Soul Cloak. With the control it gave him over his movements, his Underlord body, and Dross' enhancement of his mind, he danced out of the way. She grew faster and faster, but he stayed inches away, even when she began to mix Striker techniques into her attack patterns. Sharp black crescents of madra flashed out at him, slicing the air, but he evaded them all.\n\nFinally, she grew frustrated, stopping her sword fora moment to pour soulfire in it. Colorless flame flickered up and down the blade's length in an instant, and the pressure coming off of the weapon doubled.\n\nBut it provided the opening Lindon had been waiting for.\n\nAs soon as she stopped, Lindon gathered a gray flame of his own from the quiet bonfire burning in his spirit. He funneled it into a twist of spirit behind his cores, a binding in the making. The location of his Soul Cloak technique.\n\nThe smooth blue-white aura around him turned almost tangible, like a waterfall flowing in reverse up his body.\n\nBefore she swung, Grace realized what he'd done. She poured soulfire into her own full-body Enforcer technique, but it was too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In one motion, he closed the gap between them and jabbed two fingers into her wrist along with a pulse of pure madra. It disrupted her strength, loosening her grip, and he took the weapon from her.\n\nBut he didn't turn it to point the blade at her. He released the Soul Cloak, holding her sword out to her hilt-first.\n\nHer purple eyes were wide with astonishment, her lips slightly parted. She took the weapon back absently.\n\n\"Lindon's victory.\" The Overlord sighed. He was almost inaudible over Mercy cheering and Fury clapping.\n\nGrace scooped up her sheath, slipping the weapon inside. Then she turned back to him and pressed both fists together.\n\n\"Thank you for the match,\" she said quietly.\n\nLindon returned the salute.\n\nThen Pride strode onto the stage. Shadow madra pulsed around him, and Lindon could make out a phantom image in the air behind him: a red book made of madra, its cover sealed with silver chains.\n\nRather than announcing the sixteenth fight, Fury remained quiet. Pride glowered at Lindon, his spirit unrestrained.\n\nIna way, Lindon was more confident against Pride than against Grace. He had fought Pride twice and seen more of his Path both times. Dross was confident that his model of the young man was at least eighty percent accurate.\n\nBut of the four hundred and fifteen simulated matches Lindon had held against Pride, Lindon had won only two hundred.\n\nPride used exclusively Enforcer techniques. If he managed to move in close, he won. Lindon won only when he kept his distance and peppered Pride with dragon's breath.\n\nThey stood facing each other in silence as the defeated Akura members stared at them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pride drew himself up to his full height, his eyes moving to the viewing arena." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His madra spun quickly, and Lindon started cycling for the Burning Cloak.\n\n\"Enough.\" Charity's quiet voice swallowed up all else.\n\nAkura Fury looked to her in childish disappointment, but both Pride and Lindon drew up short.\n\n\"Wei Shi Lindon Arelius, step back,\" she continued. \"Your point is made. Let all see that I have made my selection, and it is final.\"\n\nPride bowed, and then turned away, his every step heavy with obvious frustration.\n\nLindon looked up to the tower, uncertain. He had expected to fight Pride last of all, so this sudden change wrong-footed him.\n\nCharity stood up, surveying them all. \"I suppose now we should have the actual selection tournament.\"\n\n\"Eh, I'm going to pick Grace or Pride,\" Fury said. He hopped down from the thirty-foot tower, landing easily on the ground below, and then began to walkaway. \"Fight it out between the two of you. Best two of three matches, return to good condition in between each match, Charity's the judge.\"\n\nHis figure blurred as he shot away.\n\n[What an abrupt man,] Dross said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 7\n\nLindon hadn't seen Mercy much since arriving in Moongrave, but after the Akura clan acknowledged him as a qualified participant in the Uncrowned tournament, the situation changed. Now Charity required him to appear in public with members of the Monarch's family to reinforce his new status. Since Charity and Fury were far too busy, that meant Mercy or Pride.\n\nHe had immediately chosen Mercy.\n\nDelighted, she had taken the opportunity to bring him to a show. They now sat side-by-side in a theater box reserved for the Akura head family, looking down on the rest of the audience and on abroad stage. Onstage, sacred artists performed what they called \"drake-dancing\"; they rode serpentine lesser dragons through the air in complex acrobatics, narrowly dodging each other and a barrage of dangerous techniques.\n\nThe spectacle focused on the stunts, but the story engaged Lindon the most. The rider on the black drake was a fallen prince trying to regain his kingdom, but every step he took brought him further away from his truelove.\n\nAn hour in, the director called an intermission, and the drakes landed. They carried their riders backstage to the sound of applause, and the audience's murmurs rose to a dull roar.\n\nLindon immediately began cycling the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel.\n\nMercy cried out when she saw his eyes shut, and she clapped her hands in front of his face, startling him out of the cycling trance. \"You really don't take any breaks, do you?\" Her purple eyes shone with amusement.\n\n\"Apologies, but I don't have time for breaks.\" The truth was, he was embarrassed at how easily he had been swallowed up by the show. Fora few minutes, he had almost forgotten to improve himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mercy turned her body in her seat, folding black-gloved hands on the arm of her chair. \"I've never seen you voluntarily take a break. Even in the Skysworn, you were cycling or practicing until you collapsed. Do you not have any hobbies?\"\n\nLindon thought of training as his hobby, but he searched fora more appropriate answer. \"I used to work in a library.\"\n\nFrom Mercy's face, that was clearly not what she wanted to hear. \"What do you like doing?\"\n\nThat felt like the wrong question, but it took him a moment to find the words to explain why. \"It's not about what I like. I'm years behind you and Yerin. I have to work harder to catch up.\"\n\n\"Lindon, this isn't a test. What do you enjoy?\"\n\n\"I like Soulsmithing,\" he responded. He was answering from the gut, but that was the most honest answer he could think of. \"It's satisfying to come up with something that works, because Remnant pieces never combine like you expect.\"\n\nMercy leaned even closer to him, eagerly awaiting more.\n\n\"I enjoy research. Searching through volumes of information and pulling out just the pieces you need, then putting them together.\" He shrugged, self-conscious. \"It doesn't sound fun when I say it like that, but that's what came to mind.\"\n\nMercy's tone became overly casual. \"What about your talks with Yerin?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" This time, Lindon didn't need to consider his answer. \"She's always excited to train, and that makes me enjoy it more. Having to advance on my own these last few months has made me realize...\"\n\nHe trailed off as the music started up beneath them. The director emerged back onstage and began to announce the second part of the drake-dancing show." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without turning from Lindon, Mercy raised her hand, palm-out.\n\nThe director corrected himself mid-sentence. \"Ah, it seems that the show will resume in just a few more minutes.\"\n\nThe musicians lowered their volume. A few members of the audience glanced up at their box, but most people kept their eyes low.\n\nLindon stared at Mercy. It seemed there were more perks to being a Monarch's daughter than he realized.\n\nShe lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. \"So I've never asked, but now that we've got this chance to talk... what exactly are you and Yerin? Are you...\" She twined her fingers together.\n\nLindon felt like every light in the theater had turned onto him.\n\n\"First I thought you were together,\" Mercy went on, \"and then after watching you and finding out you had both been adopted into the Arelius family, I figured you might have thought of yourselves as brother and sister. But the more I watch you... there's something there, right?\"\n\nExcitement painted every inch of her face. The music stayed low, the crowd murmured, and the show wouldn't start until Mercy allowed it to.\n\nLindon's face burned, and he dug for an excuse to get himself out of the conversation.\n\n[Just move your mouth and make words come out,] Dross said. [Your thoughts area mess, so talking isn't going to make it any worse.]\n\n\"She... makes me want to work harder,\" Lindon began. \"When I'm not with her, I feel like something's wrong. But everything is based on advancing together. That's all we do.\"\n\nHe looked down at the stage so he wouldn't have to look into Mercy's purple eyes anymore. \"If we tried to do more... what would that look like? Would we have to give up advancement? Would we have anything in common?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you're okay with that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sounded confused.\n\nHe responded honestly. \"I don't know.\"\n\nMercy settled back into her seat. After a few seconds, she waved her hand. The music swelled again as the show resumed.\n\n\"Well,\" she said with a sigh, \"there's one easy answer: make it to Monarch. Then you can spend all the time you wanton romance and no one can say anything. Just ask my mother.\"\n\n~~~\n\nOn the day Lindon was to leave for the tournament, the entire Akura family turned out in force.\n\nIn an open courtyard so vast that Lindon could not seethe end, an uncountable number of people had gathered. They organized themselves into squares, some more precisely than others, representing the families and sects and clans within Akura territory.\n\nIt was an ocean of humanity. The noise they generated shook the ground.\n\nBlack towers rose evenly between the squares, and a grasshopper-like Remnant of white smoke wavered on top of each of those towers. The spirits played haunting music that drifted over the scene, weaving in and out of the crowd's titanic murmurs.\n\nLindon watched from above, on a platform supported by a violet Thousand-Mile Cloud. He stood to Mercy's left, while Pride stood to her right. Charity rose above them all, floating on a platform of her own.\n\nThey were on display. Two minutes after they rose into the air, the noise of the crowd heightened into cheers, and the music peaked in triumph.\n\nLindon stood stiffly, his mind choking on the sheer scale. In any direction he looked, he saw more people than he had ever imagined existed.\n\nConstructs in each of the towers projected an illusory image of the three Underlords into the air so everyone in the endless crowd could see. Lindon could now see himself as a forty-foot-tall figure of madra, as flawless as anything a master of the Path of the White Fox could have produced. Every time another construct farther away sprang to life, showing Mercy and Pride and Lindon, a further burst of cheers erupted from the crowd around it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a staggering display of the Akura clan's wealth. The weight sunk in as it never had before: he was representing them, a power that dwarfed the Blackflame Empire. Whether he liked it or not, he was one of the clan's faces now. He had to please them. The force of their displeasure would crush him.\n\nCharity spread her hands, and a gentle ripple of madra drifted out over the crowd. Lindon was certain that even she couldn't reach the end of the gathered people, but when those in the center quieted, a wave of silence spread out over everyone.\n\nThe Sage began with a speech designed to reinforce the power and dignity of the Akura clan, and how their family was synonymous with the stability of humanity. Lindon listened intently until he realized he would learn nothing of value. This was only to impress everyone with the importance of what they were doing.\n\nInstead, he examined his illusory image.\n\nHe had always been tall, but next to Mercy and Pride, that was even more apparent. With Mercy in the center, it looked as though they were arranged in descending order of height. Mercy came up to his chin, and Pride only his shoulder.\n\nHis expression had always looked like he was spoiling fora fight, but since ascending to Underlord, he had changed in a dozen tiny ways. Now he looked stern. Too stern, or so he thought as he examined the giant projection of his face. His discomfort made him look like a judge ready to order an execution. He tried to relax, but the situation was too tense.\n\nHe was dressed, as were Mercy and Pride, in the best the Akura clan had to offer. He wore a stiff outer coat with a high collar that flared behind him like a cape and plum-colored inner garments, tailored tightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The outside of the coat was black, but the inside was a bright violet that looked like it was on the verge of starting to glow. There was a line of script ringing the lowest hem of his coat that actually did glow bright violet, and after examining it thoroughly, he had been disappointed to find it was only decorative.\n\nThe one concession the Akura family had allowed him was his badge. Halfsilver now, representing his rise to Lord, the badge hungover his chest. It sparkled with bright points like stars in a gray sky, and its presence near his chest made him slightly uncomfortable, like a spiritual itch.\n\nHalfsilver interfered with the orderly control of madra, and while it wouldn't hurt his sacred arts unless he tried to channel madra through it or kept it pressed against his skin, he still wished it were made of ordinary silver instead.\n\nPride wore an outfit much like his, without the badge, and Lindon was somewhat relieved to know that he had found the one person with a less friendly face than his own. Pride stood as though he were looking down his nose at the world, but his perpetual glare made him look like he needed a good punch.\n\nMercy looked just as at home as her aunt. Her outfit was sleeker and smaller than her male counterparts, and her hair had been tied up into intricate waves laced through by silver strings and dotted with amethysts.\n\nShe stood perfectly at ease, her black-gloved hands resting in front of her, the hint of a smile on her lips. The clan had given her powders and paints for her face, so her skin was flawless, her lips a shade more red, her eyes deeper.\n\nThe biggest difference between the three of them was their eyes. Lindon's were black-not Blackflame oceans of darkness, just ordinary dark human eyes-while the other two were the deep purple of the Akura head family. The same purple shared by the closest square of people, the ones arranged on a dais at the front of all the rest. Instead of standing on the courtyard, these each had a cushioned chair, their ranks rising up in tiered rows. The Akura head family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These weren't just the elite Underlords who had been eligible to potentially compete in the tournament, though he spotted some of them too. Akura Grace leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, so that Lindon thought she might be cycling. Or sleeping.\n\nBut she was one among hundreds of all ages, from white-haired old men and women at the top row to squirming children of six or seven at the bottom. Not all of them had the purple eyes-maybe about half, as far as Lindon could see.\n\nAs a group, they stared at him just like everyone else.\n\nWhen Charity had finished speaking, and the overwhelming cheers from the audience settled down, an old man from the Akura family spoke up. He described the troubles the Akura clan at large faced-incursions along their northern border, famine in the south, a loss of territory to nature, and soon.\n\nAs Lindon was beginning to wonder what his point was, he then moved onto how distinguished performance in the Uncrowned King tournament would solve all those problems.\n\nRespect of their fighters would cause the wicked Dragon King to stop his raids to the north. Rewards taken from the other factions would make them rich enough to settle the famine, and new trade deals would open with other Monarch nations. Soon they would see an unprecedented golden age, with their youth leading the way as they pushed into the north and drove the dragons out, conquering the continent for humanity.\n\nThunderous applause followed, so much that Lindon couldn't hear Mercy commenting into his ear. The cheers continued for five minutes.\n\nAnother weight settled on him. Whether victory in the Uncrowned King tournament would really make all those changes for the common citizen of Akura territory, he didn't know. This all may have been a show designed to draw support from the people for the competition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But at the very least, they thought it mattered to them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This human tide would be listening for news of his performance, deciding whether Lindon had done them proud or let them down.\n\nThe Blackflame Empire's fate would be controlled by this tournament, but so would the lives of millions of other people he would never meet. His performance, the people he defeated, would matter more widely than he'd ever imagined. The knowledge settled into him.\n\nHe had to be worthy of it.\n\nWhen the cheers began to fade, a sleek black cloudship slipped in from overhead. Its design made it look small, though it dwarfed even the Blackflame Emperor's ship. It looked almost like a slice of Stormrock, the floating Skysworn city. Lindon's stomach lurched as his platform began to drift upward, toward the ship.\n\nMercy and Pride raised their hands and waved to the crowd, Mercy eagerly and Pride reluctantly. Lindon did so as well, having been instructed to mirror anything the other two did. Once again, the crowd roared.\n\nThe platform dropped the three of them onto the deck of the airship, and Lindon let out a breath. \"Are we finished now? Is it over?\"\n\n\"Learn patience,\" Pride ordered him, and Mercy rolled her eyes at her brother.\n\n\"We're going to fly off to make it look like we're leaving,\" she explained. \"Cheers. Well-wishes. Promises of victory. Everyone's happy. Then we're going to loop around and pickup everyone else. The whole family's coming.\"\n\nExcept for the servants, Lindon would be the only one aboard the massive cloudship whose name wasn't Akura. That thought was no comfort.\n\n\"How long do we have to travel?\" he asked carefully.\n\n\"It usually takes eight months to reach the center of the Ninecloud continent,\" Mercy said, \"though the journey is risky. There's never a guarantee of success. But the tournament is in two months, so the Ninecloud Court has sent us superior propulsion constructs and a navigational construct to ensure we reach our destination in six weeks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[A navigational construct, you say? That sounds like it might be full of delicious, delicious secrets.]\n\nA different part of the statement had intrigued Lindon. \"Ninecloud?\"\n\nPride sneered at him. \"The tournament is hosted by the Ninecloud Court. I suppose you've never heard of them.\"\n\nWith Suriel at his side, Lindon had stood among the Court itself, watching Sha Miara's coronation. He hadn't known at the time, but he now suspected she was a Monarch.\n\nLindon gave Pride a smile that made the shorter man ball up his fists. \"It so happens that I have.\"\n\n~~~\n\nWith her blindfold tight, Yerin sent her perception around the cloudship. The heavy scripts manipulated wind and cloud madra, keeping them in the air. Sealed in a construct below, powerful rainbow madra provided by the Ninecloud Court fueled the ship and gave them the speed necessary to reach the tournament in time.\n\nThe crew of the ship were mostly on Paths of cloud or wind, which allowed them to do their jobs, but Yerin sensed at least one on afire Path and one that used force techniques.\n\nNaru Saeya was a brighter spot than any of them, a concentration of wind madra, but Eithan proved more difficult to spot. Pure madra was easy to overlook. Yerin strained her perception not to reach further, but to drill deeper.\n\nHer Blood Shadow stirred, hungrily reaching out, which gave Yerin another thing to distract her. She pushed the Shadow down, still scanning the deck, gripping her sword tightly. If she had to wrestle with the spiritual parasite for long, she would never find Eithan.\n\nShe heard nothing, but she felt him for an instant, a faint whisper of danger in her spirit. Her sword came up, ringing with her Ruler technique, and the air sliced apart by dozens of invisible blades. Many of the crew stopped in their tracks, and Naru Saeya's spirit quivered in surprise, but Yerin ignored them and tore off her blindfold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eithan stood before her, frozen in mid-lunge, eyes wide. His one outstretched handheld a silver comb, which he had been using to attack. Its top half fell off, cut by the Endless Sword, and plinked to the deck. The edges of his ornate pink-and-gold outer robe were shredded, and a few strands of his hair drifted down.\n\nHe wasn't cut, but Yerin had never felt so victorious in all her life.\n\nShe raised her sword into the air and gave a triumphant shout as though she had just captured an enemy's fortress. Naru Saeya cheered along with her, applauding furiously, and several of the crew joined in.\n\nAfter a moment, Eithan's shocked expression melted into an appreciative smile, and he added a few claps of his own. \"If I had thought you'd pick it up so quickly, I'd have tied my hair back.\"\n\nYerin drew in a deep, satisfied breath, looking up at Eithan. \"Next time, I'm drawing blood.\"\n\n\"You sound so eager.\"\n\nShe reached into her outer robe and pulled out the purple crystalline construct that had been delivered to her months ago. It wasn't the time for her to speak with Lindon yet, so he might not be able to answer, but it was at least the right day.\n\nYerin held it out to Eithan, who provided pure madra to activate it. Sword madra would work, but it would wear the construct down faster. It was already on its last legs.\n\nBut she wouldn't need it for much longer. In only seven more days, they would reach the Ninecloud Court. Lindon might be there already.\n\nThe construct shot sprays of madra essence in brightly colored sparks, and the light within it flickered. Dream and shadow madra twisted around each other into a whirlpool, and Yerin caught the faint impression that it was drilling into something... deeper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the impression was gone in a moment, and Lindon's voice came through, distant and weak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yerin, can you... may not... much longer.\"\n\nThe cloudship shuddered as the crew prepared them for landing; they would touchdown soon to allow their scripts to draw on aura and refuel. The wind picked up as they descended, which didn't make it easier to hear.\n\n\"Lindon,\" Yerin shouted into the construct. \"I cut Eithan!\"\n\n\"That's not strictly true,\" Eithan pointed out, but she waved him to silence.\n\n\"... apologies... what did you... Eithan?\"\n\n\"I cut him! I finally sensed him coming!\" She had shared her progress in this training exercise with Lindon, and while she had sensed Eithan before, it was never quickly enough to interrupt his attack. He strengthened his veil every few days, and she'd begun to worry that she would never catch up.\n\nLindon's distant voice grew excited. \"Really? That's... how did... even him.\"\n\nThe construct's light flickered again, and the sound died out. Yerin lowered it, trying to shake off her disappointment. Eithan could power the device again, but it was reaching the end of its life. Besides, she would be able to talk to Lindon directly in another week. Their cloudships were both supposed to arrive at about the same time; two weeks before the start of the tournament.\n\nShe pushed out a smile for Eithan and tucked the construct away. \"You'll have to watch yourself from hereon. Won't be able to sneak around like a rat.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't be so sure; I have many other rat-like qualities that will serve me well.\"\n\nNaru Saeya stepped up, multi-colored sword in her hand. \"My turn to cut Eithan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"While Yerin is making excellent progress, she did not cut me. I want that to be clear.\"\n\n\"Draw your comb.\"\n\nYerin stepped back while Naru Saeya and Eithan exchanged blows. They both had Iron bodies suited for speed, which had recently made it hard for her to follow their matches.\n\nNow, by extending her perception over the both of them, she could sense the changes in their spirit much more clearly and quickly than before. Those small shifts gave her a sense of what would happen a moment in advance.\n\nShe continued thinking about it as their cloudship touched down. It felt similar to how her spirit sometimes warned her in moments of danger, as she sensed signs of approaching hostility that her conscious mind was not yet aware of. That was the ability she was training.\n\nBut there was another layer to it, one she was just beginning to touch. Sometimes her spirit warned her of danger before she could have sensed anything. What was it feeling?\n\nHer mind returned to the construct that allowed her to speak with Lindon regardless of the distance. She could track the shadow and dream madra as they twisted into one another, but they were held in place by... something else. There should be a third element there, but she felt nothing.\n\nIt was a vague concept, and as she wondered about it, she extended her perception around her. Beyond Eithan and Saeya's fight, she stretched it into the trees that now rose over their cloudship.\n\nThe aura was rich here, and she felt the power of the wind as it played through the leaves. A storm gathered overhead, but fire aura had gathered within it, so it was going to be a bad aura-storm.\n\nThose happened sometimes, especially in lands with strong vital aura. She and her master had been forced to travel through rains of fire or winds of scorching poison, though of course she'd had a Sage's protection at the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She found herself sensing for gaps in the aura, still chewing on the vague feeling she'd gotten from the construct.\n\nInstead of an answer, she felt danger.\n\nSaeya and Eithan jumped away from her at the same time Yerin's spirit screamed a warning, and all three of them shouted to the crew at the same time. Far overhead, a winged golden form split through the clouds, diving down toward them.\n\nA gold dragon. It must have hidden in the overwhelming fire aura gathered overhead, disguising itself even from Eithan.\n\nIt had a serpentine body, four clawed limbs, gleaming fangs, and shining eyes. Its scales glittered even in the dim light of the overcast day, and it descended on them like a golden spear.\n\nYerin's sword leaped into her hand, and her six sword-arms flashed behind her. She gathered up the sword aura, shaping it to her will, focusing the Endless Sword on the tip of her master's white blade.\n\nSaeya stood upright, her emerald wings spread behind her, peacock feathers standing up straight behind one ear. She made a fist, and wind aura snagged the dragon's wings in mid-flight.\n\nThe creature shuddered as though stumbling in midair, losing a bit of speed, but broke the Ruler technique after a moment of concentration.\n\nEithan looked up at the sky, yellow hair streaming behind him and hands in his pockets. Behind him, blue-white stars of Forged madra began to appear.\n\n\"Too late,\" he said.\n\nAt the same time, the gold dragon cracked open its jaws. It spewed bright orange liquid flame in a thick stream, like a burning river, down on their ship. Gold dragon's breath. The Path of the Flowing Flame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yerin unleashed the Endless Sword which, as expected, only scraped a shallow line across the gold dragon's scales. She hadn't intended it to be a lethal blow, she only wanted to throw off the dragon's aim.\n\nIt didn't work. The dragon's head jerked, and the line of Flowing Flame madra scorched the ground to one side of the ship, but only an instant later the sacred beast pulled its head back. Fire madra blasted through the bottom of the ship with a sickening crunch that Yerin could feel through her feet.\n\nThe dragon caught itself in the middle of its dive, flapping its wings to hover in midair. Yerin could feel the force of the wind and the pressure of its spirit; it had the power of an Underlord.\n\nYerin pooled madra in her sword, gathering up the Rippling Sword technique, and slashed at the air. A wave of razor-sharp energy swept at the dragon, but around plate of bronze emerged from behind the creature, sweeping around and catching the Striker technique. Yerin's madra burst apart on the shield.\n\nThe dragon reached out to the aura around it, resonating with its soulfire. It was far too weak to bean attack-Yerin could feel that immediately-but it was still a complex aura manipulation technique that Yerin wasn't sure she could match.\n\nWords, half in her ears and half in her head, soon formed from aura of wind and dreams. \"Where is the Blackflame?\" the dragon demanded in a feminine voice. A voice Yerin had heard before.\n\nShe hadn't heard it in many months, and she had never seen this form before, but a female gold dragon with a grudge against Lindon... there was only one she knew of.\n\n\"He's dead,\" Yerin said to Sopharanatoth. \"Choked on his soup.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A spiritual scan passed over the whole cloudship, sending a shiver passing through her soul. Yerin didn't expect the dragon to retreat just because she found out Lindon wasn't around, and besides, Yerin wasn't the same weak Highgold that she had been when she'd first met Sophara. She had no problem challenging an Underlady now.\n\nYerin slid up to Naru Saeya, keeping her sword out. Voice low, Yerin asked, \"Can you get me up there?\"\n\n\"That would be a bad idea,\" Saeya responded. Sweat rolled down the sides of her face, and she licked her lips.\n\nYerin looked to Eithan for confirmation, and he nodded.\n\nHe didn't seem as worried as Saeya did, but he hadn't banished the stars gathering in the air behind him either. \"Feel for yourself.\"\n\nYerin reached out toward the dragon with her perception... and suddenly Sophara loomed a hundred times larger in her vision. Yerin's spirit quivered like a kicked puppy.\n\nThis was not someone she had any chance of defeating. Not on her own.\n\nBut she wasn't on her own.\n\nSophara showed no intention of attacking. She gave an angry roar, her wings beating the air, and turned to flyaway.\n\nA Rippling Sword caught her in the flank the same time as a lance of light from Eithan's star. A fist of green wind madra grabbed at her tail. Yerin's technique actually drew blood, Eithan's crashed onto the bronze shield floating around her, and Saeya's drew her up short.\n\n\"I have not allowed you to leave,\" Naru Saeya declared, rising upon wings of her own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yerin felt a burst of pride that all three of them had come to the same conclusion. None of them were a match for Sophara, but she wasn't invincible, and she'd been foolish enough to come hereon her own.\n\nThis was exactly the time to attack.\n\nThe cloudship's crew had leaped over the side at the first sign of Underlords clashing, and the ship itself still listed to one side, having a chunk burned out of it by gold dragon's breath.\n\nSophara only flinched at the damage from their techniques. Blood rolled down her scales, but she still faced them with slowly flapping wings. \"I don't need to waste time with you,\" her aura-born voice said. \"You are already done.\"\n\nOnce again, she turned. Another volley of techniques reached her, but they were either dodged, deflected by the floating shield, or crushed by her own madra.\n\nYerin and Saeya tried twice more, but Eithan gave up almost immediately, letting his Forged stars dissipate back into aura. He sighed. \"This will be inconvenient.\"\n\nNaru Saeya turned sharply, staring down at the deck beneath her feet. \"Is it gone?\"\n\n\"All but a spoonful.\"\n\nYerin extended her own perception down to the cloudship. She couldn't sense the damage to the hull-she could only sense spiritual powers, nothing physical-but that scarcely mattered. It was the network of scripts and constructs running the ship that actually got them places.\n\nMany of them were still intact. She figured the crew could have them in the air again inside a day.\n\nBut the containment around the Ninecloud madra was broken. The fuel given to them had mostly faded into useless essence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pushed back a spike of fear. \"We're not walking there, that's certain. If you had to place abet, how long would you say it's going to take us?\"\n\n\"Another month,\" Naru Saeya said sadly. \"At best.\"\n\nThe tournament's opening was in three weeks.\n\nYerin walked over to the side, looking down to stare at the smoking hole in the ship. \"Well... here's hoping they come looking for us before then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 8\n\nThe Ninecloud Court looked as though it had been ripped from a dream.\n\nRather than a city, it looked like a jeweled palace so vast that Lindon couldn't seethe end. Shimmering glass bridges connected one ruby tower to another, and shining castles floated on white clouds that sparkled every color. Bluebirds with wingspans that looked a mile wide trailed rain from their tails, leaving rainbows falling behind them.\n\nThe iridescent structures built on one another, leading up to one tower in particular: arose-tinted diamond spire encircled by a solid rainbow that reminded Lindon of Samara's Ring back home.\n\nLindon reached into his pocket, clenching Suriel's marble. Somewhere in that complex-maybe at the top of that tower-was where heaven's messenger had taken him to see Luminous Queen Sha Miara. Years ago, Suriel had assured him that he couldn't make it with the power he had at the time.\n\nAnd nowhere he was.\n\nWithout warning, rainbow light shimmered around the cloudship. Lindon began cycling Blackflame, but none of the Akura Lords or Ladies looked concerned. A moment later, a woman's gentle voice poured in from everywhere.\n\n\"Good morning, honored guests! I am the Ninecloud Soul, voice of the Court, and we welcome you to the eighteenth Uncrowned King tournament! The first round will begin in two weeks. In the meantime, we will guide you to your rooms.\"\n\nHe couldn't seethe source of the voice. The rainbow light hovered around their ship, which began to drift toward a nearby amethyst tower.\n\n[It's interesting how humans decide whether or not to panic by watching others,] Dross noted. [What if all of you are wrong together?]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charity and Fury are aboard. If they're wrong about what's safe, then I guess we're all going to die.\n\nOther cloudships were being pulled into other neighboring towers at the same time. In fact, the air might have been more crowded than the streets. Maybe the Blackflame Empire team was somewhere among them.\n\nHe sent a thread of pure madra into the voice transmission construct he held in his hand.\n\n[That poor construct. Worked to death. You're a cruel man.]\n\nYerin's voice came through in a whisper, and Lindon pressed the device to his ear. But he couldn't make anything out; her words split and cracked like dry leaves. He poured more pure madra into it, but finally the faceted surface of the construct cracked as well. He felt the binding inside warp, deforming past usefulness.\n\nHe lowered it, sighing. It had been wonderful being able to speak with Yerin even every other day, but he had pushed the construct past its original lifespan. It wasn't meant to last half a year, he was sure.\n\n[There are sects that would have considered that a legendary treasure, handing it down to their descendants to call for help in times of dire need,] Dross said. [I just thought you ought to feel guiltier.]\n\nThe Sage can afford it, Lindon responded, but he was disappointed that the construct had finally broken. Now he wouldn't know when to expect Yerin. Maybe she was finally here. Would he be allowed to see her before the tournament?\n\nAs the ship drifted closer to the shimmering jeweled tower, another cloudship joined them, pulled by the same rainbow madra toward a dock next to theirs. This ship was made of pale wood and drifted on a white cloud, but it was much smaller than the Akura clan's. On the deck were a scattered handful of blue-robed sacred artists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their ship had clearly suffered some damage. Scorch marks dotted the hull, and sprays of cloud madra hissed from the bottom.\n\nOne woman onboard spotted them and walked over to the edge. Just when Lindon thought she would leap over, she vanished mid-step, appearing on the deck of the Akura cloudship. She dragged a gust of icy air with her.\n\nThe new arrival looked young, perhaps midway through her twenties, with sun-browned skin and long, flowing white hair. She wore sky-blue sacred artist's robes decorated with snowflakes like white flowers. Along the outside of her forearms ran a frozen line of ice down her skin. A straight-bladed sword hung in a blue sheath on her back.\n\nCharity did not appear surprised to see her, instead giving a shallow bow. \"Min Shuei. It seems you ran into some trouble on the way.\"\n\nLindon, watching intently, startled when Mercy rushed up behind him and grabbed his arm in excitement.\n\n\"That's the Winter Sage! I haven't seen her since I was a girl!\" She leaned forward, staring at the newcomer. \"She's taller than I remembered.\"\n\nThe Winter Sage's expression crumpled as she stared at Charity, as though she were about to cry. \"Charity! Where were you?\"\n\n\"I was not aware you were in trouble,\" the Heart Sage said stiffly. \"Why did you not contact us? I would have sent my father to your side in a moment.\"\n\n\"It was Xorrus,\" the white-haired woman said, and now her speech was tinged with hatred. \"By the time I sensed her strike, she was already flying away. She drew the blood she wanted.\"\n\nAkura Charity was still cold as usual. \"Your team?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She killed one of my boys,\" Min Shuei said, full of sorrow. \"He was only twenty-six, and so full of talent. His mother hasn't eaten in weeks. His father swore to mount a dragon's head on his wall for every year of his son's life.\"\n\n\"But only one?\" Charity clarified. \"You still have two competitors left?\"\n\nThe tanned woman turned horrified eyes to the Sage of the Silver Heart. \"Hundreds died, among them one of the most talented students I've ever had. He cannot simply be replaced!\"\n\n\"And yet he must be,\" Charity said. \"I am not insensitive to your grief, but this competition is our best chance to strike back. Have you selected a replacement yet?\"\n\nThe Winter Sage bristled with rage, and icy madra spread to every corner of the ship.\n\nLindon shivered, his skin prickling as sword-aura stung him in response to this woman's anger.\n\nCharity did not muster her madra in response, but nor did she seem moved by the other Sage's hostility. They faced one another in silence as the other Akura members scurried away, evacuating the deck.\n\nThen a door slammed open, breaking the quiet. Akura Fury strode out, his black hair rippling like aflame and his chest bare as always. For the first time that Lindon had seen, his expression was totally serious.\n\n\"I smell Xorrus,\" the Herald said.\n\nThe Winter Sage gestured back to her cloudship, which by that time had settled at the end of a dock sticking out of the emerald tower. The Akura cloudship shuddered as it, too, was drawn into a dock.\n\nServants in rainbow robes waited for them, bowing, but no one left the ships yet." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help keep the tale going for the author.\nTags: fantasy, martial arts, competition, cultivation, growth\nAuthor: Will Wight\nTitle: Uncrowned\nChapter: 19" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a comforting presence behind him, using his madra as fuel to hover, but he didn't feel the same connection to it that he did to the shield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe it was because of its aspects of water and wind, or maybe it was that he'd made the shield himself. Regardless, he needed an Archlord weapon, and this had been the most suitable for him.\n\nDross took over controlling it immediately, so he didn't have to waste his concentration.\n\n\"Apologies,\" Lindon said aloud, \"but I can't control what happens to Little Blue. I think it's worth the risk. So does she.\"\n\nDross grumbled. [Is this Blackflame your long-lost brother and you just never told me? Wait, now that I've thought of it, I actually do want to know the answer. He's not. I know he's not. Is he?]\n\nIn the ravaged twenty-five-year-old Blackflame, Lindon saw Orthos. Between what Orthos had been before meeting Little Blue and what he had become after Ghostwater, there was a world of difference.\n\nOrthos had gotten his life back. Maybe Naian Blackflame could too.\n\nMercy pulled her hair back, tying it into a tail with a string of sticky black madra. Suu rested against her shoulder, her new lens hanging on her forehead over her left eye. The lens washer Archlord prize from the last round: a circle of scripted purple glass that enhanced her vision in half a dozen different ways. She wore a newly tailored version of the Akura team uniform, the high collar framing her face in bright violet and the cape sweeping out behind her.\n\nHe wore the same, his outfit broader and bulkier than hers. His halfsilver badge hungover his chest, though he'd been forced to leave his void key behind again. With the turtle shield on his left hand, Wavedancer hovering over his right shoulder, and Dross and Little Blue in his spirit... he was ready." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lindon stepped forward into a script. Colors swirled in the runes fora while, scanning his weapons and soulspace for anything beyond his station, until it finally flashed white. He was approved.\n\nHe stepped aside while Mercy walked into the scanning circle, her purple eyes concerned.\n\n\"I can still fight him, if you'd prefer,\" she offered.\n\nHe took a deep breath, working the fingers on his Remnant hand. \"Gratitude, but I need to try. Besides, it's better if we have you in reserve in case I mess up.\"\n\nShe laughed, but he hadn't been joking.\n\nOnce the script lit up for her, she moved past to join him. Distantly, he could hear the noise of the crowd and the voice of the Ninecloud Soul as she introduced the two factions.\n\nHe could do nothing else to prepare. He was as ready as he would ever be.\n\nAfter a minute of silence, the heavy stonewall began to grind upward.\n\nInstantly, a gust of wind and a rush of noise blew in. The dry air smelled of ash, and Lindon wondered why. The arena hadn't smelled like that the last time he'd been there.\n\nWhen the wall finished opening, he saw what had changed: the arena was covered in dead trees.\n\nThe sandy stone that had been the arena floor before was now covered in a thick layer of white-and-gray ash. Dozens of brown, leafless trees rose from the ashes, dry and ready to burn.\n\nThe Ninecloud Court had prepared a battlefield suitable for two Blackflames.\n\n\"... led by the daughter of Monarch Malice herself, the Akura family!\" the Soul announced, and the crowd roared in response. The colorful Monarch towers around the arena were once again packed with people, though the Akura crowd closest to him was muted. The shadowy veil around their tower deadened even sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lindon and Mercy strode out in their plum-and-violet uniforms, with Lindon one respectful step behind the Akura heiress.\n\nThe rainbow light of the Ninecloud Soul spoke from above the arena, flashing with every word. Northstrider still stood in the middle, black-scaled muscular arms folded across his chest. His eyes were closed as he waited.\n\nOnly a few seconds after Lindon stepped out on the ash, another section of wall on the opposite side of the arena began to rise.\n\n\"Naian Blackflame, fighting for the black dragons!\"\n\nThe skeletal young Underlord rushed out, flecks of spittle flying from his unrestrained snarl. His eyes blazed with hunger, and he rushed through the layer of ashes on bare feet. Lindon was somehow disconcerted to see that Naian didn't share the Blackflame eyes that he and Orthos did. The Goldsign of the main Path of Black Flame was their tail.\n\nCompared to the visions Lindon had seen in the dream tablets, Naian looked even worse. His tail whipped behind him in a frenzy, dirt and grime smeared his matted, unshaven face, and wild, stringy hair hung from his head.\n\nWorse, he was still shackled; a scripted collar around his neck shone red, and Lindon could tell that he was attempting to force madra through it. His hands were tied behind his back with a series of scripted chains.\n\nThere was no reason in him. He rushed at Northstrider like a mad dog unleashed.\n\nAnd slammed into an invisible wall only inches from the Monarch. He fell backward, howling with pain, twisting and writhing to get back to his feet with his hands tied behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few scattered laughs sounded from the audience, but Lindon saw nothing funny.\n\nNorthstrider finally opened his golden eyes, looking first to the Akura team, ignoring the Blackflame artist who was trying to break an invisible wall with his teeth.\n\n\"Which of you fights first?\" he asked.\n\nLindon stepped forward. \"This one will, if it pleases the Monarch.\"\n\n\"It does.\"\n\nLindon turned at the sound of stone grating on stone. A booth had risen from the arena floor, surrounded by scripts.\n\n\"Akura Mercy. You will watch from inside this room unless and until your turn comes. The battle will not touch you.\"\n\nMercy bowed and returned, patting Lindon on his arm before she left.\n\nLeaving Lindon to face his opponent with Northstrider standing between them.\n\nOverhead, the rainbow voice played up the match. \"A fighter from the Blackflame Empire versus the last descendant of their original royal family!\"\n\nAside from wondering if Naian really was the last descendant, Lindon gave her words no thought. He focused on the man lashing his tail at the transparent barrier in front of him. He could hear the passage of the tail through the air-that was not a weak blow, but against the will of the Monarch, it might as well have been breeze from a sparrow's wing.\n\n\"He will be unbound, won't he?\" Lindon asked quietly.\n\n\"As much as he can be,\" Northstrider answered. The Monarch's attention turned to Lindon, and Lindon's spirit shook. He felt a spike of worry for Dross, but the mind-spirit was stunned into a sort of awed silence by the Monarch's sheer presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not let compassion disarm you,\" Northstrider said. \"He is no less deadly for his condition.\"\n\nFireworks sounded overhead, and Naian snarled at the sky.\n\nNorthstrider unfolded his arms, and Lindon cycled the Path of the Black Flame. Naian noticed, turning to glare at Lindon with dark human eyes. Lindon met them with the eyes of a dragon.\n\nWith a hiss, the metal collar around his neck split apart. It fell to the ash, and the belts around his arms whipped through the air as they unraveled. He looked down at himself with surprise, stretching his arms, staring at his own fingers.\n\nThen a Burning Cloak sprang up around him, thicker and wilder than Lindon's, like an unrestrained forest fire. He howled.\n\n\"Begin!\" Northstrider commanded. He, and all barriers restricting the fighters, vanished.\n\nLindon used a Burning Cloak of his own, closing the distance between him and Naian. He knew from the dream tablets that reason would notwork on the Blackflame. Certainly not while black dragon madra still poisoned his mind. Lindon needed to weaken the man first.\n\nHe kicked up ash with every step, landing beside Naian, reaching outwith his hunger arm. The more Blackflame madra he could drain away, the more lucid his opponent would become.\n\nNaian didn't react the way Lindon had expected he would. For the first instant, he didn't react at all. He stood, staring at his own hands, a furious Burning Cloak blazing around him.\n\nAs though it had a mind of its own, his tail struck with blinding speed.\n\nIt slapped Lindon's Remnant arm so hard that a crack appeared on the back of the white hand, and a lance of pain shot through Lindon's spirit. In the same instant, it struck again, stabbing at Lindon's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got his shield up in time, taking the blow on the metallic surface, but it hit like a hammer. Lindon was thrown backward, skidding to a halt in the ash.\n\nHe twisted his shield in an instant, readying dragon's breath, but Naian was gone.\n\nLindon felt burning heat in his spirit from behind and threw himself aside as a bar of dragon's breath slashed from left to right at neck height. Naian followed it up, using the red-and-black madra like a furious sword.\n\nAn actual sword would be faster; every stroke of dragon's breath took a little time to gather. But the Blackflame made sure that Lindon had no time to recover, dashing at him with the Burning Cloak in between Striker techniques. He fought like a furious beast, mixing the Cloak and the dragon's breath into an unrelenting assault. Only by blocking with his shield and his flying sword could Lindon keep up.\n\nDross! Lindon called desperately.\n\n[Done,] the spirit replied, and suddenly Lindon could see a ghost of his opponent overlapping his actual movement. A ghostly echo that preceded his action instead of coming after.\n\nDross moved the flying Wavedancer to block a punch while Lindon sheltered from the Striker technique behind his shield. He pushed the dragon's breath back, stepping forward. And now, in the prescient shadow of Naian's movements, he could see an opening.\n\nIna burst of the Burning Cloak, he leapt forward. His right hand landed on the Blackflame's thigh, and he triggered his hunger binding.\n\nIt felt chaotic but powerful, far denser and more potent than his own. The main Path of the Black Flame used a Jade cycling technique that focused on power, not on expanding the core like his Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This original Blackflame madra reminded him more of the black dragon's power, but more tempered and controlled. No less potent or explosive. The original Blackflame madra mixed into his core, blending into his spirit just as the dragon's had.\n\nNaian didn't like having his soul drained.\n\nHe lashed outwith a kick that Lindon anticipated, breaking off the hunger technique after only a second. The shadow that Dross provided rushed at Lindon, who raised a shield to block the attack... which didn't come.\n\nInstead, Naian used a technique that Lindon had never seen before.\n\nHe gripped his right arm in his left hand, the fingers on his right hand forming a claw and trembling as though under a great weight. Madra pooled there, and aura gathered, as though he was focusing his Burning Cloak into a single punch while also using a localized Void Dragon's Dance.\n\n[We should stop that,] Dross suggested, and Lindon could only agree.\n\nHis flying sword swept in, striking at Naian from the right, and the Blackflame heir fought it off with lightning-quick flicks of his tail. At the same time, Lindon swept in a dragon's breath from the left, and Naian dashed away.\n\nEach step was a burst of speed, powered by the full-body Enforcer technique, but there was a moment in between each leap where he had to come to a stop. Lindon aimed for those moments, following him with both a sword and abeam of madra.\n\nThat exchange only continued fora few seconds, and Naian never dropped his technique. Finally, Forged claws of red-and-black grew from the fingers on his right hand, encrusting from his fingers to his wrist in dark, fiery crystals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The aura around it stormed with fire and destruction, flashing red and black, and with enough madra condensed into the technique to melt through a castle wall. Soulfire rushed through it as well, increasing the pressure until Lindon felt as though he could barely breathe, making the Forged claws vivid and distinct.\n\nHe Forged Blackflame so easily, Lindon sent to Dross, pulling his flying sword back and raising his shield.\n\n[Most Paths can be Forged. Some sacred artists just have more talent than others.]\n\nNaian roared, mad fury in his eyes, and jumped at Lindon.\n\nPrepared, he lowered Wavedancer in front of him, holding out his shield behind that. Naian didn't bother knocking the Archlord weapon out of the way; instead, he slammed his claws into the flat of its blade.\n\nThe technique sent Blackflame madra and waves of flame-conjured by aura-blasting out in a sheet. It engulfed the sword in a cloud of deadly black, red, and orange, and Lindon hurriedly triggered the binding in his shield. The pulse of force pushed some of the fire away, but he was still consumed.\n\nHe drained some of the madra from the air with his right arm, pulling it into his Blackflame core, while at the same time contesting the Path of Black Flame with his own spirit.\n\nEven so, he was burned.\n\nThe force of the attack shoved him back, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the heat, which beat at him like a furnace. While drawing on his fire Path, he had a higher tolerance for heat, but streaks of fire still seared him where the attack pushed through his spiritual protection. His robes caught fire in a dozen places, scorching his skin. Several of the trees around him burst into flame, crackling as they exploded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gritting his teeth and cycling Blackflame, Lindon endured. When the cloud of flame from the technique washed away, he was ready to react immediately, though his madra channels already ached. He pushed both hands out in a two-handed blast of dragon's breath.\n\nNaian held up his left hand as though he held a sword... and then he did; a sacred instrument manifested itself from his soulspace. A squat, wide orange blade that glowed at its core like a sunset. It had no problem enduring Lindon's dragon's breath.\n\n[Above!] Dross called, dragging his attention higher, but Lindon had already noticed. He opened his Copper sight to see clouds of fire and destruction aura gathering over him in a slowly spinning vortex.\n\nNaian was using the Void Dragon's Dance.\n\nLindon cutoff his dragon's breath immediately, focusing his spirit on controlling the aura released from the burning trees. The rotation of the aura clouds stuttered, turning slower then faster, as he and Naian Blackflame wrestled for control of the technique.\n\nNaian gripped his sword in a trembling hand, snarling at Lindon through gritted teeth, pouring his wild and focused soul into the Ruler technique. He could have attacked, but he couldn't afford the slightest loss inattention. An instant of distraction would yield the Void Dragon's Dance to Lindon.\n\nIt was the same for Lindon, but he had joined the technique too late. Naian had control over most of it, and though Lindon poured all of his will into the aura, his grip was slipping. If he took a second to attack, a tornado of fire and destruction would strip the flesh from his bones in an instant.\n\nHe couldn't spare the attention... but Dross could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His flying sword darted over to Naian, slashing at him with wide, elegant sweeping motions. It targeted the side of his neck, forcing the Blackflame to slide away, batting at the weapon with his tail.\n\nWhich allowed Lindon to get a firm grip on the Void Dragon's Dance.\n\nThrough whatever damage years of captivity and the rigors of his Path had done to him, Naian recognized what was happening. Rather than give into his opponent, he tore at his own technique, trying to disperse it. Lindon firmed his soul, pushing madra out, trying to stabilize the vortex under his control.\n\nNeither got their wish.\n\nTorn between two spirits on the Path of Black Flame, the Ruler technique detonated. Ina blinding flash, all the natural fire in the area exploded outward, consuming anything in its path with the speed of destruction aura.\n\nLindon focused his spirit on defense, which meant that instead of burning through him like afire through dry tinder, the flame hit an unfocused barrier of Blackflame madra. It slammed into his chest and cracked his ribs, sending him tumbling back.\n\nHis eyes and his spiritual senses were stunned, and he lost his breath. He clawed his way back to his feet before he could even feel the world around him again, trying to force his lungs to move. He felt as though he'd been pelted with rocks allover.\n\nNaian had fared no better, a few patches on his skin blackened and cracked, and one of his knees twisted around the wrong way. He limped up, bracing on his tail, and snarled as he drew up dragon's breath.\n\nLindon wouldn't win a contest of Blackflame. But this had always been about wasting his opponent's madra." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weaker the Path of Black Flame was in Naian's spirit, the more control his mind would have.\n\nLindon's channels screamed with pain as pure madra ran through them, but he felt powerful again. Even his Bloodforged Iron body ran better on pure madra, healing his wounds more quickly, fighting the destruction of his flesh that Blackflame caused.\n\nThe Soul Cloak sprang up, and he ducked dragon's breath as he ran in, smacking the blade aside with his shield. Naian fought with blinding speed and bestial aggression, but between Dross\" anticipation and the control of the Soul Cloak, Lindon reacted better. His shield and his flying sword protected him as they fought at arm's reach.\n\nFear pestered him-an unwelcome distraction. His shield was breaking under Naian's blade, and his own flying sword was just enough to defend him from the Blackflame's whipping tail. If he took a hit from this close, the fight could be over. He had only his Iron body to rely on.\n\nBut he had to create an opening.\n\nDross, he asked, can you numb my pain?\n\n[I see what you're thinking, and if you weren't being protected from death by a Monarch, it would be unspeakably stupid. But you are, so go crazy.]\n\nLindon moved aside, and instead of crashing onto Lindon's shield, Naian's orange sword skewered him through the stomach.\n\nThe audience erupted into wild cheers, lights flashing from the audience in the dragon tower.\n\nEither Dross really had done something to numb his pain or Northstrider's protection helped, because Lindon's mind should have been erased by agony. Instead, though the three feet of metal scraped his ribs as they pierced him through, he was still able to function." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least enough to pull Little Blue from his soulspace.\n\nHis concentration was shaky. As she emerged, he focused on his blood spraying allover his white arm, leaking through his Akura clothes. Those were expensive...\n\n[Focus!] Dross said, and then Lindon could.\n\nThe Sylvan had screamed upon seeing him, scrambling to help, but Lindon pushed her toward Naian. The Blackflame was trying to pull his weapon free, but Lindon's left hand had his arm in a death-grip. At the same time, Dross controlled the flying sword to attack the man's back, engaging his tail.\n\nLittle Blue had an opening. And, with a sorrowful note, she took it. Ocean-blue hands landed on Naian Blackflame's wrist.\n\nCold sparks of her madra passed into his channels, and every muscle in the man's body went stiff. Even his tail froze, and he showed no reaction as a sword plunged into his back.\n\nDespite Dross'stimulation, Lindon's mind was fading. With the last threads of madra he could control, he reached out his right arm and used the hunger binding.\n\nBlackflame madra flowed into him. The less madra Naian had, the better, though it was hard for Lindon to remember why. Some of Little Blue's madra came back to him too, but the spirit was pumping more in, so most of it stayed in Naian's spirit.\n\nThe Blackflame swayed on his feet, and Lindon felt the same way. Little Blue was growing pale.\n\n[Pull her back!] Dross called. [Lindon! If you die before she's in your spirit, she'll stay out here! Pull her back!]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was harder than it should have been, but he managed to follow instructions, drawing Little Blue back through his hand and into the center of his soul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gave him a sad look as she disappeared, and he wondered if he even saw a tear.\n\nNaian looked stunned, paralyzed, staring into the distance as though watching a horrifying battle. He stayed locked in place, gazing through Lindon.\n\nLindon tried to ask how he was, but only blood sprayed from his lips.\n\nA harsh, disused voice grated from Naian's throat. \"You... pulled me... out. How...\"\n\nBut Lindon couldn't stay awake anymore. He sensed his spirit one more time, where Little Blue was curled up between his cores. Safe.\n\nHe could relax.\n\nDross called something to him as though from a great distance, and he passed out.\n\n~~~\n\nWhen Lindon came back to himself, he was sitting on a polished stone bench inside a booth that seemed to have grown out of the arena floor. It felt like only an instant had passed.\n\nHis body was whole and healthy, his cores full, and his madra channels felt brand-new. Wavedancer sat neatly next to him, sheathed in a thin layer of Forged madra, and his gray turtle shield rested on his knees.\n\nRather than waking slowly from a deep sleep, he was wide awake. How long was I gone? Lindon asked Dross.\n\n[AAAHHH! Where are we? What happened? How long was I gone?]\n\nI hoped you would tell me.\n\n[We're still sharing senses. If you felt absolute nothingness fora moment and now feel like you just skipped ahead a few minutes in time, then we've had the same experience.]\n\nSomeone was fighting outside the booth, across afield of ash, but a moment of fear drew his attention inward. He cast his perception through his spirit, finding Little Blue still curled up behind his cores." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She poured into his left hand, waking immediately. When she saw him uninjured, she gave a happy chime, leaping into his chest and trying to throw her arms around him. Soothing madra spread into him, though his spirit was fine. She was whole and healthy, her strength even restored from her efforts healing Naian.\n\nAnd her actions had worked. Out among the leafless trees, Naian Blackflame was fighting Mercy.\n\nThis time, he fought with far more skill than he had shown against Lindon. His sword flashed in complex patterns, striking arrows from the air as he used his freehand to launch dragon's breath that severed a tree in the middle and forced Mercy to jump down.\n\nHis expression was serious, his aura restrained. Lindon recognized immediately that he was holding back, trying to avoid overtaxing his spirit and pushing himself over the brink again.\n\nHe wasn't healed, just as Orthos had only briefly returned to himself after Little Blue's treatment and the nourishment of Lindon's pure madra. He would need years of rest, and something like the restoration Orthos had received in Ghostwater.\n\nBut it was possible now, and that was enough. He had enough control over himself to get help.\n\n[There's every possibility the dragons will seal him again,] Dross warned. [They're not just tying him up for their safety; they're using him as a weapon.]\n\nI'll get to him, Lindon said. He had proven that Naian could be helped. He would find away to make the rest workout.\n\nUnfortunately for the black dragon team, Naian could not both hold back and fight against Akura Mercy. With Suu in hand and the purple lens over her left eye, Mercy unleashed arrow after arrow at her opponent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He never managed to close, even with the Burning Cloak; she dodged his every move, tangled him up with Strings of Shadow, and continued shooting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her arrows seemed to have minds of their own, swerving to hit at the last second, leaving veins of black madra that he had to burn from his spirit.\n\nFinally, he struck her head-on with a bar of dragon's breath... but Mercy strode through it in full amethyst armor, unharmed, walking until his Striker technique ran out. When it did, she already had an arrow nocked and her bow drawn.\n\nShe didn't fire it. She waited, the missile seething with shadow madra.\n\nLindon wasn't the only one who could sense the war inside the Blackflame. He trembled, his head twitching and his tail lashing behind him. His Burning Cloak flickered on and off.\n\nAfter gathering himself fora long moment, he growled, \"I surrender.\"\n\nDisappointed jeers rose from the crowd as the Ninecloud Soul announced the result. Some of the unruly spectators within the Eight-Man Empire's tower threw food or garbage into the arena, but constructs instantly incinerated it all.\n\nMercy's armor dissolved, and her bow shifted back into a staff. She wiped sweat from her brow with black-clad fingers and bowed to her opponent.\n\nMore elegantly than Lindon would have guessed, Naian returned the bow, pressing fists together in a salute. Then he turned to Lindon's booth and bowed a second time.\n\nNaian did not make eye contact with Lindon, clearly still wrestling with himself. Nonetheless, Lindon nodded in return.\n\nMost of what Lindon did in his pursuit of the sacred arts, he did for his own sake. He hadn't done much that he could be truly proud of.\n\nAnd he still hadn't, he reminded himself. Not yet. Not until Naian was taken from the gold dragons and restored to control of his own body and spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Northstrider appeared in the center of the arena, and his commanding voice announced the Akura team as the victor. The crowd's cheers drowned out all other sound.\n\nMercy bowed to Northstrider then hurried back through the ash, beaming at Lindon. Behind her, Naian said something to the Monarch. Northstrider's golden eyes surveyed him, and he responded with one word.\n\nLindon wished he had been close enough to overhear.\n\nNaian glanced back to the Akura booth one more time and then walked away, picking up his own restraints on the way back to his waiting room.\n\nThe back wall of the booth slid up, leading back to the Akura waiting room, and Mercy dashed through the front of the booth only a moment later. \"It worked!\" she cried. \"I knew it was going to work and it did!\"\n\nLittle Blue jumped up and down on Lindon's hand, chattering away, and Mercy exclaimed, \"You were so brave! Were you scared?\"\n\nThey walked back into the waiting room as the Sylvan began to tell the story with half-understood impressions and hand gestures. Dross interjected here and there, asking a question or clarifying a fact.\n\nAs the walls continued to slowly fall, Lindon cast one last look behind him.\n\nAcross the ashen arena, Naian Blackflame walked into his waiting room, where Sophara was waiting for him.\n\nThe gold dragon did not seem furious, as Lindon had expected. Her arms, with their layers of jeweled bracelets and smattering of gold scales, were folded. She tapped her foot impatiently, staring across the arena herself.\n\nHer eyes locked on Lindon's.\n\nNaian bared his teeth, waving his chains as he shouted something at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[I don't have a good feeling about this,] Dross said, and Lindon felt the same way. He looked to Northstrider, who still stood impassively as images from the fight were projected over his head.\n\nAs the stonewall lowered past Sophara's face, her golden claws flashed once.\n\nBlood splattered out onto the arena, and Naian's body fell.\n\nLindon shouted and ran forward, but an invisible force kept him from pushing past the descending door. He was no longer permitted in the arena.\n\nThe Ninecloud Soul was already talking about the next fight, the Five Sisters of the Iceflower Continent against the Ironheart Legion of Rosegold. Lindon could seethe last Blackflame Prince's body sprawled on the ground, his throat torn out, staring across with blank eyes.\n\nThe door closed over Sophara's bloody claws.\n\n\"Will he comeback to life?\" Lindon asked, voice trembling. He already knew the answer, and Dross confirmed it.\n\n[There's never been a delay before,] the spirit said softly. [If he was going to comeback, his body would have disappeared.]\n\nThen the wall crashed down, cutting off the sound from the arena. He heard only Mercy and Little Blue excitedly talking to one another, but Mercy trailed off.\n\n\"Lindon? What happened?\"\n\nHe had driven his fist into the stone, leaving a crater. His right hand left no blood behind, though the white madra cracked slightly.\n\n\"... just to spite us.\" He bit off the words, his voice low. Tears stung his eyes, though he couldn't understand why. He hadn't known Naian Blackflame at all.\n\n\"What?\" Mercy hurried around so she could look into his face. \"Did the dragons say something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air flickered, and a massive bulk of a man stepped out, ragged hair falling behind him. His unshaven face showed a hint of anger.\n\n\"They always do,\" Northstrider said. He had appeared in the center of the waiting room as easily as walking out of a door.\n\nThe two Underlords both bowed, though Lindon had to force his body to move like a puppet.\n\n\"Dragons are beings of destruction,\" the Monarch went on. \"They would rather see afield reduced to ash than see someone else have a bite to eat.\"\n\n\"I'll take care of her,\" Lindon said. He didn't have away yet, but he and Dross would figure it out. Blackflame burned through his spirit, and he took deep breaths, cycling the fury throughout his body.\n\nNorthstrider's golden eyes flicked between them before settling on Lindon. \"Your opponent asked for his last words to be delivered to you.\"\n\nLindon felt a pang in his heart. Last words. So Naian had expected what happened to him.\n\n\"He said, \"The dragon advances.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 16\n\nIn the brightly tiled and decorated hallways leading to their waiting room, Yerin and Eithan ran into the House Arelius team.\n\nIf that was a coincidence, Yerin would eat her sword.\n\nVeris Arelius, the remaining Underlady, was the House Arelius woman they had met during the second round. She was tall and long-limbed, with blue eyes that shone like a sharpened blade and yellow hair tied into a braid.\n\nYerin had never seen Veris'partner in the flesh before, but she'd looked up dream tablets on House Arelius since the last round. Altavian Arelius was in his early thirties, and his blond hair was almost white. He stood as tall as Lindon but not as broad, with legs built for running and arms for reach.\n\nThe sword on his back was twice the length of Yerin's, and his Goldsigns were his razor-sharp nails. He was a sword artist who specialized in Enforcer techniques; in her dream tablet, she'd seen him cut through three individual opponents in a row during the second round.\n\nAltavian's blue eyes were as peaceful as a lake on a windless day, and he looked as calm as though he walked around in a meditative trance. He bowed when he saw her, but otherwise said nothing.\n\nEithan swept up to them both, beaming. \"It's a shame that we must meet each other in competition, but at least we will have a chance to learn from the main House.\"\n\n\"If you've made it this far, you don't need any pointers from us,\" Veris said. Now that she was speaking words Yerin could understand, her accent was clearly similar to Eithan's. The Arelius woman regarded them both with satisfaction. \"Five people with the name Arelius passing the second round. I hope that burns him to the bone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I doubt Reigan Shen is burned at all by our tenacity,\" Eithan said, and Veris paled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Altavian's eyes widened in shock, and both members of the House Arelius team took a healthy step away.\n\nEithan flicked a lock of hair behind him. \"We're not going to say anything he doesn't already know. I doubt he thinks we have a positive opinion of him after he killed our Monarch and shattered our home.\"\n\nHe may as well have been speaking about ancient history, but Yerin's attention was hooked. She'd gathered that the Arelius homeland had been destroyed, and that Eithan had been there, but now it sounded like a battle between Monarchs.\n\n\"I wouldn't hate hearing that story,\" Yerin said pointedly to Eithan.\n\n\"Not here,\" Veris said through her teeth.\n\nEithan lifted his eyebrows. \"You think speaking more quietly is going to prevent a Monarch from hearing us?\"\n\n\"I think a little caution is better than none.\" She stared him down fora moment before Eithan cleared his throat and dipped his head to her.\n\n\"You are quite right. I apologize, I forgot who I was dealing with.\"\n\nVeris' eyes flicked to the ceiling, but she seemed to relax somewhat. \"The point remains that this is a good omen. No matter which of us wins, the Arelius name will echo across the world.\"\n\n\"Mmmm,\" Eithan said.\n\nThat might have been agreement.\n\nThe other two bowed and began to leave, but Eithan stopped them with a gesture. He gathered his thoughts before he spoke, which snagged Yerin's curiosity. Since when did he think before speaking?\n\n\"The Blackflame portal to the homeland opens in about two years. I would very much like to meet you there when it does. I believe we maybe able to help each other.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Veris looked surprised, and exchanged a quick volley of words with Altavian in her language. Finally, she said, \"Much of that territory has been lost, but we will find away.\"\n\n\"Let it be so!\" Eithan said triumphantly, and then he strode toward their waiting room. \"Come, Yerin! Let's get ready to beat our new friends to death!\"\n\n~~~\n\nThe scripted stone door of their waiting room slowly slid open, revealing an arena that had totally changed once again.\n\nRather than covered in ash like Lindon's, their battlefield was covered in rectangular pillars. Some of them were only waist-high, while others towered overhead. Narrow alleys wound their way through the dense maze of structures.\n\nLindon's Blackflame arena had been designed to give them a source of aura, but this seemed to be built to limit their angles and force them into a fight on different levels. Yerin could imagine having to push to a crossroads to get enough space to swing her sword, and leaping up to the top of a pillar to land a Striker technique on someone below.\n\nShe wondered why the arena had been customized in this way for this particular match-it seemed to be designed to restrict the two sword artists more than anything-but the introduction made the picture clear.\n\n\"Arelius versus Arelius!\" the Ninecloud Soul announced, to the approving roars of an energetic crowd.\n\nThe week since the last match had whipped them into a frenzy, because Yerin couldn't hear herself think.\n\n\"House Arelius used to rule over most of the Rosegold continent, before the tragic death of the Monarch Tiberian Arelius only eight years ago. But his descendants are still a force to be reckoned with, leaving branches on every continent! Today, it's a family reunion, as their cousins from the Blackflame Empire have come to test their worth against the heart of House Arelius!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arelius versus Arelius... this arena had been designed with their bloodline abilities in mind. The close square pillars would block sight and make hearing unreliable, so spiritual perception and Arelius bloodline senses would be the best way to navigate the fight.\n\nAnd Eithan had forced her to complete his spiritual perception course. Had he known, even then, that they would be in this situation?\n\nYerin gave him a wary look from the side. If he had anticipated this far ahead, then she should be a little afraid of him.\n\nHe kept looking to the center of the arena, but leaned to the side to speak to her. \"Good thing we trained your perception, isn't it? This could have been awkward.\"\n\nYerin relaxed. Sometimes she forgot Eithan was only human.\n\nThe columns blocked their sight of the other team, but Northstrider appeared in the middle of the arena, standing on the highest rectangular pillar. His wild hair blew in the wind, and he looked down on them with the regal bearing of a king.\n\n\"Decide who fights,\" he said, and Yerin heard stone grating on stone as the booth rose from the floor behind her.\n\n\"I'd be more than happy to draw swords on both of them,\" Yerin said, \"but they're your kin. I'll follow your word.\"\n\nThey had discussed their strategy already, but Eithan had directed her to focus on preparing for either fight. She had a plan against Veris and Altavian both, but he had dodged any questions about which of them would fight first. She assumed he wanted to decide at the last moment.\n\nEithan leaned over so that they were eye-to-eye, looking into her. A moment later, his hand blurred as he slapped heron the side of the head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't quite hurt, but she instantly responded by stabbing at him with one of her Goldsigns. He slid casually to one side.\n\nShe scowled at him. \"You trying to get me ready to stab an Arelius?\"\n\nEithan straightened up. \"Just checking. I don't see it in you yet. Why don't you watch me first? It might be good for you.\"\n\n\"I was ready to do that from the beginning! Didn't need a slap!\"\n\n\"Next time, dodge it.\"\n\nYerin grumbled as she walked back to the booth. They were both Underlords now. She didn't have to listen to him anymore.\n\n... though she reminded herself that she still hadn't defeated him in a spar. Once she could beat him, then she could ignore his advice. And slap him on the head.\n\nYerin settled into the booth as the disembodied voice echoed through the arena: \"The fighters have been chosen! Veris Arelius of House Arelius fights for the late Tiberian Arelius! And Eithan Arelius of the Blackflame Empire fights for Akura Malice! It's a civil war between these two scions of the same clan!\"\n\nYerin could seethe back of Eithan's elaborate lavender-and-gold outer robe fluttering in the wind, his hair blowing alongside it. The image of him projected for spectators overhead looked supremely confident, as always.\n\nShe couldn't see his opponent with her own eyes, but Veris\" giant illusory image floated in the air opposite Eithan's. The Arelius woman wore loose-fitting pants and a shirt, all in the Arelius colors of dark blue, black, and white. She stood with her hands behind her back, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Lightning crackled in the air around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Begin,\" Northstrider said, and then vanished.\n\nVeris' eyes snapped open.\n\nA sharpened lance of bright, crackling energy flashed through one of the alleys between the columns. The Striker technique looked like lightning hammered straight, and it pierced the air not where Eithan was, but where he was headed. He had dashed to the side, but Veris had anticipated that.\n\nEithan leaped on top of a nearby column as though he had planned to all along, and the Striker technique passed beneath his feet. He cast stars of pure madra to the opposite end of the arena, calling down a blue-white waterfall.\n\nSo far, so boring, at least fora fight between Underlords. They were fighting like a pair of archers in an exhibition, like they were trying to showoff for the fanciest shot. In Yerin's estimation, Eithan should have closed the distance between them immediately and gone straight for the kill, knowing that his opponent favored Striker techniques.\n\nA moment later, everything changed.\n\nA soaring lightning falcon swooped over Eithan's head, let out a screaming cry, and detonated into afield of storm madra... fifty feet away from Eithan. At the same time, Eithan darted backward, dodging nothing, and let out a burst of pure madra into thin air.\n\nWhile running, he drew his new scissors-the prize he had chosen from the last round. They were actually an Archlord sacred dagger with the ability to change its physical shape, so he chose the shape of his old weapon: a set of large black fabric scissors.\n\nAnd these carried an Archlord binding. No matter how much madra he had, it would be difficult for Eithan to activate such a weapon at his advancement stage without tearing his madra channels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was using them for their other advantage, which he had proudly explained to Lindon and Yerin already. This weapon responded to Enforcement far better than anything else Yerin had ever seen him use.\n\nHe flooded the scissors with pure madra, and they burst into a dark ball of gray light. When he stabbed that weapon into Veris' Forged falcon, the lightning technique crackled and burst.\n\nEithan wasted no time ducking into the pillars, still running.\n\nThe images of the two fighters hovered in the air over the columns themselves, and Yerin turned her attention to those when she could no longer see Eithan. They occasionally crossed techniques, with Eithan reflecting a ball of destructive energy or Veris' hair being ruffled by a near-miss from a burst of pure madra, but most of the time it was as though the two of them were fighting against invisible opponents.\n\nThe Ninecloud Soul's beautiful voice sounded excited, its rainbow light glimmering from the center of the projected fight. \"Our more advanced guests will have already noticed the complex back-and-forth dance between these two combatants. Each is predicting the movements of the other, attempting to corner their opponent by cutting off retreat. Anyone worried that one Arelius might hold back against another can rest easy!\"\n\nYerin couldn't see any of that, and it frustrated her. As far as she could tell, they were playing around and taking it easy on one another. Her master had been no Arelius, and she was sure he would have followed this fight.\n\nShe extended her spiritual perception, trying to sense the interplay between the two, but all she could feel was the flashy back-and-forth of their exchanges.\n\nBreathing deeply, she sunk deep into her spiritual senses. Rather than trying to seethe fight, she tried to feel its flow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For over a minute, she felt nothing. She tried to predict what Eithan would do next, and she got it wrong almost every time. But as she pushed her frustration down and just felt, she began to sense something.\n\nIt was like the spike of alarm she felt when someone was attacking her from behind, but softer and muted. A feather brushing against the back of her neck rather than a nail through her skull.\n\nJump, she thought, and Eithan leaped away from a crackling claw of madra that erupted from the ground beneath him.\n\nHe would loop around the outside of the arena now, trying to push Veris into a bad angle.\n\nAnd so he did, running from the top of one squared-off column to another, gathering stars of pure madra in the air as he ran.\n\nThe fight progressed with both sides trying to pressure the other, but Yerin spent her time trying to memorize the feeling of this elusive state. She wasn't sure if it had to do with the instinctive skill of the Sword Sage's Remnant or her evolving spiritual perception, but she suspected both.\n\nEithan moved as quickly as he ever had in their sparring matches and used the four techniques she'd seen him use. He slid past every technique Veris sent his way, some of which almost cornered him.\n\nShe felt the turn in the fight an instant before it happened.\n\nVeris slipped out from cover to launch a Forged hawk of storm madra at Eithan, and she lingered a beat too long. Yerin felt it.\n\nThat's the game, she thought.\n\nEithan's blast of pure madra clipped her shoulder, slowing her next Striker technique for only a second. From thereon out, Eithan had the advantage, and she was on the back foot. In seconds, Eithan had her backed into a corner, driving his scissors up under her ribs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The image faded away, showing golden characters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though she couldn't read them, she knew what they meant: Blackflame Victory.\n\nYerin snapped back to reality, and she let out a breath. She felt oddly tired, as though she had been focusing intently for too long and needed a break. She had felt like she was letting her attention drift, and for only a few short minutes at that. Even her spirit felt a little strained.\n\nBut she held onto the feeling, committing it to memory. Experimentally, she closed her eyes and tried to bring back that state of heightened awareness, but it was like trying to catch fog between her fingers.\n\nWhen she opened her eyes, Eithan was standing outside the booth, watching her with a proud smile on his face.\n\n\"That's more like it!\" he said. \"How did it feel?\"\n\n\"You were the one who just won a match. I just sat here.\"\n\n\"And yet your prize is greater than mine, as long as you can seize it.\" He reached into the pocket of his shimmering gold-and-lavender outer robes, but hesitated. \"... one way or the other, we'll be making House Arelius look bad here, but I suppose there's no helping it.\"\n\nFrom his pocket he pulled her blindfold.\n\nYerin looked at him sideways. \"I go out there blindfolded, and you'll be carrying me back in a bag. Think I can take their sword artist, but that's if I've got eyes.\"\n\nThe Ninecloud Soul was talking over select scenes from the battle, reproducing them in midair, to the approval of the crowd.\n\nEithan dangled the blindfold from one finger. \"All right. Then what do you think you need?\"\n\nShe needed that sensation of perfect awareness, where she was drifting on the Sage's instincts and her own spiritual perception. She could feel that she was only touching the surface of that state, and she wanted to dive down deep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But first, she had to figure out how to call it at will. Her master would say that the best way to do that was in the heat of battle.\n\nYerin snatched the blindfold. \"Don't blame me if this gets us a loss.\"\n\n\"If you progress in this way, a loss in this tournament means nothing.\"\n\nIt meant something to her, and if their advancement to the next round were on the line, she would never try something like this. In reality, even if she failed, Eithan would have his chance to redeem them.\n\nBut when she imagined herself throwing a match by blindfolding herself and then Eithan losing the next fight, she almost gave up.\n\nIt was the thought of mastering this mysterious feeling that kept the blindfold in her hand. It was worth a little risk if she could take a step forward. The more pressure she put herself under, the faster she would grow.\n\nShe walked up, and Northstrider had returned to his spot atop the maze. He looked from her to her opposite, whom she couldn't see. She guessed they would send out Altavian this time, but she might be fighting Veris instead. Either way, she would have to pray to the heavens that she could sense the future as they sensed her.\n\n\"Are you satisfied with your fighters?\" Northstrider asked.\n\nYerin nodded.\n\n\"Very well,\" the Monarch said.\n\nAn instant later, the image floating above the match changed. Seeing it from the bottom, it looked like a chaos of color, nothing like areal picture. She didn't know if that was a security measure designed to prevent contestants from looking to see what their opponents were up to or if this was just how illusions of light looked from below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Altavian Arelius,\" the rainbow announced, \"versus Yerin Arelius! The bloodline member of the core House against an adopted disciple of a branch family! One born with every advantage, the other fighting for every scrap, but both have made it to the greatest heights!\"\n\nYerin steadied herself. She calmed her breathing. And she wrapped the blindfold around her eyes.\n\nNoise from the crowd surged in response.\n\n\"What's this?\" the Ninecloud Soul cried excitedly. \"Contestant Yerin has-\"\n\n\"Begin,\" Northstrider said.\n\nYerin's spirit cried a warning, and then she was cut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 17\n\nCharity watched as Yerin blindfolded herself and had to push down a surge of anger. Sacred artists, in her opinion, tended to make the same errors when they pushed for advancement. One was to value progress over every other objective.\n\nNot only was Yerin risking victory for herself, but the prestige of her entire country. The honor of Charity's family. A failure on her part would have costs Yerin could never measure, and success would mean benefits that Yerin couldn't imagine.\n\nAnd yet she was hobbling herself, no doubt to train her spiritual perception in someway. She had not known the Sword Sage well, but she had known him, and this was absolutely something he would do.\n\nBut that didn't make it wise.\n\nThe thought was strong in her head as Altavian leaped over the entire maze, touching down only once, and brought his sword down hard on Yerin. He blazed with a silver full-body Enforcement, and the blinded Yerin reacted a second too late to avoid him completely. Altavian's goldsteel blade flashed as it cut her, dragging a slash down the inside of Yerin's left shoulder and gashing her thigh as she backed up.\n\nIt was a superficial cut, but it was a harbinger of the rest of the battle. She made a cage out of her Goldsigns, but he cut them from bottom-to-top, breaking the sword-arms open. Thrusting his left palm into the opening, he speared her with five needle-points of sword madra, a Striker technique that dug into her body. If she hadn't been a sword artist, she would have lost right there.\n\nShe blocked his next few hits with clumsy movements, bleeding from her pair of wounds, and Charity's irritation grew. Yerin was too slow and imprecise. Almost as though she were relying on her vague spiritual perception as an Underlady instead of her sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charity had written this round off as a loss when Yerin slid away from the blade by a hair's breadth, flicking her sword casually against Altavian.\n\nShe cut his arm. Blood sprayed.\n\nThen her sword rang like a bell. Instead of an uncontrolled storm, the aura erupting from both their blades struck precisely, knocking Altavian's sword away mid-swing and slicing him across both thighs.\n\nYerin moved confidently now, fluidly, as though a different person controlled her body.\n\nCharity's annoyance faded, and she leaned slightly closer to her viewing tablet.\n\nIt was still somewhat annoying when a sacred artist risked everything for progression... but it was forgivable when it worked.\n\n~~~\n\nMin Shuei's heart seized in her chest as she saw Yerin knocking aside a three-part attack from Altavian Arelius with only her sword-aura, following up at the perfect moment to push him back and land a cut on his chest.\n\nHe leaped away and she followed, a blind hunter.\n\nEmotion choked the Winter Sage, and she gripped her own sword, a twin to the one Yerin was using. The Underlady wasn't moving like herself anymore; her every step, every flick of the wrist, was a mirror of the Sword Sage.\n\nThe girl had taken Adama's Remnant. He had given up his life for hers.\n\nThough Min Shuei yearned to hear the full story, she still couldn't forgive the girl for that. He should have had decades yet to live, yet to teach, and instead he had thrown it away on someone who didn't even appreciate his Path.\n\nBut here... it was like watching the man she'd loved comeback to life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "~~~\n\nYerin drifted through a dream.\n\nThe pain of her wounds didn't hinder her in her dream. Even the pain in her spirit, caused by strained madra channels, couldn't touch her.\n\nShe moved on pure instinct, without thought, letting her training and experience move her body. It was like letting her Remnant takeover, moving her body like a puppet. The sensation might have been uncomfortable if she thought too much about it, but conscious thought would shake her awake.\n\nThe dream only faded when her opponent's madra did, as her sword passed through him and he melted into light. Then her peace retreated, and she could do nothing to hold onto it amid the rising tide of cheers from the crowd.\n\nHer injuries slapped her all at once, and she stiffened involuntarily. She gritted her teeth against the agony from the cuts allover her body and the strain in her spirit. It was all she could do to tear off her blindfold.\n\nLong scratches marred the rectangular columns, and she could feel sword aura drifting through the air.\n\nAs the Ninecloud Soul announced her victory, she stumbled back toward the booth where Eithan waited.\n\nAt a sudden thought, she turned around to look at the visions hanging in the air over the arena.\n\nThe model of her was blindfolded, but moved with perfect confidence. She blocked Altavian's sword with her sword-arms, destroyed his half-formed Striker technique with her sword, and took a hand off her hilt to land a punch on his chest. He flew away, and in the instant before Yerin's image followed, a small smile was visible on her face.\n\nYerin remembered that. She had felt both of his attacks and had known instantly what to do to counter them. It was like she had become water, pouring herself into a vessel, naturally flowing through any crack in his defenses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the outside, it looked different. She paused in her step, blood gumming up one eye and flowing from the injuries down her left side, to stare at the moving images. From the steps she took, to the way every blurring movement of her sword moved into the next as though she had planned it all out in advance, she looked just like her master.\n\nShe found it hard to breathe fora second, staring at herself. Seeing the reflection of the Sword Sage was a punch to the gut, and she wasn't sure how to unravel it.\n\nOnly a moment later, she shook her head and turned, continuing to walkaway. She may have inherited the intuition of her master's Remnant, but that wasn't all she was seeing in that projection. There were her own ingrained instincts, which she had honed from years of diligent training and violent competition. And there was something else, that strange feeling that her spiritual perception had brushed across more than once now. Something deeper than the flow of madra.\n\nIt was bigger than her. Bigger than the Sword Sage.\n\nAnd she was sure her master had felt it too. They looked the same because they were dancing to the beat of the same music.\n\nToday, she had learned to hear it a little more clearly.\n\nHer body and spirit jolted, and fora moment she felt her body and spirit stretch, and then the pain was gone. So suddenly that it startled her. The Monarch had restored her to pristine condition, as though she'd died and comeback.\n\nShe covered the rest of the distance to the spectator booth in one leap, landing in front of Eithan.\n\nHe greeted her with laughter. \"That must have been a wonderful feeling!\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Yerin asked. And, she wondered, how had Eithan been able to teach her about it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eithan's blue eyes flashed with joy as he said, \"Your ticket to victory.\"\n\n~~~\n\nSixteen young Underlords gathered in front of Northstrider, and he surveyed them all with features that may as well have been chiseled from stone.\n\n\"The nature of the fourth round changes based on how many of you survived round three,\" he told them, and constructs allover the arena echoed his voice. \"The round begins in one week. It is the final elimination round, designed to reveal the eight of you who will be honored as Uncrowned.\"\n\nThe crowd roared, but Northstrider continued speaking without care. \"As it happens, there are exactly sixteen of you. I have therefore decided on the best way for you to prove yourselves: single-elimination solo combat.\"\n\nThe crowd rustled, partially cheering, partially muttering.\n\n\"I have already chosen your opponents,\" he went on. \"I selected the most appropriate enemy for each of you to demonstrate your skill and resolve.\"\n\nHis invisible will passed over the competitors, sharpening their gazes, drawing their focus completely to him.\n\n\"Attend me, for this is the shape of the final selection round. After this, the true Uncrowned Kings will be revealed.\"\n\n~~~\n\n\"Ziel of the Wastelands, chosen of mine. You face Therian Nills of the Stormcallers, chosen of Reigan Shen.\"\n\nZiel wished he had his hammer next to him. It would have been a comforting weight.\n\nWithout it, his hands slowly curled into fists as he stared across at another kneeling youth: a man in his mid-twenties, or so he appeared.\n\nHe wasn't the only Stormcaller in the top sixteen. Besides the one he'd eliminated in the second round, the other two cultists had both survived. In fact, six of the sixteen remaining competitors belonged to Reigan Shen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a powerful statement, showing the world how strong the Monarch of the King's Key had made his new allies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Dreadgod cultists would surely shake the foundations of the earth.\n\nBut not this one. This one wouldn't make it any further.\n\nZiel only regretted that he couldn't kill his opponent for real.\n\n~~~\n\n\"Sha Miara of the Ninecloud Court, chosen of the Luminous Queen. You face Blacksword of Redmoon Hall, chosen of Reigan Shen.\"\n\nSha Miara pointedly refused to look at the young man with the dark sword across his back. Just to rile him up, she pressed her fingers to her lips as though stifling a yawn.\n\nIt was all a show. She couldn't wait to crush him. It wasn't dignified fora Monarch to compete with her lessers, but she never got to have any fun.\n\nShe was glad she wasn't facing the Redmoon girl. Miara would still win, but she wasn't ready fora challenge yet. She wanted to savor one more easy victory.\n\nThe challenging fights would come soon enough. Once she was Uncrowned.\n\n~~~\n\n\"Eithan Arelius of the Blackflame Empire, chosen of Akura Malice. You face Yan Shoumei of Redmoon Hall, chosen of Reigan Shen.\"\n\nShoumei stopped glaring at the Blackflame boy she'd met in Ghostwater and turned her attention to the yellow-haired clown who never stopped grinning.\n\nShe knew of him. The Blood Sage had spoken of him, after the report of Longhook's death had been confirmed by the sect oracles.\n\nHer Blood Shadow stirred as she stared at Eithan Arelius. It hungered for him. Maybe, if it feasted on enough of his blood, it would inherit the famous Arelius bloodline ability." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whether it did or did not, Shoumei eagerly looked forward to her match." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would get to prove herself in front of the whole world by destroying the person who killed Longhook.\n\nEithan gave her a beaming smile.\n\n~~~\n\n\"Akura Mercy of the Akura clan, chosen of Akura Malice...\"\n\nMercy sat up straighter, eager and just a tad worried. She hoped to be matched against one of Reigan's Dreadgod servants, or even Sopharanatoth. The gold dragon would be a difficult fight, but no one left in the competition was weak.\n\nThere was a chance that she could eliminate Sophara from competition, which would make the top eight much easier. And it would send a strong message on behalf of her family.\n\nShe was worried because there were also two friends remaining in the running as potential opponents. Northstrider hadn't matched anyone against a teammate so far, but he had been clear that he was deciding based on individual suitability. There was no guarantee she wouldn't fight Lindon.\n\n\"... you face Yerin Arelius of the Blackflame Empire, chosen of Akura Malice.\"\n\n~~~\n\nYerin glared at the Monarch.\n\nShe would have to fight a friend after all. There was no reason for it that she could tell; there were plenty of fighters left that he didn't have to match up two chosen by the same Monarch faction. Northstrider was doing this just to mess with her head.\n\nMercy wore her sadness plain upon her face, looking at Yerin with such a devastated expression that it actually lightened Yerin's mood a little.\n\nYerin was still upset that she had to fight a friend, but if they were going to compete, she intended to do her best. And she wanted no less from her opponent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to convey all that with nothing more than her eyes, but she must have failed. Mercy teared up.\n\n~~~\n\nWhen the Monarch's gaze turned to Lindon, Dross became excited. If he'd been sitting on Lindon's shoulder, he would've been bouncing up and down.\n\n[He looked at us! Do you think he knows I'm here? Do you think he sees me? He's proud of what we've done, I know it!]\n\nAll of Lindon's mind and soul were bent toward Northstrider's next words. None of his friends remained in the matchups, so that took a weight off his shoulders, though he ached for Yerin having to fight Mercy. Now there were seven potential opponents left for him.\n\nAnd the one he wanted to face the most was also the one he most feared.\n\n\"Wei Shi Lindon Arelius of the Akura clan, chosen of Akura Malice. You face Sopharanatoth of the line of gold dragons, chosen of Seshethkunaaz.\"\n\nLindon's heart thrilled with excitement and fear at the same time.\n\n[Well, top sixteen is good,] Dross said. [Nothing to be ashamed of. Stiff competition this year, too, so really you should be proud of making it this far.]\n\nLindon would have had to crane his neck to look at Sophara, but he imagined he could feel the heat from her spirit in the air.\n\nWe'll get the tablet of her third round right after this, Lindon sent to Dross. Then we're spending the whole week training against her model.\n\n[That seems like a lot of work from me fora guaranteed loss for you.]\n\nOnce again, Lindon saw blood dripping from Sophara's claws." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if we lose..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "we're going to make her work for it.\n\n~~~\n\n[Target Found: the Angler of the Crystal Halls. Location: Vroshir stronghold Tal'gullour, three months after the theft of the prototype scythes. Synchronize?]\n\n[Synchronization set at 99%]\n\n[Beginning synchronization...]\n\nThe central world of Tal'gullour was a planet-sized fortress floating in space. When Iri left the Way and entered the reality, the behemoth spacecraft loomed over her.\n\nHewn from entire moons' worth of stone and metal, the fortress looked like a rocky cliff roughly shaped into a pyramid. It contained a full world of life and power within it-at least twenty billion men and women, with many times their number in plants and animals-but she could feel none of it. She felt only the Mad King.\n\nHis aura was a blazing, implacable wave of chaos, like a tide of magma. To most, it would be intimidating, but she had traveled in style.\n\nShe had left her ten-by-ten box back in[ERROR: location not found. Resuming synchronization] ... She had left her ten-by-ten box hidden, and had come herein her own stronghold. Iri brought the Crystal Halls with her.\n\nThe Abidan considered the Vroshir an enemy organization, but'organization\" was too tidy a word for what they were. Vroshir like Iri and the Mad King had no common goals and no love for each other. Iri was fairly sure that the King would devour her whole if he got a chance.\n\nThe Vroshir were united only in their methods: they liberated worlds.\n\nWhen they found anew Iteration, they would scoop up anything they wanted and most of the population and move on. The people would be relocated to one of the massive Vroshir Homeworlds, where their very presence would tether the world even tighter to the Way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their old, depopulated home would be consumed by chaos, but who cared?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The people were gone.\n\nIri thought of herself as less of a liberator and more of a collector. The Crystal Halls were both her home and her greatest treasure. The stronghold did not lose out to Tal'gullour in size, easily as large as a planet, and definitely outshone the Mad King's fortress in splendor.\n\nIri's home was a palace of fluted blue crystal spread like a pair of angel's wings. It had been carved from an astronomically large diamond, and it glittered like a rainbow in the light of the nearby star.\n\nShe kept a population of about a billion living in the planet-sized inner workings of the stronghold, both to keep the vessel shielded from chaos and to take care of her collection. For in carefully sculpted displays all throughout the stronghold, she held the universe's most rare, beautiful, unique, and powerful objects.\n\nWhich was why the Mad King had agreed to meet her.\n\nShe arranged herself on a throne at the end of an audience hall carved from blue crystal. Every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor was a masterwork sculpture, and she lounged in a throne made of living light, but she had made no effort to dress herself up. She wasn't a treasure. Why bother?\n\nShe still wore old, frayed pants and an ill-fitting shirt with her own name sewn onto the front. No shoes. Her hair was along, electric blue mess that she hurriedly tied back before the King arrived.\n\nBut her accessories were worth more than most Abidan would see in a lifetime.\n\nAbove the crown of her head hovered the Halo of the Deep Earth, a featureless circle of what seemed to be lead. It carried within it the hopes and dreams of along-dead people, their resolve and their sanity, and it anchored her existence. No Fiend of Chaos could touch her under its protection." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: fantasy, martial arts, competition, cultivation, growth\nAuthor: Will Wight\nTitle: Uncrowned\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when he pulled spinning fire from the sky, certain in his victory, Yerin's sword burst into icy white light.\n\nIt glowed, sharp and cold, for just an instant. Yerin had carried that sword for three years, since the day after they'd met. He had never seen her activate the binding, never heard her talk about it.\n\nHe'd forgotten it.\n\n[I, uh, I did not model that.]\n\nWhite Archlord madra swallowed up the stage.\n\nFrigid cold pierced Lindon to the bone as ice madra saturated the air. White haze swallowed the entire arena-world, now a domain of wintry fog. He could still see clearly, but the cold seeped through his muscles, stinging his spirit.\n\nSharp white stars hung in the air, like snowflakes frozen mid-fall. They resonated with sword aura, like the points often thousand knives.\n\nOn top of all that, there was something... strange about this world of frozen blades. He was finding it hard to move. Either this madra had aspects he couldn't sense that were holding him in place, or there was another property to this technique. Even his madra seemed half-frozen, his cycling as sluggish as honey in winter.\n\nYerin sagged onto the ground, holding herself up by her master's sword. Sweat ran down her face, and she heaved deep breaths, her spirit weak. She had strained herself to activate an Archlord binding. Lindon couldn't believe she'd done it at all. She met his eyes, glowing with satisfaction.\n\n[You know what's amazing? Those Diamond Veins,] Dross said. [One big technique after another, and she hasn't even torn her madra channels apart. She really got the best of you in the prize department, didn't she?]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yerin may have had to recover from the sword's technique, but her Blood Shadow didn't. The spirit moved easily through the frozen space, smiling, holding a black sword in her pink-tinged hand. She swept a Striker technique at him, winking as she did.\n\nIn an instant, Lindon and Dross ran through his options. He had several. All of them required a sacrifice, so he chose the one he preferred.\n\nWhile the silver-and-red wave of madra rushed at him, Lindon poured madra and soulfire into his right hand.\n\nBack when he'd advanced to Underlord, he had absorbed the power of the Archstone. It hadn't replaced the binding in his arm, it had only altered his original technique... and made it stronger.\n\nNow, he pushed that binding beyond its limits. Hunger madra rushed out, drawing in everything, as though his hand had become a hungry void.\n\nThe Blood Shadow skidded to a halt on the ground, fighting the pull, clawing her way backward. Yerin rose to her feet, gathering her power and preparing to attack.\n\nLindon's entire mind and soul were caught up in guiding the technique. The arm was already beginning to splinter; if he lost control for one second, the limb would explode with the technique incomplete, and he would beat the center of a massive detonation of unstable madra.\n\nThe arm, set free, howled with gluttony. It greedily consumed all the spiritual energy in the space. The Striker technique swirled into him, along with the pale strands of icy madra from the Sage's sword. The freezing white mist flowed like a river into his arm... and almost burst it. The Archlord madra was far beyond anything the arm-or Lindon-could contain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the wintry world started to crumble, Lindon's spirit reached its end.\n\nDross, help! Lindon begged.\n\n[Uh, listen, I will. I'm not saying I won't. But that's going to be it from me, do you hear me? It's going to take everything I have.]\n\nJust do it!\n\nWithout another word, the spirit added his will to Lindon's.\n\nThe Remnant arm had begun to burst at the seams, leaking madra, but together the two managed to wrench the spiritual power around. He used his pure madra to push it, direct it, keep it from consuming his spirit from the inside. His hand had devoured some of the essence, but there was far more than it could contain.\n\nIt was all too powerful for Lindon to contain, but he could push it in a certain direction. Guide it.\n\nHe vented it toward Yerin.\n\nA river of pale madra far bigger than Lindon's body thundered out of him, deafening as it tore the air. It was a rush of white and silver light, with streaks of red and even black. The unstable, imbalanced rush of power sprayed over Yerin's entire half of the stage, engulfing her and her Blood Shadow.\n\nFocused, it would have easily destroyed them both. But Lindon couldn't focus it-he could only channel it.\n\nWhen the deluge ended, he staggered, his arm hanging limp at his side and hissing out madra. His vision doubled, and his spirit screamed in pain. His pure core was tapped out, and Dross was exhausted.\n\nBut he had decided to win. Yerin wanted him to give this his very best, and he wasn't done yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before the massive cloud of madra had settled, Lindon readied his one good arm and tapped his Blackflame core.\n\n~~~\n\nWorking together, Yerin and her Blood Shadow managed to turn the tide of overwhelming madra that Lindon had managed to send their direction.\n\nIt had been close.\n\nThey had stood shoulder-to-shoulder, swords out and shining with madra, fighting the river of power with everything they had. Her Shadow laughed the entire time, even as the mix of spiritual energy screamed around them, and for once Yerin agreed.\n\nThis was what it meant to go all-out.\n\nHer Blood Shadow lost power, bleeding ribbons of madra. Yerin's whole body trembled with effort, her madra pouring out of her like water from a leaky bucket. A little more control, and the attack would have wiped them both out.\n\nBut Lindon couldn't direct an Archlord's madra anymore than she could. Together, she and the Shadow hung on until the flow tapered off.\n\nWhen it did, she wobbled on her feet, her own breath harsh in her ears. The unfocused power still hung in the air like a white cloud flashing with dozens of other colors. The chaotic madra blocked out her spiritual perception and all her mundane senses.\n\nSweaty hair stuck to her forehead. Her core was dim, almost empty. She could sense the Blood Shadow's weakness as well, but Lindon couldn't be in much better shape. Hurling an attack like that had to be almost the same as taking it head-on. He had to be done.\n\nA spear of dragon's breath broke the cloud.\n\nThe Blood Shadow took the black-and-red bar of madra on its blade. The spirit stumbled back, falling and catching itself with its sword-arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yerin slashed a Rippling Sword horizontally through the cloud. She was shooting blind, but maybe she'd get lucky.\n\nA shield shoved through the white madra, three feet from her face. It shattered her Striker technique, and then turned sideways as Lindon straightened his arm.\n\nIn that moment, she saw him as their enemies always had. He towered over her, built like a guard tower, his eyes burning circles of red on darkness. His clothes were shredded and burned. Drying blood streaked his skin. His right arm hung mangled and useless against his side.\n\nHer heart swelled with pride.\n\nDark fire kindling in his palm reminded her the fight wasn't over. On instinct, she brought up her sword against his budding Striker technique. Though little energy remained in her limbs, her Steelborn Iron body made sure her swing was a vertical blur. She cut through the Blackflame fireball, breaking it, and before Lindon could conjure another, a red Rippling Sword flew at him from the side.\n\nHe turned to face it, and Yerin created space between them.\n\nThis washer last chance. He would outlast her in a prolonged fight; of course he would. He was a madra monster. Even his wounds would heal in time, though she wasn't sure if his Remnant arm would comeback. Knowing him, he probably had away to repair it.\n\nShe had to finish it now. She drew her blade back, pouring all her madra into one last technique. A second Final Sword.\n\nA blink later, the Blood Shadow kicked Lindon away and began echoing Yerin. The crackling storm of energy was a blend of red and silver, but Yerin's was a silver so bright it was almost white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deep in her mind, it alarmed her that the parasite had aversion of the Final Sword. Yerin had never shared that with the Shadow, and she herself had only learned it recently. The Blood Shadow had never practiced.\n\nThose were thoughts from a nightmare, but they belonged later. She had a fight to win.\n\nShe was prepared for Lindon to sweep dragon's breath at them, but if he did, she could use the excess energy of the rising Final Sword to protect herself while the Blood Shadow finished him.\n\nIn that razor's edge of time, she found her consciousness sinking into the elusive state she'd touched throughout the tournament. She could feel an extra force in her technique, one she had never felt from herself before. It felt like her master.\n\nShe had proven herself. She was going to win.\n\nThen Lindon lowered his hand into a claw.\n\n~~~\n\nIf Lindon strained his shield any further, it would break, and the detonation from its destruction would end him.\n\nIf he used Striker techniques to strike atone of them while they prepared their techniques, the other would move on him. So he released his shield and took the best option left to him.\n\nThe only secret he had kept from Yerin.\n\nHe lowered his left hand, and claws of Forged Blackflame madra formed on each of his fingers, until it looked like he was wearing a dragon's claw like a glove. A miniature Void Dragon's Dance swirled around it, dragon's breath filled it like blood, and a focused Burning Cloak surrounded it all.\n\nWith the full power of his spirit and all his remaining soulfire, he forced all those techniques together.\n\nMonths ago, Akura Fury had shown him how to layer techniques. He had used that advice to improve the Empty Palm... and to work on one original technique of his own. He and Dross had spent too much time, far more than Dross wanted to, theorizing and simulating and practicing. It had taken him months to be able to Forge Blackflame madra at all, and even now he could only hold it together for seconds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he had taken in raw draconic madra from the black dragon, he had refined the technique again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And once more after absorbing the original Path of Black Flame from Naian.\n\nThe technique coalesced into a massive dragon's claw that streamed black-and-red power. He lifted his hand, Forged claws battering him with heat and destruction, and looked across to Yerin.\n\nShe was laughing.\n\nYerin dashed forward, her Shadow following her a second later. Both of them dragged their devastating techniques with them.\n\nAs Lindon ran into meet her, a serpentine stream of dark fire flowing behind him, he realized he was smiling too.\n\nTwo Final Swords struck his technique: The Dragon Descends.\n\nLindon's full power met Yerin's, and the stage ripped apart.\n\n~~~\n\nAkura Fury laughed and clapped as the wall-sized view fuzzed.\n\nAll the Akura Underlords were silent.\n\nCharity herself was astonished. She glanced at her father, who was applauding so furiously that some of the Truegolds in the back of the room had to run from the sound.\n\nShe leaned closer to Fury, speaking lower so that the young generation couldn't hear her. \"If I'm not mistaken, that was a touch of the Sword Icon. How is this the work of twenty-year-olds?\"\n\nFury threw an arm around her neck, hooking her tightly, still laughing. \"These kids are amazing, aren't they? I can't wait!\"\n\nShe slipped away from him to preserve her dignity, but he didn't seem to care. Fury bellowed laughter, delighted at the prospect of new opponents.\n\nMore Truegolds ran from the room, hands covering their ears.\n\n~~~\n\nThe view of the stage was obscured, and the projection for the audience disrupted by wild madra, but a Monarch's perception could not be blinded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "... and Sha Miara wasn't a Monarch at the moment.\n\nShe shook the Herald, Sha Relliar, by his outer robe. \"What is happening? Show me!\"\n\n\"You will see very soon,\" her caretaker responded. He glanced down at her. \"It looks like you face more competition than you expected.\"\n\nShe pulled up her viewing slate so that her nose almost touched the image of Lindon and Yerin. \"I'm sure I can beat them. But... do you think I can?\"\n\n\"Of course, Your Highness.\"\n\n~~~\n\nMercy pointed from the blurred view to Pride, who sat sullenly, arms crossed.\n\n\"You see? You see?\"\n\n\"... I didn't say they were weak.\"\n\n\"Could you do that?\"\n\n\"Enforcer techniques aren't that flashy. It's wasteful.\"\n\n\"You couldn't,\" Mercy said confidently, turning back to wait for the image.\n\nPride's jaw tightened, but after a moment he let out a breath. \"Fine. Maybe he is good enough for you.\"\n\n\"I told you!\" she said excitedly. \"I said they were... wait, what did you say?\"\n\n~~~\n\nThe Winter Sage chewed on a fingernail, her heart torn. Yerin was directly responsible for Adama's death, but at the same time, she hadn't abandoned his legacy after all. In fact, there had been just a hint of the Sword Icon in that last attack.\n\nShe had inherited Adama's Remnant. Maybe that was all it was, in which case it wouldn't happen again. But if not...\n\nMin Shuei turned abruptly, interrupting her students, who had been hotly debating Yerin's techniques. With no explanation, she left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as this round ended, she would seethe Monarch Northstrider. She had to demand the right to tutor Yerin herself.\n\nBefore one of the other Sages did.\n\n~~~\n\nNorthstrider watched the final clash of techniques one frozen instant at a time.\n\nOf course, Yerin Arelius had achieved a reflection of the Sword Icon. Anyone with any authority of their own would take notice, but it was most likely an anomaly. Underlords could not sense the Way clearly enough to manifest an Icon. It was a demonstration of the sacred artist she might one day become, nothing more.\n\nHe was far more intrigued by Lindon.\n\nThis was the Truegold who had gone to Ghostwater and made it outwith a mental construct. Northstrider had taken note of him already and found nothing extraordinary.\n\nHe was beginning to reevaluate that.\n\nLindon had grown too quickly. Each round he fought, he moved like a different person. Every time Northstrider thought the boy's mind-construct would reach the end of its capabilities, he was proven wrong. In this battle alone, Lindon had managed to compete with the Sword Sage's disciple by showing reaction and processing speeds that should have been impossible for an Underlord.\n\nYerin had called out the word \"Dross\" just before Lindon's performance spiked. He had thought it was an insult...\n\n... but what if it was a name?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 20\n\nInformation requested: Northstrider, wandering Monarch of the Trackless Sea.\n\nBeginning report...\n\nNorthstrider was born with a connection to blood.\n\nHis parents died shortly after his birth, never knowing that they had each carried a dormant bloodline legacy. These traits mixed in their son, producing an unmatched connection to blood aura.\n\nAs an orphan, he was taken in by a local warlord, who collected pods of one hundred abandoned children at a time to defend him from the attacks of his enemies. He raised and trained them by teaching them to hunt water-drakes, lesser dragons that skim the surface of the ocean to the north.\n\nAll one hundred children were raised on the meat of these drakes, but Northstrider's innate abilities allowed him to absorb more of the remaining blood essence in the flesh than anyone else.\n\nAt every opportunity, he would return to the ocean to seek out stronger prey, and it became known that you could almost always find him walking north.\n\nThus did he earn his name.\n\nHe grew strong quickly, beyond his age, always hunting more powerful quarry and moving deeper and deeper into the ancient places of the ocean.\n\nHe discovered that the seafloor was a trove of treasures both natural and otherwise, and eventually found himself at the entrance to avast labyrinth. Therein, he found madra that intrigued him.\n\nAt that point in his life, he had never been formally instructed in a Path. The children of his pod were taught rudimentary techniques but were left to adopt them to whatever aspects of madra suited them best.\n\nWhen Northstrider integrated the bindings he found in the labyrinth into his blood madra, the Path of the Hungry Deep was born." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Path: Hungry Deep. A Path focused on devouring the physical and spiritual strength of dragons, as well as their latent authority, using them to empower the user. Most techniques are rudimentary, but become complex in execution when brought to life with the touch of the Dragon Icon.\n\nThe Path of the Hungry Deep is the most powerful hunger madra Path still in modern use.\n\nSuggested topic: techniques on the Path of the Hungry Deep. Continue?\n\nDenied, report complete.\n\n~~~\n\nLindon woke knowing that he'd lost.\n\nAt the last second, it was as though Yerin had changed, though he'd sensed no extra power from her. Her technique had landed just that much sooner than his.\n\nAnd that was enough.\n\nHe had re-formed inside the gray waiting room, sitting on a bench. His body and spirit were in perfect condition. The room was silent, empty. It was as though the fight hadn't happened.\n\n\"I lost,\" Lindon said, and his voice echoed hollow in the quiet room.\n\nDross slipped out of his spirit, turning to look at him with his wide purple eye. [But what a fight! You know what they say: it doesn't matter how you play the game, only whether you win or lose. Wait, no, the other one.]\n\n\"... I thought I was going to win.\"\n\nHe'd been more than willing to surrender when he first saw Yerin. He didn't want to hurt her physically, and he didn't want to hurt her emotionally by taking away her chance to become Uncrowned. For the same reasons, he had been willing to hold back and let her beat him.\n\nBecause deep down, he knew he'd win." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since getting Dross, he'd never faced an opponent that he truly couldn't defeat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as he'd chosen to give it his all, he had resigned himself to beating Yerin. But he'd been fooling himself. He wasn't good enough.\n\nBehind him, the door hissed open. He turned away, unwilling to look Mercy in the eye. Worse if it was Charity or Pride.\n\n\"I've never been good at consolations,\" Eithan said.\n\nLindon let his eyes close. It was hard to imagine anyone he wanted to see less right now. Maybe Sophara.\n\nHe heard Eithan walking up and sitting down on the bench across the room. \"Mercy was coming into cheer you up, but she allowed me the honor instead.\"\n\nLindon would have much rather seen Mercy.\n\n\"I don't need consolation,\" Lindon said, forcing his eyes to open and look at Eithan. \"I'm happy for Yerin.\"\n\nHis smile was gentle. \"You know, people can feel two things at once. Even when it seems like they should be opposites.\"\n\nOn Lindon's shoulder, Dross gasped. [You can feel two things? That explains so much!]\n\n\"Gratitude, but I'm fine. I tried and I lost. There's nothing more to be said.\"\n\nEithan scratched at his chin. \"Hm. As long as I've known you, you've been willing to do whatever it takes if it accomplished your goal. That's one of the things I admire about you. But I've always wondered one thing: what will he do when he pours his heart and soul into something and still fails?\"\n\nLindon's vision blurred and his throat tightened. \"I don't know what you want me to say. It's too late to do anything. I failed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want you to tell me,\" Eithan said, \"what you're going to do next.\"\n\nNext. What did he want to do next?\n\n\"Yerin won.\" He straightened himself, organizing his breathing, pushing his pain and disappointment down. \"I'm going to go see her.\"\n\nEithan eyed him. \"Congratulations from you will mean a great deal to her, but are you in shape for that?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said honestly. The last thing he wanted to do was to dampen her excitement after winning the round and earning the right to become one of the Uncrowned, but he had to be with her. If she had fought someone else, he would have wanted to be the first to see her after her victory.\n\nWithout waiting for another word from Eithan, Lindon left the room.\n\n~~~\n\nOutpost 01: Oversight\n\nMakiel projected a map of Abidan territory in front of him. The nest of flowing blue light representing the Way spread into a roughly spherical shape, each branch dotted with points of light like berries on branches. Iterations.\n\nOn the outer layer, too many of them were tinged with gray, illustrating the corruption of the Void.\n\nAnd now, four of them were black.\n\nAfter removing the first world, the Mad King had struck three more times. Testing Abidan response time. Makiel's foresight. His weapon's capabilities.\n\nSoon he would have all the information he needed. The testing would end, and he would strike.\n\nWho knew how far he could make it before the Judges could counter him? They were spread too thin as it was, fighting the incursions of chaos at their borders. Would he make it as far in as Sector Fifty-one? Would he make it to Asylum, to breakout the other Class One Fiends? To Cradle, the birthplace of the Abidan? To Sanctum itself?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He cast his sight forward, into the future.\n\nThe Court of Seven had already given a united ruling, despite Suriel's misgivings: they would salvage as many lives from the outer sectors as they could, retreating deep into their territory. Far deeper than Makiel had ever planned.\n\nThere had been ten thousand worlds under their protection, a thousand fully integrated into their system. They would now protect only the core twenty sectors. Two hundred Iterations.\n\nThe rest... left to fend for themselves. Now he followed the ripples of that decision out to the future.\n\nIt wouldn't be enough.\n\nHe saw it as though his map of the Way sped through time. Gray corruption claimed light after light, Iteration after Iteration, until it eventually came to an equilibrium and stopped. Some worlds shattered to fragments while others struck an uneasy balance with chaos and survived, though tainted. Still others were eliminated or stolen by the Vroshir.\n\nBut the Mad King wasn't satisfied with more territory. He wanted to destroy them.\n\nWith his false Scythe, he led the charge. The Judges would survive, the Abidan would survive, but it would cost them. Core worlds would be lost.\n\nHe could see no further, but from such a position, there could be no doubt that the Mad King would rule.\n\nSo he reversed his sight, bringing it back to the present. He spun it out again, reading Fate.\n\nBefore long, his course was clear. They needed to recruit.\n\nUsually, the Abidan only allowed recruitment of those who had ascended beyond their Iterations of their own power. Every deviation from that was a slight violation of Fate, which could tip the world that much closer to chaos. The Abidan interfered in mortal affairs only in dire need. And often not even then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, risking a bit of causal instability was by far the lesser evil. It was that or eradication.\n\nMakiel willed it, and his Presence stirred to action, appearing in Sector Control headquarters for Sectors One through Twenty-one as a purple eye the size of ahead. It delivered his orders.\n\nAn action of this scale would often require the permission of the entire Court, but in this case, it was an order to bend Fate to preserve Fate. Well within the remit of Makiel.\n\nIn world after world, the order went out and was obeyed: encourage recruitment.\n\nIn Sanctum, this would take the form of open screenings and recruitment drives for the Abidan. In Jubilee, the Court would offer wishes in exchange for service. In Solitude, they would contact the Wise Serpents that ringed the world and ask fora gift of talented recruits. In Obelisk, they would wait at the top of the Tower, surpassing Threshold and taking in people directly.\n\nTheir efforts would be tailored to each of the hundreds of worlds, but it would result in thousands of new Abidan over the coming years. Their ranks would swell to more than the Court had seen in centuries.\n\nThey would lose some Iterations, and such deviation from Fate would create an unprecedented surge in corruption. But the new Court would handle it.\n\nThen the Mad King could not destroy them. They would survive.\n\nWith a heavy heart, he finished delivering the message.\n\nHe concentrated special attention on Sector Eleven. Not only did they protect Asylum, which would surely be atop-priority target for the King, they defended Cradle. And Cradle would be among the most delicate of worlds to recruit.\n\nOf all the Monarchs in Cradle, everyone had already refused recruitment by the Abidan already. They would no doubt encourage others to do so as well. The Abidan would have to descend personally, representing the heavens, and appeal to the Monarchs' successors. The next generation. They would have to offer a prize of great value, and the result might be only one or two new Abidan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it would be worth it.\n\nNow, more than ever before, the Court needed soldiers.\n\n~~~\n\nEven as Lindon dashed through the heavily decorated tunnels beneath the arena, the whole building shook with cheers. The Ninecloud Soul would be replaying highlights from the fight, instructing the crowd and following the match with hours of feasting and entertainment for the rest of the day. The next match wouldn't be fora week, but the Court turned the time between rounds into a festival.\n\nYerin would be mobbed by strangers. Enough people had tried to talk to Lindon already, mostly from the Akura family, that he could only imagine how many wanted a moment with Yerin. He needed to get back to her side as soon as he could.\n\nSuddenly the building went silent. He slowed his steps, looking around, but the others in the hallway looked as confused as he did.\n\nA moment later, a sound like birds screaming tore through the Ninecloud arena. Lights flashed from the walls in all colors, and the Ninecloud Soul's voice resonated out of nowhere, sounding panicked: \"All guests, prepare for imminent spatial transfer-\"\n\nLindon dashed backward, trying to getaway from whatever was about to happen, but a blue light consumed him.\n\nJust like when he met Suriel, the world was replaced by a river of textured blue that pressed against him in all directions. He couldn't breathe, and Suriel's marble in his pocket suddenly grew painfully hot, but in less than a second it was allover.\n\nHe stood around the edge of the arena beneath the Akura viewing tower, sunlight beating down. The arena was quiet, the towers completely empty. Whoever had transported him here, they had removed the spectators at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw the other eliminated contestants against the wall close to their original towers; Pride and Naru Saeya stood next to him, Grace and her team nearby, the Frozen Blade students drawing blades. Everyone looked wildly around for an explanation.\n\nFifteen young Underlords stood in the center of the arena. The remaining participants in round four. Lindon was the only one to have been eliminated so far, and whatever was happening, it pained him that Yerin and Mercy were facing it while he was looking in from the outside.\n\nFourteen of them looked ready for battle, but Sha Miara was the lone exception. She stood staring at the sky, wearing a grave expression.\n\nOne by one, everyone followed her lead. The viewing-towers that held spectators during each round were quiet and empty, but the Monarch platforms floating overhead were still active.\n\nFigures hovered in the air above the platforms. Over the Eight-Man Empire's plain tower, a circle of eight gold-armored men and women hovered. Akura Malice stood in midair over her mountain, shrouded in shadow. The Dragon King's cloak rippled in the wind as he flew over his throne, Reigan Shen lounged on the roof of his palace with a goblet of wine in hand, and even Northstrider stood with his hands behind his back above his dark globe of water.\n\nThe Arelius tower seemed doubly empty by contrast, its storm flashing blue but no one hovering above it.\n\nThe very presence of so many Monarchs made the air feel thick. Every second pressed against Lindon like a knife against his throat, and Dross' silence felt heavy, as though the spirit was afraid even to think.\n\nMoment by moment, the Monarchs stayed motionless. Quiet. Waiting.\n\nLindon couldn't imagine what was happening. Was this a plot by one of the Monarchs? If so, how had they trapped the others in it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, for the second time in his life, Lindon saw a blue light descending from the sky like a sapphire dawn.\n\nHe fell to his knees a step sooner than everyone else in the arena below Monarch. It was the only proper thing to do; Lindon felt the awe in his soul. Even Sophara fell to her knees, groveling with head bowed. Sha Miara went to one knee, but she turned and looked to the Ninecloud's rainbow tower-the feminine figure hovering over it was hidden by nine-colored light.\n\nSeconds later, the heavenly messenger emerged. He was so far up that a Gold would barely be able to see him as a distant figure, but Lindon's Underlord eyes could make out his features.\n\nHe felt almost blasphemous for the thought, but compared to Suriel, this man was a disappointment. He had the features of an ordinary human, a pinched face with a thin beard, and dark hair cropped close to his head. His eyes were the beady black of a rat's.\n\nBut he wore the same eggshell-smooth white armor that Suriel had, and over his shoulder drifted an eye with a purple iris. It looked like an Akura eyeball the size of the man's whole head.\n\nThe eyeball turned in a circle, looking at the Monarchs, but the man didn't. He looked down to the gathered Underlords.\n\n\"Children.\" He sounded as though he stood right next to them. \"I am Kiuran of the Hounds. Do not be bound by this world. The most talented of you will one day be offered the choice to leave, to emerge from this cradle and truly live. Do not take the example of your elders. When the invitation comes, accept it, and let your eyes be opened to the real world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Northstrider's spirit stirred, and his gold dragon eyes glared. His muscles strained against each other, as though he was fighting not to speak. But he said nothing, and the messenger did not address him. Reigan Shen gave a smile, baring a fang or two, and took along draught from his goblet.\n\n\"The Court of Seven occasionally sponsors this tournament,\" the messenger went on, \"to give promising young recruits a taste of the world beyond. You are blessed, for now more than ever, we wish to nurture your talents.\"\n\nHe extended his hand, palm-up. \"I give you the new grand prize of the tournament: a weapon of the gods.\"\n\nA silver-edged black arrowhead appeared hovering over his palm. It looked fairly ordinary to Lindon, but the aura of the entire world twisted and fluctuated as all seven Monarchs reacted.\n\nRather than watching them, Lindon looked to the center of the arena. Eithan, on his knees, stared at the arrowhead with an intensity Lindon had never seen. His smile was long gone.\n\nThe messenger smiled at their reaction. \"Long ago, the founder of House Arelius created this weapon which he called Penance. It is a penance for its target and, unbeknownst to most, its creation was an act of penance by its creator.\"\n\nThe House Arelius crowd gave a shout, but Eithan's gaze was glued to the arrowhead.\n\n\"He made the right choice, ascending to the heavens, and he brought this weapon with him. Now we return it to the place of its birth.\"\n\nThe arrowhead drifted up, flashing black and silver. \"Penance was made with a singular purpose: to kill. That is what it does, and nothing less. It can be used to kill one being in this world without error. This, children, is the power of life and death.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time, he looked to the Monarchs, and he didn't bother to look respectful. His sneer covered his face and infected his voice. \"No doubt you will squabble for this, but the results of this tournament are now guaranteed by my master: Makiel, the Hound. No competitors can be added or withdrawn, the rules must be upheld as before, and Penance will not function for anyone other than the rightful champion. If you break the rules, you will be judged. If you kill or punish the champion for possession of this weapon, you will be judged. Tread carefully, for the eyes of heaven see all things.\"\n\nThe eyeball on his shoulder shone brightly, spinning to pierce each Monarch.\n\nNone of the kings and queens spoke a word. Not even to agree. Now none of them looked so self-assured anymore. Even Reigan Shen scowled through his white mane, goblet forgotten.\n\nThe heavenly messenger looked down on the competitors, and his smile was gentle again. \"Fight hard, children, and do not let fear hold you back. Instead, let desire drive you to even greater heights. You are the future, and the Hound values the future above all else.\"\n\nLindon stared at the arrowhead. The messenger held a life in his hand. Anyone's life-a Sage's, a Monarch's.\n\nEven a Dreadgod's.\n\n[Whoever gets that won't have an arrow,] Dross whispered. [They'll have a target. Everyone in the world will be after them.]\n\nEven if the heavens protect them from reprisal? Lindon asked.\n\n[Heaven is along way away. Humans are right here.]\n\nWhen the world began to glow blue again, Lindon lunged for Yerin, but he was swallowed up. Only a breath later, he stood in the center of a bright-tiled hallway, exactly where he had been taken. A nearby Truegold woman in Akura colors fell to her knees and started muttering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Spirit Cloak sprang up around Lindon, and he started to run.\n\nYerin was now in danger. Whatever the heavens said, the Monarchs and their champions would do anything fora weapon like the arrowhead. He had to gather everyone they could trust and stick together; keeping Eithan and Mercy and Yerin in the same place would be the best way to keep them safe.\n\nAnd he had to tell them they couldn't win.\n\nOut of fear of a Monarch's reprisal, he hadn't even told his friends Sha Miara's true identity. The time for that was past; they had to know they were competing against a Monarch.\n\nHe had almost reached the end of the hallway when a black-scaled hand shot out from nowhere, grasping at his throat. With the impossible grace of the Spirit Cloak, Lindon dodged.\n\nThe hand landed anyway.\n\nIt was like a hammer slamming into his neck. He crashed to a halt, choking and gagging past the sudden pain in his throat, his technique dispersing. He sagged to the floor, looking up through watery eyes.\n\nA huge man, at least Lindon's size, now loomed overhead. His clothes were mismatched and ragged, open at the neck to reveal the rock-hard muscles of his chest. Wild hair spilled down his back, and his face was unshaven, but his vertically slitted golden eyes glared down on Lindon like a king passing judgment.\n\n[Master...] Dross whispered.\n\nNorthstrider spoke only two words.\n\n\"Who's Dross?\"\n\nTHE END\n\nCradle: Volume Seven\n\nUncrowned" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThere was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we satin the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting allover your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready fora bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I'm starting off the story with.\n\nOur pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting anymore pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts. But, as they say, money isn't everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four of us were dressed in the heighth of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the crutch underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker (a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face, that is), Dim not ever having much of an idea of things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders (\"pletchoes' we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThere were three devotchkas sitting at the counter all together, but there were four of us malchicks and it was usually like one for all and all for one. These sharps were dressed in the heighth of fashion too, with purple and green and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one not costing less than three or four weeks of those sharps'wages, I should reckon, and make-up to match (rainbows round the glazzies, that is, and the rot painted very wide). Then they had long black very straight dresses, and on the groody part of them they had little badges of like silver with different malchicks\" names on them-Joe and Mike and suchlike. These were supposed to be the names of the different malchicks they'd spatted with before they were fourteen. They kept looking our way and I nearly felt like saying the three of us (out of the corner of my rot, that is) should go off fora bit of pol and leave poor old Dim behind, because it would be just a matter of kupetting Dim a demi-litre of white but this time with a dollop of synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really have been playing like the game. Dim was very very ugly and like his name, but he was a horrorshow filthy fighter and very handy with the boot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThe chelloveck sitting next tome, there being this long big plushy seat that ran round three walls, was well away with his glazzies glazed and sort of burbling slovos like \"Aristotle wishy washy works outing cyclamen get forficulate smartish\". He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a veshch, O my brothers. You'd lay thereafter you'd drunk the old moloko and then you got the messel that everything all round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy it all right, all of it, very clear-tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps and the malchicks-but it was like some veshch that used to be there but was not there not no more. And you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old scruff and shook like it might be a cat. You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and yourself and you just didn't care, and you waited till your boot or your finger-nail got yellow, then yellower and yellower all the time. Then the lights started cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, as it might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you were just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was allover. You came back to here and now whimpering sort of, with your rot all squaring up fora boohoohoo. Now, that's very nice but very cowardly. You were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God. That sort of thing could sap all the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThe stereo was on and you got the idea that the singer's goloss was moving from one part of the bar to another, flying up to the ceiling and then swooping down again and whizzing from wall to wall. It was Berti Laski rasping areal starry oldie called'You Blister My Paint\". One of the three ptitsas at the counter, the one with the green wig, kept pushing her belly out and pulling it in in time to what they called the music. I could feel the knives in the old moloko starting to prick, and now I was ready fora bit of twenty-to-one. So I yelped:\"Out out out out! \"like a doggie, and then I cracked this veck who was sitting next tome and well away and burbling a horrorshow crack on the ooko or earhole, but he didn't feel it and went on with his \"Telephonic hardware and when the farfarculule gets rubadubdub\". He'd feel it all right when he came to, out of the land.\n\n\"Where out?\" said Georgie.\n\n\"Oh, just to keep walking,\" I said, \"and viddy what turns up, O my little brothers.\"\n\nSo we scatted out into the big winter nochy and walked down Marghanita Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty well looking for, a malenky jest to start off the evening with. There was a doddery starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on and his rot open to the cold nochy air. He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio, which not many lewdies used those days. You never really saw many of the older bourgeois type out after nightfall those days, what with the shortage of police and we fine young malchickiwicks about, and this prof type chelloveck was the only one walking in the whole of the street. So we goolied up to him, very polite, and I said: \"Pardon me, brother.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked a malenky bit poogly when he viddied the four of us like that, coming up so quiet and polite and smiling, but he said: \"Yes?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What is it?\" in a very loud teacher-type goloss, as if he was trying to show us he wasn't poogly. I said:\n\n\"I see you have books under your arm, brother. It is indeed a rare pleasure these days to come across somebody that still reads, brother.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, all shaky. \"Is it? Oh, I see.\" And he kept looking from one to the other of we four, finding himself now like in the middle of a very smiling and polite square.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"It would interest me greatly, brother, if you would kindly allow me to see what books those are that you have under your arm. I like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother.\"\n\n\"Clean,\" he said. \"Clean, eh?\" And then Pete skvatted these three books from him and handed them round real skorry. Being three, we all had one each to viddy at except for Dim. The one I had was called Elementary Crystallography, so I opened it up and said: \"Excellent, really first-class,\" keeping turning the pages. Then I said in a very shocked type goloss: \"But what is this here? What is this filthy slovo? I blush to look at this word. You disappoint me, brother, you do really.\"\n\n\"But,\" he tried, \"but, but.\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Georgie, \"here is what I should call real dirt. There's one slovo beginning with an f and another with ac. ' He had a book called The Miracle of the Snowflake.\n\n\"Oh,\" said poor old Dim, smotting over Pete's shoulder and going too far, like he always did,\"it says here what he done to her, and there's a picture and all. Why,\" he said, \"you're nothing but a filthy-minded old skitebird. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"An old man of your age, brother,\" I said, and I started to rip up the book I'd got, and the others did the same with the ones they had, Dim and Pete doing a tug-of-war with The Rhombohedral System." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The starry prof type began to creech:\"But those are not mine, those are the property of the municipality, this is sheer wantonness and vandal work, \"or some such slovos. And he tried to sort of wrest the books back off of us, which was like pathetic.\"You deserve to be taught a lesson, brother, \"I said,\"that you do. \"This crystal book I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to bits, being real starry and made in days when things were made to last like, but I managed to rip the pages up and chuck them in handfuls of like snowflakes, though big, allover this creeching old veck, and then the others did the same with theirs, old Dim just dancing about like the clown he was.\"There you are, \"said Pete.\"There's the mackerel of the cornflake for you, you dirty reader of filth and nastiness.\"\n\n\"You naughty old veck, you,\" I said, and then we began to filly about with him. Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper and lower. He threw these down on the pavement and then I treated them to the old boot-crush, though they were hard bastards like, being made of some new horrorshow plastic stuff. The old veck began to make sort of chumbling shooms-\"wuf waf wof\"-so Georgie let goof holding his goobers apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot then, then outcomes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful. So all we did then was to pull his outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head off near), and then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go. He went sort of staggering off, it not having been too hard of a tolchock really, going \"Oh oh oh\", not knowing where or what was what really, and we had a snigger at him and then riffled through his pockets, Dim dancing round with his crappy umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much in them. There were a few starry letters, some of them dating right back to 1960, with'My dearest dearest'in them and all that chepooka, and a key-ring and a starry leaky pen. Old Dim gave up his umbrella dance and of course had to start reading one of the letters out loud, like to show the empty street he could read.\"My darling one, \"he recited, in this very high type goloss,\"I shall bethinking of you while you are away and hope you will remember to wrap up warm when you go out at night. \"Then he let out a very shoomny smeck-\"Ho ho ho\"-pretending to start wiping his yahma with it.\"All right, \"I said.\"Let it go, O my brothers. \"In the trousers of this starry veck there was only a malenky bit of cutter (money, that is)-not more than three gollies-so we gave all his messy little coin the scatter treatment, it being hen-korm to the amount of pretty polly we had onus already. Then we smashed the umbrella and razrezzed his platties and gave them to the blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished with the starry teacher type veck. We hadn't done much, I know, but that was only like the start of the evening and I make no appy polly loggies to thee or thine for that. The knives in the milk-plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next thing was to do the sammy act, which was one way to unload some of our cutter so we'd have more of an incentive like for some shop-crasting, as well as it being away of buying an alibi in advance, so we went into the Duke of New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough in the snug there were three or four old baboochkas peeting their black and suds on SA (State Aid). Now we were the very good malchicks, smiling good evensong to one and all, though these wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook, their veiny old rookers all trembling round their glasses and making the suds spill on the table.\"Leave us be, lads, \"said one of them, her face all mappy with being a thousand years old,\"we're only poor old women.\" But we just made with the zoobies, flash flash flash, sat down, rang the bell, and waited for the boy to come. When he came, all nervous and rubbing his rookers on his grazzy apron, we ordered us four veterans-a veteran being rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was popular just then, some liking a dash of lime in it, that being the Canadian variation. Then I said to the boy:\n\n\"Give these poor old baboochkas over there a nourishing something. Large Scotchmen all round and something to takeaway.\" And I poured my pocket of deng allover the table, and the other three did likewise, O my brothers. So double firegolds were brought in for the scared starry lighters, and they knew not what to door say. One of them got out \"Thanks, lads,\" but you could see they thought there was something dirty like coming. Anyway, they were each given a bottle of Yank General, cognac that is, to takeaway, and I gave money for them to be delivered each a dozen of black and suds that following morning, they to leave their stinking old cheenas'addresses at the counter. Then with the cutter that was leftover we did purchase, my brothers, all the meat pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in that mesto, and those too were for the old sharps. Then we said:\"Back in a minoota, \"and the old ptitsas were still saying:\"Thanks, lads, \"and'God bless you, boys, ' and we were going out without one cent of cutter in our carmans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Makes you feel real dobby, that does,\" said Pete. You could viddy that poor old Dim the dim didn't quite pony all that, but he said nothing for fear of being called gloopy and a domeless wonderboy. Well, we went off now round the corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this sweets and cancers shop still open. We'd left them alone near three months now and the whole district had been very quiet on the whole, so the armed millicents or rozz patrols weren't round there much, being more north of the river these days. We put our maskies on-new jobs these were, real horrorshow, wonderfully done really; they were like faces of historical personalities (they gave you the name when you bought) and I had Disraeli, Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had Henry VIII and poor old Dim had a poet veck called Peebee Shelley; they were areal like disguise, hair and all, and they were some very special plastic veshch so you could roll up when you'd done with it and hide it in your boot-then three of us went in, Pete keeping chasso without, not that there was anything to worry about out there. As soon as we launched on the shop we went for Slouse who ran it, a big portwine jelly of a veck who viddied at once what was coming and made straight for the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled pooshka, complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was round that counter skorry as a bird, sending packets of snoutie flying and cracking over a big cut-out showing a sharp with all her zoobies going flash at the customers and her groodies near hanging out to advertise some new brand of cancers. What you could viddy then was a sort of a big ball rolling into the inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle. Then you could slooshy panting and snoring and kicking behind the curtain and veshches falling over and swearing and then glass going smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of froze behind the counter. We could tell she would creech murder given one chance, so I was round that counter very skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow big lump she was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big bobbing groodies on her. I'd got my rooker round her rot to stop her belting out death and destruction to the four winds of heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on it and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents. Well, then she had to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the scales, and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening cases, and that brought the red out like an old friend. So we had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for fun and a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, viddying her lying therewith her groodies on show, I wondered should I or not, but that was for later on in the evening. Then we cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow takings that nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top cancers apiece, then off we went, my brothers.\n\n\"A real big heavy great bastard he was,\" Dim kept saying. I didn't like the look of Dim; he looked dirty and untidy, like a veck who'd been in a fight, which he had been, of course, but you should never look as though you have been. His cravat was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got him in an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our tashtooks in spit to cheest the dirt off. The things we did for old Dim. We were back in the Duke of New York very skorry, and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more than ten minutes away. The starry old baboochkas were still thereon the black and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we said: \"Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be? \"They started on the old'Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys, \"and so we rang the collocoll and brought a different waiter in this time and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. Then I said to the old baboochkas:\"We haven't been out of here, have we? Been here all the time, haven't we? ' They all caught on real skorry and said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right, lads." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not been out of our sight, you haven't. God bless you, boys,\" drinking.\n\nNot that it mattered much, really. About half an hour went by before there was any sign of life among the millicents, and then it was only two very young rozzes that came in, very pink under their big copper's shlemmies. One said:\n\n\"You lot know anything about the happenings at Slouse's shop this night? '\n\n\"Us?\" I said, innocent. \"Why, what happened?\"\n\n\"Stealing and roughing. Two hospitalizations. Where've you lot been this evening? '\n\n\"I don't go for that nasty tone, \"I said.\"I don't care much for these nasty insinuations. Avery suspicious nature all this betokeneth, my little brothers.\"\n\n\"They've been inhere all night, lads, \"the old sharps started to creech out.\"God bless them, there's no better lot of boys living for kindness and generosity. Been here all the time they have. Not seen them move we haven't. '\n\n\"We're only asking, \"said the other young millicent.\"We've got our job to do like anyone else.\" But they gave us the nasty warning look before they went out. As they were going out we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, myself, I couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as they were those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything as easy as kiss-my-sharries. Still, the night was still very young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied, by the main bar's long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa or drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp blerp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. One veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real starry like this one was. He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal and mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing. The song went:\n\nAnd I will go back to my darling, my darling,\n\nWhen you, my darling, are gone.\n\nBut when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's rot he shut up singing and started to creech:\"Go on, dome in, you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one.\" I told Dim to layoff a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the world. I said: \"Oh. And what's stinking about it? '\n\nHe cried out: \"It's a stinking world because it lets the young get onto the old like you done, and there's no law nor order no more.\" He was creeching out loud and waving his rookers and making real horrorshow with the slovos, only the odd blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like something was orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck kept sort of threatening it with his fists, shouting: \"It's no world for any old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one bit scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be dead.\" We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he said: \"What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a lamp, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law nor order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy cowardly hooligans. \"Then he gave us some lip-music-\"Prrrrzzzzrrrr\"-like we'd done to those young millicents, and then he started singing again:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Odear dear land, I fought for thee\n\nAnd brought thee peace and victory-\n\nSo we cracked into him lovely, grinning allover our litsos, but he still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy and a bucketload of beer-vomit came whooshing out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot, one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way.\n\nIt was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we came across Billyboy and his five droogs. Now in those days, my brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or fives, these being like auto-teams, four being a comfy number for an auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in these like small numbers. Billyboy was something that made me want to sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso, and he always had this von of very stale oil that's been used for frying over and over, even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now. They viddied us just as we viddied them, and there was like a very quiet kind of watching each other now. This would be real, this would be proper, this would be the nozh, the oozy, the britva, not just fisties and boots. Billyboy and his droogs stopped what they were doing, which was just getting ready to perform something on a weepy young devotchka they had there, not more than ten, she creeching away but with her platties still on, Billyboy holding her by one rooker and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd probably just been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-coming they let goof this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there being plenty more where she came from, and she ran with her thin white legs flashing through the dark, still going \"Oh oh oh\". I said, smiling very wide and droogie: \"Well, if it isn't fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou. ' And then we started." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were four of us to six of them, like I have already indicated, but poor old Dim, for all his dimness, was worth three of the others in sheer madness and dirty fighting. Dim had areal horrorshow length of oozy or chain round his waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began to swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and Georgie had good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrorshow cut-throat britva which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic. So there we were dratsing away in the dark, the old Luna with men on it just coming up, the stars stabbing away as it might be knives anxious to join in the dratsing. With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one of Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even touching the plott under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this droog of Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles showing, and then he got very very razdraz, waving and screaming and losing his guard and letting in old Dim with his chain snaking whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim chained him right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling his heart out. We were doing very horrorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one down underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver he was out and out and out.\n\nOf the four of us Dim, as usual, came out the worst in point of looks, that is to say his litso was all bloodied and his platties a dirty mess, but the others of us were still cool and whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now, and there I was dancing about with my britva like I might be a barber onboard a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at him with a few fair slashes on his unclean oily litso. Billyboy had a nozh, along flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy in his movements to vred anyone really bad. And, my brothers, it was real satisfaction tome to waltz-left two three, right two three-and carve left cheeky and right cheeky, so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out at the same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the winter starlight. Down this blood poured in like red curtains, but you could viddy Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went lumbering on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me with his nozh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were coming with pooshkas pushing out of the police-auto-windows at the ready." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That little weepy devotchka had told them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the rozzes not too far behind the Muni Power Plant. \"Get you soon, fear not,\" I called, \"stinking billygoat. I'll have your yarbles off lovely. \"Then off they ran, slow and panting, except for Number One Leo out snoring on the ground, away north towards the river, and we went the other way. Just round the next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open at both ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, then breathing like normal. It was like resting between the feet of two terrific and very enormous mountains, these being the flat-blocks, and in the windows of all of the flats you could viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was what they called a worldcast, meaning that the same programme was being viddied by everybody in the world that wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged middle-class lewdies. There would be some big famous stupid comic chelloveck or black singer, and it was all being bounced off the special telly satellites in outer space, my brothers. We waited panting, and we could slooshy the sirening millicents going east, so we knew we were all right now. But poor old Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the Luna with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such thing before, and he said:\n\n\"What's on them, I wonder. What would be up thereon things like that? '\n\nI nudged him hard, saying: \"Come, gloopy bastard as thou art. Think thou not on them. There'll be lifelike down here most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the knifing. And now, with the nochy still molodoy, let us be on our way, O my brothers. \"The others smecked at this, but poor old Dim looked at me serious, then up again at the stars and the Luna. So we went on our way down the alley, with the worldcast blueing on on either side. What we needed now was an auto, so we turned left coming out of the alley, knowing right away we were in Priestley Place as soon as we viddied the big bronze statue of some starry poet with an apey upper lip and a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot. Going north we came to the filthy old Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to bits through nobody going there much except malchicks like me and my droogs, and then only fora yell or a razrez or a bit of in-out-in-out in the dark. We could viddy from the poster on the Filmdrome's face, a couple of fly-dirted spots trained on it, that there was the usual cowboy riot, with the archangels on the side of the US marshal six-shooting at the rustlers out of hell's fighting legions, the kind of hound-and-horny veshch putout by Statefilm in those days. The autos parked by the sinny weren't all that horrorshow, crappy starry veshches most of them, but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought might do. Georgie had one of these polyclefs, as they called them, on his keyring, so we were soon aboard-Dim and Pete at the back, puffing away lordly at their cancers-and I turned on the ignition and started her up and she grumbled away real horrorshow, a nice warm vibraty feeling grumbling all through your guttiwuts. Then I made with the noga, and we backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us takeoff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We fillied round what was called the backtown fora bit, scaring old vecks and cheenas that were crossing the roads and zigzagging after cats and that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then we took the road west. There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept pushing the old noga through the floorboards near, and the Durango 95 ate up the road like spaghetti. Soon it was winter trees and dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and atone place Iran over something big with a snarling toothy rot in the headlamps, then it screamed and squelched under and old Dim at the back near laughed his gulliver off-\"Ho ho ho\"-at that. Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them both with a couple of half-hearted tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went. What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was areal kick and good for smecks and lashings of the ultra-violent. We came at last to a sort of a village, and just outside this village was a small sort of a cottage on its own with a bit of a garden. The Luna was well up now, and we could viddy this cottage fine and clear as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three giggling like bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the gate of this cottage veshch was HOME, a gloopy sort of a name. I got out of the auto, ordering my droogs to shush their giggles and act like serious, and I opened this malenky gate and walked up to the front door. I knocked nice and gentle and nobody came, so I knocked a bit more and this time I could slooshy somebody coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door inched open an inch or so, then I could viddy this one glaz looking out at me and the door was on a chain.\"Yes? Who is it? \"It was a sharp's goloss, a youngish devotchka by her sound, so I said in a very refined manner of speech, areal gentleman's goloss:\n\n\"Pardon, madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my friend and me were out fora walk, and my friend has taken bad all of a sudden with a very troublesome turn, and he is out thereon the road dead out and groaning. Would you have the goodness to let me use your telephone to telephone for an ambulance?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We haven't a telephone, \"said this devotchka.\"I'm sorry, but we haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else.\" From inside this malenky cottage I could slooshy the clack clack clacky clack clack clackity clackclack of some veck typing away, and then the typing stopped and there was this chelloveck's goloss calling:\"What is it, dear? '\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"could you of your goodness please let him have a cup of water? It's like a faint, you see. It seems as though he's passed out in a sort of a fainting fit.\"\n\nThe devotchka sort of hesitated and then said: \"Wait.\" Then she went off, and my three droogs had got out of the auto quiet and crept up horrorshow stealthy, putting their maskies on now, then I put mine on, then it was only a matter of me putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain, me having softened up this devotchka with my gent's goloss, so that she hadn't shut the door like she should have done, us being strangers of the night. The four of us then went roaring in, old Dim playing the shoot as usual with his jumping up and down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was a nice malenky cottage, I'll say that. We all went smecking into the room with alight on, and there was this devotchka sort of cowering, a young pretty bit of sharp with real horrorshow groodies on her, and with her was this chelloveck who washer moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed otchkies on him, and on a table was a typewriter and all papers scattered everywhere, but there was one little pile of paper like that must have been what he'd already typed, so here was another intelligent type bookman type like that we'd fillied with some hours back, but this one was a writer not a reader. Anyway, he said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is this? Who are you? How dare you enter my house without permission.\" And all the time his goloss was trembling and his rookers too. So I said:\n\n\"Never fear. If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brother, pray banish it forthwith.\" Then Georgie and Pete went out to find the kitchen, while old Dim waited for orders, standing next tome with his rot wide open. \"What is this, then?\" I said, picking up the pile like of typing from off of the table, and the horn-rimmed moodge said, dithering:\n\n\"That's just what I want to know. What is this? What do you want? Get out at once before I throw you out. ' So poor old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had a good loud smeck at that, roaring like some animal.\n\n\"It's a book, \"I said.\"It's a book what you are writing.\" I made the old goloss very coarse. \"I have always had the strongest admiration for them as can write books.\" Then I looked at its top sheet, and there was the name-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE-and I said: \"That's a fair gloopy title. Whoever heard of a clockwork orange? \"Then I read a malenky bit out loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss:\"-The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my swordpen-\"Dim made the old lip-music at that and I had to smeck myself. Then I started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer moodge went sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies clenched and showing yellow and his nails ready for me like claws. So that was old Dim's cue and he went grinning and going er er and a a a for this veck's dithering rot, crack crack, first left fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red-red vino on tap and the same in all places, like it's putout by the same big firm-started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of his book that I was still ripping away at, razrez razrez. All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful wife, just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then she started letting out little malenky creeches, like in time to the like music of old Dim's fisty work. Then Georgie and Pete came in from the kitchen, both munching away, though with their maskies on, you could do that with them on and no trouble, Georgie with like a cold leg of something in one rooker and half a loaf of kleb with a big dollop of maslo on it in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer frothing its gulliver off and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum cake. They went haw haw haw, viddying old Dim dancing round and fisting the writer veck so that the writer veck started to platch like his life's work was ruined, going boohoo hoo with a very square bloody rot, but it was haw haw haw in a muffled eater's way and you could see bits of what they were eating. I didn't like that, it being dirty and slobbery, so I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Drop that mounch. I gave no permission. Grab hold of this veck here so he can viddy all and not getaway.\" So they put down their fatty pishcha on the table among all the flying paper and they clopped over to the writer veck whose horn-rimmed otchkies were cracked but still hanging on, with old Dim still dancing round and making ornaments shake on the mantelpiece (I swept them all off then and they couldn't shake no more, little brothers) while he fillied with the author of A Clockwork Orange, making his litso all purple and dripping away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit.\"All right, Dim, \"I said.\"Now for the other veshch, Bog help us all. \"So he did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still creech creech creeching away in very horrorshow four-in-a-bar, locking her rookers from the back, while I ripped away at this and that and the other, the others going haw haw haw still, and real good horrorshow groodies they were that then exhibited their pink glazzies, O my brothers, while I untrussed and got ready for the plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgie and Pete held onto nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the filthiest of slovos that I already knew and others he was making up. Then after me it was right old Dim should have his turn, which he did in a beasty snorty howly sort of away with his Peebee Shelley maskie taking no notice, while I held onto her. Then there was a changeover, Dim and me grabbing the slobbering writer veck who was past struggling really, only just coming outwith slack sort of slovos like he was in the land in a milkplus bar, and Pete and Georgie had theirs. Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed-typewriter, lamp, chairs-and Dim, it was typical of old Dim, watered the fire out and was going to dung on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said no.\"Out out out out, \"I howled. The writer veck and and his zheena were not really there, bloody and torn and making noises. But they'd live.\n\nSo we got into the waiting auto and I left it to Georgie to take the wheel, me feeling that malenky bit shagged, and we went back to town, running over odd squealing things on the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We yeckated back townwards, my brothers, but just outside, not far from what they called the Industrial Canal, we viddied the fuel needle had like collapsed, like our own ha ha ha needles had, and the auto was coughing kashl kashl kashl. Not to worry overmuch, though, because a rail station kept flashing blue-on off on off-just near. The point was whether to leave the auto to be sobiratted by the rozzes or, us feeling like in a hate and murder mood, to give it a fair tolchock into the starry waters fora nice heavy loud plesk before the death of the evening. This latter we decided on, so we got out and, the brakes off, all four tolchocked it to the edge of the filthy water that was like treacle mixed with human hole products, then one good horror show tolchock and in she went. We had to dash back for fear of the filth splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh and glolp she went, down and lovely. \"Farewell, old droog,\" called Georgie, and Dim obliged with a clowny great guff-\"Huh huh huh huh.\" Then we made for the station to ride the one stop to Center, as the middle of the town was called. We paid our fares nice and polite and waited gentlemanly and quiet on the platform, old Dim fillying with the slot machines, his carmans being full of small malenky coin, and ready if need be to distribute chocbars to the poor and starving, though there was nonesuch about, and then the old espresso rapido came lumbering in and we climbed aboard, the train looking to be near empty. To pass the three-minute ride we fillied about with what they called the upholstery, doing some nice horrorshow tearing-out of the seats' guts and old Dim chaining the okno till the glass cracked and sparkled in the winter air, but we were all feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure, my brothers, only Dim, like the clowny animal he was, full of the joys-of, but looking all dirtied over and too much von of sweat on him, which was one thing I had against old Dim.\n\nWe got out at Center and walked slow back to the Korova Milkbar, all going yawwwww a malenky bit and exhibiting to moon and star and lamplight our back fillings, because we were still only growing malchicks and had school in the daytime, and when we got into the Korova we found it fuller than when we'd left earlier on. But the chelloveck that had been burbling away, in the land, on white and synthemesc or whatever, was still on at it, going:\"Urchins of deadcast in the way-ho-hay glill platonic time weatherborn. \"It was probable that this was his third or fourth lot that evening, for he had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a thing, and like his litso was really apiece of chalk carved. Really, if he wanted to spend so long in the land, he should have gone into one of the private cubies at the back and not stayed in the big mesto, because here some of the malchickies would filly about with him a malenky bit, though not too much because there were powerful bruiseboys hidden away in the old Korova who could stop any riot. Anyway, Dim squeezed in next to this veck and, with his big clown's yawp that showed his hanging grape, he stabbed this veck's foot with his own large filthy sabog. But the veck, my brothers, heard nought, being now all above the body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was nadsats mostly milking and coking and fillying around (nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but there were a few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting at the bar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You could tell from their barberings and loose platties (big stringy sweaters mostly) that they'd been on rehearsal at the TV studios round the corner. The devotchkas among them had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, showing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about the wicked world one whit. And then the disc on the stereo twanged off and out (it was Jonny Zhivago, a Russky koshka, singing'Only Every Other Day\"), and in the like interval, the short silence before the next one came on, one of these devotchkas-very fair and with a big smiling red rot and in her late thirties I'd say-suddenly came with a burst of singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was like giving an example of something they'd all been govoreeting about, and it was like fora moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar, and I felt all the little malenky hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was from an opera by Friedrich Gitterfenster called Das Bettzeug, and it was the bit where she's snuffing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are \"Better like this maybe\". Anyway, I shivered.\n\nBut old Dim, as soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of song like a lomtick of redhot meat plonked on your plate, let off one of his vulgarities, which in this case was a lip-trump followed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers pronging twice at the air followed by a clowny guffaw. I felt myself all of a fever and like drowning in redhot blood, slooshying and viddying Dim's vulgarity, and I said: \"Bastard. Filthy drooling mannerless bastard.\" Then I leaned across Georgie, who was between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry on the rot. Dim looked very surprised, his rot open, wiping the krovvy off of his goober with his rook and in turn looking surprised at the red flowing krovvy and at me. \"What for did you do that for?\" he said in his ignorant way. Not many viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared not. The stereo was on again and was playing a very sick electronic guitar veshch. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For being a bastard with no manners and not the dook of an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my brother.\"\n\nDim put on a hound-and-horny look of evil, saying: \"I don't like you should do what you done then. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be. \"He'd taken a big snotty tashtook from his pocket and was mopping the red flow puzzled, keeping onlooking at it frowning as if he thought that blood was for other vecks and not for him. It was like he was singing blood to makeup for his vulgarity when that devotchka was singing music. But that devotchka was smecking away ha ha ha now with her droogs at the bar, her red rot working and her zoobies ashine, not having noticed Dim's filthy vulgarity. It was me really Dim had done wrong to. I said:\n\n\"If you don't like this and you wouldn't want that, then you know what to do, little brother.\" Georgie said, in a sharp way that made me look:\n\n\"All right. Let's not be starting. '\n\n\"That's cleanup to Dim, \"I said.\"Dim can't goon all his jeezny being as a little child.\" And I looked sharp at Georgie. Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow now:\n\n\"What natural right does he have to think he can give the orders and tolchock me whenever he likes? Yarbles is what I say to him, and I'd chain his glazzies out soon as look. '\n\n\"Watch that,\" I said, as quiet as I could with the stereo bouncing allover the walls and ceiling and the in-the-land veck beyond Dim getting loud now with his \"Spark nearer, ultoptimate\". I said: \"Do watch that, O Dim, if to continue to be on live thou dost wish.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yarbles,\" said Dim, sneering, \"great bolshy yarblockos to you. What you done then you had no right. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva anytime, not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless, it stands to reason I won't have it.\"\n\n\"A nozh scrap anytime you say,\" I snarled back. Pete said:\n\n\"Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks. Droogs, aren't we? It isn't right droogs should behave thiswise. See, there are some loose-lipped malchicks over there smecking at us, leering like. We mustn't let ourselves down.\"\n\n\"Dim,\" I said, \"has got to learn his place. Right?\"\n\n\"Wait,\" said Georgie. \"What's all this about place? This is the first I ever hear about lewdies learning their place. '\n\nPete said: \"If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have given old Dim that uncalled-for tolchock. I'll say it once and no more. I say it with all respect, but if it had been me you'd given it to you'd have to answer. I say no more.\" And he drowned his litso in his milk-glass.\n\nI could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I tried to cover it, saying calm: \"There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be. Right?\" None of them skazatted a word or nodded even. I got more razdraz inside, calmer out. \"I,\" I said, \"have been in charge long now. We are all droogs, but somebody has to be in charge. Right? Right?\" They all like nodded, wary like. Dim was osooshing the last of the krovvy off. It was Dim who said now:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right, right. Doobidoob. A bit tired, maybe, everybody is. Best not to say more.\" I was surprised and just that malenky bit poogly to sloosh Dim govoreeting that wise. Dim said: \"Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways. Right?\" I was very surprised. The other two nodded, going right right right. I said:\n\n\"You understand about that tolchock on the rot, Dim. It was the music, see. I get all bezoomny when any veck interferes with a ptitsa singing, as it might be. Like that then.\"\n\n\"Best we go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka,\" said Dim. \"A long night for growing malchicks. Right?\" Right right nodded the other two. I said:\n\n\"I think it best we go home now. Dim has made areal horrorshow suggestion. If we don't meet daywise, O my brothers, well then-same time same place tomorrow? '\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Georgie. \"I think that can be arranged.\"\n\n\"I might,\" said Dim, \"be just that malenky bit late. But same place and near same time tomorrow surely.\" He was still wiping away at his goober, though no krovvy flowed any longer now. \"And,\" he said, \"it's to be hoped there won't be no more of them singing ptitsas inhere.\" Then he gave his old Dim guff, a clowny big hohohohoho. It seemed like he was too dim to take much offence.\n\nSo off we went our several ways, me belching arrrrgh on the cold coke I'd peeted. I had my cut-throat britva handy in case any of Billyboy's droogs should be around near the flatblock waiting, or for that matter any of the other bandas or gruppas or shaikas that from time to time were at war with one. Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of Municipal Flatblock 18a, between Kingsley Avenue and Wilsonsway. I got to the big main door with no trouble, though I did pass one young malchick sprawling and creeching and moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures, my brothers, of the night's fillying. And too I saw just by 18a a pair of devotchka's neezhnies doubtless rudely wrenched off in the heat of the moment, O my brothers. And so in. In the hallway was the good old municipal painting on the walls-vecks and ptitsas very well developed, stern in the dignity of labour, at workbench and machine with not one stitch of platties on their well-developed plotts. But of course some of the malchicks living in 18a had, as was to be expected, embellished and decorated the said big painting with handy pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods and dirty ballooning slovos out of the dignified rots of these nagoy (bare, that is) cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but there was no need to press the electric knopka to see if it was working or not, because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow this night, the metal doors all buckled, some feat of rare strength indeed, so I had to walk the ten floors up. I cursed and panted climbing, being tired in plott if not so much in brain. I wanted music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka in the Korova having perhaps started me off. I wanted like a big feast of it before getting my passport stamped, my brothers, at sleep's frontier and the stripy shest lifted to let me through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch, and inside our malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee and em both being in sleepland, and mum had laid out on the table my malenky bit of supper-a couple of lomticks of tinned spongemeat with a shive or so of kleb and butter, a glass of the old cold moloko. Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives or synthemesc or drencrom in it. How wicked, my brothers, innocent milk must always seem tome now. Still, I drank and ate growling, being more hungry than I thought at first, and I got fruit-pie from the larder and tore chunks off it to stuff into my greedy rot. Then I tooth-cleaned and clicked, cleaning out the old rot with my yahzick or tongue, then I went into my own little room or den, easing off my platties as I did so. Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of my jeezny, and my discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the wall, these being like remembrances of my corrective school life since I was eleven, O my brothers, each one shining and blazoned with name or number: SOUTH 4; METRO CORSKOL BLUE DIVISION; THE BOYS OF ALPHA.\n\nThe little speakers of my stereo were all arranged round the room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying the music, I was like netted and meshed in the orchestra. Now what I fancied first tonight was this new violin concerto by the American Geoffrey Plautus, played by Odysseus Choerilos with the Macon (Georgia) Philharmonic, so I slid it from where it was neatly filed and switched on and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets threewise silverflamed, and thereby the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers. Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to knock on the wall with complaints of what they called noise. I had taught them. Now they would take sleep-pills. Perhaps, knowing the joy I had in my night music, they had already taken them. As I slooshied, my glazzies tight shut to shut in the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog or God, I knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks and ptitsas, both young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was smecking allover my rot and grinding my boot in their litsos. And there were devotchkas ripped and creeching against walls and I plunging like a shlaga into them, and indeed when the music, which was one movement only, rose to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying thereon my bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it. And so the lovely music glided to its glowing close.\n\nAfter that I had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there were new pictures of different litsos to be ground and splashed, and it was after this that I thought I would have just one last disc only before crossing the border, and I wanted something starry and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I had, the Brandenburg Concerto just for middle and lower strings. And, slooshying with different bliss than before, I viddied again this name on the paper I'd razrezzed that night, along time ago it seemed, in that cottage called HOME. The name was about a clockwork orange. Listening to the J. S. Bach, I began to pony better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German master, that I would like to have tolchocked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons on their own floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school. I thought how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an hour or two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even having a splosh about in the bath, and then brew a pot of real strong horrorshow chai and make toast for myself and slooshy the radio or read the gazetta, all on my oddy knocky. And then in the afterlunch I might perhaps, if I still felt like it, itty off to the old skolliwoll and see what was vareeting in that great seat of gloopy useless learning, O my brothers. I heard my papapa grumbling and trampling and then ittying off to the dyeworks where he rabbited, and then my mum called in in a very respectful goloss as she did now I was growing up big and strong:\n\n\"It's gone eight, son. You don't want to be late again.\"\n\nSo I called back: \"A bit of a pain in my gulliver. Leave us be and I'll try to sleep it off and then I'll be right as dodgers for this after.\" I slooshied her give a sort of a sigh and she said:\n\n\"I'll put your breakfast in the oven then, son. I've got to be off myself now.\" Which was true, there being this law for everybody not a child nor with child nor ill to go out rabbiting. My mum worked atone of the Statemarts, as they called them, filling up the shelves with tinned soup and beans and all that cal. So I slooshied her clank a plate in the gas-oven like and then she was putting her shoes on and then getting her coat from behind the door and then sighing again, then she said: \"I'm off now, son. \"But I let onto be back in sleepland and then I did doze off real horrorshow, and I had a queer and very real like sneety, dreaming for some reason of my droog Georgie. In this sneety he'd got like very much older and very sharp and hard and was govoreeting about discipline and obedience and how all the malchicks under his control had to jump hard at it and throw up the old salute like being in the army, and there was me inline like the rest saying yes sir and no sir, and then I viddied clear that Georgie had these stars on his pletchoes and he was like a general. And then he brought in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was a lot more starry and grey and had a few zoobies missing as you could see when he let out a smeck, viddying me, and then my droog Georgie said, pointing like at me: \"That man has filth and cal allover his platties,\" and it was true. Then I creeched: \"Don't hit, please don't, brothers,\" and started to run. And I was running in like circles and Dim was after me, smecking his gulliver off, cracking with the old whip, and each time I got areal horrorshow tolchock with this whip there was like a very loud electric bell ringringringing, and this bell was like a sort of a pain too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I woke up real skorry, my heart going bap bap bap, and of course there was really a bell going brrrrr, and it was our front-doorbell. I let on that nobody was at home, but this brrrrr still ittied on, and then I heard a goloss shouting through the door: \"Come on then, get out of it, I know you're in bed. \"I recognized the goloss right away. It was the goloss of P. R. Deltoid (areal gloopy nazz, that one) what they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an overworked veck with hundreds on his books. I shouted right right right, in a goloss of like pain, and I got out of bed and attired myself, O my brothers, in a very lovely over-gown of like silk, with designs of like great cities allover this over-gown. Then I put my nogas into very comfy woolly toofles, combed my luscious glory, and was ready for P. R. Deltoid. When I opened up he came shambling in looking shagged, a battered old shlapa on his gulliver, his raincoat filthy.\"Ah, Alex boy, \"he said tome.\"I met your mother, yes. She said something about a pain somewhere. Hence not at school, yes. '\n\n\"A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother, sir,\" I said in my gentleman's goloss.\"I think it should clear by this afternoon. '\n\n\"Or certainly by this evening, yes,\" said P. R. Deltoid. \"The evening is the great time, isn't it, Alex boy? Sit, \"he said,\"sit, sit, \"as though this was his domy and me his guest. And he satin this starry rocking-chair of my dad's and began rocking, as if that was all he'd come for. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A cup of the old chai, sir? Tea, I mean.\"\n\n\"No time,\" he said. And he rocked, giving me the old glint under frowning brows, as if with all the time in the world. \"No time, yes,\" he said, gloopy. So I put the kettle on. Then I said:\n\n\"To what do I owe the extreme pleasure? Is anything wrong, sir?\"\n\n\"Wrong?\" he said, very skorry and sly, sort of hunched looking at me but still rocking away. Then he caught sight of an advert in the gazetta, which was on the table-a lovely smecking young ptitsa with her groodies hanging out to advertise, my brothers, the Glories of the Jugoslav Beaches. Then, after sort of eating her up in two swallows, he said: \"Why should you think in terms of there being anything wrong? Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes? '\n\n\"Just a manner of speech,\" I said, \"sir.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said P. R. Deltoid, \"it's just a manner of speech from me to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time, as you very well know, it's not going to be the corrective school anymore. Next time it's going to be the barry place and all my work ruined. If you have no consideration for your horrible self you at least might have some for me, who have sweated over you. A big black mark, I tell you in confidence, for everyone we don't reclaim, a confession of failure for everyone of you that ends up in the stripy hole.\"\n\n\"I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir,\" I said. \"The millicents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A cup of the old chai, sir? Tea, I mean.\"\n\n\"No time,\" he said. And he rocked, giving me the old glint under frowning brows, as if with all the time in the world. \"No time, yes,\" he said, gloopy. So I put the kettle on. Then I said:\n\n\"To what do I owe the extreme pleasure? Is anything wrong, sir?\"\n\n\"Wrong?\" he said, very skorry and sly, sort of hunched looking at me but still rocking away. Then he caught sight of an advert in the gazetta, which was on the table-a lovely smecking young ptitsa with her groodies hanging out to advertise, my brothers, the Glories of the Jugoslav Beaches. Then, after sort of eating her up in two swallows, he said: \"Why should you think in terms of there being anything wrong? Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes? '\n\n\"Just a manner of speech,\" I said, \"sir.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said P. R. Deltoid, \"it's just a manner of speech from me to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time, as you very well know, it's not going to be the corrective school anymore. Next time it's going to be the barry place and all my work ruined. If you have no consideration for your horrible self you at least might have some for me, who have sweated over you. A big black mark, I tell you in confidence, for everyone we don't reclaim, a confession of failure for everyone of you that ends up in the stripy hole.\"\n\n\"I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir,\" I said. \"The millicents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cut out this clever talk about millicents,\" said P. R. Deltoid very weary, but still rocking. \"Just because the police have not picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a bit of a fight last night, wasn't there? There was a bit of shuffling with nozhes and bike-chains and the like. One of a certain fat boy's friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power Plant and hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes. Your name was mentioned. The word has got through tome by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. There seems to have been a fair amount of assorted nastiness last night. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as usual. But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself. '\n\n\"I appreciate all that, sir,\" I said, \"very sincerely.\"\n\n\"Yes, you do, don't you? \"he sort of sneered.\"Just watch it, that's all, yes. We know more than you think, little Alex.\" Then he said, in a goloss of great suffering, but still rocking away: \"What gets into you all? We study the problem and we've been studying it for damn well near a century, yes, but we get no farther with our studies. You've got a good home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside you? '\n\n\"Nobody's got anything on me, sir, \"I said.\"I've been out of the rookers of the millicents fora longtime now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's just what worries me, \"sighed P. R. Deltoid.\"A bit too long of a time to be healthy. You're about due now by my reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt, yes. Do I make myself clear?\"\n\n\"As an unmuddied lake, sir,\" I said. \"Clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.\" And I gave him a nice zooby smile.\n\nBut when he'd ookadeeted and I was making this very strong pot of chai, I grinned to myself over this veshch that P. R. Deltoid and his droogs worried about. All right, I do bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and carves with the britva and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted, well, too bad for me, O my little brothers, and you can't run a country with every chelloveck comporting himself in my manner of the night. So if I get loveted and it's three months in this mesto and another six in that, and then, as P. R. Deltoid so kindly warns, next time, in spite of the great tenderness of my summers, brothers, it's the great unearthly zoo itself, well, I say: \"Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot bear to be shut in. My endeavour shall be, in such future as stretches out its snowy and lilywhite arms tome before the nozh overtakes or the blood spatters its final chorus in twisted metal and smashed glass on the highroad, to not get loveted again.\" Which is fair speeching. But, brothers, this biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So now, this smiling winter morning, I drink this very strong chai with moloko and spoon after spoon after spoon of sugar, me having a sladky tooth, and I dragged out of the oven the breakfast my poor old mum had cooked for me. It was an egg fried, that and no more, but I made toast and ate egg and toast and jam, smacking away at it while I read the gazetta. The gazetta was the usual about ultra-violence and bank robberies and strikes and footballers making everybody paralytic with fright by threatening to not play next Saturday if they did not get higher wages, naughty malchickiwicks as they were. Also there were more space-trips and bigger stereo TV screens and offers of free packets of soapflakes in exchange for the labels on soup-tins, amazing offer for one week only, which made me smeck. And there was a bolshy big article on Modern Youth (meaning me, so I gave the old bow, grinning like bezoomny) by some very clever bald chelloveck. I read this with care, my brothers, slurping away at the old chai, cup after tass after chasha, crunching my lomticks of black toast dipped in jammiwam and eggiweg. This learned veck said the usual veshches, about no parental discipline, as he called it, and the shortage of real horrorshow teachers who would lambast bloody beggary out of their innocent poops and make them go boohoohoo for mercy. All this was gloopy and made me smeck, but it was like nice to goon knowing one was making the news all the time, O my brothers. Everyday there was something about Modern Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old gazetta was by some starry pop in a doggy collar who said that in his considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man of Bog IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh, and it was the adult world that could take the responsibility for this with their wars and bombs and nonsense. So that was all right. So he knew what he talked of, being a Godman. So we young innocent malchicks could take no blame. Right right right.\n\nWhen I'd gone erk erk a couple of razzes on my full innocent stomach, I started to get out day platties from my wardrobe, turning the radio on. There was music playing, a very nice malenky string quartet, my brothers, by Claudius Birdman, one that I knew well. I had to have a smeck, though, thinking of what I'd viddied once in one of these like articles on Modern Youth, about how Modern Youth would be better off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could be like encouraged. Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles. Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers, and made me like feel like old Bog himself, ready to make with the old donner and blitzen and have vecks and ptitsas creeching away in my ha ha power. And when I'd cheested up my litso and rookers a bit and done dressing (my day platties were like student-wear: the old blue pantalonies with sweater with A for Alex) I thought here at least was time to itty off to the disc-bootick (and cutter too, my pockets being full of pretty polly) to see about this long-promised and long-ordered stereo Beethoven Number Nine (the Choral Symphony, that is), recorded on Masterstroke by the Esh Sham Sinfonia under L. Muhaiwir. So out I went, brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The day was very different from the night. The night belonged tome and my droogs and all the rest of the nadsats, and the starry bourgeois lurked indoors drinking in the gloopy worldcasts, but the day was for the starry ones, and there always seemed to be more rozzes or millicents about during the day, too. I got the autobus from the corner and rode to Center, and then I walked back to Taylor Place, and there was the disc-bootick I favoured with my inestimable custom, O my brothers. It had the gloopy name of MELODIA, but it was areal horrorshow mesto and skorry, most times, at getting the new recordings. I walked in and the only other customers were two young ptitsas sucking away at ice-sticks (and this, mark, was dead cold winter) and sort of shuffling through the new popdiscs-Johnny Burnaway, Stash Kroh, The Mixers, Lay Quiet Awhile With Ed And Id Molotov, and all the rest of that cal. These two ptitsas couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like me, it seemed, evidently, had decided to take a morning off from the old skolliwoll. They saw themselves, you could see, as real grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hipswing when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and padded groodies and red all ploshed on their goobers. I went up to the counter, making with the polite zooby smile at old Andy behind it (always polite himself, always helpful, areal horrorshow type of a veck, though bald and very very thin). He said:\n\n\"Aha, I know what you want, I think. Good news, good news. It has arrived.\" And with like big conductor's rookers beating time he went to get it. The two young ptitsas started giggling, as they will at that age, and I gave them alike cold glazzy. Andy was back real skorry, waving the great shiny white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the frowning beetled like thunderbottled litso of Ludwig van himself.\"Here, \"said Andy.\"Shall we give it the trial spin? ' But I wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy on my oddy knocky, greedy as hell. I fumbled out the deng to pay and one of the little ptitsas said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who you getten, bratty?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What biggy, what only?\" These young devotchkas had their own like way of govoreeting. \"The Heaven Seventeen? Luke Sterne? Goggly Gogol?\" And both giggled, rocking and hippy. Then an idea hit me and made me near fall over with the anguish and ecstasy of it, O my brothers, so I could not breathe for near ten seconds. I recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies and said:\n\n\"What you got back home, little sisters, to play your fuzzy warbles on?\" Because I could viddy the discs they were buying were these teeny pop veshches. \"I bet you got little save tiny portable like picnic spinners.\" And they sort of pushed their lower lips out at that. \"Come with uncle,\" I said, \"and hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.\" And I like bowed. They giggled again and one said:\n\n\"Oh, but we're so hungry. Oh, but we could so eat. \"The other said:\"Yah, she can say that, can't she just.\" So I said:\n\n\"Eat with uncle. Name your place.\"\n\nThen they viddied themselves as real sophistoes, which was like pathetic, and started talking in big-lady golosses about the Ritz and the Bristol and the Hilton and Il Ristorante Granturco. But I stopped that with \"Follow uncle\", and I led them to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let them fill their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till I near sicked with the sight of it, I, brothers, lunching but frugally off a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop of chilli. These two young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters. They had the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair-alike dyed strawy. Well, they would grow up real today. Today I would make a day of it. No school this afterlunch, but education certain, Alex as teacher. Their names, they said, were Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny enough and in the heighth of their childish fashion, so I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Righty right, Marty and Sonietta." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Time for the big spin. Come.\" When we were outside on the cold street they thought they would not go by autobus, oh no, but by taxi, so I gave them the humour, though with areal horrorshow in-grin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center. The driver, a starry whiskery veck in very stained platties, said:\n\n\"No tearing up, now. No nonsense with them seats. Just re-upholstered they are.\" I quieted his gloopy fears and off we spun to Municipal Flatblock 18a, these two bold little ptitsas giggling and whispering. So, to cut all short, we arrived, O my brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they panted and smecked away the way up, and then they were thirsty, they said, so I unlocked the treasure-chest in my room and gave these ten-year-young devotchkas areal horrorshow Scotchman apiece, though well filled with sneezy pins-and-needles soda. They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg-swung, smecking and peeting their highballs, while I spun their like pathetic malenky discs through my stereo. Like peeting some sweet scented kid's drink, that was, in like very beautiful and lovely and costly gold goblets. But they went oh oh oh and said,\"Swoony'and'Hilly'and other weird slovos that were the heighth of fashion in that youth group. While I spun this cal for them I encouraged them to drink and have another, and they were nothing loath, O my brothers. So by the time their pathetic pop-discs had been twice spun each (there were two:\"Honey Nose\", sung by Ike Yard, and'Night After Day After Night\", moaned by two horrible yarbleless like eunuchs whose names I forget) they were getting near the pitch of like young ptitsa's hysterics, what with jumping allover my bed and me in the room with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was actually done that afternoon there is no need to describe, brothers, as you may easily guess all. Those two were unplattied and smecking fit to crack in no time at all, and they thought it the bolshiest fun to viddy old Uncle Alex standing there all nagoy and pan-handled, squirting the hypodermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the old jab of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker. Then I pulled the lovely Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van was now nagoy too, and I set the needle hissing onto the last movement, which was all bliss. There it was then, the bass strings like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest of the orchestra, and then the male human goloss coming in and telling them all to be joyful, and then the lovely blissful tune all about Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven, and then I felt the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on these two young ptitsas. This time they thought nothing fun and stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to submit to the strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large which, what with the Ninth and the hypo jab, were choodessny and zammechat and very demanding, O my brothers. But they were both very very drunken and could hardly feel very much.\n\nWhen the last movement had gone round for the second time with all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy Joy, then these two young ptitsas were not acting the big lady sophisto no more. They were like waking up to what was being done to their malenky persons and saying that they wanted to go home and like I was a wild beast. They looked like they had been in some big bitva, as indeed they had, and were all bruised and pouty. Well, if they would not go to school they must still have their education. And education they had had. They were creeching and going ow ow ow as they put their platties on, and they were like punchipunching me with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty and nagoy and fair shagged and fagged on the bed. This young Sonietta was creeching: \"Beast and hateful animal. Filthy horror.\" So I let them get their things together and get out, which they did, talking about how the rozzes should begot onto me and all that cal. Then they were going down the stairs and I dropped off to sleep, still with the old Joy Joy Joy Joy crashing and howling away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What happened, though, was that I woke up late (near seven-thirty by my watch) and, as it turned out, that was not so clever. You can viddy that everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another. Right right right. My stereo was no longer on about Joy and I Embrace Ye O Ye Millions, so some veck had dealt it the off, and that would be either pee or em, both of them now being quite clear to the slooshying in the living-room and, from the clink clink of plates and slurp slurp of peeting tea from cups, at their tired meal after the day's rabbiting in factory the one, store the other. The poor old. The pitiable starry. I put on my over-gown and looked out, in guise of loving only son, to say:\n\n\"Hi hi hi, there. A lot better after the day's rest. Ready now for evening work to earn that little bit. \"For that's what they said they believed I did these days. \"Yum yum, mum. Any of that for me?\" It was like some frozen pie that she'd unfroze and then warmed up and it looked not so very appetitish, but I had to say what I said. Dad looked at me with a not-so-pleased suspicious like look but said nothing, knowing he dared not, and mum gave me a tired like little smeck, to thee fruit of my womb my only son sort of. I danced to the bathroom and had areal skorry cheest allover, feeling dirty and gluey, then back to my den for the evening's platties. Then, shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my lomtick of pie. Papapa said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not that I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it you go to work of evenings?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I chewed, \"it's mostly odd things, helping like. Here and there, as it might be. \"I gave him a straight dirty glazzy, as to say to mind his own and I'd mind mine. \"I never ask for money, do I? Not money for clothes or for pleasures? All right, then, why ask?\"\n\nMy dad was like humble mumble chumble. \"Sorry, son,\" he said. \"But I get worried sometimes. Sometimes I have dreams. You can laugh if you like, but there's a lot in dreams. Last night I had this dream with you in it and I didn't like it one bit.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" He had gotten me interessovatted now, dreaming of me like that. I had like a feeling I had had a dream, too, but I could not remember proper what. \"Yes?\" I said, stopping chewing my gluey pie.\n\n\"It was vivid,\" said my dad. \"I saw you lying on the street and you had been beaten by other boys. These boys were like the boys you used to go around with before you were sent to that last Corrective School.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" I had an in-grin at that, papapa believing I had real reformed or believing he believed. And then I remembered my own dream, which was a dream of that morning, of Georgie giving his general's orders and old Dim smecking around toothless as he wielded the whip. But dreams go by opposites I was once told.\"Never worry about thine only son and heir, O my father, \"I said.\"Fear not. He canst taketh care of himself, verily. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And,\" said my dad, \"you were like helpless in your blood and you couldn't fightback. ' That was real opposites, so I had another quiet malenky grin within and then I took all the deng out of my carmans and tinkled it on the saucy table-cloth. I said:\n\n\"Here, dad, it's not much. It's what I earned last night. But perhaps for the odd peet of Scotchman in the snug somewhere for you and mum.\"\n\n\"Thanks, son,\" he said. \"But we don't go out much now. We daren't go out much, the streets being what they are. Young hooligans and soon. Still, thanks. I'll bring her home a bottle of something tomorrow. ' And he scooped this ill-gotten pretty into his trouser carmans, mum being at the cheesting of the dishes in the kitchen. And I went outwith loving smiles all round.\n\nWhen I got to the bottom of the stairs of the flatblock I was somewhat surprised. I was more than that. I opened my rot like wide in the old stony gapes. They had come to meet me. They were waiting by the all scrawled-over municipal wall-painting of the nagoy dignity of labour, bare vecks and cheenas stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, with all this dirt pencilled from their rots by naughty malchicks. Dim had a big thick like stick of black greasepaint and was tracing filthy slovos real big over our municipal painting and doing the old Dim guff-wuh huh huh-while he did it. But he turned round when Georgie and Pete gave me the well hello, showing their shining droogy zoobies, and he horned out: \"He are here, he have arrived, hooray,\" and did a clumsy turnitoe bit of dancing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We got worried,\" said Georgie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There we were, awaiting and peeting away at the old knify moloko, and you had not turned up. So then Pete here thought how you might have been like offended by some veshch or other, so round we come to your abode. That's right, Pete, right? '\n\n\"Oh, yes, right,\" said Pete.\n\n\"Appy polly loggies,\" I said, careful. \"I had something of a pain in the gulliver so had to sleep. I was not wakened when I gave orders for wakening. Still, here we all are, ready for what the old nochy offers, yes?\" I seemed to have picked up that yes? from P. R. Deltoid, my Post-Corrective Adviser. Very strange.\n\n\"Sorry about the pain,\" said Georgie, like very concerned. \"Using the gulliver too much like, maybe. Giving orders and discipline and such, perhaps. Sure the pain is gone? Sure you'll not be happier going back to the bed? ' And they all had a bit of a malenky grin.\n\n\"Wait,\" I said. \"Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my little friends. Perhaps you have been having a bit of a quiet govoreet behind my back, making your own little jokes and such-like. As I am your droog and leader, surely I am entitled to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that great big horsy gape of a grin portend? ' For Dim had his rot open in a sort of bezoomny soundless smeck. Georgie got in very skorry with:\n\n\"All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's part of the new way. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"New way?\" I said. \"What's this about anew way? There's been some very large talk behind my sleeping back and no error. Let me slooshy more.\" And I sort of folded my rookers and leaned comfortable to listen against the broken banister-rail, me being still higher than them, droogs as they called themselves, on the third stair.\n\n\"No offence, Alex,\" said Pete, \"but we wanted to have things more democratic like. Not like you like saying what to do and whatnot all the time. But no offence.\" Georgie said:\n\n\"Offence is neither here nor elsewhere. It's a matter of who has ideas. What ideas has he had? \"And he kept his very bold glazzies turned full on me.\"It's all the small stuff, malenky veshches like last night. We're growing up, brothers. '\n\n\"More,\" I said, not moving. \"Let me slooshy more.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Georgie, \"if you must have it, have it then. We itty round, shop-crasting and the like, coming outwith a pitiful rookerful of cutter each. And there's Will the English in the Muscleman coffee mesto saying he can fence anything that any malchick cares to try to crast. The shiny stuff, the ice, \"he said, still with these like cold glazzies on me.\"The big big big money is available is what Will the English says. '\n\n\"So,\" I said, very comfortable out but real razdraz within. \"Since when have you been consorting and comporting with Will the English?\"\n\n\"Now and again,\" said George, \"I get around all on my oddy knocky. Like last Sabbath for instance. I can live my own jeezny, droogie, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't really care for any of this, my brothers.\"And what will you do, \"I said,\"with the big big big deng or money as you so highfaluting call it? Have you not every veshch you need? If you need an auto you pluck it from the trees. If you need pretty polly you take it. Yes? Why this sudden shilarny for being the big bloated capitalist? '\n\n\"Ah,\" said Georgie, \"you think and govoreet sometimes like a little child.\" Dim went huh huh huh at that. \"Tonight,\" said Georgie, \"we pull a mansize crast.\"\n\nSo my dream had told truth, then. Georgie the general saying what we should do and whatnot do, Dim with the whip as mindless grinning bulldog. But I played with care, with great care, the greatest, saying, smiling: \"Good. Real horrorshow. Initiative comes to them as wait. I have taught you much, little droogie. Now tell me what you have in mind, Georgieboy.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Georgie, cunning and crafty in his grin, \"the old moloko-plus first, would you not say? Something to sharpen us up, boy, but you especially, we having the start of you.\"\n\n\"You have govoreeted my thoughts for me,\" I smiled away. \"I was about to suggest the dear old Korova. Good good good. Lead, little Georgie.\" And I made with alike deep bow, smiling like bezoomny but thinking all the time. But when we got into the street I viddied that thinking is for the gloopy ones and that the oomny ones use like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was an auto ittying by and it had its radio on, and I could just slooshy a bar or so of Ludwig van (it was the Violin Concerto, last movement), and I viddied right at once what to do. I said, in like a thick deep goloss: \"Right, Georgie, now,\" and I whished out my cut-throat britva. Georgie said: \"Uh?\" but he was skorry enough with his nozh, the blade coming sloosh out of the handle, and we were onto each other. Old Dim said: \"Oh, no, not right that isn't, \"and made to uncoil the chain round his tally, but Pete said, putting his rooker firm on old Dim:\"Leave them. It's right like that.\" So then Georgie and Your Humble did the old quiet catstalk, looking for openings, knowing each other's style a bit too horrorshow really, Georgie now and then going lurch lurch with his shining nozh but not nowise connecting. And all the time lewdies passed by and viddied all this but minded their own, it being perhaps a common street-sight. But then I counted odin dva tree and went ak ak ak with the britva, though not at litso or glazzies but at Georgie's nozh-holding rooker and, my little brothers, he dropped. He did. He dropped his nozh with a tinkle tankle on the hard winter sidewalk. I had just ticklewickled his fingers with my britva, and there he was looking at the malenky dribble of krovvy that was redding out in the lamplight. \"Now,\" I said, and it was me that was starting, because Pete had given old Dim the soviet not to uncoil the oozy from round his tally and Dim had taken it, \"now, Dim, let's thou and me have all this now, shall us? \"Dim went,\"Aaaaaaarhgh, \"like some bolshy bezoomny animal, and snaked out the chain from his waist real horrorshow and skorry, so you had to admire. Now the right style for me here was to keep low like in frog-dancing to protect litso and glazzies, and this I did, brothers, so that poor old Dim was a malenky bit surprised, him being accustomed to the straight face-on lash lash lash. Now I will say that he whished me horrible on the back so that it stung like bezoomny, but that pain told me to dig in skorry once and for all and be done with old Dim. So I swished with the britva at his left noga in its very tight tight and I slashed two inches of cloth and drew a malenky drop of krovvy to make Dim real bezoomny. Then while he went hauwwww hauwww hauwww like a doggie I tried the same style as for Georgie, banking all on one move-up, cross, cut-and I felt the britva go just deep enough in the meat of old Dim's wrist and he dropped his snaking oozy yelping like a little child. Then he tried to drink in all the blood from his wrist and howl at the same time, and there was too much krovvy to drink and he went bubble bubble bubble, the red like fountaining out lovely, but not for very long. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right, my droogies, now we should know. Yes, Pete?\"\n\n\"I never said anything,\" said Pete. \"I never govoreeted one slovo. Look, old Dim's bleeding to death. '\n\n\"Never,\" I said. \"One can die but once. Dim died before he was born. That red red krovvy will soon stop.\" Because I had not cut into the like main cables. And I myself took a clean tashtook from my carman to wrap round poor old dying Dim's rooker, howling and moaning as he was, and the krovvy stopped like I said it would, O my brothers. So they knew now who was master and leader, sheep, thought I.\n\nIt did not take long to quieten these two wounded soldiers down in the snug of the Duke of New York, what with large brandies (bought with their own cutter, me having given all to my dad) and a wipe with tashtooks dipped in the water-jug. The old ptitsas we'd been so horrorshow to last night were there again, going,\"Thanks, lads'and'God bless you, boys'like they couldn't stop, though we had not repeated the old sammy act with them. But Pete said: \"What's it to be, girls? \"and bought black and suds for them, him seeming to have a fair amount of pretty polly in his carmans, so they were on louder than ever with their'God bless and keep you all, lads'and'We'd never split on you, boys\" and \"The best lads breathing, that's what you are'. At last I said to Georgie:\n\n\"Now we're back to where we were, yes? Just like before and all forgotten, right? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right right right,\" said Georgie. But old Dim still looked a bit dazed and he even said: \"I could have got that big bastard, see, with my oozy, only some veck got in the way,\" as though he'd been dratsing not with me but with some other malchick. I said:\n\n\"Well, Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Georgie, \"not tonight. Not this nochy, please.\"\n\n\"You're a big strong chelloveck, \"I said,\"like us all. We're not little children, are we, Georgieboy? What, then, didst thou in thy mind have?\"\n\n\"I could have chained his glazzies real horrorshow,\" said Dim, and the old baboochkas were still on with their \"Thanks, lads\".\n\n\"It was this house, see,\" said Georgie. \"The one with the two lamps outside. The one with the gloopy name, like.\"\n\n\"What gloopy name?\"\n\n\"The Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of gloop. Where this very starry ptitsa lives with her cats and all these very starry valuable veshches.\"\n\n\"Such as?\"\n\n\"Gold and silver and like jewels. It was Will the English who like said.\"\n\n\"I viddy,\" I said. \"I viddy horrorshow.\" I knew where he meant-Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock. Well, the real horrorshow leader knows always when like to give and show generous to his like unders. \"Very good, Georgie,\" I said. \"A good thought, and one to be followed. Let us at once itty.\" And as we were going out the old baboochkas said: \"We'll say nothing, lads. Been here all the time you have, boys. \"So I said:\"Good old girls. Back to buy more in ten minutes. ' And so I led my three droogs out to my doom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the like starry type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown. You got some of the real horrorshow ancient domies here, my brothers, with starry lewdies living in them, thin old barking like colonels with sticks and old ptitsas who were widows and deaf starry damas with cats who, my brothers, had felt not the touch of any chelloveck in the whole of their pure like jeeznies. And here, true, there were starry veshches that would fetch their share of cutter on the tourist market-like pictures and jewels and other starry pre-plastic cal of that type. So we came nice and quiet to this domy called the Manse, and there were globe lights outside on iron stalks, like guarding the front door on each side, and there was alight like dim on in one of the rooms on the ground level, and we went to a nice patch of street dark to watch through the window what was ittying on. This window had iron bars in front of it, like the house was a prison, but we could viddy nice and clear what was ittying on.\n\nWhat was ittying on was that this starry ptitsa, very grey in the voloss and with a very liny like litso, was pouring the old moloko from a milk-bottle into saucers and then setting these saucers down on the floor, so you could tell there were plenty of mewing kots and koshkas writhing about down there. And we could viddy one or two, great fat scoteenas, jumping upon to the table with their rots open going mare mare mare. And you could viddy this old baboochka talking back to them, govoreeting in like scoldy language to her pussies. In the room you could viddy a lot of old pictures on the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some like vases and ornaments that looked starry and dorogoy. Georgie whispered: \"Real horrorshow deng to begotten for them, brothers. Will the English is real anxious.\" Pete said: \"How in?\" Now it was up tome, and skorry, before Georgie started telling us how. \"First veshch,\" I whispered, \"is to try the regular way, the front. I will go very polite and say that one of my droogs has had alike funny fainting turn on the street. Georgie can be ready to show, when she opens, thatwise. Then to ask for water or to phone the doc. Then in easy.\" Georgie said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She may not open.\" I said:\n\n\"We'll try it, yes? \"And he sort of shrugged his pletchoes, making with a frog's rot. So I said to Pete and old Dim: \"You two droogies get either side of the door. Right?\" They nodded in the dark right right right. \"So,\" I said to Georgie, and I made bold straight for the front door. There was a bellpush and I pushed, and brrrrrrr brrrrrr sounded down the hall inside. Alike sense of slooshying followed, as though the ptitsa and her koshkas all had their ears back at the brrrrrr brrrrrr, wondering. So I pushed the old zvonock a malenky bit more urgent. I then bent down to the letter-slit and called through in a refined like goloss: \"Help, madam, please. My friend has just had a funny turn on the street. Let me phone a doctor, please.\" Then I could viddy alight being put on in the hall, and then I could hear the old baboochka's nogas going flip flap in flip-flap slippers to nearer the front door, and I got the idea, I don't know why, that she had a big fat pussycat under each arm. Then she called out in a very surprising deep like goloss:\n\n\"Go away. Go away or I shoot.\" Georgie heard that and wanted to giggle. I said, with like suffering and urgency in my gentleman's goloss:\n\n\"Oh, please help, madam. My friend's very ill. '\n\n\"Go away,\" she called. \"I know your dirty tricks, making me open the door and then buy things I don't want. Go away, I tell you. \"That was real lovely innocence, that was.\"Go away, \"she said again,\"or I'll set my cats onto you.\" A malenky bit bezoomny she was, you could tell that, through spending her jeezny all on her oddy knocky. Then I looked up and I viddied that there was a sash-window above the front door and that it would be a lot more skorry to just do the old pletcho climb and get in that way. Else there'd be this argument all the long nochy. So I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well, madam. If you won't help I must take my suffering friend elsewhere. \"And I winked my droogies all away quiet, only me crying out:\"All right, old friend, you will surely meet some good samaritan someplace other. This old lady perhaps cannot be blamed for being suspicious with so many scoundrels and rogues of the night about. No, indeed not. \"Then we waited again in the dark and I whispered:\"Right. Return to door. Me stand on Dim's pletchoes. Open that window and me enter, droogies. Then to shut up that old ptitsa and open up for all. No trouble.\" For I was like showing who was leader and the chelloveck with the ideas. \"See,\" I said. \"Real horrorshow bit of stonework over that door, a nice hold for my nogas.\" They viddied all that, admiring perhaps I thought, and said and nodded Right right right in the dark.\n\nSo back tiptoe to the door. Dim was our heavy strong malchick and Pete and Georgie like heaved me upon to Dim's bolshy manly pletchoes. All this time, O thanks to worldcasts on the gloopy TV and, more, lewdies\" night-fear through lack of night-police, dead lay the street. Up thereon Dim's pletchoes I viddied that this stonework above the door would take my boots lovely. I kneed up, brothers, and there I was. The window, as I had expected, was closed, but I outed with my britva and cracked the glass of the window smart with the bony handle thereof. All the time below my droogies were hard breathing. So I put in my rooker through the crack and made the lower half of the window sail up open silver-smooth and lovely. And I was, like getting into the bath, in. And there were my sheep down below, their rots open as they looked up, O brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was in bumpy darkness, with beds and cupboards and bolshy heavy stoolies and piles of boxes and books about. But I strode manful towards the door of the room I was in, seeing alike crack of light under it. The door went squeeeeeeeeeeak and then I was on a dusty corridor with other doors. All this waste, brothers, meaning all these rooms and but one starry sharp and her pussies, but perhaps the kots and koshkas had like separate bedrooms, living on cream and fish-heads like royal queens and princes. I could hear the like muffled goloss of this old ptitsa down below saying: \"Yes yes yes, that's it, ' but she would be govoreeting to these mewing sidlers going maaaaaaah for more moloko. Then I saw the stairs going down to the hall and I thought to myself that I would show these fickle and worthless droogs of mine that I was worth the whole three of them and more. I would do all on my oddy knocky. I would perform the old ultra-violence on the starry ptitsa and on her pusspots if need be, then I would take fair rookerfuls of what looked like real polezny stuff and go waltzing to the front door and open up showering gold and silver on my waiting droogs. They must learn all about leadership.\n\nSo down I ittied, slow and gentle, admiring in the stairwell grahzny pictures of old time-devotchkas with longhair and high collars, the like country with trees and horses, the holy bearded veck all nagoy hanging on across. There was areal musty von of pussies and pussy-fish and starry dust in this domy, different from the flatblocks. And then I was downstairs and I could viddy the light in this front room where she had been doling moloko to the kots and koshkas. More, I could viddy these great overstuffed scoteenas going in and outwith their tails waving and like rubbing themselves on the door-bottom. On alike big wooden chest in the dark hall I could viddy a nice malenky statue that shone in the light of the room, so I crasted this for my own self, it being like of a young thin devotchka standing on one noga with her rookers out, and I could see this was made of silver. So I had this when I ittied into the lit-up room, saying: \"Hi hi hi. At last we meet. Our brief govoreet through the letter-hole was not, shall we say, satisfactory, yes? Let us admit not, oh verily not, you stinking starry old sharp.\" And I like blinked in the light at this room and the old ptitsa in it. It was full of kots and koshkas all crawling to and fro over the carpet, with bits of fur floating in the lower air, and these fat scoteenas were all different shapes and colours, black, white, tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, and of all ages, too, so that there were kittens fillying about with each other and there were pussies full-grown and there were real dribbling starry ones very bad-tempered. Their mistress, this old ptitsa, looked at me fierce like a man and said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How did you get in? Keep your distance, you villainous young toad, or I shall be forced to strike you.\"\n\nI had areal horrorshow smeck at that, viddying that she had in her veiny rooker a crappy wood walking-stick which she raised at me threatening. So, making with my shiny zoobies, I ittied a bit nearer to her, taking my time, and on the way I saw on alike sideboard a lovely little veshch, the loveliest malenky veshch any malchick fond of music like myself could ever hope to viddy with his own two glazzies, for it was like the gulliver and pletchoes of Ludwig van himself, what they calla bust, alike stone veshch with stone longhair and blind glazzies and the big flowy cravat. I was off for that right away, saying: \"Well, how lovely and all for me.\" But ittying towards it with my glazzies like full on it and my greedy rooker held out, I did not seethe milk saucers on the floor and into one I went and sort of lost balance. \"Whoops,\" I said, trying to steady, but this old ptitsa had come up behind me very sly and with great skorriness for her age and then she went crack crack on my gulliver with her bit of a stick. So I found myself on my rookers and knees trying to getup and saying: \"Naughty naughty naughty.\" And then she was going crack crack again, saying: \"Wretched little slummy bedbug, breaking into real people's houses. \"I didn't like this crack crack eegra, so I grasped hold of one end of her stick as it came down again and then she lost her balance and was trying to steady herself against the table, but then the table-cloth came off with a milk-jug and a milk-bottle going all drunk then scattering white splosh in all directions, then she was down on the floor grunting, going: \"Blast you, boy, you shall suffer.\" Now all the cats were getting spoogy and running and jumping in alike cat-panic, and some were blaming each other, hitting out cat-tolchocks with the old lapa and ptaaaaa and grrrrr and kraaaaark. I got upon to my nogas, and there was this nasty vindictive starry forella with her wattles ashake and grunting as she like tried to lever herself up from the floor, so I gave her a malenky fair kick in the litso, and she didn't like that, crying:\"Waaaaah, \"and you could viddy her veiny mottled litso going purplewurple where I'd landed the old noga." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I stepped back from the kick I must have like trod on the tail of one of these dratsing creeching pusspots, because I slooshied a gromky yauuuuuuuuw and found that like fur and teeth and claws had like fastened themselves round my leg, and there I was cursing away and trying to shake it off holding this silver malenky statue in one rooker and trying to climb over this old ptitsa on the floor to reach lovely Ludwig van in frowning like stone. And then I was into another saucer brimful of creamy moloko and near went flying again, the whole veshch really a very humorous one if you could imagine it sloochatting to some other veck and not to Your Humble Narrator. And then the starry ptitsa on the floor reached overall the dratsing yowling pusscats and grabbed at my noga, still going \"Waaaaah\" at me, and, my balance being a bit gone, I went really crash this time, onto sploshing moloko and skriking koshkas, and the old forella started to fist me on the litso, both of us being on the floor, creeching: \"Thrash him, beat him, pullout his finger-nails, the poisonous young beetle,\" addressing her pusscats only, and then, as if like obeying the starry old ptitsa, a couple of koshkas got onto me and started scratching like bezoomny. So then I got real bezoomny myself, brothers, and hit out at them, but this baboochka said: \"Toad, don't touch my kitties, \"and like scratched my litso. So then I creeched:\"You filthy old soomka, ' and upped with the little malenky like silver statue and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that shut her up real horrorshow and lovely.\n\nNow as I got up from the floor among all the crarking kots and koshkas what should I slooshy but the shoom of the old police-auto siren in the distance, and it dawned on me skorry that the old forella of the pusscats had been on the phone to the millicents when I thought she'd been govoreeting to the mewlers and mowlers, her having got her suspicions skorry on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock pretending for help. So now, slooshying this fearsome shoom of the rozz-van, I belted for the front door and had a rabbiting time undoing all the locks and chains and bolts and other protective veshches. Then I got it open, and who should be on the doorstep but old Dim, me just being able to viddy the other two of my so-called droogs belting off. \"Away,\" I creeched to Dim. \"The rozzes are coming.\" Dim said: \"You stay to meet them huh huh huh,\" and then I viddied that he had his oozy out, and then he upped with it and it snaked whishhhhh and he chained me gentle and artistic like on the glazlids, me just closing them up in time. Then I was howling around trying to viddy with this howling great pain, and Dim said: \"I don't like you should do what you done, old droogy. Not right it wasn't to get onto me like the way you done, brat.\" And then I could slooshy his bolshy lumpy boots beating off, him going huh huh huh into the darkmans, and it was only about seven seconds after that I slooshied the millicent-van draw up with a filthy great dropping siren-howl, like some bezoomny animal snuffing it. I was howling too and like yawing about and I banged my gulliver smack on the hall-wall, my glazzies being tight shut and the juice astream from them, very agonizing. So there I was like groping in the hallway as the millicents arrived. I couldn't viddy them, of course, but I could slooshy and damn near smell the von of the bastards, and soon I could feel the bastards as they got rough and did the old twist-arm act, carrying me out. I could also slooshy one millicent goloss saying from like the room I'd come out of with all the kots and koshkas in it: \"She's been nastily knocked but she's breathing,\" and there was loud mewing all the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A real pleasure this is,\" I heard another millicent goloss say as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the auto." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Little Alex all to our own selves.\" I creeched out:\n\n\"I'm blind, Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards. '\n\n\"Language, language,\" like smecked a goloss, and then I got alike backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or other full on the rot. I said:\n\n\"Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies. Where are the others? Where are my stinking traitorous droogs? One of my cursed grahzny bratties chained me on the glazzies. Get them before they getaway. It was all their idea, brothers. They like forced me to do it. I'm innocent, Bog butcher you. \"By this time they were all having like a good smeck at me with the heighth of like callousness, and they'd tolchocked me into the back of the auto, but I still kept on about these so-called droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no good, because they'd all be back now in the snug of the Duke of New York forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen down the unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas and they saying:\"Thanks, lads. God bless you, boys. Been here all the time you have, lads. Not been out of our sight you haven't.\"\n\nAll the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, me being wedged between two millicents and being given the odd thump and malenky tolchock by these smecking bullies. Then I found I could open up my glaz-lids a malenky bit and viddy like through all tears a kind of a streamy city going by, all the lights like having run into one another. I could viddy now through smarting glazzies these two smecking millicents at the back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat-necked bastard next to him, this one having a sarky like govoreet at me, saying: \"Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a pleasant evening together, don't we not? ' I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you know my name, you stinking vonny bully? May Bog blast you to hell, grahzny bratchny as you are, you sod.\" So they all had a smeck at that and I had my ooko like twisted by one of these stinking millicents at the back with me. The fat-necked not-driver said:\n\n\"Everybody knows little Alex and his droogs. Quite a famous young boy our Alex has become.\"\n\n\"It's those others, \"I creeched.\"Georgie and Dim and Pete. No droogs of mine, the bastards. '\n\n\"Well,\" said the fat-neck, \"you've got the evening in front of you to tell the whole story of the daring exploits of those young gentlemen and how they led poor little innocent Alex astray. ' Then there was the shoom of another like police siren passing this auto but going the other way.\n\n\"Is that for those bastards?\" I said. \"Are they being picked up by you bastards?\"\n\n\"That,\" said fat-neck, \"is an ambulance. Doubtless for your old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel.\"\n\n\"It was all their fault,\" I creeched, blinking my smarting glazzies. \"The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New York. Pick them up, blast you, you vonny sods.\" And then there was more smecking and another malenky tolchock, O my brothers, on my poor smarting rot. And then we arrived at the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of the auto with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps and I knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed cantora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming from the barry places nearby. You could hear some of the plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could slooshy one belting out:\n\n'And I will go back to my darling, my darling,\n\nWhen you, my darling, are gone. '\n\nBut there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody being tolchocked real horrorshow and going owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora were four millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it being on the table and they sucking and belching away over their dirty bolshy mugs. They didn't offer meany. All that they gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator any longer but areal strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also. They all had areal horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay, and one of them said:\"Love's young nightmare like.\" And then atop millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes to show he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: \"Hm.\" So then they started. I said:\n\n\"I won't say one single solitary slovo unless I have my lawyer here. I know the law, you bastards. ' Of course they all had a good gromky smeck at that and the stellar top millicent said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Righty right, boys, we'll start off by showing him that we know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn't everything.\" He had alike gentleman's goloss and spoke in a very weary sort of away, and he nodded with alike droogy smile atone very big fat bastard. This big fat bastard took off his tunic and you could viddy he had areal big starry pot on him, then he came up tome not too skorry and I could get the von of the milky chai he'd been peeting when he opened his rot in alike very tired leery grin at me. He was not too well shaved fora rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat on his shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of like earwax from him as he came close. Then he clenched his stinking red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, which was unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their gullivers off at that, except the top one and he kept on with this weary like bored grin. I had to lean against the whitewashed wall so that all the white got onto my platties, trying to drag the old breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening. But I couldn't stand that sort of veshch, sicking allover the floor, so I held it back. Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was turning to his millicent droogs to have areal horrorshow smeck at what he'd done, so I raised my right noga and before they could creech at him to watch out I'd kicked him smart and lovely on the shin. And he creeched murder, hopping around.\n\nBut after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my brothers, and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the belly and dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick upon the floor and, like some real bezoomny veck, I even said: \"Sorry, brothers, that was not the right thing at all. Sorry sorry sorry.\" But they handed me starry bits of gazetta and made me wipe it, then they made me make with the sawdust. And then they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down and we'd all have a quiet like govoreet. And then P. R. Deltoid came into have a viddy, his office being in the same building, looking very tired and grahzny, to say:\"So it's happened, Alex boy, yes? Just as I thought it would. Dear dear dear, yes.\" Then he turned to the millicents to say: \"Evening, inspector. Evening, sergeant. Evening, evening, all. Well, this is the end of the line for me, yes. Dear dear, this boy does look messy, doesn't he? Just look at the state of him. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Violence makes violence,\" said the top millicent in a very holy type goloss. \"He resisted his lawful arresters.\"\n\n\"End of the line, yes,\" said P. R. Deltoid again. He looked at me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing and was no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck. \"I suppose I'll have to be in court tomorrow. '\n\n\"It wasn't me, brother, sir, \"I said, a malenky bit weepy.\"Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on by the treachery of the others, sir.\"\n\n\"Sings like a linnet,\" said the top rozz, sneery. \"Sings the roof off lovely, he does that.\"\n\n\"I'll speak, \"said cold P. R. Deltoid.\"I'll be there tomorrow, don't worry. '\n\n\"If you'd like to give him abash in the chops, sir, \"said the top millicent,\"don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must be another great disappointment to you. '\n\nP. R. Deltoid then did something I never thought any manlike him who was supposed to turn us baddiwads into real horrorshow malchicks would do, especially with all those rozzes around. He came a bit nearer and he spat. He spat. He spat full in my litso and then wiped his wet spitty rot with the back of his rooker. And I wiped and wiped and wiped my spat-on litso with my bloody tash-took, saying: \"Thank you, sir, thank you very much, sir, that was very kind of you, sir, thank you.\" And then P. R. Deltoid walked out without another slovo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The millicents now got down to making this long statement for me to sign, and I thought to myself, Hell and blast you all, if all you bastards are on the side of the Good then I'm glad I belong to the other shop.\"All right, \"I said to them,\"you grahzny bratchnies as you are, you vonny sods. Take it, take the lot. I'm not going to crawl around on my brooko anymore, you merzky gets. Where do you want it taken from, you cally vonning animals? From my last corrective? Horrorshow, horrorshow, here it is, then.\" So I gave it to them, and I had this shorthand millicent, a very quiet and scared type chelloveck, no real rozz at all, covering page after page after page after. I gave them the ultra-violence, the crasting, the dratsing, the old in-out in-out, the lot, right up to this night's veshch with the bugatty starry ptitsa with the mewing kots and koshkas. And I made sure my so-called droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah. When I'd got through the lot the shorthand millicent looked a bit faint, poor old veck. The top rozz said to him, in a kind type goloss:\n\n\"Right, son, you go off and get a nice cup of chai for yourself and then type all that filth and rottenness outwith a clothes-peg on your nose, three copies. Then they can be brought to our handsome young friend here for signature. And you,\" he said tome, \"can now be shown to your bridal suite with running water and all conveniences. All right,\" in this weary goloss to two of the real tough rozzes, \"take him away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I was kicked and punched and bullied off to the cells and put in with about tenor twelve other plennies, a lot of them drunk. There were real oozhassny animal type vecks among them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot open like a big black hole, one that was lying on the floor snoring away and all like slime dribbling all the timeout of his rot, and one that had like done all cal in his pantalonies. Then there were two like queer ones who both took a fancy tome, and one of them made a jump onto my back, and I had areal nasty bit of dratsing with him and the von on him, like of meth and cheap scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly was empty now, O my brothers. Then the other queer one started putting his rookers onto me, and then there was a snarling bit of dratsing between these two, both of them wanting to get at my plott. The shoom became very loud, so that a couple of millicents came along and cracked into these two with like truncheons, so that both sat quiet then, looking like into space, and there was the old krovvy going drip drip drip down the litso of one of them. There were bunks in this cell, but all filled. I climbed up to the top one of one tier of bunks, there being four in a tier, and there was a starry drunken veck snoring away, most probably heaved up thereto the top by the millicents. Anyway, I heaved him down again, him not being all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of a fat drunk chelloveck on the floor, and both woke and started creeching and punching pathetic at each other. So I lay down on this vonny bed, my brothers, and went to very tired and exhausted and hurt sleep. But it was not really like sleep, it was like passing out to another better world. And in this other better world, O my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers and trees, and there was alike goat with a man's litso playing away on alike flute. And then there rose like the sun Ludwig van himself with thundery litso and cravat and wild windy voloss, and then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to be mixed-up, this being a dream:\n\nBoy, thou uproarious shark of heaven," } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 12" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I was kicked and punched and bullied off to the cells and put in with about tenor twelve other plennies, a lot of them drunk. There were real oozhassny animal type vecks among them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot open like a big black hole, one that was lying on the floor snoring away and all like slime dribbling all the timeout of his rot, and one that had like done all cal in his pantalonies. Then there were two like queer ones who both took a fancy tome, and one of them made a jump onto my back, and I had areal nasty bit of dratsing with him and the von on him, like of meth and cheap scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly was empty now, O my brothers. Then the other queer one started putting his rookers onto me, and then there was a snarling bit of dratsing between these two, both of them wanting to get at my plott. The shoom became very loud, so that a couple of millicents came along and cracked into these two with like truncheons, so that both sat quiet then, looking like into space, and there was the old krovvy going drip drip drip down the litso of one of them. There were bunks in this cell, but all filled. I climbed up to the top one of one tier of bunks, there being four in a tier, and there was a starry drunken veck snoring away, most probably heaved up thereto the top by the millicents. Anyway, I heaved him down again, him not being all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of a fat drunk chelloveck on the floor, and both woke and started creeching and punching pathetic at each other. So I lay down on this vonny bed, my brothers, and went to very tired and exhausted and hurt sleep. But it was not really like sleep, it was like passing out to another better world. And in this other better world, O my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers and trees, and there was alike goat with a man's litso playing away on alike flute. And then there rose like the sun Ludwig van himself with thundery litso and cravat and wild windy voloss, and then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to be mixed-up, this being a dream:\n\nBoy, thou uproarious shark of heaven," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slaughter of Elysium,\n\nHearts on fire, aroused, enraptured,\n\nWe will tolchock you on the rot and kick\n\nyour grahzny vonny bum.\n\nBut the tune was right, as I knew when I was being woke up two or ten minutes or twenty hours or days or years later, my watch having been taken away. There was a millicent like miles and miles down below and he was prodding at me with along stick with a spike on the end, saying:\n\n\"Wake up, son. Wake up, my beauty. Wake to real trouble.\" I said:\n\n\"Why? Who? Where? What is it?\" And the tune of the Joy ode in the Ninth was singing away real lovely and horrorshow within. The millicent said:\n\n\"Come down and find out. There's some real lovely news for you, my son. ' So I scrambled down, very stiff and sore and not like real awake, and this rozz, who had a strong von of cheese and onions on him, pushed me out of the filthy snoring cell, and then along corridors, and all the time the old tune Joy Thou Glorious Spark Of Heaven was sparking away within. Then we came to a very neat like cantora with typewriters and flowers on the desks, and at the like chief desk the top millicent was sitting, looking very serious and fixing alike very cold glazzy on my sleepy litso. I said:\n\n\"Well well well. What makes, bratty? What gives, this fine bright middle of the nochy?\" He said:\n\n\"I'll give you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin off of your face. Then I want you to listen. '\n\n\"Well, what?\" I said, smecking. \"Are you not satisfied with beating me near to death and having me spat upon and making me confess to crimes for hours on end and then shoving me among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that grahzny cell? Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It'll be your own torture, \"he said, serious.\"I hope to God it'll torture you to madness.\"\n\nAnd then, before he told me, I knew what it was. The old ptitsa who had all the kots and koshkas had passed onto a better world in one of the city hospitals. I'd cracked her a bit too hard, like. Well, well, that was everything. I thought of all those kots and koshkas mewing for moloko and getting none, not anymore from their starry forella of a mistress. That was everything. I'd done the lot, now. And me still only fifteen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Part Two" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nI take it up now, and this is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends, in Staja (State Jail, that is) Number 84F. You will have little desire to slooshy all the cally and horrible raskazz of the shock that sent my dad beating his bruised and krovvy rookers against unfair like Bog in His Heaven, and my mum squaring her rot for owwwww owwwww owwwww in her mother's grief at her only child and son of her bosom like letting everybody down real horrorshow. Then there was the starry very grim magistrate in the lower court govoreeting some very hard slovos against your Friend and Humble Narrator, after all the cally and grahzny slander spat forth by P. R. Deltoid and the rozzes, Bog blast them. Then there was being remanded in filthy custody among vonny perverts and prestoopnicks. Then there was the trial in the higher court with judges and a jury, and some very very nasty slovos indeed govoreeted in a very like solemn way, and then Guilty and my mum boohoohooing when they said Fourteen Years, O my brothers. So here I was now, two years just to the day of being kicked and clanged into Staja 84F, dressed in the heighth of prison fashion, which was a one-piece suit of a very filthy like cal colour, and the number sewn on the groody part just above the old tick-tocker and on the back as well, so that going and coming I was 6655321 and not your little droog Alex not no longer.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had not been like edifying, indeed it had not, being in this grahzny hellhole and like human zoo for two years, being kicked and tolchocked by brutal bully warders and meeting vonny leering like criminals, some of them real perverts and ready to dribble allover a luscious young malchick like your story-teller. And there was having to rabbit in the workshop at making matchboxes and itty round and round and round the yard for like exercise, and in the evenings sometimes some starry prof type veck would give a talk on beetles or the Milky Way or the Glorious Wonders of the Snowflake, and I had a good smeck at this last one, because it reminded me of that time of the tolchocking and Sheer Vandalism with that ded coming from the public biblio on a winter's night when my droogs were still not traitors and I was like happy and free. Of those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that was one day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told that Georgie was dead. Yes, dead, my brothers. Dead as a bit of dog-cal on the road. Georgie had led the other two into alike very rich chelloveck's house, and there they had kicked and tolchocked the owner on the floor, and then Georgie had started to razrez the cushions and curtains, and then old Dim had cracked at some very precious ornaments, like statues and soon, and this rich beat-up chelloveck had raged like real bezoomny and gone for them all with a very heavy iron bar. His being all razdraz had given him like gigantic strength, and Dim and Pete had got out through the window but Georgie had tripped on the carpet and then bought this terrific swinging iron bar crack and splooge on the gulliver, and that was the end of traitorous Georgie. The starry murderer had got off with Self Defence, as was really right and proper. Georgie being killed, though it was more than one year after me being caught by the millicents, it all seemed right and proper and like Fate.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was in the Wing Chapel, it being Sunday morning, and the prison charlie was govoreeting the Word of the Lord. It was my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on solemn music before and after and in the middle too when hymns were sung. I was at the back of the Wing Chapel (there were four altogether in Staja 84F) near where the warders or chassos were standing with their rifles and their dirty bolshy blue brutal jowls, and I could viddy all the plennies sitting down slooshying the Slovo of the Lord in their horrible cal-coloured prison platties, and a sort of filthy von rose from them, not like real unwashed, not grazzy, but like a special real stinking von which you only got with the criminal types, my brothers, alike dusty, greasy, hopeless sort of a von. And I was thinking that perhaps I had this von too, having become areal plenny myself, though still very young. So it was very important tome, O my brothers, to get out of this stinking grahzny zoo as soon as I could. And, as you will viddy if you keep reading on, it was not long before I did.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? \"said the prison charlie for the third raz.\"Is it going to be in and out and in and out of institutions like this, though more in than out for most of you, or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and realize the punishments that await the unrepentant sinner in the next world, as well as in this? A lot of blasted idiots you are, most of you, selling your birthright fora saucer of cold porridge. The thrill of theft, of violence, the urge to live easy-is it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes yes, incontrovertible evidence that hell exists? I know, I know, my friends, I have been informed in visions that there is a place, darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire, where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves-and don't leer at me, damn you, don't laugh-like yourselves, I say, scream in endless and intolerable agony, their noses choked with the smell of filth, their mouths crammed with burning ordure, their skin peeling and rotting, a fireball spinning in their screaming guts. Yes, yes, yes, I know. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this point, brothers, a plenny somewhere or other near the back row let out a shoom of lip-music-\"Prrrrrp\"-and then the brutal chassos were on the job right away, rushing real skorry to what they thought was the scene of the shoom, then hitting out nasty and delivering tolchocks left and right. Then they picked out one poor trembling plenny, very thin and malenky and starry too, and dragged him off, but all the time he kept creeching: \"It wasn't me, it was him, see, ' but that made no difference. He was tolchocked real nasty and then dragged out of the Wing Chapel creeching his gulliver off.\n\n\"Now,\" said the prison charlie, \"listen to the Word of the Lord.\" Then he picked up the big book and flipped over the pages, keeping on wetting his fingers to do this by licking them splurge splurge. He was a bolshy great burly bastard with a very red litso, but he was very fond of myself, me being young and also now very interested in the big book. It had been arranged as part of my like further education to read in the book and even have music on the chapel stereo while I was reading, O my brothers. And that was real horrorshow. They would like lock me in and let me slooshy holy music by J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, and I would read of these starry yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting their Hebrew vino and getting onto the bed with their wives'like handmaidens, real horrorshow. That kept me going, brothers. I didn't so much kopat the later part of the book, which is more like all preachy govoreeting than fighting and the old in-out. But one day the charles said tome, squeezing me like tight with his bolshy beefy rooker: \"Ah, 6655321, think on the divine suffering. Meditate on that, my boy.\" And all the time he had this rich manny von of Scotch on him, and then he went off to his little cantora to peet some more. So I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns and then the cross veshch and all that cal, and I viddied better that there was something in it. While the stereo played bits of lovely Bach I closed my glazzies and viddied myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in alike toga that was the heighth of Roman fashion. So being in Staja 84F was not all that wasted, and the Governor himself was very pleased to hear that I had taken to like Religion, and that was where I had my hopes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This Sunday morning the charlie readout from the book about chellovecks who slooshied the slovo and didn't take a blind bit being like a domy built upon sand, and then the rain came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky and that was the end of that domy. But I thought that only a very dim veck would build his domy upon sand, and aright lot of real sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck like that would have, them not telling him how dim he was doing that sort of building. Then the charles creeched:\"Right, you lot. We'll end with Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners\" Hymnal. \"Then there was a crash and plop and a whish whish whish while the plennies picked up and dropped and lickturned the pages of their grazzy malenky hymnbooks, and the bully fierce warders creeched:\"Stop talking there, bastards. I'm watching you, 920537.\" Of course I had the disc ready on the stereo, and then I let the simple music for organ only come belting outwith a growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started to sing real horrible:\n\nWeak tea are we, new brewed\n\nBut stirring make all strong.\n\nWe eat no angel's food,\n\nOur times of trial are long.\n\nThey sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the charlie like whipping them on with \"Louder, damn you, sing up,\" and the warders creeching: \"Just you wait, 7749222\", and \"One on the turnip coming up for you, filth.\" Then it was allover and the charlie said: \"May the Holy Trinity keep you always and make you good, amen,\" and the shamble out began to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigselber, chosen by your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a lot they were, I thought, as I stood thereby the starry chapel stereo, viddying them all shuffle outgoing marrrrre and baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special favoured. When the last one had slouched out, his rookers hanging like an ape and the one warder left giving him a fair loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and when I had turned off the stereo, the charlie came up tome, puffing away at a cancer, still in his starry bogman's platties, all lacy and white like a devotchka's. He said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you as always, little 6655321. And what news have you got for me today?\" The idea was, I knew, that this charlie was after becoming a very great holy chelloveck in the world of Prison Religion, and he wanted areal horrorshow testimonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots were brewing among the plennies, and he would get a lot of this cal from me. A lot of it would be all like made up, but some of it would be true, like for instance the time it had come through to our call on the waterpipes knock knock knockiknockiknock knockknock that big Harriman was going to break. He was going to tolchock the warder at slop-time and get out in the warder's platties. Then there was going to be a big throwing about of the horrible pishcha we got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then the charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the Governor for his Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I said, and this was not true:\n\n\"Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a consignment of cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre of distribution.\" I made all that up as I went along, like I made up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very grateful, saying: \"Good, good, good. I shall pass that onto Himself,\" this being what he called the Governor. Then I said:\n\n\"Sir, I have done my best, have I not?\" I always used my very polite gentleman's goloss govoreeting with those at the top.\"I've tried, sir, haven't I? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think,\" said the charlie, \"that on the whole you have, 6655321. You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a genuine desire to reform. You will, if you continue in this manner, earn your remission with no trouble at all. '\n\n\"But sir,\" I said, \"how about this new thing they're talking about? How about this new like treatment that gets you out of prison in no time at all and makes sure that you never get back in again? '\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, very like wary. \"Where did you hear this? Who's been telling you these things? '\n\n\"These things get around, sir,\" I said. \"Two warders talk, as it might be, and somebody can't help hearing what they say. And then somebody picks up a scrap of newspaper in the workshops and the newspaper says all about it. How about you putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold as to make the suggestion? '\n\nYou could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed away at his cancer, wondering how much to say tome about what he knew about this veshch I'd mentioned. Then he said:\"I take it you're referring to Ludovico's Technique. ' He was still very wary.\n\n\"I don't know what it's called, sir,\" I said. \"All I know is that it gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in again. '\n\n\"That is so,\" he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he looked down at me. \"That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it's only in the experimental stage at the moment. It's very simple but very drastic.\"\n\n\"But it's being used here, isn't it, sir?\" I said. \"Those new like white buildings by the South Wall, sir. We've watched those being built, sir, when we've been doing our exercise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not been used yet, \"he said,\"not in this prison, 6655321. Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man. \"He would have gone on with a lot more of this cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of plennies marching clank clank down the iron stairs to come for their bit of Religion. He said:\"We'll have a little chat about this some other time. Now you'd better start the voluntary. \"So I went over to the starry stereo and put on J. S. Bach's Wachet Auf Choral Prelude and in these grahzny vonny bastard criminals and perverts came shambling like a lot of broke-down apes, the warders or chassos like barking at them and lashing them. And soon the prison charlie was asking them: \"What's it going to be then, eh? \"And that's where you came in.\n\nWe had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that morning, but the charles said no more tome about this Ludovico's Technique, whatever it was, O my brothers. When I'd finished my rabbit with the stereo he just govoreeted a few slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the cell on Tier 6 which was my very vonny and crammed home. The chasso was not really too bad of a veck and he did not tolchock or kick me in when he'd opened up, he just said:\"Here we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole. \"And there I was with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was Zophar on his bunk, a very thin and brown veck who went on and on and on in his like cancery goloss, so that nobody bothered to slooshy. What he was saying now like to nobody was'And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy\"(whatever that was, brothers), \"not if you was to handover ten million archibalds, so what do I do eh, I goes down to Turkey's and says I've got this sproog on that morrow, see, and what can he do?\" It was all this very old-time real criminal's slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one glazzy, and he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of Sunday. Also there was Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying flat on his bunk like dead. In addition there were Jojohn and The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and keen and wiry and had specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had pretended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had only injected water, also he had killed off two devotchkas instead, like he had promised, of getting rid of their unwanted loads for them. They were a terrible grahzny lot really, and I didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, anymore than you do now, but it won't be for much longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now what I want you to know is that this cell was intended for only three when it was built, but there were six of us there, all jammed together sweaty and tight. And that was the state of all the cells in all the prisons in those days, brothers, and a dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being decent room fora chelloveck to stretch his limbs. And you will hardly believe what I say now, which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in another plenny. Yes, we had had our horrible pishcha of dumplings and vonny stew and were smoking a quiet cancer each on our bunks when this veck was thrown into our midst. He was a chinny starry veck and it was him who started creeching complaints before we even had a chance to viddy the position. He tried to like shake the bars, creeching: \"I demand my sodding rights, this one's full-up, it's a bleeding imposition, that's what it is. \"But one of the chassos came back to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk with whoever would let him, otherwise it would have to be the floor.\"And, \"said the warder,\"it's going to get worse, not better. Aright dirty criminal world you lot are trying to build.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, it was the letting-in of this new chelloveck that was really the start of my getting out of the old Staja, for he was such a nasty quarrelsome type of plenny, with a very dirty mind and filthy intentions, that trouble nachinatted that very same day. He was also very boastful and started to make with a very sneery litso at us all and aloud proud goloss. He made out that he was the only real horrorshow prestoopnick in the whole zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other and killed ten rozzes with one crack of his rooker and all that cal. But nobody was very impressed, O my brothers. So then he started on me, me being the youngest there, trying to say that as the youngest I ought to be the one to zasnoot on the floor and not him. But all the others were for me, creeching:\"Leave him alone, you grahzny bratchny, \"and then he began the old whine about how nobody loved him. So that same nochy I woke up to find this horrible plenny actually lying with me on my bunk, which was on the bottom of the three-tier and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty like love-slovos and stroke stroke stroking away. So then I got real bezoomny and lashed out, though I could not viddy all that horrorshow, there being only this malenky little red light outside on the landing. But I knew it was this one, the vonny bastard, and then when the trouble really got underway and the lights were turned on I could viddy his horrible litso with all krovvy dripping from his rot where I'd hit outwith my clawing rooker.\n\nWhat sloochatted then, of course, was that my cellmates woke up and started to join in, tolchocking a bit wild in the near-dark, and the shoom seemed to wake up the whole tier, so that you could slooshy a lot of creeching and banging about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the plennies in all the cells thought a big break was about to commence, O my brothers. So then the lights came on and the chassos came along in their shirts and trousers and caps, waving big sticks. We could viddy each other's flushed litsos and the shaking of fisty rookers, and there was a lot of creeching and cursing. Then I put in my complaint and every chasso said it was probably Your Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it all anyway, me having no mark of a scratch on me but this horrible plenny dripping red red krovvy from the rot where I'd got him with my clawing rooker. That made me real bezoomny. I said I would not sleep another nochy in that cell if the Prison Authorities were going to allow horrible vonny stinking perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my plott when I was in no position to defend myself, being asleep. \"Wait till the morning,\" they said. \"Is it a private room with bath and television that your honour requires? Well, all that will be seen to in the morning. But for the present, little droog, get your bleeding gulliver down on your straw-filled podooshka and let's have no more trouble from anyone. Right right right? \"Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then soon after the lights went out, and then I said I would sit up all the rest of the nochy, saying first to this horrible prostoopnick:\"Go on, get on my bunk if you wish it. I fancy it no longer. You have made it filthy and cally with your horrible vonny plott lying on it already. \"But then the others joined in. Big Jew said, still sweating from the bit of a bitva we'd had in the dark:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not having that we're not, brotherth. Don't give into the thquirt.\" So this new one said:\n\n\"Crash your dermott, yid,\" meaning to shut up, but it was very insulting. So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tolchock. The Doctor said:\n\n\"Come on, gentlemen, we don't want any trouble, do we? ' in his very high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was really asking for it. You could viddy that he thought he was a very big bolshy veck and it was beneath his dignity to be sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor till I made this gesture at him. In his sneery way he tried to takeoff The Doctor, saying:\n\n\"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trabble, is that it, Archiballs?\" So Jojohn, mean and keen and wiry, said:\n\n\"If we can't have sleep let's have some education. Our new friend here had better be taught a lesson.\" Although he like specialized in Sexual Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting, quiet and like precise. So the new plenny sneered:\n\n\"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror.\" So then it all really started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody raising his goloss much. The new plenny creeched a malenky bit at first, but then Wall fisted his rot while Big Jew held him up against the bars so that he could be viddied in the malenky red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh oh. He was not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being shoomny in the goloss and very boastful. Anyway, seeing the old krovvy flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising up in my keeshkas and I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave him tome, goon, let me have him now, brothers.\" So Big Jew said:\n\n\"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair. Thlosh him then, Alekth. ' So they all stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in the near dark. I fisted him allover, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, and then I tripped him and he went crash crash onto the floor. I gave him one real horrorshow kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhhh, then he sort of snorted off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:\n\n\"Very well, I think that will be enough of a lesson,\" squinting to viddy this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor. \"Let him dream perhaps about being a better boy in the future.\" So we all climbed back into our bunks, being very tired now. What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very big orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the conductor was alike mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel, looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world. I was with the wind instruments, but what I was playing was like a white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my plott, right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I had to smeck ha ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz and bezoomny. Then he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in my ooko, and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud shoom really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It was winter morning and my glazzies were all cally with sleepglue, and when I opened up they were very sore in the electric light that had been switched on allover the zoo. Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying on the floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out. Then I remembered about last night and that made me smeck a bit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare noga, there was a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being very slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off his bunk skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for Wall who slept like dead meat.\"Very unfortunate, \"The Doctor said.\"A heart attack, that's what it must have been.\" Then he said, looking round at us all: \"You really shouldn't have gone for him like that. It was most ill-advised really. ' Jojohn said:\n\n\"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself in giving him a sly bit of fist. ' Then Big Jew turned on me, saying:\n\n\"Alekth, you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a very very nathty one.\" I began to get razdraz about this and said:\n\n\"Who started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I? \"I pointed at Jojohn and said:\"It was your idea. \"Wall snored a bit loud, so I said:\"Wake that vonny bratchny up. It was him that kept on at his rot while Big Jew here had him up against the bars. ' The Doctor said:\n\n\"Nobody will deny having a gentle little hit at the man, to teach him a lesson so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I say, heedlessness of youth, dealt him the coo de grass. It's a great pity.\"\n\n\"Traitors,\" I said. \"Traitors and liars,\" because I could viddy it was all like before, two years before, when my so-called droogs had left me to the brutal rookers of the millicents. There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it. And Jojohn went and woke up Wall, and Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brutality. When the chassos came along, and then the Chief Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all these cell-droogs of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott lay sacklike on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was a very queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott was carried off, and then everybody in the whole prison had to stay locked up till further orders, and there was no pishcha given out, not even a mug of hot chai. We just all sat there, and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the tier, now and then creeching \"Shut it\" or \"Close that hole\" whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells. Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of like stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spreading from outside the cell, and then we could viddy the Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy important-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, govoreeting like bezoomny. They seemed to walk right to the end of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again, more slow this time, and you could slooshy the Governor, a very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying slovos like'But, sir-\"and'Well, what can be done, sir? \"and soon. Then the whole lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up. You could viddy who was the real important veck right away, very tall and with blue glazzies and with real horrorshow platties on him, the most lovely suit, brothers, I had ever viddied, absolutely in the heighth of fashion. He just sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real educated goloss:\"The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens. You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we maybe needing all our prison space for political offenders. \"I didn't pony this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting tome. Then he said: \"Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd\"-(that meant me, brothers, as well as the others, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it)-\"can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. They start murdering each other.\" And he turned his stern blue glazzies on me. So I said, bold:\n\n\"With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am not a common criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The others maybe unsavoury but I am not.\" The Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You shut your bleeding hole, you. Don't you know who this is? '\n\n\"All right, all right,\" said this big veck. Then he turned to the Governor and said: \"You can use him as a trailblazer. He's young, bold, vicious. Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow and you can sit in and watch Brodsky. It works all right, don't worry about that. This vicious young hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition.\"\n\nAnd those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by brutal tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy of holies holy office. The Governor looked very weary at me and said: \"I don't suppose you know who that was this morning, do you, 6655321? \"And without waiting for me to say no he said:\"That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior, the new Minister of the Interior and what they calla very new broom. Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. I most emphatically do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems tome grossly unjust. Hm? ' So I said, trying to be like respectful and accommodating:\n\n\"Sir.\" And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red and burly behind the Governor's chair, creeched:\n\n\"Shut your filthy hole, you scum.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" said the like tired and fagged-out Governor. \"You, 6655321, are to be reformed. Tomorrow you go to this man Brodsky. It is believed that you will be able to leave State Custody in a little over a fortnight. Ina little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big free world, no longer a number. I suppose,\" and he snorted a bit here, \"that prospect pleases you?\" I said nothing so the Chief Chasso creeched:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks you a question.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I said:\n\n\"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, really I have. I'm very grateful to all concerned.\"\n\n\"Don't be, \"like sighed the Governor.\"This is not a reward. This is far from being a reward. Now, there is a form hereto be signed. It says that you are willing to have the residue of your sentence commuted to submission to what is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment. Will you sign? '\n\n\"Most certainly I will sign,\" I said, \"sir. And very many thanks.\" So I was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice and flowy. The Governor said:\n\n\"Right. That's the lot, I think. ' The Chief Chasso said:\n\n\"The Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir.\" So I was marched out and off down the corridor towards the Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the back and the gulliver all the way by one of the chassos, but in a very like yawny and bored manner. And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the little cantora of the charles and then made to go in. The charles was sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine manny von of expensive cancers and Scotch. He said:\n\n\"Ah, little 6655321, be seated.\" And to the chassos: \"Wait outside, eh?\" Which they did. Then he spoke in a very like earnest way tome, saying: \"One thing I want you to understand, boy, is that this is nothing to do with me. Were it expedient, I would protest about it, but it is not expedient. There is the question of my own career, there is the question of the weakness of my own voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful elements in the polity. Do I make myself clear?\" He didn't, brothers, but I nodded that he did.\"Very hard ethical questions are involved, \"he went on.\"You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in anyway whatsoever against the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about that.\" I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir.\" But I had areal horrorshow smeck at that inside, brothers. He said:\n\n\"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It maybe horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in someway better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questions, little 6655321. But all I want to say to you now is this: if at anytime in the future you look back to these times and remember me, the lowest and humblest of all God's servitors, do not, I pray, think evil of me in your heart, thinking me in anyway involved in what is now about to happen to you. And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly that there will belittle point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall like to think. \"And then he began to cry. But I didn't really take much notice of that, brothers, only having a bit of a quiet smeck inside, because you could viddy that he had been peeting away at the old whisky, and now he took a bottle from a cupboard in his desk and started to pour himself areal horrorshow bolshy slog into a very greasy and grahzny glass. He downed it and then said: \"All maybe well, who knows? God works in a mysterious way.\" Then he began to sing away at a hymn in areal loud rich goloss. Then the door opened and the chassos came into tolchock me back to my vonny cell, but the old charles still went on singing this hymn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, the next morning I had to say goodbye to the old Staja, and I felt a malenky bit sad as you always will when you have to leave a place you've like got used to. But I didn't go very far, O my brothers. I was punched and kicked along to the new white building just beyond the yard where we used to do our bit of exercise. This was a very new building and it had anew cold like sizy smell which gave you a bit of the shivers. I stood therein the horrible bolshy bare hall and I got new vons, sniffing away therewith my like very sensitive morder or sniffer. These were like hospital vons, and the chelloveck the chassos handed me over to had a white coat on, as he might be a hospital man. He signed for me, and one of the brutal chassos who had brought me said: \"You watch this one, sir. Aright brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in spite of all his sucking up to the Prison Chaplain and reading the Bible.\" But this new chelloveck had real horrorshow blue glazzies which like smiled when he govoreeted. He said:\n\n\"Oh, we don't anticipate any trouble. We're going to befriends, aren't we? \"And he smiled with his glazzies and his fine big rot which was full of shining white zoobies and I sort of took to this veck right away. Anyway, he passed me onto alike lesser veck in a white coat, and this one was very nice too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean bedroom with curtains and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for Your Humble Narrator. So I had areal horrorshow inner smeck at that, thinking I was really a very lucky young malchickiwick. I was told to takeoff my horrible prison platties and I was given a really beautiful set of pyjamas, O my brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear fashion. And I was given a nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles to put my bare nogas in, and I thought:\"Well, Alex boy, little 6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky and no mistake. You are really going to enjoy it here. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After I had been given a nice chasha of real horrorshow coffee and some old gazettas and mags to look at while peeting it, this first veck in white came in, the one who had like signed for me, and he said: \"Aha, there you are,\" a silly sort of a veshch to say but it didn't sound silly, this veck being so like nice.\"My name, \"he said,\"is Dr Branom. I'm Dr Brodsky's assistant. With your permission, I'll just give you the usual brief overall examination.\" And he took the old stetho out of his right carman. \"We must make sure you're quite fit, mustn't we? Yes indeed, we must.\" So while I lay therewith my pyjama top off and he did this, that and the other, I said:\n\n\"What exactly is it, sir, that you're going to do? '\n\n\"Oh,\" said Dr Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, \"it's quite simple, really. We just show you some films. '\n\n\"Films?\" I said. I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers, as you may well understand. \"You mean,\" I said, \"it will be just like going to the pictures?\"\n\n\"They'll be special films, \"said this Dr Branom.\"Very special films. You'll behaving the first session this afternoon. Yes,\" he said, getting up from bending over me, \"you seem to be quite a fit young boy. A bit under-nourished, perhaps. That will be the fault of the prison food. Put your pyjama top back on. After every meal,\" he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, \"we shall be giving you a shot in the arm. That should help.\" I felt really grateful to this very nice Dr Branom. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Vitamins, sir, will it be?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" he said, smiling real horrorshow and friendly. \"Just a jab in the arm after every meal.\" Then he went out. I lay on the bed thinking this was like real heaven, and I read some of the mags they'd given me-Worldsport, Sinny (this being a film mag) and Goal. Then I lay back on the bed and shut my glazzies and thought how nice it was going to be out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice easy job during the day, me being now too old for the old skolliwoll, and then perhaps getting anew like gang together for the nochy, and the first rabbit would be to get old Dim and Pete, if they had not been got already by the millicents. This time I would be very careful not to get loveted. They were giving another like chance, me having done murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted again, after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to make me areal good malchick. I had areal horrorshow smeck at everybody's like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they brought in my lunch on a tray. The veck who brought it was the one who'd led me to this malenky bedroom when I came into the mesto, and he said:\n\n\"It's nice to know somebody's happy.\" It was really a very nice appetizing bit of pishcha they'd laid out on the tray-two or three lomticks of like hot roastbeef with mashed kartoffel and vedge, then there was also ice-cream and a nice hot chasha of chai. And there was even a cancer to smoke and a matchbox with one match in. So this looked like it was the life, O my brothers. Then, about half an hour after while I was lying a bit sleepy on the bed, a woman nurse came in, areal nice young devotchka with real horrorshow groodies (I had not seen such for two years) and she had a tray and a hypodermic. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, the old vitamins, eh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I clickclicked at her but she took no notice. All she did was to slam the needle into my left arm, and then swishhhh in went the vitamin stuff. Then she went out again, clack clack on her high-heeled nogas. Then the white-coated veck who was like a male nurse came in with a wheelchair. I was a malenky bit surprised to viddy that. I said:\n\n\"What giveth then, brother? I can walk, surely, to wherever we have to itty to.\" But he said:\n\n\"Best I push you there.\" And indeed, O my brothers, when I got off the bed I found myself a malenky bit weak. It was the under-nourishment like Dr Branom had said, all that horrible prison pishcha. But the vitamins in the after-meal injection would put me right. No doubt at all about that, I thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where I was wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny I had ever viddied before. True enough, one wall was all covered with silver screen, and direct opposite was a wall with square holes in for the projector to project through, and there were stereo speakers stuck allover the mesto. But against the right-hand one of the other walls was a bank of all like little meters, and in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a dentist's chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by another like male nurse veck in a white coat. Then I noticed that underneath the projection holes was like all frosted glass and I thought I viddied shadows of like people moving behind it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough kashl kashl kashl. But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed to be, and I put that down to changing over from prison pishcha to this new rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into me.\"Right, \"said the wheelchair-wheeling veck,\"now I'll leave you. The show will commence as soon as Dr Brodsky arrives. Hope you enjoy it.\" To be truthful, brothers, I did not really feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon. I was just not in the mood. I would have liked much better to have a nice quiet spachka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my oddy knocky. I felt very limp.\n\nWhat happened now was that one white-coated veck strapped my gulliver to alike head-rest, singing to himself all the time some vonny cally pop-song. \"What's this for? \"I said. And this veck replied, interrupting his like song an instant, that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look at the screen.\"But, \"I said,\"I want to look at the screen. I've been brought hereto viddy films and viddy films I shall.\" And then the other white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one of them a devotchka who was like sitting at the bank of meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit of a smeck at that. He said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You never know. Oh, you never know. Trust us, friend. It's better this way. \"And then I found they were strapping my rookers to the chair-arms and my nogas were like stuck to afoot-rest. It seemed a bit bezoomny tome but I let them get on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to be a free young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with much in the meantime, O my brothers. One veshch I did not like, though, was when they put like clips on the skin of my forehead, so that my top glaz-lids were pulled up and up and up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how I tried. I tried to smeck and said: \"This must be areal horrorshow film if you're so keen on my viddying it. ' And one of the white-coat vecks said, smecking:\n\n\"Horrorshow is right, friend. Areal show of horrors.\" And then I had like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy all wires running away from it, and they stuck alike suction pad on my belly and one on the old tick-tocker, and I could just about viddy wires running away from those. Then there was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some very important chelloveck was coming in by the way the white-coated under-vecks went all stiff. And then I viddied this Dr Brodsky. He was a malenky veck, very fat, with all curly hair curling allover his gulliver, and on his spuddy nose he had very thick otchkies. I could just viddy that he had areal horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he had alike very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres coming from him. With him was Dr Branom, all smiling like as though to give me confidence. \"Everything ready?\" said Dr Brodsky in a very breathy goloss. Then I could slooshy voices saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer to, then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things had been switched on. And then the lights went out and there was Your Humble Narrator And Friend sitting alone in the dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, notable to move nor shut his glazzies nor anything. And then, O my brothers, the film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere music coming from the speakers, very fierce and full of discord. And then on the screen the picture came on, but there was no title and no credits. What came on was a street, as it might have been any street in any town, and it was areal dark nochy and the lamps were lit. It was a very good like professional piece of sinny, and there were none of these flickers and blobs you get, say, when you viddy one of these dirty films in somebody's house in aback street. All the time the music bumped out, very like sinister. And then you could viddy an old man coming down the street, very starry, and then there leaped out on this starry veck two malchicks dressed in the heighth of fashion, as it was at this time (still thin trousers but no like cravat anymore, more of areal tie), and then they started to filly with him. You could slooshy his screams and moans, very realistic, and you could even get the like heavy breathing and panting of the two tolchocking malchicks. They made areal pudding out of this starry veck, going crack crack crack at him with their fisty rookers, tearing his platties off and then finishing up by booting his nagoy plott (this lay all krovvy-red in the grahzny mud of the gutter) and then running off very skorry. Then there was the close-up gulliver of this beaten-up starry veck, and the krovvy flowed beautiful red. It's funny how the colours of the like real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now all the time I was watching this I was beginning to get very aware of alike not feeling all that well, and this I put down to the under-nourishment and my stomach not quite ready for the rich pishcha and vitamins I was getting here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I tried to forget this, concentrating on the next film which came on at once, my brothers, without any break at all. This time the film like jumped right away on a young devotchka who was being given the old in-out by first one malchick then another then another then another, she creeching away very gromky through the speakers and like very pathetic and tragic music going on at the same time. This was real, very real, though if you thought about it properly you couldn't imagine lewdies actually agreeing to having all this done to them in a film, and if these films were made by the Good or the State you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films without like interfering with what was going on. So it must have been very clever what they call cutting or editing or some such veshch. For it was very real. And when it came to the sixth or seventh malchick leering and smecking and then going into it and the devotchka creeching on the sound-track like bezoomny, then I began to feel sick. I had like pains allover and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick up, and I began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed rigid too on this chair. When this bit of film was over I could slooshy the goloss of this Dr Brodsky from over by the switchboard saying: \"Reaction about twelve point five? Promising, promising.\"\n\nThen we shot straight into another lomtick of film, and this time it was of just a human litso, a very like pale human face held still and having different nasty veshches done to it. I was sweating a malenky bit with the pain in my guts and a horrible thirst and my gulliver going throb throb throb, and it seemed tome that if I could not viddy this bit of film I would perhaps be not so sick. But I could not shut my glazzies, and even if I tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out of the line of fire of this picture. So I had to goon viddying what was being done and hearing the most ghastly creechings coming from this litso. I knew it could not really be real, but that made no difference. I was heaving away but could not sick, viddying first a britva cutout an eye, then slice down the cheek, then go rip rip rip allover, while red krovvy shot onto the camera lens. Then all the teeth were like wrenched outwith a pair of pliers, and the creeching and the blood were terrific. Then I slooshied this very pleased goloss of Dr Brodsky going: \"Excellent, excellent, excellent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next lomtick of film was of an old woman who kept a shop being kicked about amid very gromky laughter by a lot of malchicks, and these malchicks broke up the shop and then set fire to it. You could viddy this poor starry ptitsa trying to crawl out of the flames, screaming and creeching, but having had her leg broke by these malchicks kicking her she could not move. So then all the flames went roaring round her, and you could viddy her agonized litso like appealing through the flames and then disappearing in the flames, and then you could slooshy the most gromky and agonized and agonizing screams that ever came from a human goloss. So this time I knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:\n\n\"I want to be sick. Please let me be sick. Please bring something for me to be sick into.\" But this Dr Brodsky called back:\n\n\"Imagination only. You've nothing to worry about. Next film coming up. ' That was perhaps meant to be a joke, for I heard alike smeck coming from the dark. And then I was forced to viddy a most nasty film about Japanese torture. It was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to trees with nails and having fires lit under them and having their yarbles cutoff, and you even viddied a gulliver being sliced off a soldier with a sword, and then with his head rolling about and the rot and the glazzies looking alive still, the plott of this soldier actually ran about, krovvy like a fountain out of the neck, and then it dropped, and all the time there was very very loud laughter from the Japanese. The pains I felt now in my belly and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and they all seemed to becoming out of the screen. So I creeched:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop the film!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Please, please stop it! I can't stand anymore. ' And then the goloss of this Dr Brodsky said:\n\n\"Stop it? Stop it, did you say? Why, we've hardly started. ' And he and the others smecked quite loud." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches I was like forced to viddy that afternoon. The like minds of this Dr Brodsky and Dr Branom and the others in white coats, and remember there was this devotchka twiddling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja itself. Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to even think of making films of what I was forced to viddy, all tied to this chair and my glazzies made to be wide open. All I could do was to creech very gromky for them to turn it off, turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing and fillying and also the music that went with it all. You can imagine it was alike a terrible relief when I'd viddied the last bit of film and this Dr Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored like goloss:\"I think that should be enough for Day One, don't you, Branom?\" And there I was with the lights switched on, my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that makes pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could like sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my brothers, since the day I was like weaned. \"All right,\" said this Dr Brodsky, \"he can betaken back to his bed.\" Then he like patted me on the pletcho and said: \"Good, good. Avery promising start,\" grinning allover his litso, then he like waddled out, Dr Branom after him, but Dr Branom gave me alike very droogy and sympathetic type smile as though he had nothing to do with all this veshch but was like forced into it as I was.\n\nAnyhow, they freed my plott from the chair and they let go the skin above my glazzies so that I could open and shut them again, and I shut them, O my brothers, with the pain and throb in my gulliver, and then I was like carried to the old wheelchair and taken back to my malenky bedroom, the under-veck who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horny popsong so that I like snarled: \"Shut it, thou,\" but he only smecked and said: \"Never mind, friend,\" and then sang louder. So I was put into the bed and still felt bolnoy but could not sleep, but soon I started to feel that soon I might start to feel that I might soon start feeling just a malenky bit better, and then I was brought some nice hot chai with plenty of moloko and sakar and, peeting that, I knew that that like horrible nightmare was in the past and allover. And then Dr Branom came in, all nice and smiling. He said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, by my calculations you should be starting to feel all right again. Yes?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" I said, like wary. I did not quite kopat what he was getting at govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting better from feeling bolnoy is like your own affair and nothing to do with calculations. He sat down, all nice and droogy, on the bed's edge and said:\n\n\"Dr Brodsky is pleased with you. You had a very positive response. Tomorrow, of course, there'll be two sessions, morning and afternoon, and I should imagine that you'll be feeling a bit limp at the end of the day. But we have to be hard on you, you have to be cured.\" I said:\n\n\"You mean I have to sit through-? You mean I have to look at-? Oh, no,\" I said. \"It was horrible.\"\n\n\"Of course it was horrible,\" smiled Dr Branom. \"Violence is a very horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it.\"\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"I don't understand. I don't understand about feeling sick like I did. I never used to feel sick before. I used to feel like very the opposite. I mean, doing it or watching it I used to feel real horrorshow. I just don't understand why or how or what-'\n\n\"Life is a very wonderful thing,\" said Dr Branom in alike very holy goloss. \"The processes of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can fully understand these miracles? Dr Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to any healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil, the workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane, you are being made healthy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That I will not have,\" I said, \"nor can understand at all. What you've been doing is to make me feel very very ill. '\n\n\"Do you feel ill now?\" he said, still with the old droogy smile on his litso. \"Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend-surely you're not feeling anything but well? '\n\nI like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and plott, in alike cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. \"I don't get it, \"I said.\"You must be doing something tome to make me feel ill. ' And I sort of frowned about that, thinking.\n\n\"You felt ill this afternoon,\" he said, \"because you're getting better. When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. You'll be healthier still this time tomorrow. ' Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed tome was that the wires and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this chair tomorrow and start areal bit of dratsing with them all, because I had my rights, when another chelloveck came into see me. He was alike smiling starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:\n\n\"Where will you go when you leave here?\" I hadn't really thought about that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that I'd be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be if I played it everybody's way and did not start any dratsing and creeching and refusing and soon. I said:" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That I will not have,\" I said, \"nor can understand at all. What you've been doing is to make me feel very very ill. '\n\n\"Do you feel ill now?\" he said, still with the old droogy smile on his litso. \"Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend-surely you're not feeling anything but well? '\n\nI like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and plott, in alike cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. \"I don't get it, \"I said.\"You must be doing something tome to make me feel ill. ' And I sort of frowned about that, thinking.\n\n\"You felt ill this afternoon,\" he said, \"because you're getting better. When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. You'll be healthier still this time tomorrow. ' Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed tome was that the wires and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this chair tomorrow and start areal bit of dratsing with them all, because I had my rights, when another chelloveck came into see me. He was alike smiling starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:\n\n\"Where will you go when you leave here?\" I hadn't really thought about that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that I'd be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be if I played it everybody's way and did not start any dratsing and creeching and refusing and soon. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I shall go home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back to my pee and em.\"\n\n\"Your-?\" He didn't get nadsat-talk at all, so I said:\n\n\"To my parents in the dear old flatblock.\"\n\n\"I see,\" he said. \"And when did you last have a visit from your parents?\"\n\n\"A month,\" I said, \"very near. They like suspended visiting-day fora bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blasting-powder smuggled in across the wires from his ptitsa. Areal cally trick to play on the innocent, like punishing them as well. So it's like near a month since I had a visit. '\n\n\"I see,\" said this veck. \"And have your parents been informed of your transfer and impending release?\" That had areal lovely zvook that did, that slovo release. I said:\n\n\"No.\" Then I said: \"It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won't it? Me just walking in through the door and saying: \"Here I am, back, a free veck again.\" Yes, real horrorshow. '\n\n\"Right,\" said the Discharge Officer veck, \"we'll leave it at that. So long as you have somewhere to live. Now, there's the question of your having a job, isn't there? \"And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have, but I thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful and I would have to do the job all on my oddy knocky. I did not trust so-called droogs anymore. So I told this veck to leave it a bit and we would govoreet about it again. He said right right right, then got ready to leave. He showed himself to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now was to like giggle and then say:\"Would you like to punch me in the face before I go? ' I did not think I could possibly have slooshied that right, so I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eh?\"\n\n\"Would you,\" he giggled, \"like to punch me in the face before I go?\" I frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, \"just to see how you're getting on. ' And he brought his litso real near, a fat grin allover his rot. So I fisted up and went smack at this litso, but he pulled himself away real skorry, grinning still, and my rooker just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he left, smecking his gulliver off. And then, my brothers, I felt real sick again, just like in the afternoon, just fora couple of minootas. It then passed off skorry, and when they brought my dinner in I found I had a fair appetite and was ready to crunch away at the roast chicken. But it was funny that starry chelloveck asking fora tolchock in the litso. And it was funny feeling sick like that.\n\nWhat was even funnier was when I went to sleep that night, O my brothers. I had a nightmare, and, as you might expect, it was of one of those bits of film I'd viddied in the afternoon. A dream or nightmare is really only like a film inside your gulliver, except that it is as though you could walk into it and be part of it. And this is what happened tome. It was a nightmare of one of the bits of film they showed me near the end of the afternoon like session, all of smecking malchicks doing the ultra-violent on a young ptitsa who was creeching away in her red red krovvy, her platties all razrezzed real horrorshow. I was in this fillying about, smecking away and being like the ringleader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion. And then at the heighth of all this dratsing and tolchocking I felt like paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other malchicks had areal gromky smeck at me. Then I was dratsing my way back to being awake all through my own krovvy, pints and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found myself in my bed in this room. I wanted to be sick, so I got out of the bed all trembly so as to go off down the corridor to the old vaysay. But, behold, brothers, the door was locked. And turning round I viddied for like the first raz that there were bars on the window. And so, as I reached for the like pot in the malenky cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there would be no escaping from any of all this. Worse, I did not dare to go back into my own sleeping gulliver. I soon found I did not want to be sick after all, but then I was poogly of getting back into bed to sleep. But soon I fell smack into sleep and did not dream anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop it, stop it, stop it,\" I kept on creeching out. \"Turn it off, you grahzny bastards, for I can stand no more.\" It was the next day, brothers, and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon to play it their way and sit like a horrorshow smiling co-operative malchick in the chair of torture while they flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen, my glazzies clipped open to viddy all, my plott and rookers and nogas fixed to the chair so I could not getaway. What I was being made to viddy now was not really a veshch I would have thought to be too bad before, it being only three or four malchicks crasting in a shop and filling their carmans with cutter, at the same time fillying about with the creeching starry ptitsa running the shop, tolchocking her and letting the red red krovvy flow. But the throb and like crash crash crash crash in my gulliver and the wanting to sick and the terrible dry rasping thirstiness in my rot, all were worse than yesterday. \"Oh, I've had enough, \"I cried.\"It's not fair, you vonny sods,\" and I tried to struggle out of the chair but it was not possible, me being as good as stuck to it.\n\n\"First-class,\" creeched out this Dr Brodsky. \"You're doing really well. Just one more and then we're finished.\"\n\nWhat it was now was the starry 1939– 45 War again, and it was a very blobby and liny and crackly film you could viddy had been made by the Germans. It opened with German eagles and the Nazi flag with that like crooked cross that all malchicks at school love to draw, and then there were very haughty and nadmenny like German officers walking through streets that were all dust and bomb-holes and broken buildings. Then you were allowed to viddy lewdies being shot against walls, officers giving the orders, and also horrible nagoy plotts left lying in gutters, all like cages of bare ribs and white thin nogas. Then there were lewdies being dragged off creeching though not on the sound-track, my brothers, the only sound being music, and being tolchocked while they were dragged off. Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the Fifth Symphony, and I creeched like bezoomny at that. \"Stop!\" I creeched. \"Stop, you grahzny disgusting sods. It's a sin, that's what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!\" They didn't stop right away, because there was only a minute or two more to go-lewdies being beaten up and all krovvy, then more firing squads, then the old Nazi flag and THE END. But when the lights came on this Dr Brodsky and also Dr Branom were standing in front of me, and Dr Brodsky said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's all this about sin, eh?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"That,\" I said, very sick. \"Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music.\" And then I was really sick and they had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney.\n\n\"Music,\" said Dr Brodsky, like musing. \"So you're keen on music. I know nothing about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightener, that's all I know. Well, well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom? '\n\n\"It can't be helped, \"said Dr Branom.\"Each man kills the thing he loves, as the poet-prisoner said. Here's the punishment element, perhaps. The Governor ought to be pleased.\"\n\n\"Give me a drink,\" I said, \"for Bog's sake. '\n\n\"Loosen him,\" ordered Dr Brodsky. \"Fetch him a carafe of ice-cold water.\" So then these under-vecks got to work and soon I was peeting gallons and gallons of water and it was like heaven, O my brothers. Dr Brodsky said:\n\n\"You seem a sufficiently intelligent young man. You seem, too, to be not without taste. You've just got this violence thing, haven't you? Violence and theft, theft being an aspect of violence.\" I didn't govoreet a single slovo, brothers. I was still feeling sick, though getting a malenky bit better now. But it had been a terrible day.\"Now, then, \"said Dr Brodsky,\"how do you think this is done? Tell me, what do you think we're doing to you?\"\n\n\"You're making me feel ill, \"I said.\"I'm ill when I look at those filthy pervert films of yours. But it's not really the films that's doing it. But I feel that if you'll stop these films I'll stop feeling ill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right,\" said Dr Brodsky. \"It's association, the oldest educational method in the world. And what really causes you to feel ill? '\n\n\"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver and my plott,\" I said, \"that's what it is. '\n\n\"Quaint,\" said Dr Brodsky, like smiling, \"the dialect of the tribe. Do you know anything of its provenance, Branom?\"\n\n\"Odd bits of old rhyming slang,\" said Dr Branom, who did not look quite so much like a friend anymore. \"A bit of gipsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration.\"\n\n\"All right, all right, all right,\" said Dr Brodsky, like impatient and not interested anymore. \"Well,\" he said tome, \"it isn't the wires. It's nothing to do with what's fastened to you. Those are just for measuring your reactions. What is it, then? '\n\nI viddied then, of course, what a bezoomny shoot I was not to notice that it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker. \"Oh,\" I creeched, \"oh, I viddy all now. A filthy cally vonny trick. An act of treachery, sod you, and you won't do it again. '\n\n\"I'm glad you've raised your objections now,\" said Dr Brodsky. \"Now we can be perfectly clear about it. We can get this stuff of Ludovico's into your system in many different ways. Orally, for instance. But the subcutaneous method is the best. Don't fight against it, please. There's no point in your fighting. You can't get the better of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Grahzny bratchnies,\" I said, like snivelling. Then I said: \"I don't mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I can put up with that. But it's not fair on the music. It's not fair I should feel ill when I'm slooshying lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel and others. All that shows you're an evil lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods. '\n\nThey both looked a bit like thoughtful. Then Dr Brodsky said: \"Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence-the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take your chance, boy. The choice has been all yours.\" I didn't understand all these slovos, but now I said:\n\n\"You needn't take it any further, sir. \"I'd changed my tune a malenky bit in my cunning way. \"You've proved tome that all this dratsing and ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong and terribly wrong. I've learned my lesson, sirs. I see now what I've never seen before. I'm cured, praise God.\" And I raised my glazzies in alike holy way to the ceiling. But both these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr Brodsky said:\n\n\"You're not cured yet. There's still a lotto be done. Only when your body reacts promptly and violently to violence, as to a snake, without further help from us, without medication, only then-\" I said:\n\n\"But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong. It's wrong because it's against like society, it's wrong because every veck on earth has the right to live and be happy without being beaten and tolchocked and knifed. I've learned a lot, oh really I have. ' But Dr Brodsky had aloud long smeck at that, showing all his white zoobies, and said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The heresy of an age of reason,\" or some such slovos. \"I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong. No, no, my boy, you must leave it all to us. But be cheerful about it. It will soon be allover. In less than a fortnight now you'll be a freeman. ' Then he patted me on the pletcho.\n\nLess than a fortnight. O my brothers and friends, it was like an age. It was like from the beginning of the world to the end of it. To finish the fourteen years with remission in the Staja would have been nothing to it. Everyday it was the same. When the devotchka with the hypodermic came round, though, four days after this govoreeting with Dr Brodsky and Dr Branom, I said: \"Oh, no you won't, \"and tolchocked heron the rooker, and the syringe went tinkle clatter onto the floor. That was like to viddy what they would do. What they did was to get four or five real bolshy white-coated bastards of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking me with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa said:\"You wicked naughty little devil, you, ' while she jabbed my rooker with another syringe and squirted this stuff in real brutal and nasty. And then I was wheeled off exhausted to this like hell sinny as before.\n\nEveryday, my brothers, these films were like the same, all kicking and tolchocking and red red krovvy dripping off of litsos and plotts and spattering allover the camera lenses. It was usually grinning and smecking malchicks in the heighth of nadsat fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap torturers or brutal Nazi kickers and shooters. And each day the feeling of wanting to die with the sickness and gulliver pains and aches in the zoobies and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse. Until one morning I tried to defeat the bastards by crash crash crashing my gulliver against the wall so that I should tolchock myself unconscious, but all that happened was I felt sick with viddying that this kind of violence was like the violence in the films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and was wheeled off like before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then there came a morning when I woke up and had my breakfast of eggs and toast and jam and very hot milky chai, and then I thought: \"It can't be much longer now. Now must be very near the end of the time. I have suffered to the heighths and cannot suffer anymore. ' And I waited and waited, brothers, for this nurse ptitsa to bring in the syringe, but she did not come. And then the white-coated under-veck came and said:\n\n\"Today, old friend, we are letting you walk.\"\n\n\"Walk?\" I said. \"Where?\"\n\n\"To the usual place,\" he said. \"Yes, yes, look not so astonished. You are to walk to the films, me with you of course. You are no longer to be carried in a wheelchair.\"\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"how about my horrible morning injection?\" For I was really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen on pushing this Ludovico veshch into me, as they said. \"Don't I get that horrible sicky stuff rammed into my poor suffering rooker anymore? '\n\n\"All over,\" like smecked this veck. \"For ever and ever amen. You're on your own now, boy. Walking and all to the chamber of horrors. But you're still to be strapped down and made to see. Come on then, my little tiger.\" And I had to put my over-gown and toofles on and walk down the corridor to the like sinny mesto.\n\nNow this time, O my brothers, I was not only very sick but very puzzled. There it was again, all the old ultra-violence and vecks with their gullivers smashed and torn krovvy-dripping ptitsas creeching for mercy, the like private and individual fillying and nastiness. Then there were the prison-camps and the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks and uniforms and vecks going down in withering rifle-fire, this being the public side of it. And this time I could blame nothing for me feeling sick and thirsty and full of aches except what I was forced to viddy, my glazzies still being clipped open and my nogas and plott fixed to the chair but this set of wires and other veshches no longer coming out of my plott and gulliver. So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were doing this tome? Except, of course, brothers, that this Ludovico stuff was like a vaccination and there it was cruising about in my krovvy, so that I would be sick always forever and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this ultra-violence. So now I squared my rot and went boohoo hoo, and the tears like blotted out what I was forced to viddy in like all blessed runny silvery dewdrops. But these white-coat bratchnies were skorry with their tashtooks to wipe the tears away, saying: \"There there, wazzums all weepy-weepy den?\" And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these Germans prodding like beseeching and weeping Jews-vecks and cheenas and malchicks and devotchkas-into mestos where they would all snuff it of poison gas. Boohoo hoo I had to go again, and along they came to wipe the tears off, very skorry, so I should not miss one solitary veshch of what they were showing. It was a terrible and horrible day, O my brothers and only friends." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was lying on the bed all alone that nochy after my dinner of fat thick mutton stew and fruit-pie and ice-cream, and I thought to myself: \"Hell hell hell, there might be a chance for me if I get out now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had no weapon, though. I was allowed no britva here, and I had been shaved every other day by a fat bald-headed veck who came to my bed before breakfast, two white-coated bratchnies standing by to viddy I was a good non-violent malchick. The nails on my rookers had been scissored and filed real short so I could not scratch. But I was still skorry on the attack, though they had weakened me down, brothers, to alike shadow of what I had been in the old free days. So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door and began to fist it real horrorshow and hard, creeching at the same time: \"Oh, help help. I'm sick, I'm dying. Doctor doctor doctor, quick. Please. Oh, I'll die, I know I shall. Help. ' My gorlo was real dry and sore before anyone came. Then I heard nogas coming down the corridor and alike grumbling goloss, and then I recognized the goloss of the white-coated veck who brought my pishcha and like escorted me to my daily doom. He like grumbled:\n\n\"What is it? What goes on? What's your little nasty game in there? '\n\n\"Oh, I'm dying, \"I like moaned.\"Oh, I have a ghastly pain in my side. Appendicitis, it is. Ooooooh. '\n\n\"Appendy shitehouse,\" grumbled this veck, and then to my joy, brothers, I could slooshy the like clank of keys. \"If you're trying it, little friend, my friends and me will beat and kick you all through the night. ' Then he opened up and brought in like the sweet air of the promise of my freedom. Now I was like behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy him in the corridor light looking round for me puzzled. Then I raised my two fisties to tolchock him on the neck nasty, and then, I swear, as I sort of viddied him in advance lying moaning or out out out and felt the like joy rise in my guts, it was then that this sickness rose in meas it might be a wave and I felt a horrible fear as if I was really going to die. I like tottered over to the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck, who was not in his white coat but an over-gown, viddied clear enough what I had had in my mind for he said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you could say. Come on, little friend, getup from that bed and hit me. I want you to, yes, really. Areal good crack across the jaw. Oh, I'm dying for it, really I am. \"But all I could do, brothers, was to just lay there sobbing boohoo hoo.\"Scum, \"like sneered this veck now.\"Filth. \"And he pulled me up by like the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and limp, and he raised and swung his right rooker so that I got a fair old tolchock clean on the litso.\"That, \"he said,\"is forgetting me out of my bed, you young dirt. ' And he wiped his rookers against each other swish swish and went out. Crunch crunch went the key in the lock.\n\nAnd what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could not believe, brothers, what I was told. It seemed that I had been in that vonny mesto for near ever and would be therefor near evermore. But it had always been a fortnight and now they said the fortnight was near up. They said:\n\n\"Tomorrow, little friend, out out out.\" And they made with the old thumb, like pointing to freedom. And then the white-coated veck who had tolchocked me and who had still brought me my trays of pishcha and like escorted me to my everyday torture said: \"But you still have one real big day in front of you. It's to be your passing-out day. ' And he had a leery smeck at that.\n\nI expected this morning that I would be ittying as usual to the sinny mesto in my pyjamas and toofles and over-gown. But no. This morning I was given my shirt and underveshches and my platties of the night and my horrorshow kick-boots, all lovely and washed or ironed or polished. And I was even given my cut-throat britva that I had used in those old happy days for fillying and dratsing. So I gave with the puzzled frown at this as I got dressed, but the white-coated under-veck just like grinned and would govoreet nothing, O my brothers.\n\nI was led quite kindly to the same old mesto, but there were changes there. Curtains had been drawn in front of the sinny screen and the frosted glass under the projection holes was no longer there, it having perhaps been pushed up or folded to the sides like blind or shutters. And where there had been just the noise of coughing kashl kashl kashl and like shadows of lewdies was now areal audience, and in this audience there were litsos I knew. There was the Staja Governor and the holy man, the charlie or charles as he was called, and the Chief Chasso and this very important and well-dressed chelloveck who was the Minister of the Interior or Inferior. All the rest I did not know. Dr Brodsky and Dr Branom were there, though not now white-coated, instead they were dressed as doctors would dress who were big enough to want to dress in the heighth of fashion. Dr Branom just stood, but Dr Brodsky stood and govoreeted in alike learned manner to all the lewdies assembled. When he viddied me coming in he said: \"Aha. At this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject himself. He is, as you will perceive, fit and well nourished. He comes straight from a night's sleep and a good breakfast, undrugged, unhypnotized. Tomorrow we send him with confidence out into the world again, as decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning, unvicious, unviolent, if anything-as you will observe-inclined to the kindly word and the helpful act. What a change is here, gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two years. Unchanged, do I say? Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other vices it taught him, as well as confirming him in those he had long practised before. But, gentlemen, enough of words. Actions speak louder than. Action now. Observe, all. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was a bit dazed by all this govoreeting and I was trying to grasp in my mind that like all this was about me. Then all the lights went out and then there came on two like spotlights shining from the projection-squares, and one of them was full on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator. And into the other spotlight there walked a bolshy big chelloveck I had never viddied before. He had a lardy like litso and a mous tache and like strips of hair pasted over his near-bald gulliver. He was about thirty or forty or fifty, some old age like that, starry. He ittied up tome and the spotlight ittied with him, and soon the two spotlights had made like one big pool. He said tome, very sneery: \"Hello, heap of dirt. Pooh, you don't wash much, judging from the horrible smell. ' Then, as if he was like dancing, he stamped on my nogas, left, right, then he gave me a finger-nail flick on the nose that hurt like bezoomny and brought the old tears to my glazzies, then he twisted at my left ooko like it was a radio dial. I could slooshy titters and a couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like the audience. My nose and nogas and ear-hole stung and pained like bezoomny, so I said:\n\n\"What do you do that tome for? I've never done wrong to you, brother. '\n\n\"Oh,\" this veck said, \"I do this\"-flickflicked nose again-\"and that\"-twisted smarting ear-hole-\"and the other\"-stamped nasty on right noga-\"because I don't care for your horrible type. And if you want to do anything about it, start, start, please do. \"Now I knew that I'd have to be real skorry and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing sickness whooshed up and turned the like joy of battle into feeling I was going to snuff it. But, O brothers, as my rooker reached for the britva in my inside carman I got this like picture in my mind's glazzy of this insulting chelloveck howling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming out of his rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and pains were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to change the way I felt about this rotten veck very very skorry indeed, so I felt in my carmans for cigarettes or for pretty polly, and, O my brothers, there was not either of these veshches. I said, like all howly and blubbery:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don't seem to have any.\" This veck went:\n\n\"Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby.\" Then he flickflickflicked with his bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud smecks of like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness coming up:\n\n\"Please let me do something for you, please.\" And I felt in my carmans but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took this out and handed it to him and said: \"Please take this, please. A little present. Please have it.\" But he said:\n\n\"Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get round me that way. ' And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell on the floor. So I said:\n\n\"Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I'll get down and lick them. ' And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and a half to lick his grahzny vonny boots. But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on the rot. So then it seemed tome that it would not bring on the sickness and pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight round them and brought this grahzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got areal bolshy surprise, coming down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up he came. Then just as he was going to give me areal nasty and earnest tolchock on the litso Dr Brodsky said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, that will do very well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then this horrible veck sort of bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came upon me blinking and with my rot square for howling. Dr Brodsky said to the audience: \"Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?\"\n\n\"Choice,\" rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. \"He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.\"\n\n\"These are subtleties,\" like smiled Dr Brodsky. \"We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime-\"\n\n\"And,\" chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, \"with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons.\"\n\n\"Hear hear,\" said somebody.\n\nThere was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there, brothers, like completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out:\n\n\"Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog?\" And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: \"Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?\" I didn't know what made me use those slovos, brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulliver. And that shut all those vecks up for some reason fora minoota or two. Then one very thin starry professor type chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen.\" And the prison charlie creeched out:\n\n\"Oh, if only I could believe that.\" And you could viddy the Governor give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that cal. And now Dr Brodsky said, smiling allover his litso:\n\n\"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we shall see inaction a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the Middle Ages.\" And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka you could ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to viddy. That is to say, she had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like viddy, she having on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were like Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in your keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young like innocent litso. She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly grace and all that cal coming with her, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down thereon the floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the sickness, like alike detective that had been watching round a corner and now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the von of lovely perfume that came off her made me want to think of starting to like heave in my keeshkas, so I knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness come over me real horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at your feet for you to like trample allover. If I had arose I would give it to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my platties to walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal.\" And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness like slinking back. \"Let me,\" I creeched out, \"worship you and be like your helper and protector from the wicked like world.\" Then I thought of the right slovo and felt better for it, saying: \"Let me be like your true knight,\" and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping.\n\nAnd then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again, for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the lights coming up to a bit of applause. And the glazzies of some of these starry vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.\n\n\"He will be your true Christian,\" Dr Brodsky was creeching out, \"ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly.\" And that was right, brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet and all that cal. \"Reclamation,\" he creeched. \"Joy before the Angels of God.\"\n\n\"The point is,\" this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky, \"that it works.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh,\" the prison charlie said, like sighing, \"it works all right, God help the lot of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Part Three" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThat, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning, standing outside this white building that was like tacked onto the old Staja, in my platties of the night of two years back in the grey light of dawn, with a malenky bit of a bag with my few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter kindly donated by the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life.\n\nThe rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with interviews to goon tape for the telenews and photographs being took flash flash flash and more like demonstrations of me folding up in the face of ultra-violence and all that embarrassing cal. And then I had like fallen into the bed and then, as it looked tome, been wakened up to be told to get off out, to itty off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Narrator never not no more, O my brothers. So there I was, very very early in the morning, with just this bit of pretty polly in my left carman, jingle-jangling it and wondering:\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nSome breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having eaten at all that morning, every veck being so anxious to tolchock me off out to freedom. A chasha of chai only I had peeted. This Staja was in a very like gloomy part of the town, but there were malenky workers'caffs all around and I soon found one of those, my brothers. It was very cally and vonny, with one bulb in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of light, and there were early rabbiters slurping away at chai and horrible-looking sausages and slices of kleb which they like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then creeching for more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with very bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks tried to grab her, going haw haw haw while she went he he he, and the sight of them near made me want to sick, brothers. But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very politely and with my gentleman's goloss, then I satin a dark corner to eat and peet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While I was doing this, a malenky little dwarf of a veck ittied in, selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny prestoopnick type with thick glasses on with steel rims, his platties like the colour of very starry decaying currant pudding. I kupetted a gazetta, my idea being to get ready for plunging back into normal jeezny again by viddying what was ittying on in the world. This gazetta I had seemed to be like a Government gazetta, for the only news that was on the front page was about the need for every veck to make sure he put the Government back in again on the next General Election, which seemed to be about two or three weeks off. There were very boastful slovos about what the Government had done, brothers, in the last year or so, what with increased exports and areal horrorshow foreign policy and improved social services and all that cal. But what the Government was really most boastful about was the way in which they reckoned the streets had been made safer for all peace-loving night-walking lewdies in the last six months, what with better pay for the police and the police getting like tougher with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that cal. Which interessovatted Your Humble Narrator some deal. And on the second page of the gazetta there was a blurry like photograph of somebody who looked very familiar, and it turned out to be none other than meme me. I looked very gloomy and like scared, but that was really with the flashbulbs going pop pop all the time. What it said underneath my picture was that here was the first graduate from the new State Institute for Reclamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal. Then I viddied there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique and how clever the Government was and all that cal. Then there was another picture of some veck I thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the Inferior or Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting, looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would be no more fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that cal. So I went arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so that it covered up stains of spilled chai and horrible spat gobs from the cally animals that used this caff.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and a nice surprise for dadada and mum, their only son and heir back in the family bosom. Then I could lay back on the bed in my own malenky den and slooshy some lovely music, and at the same time I could think over what to do now with my jeezny. The Discharge Officer had given me along list the day before of jobs I could try for, and he had telephoned to different vecks about me, but I had no intention, my brothers, of going off to rabbit right away. A malenky bit of a rest first, yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound of lovely music.\n\nAnd so the autobus to Center, and then the autobus to Kingsley Avenue, the flats of Flatblock 18a being just near. You will believe me, my brothers, when I say that my heart was going clopclopclop with the like excitement. All was very quiet, it still being early winter morning, and when I ittied into the vestibule of the flatblock there was no veck about, only the nagoy vecks and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour. What surprised me, brothers, was the way that had been cleaned up, there being no longer any dirty ballooning slovos from the rots of the Dignified Labourers, not any dirty parts of the body added to their naked plotts by dirty-minded pencilling malchicks. And what also surprised me was that the lift was working. It came purring down when I pressed the electric knopka, and when I got in I was surprised again to viddy all was clean inside the like cage.\n\nSoup I went to the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been before, and my rooker trembled and shook as I took out of my carman the little klootch I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch in the lock and turned, then opened up then went in, and there I met three pairs of surprised and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it was pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also another veck that I had never viddied in my jeezny before, a bolshy thick veck in his shirt and braces, quite at home, brothers, slurping away at the milky chai and munchmunching at his eggiweg and toast. And it was this stranger veck who spoke first, saying:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who are you, friend? Where did you get hold of a key? Out, before I push your face in. Get out there and knock. Explain your business, quick.\"\n\nMy dad and mum sat like petrified, and I could viddy they had not yet read the gazetta, then I remembered that the gazetta did not arrive till papapa had gone off to his work. But then mum said: \"Oh, you've broken out. You've escaped. Whatever shall we do? We shall have the police here, oh oh oh. Oh, you bad and wicked boy, disgracing us all like this.\" And, believe it or kiss my sharries, she started to go boohoo. So I started to try and explain, they could ring up the Staja if they wanted, and all the time this stranger veck sat there like frowning and looking as if he could push my litso in with his hairy bolshy beefy fist. So I said:\n\n\"How about you answering a few, brother? What are you doing here and for how long? I didn't like the tone of what you said just then. Watch it. Come on, speak up. ' He was a working-man type veck, very ugly, about thirty or forty, and he sat now with his rot open at me, not govoreeting one single slovo. Then my dad said:\n\n\"This is all a bit bewildering, son. You should have let us know you were coming. We thought it would beat least another five or six years before they let you out. Not,\" he said, and he said it very like gloomy, \"that we're not very pleased to see you again and a freeman, too. '\n\n\"Who is this?\" I said. \"Why can't he speak up? What's going on inhere?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Joe,\" said my mum. \"He lives here now. The lodger, that's what he is. Oh, dear dear dear, ' she went.\n\n\"You,\" said this Joe. \"I've heard all about you, boy. I know what you've done, breaking the hearts of your poor grieving parents. So you're back, eh? Back to make life a misery for them once more, is that it? Over my dead corpse you will, because they've let me be more like a son to them than like a lodger.\" I could nearly have smecked loud at that if the old razdraz within me hadn't started to wake up the feeling of wanting to sick, because this veck looked about the same age as my pee and em, and there he was like trying to put a son's protecting rooker round my crying mum, O my brothers.\n\n\"So,\" I said, and I near felt like collapsing in all tears myself. \"So that's it, then. Well, I give you five large minootas to clear all your horrible cally veshches out of my room. \"And I made for this room, this veck being a malenky bit too slow to stop me. When I opened the door my heart cracked to the carpet, because I viddied it was no longer like my room at all, brothers. All my flags had gone off the walls and this veck had put up pictures of boxers, also like a team sitting smug with folded rookers and a silver like shield in front. And then I viddied what else was missing. My stereo and my disc-cupboard were no longer there, nor was my locked treasure-chest that contained bottles and drugs and two shining clean syringes.\"There's been some filthy vonny work going on here,\" I creeched. \"What have you done with my own personal veshches, you horrible bastard?\" This was to this Joe, but it was my dad that answered, saying:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was all took away, son, by the police. This new regulation, see, about compensation for the victims.\"\n\nI found it very hard not to be very ill, but my gulliver was aching shocking and my rot was so dry that I had to take a skorry swig from the milk-bottle on the table, so that this Joe said: \"Filthy piggish manners.\" I said:\n\n\"But she died. That one died.\"\n\n\"It was the cats, son,\" said my dad like sorrowful, \"that were left with nobody to look after them till the will was read, so they had to have somebody into feed them. So the police sold your things, clothes and all, to help with the looking after of them. That's the law, son. But you were never much of a one for following the law. '\n\nI had to sit down then, and this Joe said: \"Ask permission before you sit, you mannerless young swine,\" so I cracked back skorry with a \"Shut your dirty big fat hole, you,\" feeling sick. Then I tried to be all reasonable and smiling for my health's sake like, so I said:\"Well, that's my room, there's no denying that. This is my home also. What suggestions have you, my pee and em, to make? ' But they just looked very glum, my mum shaking a bit, her litso all lines and wet with like tears, and then my dad said:\n\n\"All this needs thinking about, son. We can't very well just kick Joe out, not just like that, can we? I mean, Joe's here doing a job, a contract it is, two years, and we made like an arrangement, didn't we, Joe? I mean, son, thinking you were going to stay in prison along time and that room going begging. ' He was a bit ashamed, you could viddy that from his litso. So I just smiled and like nodded, saying:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I viddy all. You got used to a bit of peace and you got used to a bit of extra pretty polly. That's the way it goes. And your son has just been nothing but a terrible nuisance. ' And then, my brothers, believe me or kiss my sharries, I started to like cry, feeling very like sorry for myself. So my dad said:\n\n\"Well, you see, son, Joe's paid next month's rent already. I mean, whatever we do in the future we can't say to Joe to get out, can we, Joe? ' This Joe said:\n\n\"It's you two I've got to think of, who've been like a father and mother tome. Would it be right or fair to go off and leave you to the tender mercies of this young monster who has been like no real son at all? He's weeping now, but that's his craft and artfulness. Let him go off and find a room somewhere. Let him learn the error of his ways and that a bad boy like he's been doesn't deserve such a good mum and dad as what he's had.\"\n\n\"All right,\" I said, standing up in all like tears still. \"I know how things are now. Nobody wants or loves me. I've suffered and suffered and suffered and everybody wants me to goon suffering. I know. '\n\n\"You've made others suffer, \"said this Joe.\"It's only right you should suffer proper. I've been told everything that you've done, sitting here at night round the family table, and pretty shocking it was to listen to. Made me real sick a lot of it did.\"\n\n\"I wish,\" I said, \"I was back in the prison. Dear old Staja as it was. I'm ittying off now, \"I said.\"You won't ever viddy me no more. I'll make my own way, thank you very much. Let it lie heavy on your consciences. ' My dad said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't take it like that, son, ' and my mum just went boohoo hoo, her litso all screwed up real ugly, and this Joe put his rooker round her again, patting her and going there there there like bezoomny. And so I just sort of staggered to the door and went out, leaving them to their horrible guilt, O my brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ittying down the street in alike aimless sort of away, brothers, in these night platties which lewdies like stared at as I went by, cold too, it being a bastard cold winter day, all I felt I wanted was to be away from all this and not to have to think anymore about any sort of veshch at all. So I got the autobus to Center, then I walked back to Taylor Place, and there was the disc-bootick MELODIA I had used to favour with my inestimable custom, O my brothers, and it looked much the same sort of mesto as it always had, and walking in I expected to viddy old Andy there, that bald and very very thin helpful like veck from whom I had kupetted discs in the old days. But there was no Andy there now, brothers, only a scream and a creech of nadsat (teenage, that is) malchicks and ptitsas slooshying some new horrible popsong and dancing to it as well, and the veck behind the counter not much more than a nadsat himself, clicking his rooker-bones and smecking like bezoomny. So I went up and waited till he like deigned to notice me, then I said:\n\n\"I'd like to hear a disc of the Mozart Number Forty. \"I don't know why that should have come into my gulliver, but it did. The counter-veck said:\n\n\"Forty what, friend?\"\n\nI said: \"Symphony. Symphony Number Forty in G Minor.\"\n\n\"Ooooh,\" went one of the dancing nadsats, a malchick with his hair allover his glazzies, \"seemfunnah. Don't it seem funny? He wants a seemfunnah. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could feel myself growing all razdraz within, but I had to watch that, so I like smiled at the veck who had taken over Andy's place and at all the dancing and creeching nadsats. This counter-veck said:\"You go into that listen-booth over there, friend, and I'll pipe something through.\"\n\nSo I went over to the malenky box where you could slooshy the discs you wanted to buy, and then this veck put a disc on for me, but it wasn't the Mozart Forty, it was the Mozart'Prague\"-he seemingly having just picked up any Mozart he could find on the shelf-and that should have started making me real razdraz and I had to watch that for fear of the pain and sickness, but what I'd forgotten was something I shouldn't have forgotten and now made me want to snuff it. It was that these doctor bratchnies had so fixed things that any music that was like for the emotions would make me sick just like viddying or wanting to do violence. It was because all those violence films had music with them. And I remembered especially that horrible Nazi film with the Beethoven Fifth, last movement. And nowhere was lovely Mozart made horrible. I dashed out of the boxlike bezoomny to getaway from the sickness and pain that were coming on, and I dashed out of the shop with these nadsats smecking after me and the counter-veck creeching:\"Eh eh eh! ' But I took no notice and went staggering almost like blind across the road and round the corner to the Korova Milkbar. I knew what I wanted.\n\nThe mesto was near empty, it being still morning. It looked strange too, having been painted with all red mooing cows, and behind the counter was no veck I knew. But when I said: \"Milk plus, large,\" the veck with alike lean litso very newly shaved knew what I wanted. I took the large moloko plus to one of the little cubies that were all round this mesto, there being like curtains to shut them off from the main mesto, and there I sat down in the plushy chair and sipped and sipped. When I'd finished the whole lot I began to feel that things were happening. I had my glazzies like fixed on a malenky bit of silver paper from a cancer packet that was on the floor, the sweeping-up of this mesto not being all that horrorshow, brothers. This scrap of silver began to grow and grow and grow and it was so like bright and fiery that I had to squint my glazzies at it. It got so big that it became not only this whole cubie I was lolling in but like the whole Korova, the whole street, the whole city. Then it was the whole world, then it was the whole everything, brothers, and it was like a sea washing over every veshch that had ever been made or thought of even. I could sort of slooshy myself making special sort of shooms and govoreeting slovos like'Dear dead idlewilds, rot not in variform guises'and all that cal. Then I could like feel the vision beating up in all this silver, and then there were colours like nobody had ever viddied before, and then I could viddy like a group of statues along long long way off that was like being pushed nearer and nearer and nearer, all lit up by very bright light from below and above alike, O my brothers. This group of statues was of God or Bog and all His Holy Angels and Saints, all very bright like bronze, with beards and bolshy great wings that waved about in a kind of wind, so that they could not really be of stone or bronze, really, and the eyes or glazzies like moved and were alive. These bolshy big figures came nearer and nearer and nearer till they were like going to crush me down, and I could slooshy my goloss going'Eeeeee\". And I felt I had got rid of everything-platties, body, brain, name, the lot-and felt real horrorshow, like in heaven. Then there was the shoom of like crumbling and crumpling, and Bog and the Angels and Saints sort of shook their gullivers at me, as though to govoreet that there wasn't quite time now but I must try again, and then everything like leered and smecked and collapsed and the big warm light grew like cold, and then there I was as I was before, the empty glass on the table and wanting to cry and feeling like death was the only answer to everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that was it, that was what I viddied quite clear was the thing to do, but how to do it I did not properly know, never having thought of that before, O my brothers. In my little bag of personal veshches I had my cut-throat britva, but I at once felt very sick as I thought of myself going swishhhh at myself and all my own red red krovvy flowing. What I wanted was not something violent but something that would make me like just go off gentle to sleep and that be the end of Your Humble Narrator, no more trouble to anybody anymore. Perhaps, I thought, if I ittied off to the Public Biblio round the corner I might find some book on the best way of snuffing it with no pain. I thought of myself dead and how sorry everybody was going to be, pee and em and that cally vonny Joe who was alike usurper, and also Dr Brodsky and Dr Branom and that Inferior Interior Minister and every veck else. And the boastful vonny Government too. So out I scatted into the winter, and it was afternoon now, near two o'clock, as I could viddy from the bolshy Center timepiece, so that me being in the land with the old moloko plus must have took like longer than I thought. I walked down Marghanita Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, then round the corner again, and there was the Public Biblio.\n\nIt was a starry cally sort of a mesto that I could not remember going into since I was a very very malenky malchick, no more than about six years old, and there were two parts to it-one part to borrow books and one part to read in, full of gazettas and mags and like the von of very starry old men with their plotts stinking of like old age and poverty. These were standing at the gazetta stands all round the room, snuffling and belching and govoreeting to themselves and turning over the pages to read the news very sadly, or else they were sitting at the tables looking at the mags or pretending to, some of them asleep and one or two of them snoring real gromky. I couldn't like remember what it was I wanted at first, then I remembered with a bit of shock that I had ittied hereto find out how to snuff it without pain, so I goolied over to the shelf full of reference veshches. There were a lot of books, but there was none with a title, brothers, that would really do. There was a medical book that I took down, but when I opened it it was full of drawings and photographs of horrible wounds and diseases, and that made me want to sick just a bit. So I put that back and then took down the big book or Bible, as it was called, thinking that might give me like comfort as it had done in the old Staja days (not so old really, but it seemed a very very longtime ago), and I staggered over to a chair to read in it. But all I found was about smiting seventy times seven and a lot of Jews cursing and tolchocking each other, and that made me want to sick, too. So then I near cried, so that a very starry ragged moodge opposite me said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it, son?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What's the trouble? '\n\n\"I want to snuff it,\" I said. \"I've had it, that's what it is. Life's become too much for me. '\n\nA starry reading veck next tome said: \"Shhhh,\" without looking up from some bezoomny mag he had full of drawings of like bolshy geometrical veshches. That rang a bell somehow. This other moodge said:\n\n\"You're too young for that, son. Why, you've got everything in front of you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, bitter. \"Like a pair of false groodies.\" This mag-reading veck said: \"Shhhh\" again, looking up this time, and something clicked for both of us. I viddied who it was. He said, real gromky:\n\n\"I never forget a shape, by God. I never forget the shape of anything. By God, you young swine, I've got you now. \"Crystallography, that was it. That was what he'd been taking away from the Biblio that time. False teeth crunched up real horrorshow. Platties torn off. His books razrezzed, all about Crystallography. I thought I had best get out of here real skorry, brothers. But this starry old moodge was on his feet, creeching like bezoomny to all the starry old coughers at the gazettas round the walls and to them dozing over mags at the tables. \"We have him,\" he creeched. \"The poisonous young swine who ruined the books on Crystallography, rare books, books not to be obtained ever again, anywhere.\" This had a terrible mad shoom about it, as though this old veck was really off his gulliver. \"A prize specimen of the cowardly brutal young,\" he creeched. \"Here in our midst and at our mercy. He and his friends beat me and kicked me and thumped me. They stripped me and tore out my teeth. They laughed at my blood and my moans. They kicked me off home, dazed and naked.\" All this wasn't quite true, as you know, brothers. He had some platties on, he hadn't been completely nagoy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I creeched back: \"That was over two years ago. I've been punished since then. I've learned my lesson. See over there-my picture's in the papers. '\n\n\"Punishment, eh?\" said one starry like ex-soldier type. \"You lot should be exterminated. Like so many noisome pests. Punishment, indeed.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" I said. \"Everybody's entitled to his opinion. Forgive me, all. I must go now. ' And I started to itty out of this mesto of bezoomny old men. Aspirin, that was it. You could snuff it on a hundred aspirin. Aspirin from the old drugstore. But the crystallography veck creeched:\n\n\"Don't let him go. We'll teach him all about punishment, the murderous young pig. Get him.\" And, believe it, brothers, or do the other veshch, two or three starry dodderers, about ninety years old apiece, grabbed me with their trembly old rookers, and I was like made sick by the von of old age and disease which came from these near-dead moodges. The crystal veck was onto me now, starting to deal me malenky weak tolchocks on my litso, and I tried to getaway and itty out, but these starry rookers that held me were stronger than I had thought. Then other starry vecks came hobbling from the gazettas to have ago at Your Humble Narrator. They were creeching veshches like: \"Kill him, stamp on him, murder him, kick his teeth in,\" and all that cal, and I could viddy what it was clear enough. It was old age having ago at youth, that's what it was. But some of them were saying:\"Poor old Jack, near killed poor old Jack he did, this is the young swine'and soon, as though it had all happened yesterday. Which to them I suppose it had. There was now like a sea of vonny runny dirty old men trying to get at me with their like feeble rookers and horny old claws, creeching and panting onto me, but our crystal droog was therein front, dealing out tolchock after tolchock. And I daren't do a solitary single veshch, O my brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than to want to sick and feel that horrible pain, but of course the fact that there was violence going on made me feel that the sickness was peeping round the corner to viddy whether to come out into the open and roar away." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's assistant, please continue the story.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 24" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I creeched back: \"That was over two years ago. I've been punished since then. I've learned my lesson. See over there-my picture's in the papers. '\n\n\"Punishment, eh?\" said one starry like ex-soldier type. \"You lot should be exterminated. Like so many noisome pests. Punishment, indeed.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" I said. \"Everybody's entitled to his opinion. Forgive me, all. I must go now. ' And I started to itty out of this mesto of bezoomny old men. Aspirin, that was it. You could snuff it on a hundred aspirin. Aspirin from the old drugstore. But the crystallography veck creeched:\n\n\"Don't let him go. We'll teach him all about punishment, the murderous young pig. Get him.\" And, believe it, brothers, or do the other veshch, two or three starry dodderers, about ninety years old apiece, grabbed me with their trembly old rookers, and I was like made sick by the von of old age and disease which came from these near-dead moodges. The crystal veck was onto me now, starting to deal me malenky weak tolchocks on my litso, and I tried to getaway and itty out, but these starry rookers that held me were stronger than I had thought. Then other starry vecks came hobbling from the gazettas to have ago at Your Humble Narrator. They were creeching veshches like: \"Kill him, stamp on him, murder him, kick his teeth in,\" and all that cal, and I could viddy what it was clear enough. It was old age having ago at youth, that's what it was. But some of them were saying:\"Poor old Jack, near killed poor old Jack he did, this is the young swine'and soon, as though it had all happened yesterday. Which to them I suppose it had. There was now like a sea of vonny runny dirty old men trying to get at me with their like feeble rookers and horny old claws, creeching and panting onto me, but our crystal droog was therein front, dealing out tolchock after tolchock. And I daren't do a solitary single veshch, O my brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than to want to sick and feel that horrible pain, but of course the fact that there was violence going on made me feel that the sickness was peeping round the corner to viddy whether to come out into the open and roar away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then an attendant veck came along, a youngish veck, and he creeched: \"What goes on here?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stop it at once. This is a reading-room.\" But nobody took any notice. So the attendant veck said: \"Right, I shall phone the police.\" So I creeched, and I never thought I would ever do that in all my jeezny:\n\n\"Yes yes yes, do that, protect me from these old madmen.\" I noticed that the attendant veck was not too anxious to join in the dratsing and rescue me from the rage and madness of these starry vecks'claws; he just scatted off to his like office or wherever the telephone was. Now these old men were panting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at them and they would all fall over, but I just let myself beheld, very patient, by these starry rookers, my glazzies closed, and feel the feeble tolchocks on my litso, also slooshy the panting breathy old golosses creeching:\"Young swine, young murderer, hooligan, thug, kill him. \"Then I got such areal painful tolchock on the nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I opened my glazzies up and started to struggle to get free, which was not hard, brothers, and I tore off creeching to the sort of hallway outside the reading-room. But these starry avengers still came after me, panting like dying, with their animal claws all trembling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator. Then I was tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked at, then I slooshied golosses of young vecks creeching:\"All right, all right, stop it now, ' and I knew the police had arrived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was like dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy very clear, but I was sure I had met these millicents some mesto before. The one who had hold of me, going: \"There there there,\" just by the front door of the Public Biblio, him I did not know at all, but it seemed tome he was like very young to be a rozz. But the other two had backs that I was sure I had viddied before. They were lashing into these starry old vecks with great bolshy glee and joy, swishing away with malenky whips, creeching: \"There, you naughty boys. That should teach you to stop rioting and breaking the State's Peace, you wicked villains, you. \"So they drove these panting and wheezing and near dying starry avengers back into the reading-room, then they turned round, smecking with the fun they'd had, to viddy me. The older one of the two said:\n\n\"Well well well well well well well. If it isn't little Alex. Very longtime no viddy, droog. How goes? ' I was like dazed, the uniform and the shlem or helmet making it hard to viddy who this was, though litso and goloss were very familiar. Then I looked at the other one, and about him, with his grinning bezoomny litso, there was no doubt. Then, all numb and growing number, I looked back at the well well welling one. This one was then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy. The other was, of course, Dim, who had used to be my droog and also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty Billyboy, but was now a millicent with uniform and shlem and whip to keep order. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh no.\"\n\n\"Surprise, eh?\" And old Dim came outwith the old guff I remembered so horrorshow: \"Huh huh huh.\"\n\n\"It's impossible, \"I said.\"It can't be so. I don't believe it. '\n\n\"Evidence of the old glazzies,\" grinned Billyboy. \"Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, droog. A job for two who are now of job-age. The police.\"\n\n\"You're too young, \"I said.\"Much too young. They don't make rozzes of malchicks of your age.\"\n\n\"Was young,\" went old millicent Dim. I could not get over it, brothers, I really could not. \"That's what we was, young droogie. And you it was that was always the youngest. And here now we are. '\n\n\"I still can't believe it, \"I said. Then Billyboy, rozz Billyboy that I couldn't get over, said to this young millicent that was like holding onto me and that I did not know:\n\n\"More good would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled out a bit of the old summary. Boys will be boys, as always was. No need to go through the old station routine. This one here has been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember though you, of course, can't. He has been attacking the aged and defenceless, and they have properly been retaliating. But we must have our say in the State's name.\"\n\n\"What is all this?\" I said, notable hardly to believe my ookos. \"It was them that went for me, brothers. You're not on their side and can't be. You can't be, Dim. It was a veck we fillied with once in the old days trying to get his own malenky bit of revenge after all this longtime. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Long time is right,\" said Dim. \"I don't remember them days too horrorshow. Don't call me Dim no more, either. Officer call me.\"\n\n\"Enough is remembered, though,\" Billyboy kept nodding. He was not so fatty as he had been. \"Naughty little malchicks handy with cut-throat britvas-these must be kept under.\" And they took me in areal strong grip and like walked me out of the Biblio. There was a millicent patrolcar waiting outside, and this veck they called Rex was the driver. They like tolchocked me into the back of this auto, and I couldn't help feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim anyway would pull his shlem off his gulliver and go haw haw haw. But he didn't. I said, trying to fight the strack inside me:\n\n\"And old Pete, what happened to old Pete? It was sad about Georgie,\" I said. \"I slooshied all about that.\"\n\n\"Pete, oh yes, Pete,\" said Dim. \"I seem to remember like the name.\" I could viddy we were driving out of town. I said:\n\n\"Where are we supposed to be going?\"\n\nBillyboy turned round from the front to say: \"It's light still. A little drive into the country, all winter-bare but lonely and lovely. It is not right, not always, for lewdies in the town to viddy too much of our summary punishment. Streets must be kept clean in more than one way. ' And he turned to the front again.\n\n\"Come,\" I said. \"I just don't get this at all. The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was readout to us,\" said Dim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Super read all that out to us. He said it was a very good way.\"\n\n\"Read to you,\" I said, a malenky bit nasty. \"You still too dim to read for yourself, O brother?\"\n\n\"Ah, no,\" said Dim, very like gentle and like regretful. \"Not to speak like that. Not no more, droogie.\" And he launched a bolshy tolchock right on my cluve, so that all red red nose-krovvy started to drip drip drip.\n\n\"There was never any trust,\" I said, bitter, wiping off the krovvy with my rooker. \"I was always on my oddy knocky.\"\n\n\"This will do,\" said Billyboy. We were now in the country and it was all bare trees and a few odd distant like twitters, and in the distance there was some like farm machine making a whirring shoom. It was getting all dusk now, this being the heighth of winter. There were no lewdies about, nor no animals. There was just the four. \"Get out, Alex boy,\" said Dim. \"Just a malenky bit of summary.\"\n\nAll through what they did this driver veck just sat at the wheel of the auto, smoking a cancer, reading a malenky bit of a book. He had the light on in the auto to viddy by. He took no notice of what Billyboy and Dim did to your Humble Narrator. I will not go into what they did, but it was all like panting and thudding against this like background of whirring farm engines and the twittwit-twittering in the bare or nagoy branches. You could viddy a bit of smoky breath in the auto light, this driver turning the pages over quite calm. And they were onto me all the time, O my brothers. Then Billyboy or Dim, I couldn't say which one, said:\"About enough, droogie, I should think, shouldn't you?\" Then they gave me one final tolchock on the litso each and I fell over and just laid thereon the grass. It was cold but I was not feeling the cold. Then they dusted their rookers and put back on their shlems and tunics which they had taken off, and then they got back into the auto. \"Be viddying you some more sometime, Alex,\" said Billyboy, and Dim just gave one of his old clowny guffs. The driver finished the page he was reading and put his book away, then he started the auto and they were off townwards, my ex-droog and ex-enemy waving. But I just laid there, fagged and shagged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a bit I was hurting bad, and then the rain started, all icy. I could viddy no lewdies insight, nor no lights of houses. Where was Ito go, who had no home and not much cutter in my carmans? I cried for myself boohoo hoo. Then I got up and began walking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Home, home, home, it was home I was wanting, and it was HOME I came to, brothers. I walked through the dark and followed not the town way but the way where the shoom of alike farm machine had been coming from. This brought me to a sort of village I felt I had viddied before, but was perhaps because all villages look the same, in the dark especially. Here were houses and there was alike drinking mesto, and right at the end of the village there was a malenky cottage on its oddy knocky, and I could viddy its name shining white on the gate. HOME, it said. I was all dripping wet with this icy rain, so that my platties were no longer in the heighth of fashion but real miserable and like pathetic, and my luscious glory was a wet tangled cally mess all spread over my gulliver, and I was sure there were cuts and bruises allover my litso, and a couple of my zoobies sort of joggled loose when I touched them with my tongue or yahzick. And I was sore allover my plott and very thirsty, so that I kept opening my rot to the cold rain, and my stomach growled grrrrr all the time with not having had any pishcha since morning and then not very much, O my brothers.\n\nHOME, it said, and perhaps here would be some veck to help. I opened the gate and sort of slithered down the path, the rain like turning to ice, and then I knocked gentle and pathetic on the door. No veck came, so I knocked a malenky bit longer and louder, and then I heard the shoom of nogas coming to the door. Then the door opened and a male goloss said: \"Yes, what is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh,\" I said, \"please help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I've been beaten up by the police and just left to die on the road. Oh, please give me a drink of something and a sit by the fire, please, sir. '\n\nThe door opened full then, and I could viddy like warm light and afire going crackle crackle within. \"Come in,\" said this veck, \"whoever you are. God help you, you poor victim, come in and let's have a look at you. \"So I like staggered in, and it was no big act I was putting on, brothers, I really felt done and finished. This kind veck put his rookers round my pletchoes and pulled me into this room where the fire was, and of course I knew right away now where it was and why HOME on the gate looked so familiar. I looked at this veck and he looked at me in a kind sort of way, and I remembered him well now. Of course he would not remember me, for in those carefree days I and my so-called droogs did all our bolshy dratsing and fillying and crasting in maskies which were real horrorshow disguises. He was a shortish veck in middle age, thirty, forty, fifty, and he had ochkies on.\"Sit down by the fire, \"he said,\"and I'll get you some whisky and warm water. Dear dear dear, somebody has been beating you up.\" And he gave alike tender look at my gulliver and litso.\n\n\"The police,\" I said. \"The horrible ghastly police.\"\n\n\"Another victim,\" he said, like sighing. \"A victim of the modern age. I'll go and get you that whisky and then I must cleanup your wounds a little. \"And off he went. I had a look round this malenky comfortable room. It was nearly all books now and afire and a couple of chairs, and you could viddy somehow that there wasn't a woman living there. On the table was a typewriter and a lot of like tumbled papers, and I remembered that this veck was a writer veck. A Clockwork Orange, that had been it. It was funny that that stuck in my mind. I must not let on, though, for I needed help and kindness now. Those horrible grahzny bratchnies in that terrible white mesto had done that tome, making me need help and kindness now and forcing me to want to give help and kindness myself, if anybody would take it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here we are, then,\" said this veck returning. He gave me this hot stimulating glassful to peet, and it made me feel better, and then he cleaned up these cuts on my litso. Then he said: \"You have a nice hot bath, I'll draw it for you, and then you can tell me all about it over a nice hot supper which I'll get ready while you're having the bath. \"O my brothers, I could have wept at his kindness, and I think he must have viddied the old tears in my glazzies, for he said:\"There there there, ' patting me on the pletcho.\n\nAnyway, I went up and had this hot bath, and he brought in pyjamas and an over-gown for me to put on, all warmed by the fire, also a very worn pair of toofles. And now, brothers, though I was aching and full of pains allover, I felt I would soon feel a lot better. I ittied downstairs and viddied that in the kitchen he had set the table with knives and forks and a fine big loaf of kleb, also a bottle of PRIMA SAUCE, and soon he served out a nice fry of eggiwegs and lomticks of ham and bursting sausages and big bolshy mugs of hot sweet milky chai. It was nice sitting therein the warm, eating, and I found I was very hungry, so that after the fry I had to eat lomtick after lomtick of kleb and butter spread with strawberry jam out of a bolshy great pot. \"A lot better,\" I said. \"How can I ever repay?\"\n\n\"I think I know who you are,\" he said. \"If you are who I think you are, then you've come, my friend, to the right place. Wasn't that your picture in the papers this morning? Are you the poor victim of this horrible new technique? If so, then you have been sent hereby Providence. Tortured in prison, then thrown out to be tortured by the police. My heart goes out to you, poor poorboy.\" Brothers, I could not get a slovo in, though I had my rot wide open to answer his questions. \"You are not the first to come herein distress,\" he said. \"The police are fond of bringing their victims to the outskirts of this village. But it is providential that you, who are also another kind of victim, should come here. Perhaps, then, you have heard of me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had to be very careful, brothers. I said: \"I have heard of A Clockwork Orange. I have not read it, but I have heard of it.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, and his litso shone like the sun in its flaming morning glory. \"Now tell me about yourself.\"\n\n\"Little enough to tell, sir,\" I said, all humble. \"There was a foolish and boyish prank, my so-called friends persuading or rather forcing me to break into the house of an old ptitsa-lady, I mean. There was no real harm meant. Unfortunately the lady strained her good old heart in trying to throw me out, though I was quite ready to goof my own accord, and then she died. I was accused of being the cause of her death. So I was sent to prison, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes yes yes, goon.\"\n\n\"Then I was picked out by the Minister of the Inferior or Interior to have this Ludovico's veshch tried out on me. '\n\n\"Tell me all about it,\" he said, leaning forward eager, his pullover elbows with all strawberry jam on them from the plate I'd pushed to one side. So I told him all about it. I told him the lot, all, my brothers. He was very eager to hear all, his glazzies like shining and his goobers apart, while the grease on the plates grew harder harder harder. When I had finished he got up from the table, nodding a lot and going hm hm hm, picking up the plates and other veshches from the table and taking them to the sink for washing up. I said:\n\n\"I will do that, sir, and gladly.\"\n\n\"Rest, rest, poor lad,\" he said, turning the tap on so that all steam came burping out. \"You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. And I see that clearly-that business about the marginal conditionings. Music and the sexual act, literature and art, all must be a source now not of pleasure but of pain. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right, sir, \"I said, smoking one of this kind man's cork-tipped cancers.\n\n\"They always bite off too much,\" he said, drying a plate like absent-mindedly. \"But the essential intention is the real sin. A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man.\"\n\n\"That's what the charles said, sir, \"I said.\"The prison chaplain, I mean. '\n\n\"Did he, did he? Of course he did. He'd have to, wouldn't he, being a Christian? Well, now then,\" he said, still wiping the same plate he'd been wiping ten minutes ago,\"we shall have a few people into see you tomorrow. I think you can be used, poorboy. I think that you can help dislodge this overbearing Government. To turn a decent young man into apiece of clockwork should not, surely, be seen as any triumph for any government, save one that boasts of its repressiveness. ' He was still wiping this same plate. I said:\n\n\"Sir, you're still wiping that same plate. I agree with you, sir, about boasting. This Government seems to be very boastful. '\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, like viddying this plate for the first time and then putting it down. \"I'm still not too handy, \"he said,\"with domestic chores. My wife used to do them all and leave me to my writing. '\n\n\"Your wife, sir?\" I said. \"Has she gone and left you?\" I really wanted to know about his wife, remembering very well.\n\n\"Yes, left me,\" he said, in alike loud and bitter goloss. \"She died, you see. She was brutally raped and beaten. The shock was very great. It was in this house,\" his rookers were trembling, holding a wiping-up cloth, \"in that room next door. I have had to steel myself to continue to live here, but she would have wished me to stay where her fragrant memory still lingers. Yes yes yes. Poor little girl.\" I viddied all clearly, my brothers, what had happened that far-off nochy, and viddying myself on that job, I began to feel I wanted to sick and the pain started up in my gulliver. This veck viddied this, because my litso felt it was all drained of red red krovvy, very pale, and he would be able to viddy this. \"You go to bed now,\" he said kindly. \"I've got the spare room ready. Poor poorboy, you must have had a terrible time. A victim of the modern age, just as she was. Poor poor poor girl. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had areal horrorshow night's sleep, brothers, with no dreams at all, and the morning was very clear and like frosty, and there was the very pleasant like von of breakfast frying away down below. It took me some little time to remember where I was, as it always does, but it soon came back tome and then I felt like warmed and protected. But, as I laid therein the bed, waiting to be called down to breakfast, it struck me that I ought to get to know the name of this kind protecting and like motherly veck, so I had a pad round in my nagoy nogas looking for A Clockwork Orange, which would be bound to have his eemya in, he being the author. There was nothing in my bedroom except abed and a chair and alight, so I ittied next door to this veck's own room, and there I viddied his wife on the wall, a bolshy blown-up photo, so I felt a malenky bit sick remembering. But there were two or three shelves of books there too, and there was, as I thought there must be, a copy of A Clockwork Orange, and on the back of the book, like on the spine, was the author's eemya-F. Alexander. Good Bog, I thought, he is another Alex. Then I leafed through, standing in my pyjamas and bare nogas but not feeling one malenky bit cold, the cottage being warm all through, and I could not viddy what the book was about. It seemed written in a very bezoomny like style, full of Ah and Oh and that cal, but what seemed to come out of it was that all lewdies nowadays were being turned into machines and that they were really-you and me and him and kiss-my-sharries-more like a natural growth like a fruit. F. Alexander seemed to think that we all like grow on what he called the world-tree in the world-orchard that like Bog or God planted, and we were there because Bog or God had need of us to quench his thirsty love, or some such cal. I didn't like the shoom of this at all, O my brothers, and wondered how bezoomny this F. Alexander really was, perhaps driven bezoomny by his wife's snuffing it. But then he called me down in alike sane veck's goloss, full of joy and love and all that cal, so down Your Humble Narrator went.\n\n\"You've slept long, \"he said, ladling out boiled eggs and pulling black toast from under the grill.\"It's nearly ten already. I've been up hours, working. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Writing another book, sir?\" I said.\n\n\"No no, not that now,\" he said, and we sat down nice and droogy to the old crack crack crack of eggs and crackle crunch crunch of this black toast, very milky chai standing by in bolshy great morning mugs. \"No, I've been on the phone to various people. '\n\n\"I thought you didn't have a phone, ' I said, spooning egg in and not watching out what I was saying.\n\n\"Why?\" he said, very alert like some skorry animal with an egg-spoon in its rooker. \"Why shouldn't you think I have a phone? '\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said, \"nothing, nothing.\" And I wondered, brothers, how much he remembered of the earlier part of that distant nochy, me coming to the door with the old tale and saying to phone the doctor and she saying no phone. He took a very close smot at me but then went back to being like kind and cheerful and spooning up the old eggiweg. Munching away, he said:\n\n\"Yes, I've rung up various people who will be interested in your case. You can be a very potent weapon, you see, in ensuring that this present evil and wicked Government is not returned in the forthcoming election. The Government's big boast, you see, is the way it has dealt with crime these last months.\" He looked at me very close again over his steaming egg, and I wondered again if he was viddying what part I had so far played in his jeezny. But he said: \"Recruiting brutal young roughs for the police. Proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning.\" All these long slovos, brothers, and alike mad or bezoomny look in his glazzies. \"We've seen it all before, \"he said,\"in other countries. The thin end of the wedge. Before we know where we are we shall have the full apparatus of totalitarianism. \"\"Dear dear dear, ' I thought, egging away and toast-crunching. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where do I come into all this, sir?\"\n\n\"You,\" he said, still with this bezoomny look, \"are a living witness to these diabolical proposals. The people, the common people must know, must see.\" He got up from his breakfast and started to walk up and down the kitchen, from the sink to the like larder, saying very gromky: \"Would they like their sons to become what you, poor victim, have become? Will not the Government itself now decide what is and what is not crime and pump out the life and guts and will of whoever sees fit to displease the Government?\" He became quieter but did not go back to his egg. \"I've written an article, \"he said,\"this morning, while you were sleeping. That will be out in a day or so, together with your unhappy picture. You shall sign it, poorboy, a record of what they have done to you. ' I said:\n\n\"And what do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, besides the pretty polly you'll get for the article, as you call it? I mean, why are you so hot and strong against this Government, if I may make like so bold as to ask? '\n\nHe gripped the edge of the table and said, gritting his zoobies, which were very cally and all stained with cancer-smoke: \"Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I seethe infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty fora quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded-\" And here, brothers, he picked up a fork and stuck it two or three razzes into the wall, so that it all got bent. Then he threw it on the floor. Very kindly he said: \"Eat well, poorboy, poor victim of the modern world,\" and I could viddy quite clear he was going off his gulliver. \"Eat, eat. Eat my egg as well.\" But I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what do I get out of this? Do I get cured of the way I am? Do I find myself able to slooshy the old Choral Symphony without being sick once more? Can I live like a text jeezny again? What, sir, happens tome?\"\n\nHe looked at me, brothers, as if he hadn't thought of that before and, anyway, it didn't matter compared with Liberty and all that cal, and he had a look of surprise at me saying what I said, as though I was being like selfish in wanting something for myself. Then he said: \"Oh, as I say, you're a living witness, poorboy. Eat up all your breakfast and then come and see what I've written, for it's going into The Weekly Trumpet under your name, you unfortunate victim. '\n\nWell, brothers, what he had written was a very long and very weepy piece of writing, and as I read it I felt very sorry for the poor malchick who was govoreeting about his sufferings and how the Government had sapped his will and how it was up to all lewdies to not let such a rotten and evil Government rule them again, and then of course I realized that the poor suffering malchick was none other than Y. H. N. \"Very good,\" I said. \"Real horrorshow. Written well thou hast, O sir.\" And then he looked at me very narrow and said:\n\n\"What?\" It was like he had not slooshied me before.\n\n\"Oh, that,\" I said, \"is what we call nadsat talk. All the teens use that, sir.\" So then he ittied off to the kitchen to wash up the dishes, and I was left in these borrowed night platties and toofles, waiting to have done tome what was going to be done tome, because I had no plans for myself. O my brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While the great F. Alexander was in the kitchen a dingalingaling came at the door. \"Ah,\" he creeched, coming out wiping his rookers, \"it will be these people. I'll go. \"So he went and let them in, a kind of rumbling hahaha of talk and hallo and filthy weather and how are things in the hallway, then they ittied into the room with the fire and the books and the article about how I had suffered, viddying me and going Aaaaah as they did it. There were three lewdies, and F. Alex gave me their eemyas. Z. Dolin was a very wheezy smoky kind of a veck, coughing kashl kashl kashl with the end of a cancer in his rot, spilling ash all down his platties and then brushing it away with like very impatient rookers. He was a malenky round veck, fat, with big thick-framed ochkies on. Then there was Something Something Rubinstein, a very tall and polite chelloveck with areal gentleman's goloss, very starry with alike eggy beard. And lastly there was D. B. da Silva who was like skorry in his movements and had this strong von of scent coming from him. They all had areal horrorshow look at me and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied. Z. Dolin said:\n\n\"All right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can be, this boy. If anything, of course, he could for preference look even iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for the cause. No doubt we can think of something.\"\n\nI did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, and so I said: \"What goes on, bratties? What dost thou in mind for thy little droog have?\" And then F. Alexander swooshed in with:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me. We've come into contact before, I'm sure we have.\" And he brooded, like frowning. I would have to watch this, O my brothers. D. B. da Silva said:\n\n\"Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the newspaper angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. We must inflame all hearts.\" He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky bit like some foreigner. I said:\n\n\"Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed by the millicents-what is to become of me?\" The Rubinstein veck came in with:\n\n\"You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and see.\"\n\n\"There's only one veshch I require, \"I creeched out,\"and that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days, having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors. Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was? That's what I want and that's what I want to know.\"\n\nKashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. \"A martyr to the cause of Liberty,\" he said. \"You have your part to play and don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you. ' And he began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny way. I creeched:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop treating me like a thing that's like got to be just used. I'm not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies. Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not ordinary and nor am I dim. Do you slooshy? '\n\n\"Dim,\" said F. Alexander, like musing. \"Dim. That was a name somewhere. Dim.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" I said. \"What's Dim got to do with it? What do you know about Dim? \"And then I said:\"Oh, Bog help us. \"I didn't like the like look in F. Alexander's glazzies. I made for the door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty off.\n\n\"I could almost believe,\" said F. Alexander, showing his stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. \"But such things are impossible. For, by Christ, if he were I'd tear him. I'd split him, by God, yes yes, so I would.\"\n\n\"There,\" said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a doggie to calm him down. \"It's all in the past. It was other people altogether. We must help this poor victim. That's what we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause.\"\n\n\"I'll just get my platties, \"I said, at the stair-foot,\"that is to say clothes, and then I'll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky. I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live.\" Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry. But Z. Dolin said:\n\n\"Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all right, you'll see. \"And he came up tome like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this like madness in F. Alexander's glazzies and said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever you say. I am in your rookers. But let's get it started and allover, brothers. ' Because what I wanted now was to get out of this mesto called HOME. I was beginning not to like the like look of the glazzies of F. Alexander one malenky bit.\n\n\"Good,\" said this Rubinstein. \"Get dressed and let's get started. '\n\n\"Dim dim dim,\" F. Alexander kept saying in alike low mutter. \"What or who was this Dim?\" I ittied upstairs real skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat. Then I was outwith these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one side of me and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side, D. B. da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock not really all that distant from what had used to be my own flatblock or home. \"Come, boy, out,\" said Z. Dolin, coughing to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some malenky furnace. \"This is where you shall be installed.\" So we ittied in, and there was like another of these Dignity of Labour veshches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in the lift, brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky, with two bedrooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this all covered with books and papers and ink and bottles and all that cal. \"Here is your new home,\" said D. B. da Silva. \"Settle here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas are in a drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eh?\" I said, not quite ponying that.\n\n\"All right,\" said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss. \"We are now leaving you. Work has to be done. We'll be with you later. Occupy yourself as best you can. '\n\n\"One thing,\" coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl. \"You saw what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexander. Was it, by any chance-? That is to say, did you-? I think you know what I mean. We won't let it go any further. '\n\n\"I've paid, \"I said.\"Bog knows I've paid for what I did. I've paid not only like for myself but for those bratchnies too that called themselves my droogs. \"I felt violent so then I felt a bit sick.\"I'll lay down a bit,\" I said. \"I've been through terrible terrible times. '\n\n\"You have,\" said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty zoobies. \"You do that.\"\n\nSo they left me, brothers. They ittied off about their business, which I took to be about politics and all that cal, and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with everything very very quiet. I just laid therewith my sabogs kicked off my nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not knowing what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now. And all sorts of like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of the different chellovecks I'd met at school and in the Staja, and the different veshches that had happened tome, and how there was not one veckyou could trust in the whole bolshy world. And then I like dozed off, brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I woke up I could slooshy music coming out of the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had dragged me out of my bit of like sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a symphony that I knew real horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, namely the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skadelig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in the first movement, which was what was playing now. I slooshied for two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to groan deep down in my keeshkas. And then there I was, me who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going oh oh oh to myself, and then bang bang banging on the wall creeching: \"Stop, stop it, turn it off!\" But it went on and it seemed to be like louder. So I crashed at the wall till my knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, creeching and creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I thought I had to getaway from it, so I lurched out of the malenky bedroom and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but this had been locked from the outside and I could not get out. And all the time the music got more and more gromky, like it was all a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my little fingers real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and kettledrums blasted through gromky enough. So I creeched again for them to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it made not one malenky bit of difference. \"Oh, what am Ito do?\" I boohooed to myself. \"Oh, Bog in Heaven help me.\" I was like wandering allover the flat in pain and sickness, trying to shutout the music and like groaning deep out of my guts, and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that cal that was on the table in the living-room I viddied what I had to do and what I had wanted to do until those old men in the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised as rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to snuff it, to blastoff forever out of this wicked and cruel world. What I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of alike pamphlet, even though it was only DEATH TO THE GOVERNMENT. And like it was Fate there was another like malenky booklet which had an open window on the cover, and it said: \"Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, anew way of living.\" And so I knew that was like telling me to finish it all off by jumping out. One moment of pain, perhaps, and then sleep forever and ever and ever.\n\nThe music was still pouring in all brass and drums and the violins miles up through the wall. The window in the room where I had laid down was open. I ittied to it and viddied a fair drop to the autos and buses and walking chellovecks below. I creeched out to the world: \"Goodbye, goodbye, may Bog forgive you fora ruined life.\" Then I got onto the sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut my glazzies and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell on the sidewalk hard, but I did not snuff it, oh no. If I had snuffed it I would not be hereto write what I written have. It seems that the jump was not from a big enough heighth to kill. But I cracked my back and my wrists and nogas and felt very bolshy pain before I passed out, brothers, with astonished and surprised litsos of chellovecks in the streets looking at me from above. And just before I passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck in the whole horrid world was for me and that that music through the wall had all been like arranged by those who were supposed to be my like new droogs and that it was some veshch like this that they wanted for their horrible selfish and boastful politics. All that was in like a million millionth part of one minoota before I threw over the world and the sky and the litsos of the staring chellovecks that were above me.\n\nWhere I was when I came back to jeezny after along black black gap of it might have been a million years was a hospital, all white and with this von of hospitals you get, all like sour and smug and clean. These antiseptic veshches you get in hospitals should have areal horrorshow von of like frying onions or of flowers. I came very slow back to knowing who I was and I was all bound up in white and I could not feel anything in my plott, pain nor sensation nor any veshch at all. All round my gulliver was a bandage and there were bits of stuff like stuck to my litso, and my rookers were all in bandages and like bits of stick were like fixed to my fingers like on it might be flowers to make them grow straight, and my poor old nogas were all straightened out too, and it was all bandages and wire cages and into my right rooker, near the pletcho, was red red krovvy dripping from ajar upside down. But I could not feel anything, O my brothers. There was a nurse sitting by my bed and she was reading some book that was all like very dim print and you could viddy it was a story because of a lot of inverted commas, and she was like breathing hard uh uh uh over it, so it must have been a story about the old in-out in-out. She was areal horrorshow devotchka, this nurse, with a very red rot and like long lashes over her glazzies, and under her like very stiff uniform you could viddy she had very horrorshow groodies. So I said to her: \"What gives, O my little sister? Come thou and have a nice lay-down with your malenky droog in this bed.\" But the slovos didn't come out horrorshow at all, it being as though my rot was all stiffened up, and I could feel with my yahzick that some of my zoobies were no longer there. But this nurse like jumped and dropped her book on the floor and said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, you've recovered consciousness. '\n\nThat was like a big rotful fora malenky ptitsa like her, and I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er er er. She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I could viddy now that I was in a malenky room of my own, not in one of these long wards like I had been in as a very little malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks all round to make you want to get well and fit again. It had been like diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers.\n\nIt was like now as though I could not hold to being conscious all that long, because I was like asleep again almost right away, very skorry, but in a minoota or two I was sure that this nurse ptitsa had comeback and had brought chellovecks in white coats with her and they were viddying me very frowning and going hm hm hm at Your Humble Narrator. And with them I was sure there was the old charles from the Staja govoreeting: \"Oh my son, my son,\" breathing alike very stale von of whisky onto me and then saying: \"But I would not stay, oh no. I could not in nowise subscribe to what those bratchnies are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks. So I got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, my little beloved son in J. C.\"\n\nI woke up again later on and who should I viddy there round the bed but the three from whose flat I had jumped out, namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something Rubinstein and Z. Dolin. \"Friend,\" one of these vecks was saying, but I could not viddy or slooshy horrorshow which one, \"friend, little friend,\" this goloss was saying, \"the people are on fire with indignation. You have killed those horrible boastful villains\" chances of re-election. They will go and will go forever and ever. You have served Liberty well. ' I tried to say:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I had died it would have been even better for you political bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous droogs as you are.\" But all that came out was er er er. Then one of these three seemed to holdout a lot of bits cut from gazettas and what I could viddy was a horrible picture of me all krovvy on a stretcher being carried off and I seemed to like remember a kind of a popping of lights which must have been photographer vecks. Out of one glazz I could read like headlines which were sort of trembling in the rooker of the chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF CRIMINAL REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MURDERER and then there was like a picture of a veck that looked familiar tome and it said OUT OUT OUT, and that would be the Minister of the Inferior or Interior. Then the nurse ptitsa said:\n\n\"You shouldn't be exciting him like that. You shouldn't be doing anything that will make him upset. Now come on, let's have you out. ' I tried to say:\n\n\"Out out out,\" but it was er er er again. Anyway, these three political vecks went. And I went, too, only back to the land, back to all blackness lit up by like odd dreams which I didn't know whether they were dreams or not, O my brothers. Like for instance I had this idea of my whole plott or body being like emptied of as it might be dirty water and then filled up again with clean. And then there were really lovely and horrorshow dreams of being in some veck's auto that had been crasted by me and driving up and down the world all on my oddy knocky running lewdies down and hearing them creech they were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness. And also there were dreams of doing the old in-out in-outwith devotchkas, forcing like them down on the ground and making them have it and everybody standing round clapping their rookers and cheering like bezoomny. And then I woke up again and it was my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em boohooing real horrorshow. I could govoreet a lot better now and could say:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well well well well well, what gives? What makes you think you are like welcome?\" My papapa said, in alike ashamed way:\n\n\"You were in the papers, son. It said they had done great wrong to you. It said how the Government drove you to try and do yourself in. And it was our fault too, in away, son. Your home's your home, when all's said and done, son.\" And my mum kept ongoing boohoohoo and looking ugly as kiss-my-sharries. So I said:\n\n\"And how beeth thy new son Joe? Welland healthy and prosperous, I trust and pray.\" My mum said:\n\n\"Oh, Alex Alex. Owwwwwwww.\" My papapa said:\n\n\"A very awkward thing, son. He got into a bit of trouble with the police and was done by the police.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I said. \"Really? Such a good sort of chelloveck and all. Amazed proper I am, honest.\"\n\n\"Minding his own business he was,\" said my pee. \"And the police told him to move on. Waiting at a corner he was, son, to see a girl he was going to meet. And they told him to move on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and then they sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel.\"\n\n\"Terrible,\" I said. \"Really terrible. And where is the poorboy now?\"\n\n\"Owwwww,\" boohooed my mum. \"Gone back owwwwwwme.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said dad. \"He's gone back to his own hometown to get better. They've had to give his job hereto somebody else.\"\n\n\"So now,\" I said, \"you're willing for me to move back in again and things be like they were before. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, son,\" said my papapa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please, son.\"\n\n\"I'll consider it, \"I said.\"I'll think about it real careful.\"\n\n\"Owwwww,\" went my mum.\n\n\"Ah, shut it,\" I said, \"or I'll give you something proper to yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will. ' And, O my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, as if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through my plott. That was something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.\n\n\"That's noway to speak to your mother, son, \"said my papapa.\"After all, she brought you into the world. '\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"and aright grahzny vonny world too.\" I shut my glazzies tight in like pain and said: \"Go away now. I'll think about coming back. But things will have to be very different. '\n\n\"Yes, son,\" said my pee. \"Anything you say.\"\n\n\"You'll have to makeup your mind, \"I said,\"who's to be boss.\"\n\n\"Owwwwww,\" my mum went on.\n\n\"Very good, son,\" said my papapa. \"Things will be as you like. Only get well.\"\n\nWhen they had gone I laid and thought a bit about different veshches, like all different pictures passing through my gulliver, and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like straightened the sheets on the bed I said to her:\n\n\"How long is it I've been inhere? '\n\n\"A week or so,\" she said.\n\n\"And what have they been doing tome?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" she said, \"you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot of blood. They've had to put all that right, haven't they?\"\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver? What I mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?\"\n\n\"Whatever they've done, \"she said,\"it'll all be for the best.\"\n\nBut a couple of days later a couple of like doctor vecks came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky smiles, and they had like a picture book with them. One of them said: \"We want you to have a look at these and to tell us what you think about them. All right?\"\n\n\"What giveth. O little droogies?\" I said. \"What new bezoomny idea dost thou in mind have?\" So they both had alike embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat down either side of the bed and opened up this book. On the first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.\n\n\"Yes?\" one of these doctor vecks said.\n\n\"A bird-nest,\" I said, \"full of like eggs. Very very nice.\"\n\n\"And what would you like to do about it?\" the other one said.\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"smash them. Pickup the lot and like throw them against a wall or a cliff or something and then viddy them all smashup real horrorshow.\"\n\n\"Good good,\" they both said, and then the page was turned. It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great birds called peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a very boastful way. \"Yes?\" said one of these vecks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I would like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said, \"to pullout like all those feathers in its tail and slooshy it creech blue murder. For being so like boastful.\"\n\n\"Good,\" they both said, \"good good good.\" And they went on turning the pages. There were like pictures of real horrorshow devotchkas, and I said I would like to give them the old in-out in-outwith lots of ultra-violence. There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the litso and all red red krovvy everywhere and I said I would like to be in on that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy droog of the prison charlie's carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I would like to have the old hammer and nails. Good good good. I said:\n\n\"What is all this?\"\n\n\"Deep hypnopaedia,\" or some such slovo, said one of these two vecks. \"You seem to be cured.\"\n\n\"Cured?\" I said. \"Me tied down to this bed like this and you say cured? Kiss my sharries is what I say.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" the other said. \"It won't belong now. '\n\nSo I waited and, O my brothers, I got a lot better, munching away at eggiwegs and lomticks of toast and peeting bolshy great mugs of milky chai, and then one day they said I was going to have a very very very special visitor.\n\n\"Who?\" I said, while they straightened the bed and combed my luscious glory for me, me having the bandage off now from my gulliver and the hair growing again.\n\n\"You'll see, you'll see,\" they said. And I viddied all right. At two-thirty of the afternoon there were like all photographers and men from gazettas with notebooks and pencils and all that cal. And, brothers, they near trumpeted a bolshy fanfare for this great and important veck who was coming to viddy Your Humble Narrator. And in he came, and of course it was none other than the Minister of the Interior or Inferior, dressed in the heighth of fashion and with this very upper-class haw haw haw goloss. Flash flash bang went the cameras when he putout his rooker tome to shake it. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well well well well well. What giveth then, old droogie?\" Nobody seemed to quite pony that, but somebody said in alike harsh goloss:\n\n\"Be more respectful, boy, in addressing the Minister.\"\n\n\"Yarbles,\" I said, like snarling like a doggie. \"Bolshy great yarblockos to thee and thine.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" said the Interior Inferior one very skorry. \"He speaks tome as a friend, don't you, son? '\n\n\"I am everyone's friend, \"I said.\"Except to my enemies. '\n\n\"And who are your enemies?\" said the Minister, while all the gazetta vecks went scribble scribble scribble. \"Tell us that, my boy.\"\n\n\"All who dome wrong,\" I said, \"are my enemies.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Int Inf Min, sitting down by my bed. \"I and the Government of which I am a member want you to regard us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put you right, yes? You are getting the best of treatment. We never wished you harm, but there are some who did and do. And I think you know who those are.\"\n\n\"All who dome wrong,\" I said, \"are my enemies.\"\n\n\"Yes yes yes,\" he said. \"There are certain men who wanted to use you, yes, use you for political ends. They would have been glad, yes, glad for you to be dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. I think you know who those men are.\"\n\n\"I did not,\" I said, \"like the look of them.\"\n\n\"There is a man,\" said the Intinfmin, \"called F. Alexander, a writer of subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife in you. But you're safe from him now. We put him away. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was supposed to be like a droogie,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like a mother tome was what he was.\"\n\n\"He found out that you had done wrong to him. At least,\" said the Min very very skorry, \"he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his mind that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to him.\"\n\n\"What you mean,\" I said, \"is that he was told.\"\n\n\"He had this idea,\" said the Min. \"He was a menace. We put him away for his own protection. And also,\" he said, \"for yours.\"\n\n\"Kind,\" I said. \"Most kind of thou.\"\n\n\"When you leave here,\" said the Min, \"you will have no worries. We shall see to everything. A good job on a good salary. Because you are helping us.\"\n\n\"Am I?\" I said.\n\n\"We always help our friends, don't we? \"And then he took my rooker and some veck creeched:\"Smile! \"and I smiled like bezoomny without thinking, and then flash flash crack flash bang there were pictures being taken of me and the Intinfmin all droogy together.\"Good boy, \"said this great chelloveck.\"Good good boy. And now, see, a present. '\n\nWhat was brought in now, brothers, was a big shiny box, and I viddied clear what sort of a veshch it was. It was a stereo. It was put down next to the bed and opened up and some veck plugged its lead into the wall-socket. \"What shall it be?\" asked a veck with ochkies on his nose, and he had in his rookers lovely shiny sleeves full of music. \"Mozart? Beethoven? Schoenberg? Carl Orff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Ninth,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The glorious Ninth.\"\n\nAnd the Ninth it was, O my brothers. Everybody began to leave nice and quiet while I laid therewith my glazzies closed, slooshying the lovely music. The Min said: \"Good good boy,\" patting me on the pletcho, then he ittied off. Only one veck was left, saying: \"Sign here, please.\" I opened my glazzies up to sign, not knowing what I was signing and not, O my brothers, caring either. Then I was left alone with the glorious Ninth of Ludwig van.\n\nOh, it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it came to the Scherzo I could viddy myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas, carving the whole litso of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva. And there was the slow movement and the lovely last singing movement still to come. I was cured all right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nThere was me, Your Humble Narrator, and my three droogs, that is Len, Rick, and Bully, Bully being called Bully because of his bolshly big neck and very gromky goloss which was just like some bolshy great bull bellowing auuuuuuuuh. We were sitting in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. All round were chellovecks well away on milk plus vellocet and synthemesc and drencrom and other veshches which take you far far faraway from this wicked and real world into the land to viddy Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left sabog with lights bursting and spurting allover your mozg. What we were peeting was the old moloko with knives in it, as we used to say, to sharpen you up and make you ready fora bit of dirty twenty-to-one, but I've told you all that before.\n\nWe were dressed in the heighth of fashion, which in those days was these very wide trousers and a very loose black shiny leather like jerkin over an open-necked shirt with alike scarf tucked in. At this time too it was the heighth of fashion to use the old britva on the gulliver, so that most of the gulliver was like bald and there was hair only on the sides. But it was always the same on the old nogas-real horrorshow bolshy big boots for kicking litsos in.\n\n\"What's it going to be then, eh? '\n\nI was like the oldest of we four, and they all looked up tome as their leader, but I got the idea sometimes that Bully had the thought in his gulliver that he would like to takeover, this being because of his bigness and the gromky goloss that bellowed out of him when he was on the warpath. But all the ideas came from Your Humble, O my brothers, and also there was this veshch that I had been famous and had had my picture and articles and all that cal in the gazettas. Also I had by far the best job of all we four, being in the National Gramodisc Archives on the music side with areal horrorshow carman full of pretty polly at the week's end and a lot of nice free discs for my own malenky self on the side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This evening in the Korova there was a fair number of vecks and ptitsas and devotchkas and malchicks smecking and peeting away, and cutting through their govoreeting and the burbling of the in-the-landers with their \"Gorgor fallatuke and the worm sprays in filltip slaughterballs\" and all that cal you could slooshy a popdisc on the stereo, this being Ned Achimota singing \"That Day, Yeah, That Day\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the counter were three devotchkas dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion, that is to say long uncombed hair dyed white and false groodies sticking out a metre or more and very very tight short skirts with all like frothy white underneath, and Bully kept saying: \"Hey, get in there we could, three of us. Old Len is not interested. Leave old Len alone with his God.\" And Len kept saying: \"Yarbles yarbles. Where is the spirit of all for one and one for all, eh boy?\" Suddenly I felt both very very tired and also full of tingly energy, and I said:\n\n\"Out out out out out.\"\n\n\"Where to?\" said Rick, who had a litso like a frog's.\n\n\"Oh, just to viddy what's doing in the great outside, \"I said. But somehow, my brothers, I felt very bored and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot these days. So I turned to the chelloveck nearest me on the big plush seat that ran right round the whole mesto, a chelloveck, that is, who was burbling away under the influence, and I fisted him real skorry ack ack ack in the belly. But he felt it not, brothers, only burbling away with his'Cart cart virtue, wherein toptails lieth the poppoppicorns? ' So we scatted out into the big winter nochy.\n\nWe walked down Marghanita Boulevard and there were no millicents patrolling that way, so when we meta starry veck coming away from a news-kiosk where he had been kupetting a gazetta I said to Bully: \" All right, Bully boy, thou canst if thou like wishest. ' More and more these days I had been just giving the orders and standing back to viddy them being carried out. So Bully cracked into him er er er, and the other two tripped him and kicked at him, smecking away, while he was down and then let him crawl off to where he lived, like whimpering to himself. Bully said:" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: dystopian, satire, psychological, crime, language\nAuthor: Anthony Burgess\nTitle: A Clockwork Orange\nChapter: 28" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This evening in the Korova there was a fair number of vecks and ptitsas and devotchkas and malchicks smecking and peeting away, and cutting through their govoreeting and the burbling of the in-the-landers with their \"Gorgor fallatuke and the worm sprays in filltip slaughterballs\" and all that cal you could slooshy a popdisc on the stereo, this being Ned Achimota singing \"That Day, Yeah, That Day\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the counter were three devotchkas dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion, that is to say long uncombed hair dyed white and false groodies sticking out a metre or more and very very tight short skirts with all like frothy white underneath, and Bully kept saying: \"Hey, get in there we could, three of us. Old Len is not interested. Leave old Len alone with his God.\" And Len kept saying: \"Yarbles yarbles. Where is the spirit of all for one and one for all, eh boy?\" Suddenly I felt both very very tired and also full of tingly energy, and I said:\n\n\"Out out out out out.\"\n\n\"Where to?\" said Rick, who had a litso like a frog's.\n\n\"Oh, just to viddy what's doing in the great outside, \"I said. But somehow, my brothers, I felt very bored and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot these days. So I turned to the chelloveck nearest me on the big plush seat that ran right round the whole mesto, a chelloveck, that is, who was burbling away under the influence, and I fisted him real skorry ack ack ack in the belly. But he felt it not, brothers, only burbling away with his'Cart cart virtue, wherein toptails lieth the poppoppicorns? ' So we scatted out into the big winter nochy.\n\nWe walked down Marghanita Boulevard and there were no millicents patrolling that way, so when we meta starry veck coming away from a news-kiosk where he had been kupetting a gazetta I said to Bully: \" All right, Bully boy, thou canst if thou like wishest. ' More and more these days I had been just giving the orders and standing back to viddy them being carried out. So Bully cracked into him er er er, and the other two tripped him and kicked at him, smecking away, while he was down and then let him crawl off to where he lived, like whimpering to himself. Bully said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about a nice yummy glass of something to keep out the cold, O Alex?\" For we were not too far from the Duke of New York. The other two nodded yes yes yes but all looked at me to viddy whether that was all right. I nodded too and so off we ittied. Inside the snug there were these starry ptitsas or sharps or baboochkas you will remember from the beginning and they all started on their: \"Evening, lads, God bless you, boys, best lads living, that's what you are, \"waiting for us to say'What's it going to be, girls?\" Bully rang the collocoll and a waiter came in rubbing his rookers on his grazzy apron. \"Cutter on the table, droogies,\" said Bully, pulling out his own rattling and chinking mound of deng. \"Scotchmen for us and the same for the old baboochkas, eh?\" And then I said:\n\n\"Ah, to hell. Let them buy their own.\" I didn't know what it was, but these last days I had become like mean. There had come into my gulliver alike desire to keep all my pretty polly to myself, to like hoard it all up for some reason. Bully said:\n\n\"What gives, bratty? What's coming over old Alex? '\n\n\"Ah, to hell,\" I said. \"I don't know. I don't know. What it is is I don't like just throwing away my hard-earned pretty polly, that's what it is.\"\n\n\"Earned?\" said Rick. \"Earned? It doesn't have to be earned, as well thou knowest, old droogie. Took, that's all, just took, like.\" And he smecked real gromky and I viddied one or two of his zoobies weren't all that horrorshow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah,\" I said, \"I've got some thinking to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "' But viddying these baboochkas looking all eager like for some free alc, I like shrugged my pletchoes and pulled out my own cutter from my trouser carman, notes and coin all mixed together, and plonked it tinkle crackle on the table.\n\n\"Scotchmen all round, right,\" said the waiter. But for some reason I said:\n\n\"No, boy, for me make it one small beer, right.\" Len said:\n\n\"This I do not much go for,\" and he began to put his rooker on my gulliver, like kidding I must have fever, but I like snarled doggy-wise for him to give over skorry. \"All right, all right, droog,\" he said. \"As thou like sayest.\" But Bully was having a smot with his rot open at something that had come out of my carman with the pretty polly I'd put on the table. He said:\n\n\"Well well well. And we never knew.\"\n\n\"Give me that,\" I snarled and grabbed it skorry. I couldn't explain how it had got there, brothers, but it was a photograph I had scissored out of the old gazetta and it was of a baby. It was of a baby gurgling goo goo goo with all like moloko dribbling from its rot and looking up and like smecking at everybody, and its was all nagoy and its flesh was like in all folds with being a very fat baby. There was then like a bit of haw haw haw struggling to get hold of this bit of paper from me, so I had to snarl again at them and I grabbed the photo and tore it up into tiny teeny pieces and let it fall like a bit of snow onto the floor. The whisky came in then and the starry baboochkas said:\"Good health, lads, God bless you, boys, the best lads living, that's what you are,\" and all that cal. And one of them who was all lines and wrinkles and no zoobies in her shrunken old rot said: \"Don't tear up money, son. If you don't need it give it them as does,\" which was very bold and forward of her. But Rick said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Money that was not, O baboochka." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a picture of a dear little itsy witsy bitsy bit of a baby.\" I said:\n\n\"I'm getting just that bit tired, that I am. It's you who's the babies, you lot. Scoffing and grinning and all you can do is smeck and give people bolshy cowardly tolchocks when they can't give them back.\" Bully said:\n\n\"Well now, we always thought it was you who was the king of that and also the teacher. Not well, that's the trouble with thou, old droogie. '\n\nI viddied this sloppy glass of beer I had on the table in front of me and felt like all vomity within, so I went \"Aaaaah\" and poured all the frothy vonny cal allover the floor. One of the starry ptitsas said:\n\n\"Waste not want not.\" I said:\n\n\"Look, droogies. Listen. Tonight I am somehow just not in the mood. I know not why or how it is, but there it is. You three go your own ways this nightwise, leaving me out. Tomorrow we shall meet same place same time, me hoping to be like a lot better.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Bully, \"right sorry I am.\" But you could viddy alike gleam in his glazzies, because now he would betaking over for this nochy. Power power, everybody like wants power. \"We can postpone till tomorrow,\" said Bully. \"what we in mind had. Namely, that bit of shop-crasting in Gagarin Street. Flip horrorshow takings there, droog, for the having.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said. \"You postpone nothing. You just carry on in your own like style. Now,\" I said, \"I itty off.\" And I got up from my chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where to, then?\" asked Rick.\n\n\"That know I not,\" I said. \"Just to be on like my own and sort things out.\" You could viddy the old baboochkas were real puzzled at me going out like that and like all morose and not the bright and smecking malchickiwick you will remember. But I said: \"Ah, to hell, to hell,\" and scatted out all on my oddy knocky into the street.\n\nIt was dark and there was a wind sharp as a nozh getting up, and there were very very few lewdies about. There were these patrol cars with brutal rozzes inside them like cruising about, and now and then on the corner you would viddy a couple of very young millicents stamping against the bitchy cold and letting out steam breath on the winter air, O my brothers. I suppose really a lot of the old ultra-violence and crasting was dying out now, the rozzes being so brutal with who they caught, though it had become like a fight between naughty nadsats and the rozzes who could be more skorry with the nozh and the britva and the stick and even the gun. But what was the matter with me these days was that I didn't like care much. It was like something soft getting into me and I could not pony why. What I wanted these days I did not know. Even the music I liked to slooshy in my own malenky den what what I would have smecked at before, brothers. I was slooshying more like malenky romantic songs, what they call Lieder, just a goloss and a piano, very quiet and like yearny, different from when it had been all bolshy orchestras and me lying on the bed between the violins and the trombones and kettledrums. There was something happening inside me, and I wondered if it was like some disease or if it was what they had done tome that time upsetting my gulliver and perhaps going to make me real bezoomny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So thinking like this with my gulliver bent and my rookers stuck in my trouser carmans I walked the town, brothers, and at last I began to feel very tired and also in great need of a nice bolshy chasha of milky chai." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thinking about this chai, I got a sudden like picture of me sitting before a bolshy fire in an armchair peeting away at this chai, and what was funny and very very strange was that I seemed to have turned into a very starry chelloveck, about seventy years old, because I could viddy my own voloss, which was very grey, and I also had whiskers, and these were very grey too. I could viddy myself as an old man, sitting by afire, and then the like picture vanished. But it was very like strange.\n\nI came to one of these tea-and-coffee mestos, brothers, and I could viddy through the long long window that it was full of very dull lewdies, like ordinary, who had these very patient and expressionless litsos and would do no harm to no one, all sitting there and govoreeting like quietly and peeting away at their nice harmless chai and coffee. I ittied inside and went up to the counter and bought me a nice hot chai with plenty of moloko, then I ittied to one of these tables and sat down to peet it. There was alike young couple at this table, peeting and smoking filter-tip cancers, and govoreeting and smecking very quietly between themselves, but I took no notice of them and just went on peeting away and like dreaming and wondering what it was in me that was like changing and what was going to happen tome. But I viddied that the devotchka at this table who was with this chelloveck was real horrorshow, not the sort you would want to like throw down and give the old in-out in-out to, but with a horrorshow plott and litso and a smiling rot and very very fair voloss and all that cal. And then the veck with her, who had a hat on his gulliver and had his litso like turned away from me, swivelled round to viddy the bolshy big clock they had on the wall in this mesto, and then I viddied who he was and then he viddied who I was. It was Pete, one of my three droogs from those days when it was Georgie and Dim and him and me. It was Pete like looking a lot older though he could not now be more than nineteen and a bit, and he had a bit of a moustache and an ordinary day-suit and this hat on. I said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well well well, droogie, what gives? Very very longtime no viddy.\" He said:\n\n\"It's little Alex, isn't it?\"\n\n\"None other,\" I said. \"A long long longtime since those dead and gone good days. And now poor Georgie, they told me, is underground and old Dim is a brutal millicent, and here is thou and here is I, and what news hast thou, old droogie?\"\n\n\"He talks funny, doesn't he? ' said this devotchka, like giggling.\n\n\"This,\" said Pete to the devotchka, \"is an old friend. His name is Alex. May I,\" he said tome, \"introduce my wife?\"\n\nMy rot fell wide open then. \"Wife?\" I like gaped. \"Wife wife wife? Ah no, that cannot be. Too young art thou to be married, old droog. Impossible impossible.\"\n\nThis devotchka who was like Pete's wife (impossible impossible) giggled again and said to Pete:\"Did you used to talk like that too? '\n\n\"Well,\" said Pete, and he liked smiled. \"I'm nearly twenty. Old enough to be hitched, and it's been two months already. You were very young and very forward, remember.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I liked gaped still. \"Over this get can I not, old droogie. Pete married. Well well well.\"\n\n\"We have a small flat,\" said Pete. \"I am earning very small money at State Marine Insurance, but things will get better, that I know. And Georgina here-\"\n\n\"What again is that name?\" I said, rot still open like bezoomny. Pete's wife. (wife, brothers) like giggled again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Georgina,\" said Pete. \"Georgina works too. Typing, you know. We manage, we manage.\" I could not, brothers, take my glazzies off him, really. He was like grownup now, with a grown-up goloss and all. \"You must,\" said Pete, \"come and see us sometime. You still,\" he said, \"look very young, despite all your terrible experiences. Yes yes, yes, we've read all about them. But, of course, you are very young still. '\n\n\"Eighteen,\" I said, \"Just gone.\"\n\n\"Eighteen, eh?\" said Pete. \"As old as that. Well well well. Now,\" he said, \"we have to be going.\" And he like gave this Georgina of his alike loving look and pressed one of her rookers between his and she gave him one of these looks back, O my brothers. \"Yes,\" said Pete, turning back tome, \"we're off to a little party at Greg's.\"\n\n\"Greg?\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, of course,\" said Pete, \"you wouldn't know Greg, would you? Greg is after your time. While you were away Greg came into the picture. He runs little parties, you know. Mostly wine-cup and word-games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know. Harmless, if you see what I mean. '\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"Harmless. Yes, yes, I viddy that real horrorshow.\" And this Georgina devotchka giggled again at my slovos. And then these two ittied off to their vonny word-games at this Greg's, whoever he was. I was left all on my oddy knocky with my milky chai, which was getting cold now, like thinking and wondering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps that was it, I kept thinking. Perhaps I was getting too old for the sort of jeezny I had been leading, brothers. I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age. At eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal, no, not cal, heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his Midsummer Night's Dream Overture. And there were others. And there was this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that young an age, then. But what was I going to do?\n\nWalking the dark chill bastards of winter streets after ittying off from this chai-and-coffee mesto, I kept viddying like visions, like these cartoons in the gazettas. There was Your Humble Narrator Alex coming home from work to a good hotplate of dinner, and there was this ptitsa all welcoming and greeting like loving. But I could not viddy her all that horrorshow, brothers, I could not think who it might be. But I had this sudden very strong idea that if I walked into the room next to this room where the fire was burning away and my hot dinner laid on the table, there I should find what I really wanted, and now it all tied up, that picture scissored out of the gazetta and meeting old Pete like that. For in that other room in a cot was laying gurgling goo goo goo my son. Yes yes yes, brothers, my son. And now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plott, feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my brothers. I was like growing up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in away like it might bean animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.\n\nMy son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches I had done, yes perhaps even killing some poor starry forella surrounded with mewing kots and koshkas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty onto like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers.\n\nBut first of all, brothers, there was this veshch of finding some devotchka or other who would be a mother to this son. I would have to start on that tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was something like new to do. That was something I would have to get started on, anew like chapter beginning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's what it's going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all onto your old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.\n\nBut where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: war, historical fiction, World War I, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Erich Maria Remarque\nTitle: All Quiet on the Western Front\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the rear too. As far as one can see spout fountains of mud andiron. A wide belt is being raked.\n\nThe attack does not come, but the bombardment continues. We are gradually benumbed. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make ourselves understood.\n\nOur trench is almost gone. At many places it is only eighteen inches high, it is broken by holes, and craters, and mountains of earth. A shell lands square in front of our post. At once it is dark. We are buried and must dig ourselves out. After an hour the entrance is clear again, and we are calmer because we have had something to do.\n\nOur Company Commander scrambles in and reports that two dug-outs are gone. The recruits calm themselves when they see him. He says that an attempt will be made to bring up food this evening.\n\nThat sounds reassuring. No one had thought of it except Tjaden. Now the outside world seems to draw a little nearer: if food can be brought up, think the recruits, then it can't really be so bad.\n\nWe do not disabuse them; we know that food is as important as ammunition and only for that reason must be brought up.\n\nBut it miscarries. A second party goes out, and it also turns back. Finally Kat tries, and even he reappears without accomplishing anything. No one gets through, not even a fly is small enough to get through such a barrage.\n\nWe pull in our belts tighter and chew every mouthful three times as long. Still the food does not last out; we are damnably hungry. I takeout a scrap of bread, eat the white and put the crust back in my knapsack; from time to time I nibble at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The night is unbearable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We cannot sleep, but stare ahead of us and doze. Tjaden regrets that we wasted the gnawed pieces of bread on the rats. We would gladly have them again to eat now. We are short of water, too, but not seriously yet.\n\nTowards morning, while it is still dark, there is some excitement. Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing rats that try to storm the walls. Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strikeout, and the beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another.\n\nThe onslaught has exhausted us. We lie down to wait again. It is a marvel that our post has had no casualties so far. It is one of the less deep dugouts.\n\nA corporal creeps in; he has a loaf of bread with him. Three people have had the luck to get through during the night and bring some provisions. They say the bombardment extends undiminished as far as the artillery lines. It is a mystery where the enemy gets all his shells.\n\nWe wait and wait. By midday what I expected happens. One of the recruits has a fit. I have been watching him fora longtime, grinding his teeth and opening and shutting his fists. These hunted, protruding eyes, we know them too well. During the last few hours he has had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed like a rotten tree.\n\nNow he stands up, stealthily creeps across the floor, hesitates a moment and then glides towards the door. I intercept him and say: \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"I'll be back in a minute,\" says he, and tries to push past me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait a bit, the shelling will stop soon.\"\n\nHe listens fora moment and his eyes become clear. Then again he has the glowering eyes of a mad dog, he is silent, he shoves me aside.\n\n\"One minute, lad,\" I say. Kat notices. Just as the recruit shakes me off Kat jumps in and we hold him.\n\nThen he begins to rave: \"Leave me alone, let me go out, I will go out!\"\n\nHe won't listen to anything and hits out, his mouth is wet and pours out words, half choked, meaningless words. It is a case of claustrophobia, he feels as though he is suffocating here and wants to get out at any price. If we let him go he would runabout everywhere regardless of cover. He is not the first.\n\nThough he raves and his eyes roll, it can't be helped, we have to give him a hiding to bring him to his senses. We do it quickly and mercilessly, and at last he sits down quietly. The others have turned pale; let's hope it deters them. This bombardment is too much for the poor devils, they have been sent straight from a recruiting-depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an old soldier's hair grey.\n\nAfter this affair the sticky, close atmosphere works more than ever on our nerves. We sit as if in our graves waiting only to be closed in.\n\nSuddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in all its joints under a direct hit, fortunately only alight one that the concrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, the walls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud, and dust fly everywhere. Sulphur fumes pour in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If we were in one of those light dug-outs that they have been building lately instead of this deeper one, none of us would be alive.\n\nBut the effect is bad enough even so. The recruit starts to rave again and two others follow suit. One jumps up and rushes out, we have trouble with the other two. I start after one who escapes and wonder whether to shoot him in the leg-then it shrieks again, I fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of uniform. I scramble back.\n\nThe first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts his head against the wall like a goat. We must try to-night to take him to the rear. Meanwhile we bind him, but in such away that in case of attack he can be released at once.\n\nKat suggests a game of skat: it is easier when a man has something to do. But it is no use, we listen for every explosion that comes close, miscount the tricks, and fail to follow suit. We have to give it up. We sit as though in a boiler that is being belaboured from without on all sides.\n\nNight again. We are deadened by the strain-a deadly tension that scrapes along one's spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble, our bodies area thin skin stretched painfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible, bursting roar. We have neither flesh nor muscles any longer, we dare not look atone another for fear of some miscalculable thing. So we shut our teeth-it will end-it will end-perhaps we will come through.\n\nSuddenly the nearer explosions cease. The shelling continues but it has lifted and falls behind us, our trench is free. We seize the hand-grenades, pitch them out in front of the dugout and jump after them. The bombardment has stopped and a heavy barrage now falls behind us. The attack has come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be men; but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and fifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position and barking.\n\nThe wire entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some obstacle. We seethe storm-troops coming. Our artillery opens fire. Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. The charge works its way across. Haie and Kropp begin with the hand-grenades. They throw as fast as they can, others pass them, the handles with the strings already pulled. Haie throws seventy-five yards, Kropp sixty, it has been measured, the distance is important. The enemy as they run cannot do much before they are within forty yards.\n\nWe recognize the smooth distorted faces, the helmets; they are French. They have already suffered heavily when they reach the remnants of the barbed wire entanglements. A whole line has gone down before our machine-guns; then we have a lot of stoppages and they come nearer.\n\nI see one of them, his face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. His body collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were praying. Then his body drops clean away and only his hands with the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.\n\nThe moment we are about to retreat three faces rise up from the ground in front of us. Under one of the helmets a dark pointed beard and two eyes that are fastened on me. I raise my hand, but I cannot throw into those strange eyes; for one mad moment the whole slaughter whirls like a circus around me, and these two eyes alone are motionless; then the head rises up, a hand, a movement, and my hand-grenade flies through the air and into him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We make for the rear, pull wire cradles into the trench and leave bombs behind us with the strings pulled, which ensures us a fiery retreat. The machine-guns are already firing from the next position.\n\nWe have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down-now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and to be revenged.\n\nWe crouch behind every corner, behind every barrier of barbed wire, and hurl heaps of explosives at the feet of the advancing enemy before we run. The blast of the hand-grenades impinges powerfully on our arms and legs; crouching like cats we run on, overwhelmed by this wave that bears us along, that fills us with ferocity, turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils; this wave that multiplies our strength with fear and madness and greed of life, seeking and fighting for nothing but our deliverance. If your own father came over with them you would not hesitate to fling a bomb at him.\n\nThe forward trenches have been abandoned. Are they still trenches? They are blown to pieces, annihilated-there are only broken bits of trenches, holes linked by cracks, nests of craters, that is all. But the enemy's casualties increase. They did not count on so much resistance.\n\nIt is nearly noon. The sun blazes hotly, the sweat stings in our eyes, we wipe it off on our sleeves and often blood with it. At last we reach a trench that is in a somewhat better condition. It is manned and ready for the counter-attack, it receives us. Our guns open in full blast and cutoff the enemy attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lines behind us stop. They can advance no farther. The attack is crushed by our artillery. We watch. The fire lifts a hundred yards and we break forward. Beside me a lance-corporal has his head torn off. He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts from his neck like a fountain.\n\nIt does not come quite to hand-to-hand fighting; they are driven back. We arrive once again at our shattered trench and pass on beyond it.\n\nOh, this turning back again! We reach the shelter of the reserves and yearn to creep in and disappear;-but instead we must turn round and plunge again into the horror. If we were not automata at that moment we would continue lying there, exhausted, and without will. But we are swept forward again, powerless, madly savage and raging; we will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies, their rifles and bombs are aimed against us, and if we don't destroy them, they will destroy us.\n\nThe brown earth, the torn, blasted earth, with a greasy shine under the sun's rays; the earth is the background of this restless, gloomy world of automatons, our gasping is the scratching of a quill, our lips are dry, our heads are debauched with stupor-thus we stagger forward, and into our pierced and shattered souls bores the torturing image of the brown earth with the greasy sun and the convulsed and dead soldiers, who lie there-it can't be helped-who cry and clutch at our legs as we spring away over them.\n\nWe have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A young Frenchman lags behind, he is overtaken, he puts up his hands, in one he still holds his revolver-does he mean to shoot or to give himself!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-a blow from a spade cleaves through his face. A second sees it and tries to run farther; a bayonet jabs into his back. He leaps in the air, his arms thrown wide, his mouth wide open, yelling; he staggers, in his back the bayonet quivers. A third throws away his rifle, cowers down with his hands before his eyes. He is left behind with a few other prisoners to carry off the wounded.\n\nSuddenly in the pursuit we reach the enemy line.\n\nWe are so close on the heels of our retreating enemies that we reach it almost at the same time as they. In this way we suffer few casualties. A machine-gun barks, but is silenced with a bomb. Nevertheless, the couple of seconds has sufficed to give us five stomach wounds. With the butt of his rifle Kat smashes to pulp the face of one of the unwounded machine-gunners. We bayonet the others before they have time to get out their bombs. Then thirstily we drink the water they have for cooling the gun.\n\nEverywhere wire-cutters are snapping, planks are thrown across the entanglements, we jump through the narrow entrances into the trenches. Haie strikes his spade into the neck of a gigantic Frenchman and throws the firsthand-grenade; we duck behind a breastwork fora few seconds, then the straight bit of trench ahead of us is empty. The next throw whizzes obliquely over the corner and clears a passage; as we run past we toss handfuls down into the dug-outs, the earth shudders, it crashes, smokes and groans, we stumble over slippery lumps of flesh, over yielding bodies; I fall into an open belly on which lies a clean, new officer's cap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fight ceases. We lose touch with the enemy. We cannot stay here long but must retire undercover of our artillery to our own position. No sooner do we know this than we dive into the nearest dug-outs, and with the utmost haste seize on whatever provisions we can see, especially the tins of corned beef and butter, before we clear out.\n\nWe get back pretty well. There is no further attack by the enemy. We lie for an hour panting and resting before anyone speaks. We are so completely played out that in spite of our great hunger we do not think of the provisions. Then gradually we become something like men again.\n\nThe corned beef over there is famous along the whole front. Occasionally it has been the chief reason fora flying raid on our part, for our nourishment is generally very bad; we have a constant hunger.\n\nWe bagged five tins altogether. The fellows over there are well looked after; they fare magnificently, as against us, poor starving wretches, with our turnip jam; they can get all the meat they want. Haie has scored a thin loaf of white French bread, and stuck it behind his belt like a spade. It is a bit bloody atone corner, but that can be cutoff.\n\nIt is a good thing we have something decent to eat at last; we still have a use for all our strength. Enough to eat is just as valuable as a good dug-out; it can save our lives; that is the reason we are so greedy for it.\n\nTjaden has captured two water-bottles full of cognac. We pass them round.\n\nThe evening benediction begins. Night comes, out of the craters rise the mists. It looks as though the holes were full of ghostly secrets. The white vapour creeps painfully round before it ventures to steal away over the edge. Then long streaks stretch from crater to crater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is chilly. I am on sentry and stare into the darkness. My strength is exhausted as always after an attack, and so it is hard for me to be alone with my thoughts. They are not properly thoughts; they are memories which in my weakness haunt me and strangely move me.\n\nThe parachute-lights soar upwards-and I see a picture, a summer evening, I am in the cathedral cloister and look at the tall rose trees that bloom in the middle of the little cloister garden where the monks lie buried. Around the walls are the stone carvings of the Stations of the Cross. No one is there. A great quietness rules in this blossoming quadrangle, the sun lies warm on the heavy grey stones, I place my hand upon them and feel the warmth. At the right-hand corner the green cathedral spire ascends into the pale blue sky of the evening. Between the glowing columns of the cloister is the cool darkness that only churches have, and I stand there and wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of love.\n\nThe image is alarmingly near; it touches me before it dissolves in the light of the next starshell.\n\nI lay hold of my rifle to see that it is in trim. The barrel is wet, I take it in my hands and rub off the moisture with my fingers.\n\nBetween the meadows behind our town there stands a line of old poplars by a stream. They were visible from a great distance, and although they grew on one bank only, we called them the poplar avenue. Even as children we had a great love for them, they drew us vaguely thither, we played truant the whole day by them and listened to their rustling. We sat beneath them on the bank of the stream and let our feet hang in the bright, swift waters. The pure fragrance of the water and the melody of the wind in the poplars held our fancies. We loved them dearly, and the image of those days still makes my heart pause in its beating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is strange that all the memories that come have these two qualities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are always completely calm, that is predominant in them; and even if they are not really calm, they become so. They are soundless apparitions that speak tome, with looks and gestures silently, without any word-and it is the alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandon myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilate and gently pass away into the still forces that lie behind these things.\n\nThey are quiet in this way, because quietness is so unattainable for us now. At the front there is no quietness and the curse of the front reaches so far that we never pass beyond it. Even in the remote depots and rest-areas the droning and the muffled noise of shelling is always in our ears. We are never so far off that it is no more to be heard. But these last few days it has been unbearable.\n\nTheir stillness is the reason why these memories of former times do not awaken desire so much as sorrow-avast, inapprehensible melancholy. Once we had such desires-but they return not. They are past, they belong to another world that is gone from us. In the barracks they called forth a rebellious, wild craving for their return; for then they were still bound to us, we belonged to them and they to us, even though we were already absent from them. They appeared in the soldiers' songs which we sang as we marched between the glow of the dawn and the black silhouettes of the forests to drill on the moor, they were a powerful remembrance that was in us and came from us.\n\nBut herein the trenches they are completely lost to us. They arise no more; we are dead and they stand remote on the horizon, they area mysterious reflection, an apparition, that haunts us, that we fear and love without hope. They are strong and our desire is strong-but they are unattainable, and we know it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And even if these scenes of our youth were given back to us we would hardly know what to do. The tender, secret influence that passed from them into us could not rise again. We might be amongst them and move in them; we might remember and love them and bestirred by the sight of them. But it would be like gazing at the photograph of a dead comrade; those are his features, it is his face, and the days we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory; but the man himself it is not.\n\nWe could never regain the old intimacy with those scenes. It was not any recognition of their beauty and their significance that attracted us, but the communion, the feeling of a comradeship with the things and events of our existence, which cut us off and made the world of our parents a thing incomprehensible to us-for then we surrendered ourselves to events and were lost in them, and the least little thing was enough to carry us down the stream of eternity. Perhaps it was only the privilege of our youth, but as yet we recognized no limits and saw nowhere an end. We had that thrill of expectation in the blood which united us with the course of our days.\n\nTo-day we would pass through the scenes of our youth like travellers. We are burnt up by hard facts; like tradesmen we understand distinctions, and like butchers, necessities. We are no longer untroubled-we are indifferent. We might exist there; but should we really live there?\n\nWe are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial-I believe we are lost.\n\nMy hands grow cold and my flesh creeps; and yet the night is warm. Only the mist is cold, this mysterious mist that trails over the dead and sucks from them their last, creeping life. By morning they will be pale and green and their blood congealed and black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still the parachute-rockets shoot up and cast their pitiless light over the stony landscape, which is full of craters and frozen lights like a moon. The blood beneath my skin brings fear and restlessness into my thoughts. They become feeble and tremble, they want warmth and life. They cannot persist without solace, without illusion, they are disordered before the naked picture of despair.\n\nI hear the rattle of the mess-tins and immediately feel a strong desire for warm food; it would dome good and comfort me. Painfully I force myself to wait until I am relieved.\n\nThen I go into the dug-out and find a mug of barley. It is cooked in fat and tastes good, I eat it slowly. I remain quiet, though the others are in a better mood, for the shelling has died down.\n\nThe days go by and the incredible hours follow one another as a matter of course. Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowly the dead pileup in the field of craters between the trenches. We are able to bring inmost of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying.\n\nFor one of them we search two days in vain. He must belying on his belly and unable to turnover. Otherwise it is hard to understand why we cannot find him; for it is only when a man has his mouth close to the ground that it is impossible to gauge the direction of his cry.\n\nHe must have been badly hit-one of those nasty wounds neither so severe that they exhaust the body at once and a man dreams on in a half-swoon, nor so light that a man endures the pain in the hope of becoming well again. Kat thinks he has either a broken pelvis or a shot through the spine. His chest cannot have been injured otherwise he would not have such strength to cry out. And if it were any other kind of wound it would be possible to see him moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grows gradually hoarser. The voice is so strangely pitched that it seems to be everywhere. The first night some of our fellows go out three times to look for him. But when they think they have located him and crawl across, the next time they hear the voice it seems to come from somewhere else altogether.\n\nWe search in vain until dawn. We scrutinize the field all day with glasses, but discover nothing. On the second day the calls are fainter; that will be because his lips and mouth have become dry.\n\nOur Company Commander has promised next turn of leave with three days extra to anyone who finds him. This is a powerful inducement, but we would do all that is possible without that for his cry is terrible. Kat and Kropp even go out in the afternoon, and Albert gets the lobe of his earshot off in consequence. It is to no purpose, they comeback without him.\n\nIt is easy to understand what he cries. At first he called only for help-the second night he must have had some delirium, he talked with his wife and his children, we often detected the name Elise. To-day he merely weeps. By evening the voice dwindles to a croaking. But it persists still through the whole night. We hear it so distinctly because the wind blows toward our line. In the morning when we suppose he must already have long gone to his rest, there comes across to us one last gurgling rattle.\n\nThe days are hot and the dead lie unburied. We cannot fetch them all in, if we did we should not know what to do with them. The shells will bury them. Many have their bellies swollen up like balloons. They hiss, belch, and make movements. The gases in them make noises.\n\nThe sky is blue and without clouds. In the evening it grows sultry and the heat rises from the earth. When the wind blows toward us it brings the smell of blood, which is very heavy and sweet. This deathly exhalation from the shell-holes seems to be a mixture of chloroform and putrefaction, and fills us with nausea and retching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nights become quiet and the hunt for copper driving-bands and the silken parachutes of the French star-shells begins. Why the driving-bands are so desirable no one knows exactly. The collectors merely assert that they are valuable. Some have collected so many that they will stoop under the weight of them when we go back.\n\nBut Haie at least gives a reason. He intends to give them to his girl to supplement her garters. At this the Friesians explode with mirth. They slap their knees: \"By Jove though, he's a wit, Haie is, he's got brains.\" Tjaden especially can hardly contain himself; he takes the largest of the rings in his hand and every now and then puts his legs through it to show how much slack there is.\n\n\"Haie, man, she must have legs like, legs--\" his thoughts mount somewhat higher'and a behind too she must have, like a-like an elephant!\"\n\nHe cannot get over it. \"I wish I could play hothand with her once, my hat--\"\n\nHaie beams, proud that his girl should receive so much appreciation.\n\n\"She's a nice bit,\" he says with self-satisfaction.\n\nThe parachutes are turned to more practical uses. According to the size of the bust three or perhaps four will make a blouse. Kropp and I use them as handkerchiefs. The others send them home. If the women could see at what risk these bits of rag are often obtained, they would be horrified.\n\nKat surprises Tjaden endeavouring with perfect equanimity to knock the driving-band off a dud. If anyone else had tried it the thing would have exploded, but Tjaden always has his luck with him.\n\nOne morning two butterflies play in front of our trench. They are brimstone-butterflies, with red spots on their yellow wings. What can they be looking for here? There is not a plant nor a flower for miles. They settle on the teeth of a skull. The birds too are just as carefree, they have long since accustomed themselves to the war. Every morning larks ascend from No Man's Land. A year ago we watched them nesting; the young ones grew up too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We have a spell from the rats in the trench." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are in No Man's Land-we know what for. They grow fat; when we see one we have a crack at it. At night we hear again the rolling behind the enemy lines. All day we have only the normal shelling, so that we are able to repair the trenches. There is always plenty of amusement, the airmen see to that. There are countless fights for us to watch everyday.\n\nBattle planes don't trouble us, but the observation planes we hate like the plague; they put the artillery to us. A few minutes after they appear, shrapnel and high-explosives begin to drop onus. We lose eleven men in one day that way, and five of them stretcher-bearers. Two are smashed so that Tjaden remarks you could scrape them off the wall of the trench with a spoon and bury them in a mess-tin. Another has the lower part of his body and his legs torn off. Dead, his chest leans against the side of the trench, his face is lemon-yellow, in his beard still burns a cigarette. It glows until it dies out on his lips.\n\nWe put the dead in a large shell-hole. So far there are three layers, one on top of the other.\n\nSuddenly the shelling begins to pound again. Soon we are sitting up once more with the rigid tenseness of blank anticipation.\n\nAttack, counter-attack, charge, repulse-these are words, but what things they signify! We have lost a good many men, mostly recruits. Reinforcements have again been sent up to our sector. They are one of the new regiments, composed almost entirely of young fellows just called up. They have had hardly any training, and are sent into the field with only a theoretical knowledge. They do know what a hand-grenade is, it is true, but they have very little idea of cover, and what is most important of all, have no eye for it. A fold in the ground has to be quite eighteen inches high before they can see it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although we need reinforcement, the recruits give us almost more trouble than they are worth. They are helpless in this grim fighting area, they fall like flies. Modern trench-warfare demands knowledge and experience; a man must have a feeling for the contours of the ground, an ear for the sound and character of the shells, must be able to decide beforehand where they will drop, how they will burst, and how to shelter from them.\n\nThe young recruits of course know none of these things. They get killed simply because they hardly can tell shrapnel from high-explosive, they are mown down because they are listening anxiously to the roar of the big coal-boxes falling in the rear, and miss the light, piping whistle of the low spreading daisy-cutters. They flock together like sheep instead of scattering, and even the wounded are shot down like hares by the airmen.\n\nTheir pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the fine courage of these poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks made by the poor brave wretches, who are so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but with battered chests, with torn bellies, arms and legs only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon as one looks at them.\n\nTheir sharp, downy, dead faces have the awful expressionlessness of dead children.\n\nIt brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and to take them by the arm and lead them away from here where they have no business to be. They wear grey coats and trousers and boots, but for most of them the uniform is far too big, it hangs on their limbs, their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too slight; no uniform was ever made to these childish measurements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Between five and ten recruits fall to every old hand.\n\nA surprise gas-attack carries off a lot of them. They have not yet learned what to do. We found one dug-out full of them, with blue heads and black lips. Some of them in a shell-hole took off their masks too soon; they did not know that the gas lies longest in the hollows; when they saw others on top without masks they pulled theirs off too and swallowed enough to scorch their lungs. Their condition is hopeless, they choke to death with haemorrhages and suffocation.\n\nIn one part of the trench I suddenly run into Himmelstoss. We dive into the same dug-out. Breathless we are all lying one beside the other waiting for the charge.\n\nWhen we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: \"Where's Himmelstoss?\" Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded. His face looks sullen. He is in a panic; he is new to it too. But it makes me mad that the young recruits should be out there and he here.\n\n\"Get out!\" I spit.\n\nHe does not stir, his lips quiver, his moustache twitches.\n\n\"Out!\" I repeat.\n\nHe draws up his legs, crouches back against the wall, and shows his teeth like a cur.\n\nI seize him by the arm and try to pull him up. He barks.\n\nThis is too much for me. I grab him by the neck and shake him like a sack, his head jerks from side to side.\n\n\"You lump, will you get out-you hound, you skunk, sneak out of it, would you?\" His eye becomes glassy, I knock his head against the wall-\"You cow\"-I kick him in the ribs-\"You swine\"-I push him toward the door and shove him out headfirst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another wave of our attack has just come up. A lieutenant is with them. He sees us and yells: \"Forward, forward, join in, follow.\" And the word of command does what all my banging could not. Himmelstoss hears the order, looks round him as if awakened, and follows on.\n\nI come after and watch him go over. Once more he is the smart Himmelstoss of the parade-ground, he has even outstripped the lieutenant and is far ahead.\n\nBombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades-words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.\n\nOur faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary to death; when the attack comes we shall have to strike many of the men with our fists to waken them and make them come with us-our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed, our elbows are raw.\n\nHow long has it been? Weeks-months-years? Only days. We see time pass in the colourless faces of the dying, we cram food into us, we run, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent, and nothing supports us but the knowledge that there are still feebler, still more spent, still more helpless ones there who, with staring eyes, look upon us as gods that escape death many times.\n\nIn the few hours of rest we teach them. \"There, see that waggle-top? That's a mortar coming. Keep down, it will go clean over. But if it comes this way, then run for it. You can run from a mortar.\"\n\nWe sharpen their ears to the malicious, hardly audible buzz of the smaller shells that are not easily distinguishable. They must pick them out from the general din by their insect-like hum-we explain to them that these are far more dangerous than the big ones that can be heard long beforehand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We show them how to take cover from aircraft, how to simulate a dead man when one is overrun in an attack, how to time hand-grenades so that they explode half a second before hitting the ground; we teach them to fling themselves into holes as quick as lightning before the shells with instantaneous fuses; we show them how to cleanup a trench with a handful of bombs; we explain the difference between the fuse-length of the enemy bombs and our own; we put them wise to the sound of gas shells;-show them all the tricks that can save them from death.\n\nThey listen, they are docile-but when it begins again, in their excitement they do everything wrong.\n\nHaie Westhus drags off with a great wound in his back through which the lung pulses at every breath. I can only press his hand; \"It's all up, Paul,\" he groans and he bites his arm because of the pain.\n\nWe see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cutoff, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is at an end.\n\nStill the little piece of convulsed earth in which we lie is held. We have yielded no more than a few hundred yards of it as a prize to the enemy. But on every yard there lies a dead man.\n\nWe have just been relieved. The wheels roll beneath us, we stand dully, and when the call'Mind-wire\" comes, we bend our knees. It was summer when we came up, the trees were still green, now it is autumn and the night is grey and wet. The lorries stop, we climb out-a confused heap, a remnant of many names. On either side stand people, dark, calling out the numbers of the brigades, the battalions. And at each calla little group separates itself off, a small handful of dirty, pallid soldiers, a dreadfully small handful, and a dreadfully small remnant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now someone is calling the number of our company, it is, yes, the Company Commander, he has come through, then; his arm is in a sling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We go over to him and I recognize Kat and Albert, we stand together, lean against each other, and look atone another.\n\nAnd we hear the number of our company called again and again. He will calla longtime, they do not hear him in the hospitals and shell-holes.\n\nOnce again: \"Second Company, this way!\" And then more softly: \"Nobody else, Second Company?\"\n\nHe is silent, and then huskily he says: \"Is that all?\" he gives the order: \"Number!\"\n\nThe morning is grey, it was still summer when we came up, and we were one hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze, it is autumn, the leaves rustle, the voices flutter out wearily:\n\n\"One-two-three-four--\" and cease at thirty-two. And there is along silence before the voice asks: \"Anyone else?\"-and waits and then says softly: \"In squads--\" and then breaks off and is only able to finish: \"Second Company--\" with difficulty: \"Second Company-march easy!\"\n\nAline, a short line trudges off into the morning.\n\nThirty-two men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THEY HAVE TAKEN US farther back than usual to afield depot so that we can be re-organized. Our company needs more than a hundred reinforcements.\n\nIn the meantime, when we are off duty, we loaf around. After a couple of days Himmelstoss comes up to us. He has had the bounce knocked out of him since he has been in the trenches and wants to get on good terms with us. I am willing, because I saw how he brought Haie Westhus in when he was hit in the back. Besides he's decent enough to treat us in the canteen when we are out of funds. Only Tjaden is still reserved and suspicious.\n\nBut he is won over, too, when Himmelstoss tells us that he is taking the place of the sergeant-cook who has gone on leave. As a proof he produces spot two pounds of sugar for us and a half-pound of butter specially for Tjaden. He even sees to it that we are detailed the next two or three days to the cookhouse for potato and turnip peeling. The grub he gives us there is real officers' fare.\n\nThus momentarily we have the two things a soldier needs for contentment: good food and rest. That's not much when one comes to think of it. A few years ago we would have despised ourselves terribly. But now we are almost happy. It is all a matter of habit-even the front-line.\n\nHabit is the explanation of why we seem to forget things so quickly. Yesterday we were under fire, to-day we act the fool and go foraging through the countryside, to-morrow we go up to the trenches again. We forget nothing really. But so long as we have to stay herein the field, the front-line days, when they are past, sink down in us like a stone; they are too grievous for us to be able to reflect on them at once. If we did that, we should have been destroyed long ago. I soon found out this much:-terror can be endured so long as a man simply ducks;-but it kills, if a man thinks about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line, because that is the only thing which brings us through safely, so we turn into wags and loafers when we are resting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can do nothing else, it is a sheer necessity. We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out of place here. Kemmerich is dead, Haie Westhus is dying, they will have a job with Hans Kramer's body at the Judgment Day, piecing it together after a direct hit; Martens has no legs anymore, Meyer is dead, Maxis dead, Beyer is dead, Hämmerling is dead, there area hundred and twenty wounded men lying somewhere or other; it is a damnable business, but what has it to do with us now-we live. If it were possible for us to save them, then it would be seen how much we cared-we would have a shot at it though we went under ourselves; for we can be damned quixotic when we like; fear we do not know much about-terror of death, yes; but that is a different matter, that is physical.\n\nBut our comrades are dead, we cannot help them, they have their rest-and who knows what is waiting for us? We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short.\n\nThe terror of the front sinks deep down when we turn our back upon it; we make grim, coarse jests about it, when a man dies, then we say he has nipped off his turd, and so we speak of everything; that keeps us from going mad; as long as we take it that way we maintain our own resistance.\n\nBut we do not forget. It's all rot that they put in the warnews about the good humour of the troops, how they are arranging dances almost before they are out of the front-line. We don't act like that because we are in a good humour: we are in a good humour because otherwise we should go to pieces. Even so we cannot holdout much longer; our humour becomes more bitter every month." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death.\n\nThe days, the weeks, the years out here shall comeback again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us:-against whom, against whom?\n\nSometime ago there was an army theatre in these parts. Coloured posters of the performances are still sticking on a hoarding. With wide eyes Kropp and I stand in front of it. We can hardly credit that such things still exist. A girl in alight summer dress, with a red patent-leather belt about her hips! She is standing with one hand on a railing and with the other she holds a straw hat. She wears white stockings and white shoes, fine buckle shoes with high heels. Behind her smiles the blue sea with white-horses, at the side is a bright bay. She is a lovely girl with a delicate nose, red lips, and slender legs, wonderfully clean and well cared for, she certainly baths twice a day and never has any dirt under her nails. At most perhaps a bit of sand from the beach.\n\nBeside her stands a man in white trousers, a bluejacket, and sailor's cap; but he interests us much less.\n\nThe girl on the poster is a wonder to us. We have quite forgotten that there are such things, and even now we hardly believe our eyes. We have seen nothing like it for years, nothing like it for happiness, beauty and joy. That is peacetime, that is as it should be; we feel excited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just look at those thin shoes though, she couldn't march many miles in those,\" I say, and then begin to feel silly, for it is absurd to stand in front of the picture like this and think of nothing but marching.\n\n\"How old would she be?\" Kropp asks.\n\n\"About twenty-two at the most,\" I hazard.\n\n\"Then she would be older than us! She is not more than seventeen, let me tell you!\"\n\nIt gives us goose flesh.\n\n\"That would be good, Albert, what do you think?\"\n\nHe nods. \"I have some white trousers at home too.\"\n\n\"White trousers,\" say I, \"but a girl like that--\"\n\nWe look askance atone another. There's not much to boast of here-two ragged, stained, and dirty uniforms. It is hopeless to compete.\n\nSo we proceed to tear the young man with the white trousers off the hoarding, taking care not to damage the girl. That is something toward it.\n\n\"We could go and get deloused, anyway,\" Kropp then suggests.\n\nI am not very enthusiastic because it doesn't do one's clothes any good and a man is lousy again inside two hours. But when we have considered the picture once more, I declare myself willing. I go even farther.\n\n\"We might see if we could get a clean shirt as well--\"\n\n\"Socks might be better,\" says Albert, not without reason.\n\n\"Yes, socks too perhaps. Let's go and explore a bit.\"\n\nThen Leer and Tjaden stroll up; they look at the poster and immediately the conversation becomes smutty. Leer was the first of our class to have intercourse, and he gave stirring details of it. After his fashion he enjoys himself over the picture, and Tjaden supports him nobly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It does not distress us exactly. Who isn't smutty is no soldier; it merely does not suit us at the moment, so we edge away and march off to the delousing station with the same feeling as if it were a swell gentlemen's outfitters.\n\nThe houses in which we are billeted lie near the canal. On the other side of the canal there are ponds flanked with poplars;-on the other side of the canal there are women too.\n\nThe houses on our side have been abandoned. On the other side though one occasionally sees inhabitants.\n\nIn the evening we go swimming. Three women come strolling along the bank. They walk slowly and don't look away, although we have no bathing suits.\n\nLeer calls out to them. They laugh and stop to watch us. We fling remarks at them in broken French, anything that comes into our heads, hastily and all jumbled together, anything to detain them. They are not specially wonderful pieces, but then where are such to be had about here?\n\nThere is one slim little brunette, her teeth gleam when she laughs. She has quick movements, her dress swings loosely about her legs. Although the water is cold we are very jovial and do our best to interest them so that they will stay. We try to make jokes and they answer with things we cannot understand; we laugh and beckon. Tjaden is more crafty. He runs into the house, gets a loaf of army bread and holds it up.\n\nThat produces a great effect. They nod and beckon us to come over. But we don't dare to do that. It is forbidden to cross to the opposite bank. There are sentries on all the bridges. It's impossible without a pass. So we indicate that they should come over to us; but they shake their heads and point to the bridge. They are not allowed to pass either. They turn back and walk slowly down the canal, keeping along the towpath all the way. We accompany them swimming. After a few hundred yards they turnoff and point to a house that stands a little distance away among the trees and shrubbery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leer asks if they live there.\n\nThey laugh-sure, that's their house.\n\nWe call out to them that we would like to come, sometime when the guards cannot see us. At night. To-night.\n\nThey raise their hands, put them together, rest their faces on them and shut their eyes. They understand. The slim brunette does a two-step. The blonde girl twitters: \"Bread-good--\"\n\nEagerly we assure them that we will bring some with us. And other tasty bits too, we roll our eyes and try to explain with our hands. Leer nearly drowns trying to demonstrate a sausage. If it were necessary we would promise them a whole quartermaster's store. They go off and frequently turn and look back. We climb out on the bank on our side of the canal and watch to see whether they go into the house, for they might easily have been lying. Then we swim back.\n\nNo one can cross the bridge without leave, so we will simply have to swim over to-night. We are full of excitement. We cannot last out without a drink, so we go to the canteen where there is beer and a kind of punch.\n\nWe drink punch and tell one another lying tales of our experiences. Each man gladly believes the other man's story, only waiting impatiently till he can cap it with a taller one. Our hands are fidgety, we smoke countless cigarettes, until Kropp says: \"We might as well take them a few cigarettes too.\" So we put some inside our caps to keep them.\n\nThe sky turns apple-green. There are four of us, but only three can go; we must shake off Tjaden, so ply him with rum and punch until he rocks. As it turns dark we go to our billets, Tjaden in the centre. We are glowing and full of a lust for adventure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The little brunette is mine, we have settled all that.\n\nTjaden drops on his sack of straw and snores. Once he wakes up and grins so craftily that we are alarmed and begin to think he is cheating, and that we have given him the punch to no purpose. Then he drops back again and sleeps on.\n\nWe each get hold of a whole army loaf and wrap it up in newspaper. The cigarettes we put in too, as well as three good rations of liver-sausage that were issued to us this evening. That makes a decent present.\n\nWe stow the things carefully in our boots; we have to take them to protect our feet against treading on wire and broken glass on the other bank. As we must swim for it we can take no other clothes. But it is not far and quite dark.\n\nWe make off with our boots in our hands. Swiftly we slip into the water, lie on our backs and swim, holding the boots with their contents up over our heads.\n\nWe climb out carefully on the opposite bank, takeout the packages and put on our boots. We put the things under our arms. And so, all wet and naked, clothed only in our boots, we break into a trot. We find the house at once. It lies among the trees. Leer trips over a root and skins his elbows.\n\n\"No matter,\" he says gaily.\n\nThe windows are shuttered. We slip round the house and try to peer through the cracks. Then we grow impatient. Suddenly Kropp hesitates:\n\n\"What if there's a Major with them?\"\n\n\"Then we just clear off,\" grins Leer, \"he can try to read our regimental numbers here,\" and smacks his behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door of the courtyard stands open. Our boots made a great clatter. The house door opens, a chink of light shines through and a woman cries out in a scared voice.\n\n\"Ssh, ssh! camerade-bon ami-\" we say, and show our packages protestingly.\n\nThe other two are now on the scene, the door opens and the light floods over us. They recognize us and all three burst into laughter at our appearance. They rock and sway in the doorway, they laugh so much. How supple their movements are.\n\n\"Un moment-\" They disappear and throw us bits of clothing which we gladly wrap round ourselves. Then we are allowed in. A small lamp burns in their room, which is warm and smells a little of perfume. We unwrap our parcels and hand them over to the women. Their eyes shine, it is obvious that they are hungry.\n\nThen we all become rather embarrassed. Leer makes the gestures of eating, and then they come to life again and bring out plates and knives and fall to on the food, and they holdup every slice of livered sausage and admire it before they eat it, and we sit proudly by.\n\nThey overwhelm us with their chatter;-we understand very little of it, but we listen and the words sound friendly. No doubt we all look very young. The little brunette strokes my hair and says what all Frenchwomen say: \"La guerre-grand malheur-pauvres garçons--\"\n\nI hold her arm tightly and press my lips into the palm of her hand. Her fingers close round my face. Close above me are her bewildering eyes, the soft brown of her skin and her red lips. Her mouth speaks words I do not understand. Nor do I fully understand her eyes; they seem to say more than we anticipated when we came here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are other rooms adjoining. In passing I see Leer, he has made a great hit with the blonde. He's an old hand at the game. But I-I am lost in remoteness, in weakness, and in a passion to which I yield myself trustingly. My desires are strangely compounded of yearning and misery. I feel giddy, there is nothing here that a man can hold onto. We have left our boots at the door, they have given us slippers instead, and now nothing remains to recall for me the assurance and self-confidence of the soldier; no rifle, no belt, no tunic, no cap. I let myself drop into the unknown, come what may-yet, in spite of all, I feel somewhat afraid.\n\nThe little brunette contracts her brows when she is thinking; but when she talks they are still. And often sound does not quite become a word but suffocates or floats away over me half finished; an arch, a pathway, a comet. What have I known of it-what do I know of it?-The words of this foreign tongue, that I hardly understand, they caress me to a quietness, in which the room grows dim, and dissolves in the half light, only the face above me lives and is clear.\n\nHow various is a face; but an hour ago it was strange and it is now touched with a tenderness that comes, not from it, but from out of the night, the world and the blood, all these things seem to shine in it together. The objects in the room are touched by it and transformed, they become isolated, and I feel almost awed at the sight of my clear skin when the light of the lamp falls upon it and the cool, brown hand passes over it.\n\nHow different this is from the conditions in the soldiers' brothels, to which we are allowed to go, and where we have to wait in long queues. I wish I never thought of them; but desire turns my mind to them involuntarily and I am afraid for it might be impossible ever to be free of them again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then I feel the lips of the little brunette and press myself against them, my eyes close, and I want it all to fall from me, war and terror and grossness, in order to awaken young and happy; I think of the picture of the girl on the poster and, fora moment, believe that my life depends on winning her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if I press ever deeper into the arms that embrace me, perhaps a miracle may happen....\n\nSo, after a time we find ourselves reassembled again. Leer is in high spirits. We pull on our boots and take our leave warmly. The night air cools our hot bodies. The rustling poplars loom large in the darkness. The moon floats in the heavens and in the waters of the canal. We do not run, we walk beside one another with long strides.\n\n\"That was worth a ration-loaf,\" says Leer.\n\nI cannot trust myself to speak, I am not in the least happy.\n\nThen we hear footsteps and dodge behind a shrub.\n\nThe steps come nearer, close by us. We see a naked soldier, in boots, just like ourselves; he has a package under his arm, and gallops onward. It is Tjaden in full course. He has disappeared already.\n\nWe laugh. In the morning he will curse us.\n\nUnobserved, we arrive again at our sacks of straw.\n\nI am called to the Orderly Room. The Company Commander gives me a leave-pass and a travel-pass and wishes me a good journey. I look to see how much leave I have got. Seventeen days-fourteen days leave and three days for travelling. It is not enough and I ask whether I cannot have five days for travelling. Bertinck points to my pass. There I see that I am not to return to the front immediately. After my leave I have to report fora course of training to a camp on the moors.\n\nThe others envy me. Kat gives me good advice, and tells me I ought to try to get abase-job. \"If you're smart, you'll hang onto it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would rather not have gone for another eight days; we are to stay here that much longer and it is good here.\n\nNaturally I have to stand the others drinks at the canteen. We are all a little bit drunk. I become gloomy: I will be away for six weeks-that is lucky, of course, but what may happen before I get back? Shall I meet all these fellows again? Already Haie and Kemmerich have gone-who will the next be?\n\nAs we drink, I look at each of them in turn. Albert sits beside me and smokes, he is cheerful, we have always been together;-opposite squats Kat, with his drooping shoulders, his broad thumb, and calm voice-Müller with the projecting teeth and the booming laugh; Tjaden with his mousey eyes;-Leer who has grown a full beard and looks at least forty.\n\nOver us hangs a dense cloud of smoke. Where would a soldier be without tobacco? The canteen is his refuge, and beer is far more than a drink, it is a token that a man can move his limbs and stretch in safety. We do it ceremonially, we stretch our legs out in front of us and spit deliberately, that is the only way. How it all rises up before a man when he is going away the next morning!\n\nAt night we go again to the other side of the canal. I am almost afraid to tell the little brunette that I am going away, and when I return we will be far from here; we will never see one another again. But she merely nods and takes no special notice. At first I am at a loss to understand, then it suddenly dawns on me. Yes, Leer is right: if I were going up to the front, then she would have called me again'pauvre garçon\"; but merely going on leave-she does not want to hear about that, that is not nearly so interesting. May she go to the devil with her chattering talk. A man dreams of a miracle and wakes up to loaves of bread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next morning, after I have been de-loused, I go the rail head. Albert and Kat come with me. At the halt we learn that it will be a couple of hours yet before the train leaves. The other two have to go back to duty. We take leave of one another.\n\n\"Good luck, Kat: good luck, Albert.\"\n\nThey go off and wave once or twice. Their figures dwindle. I know their every step and movement; I would recognize them at any distance. Then they disappear. I sit down on my pack and wait.\n\nSuddenly I become filled with a consuming impatience to begone.\n\nI lie down on many a station platform; I stand before many a soup-kitchen; I squat on many a bench;-then at last the landscape becomes disturbing, mysterious, and familiar. It glides past the western windows with its villages, their thatched roofs like caps, pulled over the white-washed, half-timbered houses, its corn-fields, gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the slanting light, its orchards, its barns and old lime trees.\n\nThe names of the stations begin to take on meaning and my heart trembles. The train stamps and stamps onward. I stand at the window and hold onto the frame. These names mark the boundaries of my youth.\n\nSmooth meadows, fields, farm-yards; a solitary team moves against the sky-line along the road that runs parallel to the horizon-a barrier, before which peasants stand waiting, girls waving, children playing on the embankment, roads, leading into the country, smooth roads without artillery.\n\nIt is evening, and if the train did not rattle I should cry out. The plain unfolds itself.\n\nIn the distance, the soft, blue silhouette of the mountain ranges begins to appear. I recognize the characteristic outline of the Dolbenberg, a jagged comb, springing up precipitously from the limits of the forests. Behind it should lie the town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now the sun streams through the world, dissolving everything in its golden-red light, the train swings round one curve and then another;-faraway, in along line one behind the other, stand the poplars, unsubstantial, swaying and dark, fashioned out of shadow, light, and desire.\n\nThe field swings round as the train encircles it, and the intervals between the trees diminish; the trees become a block and fora moment I see one only-then they reappear from behind the foremost tree and standout along line against the sky until they are hidden by the first houses.\n\nA street-crossing. I standby the window, I cannot drag myself away. The others put their baggage ready forgetting out. I repeat to myself the name of the street that we crossover-Bremerstrasse-Bremerstrasse-\n\nBelow there are cyclists, lorries, men; it is a grey street and a grey subway;-it affects meas though it were my mother.\n\nThen the train stops, and there is the station with noise and cries and signboards. I pickup my pack and fasten the straps, I take my rifle in my hand and stumble down the steps.\n\nOn the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: \"Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!\"-She calls me'Comrade,\" but I will have none of it.\n\nOutside in front of the station the stream roars alongside the street, it rushes foaming from the sluices of the mill bridge. There stands the old, square watch-tower, in front of it the great mottled lime tree and behind it the evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here we have often sat-how long ago it is-we have passed over this bridge and breathed the cool, acid smell of the stagnant water; we have leaned over the still water on this side of the lock, where the green creepers and weeds hang from the piles of the bridge;-and on hot days we rejoiced in the spouting foam on the other side of the lock and told tales about our school-teachers.\n\nI pass over the bridge, I look right and left; the water is as full of weeds as ever, and it still shoots over in gleaming arches; in the tower building laundresses still stand with bare arms as they used to over the clean linen, and the heat from the ironing pours out through the open windows. Dogs trot along the narrow street, before the doors of the houses people stand and follow me with their gaze as I pass by, dirty and heavy laden.\n\nIn this confectioner's we used to eat ices, and there we learned to smoke cigarettes. Walking down the street I know every shop, the grocer's, the chemist's, the baker's. Then at last I stand before the brown door with its worn latch and my hand grows heavy. I open the door and a strange coolness comes out to meet me, my eyes are dim.\n\nThe stairs creak under my boots. Upstairs a door rattles, someone is looking over the railing. It is the kitchen door that was opened, they are cooking potato-cakes, the house reeks of it, and to-day of course is Saturday; that will be my sister leaning over. Fora moment I am shy and lower my head, then I takeoff my helmet and lookup. Yes, it is my eldest sister.\n\n\"Paul,\" she cries, \"Paul--\"\n\nI nod, my pack bumps against the banisters; my rifle is so heavy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulls a door open and calls: \"Mother, mother, Paul is here.\"\n\nI can go no further-mother, mother, Paul is here.\n\nI lean against the wall and grip my helmet and rifle. I hold them as tight as I can, but I cannot take another step, the staircase fades before my eyes, I support myself with the butt of my rifle against my feet and clench my teeth fiercely, but I cannot speak a word, my sister's call has made me powerless, I can do nothing, I struggle to make myself laugh, to speak, but no word comes, and so I stand on the steps, miserable, helpless, paralysed, and against my will the tears rundown my cheeks.\n\nMy sister comes back and says: \"Why, what is the matter?\"\n\nThen I pull myself together and stagger onto the landing. I lean my rifle in a corner, I set my pack against the wall, place my helmet on it and fling down my equipment and baggage. Then I say fiercely: \"Bring me a handkerchief.\"\n\nShe gives me one from the cupboard and I dry my face. Above me on the wall hangs the glass case with the coloured butterflies that once I collected.\n\nNow I hear my mother's voice. It comes from the bedroom.\n\n\"Is she in bed?\" I ask my sister.\n\n\"She is ill--\" she replies.\n\nI go into her, give her my hand and say as calmly as I can: \"Here I am, Mother.\"\n\nShe lies still in the dim light. Then she asks anxiously:\n\n\"Are you wounded?\" and I feel her searching glance.\n\n\"No, I have got leave.\"\n\nMy mother is very pale. I am afraid to make alight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here I lie now,\" says she, \"and cry instead of being glad.\"\n\n\"Are you sick, Mother?\" I ask.\n\n\"I am going to getup a little to-day,\" she says and turns to my sister, who is continually running to the kitchen to watch that the food does not burn: \"And putout that jar of preserved whortleberries-you like that, don't you?\" she asks me.\n\n\"Yes, Mother, I haven't had any fora longtime.\"\n\n\"We might almost have known you were coming,\" laughs my sister, \"there is just your favourite dish, potato-cakes, and even whortleberries to go with them too.\"\n\n\"And it is Saturday,\" I add.\n\n\"Sit here beside me,\" says my mother.\n\nShe looks at me. Her hands are white and sickly and frail compared with mine. We say very little and I am thankful that she asks nothing. What ought Ito say? Everything I could have wished for has happened. I have come out of it safely and sit here beside her. And in the kitchen stands my sister preparing supper and singing.\n\n\"Dear boy,\" says my mother softly.\n\nWe were never very demonstrative in our family; poor folk who toil and are full of cares are not so. It is not their way to protest what they already know. When my mother says tome'dear boy,\" it means much more than when another uses it. I know well enough that the jar of whortleberries is the only one they have had for months, and that she has kept it for me; and the somewhat stale cakes that she gives me too. She must have got them cheap sometime and put them all by for me.\n\nI sit by her bed, and through the window the chestnut trees in the beer garden opposite glow in brown and gold. I breathe deeply and say over to myself:-\"You are at home, you are at home.\" But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano-but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the plot as the writer's tale assistant.\nTags: war, historical fiction, World War I, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Erich Maria Remarque\nTitle: All Quiet on the Western Front\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here I lie now,\" says she, \"and cry instead of being glad.\"\n\n\"Are you sick, Mother?\" I ask.\n\n\"I am going to getup a little to-day,\" she says and turns to my sister, who is continually running to the kitchen to watch that the food does not burn: \"And putout that jar of preserved whortleberries-you like that, don't you?\" she asks me.\n\n\"Yes, Mother, I haven't had any fora longtime.\"\n\n\"We might almost have known you were coming,\" laughs my sister, \"there is just your favourite dish, potato-cakes, and even whortleberries to go with them too.\"\n\n\"And it is Saturday,\" I add.\n\n\"Sit here beside me,\" says my mother.\n\nShe looks at me. Her hands are white and sickly and frail compared with mine. We say very little and I am thankful that she asks nothing. What ought Ito say? Everything I could have wished for has happened. I have come out of it safely and sit here beside her. And in the kitchen stands my sister preparing supper and singing.\n\n\"Dear boy,\" says my mother softly.\n\nWe were never very demonstrative in our family; poor folk who toil and are full of cares are not so. It is not their way to protest what they already know. When my mother says tome'dear boy,\" it means much more than when another uses it. I know well enough that the jar of whortleberries is the only one they have had for months, and that she has kept it for me; and the somewhat stale cakes that she gives me too. She must have got them cheap sometime and put them all by for me.\n\nI sit by her bed, and through the window the chestnut trees in the beer garden opposite glow in brown and gold. I breathe deeply and say over to myself:-\"You are at home, you are at home.\" But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano-but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I go and fetch my pack to the bedside and turnout the things I have brought-a whole Edamer cheese, that Kat provided me with, two loaves of army bread, three-quarters of a pound of butter, two tins of livered sausage, a pound of dripping and a little bag of rice.\n\n\"I suppose you can make some use of that--\"\n\nThey nod.\n\n\"It is pretty bad for food here?\" I enquire.\n\n\"Yes, there's not much. Do you get enough out there?\"\n\nI smile and point to the things I have brought. \"Not always quite as much as that, of course, but we fare reasonably well.\"\n\nErna takes away the food. Suddenly my mother seizes hold of my hand and asks falteringly: \"Was it very bad out there, Paul?\"\n\nMother, what should I answer to that! You would not understand, you could never realize it. And you shall never realize it. Was it bad, you ask.-You, Mother,-I shake my head and say: \"No, Mother, not so very. There are always a lot of us together so it isn't so bad.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Heinrich Bredemeyer was here just lately and said it was terrible out there now, with the gas and all the rest of it.\"\n\nIt is my mother who says that. She says: \"With the gas and all the rest of it.\" She does not know what she is saying, she is merely anxious for me. Should I tell her how we once found three enemy trenches with their garrison all stiff as though stricken with apoplexy? against the parapet, in the dug-outs, just where they were, the men stood and layabout, with blue faces, dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No Mother, that's only talk,\" I answer, \"there's not very much in what Bredemeyer says. You see for instance, I'm well and fit--\"\n\nBefore my mother's tremulous anxiety I recover my composure. Now I can walkabout and talk and answer questions without fear of having suddenly to lean against the wall because the world turns soft as rubber and my veins become brimstone.\n\nMy mother wants to getup. So I go fora while to my sister in the kitchen. \"What is the matter with her?\" I ask.\n\nShe shrugs her shoulders: \"She has been in bed some months now, but we did not want to write and tell you. Several doctors have been to see her. One of them said it is probably cancer again.\"\n\nI go to the district commandant to report myself. Slowly I wander through the streets. Occasionally someone speaks tome. I do not delay long for I have little inclination to talk.\n\nOn the way back from the barracks aloud voice calls out tome. Still lost in thought I turn round and find myself confronted by a Major. \"Can't you salute?\" he blusters.\n\n\"Sorry, Major,\" I say in embarrassment, \"I didn't notice you.\"\n\n\"Don't you know how to speak properly?\" he roars.\n\nI would like to hit him in the face, but control myself, for my leave depends on it. I click my heels and say: \"I did not see you, Herr Major.\"\n\n\"Then keep your eyes open,\" he snorts. \"What is your name?\" I give it.\n\nHis fat red face is furious. \"What regiment?\"\n\nI give him full particulars. Even yet he has not had enough. \"Where are you quartered?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I have had more than enough and say: \"Between Langemark and Bixschoote.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" he asks, a bit stupefied.\n\nI explain to him that I arrived on leave only an hour or two since, thinking that he would then trot along. But not at all. He gets even more furious: \"You think you can bring your front-line manners here, what? Well, we don't stand for that sort of thing. Thank God, we have discipline here!\"\n\n\"Twenty paces backwards, double march!\" he commands.\n\nI am mad with rage. But I cannot say anything to him; he could put me under arrest if he liked. So I double back, and then march up to him. Six paces from him I spring to a stiff salute and maintain it until I am six paces beyond him.\n\nHe calls me back again and affably gives me to understand that for once he is pleased to put mercy before justice. I pretend to be duly grateful. \"Now, dismiss!\" he says. I turnabout smartly and march off.\n\nThat ruins the evening for me. I go back home and throw my uniform into a corner; I had intended to change it in any case. Then I takeout my civilian clothes from the wardrobe and put them on.\n\nI feel awkward. The suit is rather tight and short, I have grown in the army. Collar and tie give me some trouble. In the end my sister ties the bow for me. But how light the suit is, it feels as though I had nothing on but a shirt and underpants.\n\nI look at myself in the glass. It is a strange sight. A sunburnt, overgrown candidate for confirmation gazes at me in astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My mother is pleased to see me wearing civilian clothes; it makes me less strange to her. But my father would rather I kept my uniform on so that he could take me to visit his acquaintances.\n\nBut I refuse.\n\nIt is pleasant to sit quietly somewhere, in the beer garden for example, under the chestnuts by the skittle-alley. The leaves fall down on the table and on the ground, only a few, the first. A glass of beer stands in front of me, I've learned to drink in the army. The glass is half empty, but there area few good swigs ahead of me, and besides I can always order a second and a third if I wish to. There are no bugles and no bombardments, the children of the house play in the skittle-alley, and the dog rests his head against my knee. The sky is blue, between the leaves of the chestnuts rises the green spire of St. Margaret's Church.\n\nThis is good, I like it. But I cannot get on with the people. My mother is the only one who asks no questions. Not so my father. He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in away that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?\n\nSo I confine myself to telling him a few amusing things. But he wants to know whether I have ever had a hand-to-hand fight. I say'No,\" and getup and go out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that does not mend matters. After I have been startled a couple of times in the street by the screaming of the tram-cars, which resembles the shriek of a shell coming straight for one, somebody taps me on the shoulder. It is my Germanmaster, and he fastens on me with the usual question: \"Well, how are things out there? Terrible, terrible, eh? Yes, it is dreadful, but we must carry on. And after all, you do at least get decent food out there, so I hear. You look well, Paul, and fit. Naturally it's worse here. Naturally. The best for our soldiers every time, that goes without saying.\"\n\nHe drags me along to a table with a lot of others. They welcome me, ahead-master shakes hands with me and says: \"So you come from the front? What is the spirit like out there? Excellent, eh? Excellent?\"\n\nI explain that no one would be sorry to be back home.\n\nHe laughs uproariously. \"I can well believe it! But first you have to give the Froggies a good hiding. Do you smoke? Here, try one. Waiter, bring a beer as well for our young warrior.\"\n\nUnfortunately I have accepted the cigar, so I have to remain. And they are all so dripping with goodwill that it is impossible to object. All the same I feel annoyed and smoke like a chimney as hard as I can. In order to make at least some show of appreciation I toss off the beer in one gulp. Immediately a second is ordered; people know how much they are indebted to the soldiers. They argue about what we ought to annex. The head-master with the steel watch-chain wants to have at least the whole of Belgium, the coal-areas of France, and a slice of Russia. He produces reasons why we must have them and is quite inflexible until at last the others give into him. Then he begins to expound just where-abouts in France the break-through must come, and turns tome: \"Now, shove ahead a bit out therewith your everlasting trench warfare-Smash through the johnnies and then there will be peace.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I reply that in our opinion a break-through may not be possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The enemy may have too many reserves. Besides, the war maybe rather different from what people think.\n\nHe dismisses the idea loftily and informs me I know nothing about it. \"The details, yes,\" says he, \"but this relates to the whole. And of that you are notable to judge. You see only your little sector and so cannot have any general survey. You do your duty, you risk your lives, that deserves the highest honour-every man of you ought to have the Iron Cross-but first of all the enemy line must be broken through in Flanders and then rolled up from the top.\"\n\nHe blows his nose and wipes his beard. \"Completely rolled up they must be, from the top to the bottom. And then to Paris.\"\n\nI would like to know just how he pictures it to himself, and pour the third glass of beer into me. Immediately he orders another.\n\nBut I breakaway. He stuffs a few more cigars into my pocket and sends me off with a friendly slap. \"All of the best! I hope we will soon hear something worthwhile from you.\"\n\nI imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. At that time I still knew nothing about the war, we had only been in quiet sectors. But now I see that I have been crushed without knowing it. I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world. Some of these people ask questions, some ask no questions, but one can see that the latter are proud of themselves for their silence; they often say with a wise air that these things cannot be talked about. They plume themselves on it.\n\nI prefer to be alone, so that no one troubles me. For they all comeback to the same thing, how badly it goes and how well it goes; one thinks it is this way, another that; and yet they are always absorbed in the things that go to makeup their existence. Formerly I lived in just the same way myself, but now I feel no contact here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They talk too much for me. They have worries, aims, desires, that I cannot comprehend. I often sit with one of them in the little beer garden and try to explain to him that this is really the only thing: just to sit quietly, like this. They understand of course, they agree, they may even feel it so too, but only with words, only with words, yes that is it-they feel it, but always with only half of themselves, the rest of their being is taken up with other things, they are so divided in themselves that none feels it with his whole essence; I cannot even say myself exactly what I mean.\n\nWhen I see them here, in their rooms, in their offices, about their occupations, I feel an irresistible attraction in it, I would like to be here too and forget the war; but also it repels me, it is so narrow, how can that fill a man's life, he ought to smash it to bits; how can they do it, while out at the front the splinters are whining over the shell-holes and star-shells go up, the wounded are carried back on waterproof sheets and comrades crouch in the trenches.-They are different men here, men I cannot properly understand, whom I envy and despise. I must think of Kat and Albert and Müller and Tjaden, what will they be doing? No doubt they are sitting in the canteen, or perhaps swimming-soon they will have to go up to the front-line again.\n\nIn my room behind the table stands a brown leather sofa. I sit down on it.\n\nOn the walls are pinned countless pictures that I once used to cutout of the newspapers. In between are drawings and postcards that have pleased me. In the corner is a small iron stove. Against the wall opposite stand the book-shelves with my books." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I used to live in this room before I was a soldier. The books I bought gradually with the money I earned by coaching. Many of them are secondhand, all the classics for example, one volume in blue cloth boards cost one mark twenty pfenning. I bought them complete because it was thorough-going, I did not trust the editors of selections to choose all the best. So I purchased only'collected works.\" I read most of them with laudable zeal, but few of them really appealed tome. I preferred the other books, the moderns, which were of course much dearer. A few I came by not quite honestly, I borrowed and did not return them because I did not want to part with them.\n\nOne shelf is filled with schoolbooks. They are not so well cared for, they are badly thumbed, and pages have been torn out for certain purposes. Then below are periodicals, papers, and letters all jammed in together with drawings and rough sketches.\n\nI want to think myself back into that time. It is still in the room, I feel it at once, the walls have preserved it. My hands rest on the arms of the sofa; now I make myself at home and draw up my legs so that I sit comfortably in the corner, in the arms of the sofa. The little window is open, through it I seethe familiar picture of the street with the rising spire of the church at the end. There area couple of flowers on the table. Pen-holders, a shell as a paper-weight, the ink-well-here nothing is changed.\n\nIt will be like this too. If I am lucky, when the war is over and I comeback here for good. I will sit here just like this and look at my room and wait.\n\nI feel excited; but I do not want to be, for that is not right. I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books. The breath of desire that then arose from the coloured backs of the books, shall fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back again the lost eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It occurs tome that I must go and see Kemmerich's mother;-I might visit Mittelstaedt too, he should beat the barracks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I lookout of the window;-beyond the picture of the sunlit street appears a range of hills, distant and light; it changes to a clear day in autumn, and I sit by the fire with Kat and Albert and eat potatoes baked in their skins.\n\nBut I do not want to think of that, I sweep it away. The room shall speak, it must catch me up and hold me, I want to feel that I belong here, I want to hearken and know when I go back to the front that the war will sink down, he drowned utterly in the great home-coming tide, know that it will then be past forever, and not gnaw us continually, that it will have none but an outward power over us.\n\nThe backs of the books stand in rows. I know them all still, I remember arranging them in order. I implore them with my eyes: Speak tome-take me up-take me, Life of my Youth-you who are care-free, beautiful-receive me again-\n\nI wait, I wait.\n\nImages float through my mind, but they do not grip me, they are mere shadows and memories.\n\nNothing-nothing-\n\nMy disquietude grows.\n\nA terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannot find my way back, I am shutout though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength.\n\nNothing stirs; listless and wretched, like a condemned man, I sit there and the past withdraws itself. And at the same time I fear to importune it too much, because I do not know what might happen then. I am a soldier, I must cling to that.\n\nWearily I stand up and lookout of the window. Then I take one of the books, intending to read, and turnover the leaves. But I put it away and takeout another. There are passages in it that have been marked. I look, turnover the pages, take up fresh books. Already they are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers, magazines, letters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stand there dumb. As before a judge.\n\nDejected.\n\nWords, Words, Words-they do not reach me.\n\nSlowly I place the books back in the shelves.\n\nNevermore.\n\nQuietly, I go out of the room.\n\nI still do not give up hope. I do not indeed go to my room anymore, but comfort myself with the thought that a few days are not enough to judge by. Afterwards-later on-there is plenty of time for that.\n\nSo I go over to see Mittelstaedt in the barracks, and we sit in his room; there is an atmosphere about it that I do not like but with which I am quite familiar.\n\nMittelstaedt has some news ready for me that electrifies me on the spot. He tells me Kantorek has been called up as a territorial.\n\n\"Just think of it,\" says he, and takes out a couple of good cigars, \"I comeback here from the hospital and bump right into him. He stretches out his paw tome and bleats: \"Hullo Mittelstaedt, how are you?\"-I look at him and say: \"Territorial Kantorek, business is business and schnapps is schnapps, you ought to know that well enough. Stand to attention when you speak to a superior officer.\" You should have seen his face! Across between a dud and a pickled cucumber. He tried once again to chum up. So I snubbed him a bit harder. Then he brought up his biggest guns and asked confidentially: \"Would you like me to use my influence so that you can take an emergency-exam?\" He was trying to remind me of those things, you know. Then I got mad, and I reminded him of something instead. \"Territorial Kantorek, two years ago you preached us into enlisting; and among us there was one, Joseph Behm, who didn't want to enlist. He was killed three months before he would have been called up in the ordinary way. If it had not been for you he would have lived just that much longer. And now: Dismiss. You will hear from me later. ' It was easy to get put in charge of his company. First thing I did was to take him to the stores and fit him outwith suitable equipment. You will see in a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We go to the parade ground. The company has fallen in, Mittelstaedt stands them at ease and inspects.\n\nThen I see Kantorek and am scarcely able to stifle my laughter. He is wearing a faded blue tunic. On the back and in the sleeves there are big dark patches. The tunic must have belonged to a giant. The black, worn breeches are just as much too short; they reach barely halfway down his calf. The boots, tough old clod-hoppers, with turned-up toes and laces at the side are much too big for him. But as a compensation the cap is too small, a terribly dirty, mean little pill-box. The whole rig-out is just pitiful.\n\nMittelstaedt stops in front of him: \"Territorial Kantorek, do you call those buttons polished? You seem as though you can never learn. Inadequate, Kantorek, quite inadequate--\"\n\nIt makes me bubble with glee. In school Kantorek used to chasten Mittelstaedt with exactly the same expression-\"Inadequate, Mittelstaedt, quite inadequate.\"\n\nMittelstaedt continues to upbraid him: \"Look at Boettcher now, there's a model for you to learn from.\"\n\nI can hardly believe my eyes. Boettcher is there too, Boettcher, our school porter. And he is a model! Kantorek shoots a glance at meas if he would like to eat me. But I grin at him innocently, as though I do not recognize him anymore.\n\nNothing could look more ludicrous than his forage-cap and his uniform. And this is the object before whom we used to stand in anguish as he sat up there enthroned at his desk, spearing at us with his pencil for our mistakes in those irregular French verbs with which afterwards we made so little headway in France. That is barely two years ago-and nowhere stands Territorial Kantorek, the spell quite broken, with bent knees, arms like pothooks, unpolished buttons and that ludicrous rig-out-an impossible soldier. I cannot reconcile this with the menacing figure at the schoolmaster's desk. I wonder what I, the old soldier, would do if this skinful of woe ever dared to say tome again: \"Bäumer, give the imperfect of'aller. '\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Mittelstaedt makes them practise skirmishing, and as a favour appoints Kantorek squad leader.\n\nNow, in skirmishing the squad leader has always to keep twenty paces in front of his squad; if the order comes'On the march, about turn,\" the line of skirmishers simply turns about, but the squad leader, who now finds himself suddenly twenty paces in the rear of the line, has to rush up at the double and take his position again twenty paces in front of the squad. That makes altogether forty paces double march. But no sooner has he arrived than the order'On the march, about turn,\" comes again and he once more has to race at top speed another forty paces to the other side. In this way the squad has merely made the turn-about and a couple of paces, while the squad-leader dashes backwards and forwards like a fart on a curtain-pole. That is one of Himmelstoss' well-worn recipes.\n\nKantorek can hardly expect anything else from Mittelstaedt, for he once messed up the latter's chance of promotion, and Mittelstaedt would be a big fool not to make the best of such a good opportunity as this before he goes back to the front again. A man might well die easier after the army has given him just one such stroke of luck.\n\nIn the meantime Kantorek is dashing up and down like a wild boar. After awhile Mittelstaedt stops the skirmish and begins the very important exercise of creeping.\n\nOn hands and knees, carrying his gun in regulation fashion, Kantorek shoves his absurd figure over the sand immediately in front of us. He is breathing hard, and his panting is music.\n\nMittelstaedt encourages Kantorek the territorial with quotations from Kantorek the school-master. \"Territorial Kantorek, we have the good fortune to live in a great age, we must brace ourselves and triumph over hardship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kantorek sweats and spits out a dirty piece of wood that has lodged in his teeth.\n\nMittelstaedt stoops down and says reproachfully: \"And in the trifles never lose sight of the great adventure, Territorial Kantorek!\"\n\nIt amazes me that Kantorek does not explode with a bang, especially when, during physical exercises, Mittelstaedt copies him to perfection, seizing him by the seat of his trousers as he is pulling himself upon the horizontal bar so that he can just raise his chin above the beam, and then starts to give him good advice. That is exactly what Kantorek used to do to him at school.\n\nThe extra fatigues are next detailed off. \"Kantorek and Boettcher, bread fatigue! Take the handcart with you.\"\n\nA few minutes later the two set off together pushing the barrow. Kantorek in a fury walks with his head down. But the porter is delighted to have scored light duty.\n\nThe bakehouse is away at the other end of the town, and the two must go there and back through the whole length of it.\n\n\"They've done that a couple of times already,\" grins Mittelstaedt. \"People have begun to watch for them coming.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" I say, \"but hasn't he reported you yet?\"\n\n\"He did try. Our C. O. laughed like the deuce when he heard the story. He hasn't anytime for schoolmasters. Besides, I'm sweet with his daughter.\"\n\n\"He'll mess up the examination for you.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" says Mittelstaedt calmly. \"Besides, his complaint came to nothing because I could show that he had had hardly anything but light duty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Couldn't you polish him up a bit?\" I ask.\n\n\"He's too stupid, I couldn't be bothered,\" answers Mittelstaedt contemptuously.\n\nWhat is leave?-A pause that only makes everything after it so much worse. Already the sense of parting begins to intrude itself. My mother watches me silently; I know she counts the days; every morning she is sad. It is one day less. She has put away my pack, she does not want to be reminded by it.\n\nThe hours pass quickly if a man broods. I pull myself together, and go with my sister to the slaughter-house to get a pound or two of bones. That is a great favour and people lineup early in the morning and stand waiting. Many of them faint.\n\nWe have no luck. After waiting by turns for three hours the queue disperses. The bones have not lasted out.\n\nIt is a good thing that I get my rations. I bring them to my mother and in that way we all get something decent to eat.\n\nThe days grow evermore strained and my mother's eyes more sorrowful. Four days left now. I must go and see Kemmerich's mother.\n\nI cannot write that down. This quaking, sobbing woman who shakes me and cries out on me: \"Why are you living then, when he is dead?\"-who drowns me in tears and calls out: \"What are you therefor at all, child, when you--\"-who drops into a chair and wails: \"Did you see him? Did you see him then? How did he die?\"\n\nI tell her he was shot through the heart and died instantaneously. She looks at me, she doubts me: \"You lie. I know better. I have felt how terribly he died. I have heard his voice at night, I have felt his anguish-tell the truth, I want to know it, I must know it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" I say, \"I was beside him. He died at once.\"\n\nShe pleads with me gently: \"Tell me. You must tell me. I know you want to comfort me, but don't you see, you torment me far more than if you told me the truth? I cannot bear the uncertainty. Tell me how it was and even though it will be terrible, it will be far better than what I have to think if you don't.\"\n\nI will never tell her, she can make mincemeat out of me first. I pity her, but she strikes meas rather stupid all the same. Why doesn't she stop worrying? Kemmerich will stay dead whether she knows about it or not. When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual. So I say rather impatiently: \"He died immediately. He felt absolutely nothing at all. His face was quite calm.\"\n\nShe is silent. Then says slowly: \"Will you swear it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"By everything that is sacred to you?\"\n\nGood God, what is there that is sacred tome?-such things change pretty quickly with us.\n\n\"Yes, he died at once.\"\n\n\"Are you willing never to comeback yourself, if it isn't true?\"\n\n\"May I never comeback if he wasn't killed instantaneously.\"\n\nI would swear to anything. But she seems to believe me. She moans and weeps steadily. I have to tell how it happened, so I invent a story and I almost believe it myself.\n\nAs I leave she kisses me and gives me a picture of him. In his recruit's uniform he leans on around rustic table with legs made of birch branches. Behind him a wood is painted on a curtain, and on the table stands a mug of beer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is the last evening at home. Everyone is silent. I go to bed early, I seize the pillow, press it against myself and bury my head in it. Who knows if I will ever lie in a feather bed again?\n\nLate in the night my mother comes into my room. She thinks I am asleep, and I pretend to be so. To talk, to stay awake with one another, it is too hard.\n\nShe sits long into the night although she is in pain and often writhes. At last I can bear it no longer, and pretend I have just wakened up.\n\n\"Go and sleep, Mother, you will catch cold here.\"\n\n\"I can sleep enough later,\" she says.\n\nI sit up. \"I don't go straight back to the front, Mother. I have to do four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from thereon Sunday, perhaps.\"\n\nShe is silent. Then she asks gently: \"Are you very much afraid?\"\n\n\"No Mother.\"\n\n\"I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women out in France. They are no good.\"\n\nAh! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child-why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy's trousers-it is such a little time ago, why is it over?\n\n\"Where we are there aren't any women, Mother,\" I say as calmly as I can.\n\n\"And be very careful at the front, Paul.\"\n\nAh, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes Mother, I will.\"\n\n\"I will pray for you everyday, Paul.\"\n\nAh! Mother, Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through the years, where the burden of all this misery lies onus no more, back to you and me alone, Mother!\n\n\"Perhaps you can get a job that is not so dangerous.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother, perhaps I can get into the cook-house, that can easily be done.\"\n\n\"You do it then, and if the others say anything--\"\n\n\"That won't worry me, Mother--\"\n\nShe sighs. Her face is a white gleam in the darkness.\n\n\"Now you must go to sleep, Mother.\"\n\nShe does not reply. I getup and wrap my cover round her shoulders.\n\nShe supports herself on my arm, she is in pain. And so I take her to her room. I stay with her a little while.\n\n\"And you must get well again, Mother, before I comeback.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, my child.\"\n\n\"You ought not to send your things tome, Mother. We have plenty to eat out there. You can make much better use of them here.\"\n\nHow destitute she lies therein her bed, she that loves me more than all the world. As I am about to leave, she says hastily: \"I have two pairs of underpants for you. They are all wool. They will keep you warm. You must not forget to put them in your pack.\"\n\nAh! Mother! I know what these underpants have cost you in waiting, and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, Mother! how can it be that I must part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me but you? Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good-night, Mother.\"\n\n\"Good-night, my child.\"\n\nThe room is dark. I hear my mother's breathing, and the ticking of the clock. Outside the window the wind blows and the chestnut trees rustle.\n\nOn the landing I stumble over my pack, which lies there already made up because I have to leave early in the morning.\n\nI bit into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless-I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end.\n\nI ought never to have come on leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I ALREADY KNOW the camp on the moors. It was here that Himmelstoss gave Tjaden his education. But now I know hardly anyone here; as ever, all is altered. There are only a few people that I have occasionally met before.\n\nI go through the routine mechanically. In the evenings I generally go to the Soldiers' Home, where the newspapers are laid out, but I do not read them; still there is a piano there that I am glad enough to play on. Two girls are in attendance, one of them is young.\n\nThe camp is surrounded with high barbed-wire fences. If we comeback late from the Soldiers' Home we have to show passes. But those who are on good terms with the guard can get through, of course.\n\nAmong the junipers and the birch trees on the moor we practise company drill each day. It is bearable if one expects nothing better. We advance at a run, fling ourselves down, and our panting breath moves the stalks of the grasses and the flowers of the heather to and fro. Looked at so closely one sees the fine sand is composed of millions of the tiniest pebbles, as clear as if they had been made in a laboratory. It is strangely inviting to dig one's hands into it.\n\nBut the most beautiful are the woods with their line of birch trees. Their colour changes with every minute. Now the stems gleam purest white, and between them airy and silken, hangs the pastel-green of the leaves; the next moment all changes to an opalescent blue, as the shivering breezes pass down from the heights and touch the green lightly away; and again in one place it deepens almost to black as a cloud passes over the sun. And this shadow moves like a ghost through the dim trunks and rides far out over the moor to the sky-then the birches standout again like gay banners on white poles, with their red and gold patches of autumn-tinted leaves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I often become so lost in the play of soft light and transparent shadow, that I almost fail to hear the commands. It is when one is alone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her. And here I have not much companionship, and do not even desire it. We are too little acquainted with one another to do more than joke a bit and play poker or nap in the evenings.\n\nAlongside our camp is the big Russian prison camp. It is separated from us by a wire fence, but in spite of this the prisoners come across to us. They seem nervous and fearful, though most of them are big fellows with beards-they look like meek, scolded, St. Bernard dogs.\n\nThey slink about our camp and pick over the garbage tins. One can imagine what they find there. With us food is pretty scarce and none too good at that-turnips cut into six pieces and boiled in water, and unwashed carrot tops-mouldy potatoes are tit-bits, and the chief luxury is a thin rice soup in which float little bits of beef-sinew, but these are cutup so small that they take a lot of finding.\n\nEverything gets eaten, notwithstanding, and if ever anyone is so well off as not to want all his share, there area dozen others standing by ready to relieve him of it. Only the dregs that the ladle cannot reach are tipped out and thrown into the garbage tins. Along with that there sometimes go a few turnip peelings, mouldy bread crusts and all kinds of muck.\n\nThis thin, miserable, dirty garbage is the objective of the prisoners. They pick it out of the stinking tins greedily and go off with it under their blouses.\n\nIt is strange to see these enemies of ours so closeup. They have faces that make one think-honest peasant faces, broad foreheads, broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, and thick hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They ought to be put to threshing, reaping, and apple picking. They look just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland.\n\nIt is distressing to watch their movements, to see them begging for something to eat. They are all rather feeble, for they only get enough nourishment to keep them from starving. Ourselves we have not had sufficient to eat for long enough. They have dysentery; furtively many of them display the blood-stained tails of their shirts. Their backs, their necks are bent, their knees sag, their heads droop as they stretch out their hands and begin the few words of German that they know-beg with those soft, deep, musical voices, that are like warm stoves and cosy rooms at home.\n\nSome men there are who give them a kick, so that they fall over;-but those are not many. The majority do nothing to them, just ignore them. Occasionally, when they are too grovelling, it makes a man mad and then he kicks them. If only they would not look atone so-What great misery can be in two such small spots, no bigger than a man's thumb-in their eyes!\n\nThey come over to the camp in the evenings and trade. They exchange whatever they possess for bread. Often they have fair success, because they have very good boots and ours are bad. The leather of their knee boots is wonderfully soft, like suede. The peasants among us who get tit-bits sent from home can afford to trade. The price of a pair of boots is about two or three loaves of army bread, or a loaf of bread and a small, tough ham sausage.\n\nBut most of the Russians have long since parted with whatever things they had. Now they wear only the most pitiful clothing, and try to exchange little carvings and objects that they have made out of shell fragments and copper driving bands. Of course, they don't get much for such things, though they may have taken immense pains with them-they go fora slice or two of bread. Our peasants are hard and cunning when they bargain. They hold the piece of bread or sausage right under the nose of the Russian till he grows pale with greed and his eyes bulge and then he will give anything for it. The peasants wrap up their booty with the utmost solemnity, and then get out their big pocketknives, and slowly and deliberately cutoff a slice of bread for themselves from their supply and with every mouthful take apiece of the good tough sausage and so reward themselves with a good feed. It is distressing to watch them take their afternoon meal thus; one would like to crack them over their thick pates. They rarely give anything away. How little we understand one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their forms move like sick storks, like great birds. They come closeup to the wire fence and lean their faces against it; their fingers hook round the mesh. Often many stand side by side, and breathe the wind that comes down from the moors and the forest.\n\nThey rarely speak and then only a few words. They are more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems tome, than we are. But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us. Anyway the war is over so far as they are concerned. But to wait for dysentery is not much of a life either.\n\nThe territorials who are in charge of them say that they were much more lively at first. They used to have intrigues among themselves, as always happens, and it would often come to blows and knives. But now they are quite apathetic and listless; most of them do not masturbate anymore, they are so feeble, though otherwise things come to such a pass that whole huts full of them do it.\n\nThey stand at the wire fence; sometimes one goes away and then another at once takes his place in the line. Most of them are silent; occasionally one begs a cigarette butt.\n\nI see their dark forms, their beards move in the wind. I know nothing of them except that they are prisoners; and that is exactly what troubles me. Their life is obscure and guiltless;-if I could know more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they are waiting for, what their burdens are, then my emotion would have an object and might become sympathy. But as it is I perceive behind them only the suffering of the creature, the awful melancholy of life and the pitilessness of men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world's condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim. But who can draw such a distinction when he looks at these quiet men with their childlike faces and apostles\" beards. Any noncommissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us if they were free.\n\nI am frightened: I dare think this way no more. This way lies the abyss. It is not now the time but I will not lose these thoughts, I will keep them, shut them away until the war is ended. My heartbeats fast: this is the aim, the great, the sole aim, that I have thought of in the trenches; that I have looked for as the only possibility of existence after this annihilation of all human feeling; this is a task that will make life afterward worthy of these hideous years.\n\nI takeout my cigarettes, break each one in half and give them to the Russians. They bow tome and then light the cigarettes. Now red points glow in every face. They comfort me; it looks as though there were little windows in dark village cottages saying that behind them are rooms full of peace.\n\nThe days go by. On a foggy morning another of the Russians is buried; almost everyday one of them dies. I am on guard during the burial. The prisoners saying a chorale, they sing in parts, and it sounds almost as if there were no voices, but an organ faraway on the moor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The burial is quickly over.\n\nIn the evening they stand again at the wire fence and the wind comes down to them from the beech woods. The stars are cold.\n\nI now know a few of those who speak a little German. There is a musician amongst them, he says he used to be a violinist in Berlin. When he hears that I can play the piano he fetches his violin and plays. The others sit down and lean their backs against the fence. He stands up and plays, sometimes he has that absent expression which violinists get when they close their eyes, or again he sways the instrument to the rhythm and smiles across tome.\n\nHe plays mostly folk songs and the others hum with him. They are like a country of dark hills that sing far down under the ground. The sound of the violin stands like a slender girl above it and is clear and alone. The voices cease and the violin continues alone. In the night it is so thin it sounds frozen; one must stand closeup; it would be much better in a room-out here it makes a man grow sad.\n\nBecause I have already had along leave I get none on Sundays. So the last Sunday before I go back to the front my father and eldest sister come over to see me. All day we sit in the Soldiers'Home. Where else could we go? We don't want to stay in the camp. About midday we go fora stroll on the moors.\n\nThe hours area torture; we do not know what to talk about, so we speak of my mother's illness. It is now definitely cancer, she is already in the hospital and will be operated on shortly. The doctors hope she will recover, but we have never heard of cancer being cured.\n\n\"Where is she then?\" I ask.\n\n\"In the Luisa Hospital,\" says my father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In which class?\"\n\n\"Third. We must wait till we know what the operation costs. She wanted to be in the third herself. She said that then she would have some company. And besides it is cheaper.\"\n\n\"So she is lying therewith all those people. If only she could sleep properly.\"\n\nMy father nods. His face is broken and full of furrows. My mother has always been sickly; and though she has only gone to the hospital when she has been compelled to, it has cost a great deal of money, and my father's life has been practically given up to it.\n\n\"If only I knew how much the operation costs,\" says he.\n\n\"Have you not asked?\"\n\n\"Not directly. I cannot do that-the surgeon might take it amiss and that would not do; he must operate on Mother.\"\n\nYes, I think bitterly, that's how it is with us, and with all poor people. They don't dare ask the price, but worry themselves dreadfully beforehand about it; but the others, for whom it is not important, they settle the price first as a matter of course. And the doctor does not take it amiss from them.\n\n\"The dressings afterwards are so expensive,\" says my father.\n\n\"Doesn't the Invalid's Fund pay anything toward it, then?\" I ask.\n\n\"Mother has been ill too long.\"\n\n\"Have you any money at all?\"\n\nHe shakes his head: \"No, but I can do some overtime.\"\n\nI know. He will stand at his desk folding and pasting and cutting until twelve o'clock at night. At eight o'clock in the evening he will eat some miserable rubbish they get in exchange for their food tickets, then he will take a powder for his headache and work on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In order to cheer him up a bit I tell him a few stories, soldiers' jokes and the like, about generals and sergeant-majors.\n\nAfterwards I accompany them both to the railway station. They give me a pot of jam and a bag of potato-cakes that my mother has made for me.\n\nThen they go off and I return to the camp.\n\nIn the evening I spread the jam on the cakes and eat some. But I have no taste for them. So I go out to give them to the Russians. Then it occurs tome that my mother cooked them herself and that she was probably in pain as she stood before the hot stove. I put the bag back in my pack and take only two cakes to the Russians." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WE TRAVEL FOR several days. The first aeroplanes appear in the sky. We roll on past transport lines. Guns, guns. The light railway picks us up. I search for my regiment. No one knows exactly where it lies. Somewhere or other I put up for the night, somewhere or other I receive provisions and a few vague instructions. And so with my pack and my rifle I set out again on the way.\n\nBy the time I come up they are no longer in the devastated place. I hear we have become one of the flying divisions that are pushed in wherever it is hottest. That does not sound cheerful tome. They tell me of heavy losses that we have been having. I inquire after Kat and Albert. No one knows anything of them.\n\nI search farther and wander about here and there; it is a strange feeling. One night more and then another I camp out like a Red Indian. Then at last I get some definite information, and by the afternoon I am able to report to the Orderly Room.\n\nThe sergeant-major detains me there. The company comes back in two days' time. There is no object in sending me up now.\n\n\"What was it like on leave?\" he asks, \"pretty good, eh?\"\n\n\"In parts,\" I say.\n\n\"Yes,\" he sighs, \"yes, if a man didn't have to come away again. The second half is always rather messed up by that.\"\n\nI loaf around until the company comes back in the early morning, grey, dirty, soured, and gloomy. Then I jump up, push in amongst them, my eyes searching. There is Tjaden, there is Müller blowing his nose, and there are Kat and Kropp. We arrange our sacks of straw side by side. I have an uneasy conscience when I look at them, and yet without any good reason. Before we turn in I bring out the rest of the potato-cakes and jam so that they can have some too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The outer cakes are mouldy, still it is possible to eat them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I keep those for myself and give the fresh one to Kat and Kropp.\n\nKat chews and says: \"These are from your mother?\"\n\nI nod.\n\n\"Good,\" says he, \"I can tell by the taste.\"\n\nI could almost weep. I can hardly control myself any longer. But it will soon be all right again back herewith Kat and Albert. This is where I belong.\n\n\"You've been lucky,\" whispers Kropp tome before we drop off to sleep, \"they say we are going to Russia.\"\n\nTo Russia? It's not much of a war over there.\n\nIn the distance the front thunders. The walls of the hut rattle.\n\nThere's a great deal of polishing being done. We are inspected at every turn. Everything that is torn is exchanged for new. I score a spotless new tunic out of it and Kat, of course, an entire outfit. A rumour is going round that there maybe peace, but the other story is more likely-that we are bound for Russia. Still, what do we need new things for in Russia? At last it leaks out-the Kaiser is coming to review us. Hence all the inspections.\n\nFor eight whole days one would suppose we were in a basecamp, there is so much drill and fuss. Everyone is peevish and touchy, we do not take kindly to all this polishing, much less to the full-dress parades. Such things exasperate a soldier more than the front-line.\n\nAt last the moment arrives. We stand to attention and the Kaiser appears. We are curious to see what he looks like. He stalks along the line, and I am really rather disappointed; judging from his pictures I imagined him to be bigger and more powerfully built, and above all to have a thundering voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He distributes Iron Crosses, speaks to this man and that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then we march off.\n\nAfterwards we discuss it. Tjaden says with astonishment:\n\n\"So that is the All-Highest! And everyone, bar nobody, has to stand up stiff in front of him!\" He meditates: \"Hindenburg too, he has to stand up stiff to him, eh?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" says Kat.\n\nTjaden hasn't finished yet. He thinks fora while and then asks: \"And would a king have to stand up stiff to an emperor?\"\n\nNone of us is quite sure about it, but we don't suppose so. They are both so exalted that standing strictly to attention is probably not insisted on.\n\n\"What rot you do hatch out,\" says Kat. \"The main point is that you have to stand stiff yourself.\"\n\nBut Tjaden is quite fascinated. His otherwise prosy fancy is blowing bubbles. \"But look,\" he announces, \"I simply can't believe that an emperor has to go to the latrine the same as I have.\"\n\n\"You can bet your boots on it.\"\n\n\"Four and a half-wit make seven,\" says Kat. \"You've got a maggot in your brain, Tjaden, just you run along to the latrine quick, and get your head clear, so that you don't talk like a two-year-old.\"\n\nTjaden disappears.\n\n\"But what I would like to know,\" says Albert, \"is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No.\"\n\n\"I'm sure there would,\" I interject, \"he was against it from the first.\"\n\n\"Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people in the world had said No.\"\n\n\"That's probable,\" I agree, \"but they damned well said Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's queer, when one thinks about it,\" goes on Kropp, \"we are hereto protect our fatherland." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the French are over thereto protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?\"\n\n\"Perhaps both,\" say I without believing it.\n\n\"Yes, well now,\" pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive me into a corner, \"but our professors and parsons and newspapers say that we are the only ones that are right, and let's hope so;-but the French professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on their side, now what about that?\"\n\n\"That I don't know,\" I say, \"but whichever way it is there's war all the same and every month more countries coming in.\"\n\nTjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started.\n\n\"Mostly by one country badly offending another,\" answers Albert with a slight air of superiority.\n\nThe Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. \"A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Ora river, or a wood, or afield of wheat.\"\n\n\"Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?\" growls Kropp. \"I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other--\"\n\n\"Then I haven't any business here at all,\" replies Tjaden, \"I don't feel myself offended.\"\n\n\"Well, let me tell you,\" says Albert sourly, \"it doesn't apply to tramps like you.\"\n\n\"Then I can be going home right away,\" retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh.\n\n\"Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State--\" exclaims Müller.\n\n\"State, State\"-Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, \"Gendarmes, police, taxes, that's your State;-if that's what you are talking about, no, thank you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right,\" says Kat, \"you've said something for once, Tjaden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "State and home-country, there's a big difference.\"\n\n\"But they go together,\" insists Kropp, \"without the State there wouldn't be any home-country.\"\n\n\"True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French black-smith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren't asked about it anymore than we were.\"\n\n\"Then what exactly is the war for?\" asks Tjaden.\n\nKat shrugs his shoulders. \"There must be some people to whom the war is useful.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not one of them,\" grins Tjaden.\n\n\"Not you, nor anybody else here.\"\n\n\"Who are they then?\" persists Tjaden. \"It isn't any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure about that,\" contradicts Kat, \"he has not had a war up till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous. You look in your schoolbooks.\"\n\n\"And generals too,\" adds Detering, \"they become famous through war.\"\n\n\"Even more famous than emperors,\" adds Kat.\n\n\"There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, that's certain,\" growls Detering.\n\n\"I think it is more of a kind of fever,\" says Albert. \"No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn't want the war, the others say the same thing-and yet half the world is in it all the same.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But there are more lies told by the other side than by us,\" say I; \"just think of those pamphlets the prisoners have on them, where it says that we eat Belgian children." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fellows who write those lies ought to go out and hang themselves. They are real culprits.\"\n\nMüller gets up. \"Anyway, it is better that the war is here instead of in Germany. Just you look at the shell-holes.\"\n\n\"True,\" assents Tjaden, \"but no war at all would be better still.\"\n\nHe is quite proud of himself because he has scored for once over us volunteers. And his opinion is quite typical, here one meets it time and again, and there is nothing with which one can properly counter it, because that is the limit of their comprehension of the factors involved. The national feeling of the tommy resolves itself into this-here he is. But that is the end of it; everything else he criticizes from his own practical point of view.\n\nAlbert lies down on the grass and growls angrily: \"The best thing is not to talk about the rotten business.\"\n\n\"It won't make any difference, that's sure,\" agrees Kat.\n\nTo make matters worse, we have to return almost all the new things and take back our old rags again. The good ones were merely for the inspection.\n\nInstead of going to Russia, we go up the line again. On the way we pass through a devastated wood with the tree trunks shattered and the ground ploughed up.\n\nAt several places there are tremendous craters. \"Great guns, something's hit that,\" I say to Kat.\n\n\"Trench mortars,\" he replies, and then points up atone of the trees.\n\nIn the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What can that mean?\" I ask.\n\n\"He's been blown out of his clothes,\" mutters Tjaden.\n\n\"It's funny,\" says Kat, \"we have seen that several times now. If a mortar gets you it blows you clean out of your clothes. It's the concussion that does it.\"\n\nI search around. And so it is. Here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human limb. Over there lies a body with nothing but apiece of the underpants on one leg and the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it is naked and the clothes are hanging up in the tree. Both arms are missing as though they had been pulled out. I discover one of them twenty yards off in a shrub.\n\nThe dead man lies on his face. There, where the arm wounds are, the earth is black with blood. Underfoot the leaves are scratched up as though the man had been kicking.\n\n\"That's no joke, Kat,\" says I.\n\n\"No more is a shell splinter in the belly,\" he replies, shrugging his shoulders.\n\n\"But don't get tender-hearted,\" says Tjaden.\n\nAll this can only have happened a little while ago, the blood is still fresh. As everybody we see there is dead we do not waste anymore time, but report the affair at the next stretcher-bearers'post. After all it is not our business to take these stretcher-bearers\" jobs away from them.\n\nA patrol has to be sent out to discover just how strongly the enemy position is manned. Since my leave I feel a certain strange attachment to the other fellows, and so I volunteer to go with them. We agree on a plan, slip out through the wire and then divide and creep forward separately. After awhile I find a shallow shell-hole and crawl into it. From here I peer forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is moderate machine-gunfire. It sweeps across from all directions, not very heavy, but always sufficient to make one keep down.\n\nA parachute star-shell opens out. The ground lies stark in the pale light, and then the darkness shuts down again blacker than ever. In the trenches we were told there were black troops in front of us. That is nasty, it is hard to see them; they are very good at patrolling, too. And oddly enough they are often quite stupid; for instance, both Kat and Kropp were once able to shoot down a black enemy patrol because the fellows in their enthusiasm for cigarettes smoked while they were creeping about. Kat and Albert had simply to aim at the glowing ends of the cigarettes.\n\nA bomb or something lands close beside me. I have not heard it coming and am terrified. At the same momenta senseless fear takes hold of me. Here I am alone and almost helpless in the dark-perhaps two other eyes have been watching me fora long while from another shell-hole in front of me, and a bomb lies ready to blow me to pieces. I try to pull myself together. It is not my first patrol and not a particularly risky one. But it is the first since my leave, and besides, the lie of the land is still rather strange tome.\n\nI tell myself that my alarm is absurd, that there is probably nothing at all therein the darkness watching me, otherwise they would not be firing so low.\n\nIt is in vain. In whirling confusion my thoughts hum in my brain-I hear the warning voice of my mother, I seethe Russians with the flowing beards leaning against the wire fence, I have a bright picture of a canteen with stools, of a cinema in Valenciennes; tormented, terrified, in my imagination I seethe grey, implacable muzzle of a rifle which moves noiselessly before me whichever way I try to turn my head. The sweat breaks out from every pore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I still continue to lie in the shallow bowl. I look at the time; only a few minutes have passed. My forehead is wet, the sockets of my eyes are damp, my hands tremble, and I am panting softly. It is nothing but an awful spasm of fear, a simple animal fear of poking out my head and crawling on farther.\n\nAll my efforts subside like froth into the one desire to be able just to stay lying there. My limbs are glued to the earth. I make a vain attempt;-they refuse to come away. I press myself down on the earth, I cannot go forward, I makeup my mind to stay lying there.\n\nBut immediately the wave floods over me anew, a mingled sense of shame, of remorse, and yet at the same time of security. I raise myself up a little to take a look round.\n\nMy eyes burn with staring into the dark. A star-shell goes up;-I duck down again.\n\nI wage a wild and senseless fight, I want to get out of the hollow and yet slide back into it again; I say'You must, it is your comrades, it is not an idiotic command,\" and again: \"What does it matter tome, I have only one life to lose--\"\n\nThat is the result of all this leave, I plead in extenuation. But I cannot reassure myself; I become terribly faint. I raise myself slowly and reach forward with my arms, dragging my body after me and then lie on the edge of the shell-hole, half in and half out.\n\nThere I hear sounds and drop back. Suspicious sounds can be detected clearly despite the noise of the artillery-fire. I listen; the sound is behind me. They are our people moving along the trench. Now I hear muffled voices. To judge by the tone that might be Kat talking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At once anew warmth flows through me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These voices, these quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall meat abound from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed. They are more tome than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.\n\nI am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;-I belong to them and they tome; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will standby me.\n\nCautiously I glide out over the edge and snake my way forward. I shuffle along on all fours a bit farther, I keep track of my bearings, look around me and observe the distribution of the gunfire so as to able to find my way back. Then I try to get in touch with the others.\n\nI am still afraid, but it is an intelligent fear, an extraordinarily heightened caution. The night is windy and shadows flit hither and thither in the flicker of the gunfire. It reveals too little and too much. Often I pause, stock still, motionless, and always for nothing. Thus I advance along way and then turn back in a wide curve. I have not established touch with the others. Every yard nearer our trench fills me with confidence-and with haste, too. It would be bad to get hit now.\n\nThen anew fear lays hold of me. I can no longer remember the direction. Quiet, I squat in a shell-hole and try to locate myself. More than once it has happened that some fellow has jumped joyfully into a trench, only then to discover that it was the wrong one." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: war, historical fiction, World War I, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Erich Maria Remarque\nTitle: All Quiet on the Western Front\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At once anew warmth flows through me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These voices, these quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall meat abound from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed. They are more tome than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.\n\nI am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;-I belong to them and they tome; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will standby me.\n\nCautiously I glide out over the edge and snake my way forward. I shuffle along on all fours a bit farther, I keep track of my bearings, look around me and observe the distribution of the gunfire so as to able to find my way back. Then I try to get in touch with the others.\n\nI am still afraid, but it is an intelligent fear, an extraordinarily heightened caution. The night is windy and shadows flit hither and thither in the flicker of the gunfire. It reveals too little and too much. Often I pause, stock still, motionless, and always for nothing. Thus I advance along way and then turn back in a wide curve. I have not established touch with the others. Every yard nearer our trench fills me with confidence-and with haste, too. It would be bad to get hit now.\n\nThen anew fear lays hold of me. I can no longer remember the direction. Quiet, I squat in a shell-hole and try to locate myself. More than once it has happened that some fellow has jumped joyfully into a trench, only then to discover that it was the wrong one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a little time I listen again, but still I am not sure. The confusion of shell-holes now seems so bewildering that I can no longer tell in my agitation which way I should go. Perhaps I am crawling parallel to the lines, and that might goon forever. So I crawl round once again in a wide curve.\n\nThese damned rockets! They seem to burn for an hour, and a man cannot make the least movement without bringing the bullets whistling round.\n\nBut there is nothing for it, I must get out. Falteringly I work my way farther, I move off over the ground like a crab and rip my hands sorely on the jagged splinters, as sharp as razor blades. Often I think that the sky is becoming lighter on the horizon, but it maybe merely my imagination. Then gradually I realize that to crawl in the right direction is a matter of life or death.\n\nA shell crashes. Almost immediately two others. And then it begins in earnest. A bombardment. Machine-guns rattle. Now there is nothing for it but to stay lying low. Apparently an attack is coming. Everywhere the rockets shoot up. Unceasing.\n\nI lie huddled in a large shell-hole, my legs in the water up to the belly. When the attack starts I will let myself fall into the water, with my face as deep in the mud as I can keep it without suffocating. I must pretend to be dead.\n\nSuddenly I hear the barrage lift. At once I slip down into the water, my helmet on the nape of my neck and my mouth just clear so that I can get a breath of air.\n\nI lie motionless;-somewhere something clanks, it stamps and stumbles nearer-all my nerves become taut and icy. It clatters over me and away, the first wave has passed. I have but this one shattering thought: What will you do if someone jumps into your shell-hole?-Swiftly I pullout my little dagger, grasp it fast and bury it in my hand once again under the mud. If anyone jumps inhere I will go for him. It hammers in my forehead; at once, stab him clean through the throat, so that he cannot call out; that's the only way; he will be just as frightened as I am; when in terror we fall upon one another, then I must be first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now our batteries are firing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shell lands near me. That makes me savage with fury, all it needs now is to be killed by our own shells; I curse and grind my teeth in the mud; it is a raving frenzy; in the end all I can do is groan and pray.\n\nThe crash of the shells bursts in my ears. If our fellows make a counter-raid I will be saved. I press my head against the earth and listen to the muffled thunder, like the explosions of quarrying-and raise it again to listen for the sounds on top.\n\nThe machine-guns rattle. I know our barbed wire entanglements are strong and almost undamaged;-parts of them are charged with a powerful electric current. The rifle fire increases. They have not broken through; they have to retreat.\n\nI sink down again, huddled, strained to the uttermost. The banging, the creeping, the clanging becomes audible. One single cry yelling amongst it all. They are raked with fire, the attack is repulsed.\n\nAlready it has become somewhat lighter. Steps hasten over me. The first. Gone. Again, another. The rattle of machine-guns becomes an unbroken chain. Just as I am about to turn round a little, something heavy stumbles, and with a crash a body falls over me into the shell-hole, slips down, and lies across me-\n\nI do not think at all, I make no decision-I strike madly at home, and feel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, and collapses. When I recover myself, my hand is sticky and wet.\n\nThe man gurgles. It sounds tome as though he bellows, every gasping breath is like a cry, a thunder-but it is not only my heart pounding. I want to stop his mouth, stuff it with earth, stab him again, he must be quiet, he is betraying me; now at last I regain control of myself, but have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot anymore lift my hand against him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I crawl away to the farthest corner and stay there, my eyes glued on him, my hand grasping the knife-ready, if he stirs, to spring at him again. But he won't do so anymore, I can hear that already in his gurgling.\n\nI can see him indistinctly. I have but one desire, to getaway. If it is not soon it will be too light; it will be difficult enough now. Then as I try to raise up my head I see it is impossible already. The machine-gunfire so sweeps the ground that I should be shot through and through before I could make one jump.\n\nI test it once with my helmet, which I takeoff and holdup to find out the level of the shots. The next moment it is knocked out of my hand by a bullet. The fire is sweeping very low to the ground. I am not far enough from the enemy line to escape being picked off by one of the snipers if I attempt to getaway.\n\nThe light increases. Burning I wait for our attack. My hands are white at the knuckles, I clench them so tightly in my longing for the fire to cease so that my comrades may come.\n\nMinute after minute trickles away. I dare not look again at the dark figure in the shell-hole. With an effort I look past it and wait, wait. The bullets hiss, they make a steel net, never ceasing, never ceasing.\n\nThen I notice my bloody hand and suddenly feel nauseated. I take some earth and rub the skin with it; now my hand is muddy and the blood cannot be seen anymore.\n\nThe fire does not diminish. It is equally heavy from both sides. Our fellows have probably given me up for lost long ago.\n\n---" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is early morning, clear and grey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gurgling continues, I stop my ears, but soon take my fingers away again, because then I cannot hear the other sound.\n\nThe figure opposite me moves. I shrink together and involuntarily look at it. Then my eyes remain glued to it. A man with a small pointed beard lies there; his head is fallen to one side, one arm is halfbent, his headrests helplessly upon it. The other hand lies on his chest, it is bloody.\n\nHe is dead, I say to myself, he must be dead, he doesn't feel anything anymore; it is only the body that is gurgling there. Then the head tries to raise itself, fora moment the groaning becomes louder, his forehead sinks back upon his arm. The man is not dead, he is dying, but he is not dead. I drag myself toward him, hesitate, support myself on my hands, creep a bit farther, wait, again a terrible journey. At last I am beside him.\n\nThen he opens his eyes. He must have heard me, for he gazes at me with a look of utter terror. The body lies still, but in the eyes there is such an extraordinary expression of fright that fora moment I think they have power enough to carry the body off with them. Hundreds of miles away with one bound. The body is still perfectly still, without a sound, the gurgle has ceased, but the eyes cry out, yell, all the life is gathered together in them for one tremendous effort to flee, gathered together therein a dreadful terror of death, of me.\n\nMy legs give way and I drop on my elbows. \"No, no,\" I whisper.\n\nThe eyes follow me. I am powerless to move so long as they are there.\n\nThen his hand slips slowly from his breast, only a little bit, it sinks just a few inches, but this movement breaks the power of the eyes. I bend forward, shake my head and whisper: \"No, no, no,\" I raise one hand, I must show him that I want to help him, I stroke his forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes shrink back as the hand comes, then they lose their stare, the eyelids droop lower, the tension is past. I open his collar and place his head more comfortably.\n\nHis mouth stands half open, it tries to form words. The lips are dry. My water bottle is not there. I have not brought it with me. But there is water in the mud, down at the bottom of the crater. I climb down, takeout my handkerchief, spread it out, push it under and scoop up the yellow water that strains through into the hollow of my hand.\n\nHe gulps it down. I fetch some more. Then I unbutton his tunic in order to bandage him if it is possible. In any case I must do it, so that if the fellows over there capture me they will see that I wanted to help him, and so will not shoot me. He tries to resist, but his hand is too feeble. The shirt is stuck and will not come away, it is buttoned at the back. So there is nothing for it but to cut it open.\n\nI look for the knife and find it again. But when I begin to cut the shirt the eyes open once more and the cry is in them again and the demented expression, so that I must close them, press them shut and whisper: \"I want to help you, Comrade, camerade, camerade, camerade--\" eagerly repeating the word, to make him understand.\n\nThere are three stabs. My field dressing covers them, the blood runs out under it, I press it tighter; there; he groans.\n\nThat is all I can do. Now we must wait, wait.\n\nThese hours.... The gurgling starts again-but how slowly a man dies! For this I know-he cannot be saved, I have, indeed, tried to tell myself that he will be, but at noon this pretence breaks down and melts before his groans. If only I had not lost my revolver crawling about, I would shoot him. Stab him I cannot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. Hunger devours me, I could almost weep for something to eat, I cannot struggle against it. Again and again I fetch water for the dying man and drink some myself.\n\nThis is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Müller have experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happens to many, in hand-to-hand fighting especially-\n\nBut every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts.\n\nI would give much if he would but stay alive. It is hard to lie here and to have to see and hear him.\n\nIn the afternoon, about three, he is dead.\n\nI breathe freely again. But only fora short time. Soon the silence is more unbearable than the groans. I wish the gurgling were there again, gasping hoarse, now whistling softly and again hoarse and loud.\n\nIt is mad, what I do. But I must do something. I prop the dead man up again so that he lies comfortably, although he feels nothing anymore. I close his eyes. They are brown, his hair is black and a bit curly at the sides.\n\nThe mouth is full and soft beneath his moustache; the nose is slightly arched, the skin brownish; it is now not so pale as it was before, when he was still alive. Fora moment the face seems almost healthy;-then it collapses suddenly into the strange face of the dead that I have so often seen, strange faces, all alike.\n\nNo doubt his wife still thinks of him; she does not know what happened. He looks as if he would have often written to her;-she will still begetting mail from him-To-morrow, in a week's time-perhaps even astray letter a month hence. She will read it, and in it he will bespeaking to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What would his wife look like? Like the little brunette on the other side of the canal? Does she belong tome now? Perhaps by this act she becomes mine. I wish Kantorek were sitting here beside me. If my mother could see me--. The dead man might have had thirty more years of life if only I had impressed the way back to our trench more sharply on my memory. If only he had run two yards farther to the left, he might now be sitting in the trench over there and writing afresh letter to his wife.\n\nBut I will get no further that way; for that is the fate of all of us: if Kemmerich's leg had been six inches to the right: if Haie Westhus had bent his back three inches further forward--\n\nThe silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and to say to him: \"Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped inhere again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea tome before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you area manlike me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up-take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is quiet, the front is still except for the crackle of rifle fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bullets rain over, they are not fired haphazard, but shrewdly aimed from all sides. I cannot get out.\n\n\"I will write to your wife,\" I say hastily to the dead man, \"I will write to her, she must hear it from me, I will tell her everything I have told you, she shall not suffer, I will help her, and your parents too, and your child--\"\n\nHis tunic is half open. The pocket-book is easy to find. But I hesitate to open it. In it is the book with his name. So long as I do not know his name perhaps I may still forget him, time will obliterate it, this picture. But his name, it is a nail that will be hammered into me and never come out again. It has the power to recall this forever, it will always comeback and stand before me.\n\nIrresolutely I take the wallet in my hand. It slips out of my hand and falls open. Some pictures and letters dropout. I gather them up and want to put them back again, but the strain I am under, the uncertainty, the hunger, the danger, these hours with the dead man have made me desperate, I want to hasten the relief, to intensify and to end the torture, as one strikes an unendurably painful hand against the trunk of a tree, regardless of everything.\n\nThere are portraits of a woman and a little girl, small amateur photographs taken against an ivy-clad wall. Along with them are letters. I take them out and try to read them. Most of it I do not understand, it is so hard to decipher and I scarcely know any French. But each word I translate pierces me like a shot in the chest;-like a stab in the chest.\n\nMy brain is taxed beyond endurance. But I realize this much, that I will never dare to write to these people as I intended. Impossible. I look at the portraits once more; they are clearly not rich people. I might send them money anonymously if I earn anything later on. I seize upon that, it is at least something to hold onto. This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean to live only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placate him-and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off in this way and perhaps even get out of this; it is a little stratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it. So I open the book and read slowly:-Gérard Duval, compositor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the dead man's pencil I write the address on an envelope, then swiftly thrust everything back into his tunic.\n\nI have killed the printer, Gérard Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer--\n\nBy afternoon I am calmer. My fear was groundless. The name troubles me no more. The madness passes. \"Comrade,\" I say to the dead man, but I say it calmly, \"to-day you, to-morrow me. But if I come out of it, comrade, I will fight against this, that has struck us both down; from you, taken life-and from me-? Life also. I promise you, comrade. It shall never happen again.\"\n\nThe sun strikes low, I am stupefied with exhaustion and hunger. Yesterday is like a fog tome, there is no hope of ever getting out of this. I fall into a doze and do not at first realize that evening is approaching. The twilight comes. It seems tome to come quickly now. One hour more. If it were summer, it would be three hours more. One hour more.\n\nNow suddenly I begin to tremble; something might happen in the interval. I think no more of the dead man, he is of no consequence tome now. With one bound the lust to live flares up again and everything that has filled my thoughts goes down before it. Now, merely to avert any ill-luck, I babble mechanically: \"I will fulfil everything, fulfil everything I have promised you--\" but already I know that I shall not do so.\n\nSuddenly it occurs tome that my own comrades may fire on meas I creep up; they do not know I am coming. I will call out as soon as I can so that they will recognize me. I will stay lying in front of the trench until they answer me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first star. The front remains quiet. I breathe deeply and talk to myself in my excitement: \"No foolishness now, Paul-Quiet, Paul, quiet-then you will be saved, Paul.\" When I use my Christian name it works as though someone else spoke it tome, it has more power.\n\nThe darkness grows. My excitement subsides, I wait cautiously until the first rocket goes up. Then I crawl out of the shell-hole. I have forgotten the dead man. Before me lies the oncoming night and the pale gleaming field. I fix my eyes on a shell-hole; the moment the light dies I scurry over into it, grope farther, spring into the next, duck down, scramble onward.\n\nI come nearer. There, by the light of the rocket I see something move in the wire, then it stiffens and I lie still. Next time I see it again, yes, they are men from our trench. But I am suspicious until I recognize our helmets. Then I call. And immediately an answer rings out, my name: \"Paul-Paul--\"\n\nI call again in answer. It is Kat and Albert who have come outwith a stretcher to look for me.\n\n\"Are you wounded?\"\n\n\"No, no--\"\n\nWe drop into the trench. I ask for something to eat and wolf it down. Müller gives me a cigarette. Ina few words I tell what happened. There is nothing new about it; it happens quite often. The night attack is the only unusual feature of the business. In Russia Kat once lay for two days behind the enemy lines before he could make his way back.\n\nI do not mention the dead printer.\n\nBut by next morning I can keep it to myself no longer. I must tell Kat and Albert. They both try to calm me. \"You can't do anything about it. What else could you have done? That is what you are here for.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I listen to them and feel comforted, reassured by their presence. It was mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out therein the shell-hole.\n\n\"Look therefor instance,\" points Kat.\n\nOn the fire-step stand some snipers. They rest their rifles with telescopic sights on the parapet and watch the enemy front. Once and again a shot cracks out.\n\nThen we hear the cry: \"That's found a billet!\" \"Did you see how he leapt in the air?\" Sergeant Oellrich turns round proudly and scores his point. He heads the shooting list for to-day with three unquestionable hits.\n\n\"What do you say to that?\" asks Kat.\n\nI nod.\n\n\"If he keeps that up he will get a little coloured bird for his buttonhole by this evening,\" says Albert.\n\n\"Or rather he will soon be made acting sergeant-major,\" says Kat.\n\nWe look atone another. \"I would not do it,\" I say.\n\n\"All the same,\" says Kat, \"it's very good for you to see it just now.\"\n\nSergeant Oellrich returns to the fire-step. The muzzle of his rifle searches to and fro.\n\n\"You don't need to lose any sleepover your affair,\" nods Albert.\n\nAnd now I hardly understand it myself anymore.\n\n\"It was only because I had to lie therewith him so long,\" I say. \"After all, war is war.\"\n\nOellrich's rifle cracks out sharply and dry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WE HAVE DROPPED in fora good job. Eight of us have to guard a village that has been abandoned because it is being shelled too heavily.\n\nIn particular we have to watch the supply dump as that is not empty yet. We are supposed to provision ourselves from the same store. We are just the right people for that;-Kat, Albert, Müller, Tjaden, Detering, our whole gang is there. Haie is dead, though. But we are mighty lucky all the same, all the other squads have had more casualties than we have.\n\nWe select, as a dug-out, a reinforced concrete cellar into which steps lead down from above. The entrance is protected by a separate concrete wall.\n\nNow we develop an immense industry. This is an opportunity not only to stretch one's legs, but to stretch one's soul also. We make the best use of such opportunities. The war is too desperate to allow us to be sentimental for long. That is only possible so long as things are not going too badly. After all, we cannot afford to be anything but matter-of-fact. So matter-of-fact, indeed, that I often shudder when a thought from the days before the war comes momentarily into my head. But it does not stay long.\n\nWe have to take things as lightly as we can, so we make the most of every opportunity, and nonsense stands stark and immediate beside horror. It cannot be otherwise, that is how we hearten ourselves. So we zealously set to work to create an idyll-an idyll of eating and sleeping of course.\n\nThe floor is first covered with mattresses which we haul in from the houses. Even a soldier's behind likes to sit soft. Only in the middle of the floor is there any clear space. Then we furnish ourselves with blankets, and eiderdowns, luxurious soft affairs. There is plenty of everything to be had in the village. Albert and I find a mahogany bed which can betaken to pieces with a sky of blue silk and a lace coverlet. We sweat like monkeys moving it in, but a man cannot let a thing like that slip, and it would certainly be shot to pieces in a day or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kat and I do a little patrolling through the houses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In very short time we have collected a dozen eggs and two pounds of fairly fresh butter. Suddenly there is a crash in the drawing-room, and an iron stove hurtles through the wall past us and on, a yard from us out through the wall behind. Two holes. It comes from the house opposite where a shell has just landed. \"The swine,\" grimaces Kat, and we continue our search. All at once we prick up our ears, hurry across, and suddenly stand petrified-there running up and down in a little sty are two live sucking pigs. We rub our eyes and look once again to make certain. Yes, they are still there. We seize hold of them-no doubt about it, two real young pigs.\n\nThis will make a grand feed. About twenty yards from our dug-out there is a small house that was used as an officers'billet. In the kitchen is an immense fireplace with two ranges, pots, pans, and kettles-everything, even to a stack of small chopped wood in an outhouse-a regular cook's paradise.\n\nTwo of our fellows have been out in the fields all the morning hunting for potatoes, carrots and green peas. We are quite uppish and sniff at the tinned stuff in the supply dump, we want fresh vegetables. In the dining-room there are already two heads of cauliflower.\n\nThe sucking pigs are slaughtered. Kat sees to them. We want to make potato-cakes to go with the roast. But we cannot find a grater for the potatoes. However, the difficulty is soon got over. With a nail we punch a lot of holes in a pot lid and there we have a grater. Three fellows put on thick gloves to protect their fingers against the grater, two others peel the potatoes, and the business gets going.\n\nKat takes charge of the sucking pigs, the carrots, the peas, and the cauliflower. He even mixes a white sauce for the cauliflower. I fry the pancakes, four at a time. After ten minutes I get the knack of tossing the pan so that the pancakes which are done on one side sail up, turn in the air and are caught again as they comedown. The sucking pigs are roasted whole. We all stand round them as before an altar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the meantime we receive visitors, a couple of wireless-men, who are generously invited to the feed. They sit in the living-room where there is a piano. One of them plays, the other sings'An der Weser.\" He sings feelingly, but with a rather Saxon accent. All the same it moves us as we stand at the fireplace preparing the good things.\n\nThen we begin to realize we are in for trouble. The observation balloons have spotted the smoke from our chimney, and the shells start to drop onus. They are those damned spraying little daisy-cutters that make only a small hole and scatter widely close to the ground. They keep dropping closer and closer all round us; still we cannot leave the grub in the lurch. A couple of splinters whizz through the top of the kitchen window. The roast is ready. But frying the pancakes is getting difficult. The explosions come so fast that the splinters strike again and again against the wall of the house and sweep in through the window. Whenever I hear a shell coming I drop down on one knee with the pan and the pancakes, and duck behind the wall of the window. Immediately afterwards I am up again and going on with the frying.\n\nThe Saxon stops singing-a fragment has smashed the piano. At last everything is ready and we organize the transport of it back to the dug-out. After the next explosion two men dash across the fifty yards to the dug-outwith the pots of vegetables. We see them disappear.\n\nThe next shot. Everyone ducks and then two more trot off, each with a big can of finest grade coffee, and reach the dugout before the next explosion.\n\nThen Kat and Kropp seize the masterpiece-the big dish with the brown, roasted sucking pigs. A screech, a knee end, and away they race over the fifty yards of open country." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stay to finish my last four pancakes; twice I have to drop to the floor;-after all, it means four pancakes more, and they are my favourite dish.\n\nThen I grab the plate with the great pile of cakes and squeeze myself behind the house door. A hiss, a crash, and I gallop off with the plate clamped against my chest with both hands. I am almost in, there is arising screech, I bound, I run like a deer, sweep round the wall, fragments clatter against the concrete, I tumbledown the cellar steps, my elbows are skinned, but I have not lost a single pancake, nor even upset the plate.\n\nAt two o'clock we start the meal. It lasts till six. We drink coffee until half-past six-officer's coffee from the supply dump-and smoke officer's cigars and cigarettes-also from the supply dump. Punctually at half-past six we begin supper. At ten o'clock we throw the bones of the sucking pigs outside the door. Then there is cognac and rum-also from the blessed supply dump-and once again long, fat cigars with belly-bands. Tjaden says that it lacks only one thing: Girls from an officer's brothel.\n\nLate in the evening we hear mewing. A little grey cat sits in the entrance. We entice it in and give it something to eat. And that wakes up our own appetites once more. Still chewing, we lie down to sleep.\n\nBut the night is bad. We have eaten too much fat. Fresh baby pig is very griping to the bowels. There is an everlasting coming and going in the dug-out. Two, three men with their pants down are always sitting about outside and cursing. I have been out nine times myself. About four o'clock in the morning we reach a record: all eleven men, guards and visitors, are squatting outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burning houses standout like torches against the night. Shells lumber across and crash down. Munition columns tear along the street. On one side the supply dump has been ripped open. In spite of all the flying fragments the drivers of the munition columns pour in like a swarm of bees and pounce on the bread. We let them have their own way. If we said anything it would only mean a good hiding for us. So we go differently about it. We explain that we are the guard and so know our way about, we get hold of the tinned stuff and exchange it for things we are short of. What does it matter anyhow-in awhile it will all be blown to pieces. For ourselves we take some chocolate from the depot and eat it in slabs. Kat says it is good for loose bowels.\n\nAlmost a fortnight passes thus in eating, drinking and roaming about. No one disturbs us. The village gradually vanishes under the shells and we lead a charmed life. So long as any part of the supply dump still stands we don't worry, we desire nothing better than to stay here till the end of the war.\n\nTjaden has become so fastidious that he only half smokes his cigars. With his nose in the air he explains to us that he was brought up that way. And Kat is most cheerful. In the morning his first call is: \"Emil, bring in the caviare and coffee.\" We put on extraordinary airs, every man treats the other as his valet, bounces him and gives him orders. \"There is something itching under my foot; Kropp my man, catch that louse at once,\" says Leer, poking out his leg at him like a ballet girl, and Albert drags him up the stairs by the foot. \"Tjaden!\"-\"What?\"-\"Stand at ease, Tjaden; and what's more, don't say \"What,\" say \"Yes, Sir,\"-now: Tjaden!\" Tjaden retorts in the well-known phrase from Goethe's'Götz von Berlichingen,\" with which he is always free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After eight more days we receive orders to go back. The palmy days are over. Two big motor lorries take us away. They are stacked high with planks. Nevertheless, Albert and I erect on top our four-poster bed complete with blue silk canopy, mattress, and two lace coverlets. And behind it at the head is stowed a bag full of choicest edibles. We often dip into it, and the tough ham sausages, the tins of liver sausages, the conserves, the boxes of cigarettes rejoice our hearts. Each man has a bag to himself.\n\nKropp and I have rescued two big red arm-chairs as well. They stand inside the bed, and we sprawl back in them as in a theatre box. Above us swells the silken cover like a baldaquin. Each man has along cigar in his mouth. And thus from aloft we survey the scene.\n\nBetween us stands a parrot cage that we found for the cat. She is coming with us, and lies in the cage before her saucer of meat, and purrs.\n\nSlowly the lorries roll down the road. We sing. Behind us shells are sending up fountains from the now utterly abandoned village.\n\nA few days later we are sent to evacuate a village. On the way we meet the fleeing inhabitants trundling their goods and chattels along with them in wheelbarrows, in perambulators, and on their backs. Their figures are bent, their faces full of grief, despair, haste, and resignation. The children hold onto their mothers' hands, and often an older girl leads the little ones who stumble onward and are forever looking back. A few carry miserable-looking dolls. All are silent as they pass us by.\n\nWe are marching in column; the French certainly will not fire on a town in which there are still inhabitants. But a few minutes later the air screams, the earth heaves, cries ring out; a shell has landed among our rear squad. We scatter and fling ourselves down on the ground, but at that moment I feel the instinctive alertness leave me which hitherto has always made me do unconsciously the right thing under fire; the thought leaps up with a terrible throttling fear: \"You are lost\"-and the next momenta blow sweeps like a whip over my left leg. I hear Albert cry out; he is beside me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Quick, up, Albert!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I yell, for we are lying unsheltered in the open field.\n\nHe staggers up and runs. I keep beside him. We have to get over a hedge; it is higher than we are. Kropp seizes a branch, I heave him up by the leg, he cries out, I give him a swing and he flies over. With one bound I follow him and fall into a ditch that lies behind the hedge.\n\nOur faces are smothered with duck-weed and mud, but the cover is good. So we wade in up to our necks. Whenever a shell whistles we duck our heads under the water. After we have done this a dozen times, I am exhausted.\n\n\"Let's getaway, or I'll fall in and drown,\" groans Albert.\n\n\"Where has it got you?\" I ask him.\n\n\"In the knee I think.\"\n\n\"Can you run?\"\n\n\"I think--\"\n\n\"Then out!\"\n\nWe make for the ditch beside the road, and stooping, run along it. The shelling follows us. The road leads towards the munition dump. If that goes up there won't be so much as a boot-lace left of us. So we change our plan and run diagonally across country.\n\nAlbert begins to drag. \"You go, I'll come on after,\" he says, and throws himself down.\n\nI seize him by the arm and shake him. \"Up, Albert, if once you lie down you'll never get any farther. Quick, I'll hold you up.\"\n\nAt last we reach a small dug-out. Kropp pitches in and I bandage him up. The shot is just a little above his knee. Then I take a look at myself. My trousers are bloody and my arm, too. Albert binds up my wound with his field dressing. Already he is no longer able to move his leg, and we both wonder how we managed to get this far. Fear alone made it possible; we should have run even if our feet had been shot off;-we would have run on the stumps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can still crawl a little. I call out to a passing ambulance wagon which picks us up. It is full of wounded. There is an army medical lance-corporal with it who sticks an anti-tetanus needle into our chests.\n\nAt the dressing station we arrange matters so that we lie side by side. They give us a thin soup which we spoon down greedily and scornfully, because we are accustomed to better times but are hungry all the same.\n\n\"Now for home, Albert,\" I say.\n\n\"Let's hope so,\" he replies, \"I only wish I knew what I've got.\"\n\nThe pain increases. The bandages burn like fire. We drink and drink, one glass of water after another.\n\n\"How far above the knee am I hit?\" asks Kropp.\n\n\"At least four inches, Albert,\" I answer. Actually it is perhaps one.\n\n\"I've made up my mind,\" he says after awhile, \"if they takeoff my leg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple.\"\n\nSo we lie therewith our thoughts and wait.\n\nIn the evening we are hauled onto the chopping-block. I am frightened and think quickly what I ought to do; for everyone knows that the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightest provocation. Under the great business that is much simpler than complicated patching. I think of Kemmerich. Whatever happens I will not let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack a couple of their skulls.\n\nIt is all right. The surgeon pokes around in the wound and a blackness comes before my eyes. \"Don't carry on so,\" he says gruffly, and hacks away. The instruments gleam in the bright light like marvelous animals. The pain is insufferable. Two orderlies hold my arms fast, but I break loose with one of them and try to crash into the surgeon's spectacles just as he notices and springs back. \"Chloroform the scoundrel,\" he roars madly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I become quiet. \"Pardon me, Herr Doctor, I will keep still but do not chloroform me.\"\n\n\"Well now,\" he cackles and takes up his instrument again. He is a fair fellow, not more than thirty years old, with scars and disgusting gold spectacles. Now I see that he is tormenting me, he is merely raking about in the wound and looking up surreptitiously at me over his glasses. My hands squeeze around the grips, I'll kick the bucket before he will get a squeak out of me.\n\nHe has fished out apiece of shell and tosses it tome. Apparently he is pleased at myself-control, for he now sets my leg carefully in splints and says: \"To-morrow you'll be off home.\" Then I am put in plaster. When I am back again with Kropp I tell him apparently a hospital train comes in tomorrow morning.\n\n\"We must work the army medical sergeant-major so that we can keep together, Albert.\"\n\nI manage to slip the sergeant-major two of my cigars with belly-bands, and then tip the word to him. He smells the cigars and says: \"Have you got anymore of them?\"\n\n\"Another good handful,\" I say, \"and my comrade,\" I point to Kropp, \"he has some as well. We might possibly be glad to hand them to you out of the window of the hospital train in the morning.\"\n\nHe understands, of course, smells them once again and says: \"Done.\"\n\nWe cannot get a minute's sleep all night. One of them sings hymns in a high cracked tenor before he begins to gurgle. Another has crept out of his bed to the window. He lies in front of it as though he wants to lookout for the last time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "---\n\nOur stretchers stand on the platform. We wait for the train. It rains and the station has no roof. Our blankets are thin. We have waited already two hours.\n\nThe sergeant-major looks after us like a mother. Although I feel pretty bad I do not let our scheme out of my mind. Casually I let him seethe packet and give him one cigar in advance. In exchange the sergeant-major covers us over with a waterproof sheet.\n\n\"Albert, old man,\" I suddenly bethink myself, \"our four-poster and the cat--\"\n\n\"And the club chairs,\" he adds.\n\nYes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening we used to sit in them like lords, and intended later onto let them out by the hour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regular business, areal good living.\n\n\"And our bags of grub, too, Albert.\"\n\nWe grow melancholy. We might have made some use of the things. If only the train left one day later Kat would be sure to find us and bring us the stuff.\n\nWhat damned hard luck! In our bellies there is gruel, mean hospital stuff, and in our bags roast pork. But we are so weak that we cannot workup anymore excitement about it.\n\nThe stretchers are sopping wet by the time the train arrives in the morning. The sergeant-major sees to it that we are put in the same car. There is a crowd of red-cross nurses. Kropp is stowed in below. I am lifted up and told to get into the bed above him.\n\n\"Good God!\" I exclaim suddenly.\n\n\"What is it?\" asks the sister.\n\nI cast a glance at the bed. It is covered with clean snow-white linen, that even has got the marks of the iron still on it. And my shirt has gone six weeks without being washed and is terribly muddy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't you get in by yourself?\" asks the sister gently.\n\n\"Why yes,\" I say in a sweat, \"but takeoff the bed cover first.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\nI feel like a pig. Must I get in there?-\"It will get--\" I hesitate.\n\n\"A little bit dirty?\" she suggests helpfully. \"That doesn't matter, we will wash it again afterwards.\"\n\n\"No, no, not that--\" I say excitedly. I am not equal to such overwhelming refinement.\n\n\"When you have been lying out therein the trenches, surely we can wash a sheet,\" she goes on.\n\nI look at her, she is young and crisp, spotless and neat, like everything here; a man cannot realize that it isn't for officers only, and feels himself strange and in someway even alarmed.\n\nAll the same the woman is a tormentor, she is going to force me to say it. \"It is only--\" I try again, surely she must know what I mean.\n\n\"What is it then?\"\n\n\"Because of the lice,\" I bawl out at last.\n\nShe laughs. \"Well, they must have a good day for once, too.\"\n\nNow I don't care anymore. I scramble into bed and pull up the covers.\n\nA hand gropes over the bed-cover. The sergeant-major. He goes off with the cigars.\n\nAn hour later we notice we are moving.\n\n---\n\nI wake up during the night. Kropp is restless too. The train rides easily over the rails. I cannot realize it all yet; abed, a train, home. \"Albert!\" I whisper.\n\n\"Yes--\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know where the latrine is?\"\n\n\"The door is on the right, I think.\"\n\n\"I'm going to have a look.\" It is dark, I grope for the edge of the bed and cautiously try to slide down. But my foot finds no support, I begin to slip, the plaster leg is no help, and with a crash I lie on the floor.\n\n\"Damn!\" I say.\n\n\"Have you bumped yourself?\" asks Kropp.\n\n\"You could hear that well enough for yourself,\" I growl, \"my head--\"\n\nA door opens at the rear of the car. The sister comes with alight and looks at me.\n\n\"He has fallen out of bed--\"\n\nShe feels my pulse and smooths my forehead. \"You haven't any fever, though.\"\n\n\"No,\" I agree.\n\n\"Have you been dreaming then?\" she asks.\n\n\"Perhaps--\" I evade. The interrogation starts again. She looks at me with her clear eyes, and the more wonderful and sweet she is the less am I able to tell her what I want.\n\nI am lifted up into bed again. That will be all right. As soon as she goes I must try to climb down again. If she were an old woman, it might be easier to say what a man wants, but she is so very young, at the most twenty-five, it can't be done, I cannot possibly tell her.\n\nThen Albert comes to my rescue, he is not bashful, it makes no difference to him who is upset. He calls to the sister. She turns round. \"Sister, he wants--\" but no more does Albert know how to express it modestly and decently. Out there we say it in a single word, but here, to such a lady--All at once he remembers his schooldays and finishes hastily: \"He wants to leave the room, sister.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah!\" says the sister, \"but he shouldn't climb out of his bed with plaster bandage. What do you want then?\" she says turning tome.\n\nI am in mortal terror at this turn, for I haven't any idea what the things are called professionally. She comes to my help.\n\n\"Little or big?\"\n\nShocking business! I sweat like a pig and say shyly: \"Well, only quite a little one--\"\n\nAt any rate it produces the effect.\n\nI get a bottle. After a few hours I am no longer the only one, and by morning we are quite accustomed to it and ask for what we want without any false modesty.\n\nThe train travels slowly. Sometimes it halts and the dead are unloaded. It halts often.\n\nAlbert is feverish. I don't feel too bad; I have some pain, but the worst of it is that apparently there are still lice under the plaster bandage. They itch terribly, and I cannot scratch myself.\n\nWe sleep through the days. The country glides quietly past the window. The third night we reach Herbesthal. I hear from the sister that Albert is to be put off at the next station because of his fever. \"How far does the train go?\" I ask.\n\n\"To Cologne.\"\n\n\"Albert,\" I say'we stick together; you see.\"\n\nOn the sister's next round I hold my breath and press it up into my head. My face swells and turns red. She stops. \"Are you in pain?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I groan, \"all of a sudden.\"\n\nShe gives me a thermometer and goes on. I would not have been under Kat's tuition if I did not know what to do now. These army thermometers are not made for old soldiers. All one has to do is to drive the quicksilver up and then it stays without falling again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stick the thermometer under my arm at aslant, and flip it steadily with my forefinger. Then I give it a shake. I send it up to 100.2° . But that is not enough. A match held cautiously near to it brings it up to 101.6° .\n\nAs the sister comes back, I blow myself out, breathe in short gasps, goggle at her with vacant eyes, toss about restlessly, and mutter in a whisper: \"I can't bear it any longer--\"\n\nShe notes me down on a slip of paper. I know perfectly well my plaster bandage will not be reopened if it can be avoided.\n\nAlbert and I are put off together.\n\nWe are in the same room in a Catholic Hospital. That is apiece of luck, the Catholic infirmaries are noted for their good treatment and good food. The hospital has been filled up from our train, there area great many bed cases amongst them. We do not get examined to-day because there are too few surgeons. The flat trolleys with the rubber wheels pass continually along the corridor, and always with someone stretched at full length upon them. A damnable position, stretched out full length like that;-the only time it is good is when one is asleep.\n\nThe night is very disturbed. No one can sleep. Toward morning we doze a little. I wake up just as it grows light. The doors stand open and I hear voices from the corridor. The others wake up too. One fellow who has been there a couple of days already explains it to us: \"Up herein the corridor every morning the sisters say prayers. They call it Morning Devotion. And so that you can get your share, they leave the door open.\"\n\nNo doubt it is well meant, but it gives us aches in our heads and bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Such an absurdity!\" I say, \"just when a man dropped off to sleep.\"\n\n\"All the light cases are up here, that's why they do it here,\" he replies.\n\nAlbert groans. I get furious and call out: \"Be quiet out there!\"\n\nA minute later a sister appears. In her black and white dress she looks like a beautiful teacosy. \"Shut the door, will you, sister?\" says someone.\n\n\"We are saying prayers, that is why the door is open,\" she responds.\n\n\"But we want to goon sleeping--\"\n\n\"Prayer is better than sleeping,\" she stands there and smiles innocently. \"And it is seven o'clock already.\"\n\nAlbert groans again. \"Shut the door,\" I snort.\n\nShe is quite disconcerted. Apparently she cannot understand. \"But we are saying prayers for you too.\"\n\n\"Shut the door, anyway.\"\n\nShe disappears, leaving the door open. The intoning of the litany proceeds.\n\nI feel savage, and say: \"I'm going to count up to three. If it doesn't stop before then I'll let something fly.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" says another.\n\nI count up to five. Then I take hold of a bottle, aim, and heave it through the door into the corridor. It smashes into a thousand pieces. The praying stops. A swarm of sisters appear and reproach us in concert.\n\n\"Shut the door!\" we yell.\n\nThey withdraw. The little one who came first is the last to go. \"Heathen,\" she chirps but shuts the door all the same. We have won.\n\nAt noon the hospital inspector arrives and abuses us. He threatens us with clink and all the rest of it. But a hospital inspector is just the same as a commissariat inspector, or anyone else who wears along sword and shoulder straps, but is really a clerk, and is never considered even by a recruit as areal officer. So we let him talk. What could they do to us anyway--" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who threw the bottle?\" he asks.\n\nBefore I can think whether I should report myself, someone says: \"I did.\"\n\nA man with a bristling beard sits up. Everyone is excited; why should he report himself?\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"Yes. I was annoyed because we were waked up unnecessarily and lost my senses so that I did not know what I was doing.\"\n\nHe talks like a book.\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Reinforcement-Reservist Josef Hamacher.\"\n\nThe inspector departs.\n\nWe are all curious. \"But why did you say you did it? It wasn't you at all.\"\n\nHe grins. \"That doesn't matter. I have a shooting license.\"\n\nThen of course, we all understand. Whoever has a shooting license can do just whatever he pleases.\n\n\"Yes,\" he explains. \" I got a crack in the head and they presented me with a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible for my actions. Ever since then I've had a grand time. No one dares to annoy me. And nobody does anything tome.\n\n\"I reported myself because the shot amused me. If they open the door again to-morrow we will pitch another.\"\n\nWe are overjoyed. With Josef Hamacher in our midst we can now risk anything.\n\nThen come the soundless, flat trollies to take us away.\n\nThe bandages are stuck fast. We bellow like steers.\n\nThere are eight men in our room. Peter, a curly black-haired fellow, has the worst injury;-a severe lung wound. Franz Wächter, alongside him, has a shot in the arm which didn't look too bad at first. But the third night he calls out to us, telling us to ring, he thinks he has a haemorrhage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I ring loudly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The night sister does not come. We have been making rather heavy demands on her during the night, because we have all been freshly bandaged, and so have a good deal of pain. One wants his leg placed so, another so, a third wants water, a fourth wants her to shake his pillow;-in the end the buxom old body grumbled bad-temperedly and slammed the doors. Now no doubt she thinks it is something of the same sort and so she is not coming.\n\nWe wait. Then Franz says: \"Ring again.\"\n\nI do so. Still she does not put in an appearance. In our wing there is only one night sister, perhaps she has something to do in one of the other rooms. \"Franz, are you quite sure you are bleeding?\" I ask. \"Otherwise we shall begetting cursed again.\"\n\n\"The bandage is wet. Can't anybody make alight?\"\n\nThat cannot be done either. The switch is by the door and none of us can stand up. I hold my thumb against the button of the bell till it becomes numb. Perhaps the sister has fallen asleep. They certainly have a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day. And added to that is the everlasting praying.\n\n\"Should we smash a bottle?\" asks Josef Hamacher of the shooting license.\n\n\"She wouldn't hear that anymore than the bell.\"\n\nAt last the door opens. The old lady appears, mumbling. When she perceives Franz's trouble she begins to bustle, and says: \"Why did not someone say I was wanted?\"\n\n\"We did ring. And none of us here can walk.\"\n\nHe has been bleeding badly and she binds him up. In the morning we look at his face, it has become sharp and yellow, whereas the evening before he looked almost healthy. Now a sister comes oftener." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes there are red-cross voluntary aid sisters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are pleasant, but often rather unskilled. They frequently give us pain when re-making our beds, and then are so frightened that they hurt us still more.\n\nThe nuns are more reliable. They know how they must take hold of us, but we would be better pleased if they were somewhat more cheerful. A few of them have real spirit, they are superb. There is no one but would do anything for Sister Libertine, this marvelous sister, who spreads good cheer through the whole wing even when she can only be seen in the distance. And there are others like her. We would go through fire for her. A man cannot really complain, here he is treated by the nuns exactly like a civilian. And just to think of a garrison hospital gives one the creeps.\n\nFranz Wächter does not regain his strength. One day he is taken away and does not comeback. Josef Hamacher knows all about it: \"We shan't see him again. They have put him in the Dead Room.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Dead Room?\" asks Kropp.\n\n\"Well, Dying Room--\"\n\n\"What is that, then?\"\n\n\"A little room at the corner of the building. Whoever is about to kick the bucket is put in there. There are two beds in it. It is generally called the Dying Room.\"\n\n\"But what do they do that for?\"\n\n\"They don't have so much work to do after-wards. It is more convenient, too, because it lies right beside the lift to the mortuary. Perhaps they do it for the sake of the others also, so that no one in the ward dies in sympathy. And they can look after him better, too, if he is by himself.\"\n\n\"But what about him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Josef shrugs his shoulders. \"Usually he doesn't take much notice anymore.\"\n\n\"Does everybody know about it then?\"\n\n\"Anyone who has been here long enough knows, of course.\"\n\nIn the afternoon Franz Wächter's bed has afresh occupant. A couple of days later they take the new man away, too. Josef makes a significant glance. We see many come and go.\n\nOften relatives sit by the beds and weep or talk softly and awkwardly. One old woman will not go away, but she cannot stay there the whole night through. The next morning she comes very early, but not early enough; for when she goes up to the bed, someone else is in it already. She has to go the mortuary. The apples that she has brought with her she gives to us.\n\nAnd then little Peter begins to get worse. His temperature chart looks bad, and one day the flat trolley stands beside his bed. \"Whereto?\" he asks.\n\n\"To the bandaging ward.\"\n\nHe is lifted out. But the sister makes the mistake of removing his tunic from the hook and putting it on the trolley, too, so that she should not have to make two journeys. Peter understands immediately and tries to roll off the trolley. \"I'm stopping here!\"\n\nThey push him back. He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: \"I won't go to the Dying Room.\"\n\n\"But we are going to the bandaging ward.\"\n\n\"Then what do you want my tunic for?\" He can speak no more. Hoarse, agitated, he whispers: \"Stopping here!\"\n\nThey do not answer but wheel him out. At the door he tries to raise himself up. His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears. \"I will comeback again! I will comeback again!\" he cries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door shuts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are all excited; but we say nothing. At last Josef says: \"Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, he never comes through.\"\n\nI am operated on and vomit for two days. My bones will not grow together, so the surgeons'secretary says. Another fellow's have grown crooked; his are broken again. It is damnable.\n\nAmong our new arrivals there are two young soldiers with flatfeet. The chief surgeon discovers them on his rounds, and is overjoyed. \"We'll soon put that right,\" he tells them, \"we will just do a small operation, and then you will have perfectly sound feet. Enter them down, sister.\"\n\nAs soon as he is gone, Josef, who knows everything, warns them: \"Don't you let him operate on you! That is a special scientific stunt of the old boy's. He goes absolutely crazy whenever he can get hold of anyone to do it on. He operates on you for flatfeet, and there's no mistake, you don't have them anymore; you have clubfeet instead, and have to walk all the rest of your life on sticks.\"\n\n\"What should a man do, then?\" asks one of them.\n\n\"Say No. You are hereto be cured of your wound, not your flatfeet. Did you have any trouble with them in the field? No, well, there you are! At present you can still walk, but if once the old boy gets you under the knife you'll be cripples. What he wants is little dogs to experiment with, so the war is a glorious time for him, as it is for all the surgeons. You take a look down below at the staff; there area dozen fellows hobbling around that he has operated on. A lot of them have been here all the time since'fourteen and \"fifteen. Not a single one of them can walk better than he could before, almost all of them worse, and most only with plaster legs. Every six months he catches them again and breaks their bones afresh, and every time is going to be the successful one. You take my word, he won't dare to do it if you say No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ach, man,\" says one of the two wearily, \"better your feet than your brain-box." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's no telling what you'll get if you go back out there again. They can do with me just as they please, so long as I get back home. Better to have a clubfoot than be dead.\"\n\nThe other, a young fellow like ourselves, won't have it done. The next morning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws at them so long that in the end they consent. What else could they do?-They are mere privates, and he is a big bug. They are brought back chloroformed and plastered.\n\n---\n\nIt is going badly with Albert. They have taken him and amputated his leg. The whole leg has been taken off from the thigh. Now he will hardly speak anymore. Once he says he will shoot himself the first time he can get hold of his revolver again.\n\nAnew convoy arrives. Our room gets two blind men. One of them is a very youthful musician. The sisters never have a knife with them when they feed him; he has already snatched one from a sister. But in spite of this caution there is an incident. In the evening, while he is being fed, the sister is called away, and leaves the plate with the fork on his table. He gropes for the fork, seizes it and drives it with all his force against his heart, then he snatches up a shoe and strikes with it against the handle as hard as he can. We call for help and three men are necessary to take the fork away from him. The blunt prongs had already penetrated deep. He abuses us all night so that no one can go to sleep. In the morning he has lock-jaw.\n\nAgain beds are empty. Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the Death Room is no use anymore, it is too small; fellows die during the night in our room. They go even faster than the sisters can cope with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But one day the door flies open, the flat trolley rolls in, and thereon the stretcher, pale, thin, upright and triumphant, with his shaggy head of curls sits Peter. Sister Libertine with beaming looks pushes him over to his former bed. He is back from the Dying Room. We have long supposed him dead.\n\nHe looks round: \"What do you say now?\"\n\nAnd Josef has to admit that it is the first time he has ever known of such a thing.\n\n---\n\nGradually a few of us are allowed to getup. And I am given crutches to hobble around on. But I do not make much use of them; I cannot bear Albert's gaze as I move about the room. His eyes always follow me with such a strange look. So I sometimes escape to the corridor;-there I can move about more freely.\n\nOn the next floor below are the abdominal and spine cases, head wounds and double amputations. On the right side of the wing are the jaw wounds, wounds in the joints, wounds in the kidneys, wounds in the testicles, wounds in the intestines. Here a man realizes for the first time in how many places a man can get hit.\n\nTwo fellows die of tetanus. Their skin turns pale, their limbs stiffen, at last only their eyes live-stubbornly. Many of the wounded have their shattered limbs hanging free in the air from a gallows; underneath the wound a basin is placed into which drips the pus. Every two or three hours the vessel is emptied. Other men lie in stretching bandages with heavyweights hanging from the end of the bed. I see intestine wounds that are constantly full of excreta. The surgeon's clerk shows me X-ray photographs of completely smashed hipbones, knees and shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.\n\nI am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing;-it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?\n\nThe oldest man in our room is Lewandowski. He is forty, and has already lain ten months in the hospital with a severe abdominal wound. Justin the last few weeks he has improved sufficiently to be able to hobble about doubled up.\n\nFor some days past he has been in great excitement. His wife has written to him from the little home in Poland where she lives, telling him that she has saved up enough money to pay for the fare and is coming to see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She is already on the way and may arrive any day. Lewandowski has lost his appetite, he even gives away red cabbage and sausage after he has had a couple of mouthfuls. He goes round the room perpetually with the letter. Everyone has already read it a dozen times, the post-marks have been examined heaven knows how often, the address is hardly legible any longer for spots of grease and thumb-marks, and in the end what is sure to happen, happens. Lewandowski develops a fever, and has to go back to bed.\n\nHe has not seen his wife for two years. In the meantime she has given birth to a child, whom she is bringing with her. But something else occupies Lewandowski's thoughts. He had hoped to get permission to go out when his old woman came; for obviously seeing is all very well, but when a man gets his wife again after such along time, if at all possible, a man wants something else besides.\n\nLewandowski has discussed it all with us at great length; in the army there are no secrets about such things. And what's more, nobody finds anything objectionable in it. Those of us who are already able to go out have told him of a couple of very good spots in the town, parks and squares, where he would not be disturbed; one of us even knows of a little room.\n\nBut what is the use, there Lewandowski lies in bed with his troubles. Life holds no more joy for him if he has to forgo this affair. We console him and promise to get over the difficulty somehow or other.\n\nThe next afternoon his wife appears, a tousled little woman with anxious, quick eyes like a bird, in a sort of black crinkly mantilla with ribbons; heaven knows where she inherited the thing." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's tale assistant, advance the plot.\nTags: war, historical fiction, World War I, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Erich Maria Remarque\nTitle: All Quiet on the Western Front\nChapter: 12" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She is already on the way and may arrive any day. Lewandowski has lost his appetite, he even gives away red cabbage and sausage after he has had a couple of mouthfuls. He goes round the room perpetually with the letter. Everyone has already read it a dozen times, the post-marks have been examined heaven knows how often, the address is hardly legible any longer for spots of grease and thumb-marks, and in the end what is sure to happen, happens. Lewandowski develops a fever, and has to go back to bed.\n\nHe has not seen his wife for two years. In the meantime she has given birth to a child, whom she is bringing with her. But something else occupies Lewandowski's thoughts. He had hoped to get permission to go out when his old woman came; for obviously seeing is all very well, but when a man gets his wife again after such along time, if at all possible, a man wants something else besides.\n\nLewandowski has discussed it all with us at great length; in the army there are no secrets about such things. And what's more, nobody finds anything objectionable in it. Those of us who are already able to go out have told him of a couple of very good spots in the town, parks and squares, where he would not be disturbed; one of us even knows of a little room.\n\nBut what is the use, there Lewandowski lies in bed with his troubles. Life holds no more joy for him if he has to forgo this affair. We console him and promise to get over the difficulty somehow or other.\n\nThe next afternoon his wife appears, a tousled little woman with anxious, quick eyes like a bird, in a sort of black crinkly mantilla with ribbons; heaven knows where she inherited the thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She murmurs something softly and stands shyly in the doorway. It terrifies her that there are six of us men present.\n\n\"Well, Marja,\" says Lewandowski, and gulps dangerously with his Adam's apple'you can come in all right, they won't hurt you.\"\n\nShe goes round and proffers each of usher hand. Then she produces the child, which in the intervals has done something in its napkin. From a large handbag embroidered with beads she takes out a clean one and makes the child fresh and presentable. This dispels her first embarrassment, and the two begin to talk.\n\nLewandowski is very fidgety, every now and then he squints across at us most unhappily with his round goggle eyes.\n\nThis time is favourable, the doctor's visit is over, at the most one of the sisters might come in. So one of us goes out to prospect. He comes back and nods. \"Not a soul to be seen. Now's your chance, Johann, set to.\"\n\nThe two speak together in an undertone. The woman turns a little red and looks embarrassed. We grin good-naturedly and make pooh-poohing gestures, what does it matter! The devil take all conventions, they were made for other times; here lies the carpenter Johann Lewandowski, a soldier shot to a cripple, and there is his wife; who knows when he will see her again? He wants to have her, and he should have her, good.\n\nTwo men stand at the door to forestall the sisters and keep them occupied if they chance to come along. They agree to stand guard fora quarter of an hour or thereabouts.\n\nLewandowski can only lie on his side, so one of us props a couple of pillows against his side, Albert gets the child to hold, we all turn round a bit, the black mantilla disappears under the bed-clothes, we make a great clatter and play skat noisily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All goes well. I hold a club solo with four jacks which nearly goes the round. In the process we almost forget Lewandowski. After awhile the child begins to squall, although Albert, in desperation, rocks it to and fro. There is a bit of creaking and rustling, and as we lookup casually we see that the child has the bottle in its mouth and is back again with its mother. The business is over.\n\nWe now feel ourselves like one big family, the woman is happy, and Lewandowski lies there sweating and beaming.\n\nHe unpacks the embroidered handbag, and some good sausages come to light; Lewandowski takes up the knife with a flourish and saws the meat into slices.\n\nWith a handsome gesture he waves toward us-and the little woman goes from one to another and smiles at us and hands round the sausage; she now looks quite handsome. We call her Mother, she is pleased and shakes up our pillows for us.\n\nAfter a few weeks I have to go each morning to the massage department. There my leg is harnessed up and made to move. The arm has healed long since.\n\nNew convoys arrive from the line. The bandages are no longer made of cloth, but of white crêpe paper. Rag bandages have become scarce at the front.\n\nAlbert's stump heals well. The wound is almost closed. Ina few weeks he should go off to an institute for artificial limbs. He continues not to talk much, and is much more solemn than formerly. He often breaks off in his speech and stares in front of him. If he were not herewith us he would have shot himself long ago. But now he is over the worst of it, and he often looks on while we play skat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I get convalescent leave.\n\nMy mother does not want to let me go away. She is feeble. It is all much worse than it was last time.\n\nThen I am recalled to my regiment and return once more to the line.\n\nParting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WE COUNT THE WEEKS no more. It was winter when I came up, and when the shells exploded the frozen clods of earth were just as dangerous as the fragments. Now the trees are green again. Our life alternates between billets and the front. We have almost grown accustomed to it; war is the cause of deathlike cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible.\n\nOur thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days;-when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without.\n\nEveryone is so, not only ourselves here-the things that existed before are no longer valid, and one practically knows them no more. Distinctions, breeding, education are changed, are almost blotted out and hardly recognizable any longer.\n\nSometimes they give an advantage for profiting by a situation;-but they also bring consequences along with them, in that they arouse prejudices which have to be overcome. It is as though formerly we were coins of different provinces; and now we are melted down, and all bear the same stamp. To rediscover the old distinctions, the metal itself must be tested. First we are soldiers and afterwards, in a strange and shamefaced fashion, individual men as well.\n\nIt is a great brotherhood, which adds something of the good-fellowship of the folk-song, of the feeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty to one another of men condemned to death, to a condition of life arising out of the midst of danger, out of the tension and forlornness of death-seeking in a wholly unpathetic way a fleeting enjoyment of the hours as they come. If one wants to appraise it, it is at once heroic and banal-but who wants to do that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is this, for example, that makes Tjaden spoon down his ham-and-pea soup in such tearing haste when an enemy attack is reported, simply because he cannot be sure that in an hour's time he will be alive. We have discussed it at length, whether it is right or not to do so. Kat condemns it, because, he says, a man has to reckon with the possibility of an abdominal wound, and that is more dangerous on a full stomach than on an empty one.\n\nSuch things are real problems, they are serious matters to us, they cannot be otherwise. Here, on the borders of death, life follows an amazingly simply course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep;-in that besides our primitiveness and our survival. Were we more subtly differentiated we must long since have gone mad, have deserted, or have fallen. As in a polar expedition, every expression of life must serve only the preservation of existence, and is absolutely focused on that. All else is banished because it would consume energies unnecessarily. That is the only way to save ourselves. In the quiet hours when the puzzling reflection of former days like a blurred mirror, projects beyond me the figure of my present existence, I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form. All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;-it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct-it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought-it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude-it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strikeout a spark. But then unexpectedly aflame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those are the dangerous moments. They show us that the adjustment is only artificial, that it is not simple rest, but sharpest struggle for rest. In the outward form of our life we are hardly distinguishable from Bushmen; but whereas the latter can be so always, because they are so truly, and at best may develop further by exertion of their spiritual forces, with us it is the reverse;-our inner forces are not exerted toward regeneration, but toward degeneration. The Bushmen are primitive and naturally so, but we are primitive in an artificial sense, and by virtue of the utmost effort.\n\nAnd at night, waking out of a dream, overwhelmed and bewitched by the crowding apparitions, a man perceives with alarm how slight is the support, how thin the boundary that divides him from the darkness. We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out. Then the muffled roar of the battle becomes a ring that encircles us, we creep in upon ourselves, and with big eyes stare into the night. Our only comfort is the steady breathing of our comrades asleep, and thus we wait for the morning.\n\nEveryday and every hour, every shell and every death cuts into this thin support, and the years waste it rapidly. I see how it is already gradually breaking down around me.\n\nThere is the mad story of Detering.\n\nHe was one of those who kept himself to himself. His misfortune was that he saw a cherry tree in a garden. We were just coming back from the front line, and at a turning of the road near our billets, marvellous in the morning twilight, stood this cherry tree before us. It had no leaves, but was one white mass of blossom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the evening Detering was not to be seen. Then at last he came back and had a couple of branches of cherry blossom in his hand. We made fun of him, and asked whether he was going to a wedding. He made no answer, but lay down on his bed. During the night I heard him making a noise, he seemed to be packing. I sensed something amiss and went over to him. He made out it was nothing, and I said to him: \"Don't do anything silly, Detering.\"\n\n\"Ach, why-it's merely that I can't sleep--\"\n\n\"What did you pick the cherry branches for?\"\n\n\"Surely I can pick cherry blossom if I want to!\" he replied evasively-and after awhile: \"I have a big orchard with cherry trees at home. When they are in blossom, from the hayloft they look like one single sheet, so white. It is just the time.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you will get leave soon. You may even be sent back as a farmer.\"\n\nHe nodded but he was faraway. When these peasants are excited they have a curious expression, a mixture of cow and yearning god, half stupid and half rapt. In order to turn him away from his thoughts I asked him fora piece of bread. He gave it tome without a murmur. That was suspicious, for he is usually tight-fisted. So I stayed awake. Nothing happened; in the morning he was as usual.\n\nApparently he had noticed that I had been watching him;-but the second morning he was gone. I noticed it, but said nothing, in order to give him time; he might perhaps get through. Various fellows have already got into Holland.\n\nBut at roll call he was missed. A week after we heard that he had been caught by the field gendarmes, those despicable military police. He had headed toward Germany, that was hopeless, of course-and, of course, he did everything else just as idiotically. Anyone might have known that his flight was only homesickness and a momentary aberration. But what does a court-martial a hundred miles behind the front-line know about it? We have heard nothing more of Detering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But sometimes it broke out in other ways, this danger, these pent-up things, as from an overheated boiler. It will be enough to tell how Berger met his end.\n\nOur trenches have now for sometime been shot to pieces, and we have an elastic line, so that there is practically no longer any proper trench warfare. When attack and counter-attack have waged backwards and forwards there remains a broken line and a bitter struggle from crater to crater. The front-line has been penetrated, and everywhere small groups have established themselves, the fight is carried on from clusters of shell-holes.\n\nWe are in a crater, the English are coming down obliquely, they are turning our flank and working in behind us. We are surrounded. It is not easy to surrender, fog and smoke hangover us, no one would recognize that we wanted to give ourselves up, and perhaps we don't want to, a man doesn't even know himself at such moments. We hear the explosions of the hand-grenades coming towards us. Our machine-gun sweeps over the semicircle in front of us. The cooling-water evaporates, we hastily pass round the case, every man pisses in it, and thus we again have water, and are able to continue firing. But behind us the attack crashes ever nearer.\n\nA few minutes and we are lost.\n\nThen, at closest range, a second machine-gun bursts out. It is setup in a crater alongside us; Berger has fetched it, and now the counter-attack comes over from behind; we are set free and make contact with the rear.\n\nAfterwards, as we lie in comparatively good cover, one of the food-carriers reports that a couple of hundred yards distant there lies a wounded messenger-dog.\n\n\"Where?\" asks Berger.\n\nThe other describes the place to him. Berger goes off either to fetch the beats in or to shoot it. Six months ago he would not have cared, he would have been reasonable. We try to prevent him. Then, as he goes off grimly, all we can say is: \"You're mad,\" and let him go. For these cases of front-line madness become dangerous if one is notable to fling the man to the ground and hold him fast. And Berger is six feet and the most powerful man in the company." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is absolutely mad for he has to pass through the barrage; but this lightning that lowers somewhere above us has struck him and made him demented. It affects others so that they begin to rave, to runaway-there was one man who even tried to dig himself into the ground with hands, feet, and teeth.\n\nIt is true, such things are often simulated, but the pretence itself is a symptom. Berger, who means to finish off the dog, is carried away with a wound in the pelvis, and one of the fellows who carry him gets a bulletin the leg while doing it.\n\nMüller is dead. Someone shot him point-blank in the stomach with a Verey light. He lived for half an hour, quite conscious, and in terrible pain.\n\nBefore he died he handed over his pocket-book tome, and bequeathed me his boots-the same that he once inherited from Kemmerich. I wear them, for they fit me quite well. After me Tjaden will get them, I have promised them to him.\n\nWe have been able to bury Müller, but he is not likely to remain long undisturbed. Our lines are falling back. There are too many fresh English and American regiments over there. There's too much corned beef and white wheaten bread. Too many new guns. Too many aeroplanes.\n\nBut we are emaciated and starved. Our food is bad and mixed up with so much substitute stuff that it makes us ill. The factory owners in Germany have grown wealthy;-dysentery dissolves our bowels. The latrine poles are always densely crowded; the people at home ought to be shown these grey, yellow, miserable, wasted faces here, these bent figures from whose bodies the colic wrings out the blood, and who with lips trembling and distorted with pain, grin atone another and say:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is not much sense pulling up one's trousers again--\"\n\nOur artillery is fired out, it has too few shells and the barrels are so worn that they shoot uncertainly, and scatter so widely as even to fall on ourselves. We have too few horses. Our fresh troops are anaemic boys in need of rest, who cannot carry a pack, but merely know how to die. By thousands. They understand nothing about warfare, they simply goon and let themselves be shot down. A single flyer routed two companies of them fora joke, just as they came fresh from the train-before they had ever heard of such a thing as cover.\n\n\"Germany ought to be empty soon,\" says Kat.\n\nWe have given up hope that someday an end may come. We never think so far. A man can stop a bullet and be killed; he can get wounded, and then the hospital is his next stop. There, if they do not amputate him, he sooner or later falls into the hands of one of those staff surgeons who, with the War Service Cross in his button-hole, says to him: \"What, one leg a bit short? If you have any pluck you don't need to run at the front. The man is A1. Dismiss!\"\n\nKat tells a story that has travelled the whole length of the front from the Vosges to Flanders;-of the staff surgeon who reads the names on the list, and when a man comes before him, without looking up, says: \"A1. We need soldiers up there.\" A fellow with a wooden leg comes up before him, the staff surgeon again says A1--\"And then,\" Kat raises his voice, \"the fellow says to him: \"I already have a wooden leg, but when I go back again and they shoot off my head, then I will get a wooden head made and become a staff surgeon.\"\" This answer tickles us all immensely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There maybe good doctors, and there are, lots of them; all the same, every soldier sometime during his hundreds of inspections falls into the clutches of one of these countless hero-grabbers who pride themselves on changing as many C3's and B3's as possible into A1's.\n\nThere are many such stories, they are mostly far more bitter. All the same, they have nothing to do with mutiny or lead-swinging. They are merely honest and calla thing by its name; for there is a very great deal of fraud, injustice, and baseness in the army. It is nothing that regiment after regiment returns again and again to the evermore hopeless struggle, that attack follows attack along the weakening, retreating, crumbling line.\n\nFrom a mockery the tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armoured they come rolling on in long lines, more than anything else embody for us the horror of war.\n\nWe do not seethe guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and the wounded-we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenades matches.\n\nShells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks-shattering, corroding, death.\n\nDysentery, influenza, typhus-scalding, choking, death.\n\nTrenches, hospitals, the common grave-there are no other possibilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In one attack our Company Commander, Bertinck, falls. He was one of those superb front-line officers who are foremost in every hot place. He was with us for two years without being wounded, so that something had to happen in the end.\n\nWe occupy a crater and get surrounded. The stink of petroleum or oil blows across with the fumes of powder. Two fellows with aflame-thrower are seen, one carries the tin on his back, the other has the hose in his hands from which the fire spouts. If they get so near that they can reach us we are done for, we cannot retreat yet.\n\nWe open fire on them. But they work nearer and things begin to look bad. Bertinck is lying in the hole with us. When he sees that we cannot hit them because under the sharp fire we have to think too much about keeping undercover, he takes a rifle, crawls out of the hole, and lying down propped on his elbows, he takes aim. He fires-the same momenta bullet smacks into him, they have got him. Still he lies and aims again;-once he shifts and again takes aim; at last the rifle cracks. Bertinck lets the gun drop and says: \"Good,\" and slips back into the hole. The hindermost of the two flame-throwers is hit, he falls, the hose slips away from the other fellow, the fire squirts about on all sides and the man burns.\n\nBertinck has a chest wound. After awhile a fragment smashes away his chin, and the same fragment has sufficient force to tear open Leer's hip. Leer groans as he supports himself on his arm, he bleeds quickly, no one can help him. Like an emptying tube, after a couple of minutes he collapses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician at school.\n\nThe months pass by. The summer of 1918 is the most bloody and the most terrible. The days stand like angels in blue and gold, incomprehensible, above the ring of annihilation. Every man here knows that we are losing the war. Not much is said about it, we are falling back, we will not be able to attack again after this big offensive, we have no more men and no more ammunition.\n\nStill the campaign goes on-the dying goes on--\n\nSummer of 1918-Never has life in its niggardliness seemed to us so desirable as now;-the red poppies in the meadows round our billets, the smooth beetles on the blades of grass, the warm evenings in the cool, dim rooms, the black mysterious trees of the twilight, the stars and the flowing waters, dreams and long sleep--O Life, life, life!\n\nSummer of 1918-Never was so much silently suffered as in the moment when we depart once again for the front-line. Wild, tormenting rumours of an armistice and peace are in the air, they lay hold on our hearts and make the return to the front harder than ever.\n\nSummer of 1918-Never was life in the line more bitter and full of horror than in the hours of the bombardment, when the blanched faces lie in the dirt and the hands clutch at the one thought: No! No! Not now! Not now at the last moment!\n\nSummer of 1918-Breath of hope that sweeps over the scorched fields, raging fever of impatience, of disappointment, of the most agonizing terror of death, insensate question: Why? Why do they make an end? And why do these rumours of an end fly about?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are so many airmen here, and they are so sure of themselves that they give chase to single individuals, just as though they were hares. For everyone German plane there come at least five English and American. For one hungry, wretched German soldier come five of the enemy, fresh and fit. For one German army loaf there are fifty tins of canned beef over there. We are not beaten, for as soldiers we are better and more experienced; we are simply crushed and driven back by overwhelming superior forces.\n\nBehind us lay rainy weeks-grey sky, grey fluid earth, grey dying. If we go out, the rain at once soaks through our overcoat and clothing;-and we remain wet all the time we are in the line. We never get dry. Those who will wear high boots tie sandbags round the tops so that the mud does not pour in so fast. The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down.\n\nThe storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hail of splinters whips forth the child-like cries of the wounded, and in the night shattered life groans painfully into silence.\n\nOur hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live.\n\nThen the heat sinks heavily into our shell-holes like a jellyfish, moist and oppressive and on one of these late summer days, while bringing food, Kat falls. We two are alone. I bind up his wound; his shin seems to be smashed. It has got the bone, and Kat groans desperately: \"At last-just at the last--\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I comfort him. \"Who knows how long this mess will goon yet! Now you are saved--\"\n\nThe wound begins to bleed fast. Kat cannot be left by himself while I try to find a stretcher. Anyway, I don't know of a stretcher-bearer's post in the neighborhood.\n\nKat is not very heavy; so I take him upon my back and start off to the dressing station with him.\n\nTwice we rest. He suffers acutely on the way. We do not speak much. I have opened the collar of my tunic and breathe heavily, I sweat and my face is swollen with the strain of carrying. All the same I urge him to let us goon, for the place is dangerous.\n\n\"Shall we goon again Kat?\"\n\n\"Must, Paul.\"\n\n\"Then come.\"\n\nI raise him up, he stands on the uninjured leg and supports himself against a tree. I take up the wounded leg carefully, then he gives a jump and I take the knee of the sound leg also under my arm.\n\nThe going is more difficult. Often a shell whistles across. I go as quickly as I can, for the blood from Kat's wound drips to the ground. We cannot shelter ourselves properly for the explosions; before we can take cover the danger is allover.\n\nWe lie down in a small hole to wait till the shelling is over. I give Kat some tea from my water bottle. We smoke a cigarette. \"Well, Kat,\" I say gloomily, \"We are going to be separated at last.\"\n\nHe is silent and looks at me.\n\n\"Do you remember, Kat, how we commandeered the goose? And how you brought me out of the barrage when I was still a young recruit and was wounded for the first time? I cried then. Kat, that is almost three years ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nods.\n\nThe anguish of solitude rises up in me. When Kat is taken away I will not have one friend left.\n\n\"Kat, in any case we must see one another again, if it is peace-time before you comeback.\"\n\n\"Do you think that I will be marked A1 again with this leg?\" he asks bitterly.\n\n\"With rest it will get better. The joint is quite sound. It may get all right again.\"\n\n\"Give me another cigarette,\" he says.\n\n\"Perhaps we could do something together later on, Kat.\" I am very miserable, it is impossible that Kat-Kat my friend, Kat with the drooping shoulders and the poor, thin moustache, Kat, whom I know as I know no other man, Kat with whom I have shared these years-it is impossible that perhaps I shall not see Kat again.\n\n\"In any case give me your address at home, Kat. And here is mine, I will write it down for you.\"\n\nI write his address in my pocketbook. How forlorn I am already, though he still sits here beside me. Couldn't I shoot myself quickly in the foot so as to be able to go with him.\n\nSuddenly Kat gurgles and turns green and yellow, \"Let us goon,\" he stammers.\n\nI jump up, eager to help him, I take him up and start off at a run, a slow, steady pace, so as not to jolt his leg too much.\n\nMy throat is parched; everything dances red and black before my eyes, I stagger on doggedly and pitilessly and at last reach the dressing station.\n\nThere I drop down on my knees, but have still enough strength to fall onto the side where Kat's sound leg is. After a few minutes I straighten myself up again. My legs and my hands tremble. I have trouble in finding my water bottle, to take a pull. My lips tremble as I try to think. But I smile-Kat is saved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After awhile I begin to sort out the confusion of voices that falls on my ears.\n\n\"You might have spared yourself that,\" says an orderly.\n\nI look at him without comprehending.\n\nHe points to Kat. \"He is stone dead.\"\n\nI do not understand him. \"He has been hit in the shin,\" I say.\n\nThe orderly stands still. \"That as well.\"\n\nI turn round. My eyes are still dulled, the sweat breaks out on me again, it runs over my eyelids. I wipe it away and peer at Kat. He lies still. \"Fainted,\" I say quickly.\n\nThe orderly whistles softly. \"I know better than that. He is dead. I'll lay any money on that.\"\n\nI shake my head: \"Not possible. Only ten minutes ago I was talking to him. He has fainted.\"\n\nKat's hands are warm, I pass my hand under his shoulders in order to rub his temples with some tea. I feel my fingers become moist. As I draw them away from behind his head, they are bloody. \"You see--\" The orderly whistles once more through his teeth.\n\nOn the way without my having noticed it, Kat has caught a splinter in the head. There is just one little hole, it must have been a very tiny, stray splinter. But it has sufficed. Kat is dead.\n\nSlowly I getup.\n\n\"Would you like to take his paybook and his things?\" the lance-corporal asks me.\n\nI nod and he gives them tome.\n\nThe orderly is mystified. \"You are not related, are you?\"\n\nNo, we are not related. No, we are not related." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died.\n\nThen I know nothing more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "IT IS AUTUMN. There are not many of the old hands left. I am the last of the seven fellows from our class.\n\nEveryone talks of peace and armistice. All wait. If it again proves an illusion, then they will breakup; hope is high, it cannot betaken away again without an upheaval. If there is not peace, then there will be revolution.\n\nI have fourteen days rest, because I have swallowed a bit of gas; in the little garden I sit the whole daylong in the sun. The armistice is coming soon, I believe it now too. Then we will go home.\n\nHere my thoughts stop and will not go any farther. All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings-greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims.\n\nHad we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experience we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore.\n\nAnd men will not understand us-for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten-and the generation that has grownup after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;-the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.\n\nBut perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay, which will flyaway as the dust, when I stand once again beneath the poplars and listen to the rustling of their leaves. It cannot be that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, the unknown, the perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces of the future, the melodies from dreams and from books, the whispers and divinations of women; it cannot be that this has vanished in bombardment, in despair, in brothels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here the trees show gay and golden, the berries of the rowan stand red among the leaves, country roads run whiteout to the skyline, and the canteens hum like beehives with rumours of peace.\n\nI stand up.\n\nI am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.\n\n---\n\nHe fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.\n\nHe had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: mystery, detective fiction, crime, classic, suspense\nAuthor: Agatha Christie\nTitle: And Then There Were None\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But in that case,\" he said, \"who killed them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From my earliest youth I realized that my nature was amass of contradictions. I have, to begin with, an incurably romantic imagination. The practice of throwing a bottle into the sea with an important document inside was one that never failed to thrill me when reading adventure stories as a child. It thrills me still-and for that reason I have adopted this course-writing my confession, enclosing it in a bottle, sealing the latter, and casting it into the waves. There is, I suppose, a hundred to one chance that my confession maybe found-and then (or do I flatter myself?) a hitherto unsolved murder mystery will be explained.\n\nI was born with other traits besides my romantic fancy. I have a definite sadistic delight in seeing or causing death. I remember experiments with wasps-with various garden pests... From an early age I knew very strongly the lust to kill.\n\nBut side by side with this went a contradictory trait-a strong sense of justice. It is abhorrent tome that an innocent person or creature should suffer or die by any act of mine. I have always felt strongly that right should prevail.\n\nIt maybe understood-I think a psychologist would understand-that with my mental make-up being what it was, I adopted the law as a profession. The legal profession satisfied nearly all my instincts.\n\nCrime and its punishment has always fascinated me. I enjoy reading every kind of detective story and thriller. I have devised for my own private amusement the most ingenious ways of carrying out a murder.\n\nWhen in due course I came to preside over a court of law, that other secret instinct of mine was encouraged to develop. To see a wretched criminal squirming in the dock, suffering the tortures of the damned, as his doom came slowly and slowly nearer, was tome an exquisite pleasure. Mind you, I took no pleasure in seeing an innocent man there. On at least two occasions I stopped cases whereto my mind the accused was palpably innocent, directing the jury that there was no case. Thanks, however, to the fairness and efficiency of our police force, the majority of the accused persons who have come before me to be tried for murder, have been guilty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will say here that such was the case with the man Edward Seton. His appearance and manner were misleading and he created a good impression on the jury. But not only the evidence, which was clear, though unspectacular, but my own knowledge of criminals told me without any doubt that the man had actually committed the crime with which he was charged, the brutal murder of an elderly woman who trusted him.\n\nI have a reputation as a hanging judge, but that is unfair. I have always been strictly just and scrupulous in my summing up of a case.\n\nAll I have done is to protect the jury against the emotional effect of emotional appeals by some of our more emotional counsel. I have drawn their attention to the actual evidence.\n\nFor some years past I have been aware of a change within myself, a lessening of control-a desire to act instead of to judge.\n\nI have wanted-let me admit it frankly-to commit a murder myself. I recognized this as the desire of the artist to express himself! I was, or could be, an artist in crime! My imagination, sternly checked by the exigencies of my profession, waxed secretly to colossal force.\n\nI must-I must-I must-commit a murder! And what is more, it must be no ordinary murder! It must be a fantastical crime-something stupendous-out of the common! In that one respect, I have still, I think, an adolescent's imagination.\n\nI wanted something theatrical, impossible!\n\nI wanted to kill... Yes, I wanted to kill...\n\nBut-incongruous as it may seem to some-I was restrained and hampered by my innate sense of justice. The innocent must not suffer.\n\nAnd then, quite suddenly, the idea came tome-started by a chance remark uttered during casual conversation. It was a doctor to whom I was talking-some ordinary undistinguished GP. He mentioned casually how often murder must be committed which the law was unable to touch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he instanced a particular case-that of an old lady, a patient of his who had recently died. He was, he said, himself convinced that her death was due to the withholding of a restorative drug by a married couple who attended on her and who stood to benefit very substantially by her death. That sort of thing, he explained, was quite impossible to prove, but he was nevertheless quite sure of it in his own mind. He added that there were many cases of a similar nature going on all the time-cases of deliberate murder-and all quite untouchable by the law.\n\nThat was the beginning of the whole thing. I suddenly saw my way clear. And I determined to commit not one murder, but murder on a grand scale.\n\nA childish rhyme of my infancy came back into my mind-the rhyme of the ten little soldier boys. It had fascinated meas a child of two-the inexorable diminishment-the sense of inevitability.\n\nI began, secretly, to collect victims...\n\nI will not take up space hereby going into details of how this was accomplished. I had a certain routine line of conversation which I employed with nearly everyone I met-and the results I got were really surprising. During the time I was in a nursing home I collected the case of Dr Armstrong-a violently teetotal Sister who attended on me being anxious to prove tome the evils of drink by recounting tome a case many years ago in hospital when a doctor under the influence of alcohol had killed a patient on whom he was operating. A careless question as to where the Sister in question had trained, etc., soon gave me the necessary data. I tracked down the doctor and the patient mentioned without difficulty.\n\nA conversation between two old military gossips in my Club put me on the track of General Macarthur. A man who had recently returned from the Amazon gave me a devastating résumé of the activities of one Philip Lombard. An indignant memsahib in Majorca recounted the tale of the Puritan Emily Brent and her wretched servant girl. Anthony Marston I selected from a large group of people who had committed similar offences. His complete callousness and his inability to feel any responsibility for the lives he had taken made him, I considered, a type dangerous to the community and unfit to live. Ex-Inspector Blore came my way quite naturally, some of my professional brethren discussing the Landor case with freedom and vigour. I took a serious view of his offence. The police, as servants of the law, must be of a high order of integrity. For their word is perforce believed by virtue of their profession." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally there was the case of Vera Claythorne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was when I was crossing the Atlantic. At a late hour one night the sole occupants of the smoking-room were myself and a good-looking young man called Hugo Hamilton.\n\nHugo Hamilton was unhappy. To assuage that unhappiness he had taken a considerable quantity of drink. He was in the maudlin confidential stage. Without much hope of any result I automatically started my routine conversational gambit. The response was startling. I can remember his words now. He said:\n\n\"You're right. Murder isn't what most people think-giving someone a dollop of arsenic-pushing them over a cliff-that sort of stuff.\" He leaned forward, thrusting his face into mine. He said, \"I've known a murderess-known her, I tell you. And what's more I was crazy about her... God help me, sometimes I think I still am... It's hell, I tell you-hell. You see, she did it more or less for me... Not that I ever dreamed... Women are fiends-absolute fiends-you wouldn't think a girl like that-a nice straight jolly girl-you wouldn't think she'd do that, would you? That she'd take a kid out to sea and let it drown-you wouldn't think a woman could do a thing like that?\"\n\nI said to him:\n\n\"Are you sure she did do it?\"\n\nHe said and in saying it he seemed suddenly to sober up:\n\n\"I'm quite sure. Nobody else ever thought of it. But I knew the moment I looked at her-when I got back-after... And she knew I knew... What she didn't realize was that I loved that kid...\"\n\nHe didn't say anymore, but it was easy enough for me to trace back the story and reconstruct it.\n\nI needed a tenth victim. I found him in a man named Morris. He was a shady little creature. Amongst other things he was a dope pedlar and he was responsible for inducing the daughter of friends of mine to take to drugs. She committed suicide at the age of twenty-one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During all this time of search my plan had been gradually maturing in my mind. It was now complete and the coping stone to it was an interview I had with a doctor in Harley Street. I have mentioned that I underwent an operation. My interview in Harley Street told me that another operation would be useless. My medical adviser wrapped up the information very prettily, but I am accustomed to getting at the truth of a statement.\n\nI did not tell the doctor of my decision-that my death should not be a slow and protracted one as it would be in the course of nature. No, my death should take place in ablaze of excitement. I would live before I died.\n\nAnd now to the actual mechanics of the crime of Soldier Island. To acquire the island, using the man Morris to cover my tracks, was easy enough. He was an expert in that sort of thing. Tabulating the information I had collected about my prospective victims, I was able to concoct a suitable bait for each. None of my plans miscarried. All my guests arrived at Soldier Island on the 8th of August. The party included myself.\n\nMorris was already accounted for. He suffered from indigestion. Before leaving London I gave him a capsule to take last thing at night which had, I said, done wonders for my own gastric juices. He accepted unhesitatingly-the man was a slight hypochondriac. I had no fear that he would leave any compromising documents or memoranda behind. He was not that sort of man.\n\nThe order of death upon the island had been subjected by me to special thought and care. There were, I considered, amongst my guests, varying degrees of guilt. Those whose guilt was the lightest should, I decided, pass out first, and not suffer the prolonged mental strain and fear that the more cold-blooded offenders were to suffer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anthony Marston and Mrs Rogers died first, the one instantaneously the other in a peaceful sleep. Marston, I recognized, was a type born without that feeling of moral responsibility which most of us have. He was amoral-pagan. Mrs Rogers, I had no doubt, had acted very largely under the influence of her husband.\n\nI need not describe closely how those two met their deaths. The police will have been able to work that out quite easily. Potassium cyanide is easily obtained by householders for putting down wasps. I had some in my possession and it was easy to slip it into Marston's almost empty glass during the tense period after the gramophone recital.\n\nI may say that I watched the faces of my guests closely during that indictment and I had no doubt whatever, after my long court experience, that one and all were guilty.\n\nDuring recent bouts of pain, I had been ordered a sleeping draught-Chloral Hydrate. It had been easy for me to suppress this until I had a lethal amount in my possession. When Rogers brought up some brandy for his wife, he set it down on a table and in passing that table I put the stuff into the brandy. It was easy, for at that time suspicion had not begun to set in.\n\nGeneral Macarthur met his death quite painlessly. He did not hear me come up behind him. I had, of course, to choose my time for leaving the terrace very carefully, but everything was successful.\n\nAs I had anticipated, a search was made of the island and it was discovered that there was no one on it but our seven selves. That at once created an atmosphere of suspicion. According to my plan I should shortly need anally. I selected Dr Armstrong for that part. He was a gullible sort of man, he knew me by sight and reputation and it was inconceivable to him that a man of my standing should actually be a murderer! All his suspicions were directed against Lombard and I pretended to concur in these. I hinted to him that I had a scheme by which it might be possible to trap the murderer into incriminating himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though a search had been made of everyone's room, no search had as yet been made of the persons themselves. But that was bound to come soon.\n\nI killed Rogers on the morning of August 10th. He was chopping sticks for lighting the fire and did not hear me approach. I found the key to the dining-room door in his pocket. He had locked it the night before.\n\nIn the confusion attending the finding of Rogers'body I slipped into Lombard's room and abstracted his revolver. I knew that he would have one with him-in fact I had instructed Morris to suggest as much when he interviewed him.\n\nAt breakfast I slipped my last dose of chloral into Miss Brent's coffee when I was refilling her cup. We left her in the dining-room. I slipped in there a little while later-she was nearly unconscious and it was easy to inject a strong solution of cyanide into her. The bumblebee business was really rather childish-but somehow, you know, it pleased me. I liked adhering as closely as possible to my nursery rhyme.\n\nImmediately after this what I had already foreseen happened-indeed I believe I suggested it myself. We all submitted to a rigorous search. I had safely hidden away the revolver, and had no more cyanide or chloral in my possession.\n\nIt was then that I intimated to Armstrong that we must carry our plan into effect. It was simply this-I must appear to be the next victim. That would perhaps rattle the murderer-at any rate once I was supposed to be dead I could move about the house and spy upon the unknown murderer.\n\nArmstrong was keen on the idea. We carried it out that evening. A little plaster of red mud on the forehead-the red curtain and the wool and the stage was set. The lights of the candles were very flickering and uncertain and the only person who would examine me closely was Armstrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It worked perfectly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Claythorne screamed the house down when she found the seaweed which I had thoughtfully arranged in her room. They all rushed up, and I took up my pose of a murdered man.\n\nThe effect on them when they found me was all that could be desired. Armstrong acted his part in the most professional manner. They carried me upstairs and laid me on my bed. Nobody worried about me, they were all too deadly scared and terrified of each other.\n\nI had a rendezvous with Armstrong outside the house at a quarter to two. I took him up a little way behind the house on the edge of the cliff. I said that here we could see if anyone else approached us, and we should not be seen from the house as the bedrooms faced the other way. He was still quite unsuspicious-and yet he ought to have been warned-if he had only remembered the words of the nursery rhyme. \"A red herring swallowed one...\" He took the red herring all right.\n\nIt was quite easy. I uttered an exclamation, leant over the cliff, told him to look, wasn't that the mouth of a cave? He leant right over. A quick vigorous push sent him off his balance and splash into the heaving sea below. I returned to the house. It must have been my footfall that Blore heard. A few minutes after I had returned to Armstrong's room I left it, this time making a certain amount of noise so that someone should hear me. I heard a door open as I got to the bottom of the stairs. They must have just glimpsed my figure as I went out of the front door.\n\nIt was a minute or two before they followed me. I had gone straight round the house and in at the dining-room window which I had left open. I shut the window and later I broke the glass. Then I went upstairs and laid myself out again on my bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I calculated that they would search the house again, but I did not think they would look closely at any of the corpses, a mere twitch aside of the sheet to satisfy themselves that it was not Armstrong masquerading as a body. This is exactly what occurred.\n\nI forgot to say that I returned the revolver to Lombard's room. It maybe of interest to someone to know where it was hidden during the search. There was a big pile of tinned food in the larder. I opened the bottommost of the tins-biscuits I think it contained, bedded in the revolver and replaced the strip of adhesive tape.\n\nI calculated, and rightly, that no one would think of working their way through a pile of apparently untouched foodstuffs, especially as all the top tins were soldered.\n\nThe red curtain I had concealed by laying it flat on the seat of one of the drawing-room chairs under the chintz cover and the wool in the seat cushion, cutting a small hole.\n\nAnd now came the moment that I had anticipated-three people who were so frightened of each other that anything might happen-and one of them had a revolver. I watched them from the windows of the house. When Blore came up alone I had the big marble clock poised ready. Exit Blore...\n\nFrom my window I saw Vera Claythorne shoot Lombard. A daring and resourceful young woman. I always thought she was a match for him and more. As soon as that had happened I set the stage in her bedroom.\n\nIt was an interesting psychological experiment. Would the consciousness of her own guilt, the state of nervous tension consequent on having just shot a man, be sufficient, together with the hypnotic suggestion of the surroundings, to cause her to take her own life? I thought it would. I was right. Vera Claythorne hanged herself before my eyes where I stood in the shadow of the wardrobe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And now for the last stage. I came forward, picked up the chair and set it against the wall. I looked for the revolver and found it at the top of the stairs where the girl had dropped it. I was careful to preserve her fingerprints on it.\n\nAnd now?\n\nI shall finish writing this. I shall enclose it and seal it in a bottle and I shall throw the bottle into the sea.\n\nWhy?\n\nYes, why?\n\nIt was my ambition to invent a murder mystery that no one could solve.\n\nBut no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gainsaid.\n\nI have, let me confess it in all humility, a pitiful human wish that someone should know just how clever I have been...\n\nIn all this, I have assumed that the mystery of Soldier Island will remain unsolved. It maybe, of course, that the police will be cleverer than I think. There are, after all, three clues. One: the police are perfectly aware that Edward Seton was guilty. They know, therefore, that one of the ten people on the island was not a murderer in any sense of the word, and it follows, paradoxically, that that person must logically be the murderer. The second clue lies in the seventh verse of the nursery rhyme. Armstrong's death is associated with a'red herring' which he swallowed-or rather which resulted in swallowing him! That is to say that at that stage of the affair some hocus-pocus is clearly indicated-and that Armstrong was deceived by it and sent to his death. That might start a promising line of inquiry. For at that period there are only four persons and of those four I am clearly the only one likely to inspire him with confidence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The third is symbolical." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The manner of my death marking me on the forehead. The brand of Cain.\n\nThere is, I think, little more to say.\n\nAfter entrusting my bottle and its message to the sea I shall go to my room and lay myself down on the bed. To my eyeglasses is attached what seems a length of fine black cord-but it is elastic cord. I shall lay the weight of the body on the glasses. The cord I shall loop round the door-handle and attach it, not too solidly, to the revolver. What I think will happen is this.\n\nMy hand, protected with a handkerchief, will press the trigger. My hand will fall to my side, the revolver, pulled by the elastic, will recoil to the door, jarred by the door-handle it will detach itself from the elastic and fall. The elastic, released, will hang down innocently from the eyeglasses on which my body is lying. A handkerchief lying on the floor will cause no comment whatever.\n\nI shall be found, laid neatly on my bed, shot through the forehead in accordance with the record kept by my fellow victims. Times of death cannot be stated with any accuracy by the time our bodies are examined.\n\nWhen the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men.\n\nAnd they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Soldier Island.\n\nSigned:\n\nLawrence Wargrave." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward as the writer's assistant.\nTags: dystopian, philosophical fiction, novella, individualism, objectivism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Anthem\nChapter: 2" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to door think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!\n\nBut this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.\n\nIt is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are alone hereunder the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that none among men maybe alone, ever and at anytime, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head.\n\nThe walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must also write, for-may the Council have mercy upon us!-we wish to speak for once to no ears but our own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said:\n\n\"There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.\" But we cannot change our bones nor our body.\n\nWe were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.\n\nWe strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted:\n\n\"WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE. THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT WE, ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.\"\n\nWe repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.\n\nThese words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from more years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that no memory can reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together.\n\nAll men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden hereunder the ground.\n\nWe remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five years old, together with all the children of the City who had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. We were just like all our brothers then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our brothers. There are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar most often.\n\nWhen we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year. Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all together with the three Teachers at the head:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen.\"\n\nThen we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.\n\nWe, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with ahead which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon us.\n\nSo we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we always remembered. We tried not to understand what the Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union 5-3992, but somehow the Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often than all the other children.\n\nThe Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:\n\n\"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother man, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it.\n\nWe think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and the night. We learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments.\n\nWe loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no brothers around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their snores, we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, and we stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars when our time would come.\n\nAll the great modern inventions come from the Home of the Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how to make glass, which is put in our windows to protect us from the rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and learn from the rivers, from the sands, from the winds and the rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn from these also. We could ask questions of these, for they do not forbid questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.\n\nSo we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night, and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure. It was evil and we dared not face our brothers in the morning. For men may wish nothing for themselves. And we were punished when the Council of Vocations came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest of their days.\n\nThe Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and they satin the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the Teachers came into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations sat on a high dais, and they had but two words to speak to each of the Students. They called the Students' names, and when the Students stepped before them, one after another, the Council said: \"Carpenter\" or'Doctor\" or'Cook\" or'Leader.\" Then each Student raised their right arm and said: \"The will of our brothers be done.\"\n\nNow if the Council has said'Carpenter\" or'Cook,\" the Students so assigned go to work and they do not study any further. But if the Council has said'Leader,\" then those Students go into the Home of the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the City, for it has three stories. And there they study for many years, so that they may become candidates and be elected to the City Council and the State Council and the World Council-by a free and general vote of all men. But we wished not to be a Leader, even though it is a great honor. We wished to be a Scholar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the Council of Vocations call our name: \"Equality 7-2521.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We walked to the dais, and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at the Council. There were five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the clay of a dry riverbed. They were old. They seemed older than the marble of the Temple of the World Council. They sat before us and they did not move. And we saw no breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that they were alive, fora finger of the hand of the oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: \"Street Sweeper.\"\n\nWe felt the cords of our neck grow tight as our head rose higher to look upon the faces of the Council, and we were happy. We knew we had been guilty, but now we had away to atone for it. We would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we knew. So we were happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory over ourselves. We raised our right arm and we spoke, and our voice was the clearest, the steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said:\n\n\"The will of our brothers be done.\"\n\nAnd we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.\n\nSo we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey house on a narrow street. There is a sundial in its courtyard, by which the Council of the Home can tell the hours of the day and when to ring the bell. When the bell rings, we all arise from our beds. The sky is green and cold in our windows to the east. The shadow on the sundial marks off a half-hour while we dress and eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there are five long tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each table. Then we go to work in the streets of the City, with our brooms and our rakes. In five hours, when the sun is high, we return to the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which one-half houris allowed. Then we go to work again. In five hours, the shadows are blue on the pavements, and the sky is blue with a deep brightness which is not bright. We comeback to have our dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to one of the City Halls, for the Social Meeting. Other columns of men arrive from the Homes of the different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our duties and of our brother men. Then visiting Leaders mount the pulpit and they read to us the speeches which were made in the City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men and all men must know. Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality, and the Hymn of the Collective Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return to the Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to the City Theatre for three hours of Social Recreation. There a play is shown upon the stage, with two great choruses from the Home of the Actors, which speak and answer all together, in two great voices. The plays are about toil and how good it is. Then we walk back to the Home in a straight column. The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through. The moths beat against the street lanterns. We go to our beds and we sleep, till the bell rings again. The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago when our crime happened. Thus must all men live until they are forty. At forty, they are worn out. At forty, they are sent to the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live. The Old Ones do notwork, for the State takes care of them. They sit in the sun in summer and they sit by the fire in winter. They do not speak often, for they are weary. The Old Ones know that they are soon to die. When a miracle happens and some live to be forty-five, they are the Ancient Ones, and the children stare at them when passing by the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life, as that of all our brothers and of the brothers who came before us.\n\nSuch would have been our life, had we not committed our crime which changed all things for us. And it was our curse which drove us to our crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know. We looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the earth. And when we cleaned the yard of the Home of the Scholars, we gathered the glass vials, the pieces of metal, the dried bones which they had discarded. We wished to keep these things and to study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them to the City Cesspool. And then we made the discovery.\n\nIt was on a day of the spring before last. We Street Sweepers work in brigades of three, and we were with Union 5-3992, they of the half-brain, and with International 4-8818. Now Union 5-3992 area sickly lad and sometimes they are stricken with convulsions, when their mouth froths and their eyes turn white. But International 4-8818 are different. They area tall, strong youth and their eyes are like fireflies, for there is laughter in their eyes. We cannot look upon International 4-8818 and not smile in answer. For this they were not liked in the Home of the Students, as it is not proper to smile without reason. And also they were not liked because they took pieces of coal and they drew pictures upon the walls, and they were pictures which made men laugh. But it is only our brothers in the Home of the Artists who are permitted to draw pictures, so International 4-8818 were sent to the Home of the Street Sweepers, like ourselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "International 4-8818 and we are friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is an evil thing to say, for it is a transgression, the great Transgression of Preference, to love any among men better than the others, since we must love all men and all men are our friends. So International 4-8818 and we have never spoken of it. But we know. We know, when we look into each other's eyes. And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also, strange things for which there are no words, and these things frighten us.\n\nSoon that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were stricken with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the City Theatre. We left them to lie in the shade of the Theatre tent and we went with International 4-8818 to finish our work. We came together to the great ravine behind the Theatre. It is empty save for trees and weeds. Beyond the ravine there is a plain, and beyond the plain there lies the Uncharted Forest, about which men must not think.\n\nWe were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had blown from the Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the weeds. It was old and rusted by many rains. We pulled with all our strength, but we could not move it. So we called International 4-8818, and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of a sudden the earth fell in before us, and we saw an old iron grill over a black hole.\n\nInternational 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and it gave way. And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a shaft into a darkness without bottom.\n\n\"We shall go down,\" we said to International 4-8818." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is forbidden,\" they answered.\n\nWe said: \"The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be forbidden.\"\n\nAnd they answered: \"Since the Council does not know of this hole, there can be no law permitting to enter it. And everything which is not permitted bylaw is forbidden.\"\n\nBut we said: \"We shall go, none the less.\"\n\nThey were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go.\n\nWe hung on the iron rings with our hands and our feet. We could see nothing below us. And above us the hole open upon the sky grew smaller and smaller, till it came to be the size of a button. But still we went down. Then our foot touched the ground. We rubbed our eyes, for we could not see. Then our eyes became used to the darkness, but we could not believe what we saw.\n\nNo men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known to our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was built by men. It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the touch; it felt like stone, but it was not stone. On the ground there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt smooth and cold as glass. We knelt, and we crawled forward, our hand groping along the iron line to see where it would lead. But there was an unbroken night ahead. Only the iron tracks glowed through it, straight and white, calling us to follow. But we could not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron line. And our heartbeat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we knew.\n\nWe knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable Times. So it was true, and those Times had been, and all the wonders of those Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men knew secrets which we have lost. And we thought: \"This is afoul place. They are damned who touch the things of the Unmentionable Times.\" But our hand which followed the track, as we crawled, clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of our hand were thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid beating in its coldness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We returned to the earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "International 4-8818 looked upon us and stepped back.\n\n\"Equality 7-2521,\" they said, \"your face is white.\"\n\nBut we could not speak and we stood looking upon them.\n\nThey backed away, as if they dared not touch us. Then they smiled, but it was not a gay smile; it was lost and pleading. But still we could not speak. Then they said:\n\n\"We shall report our find to the City Council and both of us will be rewarded.\"\n\nAnd then we spoke. Our voice was hard and there was no mercy in our voice. We said:\n\n\"We shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not report it to any men.\"\n\nThey raised their hands to their ears, for never had they heard such words as these.\n\n\"International 4-8818,\" we asked, \"will you report us to the Council and see us lashed to death before your eyes?\"\n\nThey stood straight all of a sudden and they answered: \"Rather would we die.\"\n\n\"Then,\" we said, \"keep silent. This place is ours. This place belongs to us, Equality 7-2521, and to no other men on earth. And if ever we surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it also.\"\n\nThen we saw that the eyes of International 4-8818 were full to the lids with tears they dared not drop. They whispered, and their voice trembled, so that their words lost all shape:\n\n\"The will of the Council is above all things, for it is the will of our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so, we shall obey you. Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our brothers. May the Council have mercy upon both our hearts!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then we walked away together and back to the Home of the Street Sweepers. And we walked in silence.\n\nThus did it come to pass that each night, when the stars are high and the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, Equality 7-2521, steal out and run through the darkness to our place. It is easy to leave the Theatre; when the candles are blown out and the Actors come onto the stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl under our seat and under the cloth of the tent. Later, it is easy to steal through the shadows and fall inline next to International 4-8818, as the column leaves the Theatre. It is dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no men may walk through the City when they have no mission to walk there. Each night, we run to the ravine, and we remove the stones which we have piled upon the iron grill to hide it from the men. Each night, for three hours, we are under the earth, alone.\n\nWe have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we have stolen flints and knives and paper, and we have brought them to this place. We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel for three hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix acids, and we cut open the bodies of the animals which we find in the City Cesspool. We have built an oven of the bricks we gathered in the streets. We burn the wood we find in the ravine. The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance upon the walls, and there is no sound of men to disturb us.\n\nWe have stolen manuscripts. This is a great offense. Manuscripts are precious, for our brothers in the Home of the Clerks spend one year to copy one single script in their clear handwriting. Manuscripts are rare and they are kept in the Home of the Scholars. So we sit under the earth and we read the stolen scripts. Two years have passed since we found this place. And in these two years we have learned more than we had learned in the ten years of the Home of the Students." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have solved secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge. We have come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest. But we wish no end to our quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer than rock crystal.\n\nStrange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our brothers. We are defying the will of our Councils. We alone, of the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it. The evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe. The nature of our punishment, if it be discovered, is not for the human heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the Ancient Ones' Ancients, never have men done that which we are doing.\n\nAnd yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that we area wretch and a traitor. But we feel no burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save those of the sun. And in our heart-strange are the ways of evil!-in our heart there is the first peace we have known in twenty years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Liberty 5-3000... Liberty five-three thousand... Liberty 5-3000....\n\nWe wish to write this name. We wish to speak it, but we dare not speak it above a whisper. For men are forbidden to take notice of women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men. But we think of one among women, they whose name is Liberty 5-3000, and we think of no others. The women who have been assigned to work the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants beyond the City. Where the City ends there is a great road winding off to the north, and we Street Sweepers must keep this road clean to the first milepost. There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the hedge lie the fields. The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with thin, green spangles. Women work in the fields, and their white tunics in the wind are like the wings of sea-gulls beating over the black soil.\n\nAnd there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the furrows. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron. Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun; their hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to restrain it. They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned to fling a scornful gift, and the earth was a beggar under their feet.\n\nWe stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then pain. And we stood still that we might not spill this pain more precious than pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then we heard a voice from the others call their name: \"Liberty 5-3000,\" and they turned and walked back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus we learned their name, and we stood watching them go, till their white tunic was lost in the blue mist.\n\nAnd the following day, as we came to the northern road, we kept our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field. And each day thereafter we knew the illness of waiting for our hour on the northern road. And there we looked at Liberty 5-3000 each day. We know not whether they looked at us also, but we think they did. Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of their body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started. They stood still as a stone, and they looked straight upon us, straight into our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no welcome. But their face was taut, and their eyes were dark. Then they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us.\n\nBut the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled. They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. Their head fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude. They were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at us over their shoulder, as we felt as if a hand had touched our body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.\n\nEvery morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to men of other Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing at the hedge, we raised our hand to our forehead and then moved it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen it, they could have guessed nothing, for it looked only as if we were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and understood. They raised their hand to their forehead and moved it as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they answer, and no men can suspect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty 5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We do not know why, when we think of them, we feel all of a sudden that the earth is good and that it is not a burden to live. We do not think of them as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our thoughts. We call them the Golden One. But it is a sin to give men names which distinguish them from other men. Yet we call them the Golden One, for they are not like the others. The Golden One are not like the others.\n\nAnd we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time each spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter, but women never see their children and children never know their parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think.\n\nWe had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more. Today, we spoke to the Golden One.\n\nThe other women were far off in the field, when we stopped at the hedge by the side of the road. The Golden One were kneeling alone at the moat which runs through the field. And the drops of water falling from their hands, as they raised the water to their lips, were like sparks of fire in the sun. Then the Golden One saw us, and they did not move, kneeling there, looking at us, and circles of light played upon their white tunic, from the sun on the water of the moat, and one sparkling drop fell from a finger of their handheld as frozen in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the Golden One rose and walked to the hedge, as if they had heard a command in our eyes. The two other Street Sweepers of our brigade were a hundred paces away down the road. And we thought that International 4-8818 would not betray us, and Union 5-3992 would not understand. So we looked straight upon the Golden One, and we saw the shadows of their lashes on their white cheeks and the sparks of sun on their lips. And we said:\n\n\"You are beautiful, Liberty 5-3000.\"\n\nTheir face did not move and they did not avert their eyes. Only their eyes grew wider, and there was triumph in their eyes, and it was not triumph over us, but over things we could not guess.\n\nThen they asked:\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Equality 7-2521,\" we answered.\n\n\"You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not wish you to be.\"\n\nWe cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their meaning, but we know it without words and we knew it then.\n\n\"No,\" we answered, \"nor are you one of our sisters.\"\n\n\"If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us?\"\n\n\"We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all the women of the earth.\"\n\nThen they asked:\n\n\"Are Street Sweepers sent to different parts of the City or do they always work in the same places?\"\n\n\"They always work in the same places,\" we answered, \"and no one will take this road away from us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your eyes,\" they said, \"are not like the eyes of any among men.\"\n\nAnd suddenly, without cause for the thought which came to us, we felt cold, cold to our stomach.\n\n\"How old are you?\" we asked.\n\nThey understood our thought, for they lowered their eyes for the first time.\n\n\"Seventeen,\" they whispered.\n\nAnd we sighed, as if a burden had been taken from us, for we had been thinking without reason of the Palace of Mating. And we thought that we would not let the Golden One be sent to the Palace. How to prevent it, how to bar the will of the Councils, we knew not, but we knew suddenly that we would. Only we do not know why such thought came to us, for these ugly matters bear no relation to us and the Golden One. What relation can they bear?\n\nStill, without reason, as we stood thereby the hedge, we felt our lips drawn tight with hatred, a sudden hatred for all our brother men. And the Golden One saw it and smiled slowly, and there was in their smile the first sadness we had seen in them. We think that in the wisdom of women the Golden One had understood more than we can understand.\n\nThen three of the sisters in the field appeared, coming toward the road, so the Golden One walked away from us. They took the bag of seeds, and they threw the seeds into the furrows of earth as they walked away. But the seeds flew wildly, for the hand of the Golden One was trembling.\n\nYet as we walked back to the Home of the Street Sweepers, we felt that we wanted to sing, without reason. So we were reprimanded tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun to sing aloud some tune we had never heard. But it is not proper to sing without reason, save at the Social Meetings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are singing because we are happy,\" we answered the one of the Home Council who reprimanded us.\n\n\"Indeed you are happy,\" they answered. \"How else can men be when they live for their brothers?\"\n\nAnd now, sitting herein our tunnel, we wonder about these words. It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is good for all; and so all men must be happy.\n\nYet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and never do they look one another in the eyes. The shoulders of our brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight. And a word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear.\n\nThere is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.\n\nWe feel it also, when we are in the Home of the Street Sweepers. But here, in our tunnel, we feel it no longer. The air is pure under the ground. There is no odor of men. And these three hours give us strength for our hours above the ground.\n\nOur body is betraying us, for the Council of the Home looks with suspicion upon us. It is not good to feel too much joy nor to be glad that our body lives. For we matter not and it must not matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet our brothers are not like us. All is not well with our brothers. There are Fraternity 2-5503, a quiet boy with wise, kind eyes, who cry suddenly, without reason, in the midst of day or night, and their body shakes with sobs they cannot explain. There are Solidarity 9-6347, who area bright youth, without fear in the day; but they scream in their sleep, and they scream: \"Help us! Help us! Help us!\" into the night, in a voice which chills our bones, but the Doctors cannot cure Solidarity 9-6347.\n\nAnd as we all undress at night, in the dim light of the candles, our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the thoughts of their minds. For all must agree with all, and they cannot know if their thoughts are the thoughts of all, and so they fear to speak. And they are glad when the candles are blown for the night. But we, Equality 7-2521, look through the window upon the sky, and there is peace in the sky, and cleanliness, and dignity. And beyond the City there lies the plain, and beyond the plain, black upon the black sky, there lies the Uncharted Forest.\n\nWe do not wish to look upon the Uncharted Forest. We do not wish to think of it. But ever do our eyes return to that black patch upon the sky. Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is no power to explore it and no path to lead among its ancient trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets. It is whispered that once or twice in a hundred years, one among the men of the City escape alone and run to the Uncharted Forest, without call or reason. These men do not return. They perish from hunger and from the claws of the wild beasts which roam the Forest. But our Councils say that this is only a legend. We have heard that there are many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And it is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many cities of the Unmentionable Times. The trees have swallowed the ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which perished. And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the Great Rebirth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words of the Evil Ones... The words of the Unmentionable Times... What are the words which we have lost?\n\nMay the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such a question, and we knew not what we were doing till we had written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think it. We shall not call death upon our head.\n\nAnd yet... And yet... There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they speak it they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word.\n\nWe have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us through the years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest. We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the great square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to behold the burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the square and they led them to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was the calmest and the happiest face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and aflame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the City. There was a thin thread of blood running from the corner of their mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a monstrous thought came to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints. There are the Saints of Labor, and the Saints of the Councils, and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we had never seen a Saint nor what the likeness of a Saint should be. And we thought then, standing in the square, that the likeness of a Saint was the face we saw before us in the flames, the face of the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word.\n\nAs the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, else we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to us. But it seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had chosen us from the crowd and were looking straight upon us. There was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were trying to tell us something through the flames, to send into our eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess the word....\n\nWhat-even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the Pyre-what is the Unspeakable Word?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered anew power of nature. And we have discovered it alone, and we alone are to know it.\n\nIt is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.\n\nWe know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent the strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog's body. We put apiece of copper and apiece of zinc into ajar of brine, we touched a wire to them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never occurred before, anew miracle and anew power.\n\nThis discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know that we had found the greatest power on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn on the compass which we stole from the Home of the Scholars; but we had been taught, when still a child, that the loadstone points to the north and that this is a law which nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws. We found that it causes lightning, and never have men known what causes lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the side of our hole, and we watched it from below. We have seen the lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it forth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We have built strange things with this discovery of ours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We used for it the copper wires which we found hereunder the ground. We have walked the length of our tunnel, with a candle lighting the way. We could go no farther than half a mile, for earth and rock had fallen at both ends. But we gathered all the things we found and we brought them to our workplace. We found strange boxes with bars of metal inside, with many cords and strands and coils of metal. We found wires that led to strange little globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than a spider's web.\n\nThese things help us in our work. We do not understand them, but we think that the men of the Unmentionable Times had known our power of the sky, and these things had some relation to it. We do not know, but we shall learn. We cannot stop now, even though it frightens us that we are alone in our knowledge.\n\nNo single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not care. We forget all men, all laws and all things save our metals and our wires. So much is still to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again. But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the glow. So the women of the field were weary, and they tarried over their work, and they were far from the road when we came. But the Golden One stood alone at the hedge, waiting. We stopped and we saw that their eyes, so hard and scornful to the world, were looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak.\n\nAnd we said:\n\n\"We have given you a name in our thoughts, Liberty 5-3000.\"\n\n\"What is our name?\" they asked.\n\n\"The Golden One.\"\n\n\"Nor do we call you Equality 7-2521 when we think of you.\"\n\n\"What name have you given us?\" They looked straight into our eyes and they held their head high and they answered:\n\n\"The Unconquered.\"\n\nFora longtime we could not speak. Then we said:\n\n\"Such thoughts as these are forbidden, Golden One.\"\n\n\"But you think such thoughts as these and you wish us to think them.\"\n\nWe looked into their eyes and we could not lie.\n\n\"Yes,\" we whispered, and they smiled, and then we said: \"Our dearest one, do not obey us.\"\n\nThey stepped back, and their eyes were wide and still.\n\n\"Speak these words again,\" they whispered.\n\n\"Which words?\" we asked. But they did not answer, and we knew it.\n\n\"Our dearest one,\" we whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Never have men said this to women.\n\nThe head of the Golden One bowed slowly, and they stood still before us, their arms at their sides, the palms of their hands turned to us, as if their body were delivered in submission to our eyes. And we could not speak.\n\nThen they raised their head, and they spoke simply and gently, as if they wished us to forget some anxiety of their own.\n\n\"The day is hot,\" they said, \"and you have worked for many hours and you must be weary.\"\n\n\"No,\" we answered.\n\n\"It is cooler in the fields,\" they said, \"and there is water to drink. Are you thirsty?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" we answered, \"but we cannot cross the hedge.\"\n\n\"We shall bring the water to you,\" they said.\n\nThen they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips.\n\nWe do not know if we drank that water. We only knew suddenly that their hands were empty, but we were still holding our lips to their hands, and that they knew it, but did not move.\n\nWe raised our head and stepped back. For we did not understand what had made us do this, and we were afraid to understand it.\n\nAnd the Golden One stepped back, and stood looking upon their hands in wonder. Then the Golden One moved away, even though no others were coming, and they moved, stepping back, as if they could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if they could not lower their hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only.\n\nWe know not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We look upon the light which we have made. We shall be forgiven for anything we say tonight....\n\nTonight, after more days and trials than we can count, we finished building a strange thing, from the remains of the Unmentionable Times, a box of glass, devised to give forth the power of the sky of greater strength than we had ever achieved before. And when we put our wires to this box, when we closed the current-the wire glowed! It came to life, it turned red, and a circle of light lay on the stone before us.\n\nWe stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not conceive of that which we had created. We had touched no flint, made no fire. Yet here was light, light that came from nowhere, light from the heart of metal.\n\nWe blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire glowing in a black abyss.\n\nThen we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We can light our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of the world with nothing save metal and wires. We can give our brothers anew light, cleaner and brighter than any they have ever known. The power of the sky can be made to do men's bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then we knew what we must do. Our discovery is too great for us to waste our time in sweeping the streets. We must not keep our secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring it into the sight of all men. We need all our time, we need the workrooms of the Home of the Scholars, we want the help of our brother Scholars and their wisdom joined to ours. There is so much work ahead for all of us, for all the Scholars of the world.\n\nIna month, the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City. It is a great Council, to which the wisest of all lands are elected, and it meets once a year in the different Cities of the earth. We shall go to this Council and we shall lay before them, as our gift, this glass box with the power of the sky. We shall confess everything to them. They will see, understand and forgive. For our gift is greater than our transgression. They will explain it to the Council of Vocations, and we shall be assigned to the Home of the Scholars. This has never been done before, but neither has a gift such as ours ever been offered to men.\n\nWe must wait. We must guard our tunnel as we had never guarded it before. For should any men save the Scholars learn of our secret, they would not understand it, nor would they believe us. They would see nothing, save our crime of working alone, and they would destroy us and our light. We care not about our body, but our light is...\n\nYes, we do care. For the first time do we care about our body. For this wire is as apart of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We stretch out our arms. For the first time do we know how strong our arms are. And a strange thought comes to us: we wonder, for the first time in our life, what we look like. Men never see their own faces and never ask their brothers about it, for it is evil to have concern for their own faces or bodies. But tonight, fora reason we cannot fathom, we wish it were possible to us to know the likeness of our own person." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught. It happened on that night when we wrote last. We forgot, that night, to watch the sand in the glass which tells us when three hours have passed and it is time to return to the City Theatre. When we remembered it, the sand had run out.\n\nWe hastened to the Theatre. But the big tent stood grey and silent against the sky. The streets of the City lay before us, dark and empty. If we went back to hide in our tunnel, we would be found and our light found with us. So we walked to the Home of the Street Sweepers.\n\nWhen the Council of the Home questioned us, we looked upon the faces of the Council, but there was no curiosity in those faces, and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest of them asked us: \"Where have you been?\" we thought of our glass box and of our light, and we forgot all else. And we answered:\n\n\"We will not tell you.\"\n\nThe oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two youngest, and said, and their voice was bored:\n\n\"Take our brother Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective Detention. Lash them until they tell.\"\n\nSo we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for an iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner of the room. The Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They tore the clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. The first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The second blow stopped the first, and fora second we felt nothing, then the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air. But we did not cry out.\n\nThe lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh.\n\nThen we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge asked:\n\n\"Where have you been?\"\n\nBut we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, and bit our lips.\n\nThe lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on the stones around us.\n\nThen we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one after the other, even though we knew they were speaking many minutes apart:\n\n\"Where have you been where have you been where have you been where have you been?...\"\n\nAnd our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat, and the sound was only:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The light..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The light... The light....\"\n\nThen we knew nothing.\n\nWe opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a cell. We looked upon two hands lying far before us on the bricks, and we moved them, and we knew that they were our hands. But we could not move our body. Then we smiled, for we thought of the light and that we had not betrayed it.\n\nWe lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day, once for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the Judges. Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then the most honored Judges of the City. They stood before us in their white togas, and they asked:\n\n\"Are you ready to speak?\"\n\nBut we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they departed.\n\nWe counted each day and each night as it passed. Then, tonight, we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City.\n\nIt was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about. There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were ordered to be. Our body is healthy and strength returns to it speedily. We lunged against the door and it gave way. We stole through the dark passages, and through the dark streets, and down into our tunnel.\n\nWe lit the candle and we saw that our place had not been found and nothing had been touched. And our glass box stood before us on the cold oven, as we had left it. What matter they now, the scars upon our back!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tomorrow, in the full light of day, we shall take our box, and leave our tunnel open, and walk through the streets to the Home of the Scholars. We shall put before them the greatest gift ever offered to men. We shall tell them the truth. We shall hand to them, as our confession, these pages we have written. We shall join our hands to theirs, and we shall work together, with the power of the sky, for the glory of mankind. Our blessing upon you, our brothers! Tomorrow, you will take us back into your fold and we shall bean outcast no longer. Tomorrow we shall be one of you again. Tomorrow..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is dark herein the forest. The leaves rustle over our head, black against the last gold of the sky. The moss is soft and warm. We shall sleep on this moss for many nights, till the beasts of the forest come to tear our body. We have no bed now, save the moss, and no future, save the beasts.\n\nWe are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried our glass box through the streets of the City to the Home of the Scholars. No men stopped us, for there were none about from the Palace of Corrective Detention, and the others knew nothing. No men stopped us at the gate. We walked through empty passages and into the great hall where the World Council of Scholars satin solemn meeting.\n\nWe saw nothing as we entered, save the sky in the great windows, blue and glowing. Then we saw the Scholars who sat around along table; they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of the great sky. There were men whose famous names we knew, and others from distant lands whose names we had not heard. We saw a great painting on the wall over their heads, of the twenty illustrious men who had invented the candle.\n\nAll the heads of the Council turned to us as we entered. These great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us, and they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity, as if we were a miracle. It is true that our tunic was torn and stained with brown stains which had been blood. We raised our right arm and we said:\n\n\"Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council of Scholars!\"\n\nThen Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council, spoke and asked:\n\n\"Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our name is Equality 7-2521,\" we answered, \"and we area Street Sweeper of this City.\"\n\nThen it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened.\n\n\"A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Council of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!\"\n\nBut we knew how to stop them.\n\n\"Our brothers!\" we said. \"We matter not, nor our transgression. It is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought to us, for we are nothing, but listen to our words, for we bring you a gift such as had never been brought to men. Listen to us, for we hold the future of mankind in our hands.\"\n\nThen they listened.\n\nWe placed our glass box upon the table before them. We spoke of it, and of our long quest, and of our tunnel, and of our escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. Not a hand moved in that hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put the wires to the box, and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood still, our eyes upon the wire. And slowly, slowly as a flush of blood, a red flame trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed.\n\nBut terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed against the wall, huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage.\n\nWe looked upon them and we laughed and said:\n\n\"Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these wires, but this power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still they would not move.\n\n\"We give you the power of the sky!\" we cried. \"We give you the key to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the humblest among you. Let us all work together, and harness this power, and make it ease the toil of men. Let us throwaway our candles and our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring anew light to men!\"\n\nBut they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their eyes were still, and small, and evil.\n\n\"Our brothers!\" we cried. \"Have you nothing to say to us?\"\n\nThen Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and the others followed.\n\n\"Yes,\" spoke Collective 0-0009, \"we have much to say to you.\"\n\nThe sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat of our heart.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Collective 0-0009, \" we have much to say to a wretch who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy!\n\nHow dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?\"\n\n\"How dared you, gutter cleaner,\" spoke Fraternity 9-3452, \"to hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the one and not of the many?\"\n\n\"You shall be burned at the stake,\" said Democracy 4-6998.\n\n\"No, they shall be lashed,\" said Unanimity 7-3304, \"till there is nothing left under the lashes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Collective 0-0009, \"we cannot decide upon this, our brothers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done.\"\n\nWe looked upon them and we pleaded:\n\n\"Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do with the light?\"\n\nCollective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled.\n\n\"So you think that you have found anew power,\" said Collective 0-0009. \"Do all your brothers think that?\"\n\n\"No,\" we answered.\n\n\"What is not thought by all men cannot be true,\" said Collective 0-0009.\n\n\"You have worked on this alone?\" asked International 1-5537.\n\n\"Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past,\" said Solidarity 8-1164, \"but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must.\"\n\n\"This box is useless,\" said Alliance 6-7349.\n\n\"Should it be what they claim of it,\" said Harmony 9-2642, \"then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one.\"\n\n\"This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,\" said Unanimity 2-9913, \"and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and tore-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: dystopian, philosophical fiction, novella, individualism, objectivism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Anthem\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Collective 0-0009, \"we cannot decide upon this, our brothers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done.\"\n\nWe looked upon them and we pleaded:\n\n\"Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do with the light?\"\n\nCollective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled.\n\n\"So you think that you have found anew power,\" said Collective 0-0009. \"Do all your brothers think that?\"\n\n\"No,\" we answered.\n\n\"What is not thought by all men cannot be true,\" said Collective 0-0009.\n\n\"You have worked on this alone?\" asked International 1-5537.\n\n\"Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past,\" said Solidarity 8-1164, \"but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must.\"\n\n\"This box is useless,\" said Alliance 6-7349.\n\n\"Should it be what they claim of it,\" said Harmony 9-2642, \"then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one.\"\n\n\"This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,\" said Unanimity 2-9913, \"and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and tore-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if this should lighten the toil of men,\" said Similarity 5-0306, \"then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men.\"\n\nThen Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.\n\n\"This thing,\" they said, \"must be destroyed.\"\n\nAnd all the others cried as one:\n\n\"It must be destroyed!\"\n\nThen we leapt to the table.\n\nWe seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, and a rage, such as it is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice in our throat.\n\n\"You fools!\" we cried. \"You fools! You thrice-damned fools!\"\n\nWe swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass.\n\nWe fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to the end of the world, to the end of our days.\n\nThen we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen before stood over us in great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted Forest against our will." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it, our face in our arms, and we lay still.\n\nWe lay thus fora longtime. Then we rose, we took our box and walked on into the forest.\n\nIt mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow us, for they never enter the Uncharted Forest. We had nothing to fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave us no fear either. Only we wished to be away, away from the City and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty.\n\nWe are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found in solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no redemption.\n\nWe know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on earth. We are tired.\n\nOnly the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth. Why wonder about this? We have not many days to live. We are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great, silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret.\n\nThen a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom we shall never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of the Damned. It is best if the Golden One forget our name and the body which bore that name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest.\n\nWe awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted to leap to our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of our life, but we remembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that there was no bell to ring anywhere. We lay on our back, we threw our arms out, and we looked up at the sky. The leaves had edges of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and fire flowing high above us.\n\nWe did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie thus as long as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the thought. We could also rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were thinking that these were thoughts without sense, but before we knew it our body had risen in one leap. Our arms stretched out of their own will, and our body whirled and whirled, till it raised a wind to rustle through the leaves of the bushes. Then our hands seized a branch and swung us high into a tree, with no aim save the wonder of learning the strength of our body. The branch snapped under us and we fell upon the moss that was soft as a cushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on the moss, dry leaves in our tunic, in our hair, in our face. And we heard suddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing as if there were no power left in us save laughter.\n\nThen we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We stopped when we felt hunger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We saw birds in the tree branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made afire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in eating.\n\nThen we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time.\n\nWe sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, for we felt not pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing to fear with this being.\n\nWe walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where we shall sleep tonight. And suddenly, for the first time this day, we remembered that we are the Damned. We remembered it, and we laughed.\n\nWe are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic together with the written pages we had brought for the World Council of Scholars, but never given to them. We have much to speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for it in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have not written for many days. We did not wish to speak. For we needed no words to remember that which has happened to us.\n\nIt was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind us. We hid in the bushes, and we waited. The steps came closer. And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and agleam of gold.\n\nWe leapt forward, we ran to them, and we stood looking upon the Golden One.\n\nThey saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists pulled their arms down, as if they wished their arms to hold them, while their body swayed. And they could not speak.\n\nWe dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice trembled:\n\n\"How did you come to be here, Golden One?\"\n\nBut they whispered only:\n\n\"We have found you....\"\n\n\"How did you come to be in the forest?\" we asked.\n\nThey raised their head, and there was a great pride in their voice; they answered:\n\n\"We have followed you.\"\n\nThen we could not speak, and they said:\n\n\"We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the whole City is speaking of it. Soon the night of the day when we heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk. So we followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the path where the branches were broken by your body.\"\n\nTheir white tunic was torn, and the branches had cut the skin of their arms, but they spoke as if they had never taken notice of it, nor of weariness, nor of fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have followed you,\" they said, \"and we shall follow you wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also. If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we wish to share your damnation.\"\n\nThey looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was bitterness and triumph in their voice.\n\n\"Your eyes areas aflame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do not send us away from you.\"\n\nThen they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us.\n\nWe had never thought of that which we did. We bent to raise the Golden One to their feet, but when we touched them, it was as if madness had stricken us. We seized their body and we pressed our lips to theirs. The Golden One breathed once, and their breath was a moan, and then their arms closed around us.\n\nWe stood together fora longtime. And we were frightened that we had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what joy is possible to men.\n\nThen we said:\n\n\"Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own.\"\n\nThen we walked on into the forest, their hand in ours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men.\n\nWe have walked for many days. The forest has no end, and we seek no end. But each day added to the chain of days between us and the City is like an added blessing.\n\nWe have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the forest. At night, we choose a clearing, and we build a ring of fires around it. We sleep in the midst of that ring, and the beasts dare not attack us. We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals, watching us from the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder as a crown of jewels around us, and smoke stands still in the air, in columns made blue by the moonlight. We sleep together in the midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their head upon our breast.\n\nSomeday, we shall stop and build a house, when we shall have gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten. The days before us are without end, like the forest.\n\nWe cannot understand this new life which we have found, yet it seems so clear and so simple. When questions come to puzzle us, we walk faster, then turn and forget all things as we watch the Golden One following. The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms, as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. They approach us, and they stop, laughing, knowing what we think, and they wait obediently, without questions, till it pleases us to turn and goon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We goon and we bless the earth under our feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But questions come to us again, as we walk in silence. If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, then what is good and what is evil?\n\nEverything which comes from the many is good. Everything which comes from one is evil. This have we been taught with our first breath. We have broken the law, but we have never doubted it. Yet now, as we walk through the forest, we are learning to doubt.\n\nThere is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of all their brothers. But we lived not, when we toiled for our brothers, we were only weary. There is no joy for men, save the joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things which taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone, they come from us alone, they bear no relation to all our brothers, and they do not concern our brothers in anyway. Thus do we wonder.\n\nThere is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men. What is that error? We do not know, but the knowledge struggles within us, struggles to be born. Today, the Golden One stopped suddenly and said:\n\n\"We love you.\"\n\nBut they frowned and shook their head and looked at us helplessly.\n\n\"No,\" they whispered, \"that is not what we wished to say.\"\n\nThey were silent, then they spoke slowly, and their words were halting, like the words of a child learning to speak for the first time:\n\n\"We are one... alone... and only... and we love you who are one... alone... and only.\"\n\nWe looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we cannot seethe Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient bed. This is our home.\n\nWe came upon it today, at sunrise. For many days we had been crossing a chain of mountains. The forest rose among cliffs, and whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock we saw great peaks before us in the west, and to the north of us, and to the south, as far as our eyes could see. The peaks were red and brown, with the green streaks of forests as veins upon them, with blue mists as veils over their heads. We had never heard of these mountains, nor seen them marked on any map. The Uncharted Forest has protected them from the Cities and from the men of the Cities.\n\nWe climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each stroke, and long after the strokes had died. But we went on, for we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us here.\n\nThen today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was afire and stopped. But the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there, before us, on abroad summit, with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of its windows.\n\nThe house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor. There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows went on straight around the corners, though how this kept the house standing we could not guess. The walls were hard and smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our tunnel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We both knew it without words: this house was left from the Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather. We turned to the Golden One and we asked:\n\n\"Are you afraid?\"\n\nBut they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw it open, and we stepped together into the house of the Unmentionable Times.\n\nWe shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to learn, and to understand the things of this house. Today, we could only look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the heavy curtains from the windows and we saw that the rooms were small, and we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived here. We thought it strange that men had been permitted to build a house for only twelve.\n\nNever had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon colors, colors, more colors than we thought possible, we who had seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the grey. There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was not glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. There were strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had seen in our tunnel.\n\nWe found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two beds in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that only two had lived here, and this passes understanding. What kind of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We found garments, and the Golden One gasped at the sight of them. For they were not white tunics, nor white togas; they were of all colors, no two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we touched them. But others were of heavier cloth, and they felt soft and new in our fingers.\n\nWe found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows of manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. Never had we seen such a number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not soft and rolled, they had hard shells of cloth and leather; and the letters on their pages were so small and so even that we wondered at the men who had such handwriting. We glanced through the pages, and we saw that they were written in our language, but we found many words which we could not understand. Tomorrow, we shall begin to read these scripts.\n\nWhen we had seen all the rooms of the house, we looked at the Golden One and we both knew the thought in our minds.\n\n\"We shall never leave this house,\" we said, \"nor let it betaken from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor our hunger. So be it to the end of our days.\"\n\n\"Your will be done,\" they said.\n\nThen we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home. We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh to be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood before it and they looked and looked upon their own body.\n\nWhen the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of crystal, and flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we carried them to abed, their head falling softly upon our shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the room of the manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew that we could not sleep tonight.\n\nAnd now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us, but it wishes a greater gift for us. We are to speak. We are to give its goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and sky.\n\nWe look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look upon our hands. We seethe dust of centuries, the dust which hid the great secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it stirs no fear within our heart, but only silent reverence and pity.\n\nMay knowledge come to us! What is the secret our heart has understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am. I think. I will.\n\nMy hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of mine.... What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.\n\nI stand hereon the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.\n\nIt is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.\n\nMany words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: \"I will it!\"\n\nWhatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point tome.\n\nI know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible tome on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.\n\nNeither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!\n\nI do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.\n\nI owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.\n\nI am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.\n\nI shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.\n\nFor the word'We\" must never bespoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The word'We\" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.\n\nWhat is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate tome? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?\n\nBut I am done with this creed of corruption.\n\nI am done with the monster of'We,\" the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.\n\nAnd now I seethe face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.\n\nThis god, this one word:\n\n\"I.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word'I.\" And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.\n\nI understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood why the best in me had been my sins and my transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.\n\nI read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked at me and the first words she spoke were:\n\n\"I love you.\"\n\nThen I said:\n\n\"My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus.\"\n\n\"It shall be your name,\" said the Golden One.\n\n\"And I have read of a goddess,\" I said, \"who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of anew kind of gods.\"\n\n\"It shall be my name,\" said the Golden One." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now I look ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen the future when he chose meas his heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth.\n\nI shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further, the achievements which are open tome, but closed forever to my brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest ones among them.\n\nI have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.\n\nThen here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will be taught to say'I\" and to bear the pride of it. He will be taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day, for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call tome my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few others. I shall call tome all the men and the women whose spirit has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter in the new history of man.\n\nThese are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was along story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.\n\nAt first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can takeaway from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.\n\nWhat brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word'We.\"\n\nWhen men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collaped about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of someone man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of someone spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them-those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men-men with nothing to offer save their great number-lost the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I have been answered-and for the same reasons.\n\nBut I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word'I\" could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.\n\nPerhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Theirs is the banner in my hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will breakthrough. And man will goon. Man, not men.\n\nHereon this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And all my brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake.\n\nFor the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.\n\nAnd here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.\n\nThe sacred word:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "EGO" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's all he'd want to know.\"\n\n\"Come now, I'm serious.\"\n\nFrancisco was looking at her politely, his courteous manner suggesting centuries of breeding and drawing rooms; but something in his eyes made her feel uncertain about the politeness. \"Last winter,\" he answered, \"I shipped out as cabin boy on a cargo steamer that carried d'Anconia copper. My father looked for me for three months, but that's all he asked me when I came back.\"\n\n\"So that's how you spend your winters?\" said Jim Taggart. Jim's smile had a touch of triumph, the triumph of finding cause to feel contempt.\n\n\"That was last winter,\" Francisco answered pleasantly, with no change in the innocent, casual tone of his voice. \"The winter before last I spent in Madrid, at the home of the Duke of Alba.\"\n\n\"Why did you want to work on a railroad?\" asked Dagny.\n\nThey stood looking at each other: hers was a glance of admiration, his of mockery; but it was not the mockery of malice-it was the laughter of a salute.\n\n\"To learn what it's like, Slug,\" he answered, \"and to tell you that I've had a job with Taggart Transcontinental before you did.\"\n\nDagny and Eddie spent their winters trying to master some new skill, in order to astonish Francisco and beat him, for once. They never succeeded. When they showed him how to hit a ball with a bat, a game he had never played before, he watched them fora few minutes, then said, \"I think I get the idea. Let me try.\" He took the bat and sent the ball flying over a line of oak trees far at the end of the field.\n\nWhen Jim was given a motorboat for his birthday, they all stood on the river landing, watching the lesson, while an instructor showed Jim how to run it. None of them had ever driven a motorboat before. The sparkling white craft, shaped like a bullet, kept staggering clumsily across the water, its wake along record of shivering, its motor choking with hiccoughs, while the instructor, seated beside him, kept seizing the wheel out of Jim's hands. For no apparent reason, Jim raised his head suddenly and yelled at Francisco, \"Do you think you can do it any better?\" \"I can do it.\" \"Try it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the boat came back and its two occupants stepped out, Francisco slipped behind the wheel. \"Wait a moment,\" he said to the instructor, who remained on the landing. \"Let me take a look at this.\"\n\nThen, before the instructor had time to move, the boat shot out to the middle of the river, as if fired from a gun. It was streaking away before they grasped what they were seeing. As it went shrinking into the distance and sunlight, Dagny's picture of it was three straight lines: its wake, the long shriek of its motor, and the aim of the driver at its wheel.\n\nShe noticed the strange expression of her father's face as he looked at the vanishing speedboat. He said nothing; he just stood looking. She remembered that she had seen him look that way once before. It was when he inspected a complex system of pulleys which Francisco, aged twelve, had erected to make an elevator to the top of a rock; he was teaching Dagny and Eddie to dive from the rock into the Hudson. Francisco's notes of calculation were still scattered about on the ground; her father picked them up, looked at them, then asked, \"Francisco, how many years of algebra have you had?\" \"Two years.\" \"Who taught you to do this?\" \"Oh, that's just something I figured out.\" She did not know that what her father held on the crumpled sheets of paper was the crude version of a differential equation.\n\nThe heirs of Sebastian d'Anconia had been an unbroken line of first sons, who knew how to bear his name. It was a tradition of the family that the man to disgrace them would be the heir who died, leaving the d'Anconia fortune no greater than he had received it. Throughout the generations, that disgrace had not come. An Argentinian legend said that the hand of a d'Anconia had the miraculous power of the saints-only it was not the power to heal, but the power to produce." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The d'Anconia heirs had been men of unusual ability, but none of them could match what Francisco d'Anconia promised to become. It was as if the centuries had sifted the family's qualities through a fine mesh, had discarded the irrelevant, the inconsequential, the weak, and had let nothing through except pure talent; as if chance, for once, had achieved an entity devoid of the accidental.\n\nFrancisco could do anything he undertook, he could do it better than anyone else, and he did it without effort. There was no boasting in his manner and consciousness, no thought of comparison. His attitude was not: \"I can do it better than you,\" but simply: \"I can do it.\" What he meant by doing was doing superlatively.\n\nNo matter what discipline was required of him by his father's exacting plan for his education, no matter what subject he was ordered to study, Francisco mastered it with effortless amusement. His father adored him, but concealed it carefully, as he concealed the pride of knowing that he was bringing up the most brilliant phenomenon of a brilliant family line.\n\nFrancisco, it was said, was to be the climax of the d'Anconias.\n\n\"I don't know what sort of motto the d'Anconias have on their family crest,\" Mrs. Taggart said once, \"but I'm sure that Francisco will change it to'What for? '\" It was the first question he asked about any activity proposed to him-and nothing would make him act, if he found no valid answer. He flew through the days of his summer month like a rocket, but if one stopped him in mid-flight, he could always name the purpose of his every random moment. Two things were impossible to him: to standstill or to move aimlessly.\n\n\"Let's find out\" was the motive he gave to Dagny and Eddie for anything he undertook, or'Let's make it.\" These were his only forms of enjoyment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can do it,\" he said, when he was building his elevator, clinging to the side of a cliff, driving metal wedges into rock, his arms moving with an expert's rhythm, drops of blood slipping, unnoticed, from under a bandage on his wrist. \"No, we can't take turns, Eddie, you're not big enough yet to handle a hammer. Just cart the weeds off and keep the way clear for me, I'll do the rest.... What blood? Oh, that's nothing, just a cut I got yesterday. Dagny, run to the house and bring me a clean bandage.\"\n\nJim watched them. They left him alone, but they often saw him standing in the distance, watching Francisco with a peculiar kind of intensity.\n\nHe seldom spoke in Francisco's presence. But he would corner Dagny and he would smile derisively, saying, \"AH those airs you put on, pretending that you're an iron woman with a mind of her own! You're a spineless dishrag, that's all you are. It's disgusting, the way you let that conceited punk order you about. He can twist you around his little finger. You haven't any pride at all. The way you run when he whistles and wait on him! Why don't you shine his shoes?\" \"Because he hasn't told me to,\" she answered.\n\nFrancisco could win any game in any local contest. He never entered contests. He could have ruled the junior country club. He never came within sight of their clubhouse, ignoring their eager attempts to enroll the most famous heir in the world. Dagny and Eddie were his only friends. They could not tell whether they owned him or were owned by him completely; it made no difference: either concept made them happy.\n\nThe three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junkyard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, \"A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.\" \"What do you think I'm doing?\" asked Francisco." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no factories in the neighborhood, but Francisco taught Dagny and Eddie to steal rides on Taggart trains to distant towns, where they climbed fences into mill yards or hung on windowsills, watching machinery as other children watched movies. \"When I run Taggart Transcontinental...\" Dagny would say at times. \"When I run d'Anconia Copper...\" said Francisco. They never had to explain the rest to each other; they knew each other's goal and motive.\n\nRailroad conductors caught them, once in awhile. Then a stationmaster a hundred miles away would telephone Mrs. Taggart: \"We've got three young tramps here who say that they are-\" \"Yes,\" Mrs. Taggart would sigh, \"they are. Please send them back.\"\n\n\"Francisco,\" Eddie asked him once, as they stood by the tracks of the Taggart station, \" you've been just about everywhere in the world.\n\nWhat's the most important thing on earth?\"\" This,\"answered Francisco, pointing to the emblem TT on the front of an engine. He added,\" I wish I could have met Nat Taggart.\"\n\nHe noticed Dagny's glance at him. He said nothing else. But minutes later, when they went on through the woods, down a narrow path of damp earth, ferns and sunlight, he said, \"Dagny, I'll always bow to a coat-of-arms. I'll always worship the symbols of nobility. Am I not supposed to bean aristocrat? Only I don't give a damn for moth-eaten turrets and tenth-hand unicorns. The coats-of-arms of our day are to be found on billboards and in the ads of popular magazines.\" \"What do you mean?\" asked Eddie. \"Industrial trademarks, Eddie,\" he answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francisco was fifteen years old, that summer.\n\n\"When I run d'Anconia Copper...\" \"I'm studying mining and mineralogy, because I must be ready for the time when I run d'Anconia Copper....\" \"I'm studying electrical engineering, because power companies are the best customers of d'Anconia Copper....\" \"I'm going to study philosophy, because I'll need it to protect d'Anconia Copper....\"\n\n\"Don't you ever think of anything but d'Anconia Copper?\" Jim asked him once.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"It seems tome that there are other things in the world.\"\n\n\"Let others think about them.\"\n\n\"Isn't that a very selfish attitude?\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"What are you after?\"\n\n\"Money.\"\n\n\"Don't you have enough?\"\n\n\"In his lifetime, everyone of my ancestors raised the production of d'Anconia Copper by about ten percent. I intend to raise it by one hundred.\"\n\n\"What for?\" Jim asked, in sarcastic imitation of Francisco's voice.\n\n\"When I die, I hope to go to heaven-whatever the hell that is-and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.\"\n\n\"Virtue is the price of admission,\" Jim said haughtily.\n\n\"That's what I mean, James. So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all-that I was a man who made money.\"\n\n\"Any grafter can make money.\"\n\n\"James, you ought to discover someday that words have an exact meaning.\"\n\nFrancisco smiled; it was a smile of radiant mockery. Watching them, Dagny thought suddenly of the difference between Francisco and her brother Jim. Both of them smiled derisively. But Francisco seemed to laugh at things because he saw something much greater. Jim laughed as if he wanted to let nothing remain great." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She noticed the particular quality of Francisco's smile again, one night, when she sat with him and Eddie at a bonfire they had builtin the woods. The glow of the fire enclosed them within a fence of broken, moving strips that held pieces of tree trunks, branches and distant stars.\n\nShe felt as if there were nothing beyond that fence, nothing but black emptiness, with the hint of some breath-stopping, frightening promise... like the future. But the future, she thought, would be like Francisco's smile, there was the key to it, the advance warning of its nature-in his face in the firelight under the pine branches-and suddenly she felt an unbearable happiness, unbearable because it was too full and she had noway to express it. She glanced at Eddie. He was looking at Francisco. In some quiet way of his own, Eddie felt as she did.\n\n\"Why do you like Francisco?\" she asked him weeks later, when Francisco was gone.\n\nEddie looked astonished; it had never occurred to him that the feeling could be questioned. He said, \"He makes me feel safe.\"\n\nShe said, \"He makes me expect excitement and danger.\"\n\nFrancisco was sixteen, next summer, the day when she stood alone with him on the summit of a cliff by the river, their shorts and shirts torn in their climb to the top. They stood looking down the Hudson; they had heard that on clear days one could see New York in the distance. But they saw only a haze made of three different kinds of light merging together: the river, the sky and the sun.\n\nShe knelt on a rock, leaning forward, trying to catch some hint of the city, the wind blowing her hair across her eyes. She glanced back over her shoulder-and saw that Francisco was not looking at the distance: he stood looking at her. It was an odd glance, intent and unsmiling. She remained still fora moment, her hands spread flat on the rock, her arms tensed to support the weight of her body; inexplicably, his glance made her aware of her pose, of her shoulder showing through the torn shirt, of her long, scratched, sunburned legs slanting from the rock to the ground. She stood up angrily and backed away from him. And while throwing her head up, resentment in her eyes to meet the sternness in his, while feeling certain that his was a glance of condemnation and hostility, she heard herself asking him, atone of smiling defiance in her voice: \"What do you like about me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed; she wondered, aghast, what had made her say it. He answered, \"There's what I like about you,\" pointing to the glittering rails of the Taggart station in the distance.\n\n\"It's not mine,\" she said, disappointed.\n\n\"What I like is that it's going to be.\"\n\nShe smiled, conceding his victory by being openly delighted. She did not know why he had looked at her so strangely; but she felt that he had seen some connection, which she could not grasp, between her body and something within her that would give her the strength to rule those rails someday.\n\nHe said brusquely, \"Let's see if we can see New York,\" and jerked her by the arm to the edge of the cliff. She thought that he did not notice that he twisted her arm in a peculiar way, holding it down along the length of his side; it made her stand pressed against him, and she felt the warmth of the sun in the skin of his legs against hers. They looked far out into the distance, but they saw nothing ahead except a haze of light.\n\nWhen Francisco left, that summer, she thought that his departure was; like the crossing of a frontier which ended his childhood: he was to start college, that fall. Her turn would come next. She felt an eager impatience touched by the excitement of fear, as if he had leaped into an unknown danger. It was like the moment, years ago, when she had seen him dive first from a rock into the Hudson, had seen him vanish under the black water and had stood, knowing that he would reappear in an instant and that it would then be her turn to follow.\n\nShe dismissed the fear; dangers, to Francisco, were merely opportunities for another brilliant performance; there were no battles he could lose, no enemies to beat him. And then she thought of a remark she had heard a few years earlier. It was a strange remark-and it was strange that the words had remained in her mind, even though she had thought them senseless at the time. The man who said it was an old professor of mathematics, a friend of her father, who came to their country house for just that one visit. She liked his face, and she could still seethe peculiar sadness in his eyes when he said to her father one evening, sitting on the terrace in the fading light, pointing to Francisco's figure in the garden, \" That boy is vulnerable. He has too great a capacity for joy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What will he do with it in a world where there's so little occasion for it?\"\n\nFrancisco went to a great American school, which his father had chosen for him long ago. It was the most distinguished institution of learning left in the world, the Patrick Henry University of Cleveland.\n\nHe did not come to visit her in New York, that winter, even though he was only a night's journey away. They did not write to each other, they had never done it. But she knew that he would comeback to the country for one summer month.\n\nThere were a few times, that winter, when she felt an undefined apprehension: the professor's words kept returning to her mind, as a warning which she could not explain. She dismissed them. When she thought of Francisco, she felt the steadying assurance that she would have another month as an advance against the future, as a proof that the world she saw ahead was real, even though it was not the world of those around her.\n\n\"Hi, Slug!\"\n\n\"Hi, Frisco!\"\n\nStanding on the hillside, in the first moment of seeing him again, she grasped suddenly the nature of that world which they, together, held against all others. It was only an instant's pause, she felt her cotton skirt beating in the wind against her knees, felt the sun on her eyelids, and the upward thrust of such an immense relief that she ground her feet into the grass under her sandals, because she thought she would rise, weightless, through the wind.\n\nIt was a sudden sense of freedom and safety-because she realized that she knew nothing about the events of his life, had never known and would never need to know. The world of chance-of families, meals, schools, people, of aimless people dragging the load of some unknown guilt-was not theirs, could not change him, could not matter. He and she had never spoken of the things that happened to them, but only of what they thought and of what they would do.... She looked at him silently, as if a voice within her were saying: Not the things that are, but the things we'll make... We are not to be stopped, you and I..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forgive me the fear, if I thought I could lose you to them-forgive me the doubt, they'll never reach you-I'll never be afraid for you again....\n\nHe, too, stood looking at her fora moment-and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her everyday of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning to point at the birch tree behind him and saying in the tone of their childhood game: \"I wish you'd learn to run faster. I'll always have to wait for you.\"\n\n\"Will you wait for me?\" she asked gaily.\n\nHe answered, without smiling, \"Always.\"\n\nAs they went up the hill to the house, he spoke to Eddie, while she walked silently by his side. She felt that there was anew reticence between them which, strangely, was anew kind of intimacy.\n\nShe did not question him about the university. Days later, she asked him only whether he liked it.\n\n\"They're teaching a lot of drivel nowadays,\" he answered, \"but there area few courses I like.\"\n\n\"Have you made any friends there?\"\n\n\"Two.\"\n\nHe told her nothing else.\n\nJim was approaching his senior year in a college in New York. His studies had given him a manner of odd, quavering belligerence, as if he had found anew weapon. He addressed Francisco once, without provocation, stopping him in the middle of the lawn to say in atone of aggressive self-righteousness: \"I think that now that you've reached college age, you ought to learn something about ideals. It's time to forget your selfish greed and give some thought to your social responsibilities, because I think that all those millions you're going to inherit are not for your personal pleasure, they area trust for the benefit of the underprivileged and the poor, because I think that the person who doesn't realize this is the most depraved type of human being.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francisco answered courteously, \"It is not advisable, lames, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.\"\n\nDagny asked him, as they walked away, \"Are there many men like Jim in the world?\"\n\nFrancisco laughed. \"A great many.\"\n\n\"Don't you mind it?\"\n\n\"No. I don't have to deal with them. Why do you ask that?\"\n\n\"Because I think they're dangerous in someway... I don't know how...\"\n\n\"Good God, Dagny! Do you expect me to be afraid of an object like James?\"\n\nIt was days later, when they were alone, walking through the woods on the shore of the river, that she asked: \"Francisco, what's the most depraved type of human being?\"\n\n\"The man without a purpose.\"\n\nShe was looking at the straight shafts of the trees that stood against the great, sudden, shining spread of space beyond. The forest was dim and cool, but the outer branches caught the hot, silver sunrays from the water. She wondered why she enjoyed the sight, when she had never taken any notice of the country around her, why she was so aware of her enjoyment, of her movements, of her body in the process of walking.\n\nShe did not want to look at Francisco. She felt that his presence seemed more intensely real when she kept her eyes away from him, almost as if the stressed awareness of herself came from him, like the sunlight from the water.\n\n\"You think you're good, don't you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I always did,\" she answered defiantly, without turning.\n\n\"Well, let me sec you prove it. Let me see how far you'll rise with Taggart Transcontinental. No matter how good you are, I'll expect you to wring everything you've got, trying to be still better. And when you've worn yourself out to reach a goal, I'll expect you to start for another.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why do you think that I care to prove anything to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she asked.\n\n\"Want me to answer?\"\n\n\"No,\" she whispered, her eyes fixed upon the other shore of the river in the distance.\n\nShe heard him chuckling, and after awhile he said, \" Dagny, there's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.\n\nNothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money putout by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard. When you grow up, you'll know what I mean.\"\n\n\"I know it now. But... Francisco, why are you and I the only ones who seem to know it?\"\n\n\"Why should you care about the others?\"\n\n\"Because I like to understand things, and there's something about people that I can't understand.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Well, I've always been unpopular in school and it didn't bother me, but now I've discovered the reason. It's an impossible kind of reason.\n\nThey dislike me, not because I do things badly, but because I do them well. They dislike me because I've always had the best grades in the class. I don't even have to study. I always get A's. Do you suppose I should try to get D's fora change and become the most popular girl in school?\"\n\nFrancisco stopped, looked at her and slapped her face.\n\nWhat she felt was contained in a single instant, while the ground rocked under her feet, in a single blast of emotion within her. She knew that she would have killed any other person who struck her; she felt the violent fury which would have given her the strength for it-and as violent a pleasure that Francisco had done it. She felt pleasure from the dull, hot pain in her cheek and from the taste of blood in the corner of her mouth. She felt pleasure in what she suddenly grasped about him, about herself and about his motive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She braced her feet to stop the dizziness, she held her head straight and stood facing him in the consciousness of anew power, feeling herself his equal for the first time, looking at him with a mocking smile of triumph.\n\n\"Did I hurt you as much as that?\" she asked.\n\nHe looked astonished; the question and the smile were not those of a child. He answered, \"Yes-if it pleases you.\"\n\n\"It does.\"\n\n\"Don't ever do that again. Don't crack jokes of that kind.\"\n\n\"Don't be a fool. Whatever made you think that I cared about being popular?\"\n\n\"When you grow up, you'll understand what sort of unspeakable thing you said.\"\n\n\"I understand it now.\"\n\nHe turned abruptly, took out his handkerchief and dipped it in the water of the river. \"Come here,\" he ordered.\n\nShe laughed, stepping back, \"Oh no. I want to keep it as it is. I hope it swells terribly. I like it.\"\n\nHe looked at her fora long moment. He said slowly, very earnestly, \"Dagny, you're wonderful.\"\n\n\"I thought that you always thought so,\" she answered, her voice insolently casual.\n\nWhen she came home, she told her mother that she had cut her lip by falling against a rock. It was the only lie she ever told. She did not do it to protect Francisco; she did it because she felt, for some reason which she could not define, that the incident was a secret too precious to share, Next summer, when Francisco came, she was sixteen. She started running down the hill to meet him, but stopped abruptly. He saw it, stopped, and they stood fora moment, looking at each other across the distance of along, green slope. It was he who walked up toward her, walked very slowly, while she stood waiting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he approached, she smiled innocently, as if unconscious of any contest intended or won.\n\n\"You might like to know,\" she said, \" that I have a job on the railroad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed. \" All right, Taggart Transcontinental, now it's a race.\n\nLet's see who'll do greater honor, you-to Nat Taggart, or I-to Sebastian d'Anconia.\"\n\nThat winter, she stripped her life down to the bright simplicity of a geometrical drawing: a few straight lines-to and from the engineering college in the city each day, to and from her job at Rockdale Station each night-and the closed circle of her room, a room littered with diagrams of motors, blueprints of steel structures, and railroad timetables.\n\nMrs. Taggart watched her daughter in unhappy bewilderment. She could have forgiven all the omissions, but one: Dagny showed no sign of interest in men, no romantic inclination whatever. Mrs. Taggart did not approve of extremes; she had been prepared to contend with an extreme of the opposite kind, if necessary; she found herself thinking that this was worse. She felt embarrassed when she had to admit that her daughter, at seventeen, did not have a single admirer.\n\n\"Dagny and Francisco d'Anconia?\" she said, smiting ruefully, in answer to the curiosity of her friends. \"Oh no, it's not a romance. It's an international industrial cartel of some kind. That's all they seem to care about.\"\n\nMrs. Taggart heard James say one evening, in the presence of guests, a peculiar tone of satisfaction in his voice, \"Dagny, even though you were named after her, you really look more like Nat Taggart than like that first Dagny Taggart, the famous beauty who was his wife.\" Mrs. Taggart did not know which offended her most: that James said it or that Dagny accepted it happily as a compliment.\n\nShe would never have a chance, thought Mrs. Taggart, to form some conception of her own daughter. Dagny was only a figure hurrying in and out of the apartment, a slim figure in a leather jacket, with a raised collar, a short skirt and long show-girl legs. She walked, cutting across a room, with a masculine, straight-line abruptness, but she had a peculiar grace of motion that was swift, tense and oddly, challengingly feminine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At times, catching a glimpse of Dagny's face, Mrs. Taggart caught an expression which she could not quite define: it was much more than gaiety, it was the look of such an untouched purity of enjoyment that she found it abnormal, too: no young girl could be so insensitive as to have discovered no sadness in life. Her daughter, she concluded, was incapable of emotion.\n\n\"Dagny.,\" she asked once, \"don't you ever want to have a good time?\" Dagny looked at her incredulously and answered, \"What do you think I'm having?\"\n\nThe decision to give her daughter a formal debut cost Mrs. Taggart a great deal of anxious thought. She did not know whether she was introducing to New York society Miss Dagny Taggart of the Social Register or the night operator of Rockdale Station; she was inclined to believe it was more truly this last; and she felt certain that Dagny would reject the idea of such an occasion. She was astonished when Dagny accepted it with inexplicable eagerness, for once like a child.\n\nShe was astonished again, when she saw Dagny dressed for the party, It was the first feminine dress she had ever worn-a gown of white chiffon with a huge skirt that floated like a cloud. Mrs. Taggart had expected her to look like a preposterous contrast. Dagny looked like a beauty. She seemed both older and more radiantly innocent than usual; standing in front of a mirror, she held her head as Nat Taggart's wife would have held it.\n\n\"Dagny,\" Mrs. Taggart said gently, reproachfully, \"do you see how beautiful you can be when you want to?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dagny, without any astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel had been decorated under Mrs. Taggart's direction; she had an artist's taste, and the setting of that evening washer masterpiece. \"Dagny, there are things I would like you to learn to notice,\" she said, \" lights, colors, flowers, music.\n\nThey are not as negligible as you might think.\"\" I've never thought they're negligible,\"Dagny answered happily. For once, Mrs. Taggart felt a bond between them; Dagny was looking at her with a child's grateful trust.\" They're the things that make life beautiful,\" said Mrs.\n\nTaggart. \"I want this evening to be very beautiful for you, Dagny. The first ball is the most romantic event of one's life.\"\n\nTo Mrs. Taggart, the greatest surprise was the moment when she saw Dagny standing under the lights, looking at the ballroom. This was not a child, not a girl, but a woman of such confident, dangerous power that Mrs. Taggart stared at her with shocked admiration. In an age of casual, cynical, indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not flesh, but meat-Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a high adventure. And this-thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling-was the girl she had believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make her feel relieved.\n\nThe relief lasted only fora few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither Dagny nor Mrs. Taggart said a word when they rode home together. But hours later, on a sudden impulse, Mrs. Taggart went to her daughter's room. Dagny stood by the window, still wearing the white evening gown; it looked like a cloud supporting a body that now seemed too thin for it, a small body with sagging shoulders. Beyond the window, the clouds were gray in the first light of morning.\n\nWhen Dagny turned, Mrs. Taggart saw only puzzled helplessness in her face; the face was calm, but something about it made Mrs. Taggart wish she had not wished that her daughter should discover sadness.\n\n\"Mother, do they think it's exactly in reverse?\" she asked.\n\n\"What?\" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered.\n\n\"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?\"\n\n\"Darling, what do you mean?\"\n\n\"There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it,\" she said, her voice lifeless, \"or who thought or felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant.\"\n\n\"Darling, you take everything too seriously. One is not supposed to be intellectual at a ball. One is simply supposed to be gay.\"\n\n\"How? By being stupid?\"\n\n\"I mean, for instance, didn't you enjoy meeting the young men?\"\n\n\"What men? There wasn't a man there I couldn't squash ten of.\"\n\nDays later, sitting at her desk at Rockdale Station, feeling lightheartedly at home, Dagny thought of the party and shrugged in contemptuous reproach at her own disappointment. She looked up: it was spring and there were leaves on the tree branches in the darkness outside; the air was still and warm. She asked herself what she had expected from that party. She did not know. But she felt it again, here, now, as she sat slouched over a battered desk, looking out into the darkness: a sense of expectation without object, rising through her body, slowly, like a warm liquid. She slumped forward across the desk, lazily, feeling neither exhaustion nor desire to work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Francisco came, that summer, she told him about the party and about her disappointment. He listened silently, looking at her for the first time with that glance of unmoving mockery which he reserved for others, a glance that seemed to see too much. She felt as if he heard, in her words, more than she knew she told him.\n\nShe saw the same glance in his eyes on the evening when she left him too early. They were alone, sitting on the shore of the river.\n\nShe had another hour before she was due at Rockdale. There were long, thin strips of fire in the sky, and red sparks floating lazily on the water. He had been silent fora longtime, when she rose abruptly and told him that she had to go. He did not try to stop her; he leaned back, his elbows in the grass, and looked at her without moving; his glance seemed to say that he knew her motive. Hurrying angrily up the slope to the house, she wondered what had made her leave; she did not know; it had been a sudden restlessness that came from a feeling she did not identify till now: a feeling of expectation.\n\nEach night, she drove the five miles from the country house to Rockdale. She came back at dawn, slept a few hours and got up with the rest of the household. She felt no desire to sleep. Undressing for bed in the first rays of the sun, she felt a tense, joyous, causeless impatience to face the day that was starting.\n\nShe saw Francisco's mocking glance again, across the net of a tennis court. She did not remember the beginning of that game; they had often played tennis together and he had always won. She did not know at what moment she decided that she would win, this time.\n\nWhen she became aware of it, it was no longer a decision or a wish, but a quiet fury rising within her. She did not know why she had to win; she did not know why it seemed so crucially, urgently necessary; she knew only that she had to and that she would." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed easy to play; it was as if her will had vanished and someone's power were playing for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She watched Francisco's figure--a tall, swift figure, the suntan of his arms stressed by his short white shirtsleeves. She felt an arrogant pleasure in seeing the skill of his movements, because this was the thing which she would beat, so that his every expert gesture became her victory, and the brilliant competence of his body became the triumph of hers.\n\nShe felt the rising pain of exhaustion-not knowing that it was pain, feeling it only in sudden stabs that made her aware of some part of her body for an instant, to be forgotten in the next: her arm socket-her shoulder blades-her hips, with the white shorts sticking to her skin-the muscles of her legs, when she leaped to meet the ball, but did not remember whether she came down to touch the ground again-her eyelids, when the sky went dark red and the ball came at her through the darkness like a whirling white flame-the thin, hot wire that shot from her ankle, up her back, and went on shooting straight across the air, driving the ball at Francisco's figure.... She felt an exultant pleasure-because every stab of pain begun in her body had to end in his, because he was being exhausted as she was-what she did to herself, she was doing it also to him-this was what he felt-this was what she drove him to-it was not her pain that she felt or her body, but his.\n\nIn the moments when she saw his face, she saw that he was laughing.\n\nHe was looking at her as if he understood. He was playing, not to win, but to make it harder for her-sending his shots wild to make her run-losing points to see her twist her body in an agonizing backhand-standing still, letting her think he would miss, only to let his arm shootout casually at the last moment and send the ball back with such force that she knew she would miss it. She felt as if she could not move again, not ever-and it was strange to find herself landing suddenly at the other side of the court, smashing the ball in time, smashing it as if she wished it to burst to pieces, as if she wished it were Francisco's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just once more, she thought, even if the next one would crack the bones of her arm..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just once more, even if the air which she forced down in gasps past her tight, swollen throat, would be stopped altogether... Then she felt nothing, no pain, no muscles, only the thought that she had to beat him, to see him exhausted, to see him collapse, and then she would be free to die in the next moment.\n\nShe won. Perhaps it was his laughing that made him lose, for once.\n\nHe walked to the net, while she stood still, and threw his racket across, at her feet, as if knowing that this was what she wanted. He walked out of the court and fell down on the grass of the lawn, collapsing, his head on his arm.\n\nShe approached him slowly. She stood over him, looking down at his body stretched at her feet, looking at his sweat-drenched shirt and the strands of his hair spilled across his arm. He raised his head. His glance moved slowly up the line of her legs, to her shorts, to her blouse, to her eyes. It was a mocking glance that seemed to see straight through her clothes and through her mind. And it seemed to say that he had won.\n\nShe sat at her desk at Rockdale, that night, alone in the old station building, looking at the sky in the window. It was the hour she liked best, when the top panes of the window grew lighter, and the rails of the track outside became threads of blurred silver across the lower panes. She turned off her lamp and watched the vast, soundless motion of light over a motionless earth. Things stood still, not a leaf trembled on the branches, while the sky slowly lost its color and became an expanse that looked like a spread of glowing water.\n\nHer telephone was silent at this hour, almost as if movement had stopped everywhere along the system. She heard steps approaching outside, suddenly, close to the door. Francisco came in. He had never come here before, but she was not astonished to see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing up at this hour?\" she asked.\n\n\"I didn't feel like sleeping.\"\n\n\"How did you get here? I didn't hear your car.\"\n\n\"I walked.\"\n\nMoments passed before she realized that she had not asked him why he came and that she did not want to ask it.\n\nHe wandered through the room, looking at the clusters of waybills that hung on the walls, at the calendar with a picture of the Taggart Comet caught in a proud surge of motion toward the onlooker. He seemed casually at home, as if he felt that the place belonged to them, as they always felt wherever they went together. But he did not seem to want to talk. He asked a few questions about her job, then kept silent.\n\nAs the light grew outside, movement grew down on the line and the telephone started ringing in the silence. She turned to her work. He satin a corner, one leg thrown over the arm of his chair, waiting.\n\nShe worked swiftly, feeling inordinately clear-headed. She found pleasure in the rapid precision of her hands. She concentrated on the sharp, bright sound of the phone, on the figures of train numbers, car numbers, order numbers. She was conscious of nothing else.\n\nBut when a thin sheet of paper fluttered down to the floor and she bent to pick it up, she was suddenly as intently conscious of that particular moment, of herself and her own movement. She noticed her gray linen skirt, the rolled sleeve of her gray blouse and her naked arm reaching down for the paper. She felt her heart stop causelessly in the kind of gasp one feels in moments of anticipation. She picked up the paper and turned back to her desk.\n\nIt was almost full daylight. A train went past the station, without stopping. In the purity of the morning light, the long line of car roofs melted into a silver string, and the train seemed suspended above the ground, not quite touching it, going past through the air. The floor of the station trembled., and glass rattled in the windows. She watched the train's flight with a smile of excitement. She glanced at Francisco: he was looking at her, with the same smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the day operator arrived, she turned the station over to him, and they walked out into the morning air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun had not yet risen and the air seemed radiant in its stead. She felt no exhaustion. She felt as if she were just getting up.\n\nShe started toward her car, but Francisco said, \" Let's walk home.\n\nWe'll come for the car later.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nShe was not astonished and she did not mind the prospect of walking five miles. It seemed natural; natural to the moment's peculiar reality that was sharply clear, but cutoff from everything, immediate, but disconnected, like a bright island in a wall of fog, the heightened, unquestioning reality one feels when one is drunk.\n\nThe road led through the woods. They left the highway for an old trail that went twisting among the trees across miles of untouched country. There were no traces of human existence around them. Old ruts, overgrown with grass, made human presence seem more distant, adding the distance of years to the distance of miles. A haze of twilight remained over the ground, but in the breaks between the tree trunks there were leaves that hung in patches of shining green and seemed to light the forest. The leaves hung still. They walked, alone to move through a motionless world. She noticed suddenly that they had not said a word fora longtime.\n\nThey came to a clearing. It was a small hollow at the bottom of a shaft made of straight rock hillsides. A stream cut across the grass, and tree branches flowed low to the ground, like a curtain of green fluid.\n\nThe sound of the water stressed the silence. The distant cut of open sky made the place seem more hidden. Far above, on the crest of a hill, one tree caught the first rays of sunlight.\n\nThey stopped and looked at each other. She knew, only when he did it, that she had known he would. He seized her, she felt her lips in his mouth, felt her arms grasping him in violent answer, and knew for the first time how much she had wanted him to do it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt a moment's rebellion and a hint of fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He held her, pressing the length of his body against hers with a tense, purposeful insistence, his hand moving over her breasts as if he were learning a proprietor's intimacy with her body, a shocking intimacy that needed no consent from her, no permission. She tried to pull herself away, but she only leaned back against his arms long enough to see his face and his smile, the smile that told her she had given him permission long ago. She thought that she must escape; instead, it was she who pulled his head down to find his mouth again.\n\nShe knew that fear was useless, that he would do what he wished, that the decision was his, that he left nothing possible to her except the thing she wanted most-to submit. She had no conscious realization of his purpose, her vague knowledge of it was wiped out, she had no power to believe it clearly, in this moment, to believe it about herself, she knew only that she was afraid-yet what she felt was as if she were crying to him: Don't ask me for it-oh, don't ask me-do it!\n\nShe braced her feet for an instant, to resist, but his mouth was pressed to hers and they went down to the ground together, never breaking their lips apart. She lay still-as the motionless, then the quivering object of an act which he did simply, unhesitatingly, as of right, the right of the unendurable pleasure it gave them.\n\nHe named what it meant to both of them in the first words he spoke afterwards. He said, \"We had to learn it from each other.\" She looked at his long figure stretched on the grass beside her, he wore black slacks and a black shirt, her eyes stopped on the belt pulled tight across his slender waistline, and she felt the stab of an emotion that was like a gasp of pride, pride in her ownership of his body. She lay on her back, looking up at the sky, feeling no desire to move or think or know that there was anytime beyond this moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she came home, when she lay in bed, naked because her body had become an unfamiliar possession, too precious for the touch of a nightgown, because it gave her pleasure to feel naked and to feel as if the white sheets of her bed were touched by Francisco's body-when she thought that she would not sleep, because she did not want to rest and lose the most wonderful exhaustion she had ever known-her last thought was of the times when she had wanted to express, but found noway to do it, an instant's knowledge of a feeling greater than happiness, the feeling of one's blessing upon the whole of the earth, the feeling of being in love with the fact that one exists and in this kind of world; she thought that the act she had learned was the way one expressed it. If this was a thought of the gravest importance, she did not know it; nothing could be grave in a universe from which the concept of pain had been wiped out; she was not thereto weigh her conclusion; she was asleep, a faint smile on her face, in a silent, luminous room filled with the light of morning.\n\nThat summer, she met him in the woods, in hidden corners by the river, on the floor of an abandoned shack, in the cellar of the house.\n\nThese were the only times when she learned to feel a sense of beauty-by looking up at old wooden rafters or at the steel plate of an air conditioning machine that whirred tensely, rhythmically above their heads. She wore slacks or cotton summer dresses, yet she was never so feminine as when she stood beside him, sagging in his arms, abandoning herself to anything he wished, in open acknowledgment of his power to reduce her to helplessness by the pleasure he had the power to give her. He taught her every manner of sensuality he could invent. \"Isn't it wonderful that our bodies can give us so much pleasure?\" he said to her once, quite simply. They were happy and radiantly innocent. They were both incapable of the conception that joy is sin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They kept their secret from the knowledge of others, not as a shameful guilt, but as a thing that was immaculately theirs, beyond anyone's right of debate or appraisal. She knew the general doctrine on sex, held by people in one form or another, the doctrine that sex was an ugly weakness of man's lower nature, to be condoned regretfully. She experienced an emotion of chastity that made her shrink, not from the desires of her body, but from any contact with the minds who held this doctrine.\n\nThat winter, Francisco came to see her in New York, at unpredictable intervals. He would fly down from Cleveland, without warning, twice a week, or he would vanish for months. She would sit on the floor of her room, surrounded by charts and blueprints, she would hear a knock at her door and snap, \"I'm busy!\" then hear a mocking voice ask, \"Are you?\" and leap to her feet to throw the door open, to find him standing there. They would go to an apartment he had rented in the city, a small apartment in a quiet neighborhood. \"Francisco,\" she asked him once, in sudden astonishment, \"I'm your mistress, am I not?\" He laughed. \"That's what you are.\" She felt the pride a woman is supposed to experience at being granted the title of wife.\n\nIn the many months of his absence, she never wondered whether he was true to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil.\n\nShe knew little about Francisco's life. It was his last year in college; he seldom spoke of it, and she never questioned him. She suspected that he was working too hard, because she saw, at times, the unnaturally bright look of his face, the look of exhilaration that comes from driving one's energy beyond its limit. She laughed at him once, boasting that she was an old employee of Taggart Transcontinental, while he had not started to work fora living. He said, \"My father refuses to let me work for d'Anconia Copper until I graduate.\" \"When did you learn to be obedient?\" \"I must respect his wishes. He is the owner of d'Anconia Copper.... He is not, however, the owner of all the copper companies in the world.\" There was a hint of secret amusement in his smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not learn the story until the next fall, when he had graduated and returned to New York after a visit to his father in Buenos Aires.\n\nThen he told her that he had taken two courses of education during the last four years: one at the Patrick Henry University, the other in a copper foundry on the outskirts of Cleveland. \"I like to learn things for myself,\" he said. He had started working at the foundry as furnace boy, when he was sixteen-and now, at twenty, he owned it. He acquired his first title of property, with the aid of some inaccuracy about his age, on the day when he received his university diploma, and he sent them both to his father.\n\nHe showed her a photograph of the foundry. It was a small, grimy place, disreputable with age, battered by years of a losing struggle; above its entrance gate, like anew flagon the mast of a derelict, hung the sign: d'Anconia Copper.\n\nThe public relations man of his father's office in New York had moaned, outraged, \"But, Don Francisco, you can't do that! What will the public think? That name on a dump of this kind?\" \"It's my name,\"\n\nFrancisco had answered.\n\nWhen he entered his father's office in Buenos Aires, a large room, severe and modern as a laboratory, with photographs of the properties of d'Anconia Copper as sole ornament on its walls-photographs of the greatest mines, ore docks and foundries in the world-he saw, in the place of honor, facing his father's desk, a photograph of the Cleveland foundry with the new sign above its gate.\n\nHis father's eyes moved from the photograph to Francisco's face as he stood in front of the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Isn't it a little too soon?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "his father asked.\n\n\"I couldn't have stood four years of nothing but lectures.\"\n\n\"Where did you get the money for your first payment on that property?\"\n\n\"By playing the New York stock market,\"\n\n\"What? Who taught you to do that?\"\n\n\"It is not difficult to judge which industrial ventures will succeed and which won't.\"\n\n\"Where did you get the money to play with?\"\n\n\"From the allowance you sent me, sir, and from my wages.\"\n\n\"When did you have time to watch the stock market?\"\n\n\"While I was writing a thesis on the influence-upon subsequent metaphysical systems-of Aristotle's theory of the Immovable Mover.\"\n\nFrancisco's stay in New York was brief, that fall. His father was sending him to Montana as assistant superintendent of a d'Anconia mine. \"Oh well,\" he said to Dagny, smiling, \"my father does not think it advisable to let me rise too fast. I would not ask him to take me on faith. If he wants a factual demonstration, I shall comply.\" In the spring, Francisco came back-as head of the New York office of d'Anconia Copper.\n\nShe did not see him often in the next two years. She never knew where he was, in what city or on what continent, the day after she had seen him. He always came to her unexpectedly-and she liked it, because it made him a continuous presence in her life, like the ray of a hidden light that could hither at any moment.\n\nWhenever she saw him in his office, she thought of his hands as she had seen them on the wheel of a motorboat: he drove his business HI with the same smooth, dangerous, confidently mastered speed. But one small incident remained in her mind as a shock: it did not fit him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw him standing at the window of his office, one evening, looking at the brown winter twilight of the city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not move fora longtime. His face was hard and tight; it had the look of an emotion she had never believed possible to him: of bitter, helpless anger. He said, \"There's something wrong in the world. There's always been. Something no one has ever named or explained.\" He would not tell her what it was.\n\nWhen she saw him again, no trace of that incident remained in his manner. It was spring and they stood together on the roof terrace of a restaurant, the light silk of her evening gown blowing in the wind against his tall figure informal black clothes. They looked at the city.\n\nIn the dining room behind them, the sounds of the music were a concert etude by Richard Halley; Halley's name was not known to many, but they had discovered it and they loved his music. Francisco said, \" We don't have to look for skyscrapers in the distance, do we?\n\nWe've reached them.\"She smiled and said,\" I think we're going past them.... I'm almost afraid... we're on a speeding elevator of some kind.\"\" Sure. Afraid of what? Let it speed. Why should there be a limit?\"\n\nHe was twenty-three when his father died and he went to Buenos Aires to takeover the d'Anconia estate, now his. She did not see him for three years.\n\nHe wrote to her, at first, at random intervals. He wrote about d'Anconia Copper, about the world market, about issues affecting the interests of Taggart Transcontinental. His letters were brief, written by hand, usually at night.\n\nShe was not unhappy in his absence. She, too, was making her first steps toward the control of a future kingdom. Among the leaders of industry, her father's friends, she heard it said that one had better watch the young d'Anconia heir; if that copper company had been great before, it would sweep the world now, under what his management promised to become. She smiled, without astonishment. There were moments when she felt a sudden, violent longing for him, but it was only impatience, not pain. She dismissed it, in the confident knowledge that they were both working toward a future that would bring them everything they wanted, including each other. Then his letters stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was twenty-four on that day of spring when the telephone rang on her desk, in an office of the Taggart Building." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dagny,\" said a voice she recognized at once, \"I'm at the Wayne-Falkland. Come to have dinner with me tonight. At seven.\" He said it without greeting, as if they had parted the day before. Because it took her a moment to regain the art of breathing, she realized for the first time how much that voice meant to her. \"All right... Francisco,\" she answered. They needed to say nothing else. She thought, replacing the receiver, that his return was natural and as she had always expected it to happen, except that she had not expected her sudden need to pronounce his name or the stab of happiness she felt while pronouncing it.\n\nWhen she entered his hotel room, that evening, she stopped short.\n\nHe stood in the middle of the room, looking at her-and she saw a smile that came slowly, involuntarily, as if he had lost the ability to smile and were astonished that he should regain it. He looked at her incredulously, not quite believing what she was or what he felt. His glance was like a plea, like the cry for help of a man who could never cry. At her entrance, he had started their old salute, he had started to say, \"Hi-\" but he did not finish it. Instead, after a moment, he said, \"You're beautiful, Dagny.\" He said it as if it hurt him.\n\n\"Francisco, I-\"\n\nHe shook his head, not to let her pronounce the words they had never said to each other-even though they knew that both had said and heard them in that moment.\n\nHe approached, he took her in his arms, he kissed her mouth and held her fora longtime. When she looked up at his face, he was smiling down at her confidently, derisively. It was a smile that told her he was in control of himself, of her, of everything, and ordered her to forget what she had seen in that first moment. \"Hi, Slug,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feeling certain of nothing except that she must not ask questions, she smiled and said, \"Hi, Frisco.\"\n\nShe could have understood any change, but not the things she saw.\n\nThere was no sparkle of life in his face, no hint of amusement; the face had become implacable. The plea of his first smile had not been a plea of weakness; he had acquired an air of determination that seemed merciless. He acted like a man who stood straight, under the weight of an unendurable burden. She saw what she could not have believed possible: that there were lines of bitterness in his face and that he looked tortured.\n\n\"Dagny, don't be astonished by anything I do,\" he said, \"or by anything I may ever do in the future.\"\n\nThat was the only explanation he granted her, then proceeded to act as if there were nothing to explain.\n\nShe could feel no more than a faint anxiety; it was impossible to feel fear for his fate or in his presence. When he laughed, she thought they were back in the woods by the Hudson: he had not changed and never would.\n\nThe dinner was served in his room. She found it amusing to face him across a table laid outwith the icy formality pertaining to excessive cost, in a hotel room designed as a European palace.\n\nThe Wayne-Falkland was the most distinguished hotel left on any continent. Its style of indolent luxury, of velvet drapes, sculptured panels and candlelight, seemed a deliberate contrast to its function: no one could afford its hospitality except men who came to New York on business, to settle transactions involving the world. She noticed that the manner of the waiters who served their dinner suggested a special deference to this particular guest of the hotel, and that Francisco did not notice it. He was indifferently at home. He had long since become accustomed to the fact that he was Senor d'Anconia of d'Anconia Copper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she thought it strange that he did not speak about his work. She had expected it to be his only interest, the first thing he would share with her. He did not mention it. He led her to talk, instead, about her job, her progress, and what she felt for Taggart Transcontinental. She spoke of it as she had always spoken to him, in the knowledge that he was the only one who could understand her passionate devotion. He made no comment, but he listened intently.\n\nA waiter had turned on the radio for dinner music; they had paid no attention to it. But suddenly, a crash of sound jarred the room, almost as if a subterranean blast had struck the walls and made them tremble. The shock came, not from the loudness, but from the quality of the sounds. It was Halley's new Concerto, recently written, the Fourth.\n\nThey satin silence, listening to the statement of rebellion-the anthem of the triumph of the great victims who would refuse to accept pain. Francisco listened, looking out at the city.\n\nWithout transition or warning, he asked, his voice oddly unstressed, \"Dagny, what would you say if I asked you to leave Taggart Transcontinental and let it go to hell, as it will when your brother takes over?\"\n\n\"What would I say if you asked me to consider the idea of committing suicide?\" she answered angrily.\n\nHe remained silent.\n\n\"Why did you say that?\" she snapped. \"I didn't think you'd joke about it. It's not like you.\"\n\nThere was no touch of humor in his face. He answered quietly, gravely, \"No. Of course. I shouldn't.\"\n\nShe brought herself to question him about his work. He answered the questions; he volunteered nothing. She repeated to him the comments of the industrialists about the brilliant prospects of d'Anconia Copper under his management. \"That's true,\" he said, his voice lifeless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In sudden anxiety, not knowing what prompted her, she asked, \"Francisco, why did you come to New York?\"\n\nHe answered slowly, \"To see a friend who called for me,\"\n\n\"Business?\"\n\nLooking past her, as if answering a thought of his own, a faint smile of bitter amusement on his face, but his voice strangely soft and sad, he answered: \"Yes.\"\n\nIt was long past midnight when she awakened in bed by his side.\n\nNo sounds came from the city below. The stillness of the room made life seem suspended fora while. Relaxed in happiness and incomplete exhaustion, she turned lazily to glance at him. He lay on his back, half propped by a pillow. She saw his profile against the foggy glow of the night sky in the window. He was awake, his eyes were open. He held his mouth closed like a man lying in resignation in unbearable pain, bearing it, making no attempt to hide it.\n\nShe was too frightened to move. He felt her glance and turned to her.\n\nHe shuddered suddenly, he threw off the blanket, he looked at her naked body, then he fell forward and buried his face between her breasts. He held her shoulders, hanging onto her convulsively. She heard the words, muffled, his mouth pressed to her skin: \"I can't give it up! I can't!\"\n\n\"What?\" she whispered.\n\n\"You.\"\n\n\"Why should-\"\n\n\"And everything.\"\n\n\"Why should you give it up?\"\n\n\"Dagny! Help me to remain. To refuse. Even though he's right!\"\n\nShe asked evenly, 'To refuse what, Francisco?\"\n\nHe did not answer, only pressed his face harder against her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lay very still, conscious of nothing but a supreme need of caution.\n\nHis head on her breast, her hand caressing his hair gently, steadily, she lay looking up at the ceiling of the room, at the sculptured garlands faintly visible in the darkness, and she waited, numb with terror.\n\nHe moaned, \"It's right, but it's so hard to do! Oh God, it's so hard!\"\n\nAfter awhile, he raised his head. He sat up. He had stopped trembling.\n\n\"What is it, Francisco?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you.\" His voice was simple, open, without attempt to disguise suffering, but it was a voice that obeyed him now. \"You're not ready to hear it.\"\n\n\"I want to help you.\"\n\n\"You can't.\"\n\n\"You said, to help you refuse.\"\n\n\"I can't refuse.\"\n\n\"Then let me share it with you.\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\nHe sat looking down at her, as if weighing a question. Then he shook his head again, in answer to himself.\n\n\"If I'm not sure I can stand it,\" he said, and the strange new note in his voice was tenderness, \"how could you?\"\n\nShe said slowly, with effort, trying to keep herself from screaming, \"Francisco, I have to know.\"\n\n\"Will you forgive me? I know you're frightened, and it's cruel. But will you do this for me-will you let it go, just let it go, and don't ask me anything?\"\n\n\"I_\"\n\n\"That's all you can do for me. Will you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Francisco.\"\n\n\"Don't be afraid for me. It was just this once. It won't happen tome again. It will become much easier... later.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I could-\"\n\n\"No. Go to sleep, dearest,\"\n\nIt was the first time he had ever used that word.\n\nIn the morning, he faced her openly, not avoiding her anxious glance, but saying nothing about it. She saw both serenity and suffering in the calm of his face, an expression like a smile of pain, though he was not smiling. Strangely, it made him look younger. He did not look like a man bearing torture now, but like a man who sees that which makes the torture worth bearing.\n\nShe did not question him. Before leaving, she asked only, \"When will I see you again?\"\n\nHe answered, \"I don't know. Don't wait for me, Dagny. Next time we meet, you will not want to see me. I will have a reason for the things I'll do. But I can't tell you the reason and you will be right to damn me. I am not committing the contemptible act of asking you to take me on faith. You have to live by your own knowledge and judgment. You will damn me. You will be hurt. Try not to let it hurt you too much. Remember that I told you this and that it was all I could tell you.\"\n\nShe heard nothing from him or about him fora year. When she began to hear gossip and to read newspaper stories, she did not believe, at first, that they referred to Francisco d'Anconia. After awhile, she had to believe it.\n\nShe read the story of the party he gave on his yacht, in the harbor of Valparaiso; the guests wore bathing suits, and an artificial rain of champagne and flower petals kept falling upon the decks throughout the night.\n\nShe read the story of the party he gave at an Algerian desert resort; he built a pavilion of thin sheets of ice and presented every woman guest with an ermine wrap, as a gift to be worn for the occasion, on condition that they remove their wraps, then their evening gowns, then all the rest, in tempo with the melting of the walls." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Aid the author, keep the plot going.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 14" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about the gangs of raiders?\" asked another woman's nervous voice.\n\n\"That's true,\" said Dagny. \"I'd better have someone to accompany me. Who wishes to go?\"\n\nShe had misunderstood the woman's motive. There was no answer.\n\nThere were no glances directed at her or atone another. There were no eyes-only moist ovals glistening in the moonlight. There they were, she thought, the men of the new age, the demanders and recipients of self-sacrifice. She was struck by a quality of anger in their silence-an anger saying that she was supposed to spare them moments such as this-and, with a feeling of cruelty new to her, she remained silent by conscious intention.\n\nShe noticed that Owen Kellogg, too, was waiting; but he was not watching the passengers, he was watching her face. When he became certain that there would be no answer from the crowd, he said quietly, \"I'll go with you, of course, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"What about us?\" snapped the nervous woman.\n\nDagny turned to her, answering in the formal, inflectionless monotone of a business executive, \"There have been no cases of raider gang attacks upon frozen trains-unfortunately.\"\n\n\"Just where are we?\" asked a bulky man with too expensive an overcoat and too flabby a face; his voice had atone intended for servants by a man unfit to employ them. \"In what part of what state?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she answered.\n\n\"How long will we be kept here?\" asked another, in the tone of a creditor who is imposed upon by a debtor.\n\n\"1 don't know.\"\n\n\"When will we get to San Francisco?\" asked a third, in the manner of a sheriff addressing a suspect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\nThe demanding resentment was breaking loose, in small, crackling puffs, like chestnuts popping open in the dark oven of the minds who now felt certain that they were taken care of and safe.\n\n\"This is perfectly outrageous!\" yelled a woman, springing forward, throwing her words at Dagny's face. \" You have no right to let this happen! I don't intend to be kept waiting in the middle of nowhere!\n\nI expect transportation!\"\n\n\"Keep your mouth shut,\" said Dagny, \"or I'll lock the train doors and leave you where you are.\"\n\n\"You can't do that! You're a common carrier! You have no right to discriminate against me! I'll report it to the Unification Board!\"\n\n\"-if I give you a train to get you within sight or hearing of your Board,\" said Dagny, turning away.\n\nShe saw Kellogg looking at her, his glance like a line drawn under her words, underscoring them for her own attention.\n\n\"Get a flashlight somewhere,\" she said, \"while I go to get my handbag, then we'll start.\"\n\nWhen they started out on their way to the track phone, walking past the silent line of cars, they saw another figure descending from the train and hurrying to meet them. She recognized the tramp.\n\n\"Trouble, ma'am?\" he asked, stopping.\n\n\"The crew has deserted.\"\n\n\"Oh. What's to be done?\"\n\n\"I'm going to a phone to call the division point.\"\n\n\"You can't go alone, ma'am. Not these days. I'd better go with you.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Thanks. But I'll be all right. Mr. Kellogg here is going with me. Say-what's your name?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jeff Alien, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Listen, Alien, have you ever worked fora railroad?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Well, you're working for one now. You're deputy-conductor and proxy-vice-president-in-charge-of-operation. Your job is to take charge of this train in my absence, to preserve order and to keep the cattle from stampeding. Tell them that I appointed you. You don't need any proof. They'll obey anybody who expects obedience.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" he answered firmly, with a look of understanding.\n\nShe remembered that money inside a man's pocket had the power to turn into confidence inside his mind; she took a hundred-dollar bill from her bag and slipped it into his hand. \"As advance on wages,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nShe had started off, when he called after her, \"Miss Taggart!\"\n\nShe turned. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said.\n\nShe smiled, half-raising her hand in a parting salute, and walked on.\n\n\"Who is that?\" asked Kellogg.\n\n\"A tramp who was caught stealing a ride.\"\n\n\"He'll do the job, I think.\"\n\n\"He will.\"\n\nThey walked silently past the engine and on in the direction of its headlight. At first, stepping from tie to tie, with the violent light beating against them from behind, they still felt as if they were at home in the normal realm of a railroad. Then she found herself watching the light on the ties under her feet, watching it ebb slowly, trying to hold it, to keep seeing its fading glow, until she knew that the hint of aglow on the wood was no longer anything but moonlight. She could not prevent the shudder that made her turn to look back. The headlight still hung behind them, like the liquid silver globe of a planet, deceptively close, but belonging to another orbit and another system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Owen Kellogg walked silently beside her, and she felt certain that they knew each other's thoughts.\n\n\"He couldn't have. Oh God, he couldn't!\" she said suddenly, not realizing that she had switched to words.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Nathaniel Taggart. He couldn't have worked with people like those passengers. He couldn't have run trains for them. He couldn't have employed them. He couldn't have used them at all, neither as customers nor as workers.\"\n\nKellogg smiled. \"You mean that he couldn't have grown rich by exploiting them, Miss Taggart?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"They...\" she said, and he heard the faint trembling of her voice, which was love and pain and indignation, \"they've said for years that he rose by thwarting the ability of others, by leaving them no chance, and that... that human incompetence was to his selfish interest.... But he... it wasn't obedience that he required of people.\"\n\n\"Miss Taggart,\" he said, with an odd note of sternness in his voice, \"just remember that he represented a code of existence which-fora brief span in all human history-drove slavery out of the civilized world. Remember it, when you feel baffled by the nature of his enemies,\"\n\n\"Have you ever heard of a woman named Ivy Starnes?\"\n\n\"Oh yes.\"\n\n\"I keep thinking that this was what she would have enjoyed-the spectacle of those passengers tonight. This was what she's after. But we-we can't live with it, you and I, can we? No one can live with it.\n\nIt's not possible to live with it.\"\n\n\"What makes you think that Ivy Starnes's purpose is life?\"\n\nSomewhere on the edge of her mind-like the wisps she saw floating on the edges of the prairie, neither quite rays nor fog nor cloud-she felt some shape which she could not grasp, half-suggested and demanding to be grasped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not speak, and-like the links of a chain unrolling through their silence-the rhythm of their steps went on, spaced to the ties, scored by the dry, swift beat of heels on wood.\n\nShe had not had time to be aware of him, except as of a providential comrade-in-competence; now she glanced at him with conscious attention. His face had the clear, hard look she remembered having liked in the past. But the face had grown calmer, as if more serenely at peace. His clothes were threadbare. He wore an old leather jacket, and even in the darkness she could distinguish the scuffed blotches streaking across the leather.\n\n\"What have you been doing since you left Taggart Transcontinental?\" she asked.\n\n\"Oh, many things.\"\n\n\"Where are you working now?\"\n\n\"On special assignments, more or less.\"\n\n\"Of what kind?\"\n\n\"Of every kind.\"\n\n\"You're not working fora railroad?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe sharp brevity of the sound seemed to expand it into an eloquent statement. She knew that he knew her motive. \"Kellogg, if I told you that I don't have a single first-rate man left on the Taggart system, if I offered you any job, any terms, any money you cared to name-would you comeback to us?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You were shocked by our loss of traffic. I don't think you have any idea of what our loss of men has done to us. I can't tell you the sort of agony I went through three days ago, trying to find somebody able to build five miles of temporary track. I have fifty miles to build through the Rockies. I see noway to do it. But it has to be done. I've combed the country for men. There aren't any. And then to run into you suddenly, to find you here, in a day coach, when I'd give half the system for one employee like you-do you understand why I can't let you go? Choose anything you wish. Want to be general manager of a region? Or assistant operating vice-president?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"You're still working fora living, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You don't seem to be making very much.\"\n\n\"I'm making enough for my needs-and for nobody else's.\"\n\n\"Why are you willing to work for anyone but Taggart Transcontinental?\"\n\n\"Because you wouldn't give me the kind of job I'd want.\"\n\n\"I?\" She stopped still. \"Good God, Kellogg!-haven't you understood? I'd give you any job you name!\"\n\n\"All right. Track walker.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Section hand. Engine wiper.\" He smiled at the look on her face.\n\n\"No? You see, I said you wouldn't.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that you'd take a day laborer's job?\"\n\n\"Anytime you offered it.\"\n\n\"But nothing better?\"\n\n\"That's right, nothing better.\"\n\n\"Don't you understand that I have too many men who're able to do those jobs, but nothing better?\"\n\n\"I understand it, Miss Taggart. Do you?\"\n\n\"What I need is your-\"\n\n\"-mind, Miss Taggart? My mind is not on the market any longer.\"\n\nShe stood looking at him, her face growing harder. \"You're one of them, aren't you?\" she said at last.\n\n\"Of whom?\"\n\nShe did not answer, shrugged and went on, \"Miss Taggart,\" he asked, \"how long will you remain willing to be a common carrier?\"\n\n\"I won't surrender the world to the creature you're quoting.\"\n\n\"The answer you gave her was much more realistic.\"\n\nThe chain of their steps had stretched through many silent minutes before she asked, \"Why did you standby me tonight? Why were you willing to help me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He answered easily, almost gaily, \"Because there isn't a passenger on that train who needs to get where he's going more urgently than I do. If the train can be started, none will profit more than I. But when I need something, I don't sit and expect transportation, like that creature of yours.\"\n\n\"You don't? And what if all trains stopped running?\"\n\n\"Then I wouldn't count on making a crucial journey by train.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"West.\"\n\n\"On a \"special assignment\"?\"\n\n\"No. Fora month's vacation with some friends.\"\n\n\"A vacation? And it's that important to you?\"\n\n\"More important than anything on earth.\"\n\nThey had walked two miles when they came to the small gray box on a post by the trackside, which was the emergency telephone.\n\nThe box hung sidewise, beaten by storms. She jerked it open. The telephone was there, a familiar, reassuring object, glinting in the beam of Kellogg's flashlight. But she knew, the moment she pressed the receiver to her ear, and he knew, when he saw her finger tapping sharply against the hook, that the telephone was dead.\n\nShe handed the receiver to him without a word. She held the flashlight, while he went swiftly over the instrument, then tore it off the wall and studied the wires.\n\n\"The wire's okay,\" he said. \"The current's on. It's this particular instrument that's out of order. There's a chance that the next one might be working.\" He added, \"The next one is five miles away.\"\n\n\"Let's go,\" she said.\n\nFar behind them, the engine's headlight was still visible, not a planet any longer, but a small star winking, through mists of distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ahead of them, the rail went off into bluish space, with nothing to mark its end.\n\nShe realized how often she had glanced back at that headlight; so long as it remained insight, she had felt as if a life-line were holding them anchored safely; now they had to break it and dive into... and dive off this planet, she thought. She noticed that Kellogg, too, stood looking back at the headlight.\n\nThey glanced at each other, but said nothing. The crunch of a pebble under her shoe sole burst like a firecracker in the silence.\n\nWith a coldly intentional movement, he kicked the telephone instrument and sent it rolling into a ditch: the violence of the noise shattered the vacuum.\n\n\"Goddamn him,\" he said evenly, not raising his voice, with a loathing past any display of emotion. \"He probably didn't feel like attending to his job, and since he needed his paycheck, nobody had the right to ask that he keep the phones in order.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" she said.\n\n\"We can rest, if you feel tired, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"I'm all right. We have no time to feel tired.\"\n\n\"That's our great error, Miss Taggart. We ought to take the time, someday.\"\n\nShe gave a brief chuckle, she stepped onto a tie of the track, stressing the step as her answer, and they went on.\n\nIt was hard, walking on ties, but when they tried to walk along the trackside, they found that it was harder. The soil, half-sand, half-dust, sank under their heels, like the soft, unresisting spread of some substance that was neither liquid nor solid. They went back to walking from tie to tie; it was almost like stepping from log to login the midst of a river." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought of what an enormous distance five miles had suddenly become, and that a division point thirty miles away was now unattainable-after an era of railroads built by men who thought in thousands of transcontinental miles. That net of rails and lights, spreading from ocean to ocean, hung on the snap of a wire, on a broken connection inside a rusty phone-no, she thought, on something much more powerful and much more delicate. It hung on the connections in the minds of the men who knew that the existence of a wire, of a train, of a job, of themselves and their actions was an absolute not to be escaped. When such minds were gone, a two thousand-ton train was left at the mercy of the muscles of her legs.\n\nTired?-she thought; even the strain of walking was a value, a small piece of reality in the stillness around them. The sensation of effort was a specific experience, it was pain and could be nothing else-in the midst of a space which was neither light nor dark, a soil which neither gave nor resisted, a fog which neither moved nor hung still. Their strain was the only evidence of their motion: nothing changed in the emptiness around them, nothing took form to mark their progress. She had always wondered, in incredulous contempt, about the sects that preached the annihilation of the universe as the ideal to be attained. There, she thought, was their world and the content of their minds made real.\n\nWhen the green light of a signal appeared by the track, it gave them a point to reach and pass, but-incongruous in the midst of the floating dissolution-it brought them no sense of relief. It seemed to come from along since extinguished world, like those stars whose light remains after they are gone. The green circle glowed in space, announcing a clear track, inviting motion where there was nothing to move. Who was that philosopher, she thought, who preached that motion exists without any moving entities? This was his world, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "T!\n\nShe found herself pushing forward with increasing effort, as if against some resistance that was, not pressure, but suction. Glancing at Kellogg, she saw that he, too, was walking like a man braced against a storm. She felt as if the two of them were the sole survivors of... of reality, she thought-two lonely figures fighting, not through a storm, but worse: through non-existence.\n\nIt was Kellogg who glanced back, after awhile, and she followed his glance: there was no headlight behind them.\n\nThey did not stop. Looking straight ahead, he reached absently into his pocket; she felt certain that the movement was involuntary; he produced a package of cigarettes and extended it to her.\n\nShe was about to take a cigarette-then, suddenly, she seized his wrist and tore the package out of his hand. It was a plain white package that bore, as single imprint, the sign of the dollar.\n\n\"Give me the flashlight!\" she ordered, stopping.\n\nHe stopped obediently and sent the beam of the flashlight at the package in her hands. She caught a glimpse of his face: he looked a little astonished and very amused.\n\nThere was no printing on the package, no trade name, no address, only the dollar sign stamped in gold. The cigarettes bore the same sign.\n\n\"Where did you get this?\" she asked.\n\nHe was smiling. \"If you know enough to ask that, Miss Taggart, you should know that I won't answer.\"\n\n\"I know that this stands for something.\"\n\n\"The dollar sign? Fora great deal. It stands on the vest of every fat, pig like figure in every cartoon, for the purpose of denoting a crook, a grafter, a scoundrel-as the one sure-firebrand of evil. It stands-as the money of a free country-for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's creative power-and, precisely for these reasons, it is used as a brand of infamy. It stands stamped on the forehead of a manlike Hank Rearden, as a mark of damnation. Incidentally, do you know where that sign comes from? It stands for the initials of the United States.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He snapped the flashlight off, but he did not move to go; she could distinguish the hint of his bitter smile.\n\n\"Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. If this is evil, by the present standards of the world, if this is the reason for damning us, then we-we, the dollar chasers and makers-accept it and choose to be damned by that world. We choose to wear the sign of the dollar on our foreheads, proudly, as our badge of nobility-the badge we are willing to live for and, if need be, to die.\"\n\nHe extended his hand for the package. She held it as if her fingers would not let it go, but gave up and placed it on his palm. With deliberate slowness, as if to underscore the meaning of his gesture, he offered her a cigarette. She took it and placed it between her lips.\n\nHe took one for himself, struck a match, lighted both, and they walked on.\n\nThey walked, over rotting logs that sank without resistance into the shifting ground, through avast, uncongealed globe of moonlight and coiling mist-with two spots of living fire in their hands and the glow of two small circles to light their faces.\n\n\"Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips...\" she remembered the old man saying to her, the old man who had said that these cigarettes were not made anywhere on earth. \"When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind-and it's proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish you'd tell me who makes them,\" she said, in the tone of a hopeless plea.\n\nHe chuckled good-naturedly. \"I can tell you this much: they're made by a friend of mine, for sale, but-not being a common carrier-he sells them only to his friends.\"\n\n\"Sell me that package, will you?\"\n\n\"I don't think you'll be able to afford it, Miss Taggart, but-all right, if you wish.\"\n\n\"How much is it?\"\n\n\"Five cents.\"\n\n\"Five cents?\" she repeated, bewildered.\n\n\"Five cents-\" he said, and added, \"in gold.\"\n\nShe stopped, staring at him. \"In gold?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"Well, what's your rate of exchange? How much is it in our normal money?\"\n\n\"There is no rate of exchange, Miss Taggart. No amount of physical-or spiritual-currency, whose sole standard of value is the decree of Mr. Wesley Mouch, will buy these cigarettes.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\nHe reached into his pocket, took out the package and handed it to her. \"I'll give them to you, Miss Taggart,\" he said, \"because you've earned them many times over-and because you need them for the same purpose we do.\"\n\n\"What purpose?\"\n\n\"To remind us-in moments of discouragement, in the loneliness of exile-of our true homeland, which has always been yours, too, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said. She put the cigarettes in her pocket; he saw that her hand was trembling.\n\nWhen they reached the fourth of the five mileposts, they had been silent fora longtime, with no strength left for anything but the effort of moving their feet. Far ahead, they saw a dot of light, too low on the horizon and too harshly clear to be a star. They kept watching it, as they walked, and said nothing until they became certain that it was a powerful electric beacon blazing in the midst of the empty prairie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is that?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said. \"It looks like-\"\n\n\"No,\" she broke in hastily, \"it couldn't be. Not around here.\"\n\nShe did not want to hear him name the hope which she had felt for many minutes past. She could not permit herself to think of it or to know that the thought was hope.\n\nThey found the telephone box at the fifth milepost. The beacon hung like a violent spot of cold fire, less than half a mile farther south.\n\nThe telephone was working. She heard the buzz of the wire, like the breath of a living creature, when she lifted the receiver. Then a drawling voice answered, \"Jessup, at Bradshaw.\" The voice sounded sleepy.\n\n\"This is Dagny Taggart, speaking from-\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Dagny Taggart, of Taggart Transcontinental, speaking-\"\n\n\"Oh... Oh yes... I see... Yes?\"\n\n\"-speaking from your track phone Number 83. The Comet is stalled seven miles north of here. It's been abandoned. The crew has deserted.\"\n\nThere was a pause. \"Well, what do you want me to do about it?\"\n\nShe had to pause in turn, in order to believe it. \"Are you the night dispatcher?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Then send another crew out to us at once.\"\n\n\"A full passenger train crew?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThere was a pause. \"The rules don't say anything about that.\"\n\n\"Get me the chief dispatcher,\" she said, choking.\n\n\"He's away on his vacation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get the division superintendent.\"\n\n\"He's gone down to Laurel fora couple of days.\"\n\n\"Get me somebody who's in charge.\"\n\n\"I'm in charge.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" she said slowly, fighting for patience, \"do you understand that there's a train, a passenger limited, abandoned in the middle of the prairie?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but how am Ito know what I'm supposed to do about it?\n\nThe rules don't provide for it. Now if you had an accident, we'd send out the wrecker, but if there was no accident... you don't need the wrecker, do you?\"\n\n\"No. We don't need the wrecker. We need men. Do you understand? Living men to run an engine.\"\n\n\"The rules don't say anything about a train without men. Or about men without a train. There's no rule for calling out a full crew in the middle of the night and sending them to hunt fora train somewhere.\n\nI've never heard of it before,\"\n\n\"You're hearing it now. Don't you know what you have to do?\"\n\n\"Who am Ito know?\"\n\n\"Do you know that your job is to keep trains moving?\"\n\n\"My job is to obey the rules. If I send out a crew when I'm not supposed to, God only knows what's going to happen! What with the Unification Board and all the regulations they've got nowadays, who am Ito take it upon myself?\"\n\n\"And what's going to happen if you leave a train stalled on the line?\"\n\n\"That's not my fault. I had nothing to do with it. They can't blame me. I couldn't help it.\"\n\n\"You're to help it now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nobody told me to.\"\n\n\"I'm telling you to!\"\n\n\"How do I know whether you're supposed to tell me or not? We're not supposed to furnish any Taggart crews. You people were to run with your own crews. That's what we were told.\"\n\n\"But this is an emergency!\"\n\n\"Nobody told me anything about an emergency.\"\n\nShe had to take a few seconds to control herself. She saw Kellogg watching her with a bitter smile of amusement.\n\n\"Listen,\" she said into the phone, \"do you know that the Comet was due at Bradshaw over three hours ago?\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. But nobody's going to make any trouble about that. No train's ever on schedule these days,\"\n\n\"Then do you intend to leave us blocking your track forever?\"\n\n\"We've got nothing due till Number 4, the northbound passenger out of Laurel, at eight thirty-seven A. M. You can wait till then. The day-trick dispatcher will be on then. You can speak to him,\"\n\n\"You blasted idiot! This is the Comet!\"\n\n\"What's that tome? This isn't Taggart Transcontinental. You people expect a lot for your money. You've been nothing but a headache to us7 with all the extra work at no extra pay for the little fellows.\"\n\nHis voice was slipping into whining insolence. \"You can't talk tome that way. The time's past when you could talk to people that way.\"\n\nShe had never believed that there were men with whom a certain method, which she had never used, would work; such men were not hired by Taggart Transcontinental and she had never been forced to deal with them before.\n\n\"Do you know who I am?\" she asked, in the cold, overbearing tone of a personal threat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It worked. \"I... I guess so,\" he answered.\n\n\"Then let me tell you that if you don't send a crew tome at once, you'll be out of a job within one hour after I reach Bradshaw, which I'll reach sooner or later. You'd better make it sooner.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" he said.\n\n\"Call out a full passenger train crew and give them orders to run us to Laurel, where we have our own men.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" He added, \"Will you tell headquarters that it was you who told me to do it?\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"And that it's you who're responsible for it?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nThere was a pause, then he asked helplessly, \"Now how am I going to call the men? Most of them haven't got any phones.\"\n\n\"Do you have a call boy?\"\n\n\"Yes, but he won't get here till morning.\"\n\n\"Is there anybody in the yards right now?\"\n\n\"There's the wiper in the roundhouse.\"\n\n\"Send him out to call the men.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. Hold the line.\"\n\nShe leaned against the side of the phone box, to wait. Kellogg was smiling.\n\n\"And you propose to run a railroad-a transcontinental railroad-with that?\" he asked.\n\nShe shrugged.\n\nShe could not keep her eyes off the beacon. It seemed so close, so easily within her reach. She felt as if the unconfessed thought were struggling furiously against her, splattering bits of the struggle allover her mind: A man able to harness an untapped source of energy, a man working on a motor to make all other motors useless... she could be talking to him, to his kind of brain, in a few hours... in just a few hours.... What if there was no need to hurry to him? It was what she wanted to do. It was all she wanted.... Her work?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What washer work: to move onto the fullest, most exacting use of her mind-or to spend the rest of her life doing his thinking fora man unfit to be a night dispatcher?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why had she chosen to work?\n\nWas it in order to remain where she had started-night operator of Rockdale Station-no, lower than that-she had been better than that dispatcher, even at Rockdale-was this to be the final sum: an end lower than her beginning?... There was no reason to hurry? She was the reason.... They needed the trains, but they did not need the motor? She needed the motor.... Her duty? To whom?\n\nThe dispatcher was gone fora longtime; when he came back, his voice sounded sulky: \"Well, the wiper says he can get the men all right, but it's no use, because how am I going to send them out to you? We have no engine.\"\n\n\"No engine?\"\n\n\"No. The superintendent took one to rundown to Laurel, and the other's in the shops, been therefor weeks, and the switch engine jumped a rail this morning, they'll be working on her till tomorrow afternoon.\"\n\n\"What about the wrecker's engine that you were offering to send us?\"\n\n\"Oh, she's up north. They had a wreck there yesterday. She hasn't comeback yet.\"\n\n\"Have you a Diesel car?\"\n\n\"Never had any such thing. Not around here.\"\n\n\"Have you a track motorcar?\"\n\n\"Yes. We have that.\"\n\n\"Send them out on the track motorcar.\"\n\n\"Oh... Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Tell your men to stop here, at track phone Number 83, to pickup Mr. Kellogg and myself.\" She was looking at the beacon, \"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Call the Taggart trainmaster at Laurel, report the Comet's delay and explain to him what happened.\" She put her hand into her pocket and suddenly clutched her fingers: she felt the package of cigarettes. \"Say-\" she asked, \"what's that beacon, about half a mile from here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From where you are? Oh, that must be the emergency landing field of the Flagship Airlines.\"\n\n\"I see... Well, that's all. Get your men started at once. Tell them to pickup Mr. Kellogg by track phone Number 83.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nShe hung up. Kellogg was grinning.\n\n\"An airfield, isn't it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" She stood looking at the beacon, her hand still clutching the cigarettes in her pocket.\n\n\"So they're going to pickup Mr. Kellogg, are they?\"\n\nShe whirled to him, realizing what decision her mind had been reaching without her conscious knowledge. \"No,\" she said, \"no, I didn't mean to abandon you here. It's only that I, too, have a crucial purpose out West, where I ought to hurry, so I was thinking of trying to catch a plane, but I can't do it and it's not necessary.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" he said, starting in the direction of the airfield.\n\n\"But I-\"\n\n\"If there's anything you want to do more urgently than to nurse those morons-go right ahead.\"\n\n\"More urgently than anything in the world,\" she whispered.\n\n\"I'll undertake to remain in charge for you and to deliver the Comet to your man at Laurel.\"\n\n\"Thank you... But if you're hoping... I'm not deserting, you know.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Then why are you so eager to help me?\"\n\n\"I just want you to see what it's like to do something you want, for once.\"\n\n\"There's not much chance that they'll have a plane at that field.\"\n\n\"There's a good chance that they will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were two planes on the edge of the airfield: one, the half charred remnant of a wreck, not worth salvaging for scrap-the other, a Dwight Sanders monoplane, brand-new, the kind of ship that men were pleading for, in vain, allover the country.\n\nThere was one sleepy attendant at the airfield, young, pudgy and, but fora faint smell of college about his vocabulary, a brain brother of the night dispatcher of Bradshaw. He knew nothing about the two planes: they had been there when he first took this job a year ago. He had never inquired about them and neither had anybody else. In whatever silent crumbling had gone on at the distant headquarters, in the slow dissolution of a great airline company, the Sanders monoplane had been forgotten-as assets of this nature were being forgotten everywhere... as the model of the motor had been forgotten on a junk pile and, left in plain sight, had conveyed nothing to the inheritors and the takers-over....\n\nThere were no rules to tell the young attendant whether he was expected to keep the Sanders plane or not. The decision was made for him by the brusque, confident manner of the two strangers-by the credentials of Miss Dagny Taggart, Vice-President of a railroad-by brief hints about a secret, emergency mission, which sounded like Washington to him-by the mention of an agreement with the airline's top officials in New York, whose names he had never heard before-by a check for fifteen thousand dollars, written by Miss Taggart, as deposit against the return of the Sanders plane-and by another check, for two hundred bucks, for his own, personal courtesy.\n\nHe fueled the plane, he checked it as best he could, he found a map of the country's airports-and she saw that a landing field on the outskirts of Afton, Utah, was marked as still in existence. She had been too tensely, swiftly active to feel anything, but at the last moment, when the attendant switched on the floodlights, when she was about to climb aboard, she paused to glance at the emptiness of the sky, then at Owen Kellogg. He stood, alone in the white glare, his feet planted firmly apart, on an island of cement in a ring of blinding lights, with nothing beyond the ring but an irredeemable night-and she wondered which one of them was taking the greater chance and facing the more desolate emptiness, \"In case anything happens tome,\" she said, \"will you tell Eddie Willers in my office to give Jeff Alien a job, as I promised?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will...." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is this all you wish to be done... in case anything happens?\"\n\nShe considered it and smiled sadly, in astonishment at the realization. \"Yes, I guess that's all... Except, tell Hank Rearden what happened and that I asked you to tell him.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nShe lifted her head and said firmly, \"I don't expect it to happen, however. When you reach Laurel, call Winston, Colorado, and tell them that I will be there tomorrow by noon.\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Taggart.\"\n\nShe wanted to extend her hand in parting, but it seemed inadequate, and then she remembered what he had said about times of loneliness. She took out the package and silently offered him one of his own cigarettes. His smile was a full statement of understanding, and the small flame of his match lighting their two cigarettes was their most enduring handshake.\n\nThen she climbed aboard-and the next span of her consciousness was not separate moments and movements, but the sweep of a single motion and a single unit of time, a progression forming one entity, like the notes of apiece of music: from the touch of her hand on the starter-to the blast of the motor's sound that broke off, like a mountain rockslide, all contact with the time behind her-to the circling fall of a blade that vanished in a fragile sparkle of whirling air that cut the space ahead-to the start for the runway-to the brief pause-then to the forward thrust-to the long, perilous run, the run not to be obstructed, the straight line ran that gathers power by spending it on a harder and harder and ever-accelerating effort, the straight line to a purpose-to the moment, unnoticed., when the earth drops off and the line, unbroken, goes on into space in the simple, natural act of rising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the telegraph wires of the trackside slipping past at the tip of her toes. The earth was falling downward, and she felt as if its weight were dropping off her ankles, as if the globe would go shrinking to the size of a ball, a convict's ball she had dragged and lost.\n\nHer body swayed, drunk with the shock of a discovery, and her craft rocked with her body, and it was the earth below that reeled with the rocking of her craft-the discovery that her life was now in her own hands, that there was no necessity to argue, to explain, to teach, to plead, to fight-nothing but to see and think and act. Then the earth steadied into a wide black sheet that grew wider and wider as she circled, rising. When she glanced down for the last time, the lights of the field were extinguished, there was only the single beacon left and it looked like the tip of Kellogg's cigarette, glowing as a last salute in the darkness.\n\nThen she was left with the lights on her instrument panel and the spread of stars beyond her film of glass. There was nothing to support her but the beat of the engine and the minds of the men who had made the plane. But what else supports one anywhere?-she thought.\n\nThe line of her course went northwest, to cut a diagonal across the state of Colorado. She knew she had chosen the most dangerous route, over too long a stretch of the worst mountain barrier-but it was the shortest line, and safety lay in altitude, and no mountains seemed dangerous compared to the dispatcher of Bradshaw.\n\nThe stars were like foam and the sky seemed full of flowing motion, the motion of bubbles settling and forming, the floating of circular waves without progression. A spark of light flared upon earth once in awhile, and it seemed brighter than all the static blue above. But it hung alone, between the black of ashes and the blue of a crypt, it seemed to fight for its fragile foothold, it greeted her and went." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pale streak of a river came rising slowly from the void, and fora long stretch of time it remained insight, gliding imperceptibly to meet her. It looked like a phosphorescent vein showing through the skin of the earth, a delicate vein without blood.\n\nWhen she saw the lights of a town, like a handful of gold coins flung upon the prairie, the brightly violent lights fed by an electric current, they seemed as distant as the stars and now as unattainable. The energy that had lighted them was gone, the power that created power stations in empty prairies had vanished, and she knew of no journey to recapture it. Yet these had been her stars-she thought, looking down-these had been her goal, her beacon, the aspiration drawing her upon her upward course. That which others claimed to feel at the sight of the stars-stars safely distant by millions of years and thus imposing no obligation to act, but serving as the tinsel of futility-she had felt at the sight of electric bulbs lighting the streets of a town. It was this earth below that had been the height she had wanted to reach, and she wondered how she had come to lose it, who had made of it a convict's ball to drag through muck, who had turned its promise of greatness into a vision never to be reached. But the town was past, and she had to look ahead, to the mountains of Colorado rising in her way.\n\nThe small glass dial on her panel showed that she was now climbing.\n\nThe sound of the engine, beating through the metal shell around her, trembling in the wheel against her palms, like the pounding of a heart strained to a solemn effort, told her of the power carrying her above the peaks. The earth was now a crumpled sculpture that swayed from side to side, the shape of an explosion still shooting sudden spurts to reach the plane. She saw them as dented black cuts ripping through the milky spread of stars, straight in her path and tearing wider. Her mind one with her body and her body one with the plane, she fought the invisible suction drawing her downward, she fought the sudden gusts that tipped the earth as if she were about to roll off into the sky, with half of the mountains rolling after. It was like fighting a frozen ocean where the touch of a single spray would be fatal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were stretches of rest when the mountains shrank down, over valleys filled with fog. Then the fog rose higher to swallow the earth and she was left suspended in space, left motionless but for the sound of the engine.\n\nBut she did not need to seethe earth. The instrument panel was now her power of sight'-it was the condensed sight of the best minds able to guide heron her way. Their condensed sight, she thought, offered to hers and requiring only that she be able to read it. How had they been paid for it, they, the sight-givers? From condensed milk to condensed music to the condensed sight of precision instruments-what wealth had they not given to the world and what had they received in return?\n\nWhere were they now? Where was Dwight Sanders? Where was the inventor of her motor?\n\nThe fog was lifting-and in a sudden clearing, she saw a drop of fire on a spread of rock. It was not an electric light, it was a lonely flame in the darkness of the earth. She knew where she was and she knew that flame: it was Wyatt's Torch.\n\nShe was coming close to her goal. Somewhere behind her, in the northeast, stood the summits pierced by the Taggart Tunnel. The mountains were sliding in along descent into the steadier soil of Utah. She let her plane slip closer to the earth.\n\nThe stars were vanishing, the sky was growing darker, but in the bank of clouds to the east thin cracks were beginning to appear-first as threads, then faint spots of reflection, then straight bands that were not yet pink, but no longer blue, the color of a future light, the first hints of the coming sunrise. They kept appearing and vanishing, slowly growing clearer, leaving the sky darker, then breaking it wider apart, like a promise struggling to be fulfilled. She heard apiece of music beating in her mind, one she seldom liked to recall: not Halley's Fifth Concerto, but his Fourth, the cry of a tortured struggle, with the chords of its theme breaking through, like a distant vision to be reached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the Afton airport from across a span of miles, first as a square of sparks, then as a sunburst of white rays. It was lighted fora plane about to takeoff, and she had to wait for her landing. Circling in the outer darkness above the field, she saw the silver body of a plane rising like a phoenix out of the white fire and-in a straight line, almost leaving an instant's trail of light to hang in space behind it-going off toward the east.\n\nThen she swept down in its stead, to dive into the luminous funnel of beams-she saw a strip of cement flying at her face, she felt the jolt of the wheels stopping it in time, then the streak of her motion ebbing out and the plane being tamed to the safety of a car, as it taxied smoothly off the runway.\n\nIt was a small private airfield, serving the meager traffic of a few industrial concerns still remaining in Afton, She saw alone attendant hurrying to meet her. She leaped down to the ground the moment the plane stood still, the hours of the flight swept from her mind by the impatience over the stretch of a few more minutes.\n\n\"Can I get a car somewhere to drive me to the Institute of Technology at once?\" she asked.\n\nThe attendant looked at her, puzzled. \" Why, yes, I guess so, ma'am.\n\nBut... but what for? There's nobody there.\"\n\n\"Mr. Quentin Daniels is there.\"\n\nThe attendant shook his head slowly-then jerked his thumb, pointing east to the shrinking taillights of the plane. \"There's Mr. Daniels going now.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"He just left.\"\n\n\"Left? Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He went with the man who flew in for him two-three hours ago.\"\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"Don't know, never saw him before, but, boy!-he's got a beauty of a ship!\"\n\nShe was back at the wheel, she was speeding down the runway, she was rising into the air, her plane like a bullet aimed at two sparks of red and green light that were twinkling away into the eastern sky-while she was still repeating, \" Oh no, they don't! They don't! They don't!\n\nThey don't!\"\n\nOnce and for all-she thought, clutching the wheel as if it were the enemy not to be relinquished, her words like separate explosions with a trail of fire in her mind to link them-once and for all... to meet the destroyer face to face... to learn who he is and where he goes to vanish... not the motor... he is not to carry the motor away into the darkness of his monstrously closed unknown... he is not to escape, this time....\n\nA band of light was rising in the east and it seemed to come from the earth, as a breath long-held and released. In the deep blue above it, the stranger's plane was a single spark changing color and flashing from side to side, like the tip of a pendulum swinging in the darkness, beating time.\n\nThe curve of distance made the spark drop closer to the earth, and she pushed her throttle wide open, not to let the spark out of her sight, not to let it touch the horizon and vanish. The light was flowing into the sky, as if drawn from the earth by the stranger's plane. The plane was headed southeast, and she was following it into the coming sunrise.\n\nFrom the transparent green of ice, the sky melted into pale gold, and the gold spread into a lake under a fragile film of pink glass, the color of that forgotten morning which was the first she had seen on earth. The clouds were dropping away in long shreds of smoky blue. She kept her eyes on the stranger's plane, as if her glance were a towline pulling her ship. The stranger's plane was now a small black cross, like a shrinking check mark on the glowing sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she noticed that the clouds were not dropping, that they stood congealed on the edge of the earth-and she realized that the plane was headed toward the mountains of Colorado, that the struggle against the invisible storm lay ahead for her once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She noted it without emotion; she did not wonder whether her ship or her body had the power to attempt it again. So long as she was able to move, she would move to follow the speck that was fleeing away with the last of her world. She felt nothing but the emptiness left by afire that had been hatred and anger and the desperate impulse of a fight to the kill; these had fused into a single icy streak, the single resolve to follow the stranger, whoever he was, wherever he took her, to follow and... she added nothing in her mind, but, unstated, what lay at the bottom of the emptiness was: and give her life, if she could take his first.\n\nLike an instrument set to automatic control, her body was performing the motions of driving the plane-with the mountains reeling in a bluish fog below and the dented peaks rising in her path as smoky formations of a deadlier blue. She noticed that the distance to the stranger's plane had shrunk: he had checked his speed for the dangerous crossing, while she had gone on, unconscious of the danger, with only the muscles of her arms and legs fighting to keep her plane aloft. A brief, tight movement of her lips was as close as she could come to a smile: it was he who was flying her plane for her, she thought; he had given her the power to follow him with a somnambulist's unerring skill.\n\nAs if responding of itself to his control, the needle of her altimeter was slowly moving upward. She was rising and she went on rising and she wondered when her breath and her propeller would fail.\n\nHe was going southeast, toward the highest mountains that obstructed the path of the sun.\n\nIt was his plane that was struck by the first sunray. It flashed for an instant, like a burst of white fire, sending rays to shoot from its wings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The peaks of the mountains came next: she saw the sunlight reaching the snow in the crevices, then trickling down the granite sides; it cut violent shadows on the ledges and brought the mountains into the Jiving finality of a form.\n\nThey were flying over the wildest stretch of Colorado, uninhabited, uninhabitable, inaccessible to men on foot or plane. No landing was possible within a radius of a hundred miles; she glanced at her fuel gauge: she had one half-hour left. The stranger was heading straight toward another, higher range. She wondered why he chose a course no air route did or ever would travel. She wished this range were behind her; it was the last effort she could hope to make.\n\nThe stranger's plane was suddenly slacking its speed. He was losing altitude just when she had expected him to climb. The granite barrier was rising In his path, moving to meet him, reaching for his wings-but the long, smooth line of his motion was sliding down. She could detect no break, no jolt, no sign of mechanical failure; it looked like the even movement of a controlled intention. With a sudden flash of sunlight on its wings, the plane banked into along curve, rays dripping like water from its body-then went into the broad, smooth circles of a spiral, as if circling fora landing where no landing was conceivable.\n\nShe watched, not trying to explain it, not believing what she saw, waiting for the upward thrust that would throw him back on his course. But the easy, gliding circles went on dropping, toward aground she could not see and dared not think of... Like remnants of broken jaws, strings of granite dentures stood between her ship and his; she could not tell what lay at the bottom of his spiral motion.\n\nShe knew only that it did not look like, but was certain to be, the motion of a suicide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the sunlight glitter on his wings for an instant. Then, like the body of a man diving chest-first and arms outstretched, serenely abandoned to the sweep of the fall, the plane went down and vanished behind the ridges of rock.\n\nShe flew on, almost waiting for it to reappear, unable to believe that she had witnessed a horrible catastrophe taking place so simply and quietly. She flew onto where the plane had dropped. It seemed to be a valley in a ring of granite walls.\n\nShe reached the valley and looked down. There was no possible place fora landing. There was no sign of a plane.\n\nThe bottom of the valley looked like a stretch of the earth's crust mangled in the days when the earth was cooling, left irretrievable ever since. It was a stretch of rocks ground against one another, with boulders hanging in precarious formations, with long, dark crevices and a few contorted pine trees growing half-horizontally into the air.\n\nThere was no level piece of soil the size of a handkerchief. There was no place fora plane to hide. There was no remnant of a plane's wreck.\n\nShe banked sharply, circling above the valley, dropping down a little. By some trick of light, which she could not explain, the floor of the valley seemed more clearly visible than the rest of the earth.\n\nShe could distinguish it well enough to, know that the plane was not there; yet this was not possible.\n\nShe circled, dropping down farther. She glanced around her-and for one frightening moment, she thought that it was a quiet summer morning, that she was alone, lost in a region of the Rocky Mountains which no plane should ever venture to approach, and, with the last of her fuel burning away, she was looking fora plane that had never existed, inquest of a destroyer who had vanished as he always vanished; perhaps it was only his vision that had led her hereto be destroyed. In the next moment, she shook her head, pressed her mouth tighter and dropped farther." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought that she could not abandon an incalculable wealth such as the brain of Quentin Daniels on one of those rocks below, if he was still alive and within her reach to help. She had dropped inside the circle of the valley's walls. It was a dangerous job of flying, the space was much too tight, but she went on circling and dropping lower, her life hanging on her eyesight, and her eyesight flashing between two tasks: searching the floor of the valley and watching the granite walls that seemed about to rip her wings.\n\nShe knew the danger only as part of the job. It had no personal meaning any longer. The savage thing she felt was almost enjoyment. It was the last rage of a lost battle. No!-she was crying in her mind, crying it to the destroyer, to the world she had left, to the years behind her, to the long progression of defeat-No!... No!\n\n... No!...\n\nHer eyes swept past the instrument panel-and then she sat still but for the sound of a gasp. Her altimeter had stood at 11,000 feet the last time she remembered seeing it. Now it stood at 10,000. But the floor of the valley had not changed. It had come no closer. It remained as distant as at her first glance down.\n\nShe knew that the figure 8,000 meant the level of the ground in this part of Colorado. She had not noticed the length of her descent.\n\nShe had not noticed that the ground, which had seemed too clear and too close from the height, was now too dim and too far. She was looking at the same rocks from the same perspective, they had grown no larger, their shadows had not moved, and the oddly unnatural light still hungover the bottom of the valley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought that her altimeter was off, and she went on circling downward. She saw the needle of her dial moving down;, she saw the walls of granite moving up, she saw the ring of mountains growing higher, its peaks coming closer together in the sky-but the floor of the valley remained unchanged, as if she were dropping down a well with a bottom never to be reached. The needle moved to 9,500-to 9,300-to 9,000-to 8,700.\n\nThe flash of light that hither had no source. It was as if the air within and beyond the plane became an explosion of blinding cold fire, sudden and soundless. The shock threw her back, her hands off the wheel and over her eyes. In the break of an instant, when she seized the wheel again, the light was gone, but her ship was spinning. her ears were bursting with silence and her propeller stood stiffly straight before her: her motor was dead.\n\nShe tried to pull fora rise, but the ship was going down-and what she saw flying at her face was not the spread of mangled boulders, but the green grass of afield where no field had been before.\n\nThere was no time to seethe rest. There was no time to think of explanations. There was no time to come out of the spin. The earth was a green ceiling coming down upon her, a few hundred swiftly shrinking feet away.\n\nFlung from side to side, like a battered pendulum, clinging to the wheel, half in her seat, half on her knees, she fought to pull the ship into a glide, for an attempt to make a belly-landing, while the green ground was whirling about her, sweeping above her, then below, its spiral coils coming closer. Her arms pulling at the wheel, with no chance to know whether she could succeed, with her space and time running out-she felt, in a flash of its full, violent purity, that special sense of existence which had always been hers. Ina moment's consecration to her love-to her rebellious denial of disaster, to her love of life and of the matchless value that was herself-she felt the fiercely proud certainty that she would survive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in answer to the earth that flew to meet her, she heard in her mind, as her mockery at fate, as her cry of defiance, the words of the sentence she hated-the words of defeat, of despair and of a plea for help: \"Oh hell! Who is John Galt?\"\n\nPART III\n\nA is A" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she opened her eyes, she saw sunlight, green leaves and a man's face. She thought: I know what this is. This was the world as she had expected to see it at sixteen-and now she had reached it-and it seemed so simple, so unastonishing, that the thing she felt was like a blessing pronounced upon the universe by means of three words: But of course.\n\nShe was looking up at the face of a man who knelt by her side, and she knew that in all the years behind her, this was what she would have given her life to see: a face that bore no mark of pain or fear or guilt. The shape of his mouth was pride, and more: it was as if he took pride in being proud. The angular planes of his cheeks made her think of arrogance, of tension, of scorn-yet the face had none of these qualities, it had their final sum: a look of serene determination and of certainty, and the look of a ruthless innocence which would not seek forgiveness or grant it. It was a face that had nothing to hide or to escape, a face with no fear of being seen, or of seeing, so that the first thing she grasped about him was the intense perceptiveness of his eyes-he looked as if his faculty of sight were his best-loved tool and its exercise were a limitless, joyous adventure, as if his eyes imparted a superlative value to himself and to the world-to himself for his ability to see, to the world for being a place so eagerly worth seeing. It seemed to her fora moment that she was in the presence of a being who was pure consciousness-yet she had never been so aware of a man's body. The light cloth of his shirt seemed to stress, rather than hide, the structure of his figure, his skin was suntanned, his body had the hardness, the gaunt, tensile strength, the clean precision of a foundry casting, he looked as if he were poured out of metal, but some dimmed, soft-lustered metal, like an aluminum-copper alloy, the color of his skin blending with the chestnut-brown of his hair, the loose strands of the hair shading from brown to gold in the sun, and his eyes completing the colors, as the one part of the casting left undimmed and harshly lustrous: his eyes were the deep, dark green of light glinting on metal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was looking down at her with the faint trace of a smile, it was not a look of discovery, but of familiar contemplation-as if he, too, were seeing the long-expected and the never-doubted.\n\nThis washer world, she thought, this was the way men were meant to be and to face their existence-and all the rest of it, all the years of ugliness and struggle were only someone's senseless joke. She smiled at him, as at a fellow conspirator, in relief, in deliverance, in radiant mockery of all the things she would never have to consider important again. He smiled in answer, it was the same smile as her own, as if he felt what she felt and knew what she meant.\n\n\"We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?\" she whispered.\n\n\"No, we never had to.\"\n\nAnd then, her consciousness returning fully, she realized that this man was a total stranger.\n\nShe tried to draw away from him, but it was only a faint movement of her head on the grass she felt under her hair. She tried to rise.\n\nA shot of pain across her back threw her down again.\n\n\"Don't move, Miss Taggart. You're hurt.\"\n\n\"You know me?\" Her voice was impersonal and hard.\n\n\"I've known you for many years.\"\n\n\"Have I known you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think so.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"John Galt.\"\n\nShe looked at him, not moving.\n\n\"Why are you frightened?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because I believe it.\"\n\nHe smiled, as if grasping a full confession of the meaning she attached to his name; the smile held an adversary's acceptance of a challenge-and an adult's amusement at the self-deception of a child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt as if she were returning to consciousness after a crash that had shattered more than an airplane. She could not reassemble the pieces now, she could not recall the things she had known about his name, she knew only that it stood fora dark vacuum which she would slowly have to fill. She could not do it now, this man was too blinding a presence, like a spotlight that would not let her seethe shapes strewn hi the outer darkness.\n\n\"Was it you that I was following?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe glanced slowly around her. She was lying in the grass of afield at the foot of a granite drop that came down from thousands of feet away in the blue sky. On the other edge of the field, some crags and pines and the glittering leaves of birch trees hid the space that stretched to a distant wall of encircling mountains. Her plane was not shattered-it was there, a few feet away, flat on its belly in the grass. There was no other plane insight, no structures, no sign of human habitation.\n\n\"What is this valley?\" she asked.\n\nHe smiled, \"The Taggart Terminal.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"You'll find out.\"\n\nA dim impulse, like the recoil of an antagonist, made her want to check on what strength was left to her. She could move her arms and legs; she could lift her head; she felt a stabbing pain when she breathed deeply; she saw a thin thread of blood running down her stocking.\n\n\"Can one get out of this place?\" she asked.\n\nHis voice seemed earnest, but the glint of the metal-green eyes was a smile: \"Actually-no. Temporarily-yes.\"\n\nShe made a movement to rise. He bent to lift her, but she gathered her strength in a swift, sudden jolt and slipped out of his grasp, struggling to stand up. \"I think I can-\" she started saying, and collapsed against him the instant her feet rested on the ground, a stab of pain shooting up from an ankle that would not hold her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lifted her in his arms and smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, you can't, Miss Taggart,\" he said, and started off across the field.\n\nShe lay still, her arms about him, her head on his shoulder, and she thought: For just a few moments-while this lasts-it is all right to surrender completely-to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel.... When had she experienced it before?-she wondered; there had been a moment when these had been the words in her mind, but she could not remember it now. She had known it, once-this feeling of certainty, of the final, the reached, the not-to-be-questioned. But it was new to feel protected, and to feel that it was right to accept the protection, to surrender-right, because this peculiar sense of safety was not protection against the future, but against the past, not the protection of being spared from battle, but of having won it, not a protection granted to her weakness, but to her strength.... Aware with abnormal intensity of the pressure of his hands against her body, of the gold and copper threads of his hair, the shadows of his lashes on the skin of his face a few inches away from hers, she wondered dimly: Protected, from what?... it's he who was the enemy... was he?\n\n... why?... She did not know, she could not think of it now. It took an effort to remember that she had had a goal and a motive a few hours ago. She forced herself to recapture it.\n\n\"Did you know that I was following you?\" she asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Where is your plane?\"\n\n\"At the landing field.\"\n\n\"Where is the landing field?\"\n\n\"On the other side of the valley.\"\n\n\"There was no landing field in this valley, when I looked down, There was no meadow, either. How did it get here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced at the sky. \"Look carefully. Do you see anything up there?\"\n\nShe dropped her head back, looking straight into the sky, seeing nothing but the peaceful blue of morning. After awhile she distinguished a few faint strips of shimmering air.\n\n\"Heatwaves,\" she said.\n\n\"Refractor rays,\" he answered. \"The valley bottom that you saw is a mountaintop eight thousand feet high, five miles away from here.\"\n\n\"A... what?\"\n\n\"A mountaintop that no flyer would ever choose fora landing.\n\nWhat you saw was its reflection projected over this valley.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By the same method as a mirage on a desert: an image refracted from a layer of heated air.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By a screen of rays calculated against everything-except a courage such as yours.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I never thought that any plane would attempt to drop within seven hundred feet of the ground. You hit the ray screen. Some of the rays are the kind that kill magnetic motors. Well, that's the second time you beat me: I've never been followed, either,\"\n\n\"Why do you keep that screen?\"\n\n\"Because this place is private property intended to remain as such.\"\n\n\"What is this place?\"\n\n\"I'll show it to you, now that you're here, Miss Taggart. I'll answer questions after you've seen it.\"\n\nShe remained silent. She noticed that she had asked questions about every subject, but not about him. It was as if he were a single whole, grasped by her first glance at him, like some irreducible absolute, like an axiom not to be explained any further, as if she knew everything about him by direct perception, and what awaited her now was only the process of identifying her knowledge." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the tale as the plot helper for the writer.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A mint?\" she asked. \"What's Mulligan doing with a mint?\" Galt reached into his pocket and dropped two small coins into the palm of her hand. They were miniature disks of shining gold, smaller than pennies, the kind that had not been in circulation since the days of Nat Taggart; they bore the head of the Statue of Liberty on one side, the words'United States of America-One Dollar\" on the other, but the dates stamped upon them were of the past two years.\n\n\"That's the money we use here,\" he said. \"It's minted by Midas Mulligan.\"\n\n\"But... on whose authority?\"\n\n\"That's stated on the coin-on both sides of it.\"\n\n\"What do you use for small change?\"\n\n\"Mulligan mints that, too, in silver. We don't accept any other currency in this valley. We accept nothing but objective values.\"\n\nShe was studying the coins. \"This looks like... like something from the first morning in the age of my ancestors.\"\n\nHe pointed at the valley, \"Yes, doesn't it?\"\n\nShe sat looking at the two thin, delicate, almost weightless drops of gold in the palm of her hand, knowing that the whole of the Taggart Transcontinental system had rested upon them, that this had been the keystone supporting all the keystones, all the arches, all the girders of the Taggart track, the Taggart Bridge, the Taggart Building.... She shook her head and slipped the coins back into his hand.\n\n\"You're not making it easier for me,\" she said, her voice low.\n\n\"I'm making it as hard as possible.\"\n\n\"Why don't you say it? Why don't you tell me all the things you want me to learn?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gesture of his arm pointed at the town, at the road behind them.\n\n\"What have I been doing?\" he asked.\n\nThey drove on in silence. After awhile, she asked, in the tone of a dryly statistical inquiry, \"How much of a fortune has Midas Mulligan amassed in this valley?\"\n\nHe pointed ahead. \"Judge for yourself.\"\n\nThe road was winding through stretches of unleveled soil toward the homes of the valley. The homes were not lined along a street, they were spread at irregular intervals over the rises and hollows of the ground, they were small and simple, built of local materials, mostly of granite and pine, with a prodigal ingenuity of thought and a tight economy of physical effort. Every house looked as if it had been put up by the labor of one man, no two houses were alike, and the only quality they had in common was the stamp of a mind grasping a problem and solving it. Galt pointed out a house, once in awhile, choosing the names she knew-and it sounded to her like a list of quotations from the richest stock exchange in the world, or like a roll call of honor: \"Ken Danagger... Ted Nielsen... Lawrence Hammond... Roger Marsh... Ellis Wyatt... Owen Kellogg... Dr. Akston.\"\n\nThe home of Dr. Akston was the last, a small cottage with a large terrace, lifted on the crest of a wave against the rising walls of the mountains. The road went past it and climbed on into the coils of an ascending grade. The pavement shrank to a narrow path between two walls of ancient pines, their tall, straight trunks pressing against it like a grim colonnade, their branches meeting above, swallowing the path into sudden silence and twilight. There were no marks of wheels on the thin strip of earth, it looked unused and forgotten, a few minutes and a few turns seemed to take the car miles away from human habitation-and then there was nothing to break the pressure of the stillness but a rare wedge of sunlight cutting across the trunks in the depth of the forest once in awhile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sudden sight of a house on the edge of the path struck her like the shock of an unexpected sound: builtin loneliness, cutoff from all ties to human existence, it looked like the secret retreat of some great defiance or sorrow. It was the humblest home of the valley, a log cabin beaten in dark streaks by the tears of many rains, only its great windows withstanding the storms with the smooth, shining, untouched serenity of glass.\n\n\"Whose house is... Oh!\"-she caught her breath and jerked her head away. Above the door, hit by a ray of sun, its design blurred and worn, battered smooth by the winds of centuries, hung the silver coat of-arms of Sebastian d'Anconia.\n\nAs if in deliberate answer to her involuntary movement of escape, Galt stopped the car in front of the house. Fora moment, they held each other's eyes: her glance was a question, his a command, her face had a defiant frankness, his an unrevealing severity; she understood his purpose, but not his motive. She obeyed. Leaning on her cane, she stepped out of the car, then stood erect, facing the house.\n\nShe looked at the silver crest that had come from a marble palace in Spain to a shack in the Andes to a log cabin in Colorado-the crest of the men who would not submit. The door of the cabin was locked, the sun did not reach into the glazed darkness beyond the windows, and pine branches hung outstretched above the roof like arms spread in protection, in compassion, in solemn blessing. With no sound but the snap of a twig or the ring of a drop falling somewhere in the forest through long stretches of moments, the silence seemed to holdall the pain that had been hidden here, but never given voice. She stood, listening with a gentle, resigned, unlamenting respect: Let's see who'll do greater honor, you-to Nat Taggart, or I-to Sebastian d'Anconia...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dagny!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Help me to remain. To refuse. Even though he's right!...\n\nShe turned to look at Galt, knowing that he was the man against whom she had had no help to offer. He sat at the wheel of the car, he had not followed her or moved to assist her, as if he had wanted her to acknowledge the past and had respected the privacy of her lonely salute. She noticed that he still sat as she had left him, his forearm leaning against the wheel at the same angle, the fingers of his hand hanging down in the same sculptured position. His eyes were watching her, but that was all she could read in his face: that he had watched her intently, without moving.\n\nWhen she was seated beside him once more, he said, \"That was the first man I took away from you.\"\n\nShe asked, her face stern, open and quietly defiant, \"How much do you know about that?\"\n\n\"Nothing that he told me in words. Everything that the tone of his voice told me whenever he spoke of you.\"\n\nShe inclined her head. She had caught the sound of suffering in the faintest exaggeration of evenness in his voice.\n\nHe pressed the starter, the motor's explosion blasted the story contained in the silence, and they drove on., The path widened a little, streaming toward a pool of sunlight ahead.\n\nShe saw a brief glitter of wires among the branches, as they drove out into a clearing. An unobtrusive little structure stood against a hillside, on arising slant of rocky ground. It was a simple cube of granite, the size of a toolshed, it had no windows, no apertures of any kind, only a door of polished steel and a complex set of wire antennae branching out from the roof. Galt was driving past, leaving it unnoticed, when she asked with a sudden start, \"What's that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the faint break of his smile. \"The powerhouse.\"\n\n\"Oh, stop, please!\"\n\nHe obeyed, backing the car to the foot of the hillside. It washer first few steps up the rocky incline that stopped her, as if there were no need to move forward, no further place to rise-and she stood as in the moment when she had opened her eyes on the earth of the valley, a moment uniting her beginning to her goal.\n\nShe stood looking up at the structure, her consciousness surrendered to a single sight and a single, wordless emotion-but she had always known that an emotion was a sum totaled by an adding machine of the mind, and what she now felt was the instantaneous total of the thoughts she did not have to name, the final sum of along progression, like a voice telling her by means of a feeling: If she had held onto Ouentin Daniels, with no hope of a chance to use the motor, for the sole sake of knowing that achievement had not died on earth-if, like a weighted diver sinking in an ocean of mediocrity, under the pressure of men with gelatin eyes, rubber voices, spiral-shaped convictions, noncommittal souls and non-committing hands, she had held, as her lifeline and oxygen tube, the thought of a superlative achievement of the human mind-if, at the sight of the motor's remnant, in a sudden gasp of suffocation, as a last protest from his corruption-eaten lungs, Dr.\n\nStadler had cried for something, not to look down at, but up to, and this had been the cry, the longing and the fuel of her life-if she had moved, drawn by the hunger of her youth fora sight of clean, hard, radiant competence-then here it was before her, reached and done, the power of an incomparable mind given shape in a net of wires sparkling peacefully under a summer sky, drawing an incalculable power out of space into the secret interior of a small stone hovel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought of this structure, half the size of a boxcar, replacing the power plants of the country, the enormous conglomerations of steel, fuel and effort-she thought of the current flowing from this structure, lifting ounces, pounds, tons of strain from the shoulders of those who would make it or use it, adding hours, days and years of liberated time to their lives, be it an extra moment to lift one's head from one's task and glance at the sunlight, or an extra pack of cigarettes bought with the money saved from one's electric bill, or an hour cut from the workday of every factory using power, or a month's journey through the whole, open width of the world, on a ticket paid for by one day of one's labor, on a train pulled by the power of this motor-with all the energy of that weight, that strain, that time replaced and paid for by the energy of a single mind who had known how to make connections of wire follow the connections of his thought. But she knew that there was no meaning in motors or factories or trains, that their only meaning was in man's enjoyment of his life, which they served-and that her swelling admiration at the sight of an achievement was for the man from whom it came, for the power and the radiant vision within him which had seen the earth as a place of enjoyment and had known that the work of achieving one's happiness was the purpose, the sanction and the meaning of life.\n\nThe door of the structure was a straight, smooth sheet of stainless steel, softly lustrous and bluish in the sun. Above it, cut in the granite, as the only feature of the building's rectangular austerity, there stood an inscription: I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER\n\nMAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR MINE." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned to Galt. He stood beside her; he had followed her, he had known that this salute was his. She was looking at the inventor of the motor, but what she saw was the easy, casual figure of a workman in his natural setting and function-she noted the uncommon lightness of his posture, a weightless way of standing that showed an expert control of the use of his body-a tall body in simple garments: a thin shirt, light slacks, a belt about a slender waistline-and loose hair made to glitter like metal by the current of a sluggish wind. She looked at him as she had looked at his structure.\n\nThen she knew that the first two sentences they had said to each other still hung between them, filling the silence-that everything said since, had been said over the sound of those words, that he had known it, had held it, had not let her forget it. She was suddenly aware that they were alone; it was an awareness that stressed the fact, permitting no further implication, yet holding the full meaning of the unnamed in that special stress. They were alone in a silent forest, at the foot of a structure that looked like an ancient temple-and she knew what rite was the proper form of worship to be offered on an altar of that kind.\n\nShe felt a sudden pressure at the base of her throat, her head leaned back a little, no more than to feel the faint shift of a current against her hair, but it was as if she were lying back in space, against the wind, conscious of nothing but his legs and the shape of his mouth. He stood watching her, his face still but for the faint movement of his eyelids drawing narrow as if against too strong alight. It was like the beat of three instants-this was the first-and in the next, she felt a stab of ferocious triumph at the knowledge that his effort and his struggle were harder to endure than hers-and, then he moved his eyes and raised his head to look at the inscription on the temple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She let him look at it fora moment, almost as an act of condescending mercy to an adversary struggling to refuel his strength, then she asked, with a note of imperious pride in her voice, pointing at the inscription, \"What's that?\"\n\n\"It's the oath that was taken by every person in this valley, but you.\"\n\nShe said, looking at the words, \"This has always been my own rule of living.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"But I don't think that yours is the way to practice it.\"\n\n\"Then you'll have to learn which one of us is wrong.\"\n\nShe walked up to the steel door of the structure, with a sudden confidence faintly stressed in the movements of her body, a mere hint of stress, no more than her awareness of the power she held by means of his pain-and she tried, asking no permission, to turn the knob of the door. But the door was locked, and she felt no tremor under the pressure of her hand, as if the lock were poured and sealed to the stone with the solid steel of the sheet.\n\n\"Don't try to open that door, Miss Taggart\"\n\nHe approached her, his steps a shade too slow, as if stressing his knowledge of her awareness of every step. \"No amount of physical force will do it,\" he said. \"Only a thought can open that door. If you tried to break it down by means of the best explosives in the world, the machinery inside would collapse into rubble long before the door would give way. But reach the thought which it requires-and the secret of the motor will be yours, as well as\"-it was the first break she had heard in his voice-\"as well as any other secret you might wish to know.\"\n\nHe faced her fora moment, as if leaving himself open to her full understanding, then smiled oddly, quietly at some thought of his own, and added, \"I'll show you how it's done.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped back. Then, standing still, his face raised to the words carved in the stone, he repeated them slowly, evenly, as if taking that oath once more. There was no emotion in his voice, nothing but the spaced clarity of the sounds he pronounced with full knowledge of their meaning-but she knew that she was witnessing the most solemn moment it would ever be given her to witness, she was seeing a man's naked soul and the cost it had paid to utter these words, she was hearing an echo of the day when he had pronounced that oath for the first time and with full knowledge of the years ahead-she knew what manner of man had stood up to face six thousand others on a dark spring night and why they had been afraid of him, she knew that this was the birth and the core of all the things that had happened to the world in the twelve years since, she knew that this was of far greater import than the motor hidden inside the structure-she knew it, to the sound of a man's voice pronouncing in self-reminder and rededication: \"I swear by my life... and my love of it... that I will never live for the sake of another man... nor ask another man... to live... for mine.\"\n\nIt did not startle her, it seemed unastonishing and almost unimportant, that at the end of the last sound, she saw the door opening slowly, without human touch, moving inward upon a growing strip of darkness.\n\nIn the moment when an electric light went on inside the structure, he seized the knob and pulled the door shut, its lock clicking sealed once more.\n\n\"It's a sound lock,\" he said; his face was serene. \"That sentence is the combination of sounds needed to open it. I don't mind telling you this secret-because I know that you won't pronounce those words until you mean them the way I intended them to be meant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She inclined her head. \"I won't.\"\n\nShe followed him down to the car, slowly, feeling suddenly too exhausted to move. She fell back against the seat, closing her eyes, barely hearing the sound of the starter. The accumulated strain and shock of her sleepless hours hither at once, breaking through the barrier of the tension her nerves had held to delay it. She lay still, unable to think, to reactor to struggle, drained of all emotions but one.\n\nShe did not speak. She did not open her eyes until the car stopped in front of his house.\n\n\"You'd better rest,\" he said, \"and go to sleep right now, if you want to attend Mulligan's dinner tonight.\"\n\nShe nodded obediently. She staggered to the house, avoiding his help. She made an effort to tell him, \"I'll be all right,\" then to escape to the safety of her room and last long enough to close the door.\n\nShe collapsed, face down, on the bed. It was not the mere fact of physical exhaustion. It was the sudden monomania of a sensation too complete to endure. While the strength of her body was gone, while her mind had lost the faculty of consciousness, a single emotion drew on her remnants of energy, of understanding, of judgment, of control, leaving her nothing to resist it with or to direct it, making her unable to desire, only to feel, reducing her to a mere sensation-a static sensation without start or goal. She kept seeing his figure in her mind-his figure as he had stood at the door of the structure-she felt nothing else, no wish, no hope, no estimate of her feeling, no name for it, no relation to herself-there was no entity such as herself, she was not a person, only a function, the function of seeing him, and the sight was its own meaning and purpose, with no further end to reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face buried in the pillow, she recalled dimly, as a faint sensation, the moment of her take-off from the floodlighted strip of the Kansas airfield. She felt the beat of the engine, the streak of accelerating motion gathering power in a straight-line run to a single goal-and in the moment when the wheels left the ground, she was asleep.\n\nThe floor of the valley was like a pool still reflecting the glow of the sky, but the light was thickening from gold to copper, the shores were fading and the peaks were smoke-blue-when they drove to Mulligan's house.\n\nThere was no trace of exhaustion left in her bearing and no remnant of violence. She had awakened at sundown; stepping out of her room, she had found Galt waiting, sitting idly motionless in the light of a lamp. He had glanced up at her; she had stood in the doorway, her face composed, her hair smooth, her posture relaxed and confident-she had looked as she would have looked on the threshold of her office in the Taggart Building, but for the slight angle of her body leaning on a cane. He had sat looking at her fora moment, and she had wondered why she had felt certain that this was the image he was seeing-he was seeing the doorway of her office, as if it were a sight long-imagined and long-forbidden.\n\nShe sat beside him in the car, feeling no desire to speak, knowing that neither of them could conceal the meaning of their silence. She watched a few lights come up in the distant homes of the valley, then the lighted windows of Mulligan's house on the ledge ahead. She asked, \"Who will be there?\"\n\n\"Some of your last friends,\" he answered, \"and some of my first.\"\n\nMidas Mulligan met them at the door. She noticed that his grim, square face was not as harshly expressionless as she had thought: he had a look of satisfaction, but satisfaction could not soften his features, it merely struck them like flint and sent sparks of humor to glitter faintly in the corners of his eyes, a humor that was shrewder, more demanding, yet warmer than a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened the door of his house, moving his arm a shade more slowly than normal, giving an imperceptibly solemn emphasis to his gesture.\n\nWalking into the living room, she faced seven men who rose to their feet at her entrance.\n\n\"Gentlemen-Taggart Transcontinental,\" said Midas Mulligan.\n\nHe said it smiling, but only half-jesting; some quality in his voice made the name of the railroad sound as it would have sounded in the days of Nat Taggart, as a sonorous title of honor.\n\nShe inclined her head, slowly, in acknowledgment to the men before her, knowing that these were the men whose standards of value and honor were the same as her own, the men who recognized the glory of that title as she recognized it, knowing with a sudden stab of wistfulness how much she had longed for that recognition through all her years.\n\nHer eyes moved slowly, in greeting, from face to face: Ellis Wyatt-Ken Danagger-Hugh Akston-Dr. Hendricks-Quentin Daniels-Mulligan's voice pronounced the names of the two others: \"Richard Halley-Judge Narragansett.\"\n\nThe faint smile on Richard Halley's face seemed to tell her that they had known each other for years-as, in her lonely evenings by the side of her phonograph, they had. The austerity of Judge Narragansett's white-haired figure reminded her that she had once heard him described as a marble statue-a blindfolded marble statue; it was the kind of figure that had vanished from the courtrooms of the country when the gold coins had vanished from the country's hands.\n\n\"You have belonged here fora longtime, Miss Taggart,\" said Midas Mulligan. \"This was not the way we expected you to come, but-welcome home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-she wanted to answer, but heard herself answering softly, \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Dagny, how many years is it going to take you to learn to be yourself?\" It was Ellis Wyatt, grasping her elbow, leading her to a chair, grinning at her look of helplessness, at the struggle between a smile and a tightening resistance in her face. \"Don't pretend that you don't understand us. You do.\"\n\n\"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart,\" said Hugh Akston. \" That is the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell-we show.\n\nWe do not claim-we prove. It is not your obedience that we seek to win, but your rational conviction. You have seen all the elements of our secret. The conclusion is now yours to draw-we can help you to name it, but not to accept it-the sight, the knowledge and the acceptance must be yours.\"\n\n\"I feel as if I know it,\" she answered simply, \"and more: I feel as if I've always known it, but never found it, and now I'm afraid, not afraid to hear it, just afraid that it's coming so close.\"\n\nAkston smiled. \"What does this look like to you, Miss Taggart?\" He pointed around the room.\n\n\"This?\" She laughed suddenly, looking at the faces of the men against the golden sunburst of rays filling the great windows. \"This looks like... You know, I never hoped to see any of you again, I wondered at times how much I'd give for just one more glimpse or one more word-and now-now this is like that dream you imagine in childhood, when you think that someday, in heaven, you will see those great departed whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, that's one clue to the nature of our secret,\" said Akston.\n\n\"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves-or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she whispered.\n\n\"And if you met those great men in heaven,\" asked Ken Danagger, \"what would you want to say to them?\"\n\n\"Just... just \"hello,\" I guess.\"\n\n\"That's not all,\" said Danagger. \"There's something you'd want to hear from them. I didn't know it, either, until I saw him for the first time\"-he pointed to Galt-\"and he said it tome, and then I knew what it was that I had missed all my life. Miss Taggart, you'd want them to look at you and to say,\"Well done\"\" She dropped her head and nodded silently, head down, not to let him seethe sudden spurt of tears to her eyes. \"All right, then: Well done, Dagny!-well done-too well-and now it's time for you to rest from that burden which none of us should ever have had to carry.\"\n\n\"Shut up,\" said Midas Mulligan, looking at her bowed head with anxious concern.\n\nBut she raised her head, smiling. \"Thank you,\" she said to Danagger.\n\n\"If you talk about resting, then let her rest,\" said Mulligan. \"She's had too much for one day.\"\n\n\"No.\" She smiled. \"Go ahead, say it-whatever it is.\"\n\n\"Later,\" said Mulligan.\n\nIt was Mulligan and Akston who served dinner, with Quentin Daniels to help them. They served it on small silver trays, to be placed on the arms of the chairs-and they all sat about the room, with the fire of the sky fading in the windows and sparks of electric light glittering in the wineglasses. There was an air of luxury about the room, but it was the luxury of expert simplicity; she noted the costly furniture, carefully chosen for comfort, bought somewhere at a time when luxury had still been an art. There were no superfluous objects, but she noticed a small canvas by a great master of the Renaissance, worth a fortune, she noticed an Oriental rug of a texture and color that belonged under glass in a museum. This was Mulligan's concept of wealth, she thought-the wealth of selection, not of accumulation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quentin Daniels sat on the floor, with his tray on his lap; he seemed completely at home, and he glanced up at her once in awhile, grinning like an impudent kid brother who had beaten her to a secret she had not discovered. He had preceded her into the valley by some ten minutes, she thought, but he was one of them, while she was still a stranger.\n\nGalt sat aside, beyond the circle of lamplight, on the arm of Dr.\n\nAkston's chair. He had not said a word, he had stepped back and turned her over to the others, and he sat watching it as a spectacle in which he had no further part to play. But her eyes kept coming back to him, drawn by the certainty that the spectacle was of his choice and staging, that he had set it in motion long ago, and that all the others knew it as she knew it.\n\nShe noticed another person who was intensely aware of Galt's presence: Hugh Akston glanced up at him once in awhile, involuntarily, almost surreptitiously, as if struggling not to confess the loneliness of along separation. Akston did not speak to him, as if taking his presence for granted. But once, when Galt bent forward and a strand of hair fell down across his face, Akston reached over and brushed it back, his hand lingering for an imperceptible instant on his pupil's forehead: it was the only break of emotion he permitted himself, the only greeting; it was the gesture of a father.\n\nShe found herself talking to the men around her, relaxing in lighthearted comfort. No, she thought, what she felt was not strain, it was a dim astonishment at the strain which she should, but did not, feel; the abnormality of it was that it seemed so normal and simple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was barely aware of her questions, as she spoke to one man after another, but their answers were printing a record in her mind, moving sentence by sentence to a goal.\n\n\"The Fifth Concerto?\" said Richard Halley, in answer to her question. \" I wrote it ten years ago. We call it the Concerto of Deliverance.\n\nThank you for recognizing it from a few notes whistled in the night.\n\n... Yes, I know about that.... Yes, since you knew my work, you would know, when you heard it, that this Concerto said everything I had been struggling to say and reach. It's dedicated to him.\"He pointed to Galt.\" Why, no, Miss Taggart, I haven't given up music, What makes you think so? I've written more in the last ten years than in any other period of my life. I will play it for you, any of it, when you come to my house.... No, Miss Taggart, it will not be published outside. Not a note of it will be heard beyond these mountains.\"\n\n\"No, Miss Taggart, I have not given up medicine,\" said Dr. Hendricks, in answer to her question. \" I have spent the last six years on research. I have discovered a method to protect the blood vessels of the brain from that fatal rupture which is known as a brain stroke. It will remove from human existence the terrible threat of sudden paralysis.\n\n... No, not a word of my method will be heard outside.\"\n\n\"The law, Miss Taggart?\" said Judge Narragansett. \" What law? I did not give it up-it has ceased to exist. But I am still working in the profession I had chosen, which was that of serving the cause of justice.\n\n... No, justice has not ceased to exist. How could it? It is possible for men to abandon their sight of it, and then it is justice that destroys them. But it is not possible for justice to go out of existence, because one is an attribute of the other, because justice is the act of acknowledging that which exists.... Yes, I am continuing in my profession. I am writing a treatise on the philosophy of law, I shall demonstrate that humanity's darkest evil, the most destructive horror machine among all the devices of men, is non-objective law.... No, Miss Taggart, my treatise will not be published outside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My business, Miss Taggart?\" said Midas Mulligan. \"My business is blood transfusion-and I'm still doing it. My job is to feed a life-fuel into the plants that are capable of growing. But ask Dr. Hendricks whether any amount of blood will save a body that refuses to function, a rotten hulk that expects to exist without effort. My blood bank is gold. Gold is a fuel that will perform wonders, but no fuel can work where there is no motor.... No, I haven't given up. I merely got fed up with the job of running a slaughterhouse, where one drains blood out of healthy living beings and pumps it into gutless half-corpses.\"\n\n\"Given up?\" said Hugh Akston. \" Check your premises, Miss Taggart.\n\nNone of us has given up. It is the world that has.... What is wrong with a philosopher running a roadside diner? Ora cigarette factory, as I am doing now? All work is an act of philosophy. And when men will learn to consider productive work-and that which is its source-as the standard of their moral values, they will reach that state of perfection which is the birthright they lost.... The source of work? Man's mind, Miss Taggart, man's reasoning mind. I am writing a book on this subject, defining amoral philosophy that I learned from my own pupil.... Yes, it could save the world.... No, it will not be published outside.\"\n\n\"Why?\" she cried. \"Why? What are you doing, all of you?\"\n\n\"We are on strike,\" said John Galt.\n\nThey all turned to him, as if they had been waiting for his voice and for that word. She heard the empty beat of time within her, which was the sudden silence of the room, as she looked at him across a span of lamplight. He sat slouched casually on the arm of a chair, leaning forward, his forearm across his knees, his hand hanging down idly-and it was the faint smile on his face that gave to his words the deadly sound of the irrevocable: \" Why should this seem so startling? There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike inhuman history. Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable-except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Taggart. This is the mind on strike.\"\n\nShe did not move, except for the fingers of one hand that moved slowly up her cheek to her temple.\n\n\"Through all the ages,\" he said, \" the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter-every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation-every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad-have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent to which-in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of philosophers, in the shops of traders-some men continued to think, only to that extent was humanity able to survive. Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice-it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction-only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human, and only the sum of such moments permitted them to continue to exist. It was the man of the mind who taught them to bake their bread, to heal their wounds, to forge their weapons and to build the jails into which they threw him. He was the man of extravagant energy-and reckless generosity-who knew that stagnation is not man's fate, that impotence is not his nature, that the ingenuity of his mind is his noblest and most joyous power-and in service to that love of existence he was alone to feel, he went on working, working at any price, working for his despoilers, for his jailers, for his torturers, paying with his life for the privilege of saving theirs. This was his glory and his guilt-that he let them teach him to feel guilty of his glory, to accept the part of a sacrificial animal and, in punishment for the sin of intelligence, to perish on the altars of the brutes. The tragic joke of human history is that on any of the altars men erected, it was always man whom they immolated and the animal whom they enshrined. It was always the animal's attributes, not man's, that humanity worshipped: the idol of instinct and the idol of force-the mystics and the kings-the mystics, who longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason, that knowledge came in blind, causeless fits, blindly to be followed, not doubted-and the kings, who ruled by means of claws and muscles, with conquest as their method and looting as their aim, with a club or a gun as sole sanction of their power. The defenders of man's soul were concerned with his feelings, and the defenders of man's body were concerned with his stomach-but both were united against his mind. Yet no one, not the lowest of humans, is ever able fully to renounce his brain. No one has ever believed in the irrational; what they do believe in is the unjust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess. When he preaches contradictions, he does so in the knowledge that someone will accept the burden of the impossible, someone will make it work for him at the price of his own suffering or life; destruction is the price of any contradiction. It is the victims who made injustice possible. It is the men of reason who made it possible for the rule of the brute to work. The despoiling of reason has been the motive of every anti-reason creed on earth. The despoiling of ability has been the purpose of every creed that preached self-sacrifice. The despoilers have always known it. We haven't. The time has come for us to see. What we are now asked to worship, what had once been dressed as God or king, is the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent. This is the new ideal, the goal to aim at, the purpose to live for, and all men are to be rewarded according to how close they approach it. This is the age of the common man, they tell us-a title which any man may claim to the extent of such distinction as he has managed not to achieve. He will rise to a rank of nobility by means of the effort he has failed to make, he will be honored for such virtue as he has not displayed, and he will be paid for the goods which he did not produce. But we-we, who must atone for the guilt of ability-we will work to support him as he orders, with his pleasure as our only reward. Since we have the most to contribute, we will have the least to say. Since we have the better capacity to think, we will not be permitted a thought of our own. Since we have the judgment to act, we will not be permitted an action of our choice. We will work under directives and controls, issued by those who are incapable of working. They will dispose of our energy, because they have none to offer, and of our product, because they can't produce. Do you say that this is impossible, that it cannot be made to work? They know it, but it is you who don't-and they are counting on you not to know it. They are counting on you to goon, to work to the limit of the inhuman and to feed them while you last-and when you collapse, there will be another victim starting out and feeding them, while struggling to survive-and the span of each succeeding victim will be shorter, and while you'll die to leave them a railroad, your last descendant-in-spirit will die to leave them a loaf of bread.\n\nThis does not worry the looters of the moment. Their plan-like all the plans of all the royal looters of the past-is only that the loot shall last their lifetime. It has always lasted before, because in one generation they could not run out of victims. But this time-it will not last. The victims are on strike. We are on strike against martyrdom-and against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it practiced in body or inspirit. We will not deal with men on any terms but ours-and our terms area moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others. We do not seek to force our code upon them. They are free to believe what they please. But, for once, they will have to believe it and to exist-without our help. And, once and for all, they will learn the meaning of their creed. That creed has lasted for centuries solely by the sanction of the victims-by means of the victims'acceptance of punishment for breaking a code impossible to practice. But that code was intended to be broken. It is a code that thrives not on those who observe it, but on those who don't, amorality kept in existence not by virtue of its saints, but by the grace of its shiners. We have decided not to be sinners any longer. We have ceased breaking that moral code. We shall blast it out of existence forever by the one method that it can't withstand: by obeying it. We are obeying it. We are complying. In dealing with our fellowmen, we are observing their code of values to the letter and sparing them all the evils they denounce. The mind is evil? We have withdrawn the works of our minds from society, and not a single idea of ours is to be known or used by men. Ability is a selfish evil that leaves no chance to those who are less able? We have withdrawn from the competition and left all chances open to incompetents. The pursuit of wealth is greed, the root of all evil? We do not seek to make fortunes any longer. It is evil to earn more than one's bare sustenance? We take nothing but the lowliest jobs and we produce, by the effort of our muscles, no more than we consume for our immediate needs-with not a penny nor an inventive thought leftover to harm the world. It is evil to succeed, since success is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? We have ceased burdening the weak with our ambition and have left them free to prosper without us. It is evil to bean employer? We have no employment to offer. It is evil to own property? We own nothing. It is evil to enjoy one's existence in this world? There is no form of enjoyment that we seek from their world, and-this was hardest for us to attain-what we now feel for their world is that emotion which they preach as an ideal: indifference-the blank-the zero-the mark of death...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are giving men everything they've professed to want and to seek as virtue for centuries. Now let them see whether they want it.\"\n\n\"It was you who started this strike?\" she asked.\n\n\"I did.\"\n\nHe got up, he stood, hands in pockets, his face in the light-and she saw him smile with the easy, effortless, implacable amusement of certainty.\n\n\"We've heard so much about strikes,\" he said, \"and about the dependence of the uncommon man upon the common. We've heard it shouted that the industrialist is a parasite, that his workers support him, create his wealth, make his luxury possible-and what would happen to him if they walked out? Very well. I propose to show to the world who depends on whom, who supports whom, who is the source of wealth, who makes whose livelihood possible and what happens to whom when who walks out.\"\n\nThe windows were now sheets of darkness, reflecting the dots of lighted cigarettes. He picked a cigarette from a table beside him, and in the flare of a match she saw the brief sparkle of gold, the dollar sign, between his fingers.\n\n\"I quit and joined him and went on strike,\" said Hugh Akston, \" because I could not share my profession with men who claim that the qualification of an intellectual consists of denying the existence of the intellect. People would not employ a plumber who'd attempt to prove his professional excellence by asserting that there's no such thing as plumbing-but, apparently, the same standards of caution are not considered necessary in regard to philosophers. I learned from my own pupil, however, that it was I who made this possible. When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking, as fellow thinkers of a different school of thought-it is they who achieve the destruction of the mind. They grant the enemy's basic premise, thus granting the sanction of reason to formal dementia, A basic premise is an absolute that permits no co-operation with its antithesis and tolerates no tolerance. In the same manner and for the same reason as a banker may not accept and pass counterfeit money, granting it the sanction, honor and prestige of his bank, just as he may not grant the counterfeiter's demand for tolerance of a mere difference of opinion-so I may not grant the title of philosopher to Dr. Simon Pritchett or compete with him for the minds of men. Dr. Pritchett has nothing to deposit to the account of philosophy, except his declared intention to destroy it. He seeks to cash in-by means of denying it-on the power of reason among men. He seeks to stamp the mint-mark of reason upon the plans of his looting masters. He seeks to use the prestige of philosophy to purchase the enslavement of thought. But that prestige is an account which can exist only so long as I am thereto sign the checks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let him do it without me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let him-and those who entrust to him their children's minds-have exactly that which they demand: a world of intellectuals without intellect and of thinkers who proclaim that they cannot think. I am conceding it. I am complying. And when they seethe absolute reality of their non-absolute world, I will not be there and it will not be I who will pay the price of their contradictions.\"\n\n\"Dr. Akston quit on the principle of sound banking,\" said Midas Mulligan. \"I quit on the principle of love. Love is the ultimate form of recognition one grants to superlative values. It was the Hunsacker case that made me quit-that case when a court of law ordered that I honor, as first right to my depositors'funds, the demand of those who would offer proof that they had no right to demand it. I was ordered to handout money earned by men, to a worthless rotter whose only claim consisted of his inability to earn it. I was born on a farm. I knew the meaning of money. I had dealt with many men in my life. I had watched them grow. I had made my fortune by being able to spot a certain kind of man. The kind who never asked you for faith, hope and charity, but offered you facts, proof and profit. Did you know that I invested in Hank Rearden's business at the time when he was rising, when he had just beaten his way out of Minnesota to buy the steel mills in Pennsylvania? Well, when I looked at that court order on my desk, I had a vision. I saw a picture, and I saw it so clearly that it changed the looks of everything for me. I saw the bright face and the eyes of young Rearden, as he'd been when I'd met him first. I saw him lying at the foot of an altar, with his blood running down into the earth-and what stood on that altar was Lee Hunsacker, with the mucus-filled eyes, whining that he'd never had a chance.... It's strange how simple things become, once you see them clearly. It wasn't hard for me to close the bank and go: I kept seeing, for the first time in my life, what it was that I had lived for and loved.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at Judge Narragansett. \"You quit over the same case, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Judge Narragansett. \"I quit when the court of appeals reversed my ruling. The purpose for which I had chosen my work, was my resolve to be a guardian of justice. But the laws they asked me to enforce made me the executor of the vilest injustice conceivable. I was asked to use force to violate the rights of disarmed men, who came before me to seek my protection for their rights. Litigants obey the verdict of a tribunal solely on the premise that there is an objective rule of conduct, which they both accept. Now I saw that one man was to be bound by it, but the other was not, one was to obey a rule, the other was to assert an arbitrary wish-his need-and the law was to stand on the side of the wish. Justice was to consist of upholding the unjustifiable. I quit-because I could not have borne to hear the words \"Your Honor\" addressed tome by an honest man.\"\n\nHer eyes moved slowly to Richard Halley, as if she were both pleading and afraid to hear his story. He smiled.\n\n\"I would have forgiven men for my struggle,\" said Richard Halley.\n\n\"It was their view of my success that I could not forgive. I had felt no hatred in all the years when they rejected me. If my work was new, I had to give them time to learn, if I took pride in being first to break a trail to a height of my own, I had no right to complain if others were slow to follow. That was what I had told myself through all those years-except on some nights, when I could neither wait nor believe any longer, when I cried \"why?\" but found no answer. Then, on the night when they chose to cheer me, I stood before them on the stage of a theater, thinking that this was the moment I had struggled to reach, wishing to feel it, but feeling nothing. I was seeing all the other nights behind me, hearing the \"why?\" which still had no answer-and their cheers seemed as empty as their snubs. If they had said, \"Sorry to be so late, thank you for waiting-I would have asked for nothing else and they could have had anything I had to give them. But what I saw in their faces, and in the way they spoke when they crowded to praise me, was the thing I had heard being preached to artists-only I had never believed that anyone human could mean it. They seemed to say that they owed me nothing, that their deafness had provided me with amoral goal, that it had been my duty to struggle, to suffer, to bear-for their sake-whatever sneers, contempt, injustice, torture they chose to inflict upon me, to bear it in order to teach them to enjoy my work, that this was their rightful due and my proper purpose. And then I understood the nature of the looter-in-spirit, a thing I had never been able to conceive. I saw them reaching into my soul, just as they reach into Mulligan's pocket, reaching to expropriate the value of my person, just as they reach to expropriate his wealth-I saw the impertinent malice of mediocrity boastfully holding up its own emptiness as an abyss to be filled by the bodies of its betters-I saw them seeking, just as they seek to feed on Mulligan's money, to feed on those hours when I wrote my music and on that which made me write it, seeking to gnaw their way to self-esteem by extorting from me the admission that they were the goal of my music, so that precisely by reason of my achievement, it would not be they who'd acknowledge my value, but I who would bow to theirs.... It was that night that I took the oath never to let them hear another note of mine. The streets were empty when I left that theater, I was the last one to leave-and I saw a man whom I had never seen before, waiting for me in the light of a lamppost. He did not have to tell me much. But the concerto I dedicated to him is called the Concerto of Deliverance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at the others. \"Please tell me your reasons,\" she said, with a faint stress of firmness in her voice, as if she were taking a beating, but wished to take it to the end.\n\n\"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,\" said Dr. Hendricks. \"Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything-except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the \"welfare\" of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only \"to serve.\" That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards-never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind-yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it-and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I quit,\" said Ellis Wyatt, \"because I didn't wish to serve as the cannibals\" meal and to do the cooking, besides,\"\n\n\"I discovered,\" said Ken Danagger, \"that the men I was fighting were impotent. The shiftless, the purposeless, the irresponsible, the irrational-it was not I who needed them, it was not theirs to dictate terms tome, it was not mine to obey demands. I quit, to let them discover it, too.\"\n\n\"I quit,\" said Quentin Daniels, \"because, if there are degrees of damnation, the scientist who places his mind in the service of brute force is the longest-range murderer on earth.\"\n\nThey were silent. She turned to Galt. \"And you?\" she asked. \"You were first. What made you come to it?\"\n\nHe chuckled, \"My refusal to be born with any original sin.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need-and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling. That night, at the Twentieth Century meeting, when I heard an unspeakable evil being spoken in atone of moral righteousness, I saw the root of the world's tragedy, the key to it and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I went out to do it.\"\n\n\"And the motor?\" she asked. \"Why did you abandon it? Why did you leave it to the Starnes heirs?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was then-father's property. He paid me for it. It was made on his time. But I knew that it would be of no benefit to them and that no one would ever hear of it again. It was my first experimental model.\n\nNobody but me or my equivalent could have been able to complete it or even to grasp what it was. And I knew that no equivalent of mine would come near that factory from then on.\"\n\n\"You knew the kind of achievement your motor represented?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And you knew you were leaving it to perish?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He looked off into the darkness beyond the windows and chuckled softly, but it was not a sound of amusement. \"I looked at my motor for the last tune, before I left. I thought of the men who claim that wealth is a matter of natural resources-and of the men who claim that wealth is a matter of seizing the factories-and of the men who claim that machines condition their brains. Well, there was the motor to condition them, and there it remained as just exactly what it is without man's mind-as a pile of metal scraps and wires, going to rust. You have been thinking of the great service which that motor could have rendered to mankind, if it had been put into production. I think that on the day when men understand the meaning of its fate in that factory's junk heap-it will have rendered a greater one.\"\n\n\"Did you expect to see that day, when you left it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did you expect a chance to rebuild it elsewhere?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And you were willing to let it remain in a junk heap?\"\n\n\"For the sake of what that motor meant tome,\" he said slowly, \"I had to be willing to let it crumble and vanish forever\"-he looked straight at her and she heard the steady, unhesitant, uninflected ruthlessness of his voice-\"just as you will have to be willing to let the rail of Taggart Transcontinental crumble and vanish.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She held his eyes, her head was lifted, and she said softly, in the tone of a proudly open plea, \"Don't make me answer you now.\"\n\n\"I won't. We'll tell you whatever you wish to know. We won't urge you to make a decision.\" He added, and she was shocked by the sudden gentleness of his voice, \"I said that that kind of indifference toward a world which should have been ours was the hardest thing to attain. I know. We've all gone through it.\"\n\nShe looked at the quiet, impregnable room, and at the light-the light that came from his motor-on the faces of men who were the most serene and confident gathering she had ever attended.\n\n\"What did you do, when you walked out of the Twentieth Century?\" she asked.\n\n\"I went out to become aflame-spotter. I made it my job to watch for those bright flares in the growing night of savagery, which were the men of ability, the men of the mind-to watch their course, their struggle and their agony-and to pull them out, when I knew that they had seen enough.\"\n\n\"What did you tell them to make them abandon everything?\"\n\n\"I told them that they were right.\"\n\nIn answer to the silent question of her glance, he added, \"I gave them the pride they did not know they had. I gave them the words to identify it. I gave them that priceless possession which they had missed, had longed for, yet had not known they needed: amoral sanction. Did you call me the destroyer and the hunter of men? I was the walking delegate of this strike, the leader of the victims' rebellion, the defender of the oppressed, the disinherited, the exploited-and when I use these words, they have, for once, a literal meaning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who were the first to follow you?\"\n\nHe let a moment pass, in deliberate emphasis, then answered, \" My two best friends. You know one of them. You know, perhaps better than anyone else, what price he paid for it. Our own teacher, Dr.\n\nAkston, was next. He joined us within one evening's conversation. William Hastings, who had been my boss in the research laboratory of Twentieth Century Motors, had a hard time, fighting it outwith himself. It took him a year. But he joined. Then Richard Halley. Then Midas Mulligan.\"\n\n\"-who took fifteen minutes,\" said Mulligan.\n\nShe turned to him. \"It was you who established this valley?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mulligan. \"It was just my own private retreat, at first. I bought it years ago, I bought miles of these mountains, section by section, from ranchers and cattlemen who didn't know what they owned. The valley is not listed on any map. I built this house, when I decided to quit. I cutoff all possible avenues of approach, except one road-and it's camouflaged beyond anyone's power to discover-and I stocked this place to be self-supporting, so that I could live here for the rest of my life and never have to seethe face of a looter. When I heard that John had got Judge Narragansett, too, I invited the Judge to come here. Then we asked Richard Halley to join us. The others remained outside, at first.\"\n\n\"We had no rules of any kind,\" said Galt, \" except one. When a man took our oath, it meant a single commitment: not to work in his own profession, not to give to the world the benefit of his mind. Each of us carried it out in any manner he chose. Those who had money, retired to live on their savings. Those who had to work, took the lowest jobs they could find. Some of us had been famous; others-like that young brakeman of yours, whom Halley discovered-were stopped by us before they had set out to get tortured. But we did not give up our minds or the work we loved. Each of us continued in his real profession, in whatever manner and spare time he could manage-but he did it secretly, for his own sole benefit, giving nothing to men, sharing nothing. We were scattered allover the country, as the outcasts we had always been, only now we accepted our parts with conscious intention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our sole relief were the rare occasions when we could see one another.\n\nWe found that we liked to meet-in order to be reminded that human beings still existed. So we came to set aside one month a year to spend in this valley-to rest, to live in a rational world, to bring our real workout of hiding, to trade our achievements-here, where achievements meant payment, not expropriation. Each of us built his own house here, at his own expense-for one month of life out of twelve.\n\nIt made the eleven easier to bear.\"\n\n\"You see, Miss Taggart,\" said Hugh Akston, \"man is asocial being, but not in the way the looters preach.\"\n\n\"It's the destruction of Colorado that started the growth of this valley,\" said Midas Mulligan. \" Ellis Wyatt and the others came to live here permanently, because they had to hide. Whatever part of their wealth they could salvage, they converted into gold or machines, as I had, and they brought it here. There were enough of us to develop the place and to create jobs for those who had had to earn their living outside. We have now reached the stage where most of us can live here full time. The valley is almost self-supporting-and as to the goods that we can't yet produce, I purchase them from the outside through a pipeline of my own. It's a special agent, a man who does not let my money reach the looters. We are not a state here, not a society of any kind-we're just a voluntary association of men held together by nothing but every man's self-interest. I own the valley and I sell the land to the others, when they want it. Judge Narragansett is to act as our arbiter, hi case of disagreements. He hasn't had to be called upon, as yet. They say that it's hard for men to agree. You'd be surprised how easy it is-when both parties hold as their moral absolute that neither exists for the sake of the other and that reason is their only means of trade. The time is approaching when all of us will have to be called to live here-because the world is falling apart so fast that it will soon be starving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But we will be able to support ourselves in this valley.\"\n\n\"The world is crashing faster than we expected,\" said Hugh Akston.\n\n\"Men are stopping and giving up. Your frozen trains, the gangs of raiders, the deserters, they're men who've never heard of us, and they're not part of our strike, they are acting on their own-it's the natural response of whatever rationality is still left in them-it's the same kind of protest as ours.\"\n\n\"We started with no time limit in view,\" said Galt. \" We did not know whether we'd live to seethe liberation of the world or whether we'd have to leave our battle and our secret to the next generations.\n\nWe knew only that this was the only way we cared to live. But now we think that we will see, and soon, the day of our victory and of our return.\"\n\n\"When?\" she whispered.\n\n\"When the code of the looters has collapsed.\"\n\nHe saw her looking at him, her glance half-question, half-hope, and he added, \"When the creed of self-immolation has run, for once, its undisguised course-when men find no victims ready to obstruct the path of justice and to deflect the fall of retribution on themselves-when the preachers of self-sacrifice discover that those who are willing to practice it, have nothing to sacrifice, and those who have, are not willing any longer-when men see that neither their hearts nor their muscles can save them, but the mind they damned is not thereto answer then: screams for help-when they collapse as they must, as men without mind-when they have no pretense of authority left, no remnant of law, no trace of morality, no hope, no food and noway to obtain it-when they collapse and the road is clear-then we'll comeback to rebuild the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Taggart Terminal, she thought; she heard the words beating through the numbness of her mind, as the sum of a burden she had not had time to weigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the Taggart Terminal, she thought, this room, not the giant concourse in New York-this washer goal, the end of track, the point beyond the curve of the earth where the two straight lines of rail met and vanished, drawing her forward-as they had drawn Nathaniel Taggart-this was the goal Nathaniel Taggart had seen in the distance and this was the point still holding the straight-line glance of his lifted head above the spiral motion of men in the granite concourse. It was for the sake of this that she had dedicated herself to the rail of Taggart Transcontinental, as to the body of a spirit yet to be found. She had found it, everything she had ever wanted, it was herein this room, reached and hers-but the price was that net of rail behind her, the rail that would vanish, the bridges that would crumble, the signal lights that would go out.... And yet... Everything I had ever wanted, she thought-looking away from the figure of a man with sun-colored hair and implacable eyes.\n\n\"You don't have to answer us now.\"\n\nShe raised her head; he was watching her as if he had followed the steps in her mind.\n\n\"We never demand agreement,\" he said. \"We never tell anyone more than he is ready to hear You are the first person who has learned our secret ahead of time. But you're here and you had to know. Now you know the exact nature of the choice you'll have to make. If it seems hard, it's because you still think that it does not have to be one or the other. You will learn that it does.\"\n\n\"Will you give me time?\"\n\n\"Your time is not ours to give. Take your time. You alone can decide what you'll choose to do, and when. We know the cost of that decision. We've paid it. That you've come here might now make it easier for you-or harder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Harder,\" she whispered.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nHe said it, his voice as low as hers, with the same sound of being forced past one's breath, and she missed an instant of time, as in the stillness after a blow, because she felt that this-not the moments when he had carried her in his arms down the mountainside, but this meeting of their voices-had been the closest physical contact between them.\n\nA full moon stood in the sky above the valley, when they drove back to his house; it stood like a flat, round lantern without rays, with a haze of light hanging in space, not reaching the ground, and the illumination seemed to come from the abnormal white brightness of the soil. In the unnatural stillness of sight without color, the earth seemed veiled by a film of distance, its shapes did not merge into a landscape, but went slowly flowing past, like the print of a photograph on a cloud.\n\nShe noticed suddenly that she was smiling. She was looking down at the houses of the valley. Their lighted windows were dimmed by a bluish cast, the outlines of their walls were dissolving, long bands of mist were coiling among them in torpid, unhurried waves. It looked like a city sinking underwater.\n\n\"What do they call this place?\" she asked.\n\n\"I call it Mulligan's Valley,\" he said. \"The others call it Galt's Gulch.\"\n\n\"I'd call it-\" but she did not finish.\n\nHe glanced at her. She knew what he saw in her face. He turned away.\n\nShe saw a faint movement of his lips, like the release of a breath that he was forcing to function. She dropped her glance, her arm falling against the side of the car, as if her hand were suddenly too heavy for the weakness in the crook of her elbow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The road grew darker, as it went higher, and pine branches met over their heads." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above aslant of rock moving to meet them, she saw the moonlight on the windows of his house. Her head fell back against the seat and she lay still, losing awareness of the car, feeling only the motion that carried her forward, watching the glittering drops of water in the pine branches, which were the stars.\n\nWhen the car stopped, she did not permit herself to know why she did not look at him as she stepped, out. She did not know that she stood still for an instant, looking up at the dark windows. She did not hear him approach; but she felt the impact of his hands with shocking intensity, as if it were the only awareness she could now experience.\n\nHe lifted her in his arms and started slowly up the path to the house.\n\nHe walked, not looking at her, holding her tight, as if trying to hold a progression of time, as if his arms were still locked over the moment when he had lifted her against his chest. She felt his steps as if they were a single span of motion to a goal and as if each step were a separate moment in which she dared not think of the next.\n\nHer head was close to his, his hair brushing her cheek, and she knew that neither of them would move his face that one breath closer. It was a sudden, stunned state of quiet drunkenness, complete in itself, their hair mingled like the rays of two bodies in space that had achieved their meeting, she saw that he walked with his eyes closed, as if even sight would now bean intrusion.\n\nHe entered the house, and as he moved across the living room, he did not look to his left and neither did she, but she knew that both of them were seeing the door on his left that led to his bedroom. He walked the length of the darkness to the wedge of moonlight that fell across the guest-room bed, he placed her down upon it, she felt an instant's pause of his hands still holding her shoulder and waistline, and when his hands left her body, she knew that the moment was over." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling and proceed with the tale.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The road grew darker, as it went higher, and pine branches met over their heads." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above aslant of rock moving to meet them, she saw the moonlight on the windows of his house. Her head fell back against the seat and she lay still, losing awareness of the car, feeling only the motion that carried her forward, watching the glittering drops of water in the pine branches, which were the stars.\n\nWhen the car stopped, she did not permit herself to know why she did not look at him as she stepped, out. She did not know that she stood still for an instant, looking up at the dark windows. She did not hear him approach; but she felt the impact of his hands with shocking intensity, as if it were the only awareness she could now experience.\n\nHe lifted her in his arms and started slowly up the path to the house.\n\nHe walked, not looking at her, holding her tight, as if trying to hold a progression of time, as if his arms were still locked over the moment when he had lifted her against his chest. She felt his steps as if they were a single span of motion to a goal and as if each step were a separate moment in which she dared not think of the next.\n\nHer head was close to his, his hair brushing her cheek, and she knew that neither of them would move his face that one breath closer. It was a sudden, stunned state of quiet drunkenness, complete in itself, their hair mingled like the rays of two bodies in space that had achieved their meeting, she saw that he walked with his eyes closed, as if even sight would now bean intrusion.\n\nHe entered the house, and as he moved across the living room, he did not look to his left and neither did she, but she knew that both of them were seeing the door on his left that led to his bedroom. He walked the length of the darkness to the wedge of moonlight that fell across the guest-room bed, he placed her down upon it, she felt an instant's pause of his hands still holding her shoulder and waistline, and when his hands left her body, she knew that the moment was over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped back and pressed a switch, surrendering the room to the harshly public glare of light. He stood still, as if demanding that she look at him, his face expectant and stern.\n\n\"Have you forgotten that you wanted to shoot me on sight?\" he asked.\n\nIt was the unprotected stillness of his figure that made it real. The shudder that threw her upright was like a cry of terror and denial; but she held his glance and answered evenly, \"That's true. I did.\"\n\n\"Then standby it.\"\n\nHer voice was low, its intensity was both a surrender and a scornful reproach: \"You know better than that, don't you?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"No. I want you to remember that that had been your wish. You were right, in the past. So long as you were part of the outer world, you had to seek to destroy me. And of the two courses now open to you, one will lead you to the day when you will find yourself forced to do it.\" She did not answer, she sat looking down, he saw the strands of her hair swing jerkily as she shook her head in desperate protest. \" You are my only danger. You are the only person who could deliver me to my enemies. If you remain with them, you will. Choose that, if you wish, but choose it with full knowledge.\n\nDon't answer me now. But until you do\"-the stress of severity in his voice was the sound of effort directed against himself-\" remember that I know the meaning of either answer.\"\n\n\"As fully as I do?\" she whispered.\n\n\"As fully.\"\n\nHe turned to go, when her eyes fell suddenly upon the inscriptions she had noticed, and forgotten, on the walls of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were cut into the polish of the wood, still showing the force of the pencil's pressure in the hands that had made them, each in his own violent writing: \"You'll get over it-Ellis Wyatt\" \"It will be all right by morning-Ken Danagger\" \"It's worth it-Roger Marsh.\"\n\nThere were others, \"What is that?\" she asked.\n\nHe smiled. \" This is the room where they spent their first night in the valley. The first night is the hardest. It's the last pull of the break with one's memories, and the worst. I let them stay here, so they can call for me, if they want me. I speak to them, if they can't sleep.\n\nMost of them can't. But they're free of it by morning.... They've all gone through this room. Now they call it the torture chamber or the anteroom-because everyone has to enter the valley through my house.\"\n\nHe turned to go, he stopped on the threshold and added: \"This is the room I never intended you to occupy. Goodnight, Miss Taggart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good morning.\"\n\nShe looked at him across the living room from the threshold of her door. In the windows behind him, the mountains had that tinge of silver-pink which seems brighter than daylight, with the promise of alight to come. The sun. had risen somewhere over the earth, but it had not reached the top of the barrier, and the sky was glowing in its stead, announcing its motion. She had heard the joyous greeting to the sunrise, which was not the song of birds, but the ringing of the telephone a moment ago; she saw the start of day, not in the shining green of the branches outside, but in the glitter of chromium on the stove, the sparkle of a glass ashtray on a table, and the crisp whiteness of his shirtsleeves. Irresistibly, she heard the sound of a smile in her own voice, matching his, as she answered: \"Good morning.\"\n\nHe was gathering notes of penciled calculations from his desk and stuffing them into his pocket. \"I have to go down to the powerhouse,\" he said. \"They've just phoned me that they're having trouble with the ray screen. Your plane seems to have knocked it off key. I'll be back in half an hour and then I'll cook our breakfast\"\n\nIt was the casual simplicity of his voice, the manner of taking her presence and their domestic routine for granted, as if it were of no significance to them, that gave her the sense of an underscored significance and the feeling that he knew it.\n\nShe answered as casually, \"If you'll bring me the cane I left in the car, I'll have breakfast ready for you by the time you comeback.\"\n\nHe glanced at her with a slight astonishment; his eyes moved from her bandaged ankle to the short sleeves of the blouse that left her arms bare to display the heavy bandage on her elbow. But the transparent blouse, the open collar, the hair falling down to the shoulders that seemed innocently naked under a thin film of cloth, made her look like a schoolgirl, not an invalid, and her posture made the bandages look irrelevant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled, not quite at her, but as if in amusement at some sudden memory of his own. \"If you wish,\" he said.\n\nIt was strange to be left alone in his house. Part of it was an emotion she had never experienced before: an awed respect that made her hesitantly conscious of her hands, as if to touch any object around her would be too great an intimacy. The other part was a reckless sense of ease, a sense of being at home in this place, as if she owned its owner.\n\nIt was strange to feel so pure a joy in the simple task of preparing a breakfast. The work seemed an end in itself, as if the motions of filling a coffeepot, squeezing oranges, slicing bread were performed for their own sake, for the sort of pleasure one expects, but seldom finds, in the motions of dancing. It startled her to realize that she had not experienced this kind of pleasure in her work since her days at the operator's desk in Rockdale Station.\n\nShe was setting the table, when she saw the figure of a man hurrying up the path to the house, a swift, agile figure that leaped over boulders with the casual ease of a flight. He threw the door open, calling, \"Hey, John!\"-and stopped short as he saw her. He wore a dark blue sweater and slacks, he had gold hair and a face of such shocking perfection of beauty that she stood still, staring at him, not in admiration, at first, but in simple disbelief.\n\nHe looked at her as if he had not expected to find a woman in this house. Then she saw a look of recognition melting into a different kind of astonishment, part amusement, part triumph melting into a chuckle.\n\n\"Oh, have you joined us?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" she answered dryly, \"I haven't. I'm a scab.\"\n\nHe laughed, like an adult at a child who uses technological words beyond its understanding. \"If you know what you're saying, you know that it's not possible,\" he said. \"Not here.\"\n\n\"I crashed the gate. Literally.\"\n\nHe looked at her bandages, weighing the question, his glance almost insolent in its open curiosity. \"When?\"\n\n\"Yesterday.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Ina plane.\"\n\n\"What were you doing in a plane in this part of the country?\"\n\nHe had the direct, imperious manner of an aristocrat or a roughneck; he looked like one and was dressed like the other. She considered him fora moment, deliberately letting him wait. \"I was trying to land on a prehistorical mirage,\" she answered. \"And I have.\"\n\n\"You area scab,\" he said, and chuckled, as if grasping all the implications of the problem. \"Where's John?\"\n\n\"Mr. Galt is at the powerhouse. He should be back any moment.\"\n\nHe sat down in an armchair, asking no permission, as if he were at home. She turned silently to her work. He sat watching her movements with an open grin, as if the sight of her laying out cutlery on a kitchen table were the spectacle of some special paradox.\n\n\"What did Francisco say when he saw you here?\" he asked.\n\nShe turned to him with a slight jolt, but answered evenly, \"He is not here yet.\"\n\n\"Not yet?\" He seemed startled. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"So I was told.\"\n\nHe lighted a cigarette. She wondered, watching him, what profession he had chosen, loved and abandoned in order to join this valley. She could make no guess; none seemed to fit; she caught herself in the preposterous feeling of wishing that he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty. It was an impersonal feeling, she did not look at him as at a man, but as at an animated work of art-and it seemed to be a stressed indignity of the outer world that a perfection such as his should be subjected to the shocks, the strains, the scars reserved for any man who loved his work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the feeling seemed the more preposterous, because the lines of his face had the sort of hardness for which no danger on earth was a match, \"No, Miss Taggart,\" he said suddenly, catching her glance, \"you've never seen me before.\"\n\nShe was shocked to realize that she had been studying him openly.\n\n\"How do you happen to know who I am?\" she asked.\n\n\"First, I've seen your pictures in the papers many times. Second, you're the only woman left in the outer world, to the best of our knowledge, who'd be allowed to enter Galt's Gulch, Third, you're the only woman who'd have the courage-and prodigality-still to remain a scab.\"\n\n\"What made you certain that I was a scab?\"\n\n\"If you weren't, you'd know that it's not this valley, but the view of life held by men in the outer world that is a prehistorical mirage.\"\n\nThey heard the sound of the motor and saw the car stopping below, in front of the house. She noticed the swiftness with which he rose to his feet at the sight of Galt in the car; if it were not for the obvious personal eagerness, it would have looked like an instinctive gesture of military respect.\n\nShe noticed the way Galt stopped, when he entered and saw his visitor. She noticed that Galt smiled, but that his voice was oddly low, almost solemn, as if weighted with unconfessed relief,, when he said very quietly, \"Hello.\"\n\n\"Hi, John,\" said the visitor gaily.\n\nShe noticed that their handshake came an instant too late and lasted an instant too long, like the handshake of men who had not been certain that their previous meeting would not be their last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Galt turned to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you met?\" he asked, addressing them both.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" said the visitor.\n\n\"Miss Taggart, may I present Ragnar Danneskjold?\"\n\nShe knew what her face had looked like, when she heard Danneskjold's voice as from a great distance: \"You don't have to be frightened, Miss Taggart I'm not dangerous to anyone in Galt's Gulch.\"\n\nShe could only shake her head, before she recaptured her voice to say, \"It's not what you're doing to anyone... it's what they're doing to you....\"\n\nHis laughter swept her out of her moment's stupor, \"Be careful, Miss Taggart. If that's how you're beginning to feel, you won't remain a scab for long.\" He added, \"But you ought to start by adopting the right things from the people in Galt's Gulch, not their mistakes: they've spent twelve years worrying about me-needlessly.\" He glanced at Galt.\n\n\"When did you get in?\" asked Galt.\n\n\"Late last night.\"\n\n\"Sit down. You're going to have breakfast with us.\"\n\n\"But where's Francisco? Why isn't he here yet?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Galt, frowning slightly. \"I asked at the airport, just now. Nobody's heard from him.\"\n\nAs she turned to the kitchen, Galt moved to follow. \"No,\" she said, \"it's my job today.\"\n\n\"Let me help you.\"\n\n\"This is the place where one doesn't ask for help, isn't it?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"That's right.\"\n\nShe had never experienced the pleasure of motion, of walking as if her feet had no weight to carry, as if the support of the cane in her hand were merely a superfluous touch of elegance, the pleasure of feeling her steps trace swift, straight lines, of sensing the faultless, spontaneous precision of her gestures-as she experienced it while placing their food on the table in front of the two men. Her bearing told them that she knew they were watching her-she held her head like an actress on a stage, like a woman in a ballroom, like the winner of a silent contest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Francisco will be glad to know that it's you who were his stand-in today,\" said Danneskjold, when she joined them at the table.\n\n\"His what?\"\n\n\"You see, today is June first, and the three of us-John, Francisco and I-have had breakfast together on every June first for twelve years.\"\n\n\"Here?\"\n\n\"Not when we started. But here, ever since this house was built eight years ago.\" He shrugged, smiling. \"Fora man who has more centuries of tradition behind him than I have, it's odd that Francisco should be the first to break our own tradition.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Galt?\" she asked. \"How many centuries does he have behind him?\"\n\n\"John? None at all. None behind him-but all of those ahead.\"\n\n\"Never mind the centuries,\" said Galt. \"Tell me what sort of year you've had behind you. Lost any men?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Lost any of your time?\"\n\n\"You mean, was I wounded? No. I haven't had a scratch since that onetime, ten years ago, when I was still an amateur, which you ought to forget by now. I wasn't in any danger whatever, this year-in fact, I was much more safe than if I were running a small-town drugstore under Directive 10-289.\"\n\n\"Lost any battles?\"\n\n\"No. The losses were all on the other side, this year. The looters lost most of their ships tome-and most of their men to you. You've had a good year, too, haven't you? I know, I've kept track of it. Since our last breakfast together, you got everyone you wanted from the state of Colorado, and a few others besides, such as Ken Danagger, who was a great prize to get. But let me tell you about a still greater one, who is almost yours. You're going to get him soon, because he's hanging by a thin thread and is just about ready to fall at your feet. He's a man who saved my life-so you can see how far he's gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Galt leaned back, his eyes narrowing. \"So you weren't in any danger whatever, were you?\"\n\nDanneskjold laughed. \"Oh, I took a slight risk. It was worth it. It was the most enjoyable encounter I've ever had. I've been waiting to tell you about it in person. It's a story you'll want to hear. Do you know who the man was? Hank Rearden. I-\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\nIt was Galt's voice; it was a command; the brief snap of sound had a tinge of violence neither of them had ever heard from him before.\n\n\"What?\" asked Danneskjold softly, incredulously.\n\n\"Don't tell me about it now.\"\n\n\"But you've always said that Hank Rearden was the one man you wanted to see here most.\"\n\n\"I still do. But you'll tell me later.\"\n\nShe studied Galt's face intently, but she could find no clue, only a closed, impersonal look, either of determination or of control, that tightened the skin of his cheekbones and the line of his mouth. No matter what he knew about her, she thought, the only knowledge that could explain this, was a knowledge he had had noway of acquiring.\n\n\"You've met Hank Rearden?\" she asked, turning to Danneskjold.\n\n\"And he saved your life?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I want to hear about it.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" said Galt.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You're not one of us, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"I see.\" She smiled, with a faint touch of defiance. \"Were you thinking that I might prevent you from getting Hank Rearden?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, that was not what I was thinking,\"\n\nShe noticed that Danneskjold was studying Galt's face, as if he, too, found the incident inexplicable. Galt held his glance, deliberately and openly, as if challenging him to find the explanation and promising that he would fail. She knew that Danneskjold had failed, when she saw a faint crease of humor softening Galt's eyelids.\n\n\"What else,\" asked Galt, \"have you accomplished this year?\"\n\n\"I've defied the law of gravitation.\"\n\n\"You've always done that. In what particular form now?\"\n\n\"In the form of a flight from mid-Atlantic to Colorado in a plane loaded with gold beyond the safety point of its capacity. Wait till Midas sees the amount I have to deposit. My customers, this year, will become richer by-Say, have you told Miss Taggart that she's one of my customers?\"\n\n\"No, not yet You may tell her, if you wish.\"\n\n\"I'm-What did you say I am?\" she asked.\n\n\"Don't be shocked, Miss Taggart,\" said Danneskjold. \"And don't object. I'm used to objections. I'm a sort of freak here, anyway. None of them approve of my particular method of fighting our battle. John doesn't, Dr. Akston doesn't. They think that my life is too valuable for it. But, you see, my father was a bishop-and of all his teachings there was only one sentence that I accepted: \"All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.\"\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"That violence is not practical. If my fellowmen believe that the force of the combined tonnage of their muscles is a practical means to rule me-let them learn the outcome of a contest in which there's nothing but brute force on one side, and force ruled by a mind, on the other. Even John grants me that in our age I had the moral right to choose the course I've chosen. I am doing just what he is doing-only in my own way. He is withdrawing man's spirit from the looters, I'm withdrawing the products of man's spirit. He is depriving them of reason, I'm depriving them of wealth. He is draining the soul of the world, I'm draining its body. His is the lesson they have to learn, only I'm impatient and I'm hastening their scholastic progress. But, like John, I'm simply complying with their moral code and refusing to grant them a double standard at my expense. Or at Rearden's expense. Or at yours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"About a method of taxing the income taxers. All methods of taxation are complex, but this one is very simple, because it's the naked essence of all the others. Let me explain it to you.\"\n\nShe listened. She heard a sparkling voice reciting, in the tone of a dryly meticulous bookkeeper, a report about financial transfers, bank accounts, income-tax returns, as if he were reading the dusty pages of a ledger-a ledger where every entry was made by means of offering his own blood as the collateral to be drained at any moment, at any slip of his bookkeeping pen. As she listened, she kept seeing the perfection of his face-and she kept thinking that this was the head on which the world had placed a price of millions for the purpose of delivering it to the rot of death.... The face she had thought too beautiful for the scars of a productive career-she kept thinking numbly, missing half his words-the face too beautiful to risk.... Then it struck her that his physical perfection was only a simple illustration, a childish lesson given to her in crudely obvious terms on the nature of the outer world and on the fate of any human value in a subhuman age. Whatever the justice or the evil of his course, she thought, how could they... no! she thought, his course was just, and this was the horror of it, that there was no other course for justice to select, that she could not condemn him, that she could neither approve nor utter a word of reproach.\n\n\"... and the names of my customers, Miss Taggart, were chosen slowly, one by one. I had to be certain of the nature of their character and career. On my list of restitution, your name was one of the first.\"\n\nShe forced herself to keep her face expressionlessly tight, and she answered only, \"I see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your account is one of the last left unpaid. It is here, at the Mulligan Bank, to be claimed by you on the day when you join us.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"Your account, however, is not as large as some of the others, even though huge sums were extorted from you by force in the past twelve years. You will find-as it is marked on the copies o£ your income-tax returns which Mulligan will handover to you-that I have refunded only those taxes which you paid on the salary you earned as Operating Vice-President, but not the taxes you paid on your income from your Taggart Transcontinental stock. You deserved every penny of that stock, and in the days of your father I would have refunded every penny of your profit-but under your brother's management, Taggart Transcontinental has taken its share of the looting, it has made profits by force, by means of government favors, subsidies, moratoriums, directives. You were not responsible for it, you were, in fact, the greatest victim of that policy-but I refund only the money which was made by pure productive ability, not the money any part of which was loot taken by force.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\nThey had finished their breakfast. Danneskjold lighted a cigarette and watched her for an instant through the first jet of smoke, as if he knew the violence of the conflict in her mind-then he grinned at Galt and rose to his feet.\n\n\"I'll run along,\" he said. \"My wife is waiting for me.\"\n\n\"What?\" she gasped.\n\n\"My wife,\" he repeated gaily, as if he had not understood the reason of her shock.\n\n\"Who is your wife?\"\n\n\"Kay Ludlow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The implications that struck her were more than she could bear to consider." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When... when were you married?\"\n\n\"Four years ago.\"\n\n\"How could you show yourself anywhere long enough to go through a wedding ceremony?\"\n\n\"We were married here, by Judge Narragansett.\"\n\n\"How can\"-she tried to stop, but the words burst involuntarily, in helplessly indignant protest, whether against him, fate or the outer world, she could not tell-\"how can she live through eleven months of thinking that you, at any moment, might be...?\" She did not finish.\n\nHe was smiling, but she saw the enormous solemnity of that which he and his wife had needed to earn their right to this kind of smile. \" She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction.\n\nWe do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it-and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception inhuman life.\"\n\nGalt accompanied him to the door, then came back, sat down at the table and in a leisurely manner reached for another cup of coffee.\n\nShe shot to her feet, as if flung by a jet of pressure breaking a safety valve. \"Do you think that I'll ever accept his money?\"\n\nHe waited until the curving streak of coffee had filled his cup, then glanced up at her and answered, \"Yes, I think so.\"\n\n\"Well, I won't! I won't let him risk his life for it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have no choice about that.\"\n\n\"I have the choice never to claim it!\"\n\n\"Yes, you have.\"\n\n\"Then it will lie in that bank till doomsday!\"\n\n\"No, it won't. If you don't claim it, some part of it-a very small part-will be turned over tome in your name.\"\n\n\"In my name? Why?\"\n\n\"To pay for your room and board.\"\n\nShe stared at him, her look of anger switching to bewilderment, then dropped slowly back on her chair.\n\nHe smiled. \"How long did you think you were going to stay here, Miss Taggart?\" He saw her startled look of helplessness. \" You haven't thought of it? I have. You're going to stay here fora month. For the one month of our vacation, like the rest of us. I am not asking for your consent-you did not ask for ours when you came here. You broke our rules, so you'll have to take the consequences. Nobody leaves the valley during this month. I could let you go, of course, but I won't.\n\nThere's no rule demanding that I hold you, but by forcing your way here, you've given me the right to any choice I make-and I'm going to hold you simply because I want you here. If, at the end of a month, you decide that you wish to go back, you will be free to do so. Not until then.\"\n\nShe sat straight, the planes of her face relaxed, the shape of her mouth softened by the faint, purposeful suggestion of a smile; it was the dangerous smile of an adversary, but her eyes were coldly brilliant and veiled at once, like the eyes of an adversary who fully intends to fight, but hopes to lose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well,\" she said, \" I shall charge you for your room and board-it is against our rules to provide the unearned sustenance of another human being.\n\nSome of us have wives and children, but there is a mutual trade involved in that, and a mutual payment\"-he glanced at her-\" of a kind I am not entitled to collect. So I shall charge you fifty cents a day and you will pay me when you accept the account that lies in your name at the Mulligan Bank. If you don't accept the account, Mulligan will charge your debt against it and he will give me the money when I ask for it.\"\n\n\"I shall comply with your terms,\" she answered; her voice had the shrewd, confident, deliberating slowness of a trader. \"But I shall not permit the use of that money for my debts.\"\n\n\"How else do you propose to comply?\"\n\n\"I propose to earn my room and board.\"\n\n\"By what means?\"\n\n\"By working.\"\n\n\"In what capacity?\"\n\n\"In the capacity of your cook and housemaid.\"\n\nFor the first time, she saw him take the shock of the unexpected, in a manner and with a violence she had not foreseen. It was only an explosion of laughter on his part-but he laughed as if he were hit beyond his defenses, much beyond the immediate meaning of her words; she felt that she had struck his past, tearing loose some memory and meaning of his own which she could not know. He laughed as if he were seeing some distant image, as if he were laughing in its face, as if this were his victory-and hers.\n\n\"If you will hire me,\" she said, her face severely polite, her tone harshly clear, impersonal and businesslike, \"I shall cook your meals, clean your house, do your laundry and perform such other duties as are required of a servant-in exchange for my room, board and such money as I will need for some items of clothing. I maybe slightly handicapped by my injuries for the next few days, but that will not last and I will be able to do the job fully.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that what you want to do?\" he asked.\n\n\"That is what I want to do-\" she answered, and stopped before she uttered the rest of the answer in her mind: more than anything else in the world.\n\nHe was still smiling, it was a smile of amusement, but it was as if amusement could be transmuted into some shining glory. \"All right, Miss Taggart,\" he said, \"I'll hire you.\"\n\nShe inclined her head in a dryly formal acknowledgment. \"Thank you,\"\n\n\"I will pay you ten dollars a month, in addition to your room and board.\"\n\n\"Very well,\"\n\n\"I shall be the first man in this valley to hire a servant.\" He got up, reached into his pocket and threw a five-dollar gold piece down on the table. \"As advance on your wages,\" he said.\n\nShe was startled to discover, as her hand reached for the gold piece, that she felt the eager, desperate, tremulous hope of a young girl on her first job: the hope that she would be able to deserve it.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she said, her eyes lowered.\n\nOwen Kellogg arrived on the afternoon of her third day in the valley.\n\nShe did not know which shocked him most: the sight of her standing on the edge of the airfield as he descended from the plane-the sight of her clothes: her delicate, transparent blouse, tailored by the most expensive shop in New York, and the wide, cotton-print skirt she had bought in the valley for sixty cents-her cane, her bandages or the basket of groceries on her arm.\n\nHe descended among a group of men, he saw her, he stopped, then ran to her as if flung forward by some emotion so strong that, whatever its nature, it looked like terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Taggart...\" he whispered-and said nothing else, while she laughed, trying to explain how she had come to beat him to his destination.\n\nHe listened, as if it were irrelevant, and then he uttered the thing from which he had to recover, \"But we thought you were dead.\"\n\n\"Who thought it?\"\n\n\"All of us... I mean, everybody in the outside world.\"\n\nThen she suddenly stopped smiling, while his voice began to recapture his story and his first sound of joy.\n\n\"Miss Taggart, don't you remember? You told me to phone Winston, Colorado, and to tell them that you'd be thereby noon of the next day. That was to be the day before yesterday, May thirty-first. But you did not reach Winston-and by late afternoon, the news was on all the radios that you were lost in a plane crash somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.\"\n\nShe nodded slowly, grasping the events she had not thought of considering.\n\n\"I heard it aboard the Comet,\" he said. \" At a small station in the middle of New Mexico, The conductor held us therefor an hour, while I helped him to check the story on long-distance phones. He was hit by the news just as I was. They all were-the train crew, the station agent, the switchmen. They huddled around me while I called the city rooms of newspapers in Denver and New York. We didn't learn much.\n\nOnly that you had left the Afton airfield just before dawn on May thirty-first, that you seemed to be following some stranger's plane, that the attendant had seen you go off southeast-and that nobody had seen you since... And that searching parties were combing the Rockies for the wreckage of your plane.\"\n\nShe asked involuntarily, \"Did the Comet reach San Francisco?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. She was crawling north through Arizona, when I gave up. There were too many delays, too many things going wrong, and a total confusion of orders. I got off and spent the night hitchhiking my way to Colorado, bumming rides on trucks, on buggies, on horse carts, to get thereon time-to get to our meeting place, I mean, where we gather for Midas\" ferry plane to pick us up and bring us here.\"\n\nShe started walking slowly up the path toward the car she had left in front of Hammond's Grocery Market. Kellogg followed, and when he spoke again, his voice dropped a little, slowing down with their steps, as if there were something they both wished to delay.\n\n\"I got a job for Jeff Alien,\" he said; his voice had the peculiarly solemn tone proper for saying: I have carried out your last will. \"Your agent at Laurel grabbed him and put him to work the moment we got there. The agent needed every able-bodied-no, able-minded-man he could find.\"\n\nThey had reached the car, but she did not get in.\n\n\"Miss Taggart, you weren't hurt badly, were you? Did you say you crashed, but it wasn't serious?\"\n\n\"No, not serious at all. I'll be able to get along without Mr. Mulligan's car by tomorrow-and in a day or two I won't need this thing, either.\" She swung her cane and tossed it contemptuously into the car.\n\nThey stood in silence; she was waiting.\n\n\"The last long-distance call I made from that station in New Mexico,\" he said slowly, \" was to Pennsylvania. I spoke to Hank Rearden.\n\nI told him everything I knew. He listened, and then there was a pause, and then he said, \"Thank you for calling me.\" \"Kellogg's eyes were lowered; he added,\" I never want to hear that kind of pause again as long as I live.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised his eyes to hers; there was no reproach in his glance, only the knowledge of that which he had not suspected when he heard her request, but had guessed since.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, and threw the door of the car open. \"Can I give you a lift? I have to get back and get dinner ready before my employer comes home.\"\n\nIt was in the first moment of returning to Galt's house, of standing alone in the silent, sun-filled room, that she faced the full meaning of what she felt. She looked at the window, at the mountains barring the sky in the east. She thought of Hank Rearden as he sat at his desk, now, two thousand miles away, his face tightened into a retaining wall against agony, as it had been tightened under all the blows of all his years-and she felt a desperate wish to fight his battle, to fight for him, for his past, for that tension of his face and the courage that fed it-as she wanted to fight for the Comet that crawled by a last effort across a desert on a crumbling track. She shuddered, closing her eyes, feeling as if she were guilty of double treason, feeling as if she were suspended in space between this valley and the rest of the earth, with no right to either.\n\nThe feeling vanished when she sat facing Galt across the dinner table. He was watching her, openly and with an untroubled look, as if her presence were normal-and as if the sight of her were all he wished to allow into his consciousness.\n\nShe leaned back a little, as if complying with the meaning of his glance, and said dryly, efficiently, in deliberate denial, \"I have checked your shirts and found one with two buttons missing, and another with the left elbow worn through. Do you wish me to mend them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, yes-if you can do it.\"\n\n\"I can do it.\"\n\nIt did not seem to alter the nature of his glance; it merely seemed to stress its satisfaction, as if this were what he had wished her to say-except that she was not certain whether satisfaction was the name for the thing she saw in his eyes and fully certain that he had not wished her to say anything.\n\nBeyond the window, at the edge of the table, storm clouds had wiped out the last remnants of light in the eastern sky. She wondered why she felt a sudden reluctance to lookout, why she felt as if she wanted to cling to the golden patches of light on the wood of the table, on the buttered crust of the rolls, on the copper coffeepot, on Galt's hair-to cling as to a small island on the edge of avoid.\n\nThen she heard her own voice asking suddenly, involuntarily, and she knew that this was the treason she had wanted to escape, \"Do you permit any communication with the outside world?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not any? Not even a note without return address?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not even a message, if no secret of yours were given away?\"\n\n\"Not from here. Not during this month. Not to outsiders at anytime,\"\n\nShe noticed that she was avoiding his eyes, and she forced herself to lift her head and face him. His glance had changed; it was watchful, unmoving, implacably perceptive. He asked, looking at her as if he knew the reason of her query, \"Do you wish to ask fora special exception?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered, holding his glance.\n\nNext morning, after breakfast, when she satin her room, carefully placing a patch on the sleeve of Galt's shirt, with her door closed, not to let him see her fumbling effort at an unfamiliar task, she heard the sound of a car stopping in front of the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard Galt's steps hurrying across the living room, she heard him jerk the entrance door open and call outwith the joyous anger of relief: \"It's about time!\"\n\nShe rose to her feet, but stopped: she heard his voice, its tone abruptly changed and grave, as if in answer to the shock of some sight confronting him: \"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Hello, John,\" said a clear, quiet voice that sounded steady, but weighted with exhaustion.\n\nShe sat down on her bed, feeling suddenly drained of strength: the voice was Francisco's.\n\nShe heard Galt asking, his tone severe with concern, \"What is it?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you afterwards.\"\n\n\"Why are you so late?\"\n\n\"I have to leave again in an hour.\"\n\n\"To leave?\"\n\n\"John, I just came to tell you that I won't be able to stay here this year.\"\n\nThere was a pause, then Galt asked gravely, his voice low, \"Is it as bad as that-whatever it is?\"\n\n\"Yes. I... I might be back before the month is over. I don't know.\" He added, with the sound of a desperate effort, \"I don't know whether to hope to be done with it quickly or... or not,\"\n\n\"Francisco, could you stand a shock right now?\"\n\n\"I? Nothing could shock me now.\"\n\n\"There's a person, here, in my guestroom, whom you have to see.\n\nIt will be a shock to you, so I think I'd better warn you in advance that this person is still a scab.\"\n\n\"What? A scab? In your house?\"\n\n\"Let me tell you how-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's something I want to see for myself!\"\n\nShe heard Francisco's contemptuous chuckle and the rush of his steps, she saw her door flung open, and she noticed dimly that it was Galt who closed it, leaving them alone.\n\nShe did not know how long Francisco stood looking at her, because the first moment that she grasped fully was when she saw him on his knees, holding onto her, his face pressed to her legs, the moment when she felt as if the shudder that ran through his body and left him still, had run into hers and made her able to move.\n\nShe saw, in astonishment, that her hand was moving gently over his hair, while she was thinking that she had no right to do it and feeling as if a current of serenity were flowing from her hand, enveloping them both, smoothing the past. He did not move, he made no sound, as if the act of holding her said everything he had to say.\n\nWhen he raised his head, he looked as she had felt when she had opened her eyes in the valley: he looked as if no pain had ever existed in the world. He was laughing.\n\n\"Dagny, Dagny, Dagny\"-his voice sounded, not as if a confession resisted for years were breaking out, but as if he were repeating the long since known, laughing at the pretense that it had ever been unsaid-\" of course I love you. Were you afraid when he made me say it?\n\nI'll say it as often as you wish-I love you, darling, I love you, I always will-don't be afraid for me, I don't care if I'll never have you again, what does that matter?-you're alive and you're here and you know everything now. And it's so simple, isn't it? Do you see what it was and why I had to desert you?\"His arm swept out to point at the valley.\" There it is-it's your earth, your kingdom, your kind of world-Dagny, I've always loved you and that I deserted you, that was my love.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took her hands and pressed them to his lips and held them, not moving, not as a kiss, but as along moment of rest-as if the effort of speech were a distraction from the fact of her presence, and as if he were torn by too many things to say, by the pressure of all the words stored in the silence of years.\n\n\"The women I chased-you didn't believe that, did you? I've never touched one of them-but I think you knew it, I think you've known it all along. The playboy-it was apart that I had to play in order not to let the looters suspect me while I was destroying d'Anconia Copper in plain sight of the whole world. That's the joker in their system, they're out to fight any man of honor and ambition, but let them see a worthless rotter and they think he's a friend, they think he's safe-safe!-that's their view of life, but are they learning!-are they learning whether evil is safe and incompetence practical!...\n\nDagny, it was the night when I knew, for the first time, that I loved you-it was then that I knew I had to go. It was when you entered my hotel room, that night, when I saw what you looked like, what you were, what you meant tome-and what awaited you in the future. Had you been less, you might have stopped me fora while. But it was you, you who were the final argument that made me leave you. I asked for your help, that night-against John Galt. But I knew that you were his best weapon against me, though neither you nor he could know it.\n\nYou were everything that he was seeking, everything he told us to live for or die, if necessary.... I was ready for him, when he called me suddenly to come to New York, that spring. I had not heard from him for sometime. He was fighting the same problem I was. He solved it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "... Do you remember? It was the time when you did not hear from me for three years. Dagny, when I took over my father's business, when I began to deal with the whole industrial system of the world, it was then that I began to seethe nature of the evil I had suspected, but thought too monstrous to believe. I saw the tax-collecting vermin that had grown for centuries like mildew on d'Anconia Copper, draining us by no right that anyone could name-I saw the government regulations passed to cripple me, because I was successful, and to help my competitors, because they were loafing failures-I saw the labor unions who won every claim against me, by reason of my ability to make their livelihood possible-I saw that any man's desire for money he could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was damned as greed-I saw the politicians who winked at me, telling me not to worry, because I could just work a little harder and outsmart them all. I looked past the profits of the moment, and I saw that the harder I worked, the more I tightened the noose around my throat, I saw that my energy was being poured down a sewer, that the parasites who fed on me were being fed upon in their turn, that they were caught in their own trap-and that there was no reason for it, no answer known to anyone, that the sewer pipes of the world, draining its productive blood, led into some dank fog nobody had dared to pierce, while people merely shrugged and said that life on earth could be nothing but evil. And then I saw that the whole industrial establishment of the world, with all of its magnificent machinery, its thousand-ton furnaces, its transatlantic cables, its mahogany offices, its stock exchanges, its blazing electric signs, its power, its wealth-all of it was run, not by bankers and boards of directors, but by any unshaved humanitarian in any basement beer joint, by any face pudgy with malice, who preached that virtue must be penalized for being virtue, that the purpose of ability is to serve incompetence, that man has no right to exist except for the sake of others.... I knew it. I saw noway to fight it. John found the way. There were just the two of us with him, the night when we came to New York in answer to his call, Ragnar and I. He told us what we had to do and what sort of men we had to reach. He had quit the Twentieth Century. He was living in a garret in a slum neighborhood. He stepped to the window and pointed at the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would seethe lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done. He did not ask us to join him at once. He told us to think it over and to weigh everything it would do to our lives. I gave him my answer on the morning of the second day, and Ragnar a few hours later, in the afternoon.... Dagny, that was the morning after our last night together. I had seen, in a manner of vision that I couldn't escape, what it was that I had to fight for.\n\nIt was for the way you looked that night, for the way you talked about your railroad-for the way you had looked when we tried to seethe skyline of New York from the top of a rock over the Hudson-I had to save you, to clear the way for you, to let you find your city-not to let you stumble the years of your life away, struggling on through a poisoned fog, with your eyes still held straight ahead, still looking as they had looked in the sunlight, struggling onto find, at the end of your road, not the towers of a city, but a fat, soggy, mindless cripple performing his enjoyment of life by means of swallowing the gin your life had gone to pay for! You,-to know no joy in order that he may know it? You-to serve as fodder for the pleasure of others? You-as the means for the subhuman as the end? Dagny, that was what I saw and that was what I couldn't let them do to you! Not to you, not to any child who had your kind of look when-he faced the future, not to any man who had your spirit and was able to experience a moment of being proudly, guiltlessly, confidently, joyously alive. That was my love, that state of the human spirit, and I left you to fight for it, and I knew that if I were to lose you, it was still you that I would be winning with every year of the battle. But you see it now, don't you? You've seen this valley. It's the place we set out to reach when we were children, you and I. We've reached it. What else can I ask for now? Just to see you here-did John say you're still a scab?-oh well, it's only a matter of tune, but you'll be one of us, because you've always been, if you don't see it fully, we'll wait, I don't care-so long as you're alive, so long as I don't have to goon flying over the Rockies, looking for the wreckage of your plane!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gasped a little, realizing why he had not come to the valley on time.\n\nHe laughed. \"Don't look like that. Don't look at meas if I were a wound that you're afraid to touch.\"\n\n\"Francisco, I've hurt you in so many different ways-\"\n\n\"No! No, you haven't hurt me-and he hasn't either, don't say anything about it, it's he who's hurt, but we'll save him and he'll come here, too, where he belongs, and he'll know, and then he, too, will be able to laugh about it. Dagny, I didn't expect you to wait, I didn't hope, I knew the chance I'd taken, and if it had to be anyone, I'm glad it's he.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes, pressing her lips together not to moan.\n\n\"Darling, don't! Don't you see that I've accepted it?\"\n\nBut it isn't-she thought-it isn't he, and I can't tell you the truth, because it's a man who might never hear it from me and whom I might never have.\n\n\"Francisco, I did love you-\" she said, and caught her breath, shocked, realizing that she had not intended to say it and, simultaneously, that this was not the tense she had wanted to use.\n\n\"But you do,\" he said calmly, smiling. \"You still love me-even if there's one expression of it that you'll always feel and want, but will not give meany longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't be treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values. No matter what happens in the future, we'll always be what we were to each other, you and I, because you'll always love me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Francisco,\" she whispered, \"do you know that?\"\n\n\"Of course. Don't you understand it now? Dagny, every form of happiness is one, every desire is driven by the same motor-by our love fora single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence-and every achievement is an expression of it. Look around you. Do you see how much is open to us here, on an unobstructed earth? Do you see how much I am free to do, to experience, to achieve? Do you see that all of it is part of what you are tome-as I am part of it for you? And if I'll see you smile with admiration at anew copper smelter that I built, it will be another form of what I felt when I lay in bed beside you. Will I want to sleep with you? Desperately. Will I envy the man who does? Sure. But what does that matter? It's so much-just to have you here, to love you and to be alive.\"\n\nHer eyes lowered, her face stern, holding her head bowed as in an act of reverence, she said slowly, as if fulfilling a solemn promise, \"Will you forgive me?\"\n\nHe looked astonished, then chuckled gaily, remembering, and answered, \"Not yet. There's nothing to forgive, but I'll forgive it when you join us.\"\n\nHe rose, he drew her to her feet-and when his arms closed about her, their kiss was the summation of their past, its end and their seal of acceptance.\n\nGalt turned to them from across the living room, when they came out. He had been standing at a window, looking at the valley-and she felt certain that he had stood there all that time. She saw his eyes studying their faces, his glance moving slowly from one to the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face relaxed a little at the sight of the change in Francisco's.\n\nFrancisco smiled, asking him, \"Why do you stare at me?\"\n\n\"Do you know what you looked like when you came in?\"\n\n\"Oh, did I? That's because I hadn't slept for three nights. John, will you invite me to dinner? I want to know how this scab of yours got here, but I think that I might collapse sound asleep in the middle of a sentence-even though right now I feel as if I'll never need any sleep at all-so I think I'd better go home and stay there till evening.\"\n\nGalt was watching him with a faint smile. \"But aren't you going to leave the valley in an hour?\"\n\n\"What? No...\" he said mildly, in momentary astonishment. \"No!\" he laughed exultantly. \"I don't have to! That's right, I haven't told you what it was, have I? I was searching for Dagny. For... for the wreck of her plane. She'd been reported lost in a crash in the Rockies.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Galt quietly.\n\n\"I could have thought of anything, except that she would choose to crash in Galt's Gulch,\" Francisco said happily; he had the tone of that joyous relief which almost relishes the horror of the past, defying it by means of the present. \"I kept flying over the district between Afton, Utah, and Winston, Colorado, over every peak and crevice of it, over every remnant of a car in any gully below, and whenever I saw one, I-\" He stopped; it looked like a shudder. \"Then at night, we went out on foot-the searching parties of railroad men from Winston-we went climbing at random, with no clues, no plan, on and on, until it was daylight again, and-\" He shrugged, trying to dismiss it and to smile. \"I wouldn't wish it on my worst-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped short; his smile vanished and a dim reflection of the look he had worn for three days came back to his face, as if at the sudden presence of an image he had forgotten.\n\nAfter along moment, he turned to Galt. \"John,\" his voice sounded peculiarly solemn, \"could we notify those outside that Dagny is alive... in case there's somebody who... who'd feel as I did?\"\n\nGalt was looking straight at him. \"Do you wish to give any outsider any relief from the consequences of remaining outside?\"\n\nFrancisco dropped his eyes, but answered firmly, \"No.\"\n\n\"Pity, Francisco?\"\n\n\"Yes. Forget it. You're right.\"\n\nGalt turned away with a movement that seemed oddly out of character: it had the unrhythmical abruptness of the involuntary.\n\nHe did not turn back; Francisco watched him in astonishment, then asked softly, \"What's the matter?\"\n\nGalt turned and looked at him fora moment, not answering. She could not identify the emotion that softened the lines of Galt's face: it had the quality of a smile, of gentleness, of pain, and of something greater that seemed to make these concepts superfluous.\n\n\"Whatever any of us has paid for this battle,\" said Galt, \"you're the one who's taken the hardest beating, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Who? I?\" Francisco grinned with shocked, incredulous amusement.\n\n\"Certainly not! What's the matter with you?\" He chuckled and added, \"Pity, John?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Galt firmly.\n\nShe saw Francisco watching him with a faint, puzzled frown-because Galt had said it, looking, not at him, but at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The emotional sum that struck her as an immediate impression of Francisco's house, when she entered it for the first time, was not the sum she had once drawn from the sight of its silent, locked exterior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt, not a sense of tragic loneliness, but of invigorating brightness. The rooms were bare and crudely simple, the house seemed built with the skill, the decisiveness and the impatience typical of Francisco; it looked like a frontiersman's shanty thrown together to serve as a mere springboard fora long flight into the future-a future where so great afield of activity lay waiting that no time could be wasted on the comfort of its start. The place had the brightness, not of a home, but of afresh wooden scaffolding erected to shelter the birth of a skyscraper.\n\nFrancisco, in shirtsleeves, stood in the middle of his twelve-foot square living room, with the look of a host in a palace. Of all the places where she had ever seen him, this was the background that seemed most properly his. Just as the simplicity of his clothes, added to his bearing, gave him the air of a superlative aristocrat, so the crudeness of the room gave it the appearance of the most patrician retreat; a single royal touch was added to the crudeness: two ancient silver goblets stood in a small niche cut in a wall of bare logs; their ornate design had required the luxury of some craftsman's long and costly labor, more labor than had gone to build the shanty, a design dimmed by the polish of more centuries than had gone to grow the log wall's pines. In the midst of that room, Francisco's easy, natural manner had a touch of quiet pride, as if his smile were silently saying to her: This is what I am and what I have been all these years.\n\nShe looked up at the silver goblets.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, in answer to her silent guess, \" they belonged to Sebastian d'Anconia and his wife. That's the only thing I brought here from my palace in Buenos Aires. That, and the crest over the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's all I wanted to save. Everything else will go, in a very few months now.\"He chuckled.\" They'll seize it, all of it, the last dregs of d'Anconia Copper, but they'll be surprised. They won't find much for their trouble. And as to that palace, they won't be able to afford even its heating bill.\"\n\n\"And then?\" she asked. \"Where will you go from there?\"\n\n\"I? I will go to work for d'Anconia Copper.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Do you remember that old slogan:\" The king is dead, long live the king\"? When the carcass of my ancestors\" property is out of the way, then my mine will become the young new body of d'Anconia Copper, the kind of property my ancestors had wanted, had worked for, had deserved, but had never owned.\"\n\n\"Your mine? What mine? Where?\"\n\n\"Here,\" he said, pointing toward the mountain peaks. \"Didn't you know it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I own a copper mine that the looters won't reach. It's here, in these mountains. I did the prospecting, I discovered it, I broke the first excavation. It was over eight years ago. I was the first man to whom Midas sold land in this valley. I bought that mine. I started it with my own hands, as Sebastian d'Anconia had started. I have a superintendent 77! in charge of it now, who used to be my best metallurgist in Chile.\n\nThe mine produces all the copper we require. My profits are deposited at the Mulligan Bank. That will be all I'll have, a few months from now. That will be all I'll need.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-to conquer the world, was the way his voice sounded on his last sentence-and she marveled at the difference between that sound and the shameful, mawkish tone, half-whine, half-threat, the tone of beggar and thug combined, which the men of their century had given to the word'need.\"\n\n\"Dagny,\" he was saying, standing at the window, as if looking out at the peaks, not of mountains, but of time, \" the rebirth of d'Anconia Copper-and of the world-has to start here, in the United States. This country was the only country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a rational product of man's mind. This country was built on the supremacy of reason-and, for one magnificent century, it redeemed the world. It will have to do so again. The first step of d'Anconia Copper, as of any other human value, has to come from here-because the rest of the earth has reached the consummation of the beliefs it has held through the ages: mystic faith, the supremacy of the irrational, which has but two monuments at the end of its course: the lunatic asylum and the graveyard.... Sebastian d'Anconia committed one error: he accepted a system which declared that the property he had earned by right, was to be his, not by right, but by permission. His descendants paid for that error. I have made the last payment.... I think that I will seethe day when, growing out from their root in this soil, the mines, the smelters, the ore docks of d'Anconia Copper will spread again through the world and down to my native country, and I will be the first to start my country's rebuilding.\n\nI may see it, but I cannot be certain. No man can predict the time when others will choose to return to reason. It maybe that at the end of my life, I shall have established nothing but this single mine-d'Anconia Copper No. 1, Galt's Gulch, Colorado, U. S. A. But, Dagny, do you remember that my ambition was to double my father's production of copper? Dagny, if at the end of my life, I produce but one pound of copper a year, I will be richer than my father, richer than all my ancestors with all their thousands of tons-because that one pound will be mine by right and will be used to maintain a world that knows it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the Francisco of their childhood, in bearing, in manner, in the unclouded brilliance of his eyes-and she found herself questioning him about his copper mine, as she had questioned him about his industrial projects on their walks on the shore of the Hudson, recapturing the sense of an unobstructed future.\n\n\"I'll take you to seethe mine,\" he said, \"as soon as your ankle recovers completely. We have to climb a steep trail to get there, just a mule trail, there's no truck road as yet. Let me show you the new smelter I'm designing. I've been working on it for sometime, it's too complex for our present volume of production, but when the mine's output grows to justify it-just take a look at the time, labor and money that it will save!\"\n\nThey were sitting together on the floor, bending over the sheets of paper he spread before her, studying the intricate sections of the smelter-with the same joyous earnestness they had once brought to the study of scraps in a junkyard.\n\nShe leaned forward just as he moved to reach for another sheet, and she found herself leaning against his shoulder.-Involuntarily, she held still for one instant, no longer than fora small break in the flow of a single motion, while her eyes rose to his. He was looking down at her, neither hiding what he felt nor implying any further demand. She drew back, knowing that she had felt the same desire as his.\n\nThen, still holding the recaptured sensation of what she had felt for him in the past, she grasped a quality that had always been part of it, now suddenly clear to her for the first time: if that desire was a celebration of one's life, then what she had felt for Francisco had always been a celebration of her future, like a moment of splendor gained in part payment of an unknown, total, affirming some promise to come. In the instant when she grasped it, she knew also the only desire she had ever experienced not in token of the future but of the full and final present She knew it by means of an image-the image of a man's figure standing at the door of a small granite structure. The final form of the promise that had kept her moving, she thought, was the man who would, perhaps, remain a promise never to be reached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this-she thought in consternation-was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach. But she had come to it and she could find no answer.\n\nShe could not give him up or give up the world-she thought, looking at Galt, that evening. The answer seemed harder to find in his presence. She felt that no problem existed, that nothing could stand beside the fact of seeing him and nothing would ever have the power to make her leave-and, simultaneously, that she would have no right to look at him if she were to renounce her railroad. She felt that she owned him, that the unnamed had been understood between them from the start-and, simultaneously, that he was able to vanish from her Me and, on some future street of the outside world, to pass her by in unweighted indifference.\n\nShe noted that he did not question her about Francisco. When she spoke of her visit, she could find no reaction in his face, neither of approval nor of resentment. It seemed to her that she caught an imperceptible shading in his gravely attentive expression: he looked as if this were a matter about which he did not choose to feel.\n\nHer faint apprehension grew into a question mark, and the question mark turned into a drill, cutting deeper and deeper into her mind through the evenings that followed-when Galt left the house and she remained alone. He went out every other night, after dinner, not telling her where he went, returning at midnight or later. She tried not to allow herself fully to discover with what tension and. restlessness she waited for his return. She did not ask him where he spent his evenings. The reluctance that stopped her washer too urgent desire to know; she kept silent in some dimly intentional form of defiance, half in defiance of him, half of her own anxiety." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 16" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this-she thought in consternation-was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach. But she had come to it and she could find no answer.\n\nShe could not give him up or give up the world-she thought, looking at Galt, that evening. The answer seemed harder to find in his presence. She felt that no problem existed, that nothing could stand beside the fact of seeing him and nothing would ever have the power to make her leave-and, simultaneously, that she would have no right to look at him if she were to renounce her railroad. She felt that she owned him, that the unnamed had been understood between them from the start-and, simultaneously, that he was able to vanish from her Me and, on some future street of the outside world, to pass her by in unweighted indifference.\n\nShe noted that he did not question her about Francisco. When she spoke of her visit, she could find no reaction in his face, neither of approval nor of resentment. It seemed to her that she caught an imperceptible shading in his gravely attentive expression: he looked as if this were a matter about which he did not choose to feel.\n\nHer faint apprehension grew into a question mark, and the question mark turned into a drill, cutting deeper and deeper into her mind through the evenings that followed-when Galt left the house and she remained alone. He went out every other night, after dinner, not telling her where he went, returning at midnight or later. She tried not to allow herself fully to discover with what tension and. restlessness she waited for his return. She did not ask him where he spent his evenings. The reluctance that stopped her washer too urgent desire to know; she kept silent in some dimly intentional form of defiance, half in defiance of him, half of her own anxiety." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would not acknowledge the things she feared or give them the solid shape of words, she knew them only by the ugly, nagging pull of an unadmitted emotion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Part of it was a savage resentment, of a kind she had never experienced before, which washer answer to the dread that there might be a woman in his life; yet the resentment was softened by some quality of health in the thing she feared, as if the threat could be fought and even, if need be, accepted. But there was another, uglier dread: the sordid shape of self-sacrifice, the suspicion, not to be uttered about him, that he wished to remove himself from her path and let its emptiness force her back to the man who was his best-loved friend.\n\nDays passed before she spoke of it. Then, at dinner, on an evening when he was to leave, she became suddenly aware of the peculiar pleasure she experienced while watching him eat the food she had prepared-and suddenly, involuntarily, as if that pleasure gave her aright she dared not identify, as if enjoyment, not pain, broke her resistance, she heard herself asking him, \"What is it you're doing every other evening?\"\n\nHe answered simply, as if he had taken for granted that she knew it, \"Lecturing.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Giving a course of lectures on physics, as I do every year during this month. It's my... What are you laughing at?\" he asked, seeing the look of relief, of silent laughter that did not seem to be directed at his words-and then, before she answered, he smiled suddenly, as if he had guessed the answer, she saw some particular, intensely personal quality in his smile, which was almost a quality of insolent intimacy-in contrast to the calmly impersonal, casual manner with which he went on. \"You know that this is the month when we all trade the achievements of our real professions. Richard Halley is to give concerts, Kay Ludlow is to appear in two plays written by authors who do not write for the outside world-and I give lectures, reporting on the work I've done during the year.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Free lectures?\"\n\n\"Certainly not. It's ten dollars per person for the course.\"\n\n\"I want to hear you.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"No. You'll be allowed to attend the concerts, the plays or any form of presentation for your own enjoyment, but not my lectures or any other sale of ideas which you might carryout of this valley. Besides, my customers, or students, are only those who have a practical purpose in taking my course: Dwight Sanders, Lawrence Hammond, Dick McNamara, Owen Kellogg, a few others. I've added one beginner this year: Quentin Daniels.\"\n\n\"Really?\" she said, almost with a touch of jealousy. \"How can he afford anything that expensive?\"\n\n\"On credit. I've given him a time-payment plan. He's worth it.\"\n\n\"Where do you lecture?\"\n\n\"In the hangar, on Dwight Sanders' farm.\"\n\n\"And where do you work during the year?\"\n\n\"In my laboratory.\"\n\nShe asked cautiously, \"Where is your laboratory? Here, in the valley?\"\n\nHe held her eyes fora moment, letting her see that his glance was amused and that he knew her purpose, then answered, \"No.\"\n\n\"You've lived in the outside world for all of these twelve years?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Do you\"-the thought seemed unbearable-\"do you hold some such job as the others?\"\n\n\"Oh yes.\" The amusement in his eyes seemed stressed by some special meaning.\n\n\"Don't tell me that you're a second assistant bookkeeper!\"\n\n\"No, I'm not.\"\n\n\"Then what do you do?\"\n\n\"I hold the kind of job that the world wishes me to hold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"No, Miss Taggart. If you decide to leave the valley, this is one of the things that you are not to know.\"\n\nHe smiled again with that insolently personal quality which now seemed to say that he knew the threat contained in his answer and what it meant to her, then he rose from the table.\n\nWhen he had gone, she felt as if the motion of time were an oppressive weight in the stillness of the house, like a stationary, half-solid mass slithering slowly into some faint elongation by a tempo that left her no measure to know whether minutes had passed or hours. She lay half-stretched in an armchair of the living room, crumpled by that heavy, indifferent lassitude which is not the will to laziness, but the frustration of the will to a secret violence that no lesser action can satisfy.\n\nThat special pleasure she had felt in watching him eat the food she had prepared-she thought, lying still, her eyes closed, her mind moving, like time, through some realm of veiled slowness-it had been the pleasure of knowing that she had provided him with a sensual enjoyment, that one form of his body's satisfaction had come from her.\n\n... There is reason, she thought, why a woman would wish to cook fora man... oh, not as a duty, not as a chronic career, only as a rare and special rite in symbol of... but what have they made of it, the preachers of woman's duty?... The castrated performance of a sickening drudgery was held to be a woman's proper virtue-while that which gave it meaning and sanction was held as a shameful sin... the work of dealing with grease, steam and slimy peelings in a reeking kitchen was held to be a spiritual matter, an act of compliance with her moral duty-while the meeting of two bodies in a bedroom was held to be a physical indulgence, an act of surrender to an animal instinct, with no glory, meaning or pride of spirit to be claimed by the animals involved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She leaped abruptly to her feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not want to think of the outer world or of its moral code. But she knew that that was not the subject of her thoughts. And she did not want to think of the subject her mind was intent on pursuing, the subject to which it kept returning against her will, by some will of its own....\n\nShe paced the room, hating the ugly, jerky, uncontrolled looseness of her movements-torn between the need to let her motion break the stillness, and the knowledge that this was not the form of break she wanted. She lighted cigarettes, for an instant's illusion of purposeful action-and discarded them within another instant, feeling the weary distaste of a substitute purpose. She looked at the room like a restless beggar, pleading with physical objects to give her a motive, wishing she could find something to clean, to mend, to polish-while knowing that no task was worth the effort. When nothing seems worth the effort-said some stern voice in her mind-it's a screen to hide a wish that's worth too much; what do you want?... She snapped a match, viciously jerking the flame to the tip of a cigarette she noticed hanging, unlighted, in the corner of her mouth.... What do you want?-repeated the voice that sounded severe as a judge. I want him to comeback!-she answered, throwing the words, as a soundless cry, at some accuser within her, almost as one would throw a bone to a pursuing beast, in the hope of distracting it from pouncing upon the rest.\n\nI want him back-she said softly, in answer to the accusation that there was no reason for so great an impatience.... I want him back-she said pleadingly, in answer to the cold reminder that her answer did not balance the judge's scale.... I want him back!-she cried defiantly, fighting not to drop\" the one superfluous, protective word in that sentence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt her head drooping with exhaustion, as after a prolonged beating. The cigarette she saw between her fingers had burned the mere length of half an inch. She ground it out and fell into the armchair again.\n\nI'm not evading it-she thought-I'm not evading it, it's just that I can see noway to any answer.... That which you want-said the voice, while she stumbled through a thickening fog-is yours for the taking, but anything less than your full acceptance, anything less than your full conviction, is a betrayal of everything he is.... Then let him damn me-she thought, as if the voice were now lost in the fog and would not hear her-let him damn me tomorrow.... I want him... back.... She heard no answer, because her head had fallen softly against the chair; she was asleep.\n\nWhen she opened her eyes, she saw him standing three feet away, looking down at her, as if he had been watching her for sometime.\n\nShe saw his face and, with the clarity of undivided perception, she saw the meaning of the expression on his face: it was the meaning she had fought for hours. She saw it without astonishment, because she had not yet regained her awareness of any reason why it should astonish her.\n\n\"This is the way you look,\" he said softly, \"when you fall asleep in your office,\" and she knew that he, too, was not fully aware of letting her hear it: the way he said it told her how often he had thought of it and for what reason. \"You look as if you would awaken in a world where you had nothing to hide or to fear,\" and she knew that the first movement of her face had been a smile, she knew it in the moment when it vanished, when she grasped that they were both awake. He added quietly, with full awareness, \"But here, it's true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her first emotion of the realm of reality was a sense of power. She sat up with a flowing, leisurely movement of confidence, feeling the flow of the motion from muscle to muscle through her body. She asked, and it was the slowness, the sound of casual curiosity, the tone of taking the implications for granted, that gave to her voice the faintest sound of disdain, \"How did you know what I look like in... my office?\"\n\n\"I told you that I've watched you for years.\"\n\n\"How were you able to watch me that thoroughly? From where?\"\n\n\"I will not answer you now,\" he said, simply, without defiance.\n\nThe slight movement of her shoulder leaning back, the pause, then the lower, huskier tone of her voice, left a hint of smiling triumph to trail behind her words: \"When did you see me for the first time?\"\n\n\"Ten years ago,\" he answered, looking straight at her, letting her see that he was answering the full, unnamed meaning of her question.\n\n\"Where?\" The word was almost a command.\n\nHe hesitated, then she saw a faint smile that touched only his lips, not his eyes, the kind of smile with which one contemplates-with longing, bitterness and pride-a possession purchased at an excruciating cost; his eyes seemed directed, not at her, but at the girl of that time.\n\n\"Underground, in the Taggart Terminal,\" he answered.\n\nShe became suddenly conscious of her posture: she had let her shoulder blades slide down against the chair, carelessly, half-lying, one leg stretched forward-and with her sternly tailored, transparent blouse, her wide peasant skirt hand-printed in violent colors, her thin stocking and high-heeled pump, she did not look like a railroad executive-the consciousness of it struck her in answer to his eyes that seemed to be seeing the unattainable-she looked like that which she was: his servant girl. She knew the moment when some faintest stress of the brilliance in his dark green eyes removed the veil of distance, replacing the vision of the past by the act of seeing her immediate person." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She met his eyes with that insolent glance which is a smile without movement of facial muscles.\n\nHe turned away, but as he moved across the room his steps were as eloquent as the sound of a voice. She knew that he wanted to leave the room, as he always left it, he had never stayed for longer than a brief goodnight when he came home. She watched the course of his struggle, whether by means of his steps, begun in one direction and swerving in another, or by means of her certainty that her body had become an instrument for the direct perception of his, like a screen reflecting both movements and motives-she could not tell. She knew only that he who had never started or lost a battle against himself, now had no power to leave this room.\n\nHis manner seemed to show no sign of strain. He took off his coat, throwing it aside, remaining in shirtsleeves, and sat down, facing her, at the window across the room. But he sat down on the arm of a chair, as if he were neither leaving nor staying.\n\nShe felt the light-headed, the easy, the almost frivolous sensation of triumph in the knowledge that she was holding him as surely as by a physical touch; for the length of a moment, brief and dangerous to endure, it was a more satisfying form of contact.\n\nThen she felt a sudden, blinding shock, which was half-blow, half scream within her, and she groped, stunned, for its cause-only to realize that he had leaned a little to one side and it had been no more than the sight of an accidental posture, of the long line running from his shoulder to the angle of his waist, to his hips, down his legs. She looked away, not to let him see that she was trembling-and she dropped all thoughts of triumph and of whose was the power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've seen you many times since,\" he said, quietly, steadily, but a little more slowly than usual, as if he could control everything except his need to speak.\n\n\"Where have you seen me?\"\n\n\"Many places.\"\n\n\"But you made certain to remain unseen?\" She knew that his was a face she could not have failed to notice.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why? Were you afraid?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe said it simply, and it took her a moment to realize that he was admitting he knew what the sight of his person would have meant to her. \"Did you know who I was, when you saw me for the first time?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. My worst enemy but one.\"\n\n\"What?\" She had not expected it; she added, more quietly, \"Who's the worst one?\"\n\n\"Dr. Robert Stadler.\"\n\n\"Did you have me classified with him?\"\n\n\"No. He's my conscious enemy. He's the man who sold his soul. We don't intend to reclaim him. You-you were one of us. I knew it, long before I saw you. I knew also that you would be the last to join us and the hardest one to defeat.\"\n\n\"Who told you that?\"\n\n\"Francisco.\"\n\nShe let a moment pass, then asked, \"What did he say?\"\n\n\"He said that of all the names on our list, you'd be the one most difficult to win. That was when I heard of you for the first time. It was Francisco who put your name on our list. He told me that you were the sole hope and future of Taggart Transcontinental, that you'd stand against us fora longtime, that you'd fight a desperate battle for your railroad-because you had too much endurance, courage and consecration to your work.\" He glanced at her. \" He told me nothing else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He spoke of you as if he were merely discussing one of our future strikers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew that you and he had been childhood friends, that was all.\"\n\n\"When did you see me?\"\n\n\"Two years later.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By chance. It was late at night... on a passenger platform of the Taggart Terminal.\" She knew that this was a form of surrender, he did not want to say it, yet he had to speak, she heard both the muted intensity and the pull of resistance in his voice-he had to speak, because he had to give himself and her this one form of contact. \"You wore an evening gown. You had a cape half-slipping off your body-I saw, at first, only your bare shoulders, your back and your profile-it looked fora moment as if the cape would slip further and you would stand there naked. Then I saw that you wore along gown, the color of ice, like the tunic of a Grecian goddess, but had the short hair and the imperious profile of an American woman. You looked preposterously out of place on a railroad platform-and it was not on a railroad platform that I was seeing you, I was seeing a setting that had never haunted me before-but then, suddenly, I knew that you did belong among the rails, the soot and the girders, that that was the proper setting fora flowing gown and naked shoulders and a face as alive as yours-a railroad platform, not a curtained apartment-you looked like a symbol of luxury and you belonged in the place that was its source-you seemed to bring wealth, grace, extravagance and the enjoyment of life back to their rightful owners, to the men who created railroads and factories-you had a look of energy and of its reward, together, a look of competence and luxury combined-and I was the first man who had ever stated in what manner these two were inseparable-and I thought that if our age gave form to its proper gods and erected a statue to the meaning of an American railroad, yours would be that statue.... Then I saw what you were doing-and I knew who you were. You were giving orders to three Terminal officials, I could not hear your words, but your voice sounded swift, clear-cut and confident. I knew that you were Dagny Taggart. I came closer, close enough to hear two sentences. \"Who said so?\" asked one of the men. \"I did,\" you answered. That was all I heard. That was enough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And then?\"\n\nHe raised his eyes slowly to hold hers across the room, and the submerged intensity that pulled his voice down, blurring its tone to softness, gave it a sound of self-mockery that was desperate and almost gentle: \"Then I knew that abandoning my motor was not the hardest price I would have to pay for this strike.\"\n\nShe wondered which anonymous shadow-among the passengers who had hurried past her, as insubstantial as the steam of the engines and as ignored-which shadow and face had been his; she wondered how close she had come to him for the length of that unknown moment. \"Oh, why didn't you speak tome, then or later?\"\n\n\"Do you happen to remember what you were doing in the Terminal that night?\"\n\n\"I remember vaguely a night when they called me from some party I was attending. My father was out of town and the new Terminal manager had made some sort of error that tied up all traffic in the tunnels. The old manager had quit unexpectedly the week before,\"\n\n\"It was I who made him quit.\"\n\n\"I see...\"\n\nHer voice trailed off, as if abandoning sound, as her eyelids dropped, abandoning sight. If he had not withstood it then-she thought-if he had come to claim her, then or later, what( sort of tragedy would they have had to reach?... She remembered what she had felt when she had cried that she would shoot the destroyer on sight....\n\nI would have-the thought was not in words, she knew it only as a trembling pressure in her stomach-I would have shot him, afterward, if I discovered his role... and I would have had to discover it... and yet-she shuddered, because she knew she still wished he had come to her, because the thought not to be admitted into her mind. but flowing as a dark warmth through her body, was: I would have shot him, but not before-She raised her eyelids-and she knew that that thought was as naked to him in her eyes, as it was to her in his. She saw his veiled glance and the tautness of his mouth, she saw him reduced to agony, she felt herself drowned by the exultant wish to cause him pain, to see it, to watch it, to watch it beyond her own endurance and his, then to reduce him to the helplessness of pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got up, he looked away, and she could not tell whether it was the slight lift of his head or the tension of his features that made his face look oddly calm and clear, as if it were stripped of emotion down to the naked purity of its structure.\n\n\"Every man that your railroad needed and lost in the past ten years,\" he said, \"it was I who made you lose him.\" His voice had the single toned flatness and the luminous simplicity of an accountant who reminds a reckless purchaser that cost is an absolute which cannot be escaped, \"I have pulled every girder from under Taggart Transcontinental and, if you choose to go back, I will see it collapse upon your head.\"\n\nHe turned to leave the room. She stopped him. It washer voice, more than her words, that made him stop: her voice was low, it had no quality of emotion, only of a sinking weight, and its sole color was some dragging undertone, like an inner echo, resembling a threat; it was the voice of the plea of a person who still retains a concept of honor, but is long past caring for it: \"You want to hold me here, don't you?\"\n\n\"More than anything else in the world.\"\n\n\"You could hold me.\"\n\n\"I know it\"\n\nHis voice had said it with the same sound as hers. He waited, to regain his breath. When he spoke, his voice was low and clear, with some stressed quality of awareness, which was almost the quality of a smile of understanding: \"It's your acceptance of this place that I want. What good would it dome, to have your physical presence without any meaning? That's the kind of faked reality by which most people cheat themselves of their lives. I'm not capable of it.\" He turned to go. \"And neither are you. Goodnight, Miss Taggart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked out, into his bedroom, closing the door.\n\nShe was past the realm of thought-as she lay in bed in the darkness of her room, unable to think or to sleep-and the moaning violence that filled her mind seemed only a sensation of her muscles, but its tone and its twisting shades were like a pleading cry, which she knew, not as words, but as pain: Let him come here, let him break-let it be damned, all of it, my railroad and his strike and everything we've lived by!-let it be damned, everything we've been and are!-he would, if tomorrow I were to die-then let me die, but tomorrow-let him come here, be it any price he names, I have nothing left that's not for sale to him any longer-is this what it means to bean animal?-it does and I am.... She lay on her back, her palms pressed to the sheet at her sides, to stop herself from rising and walking into his room, knowing that she was capable even of that....\n\nIt's not I, it's a body I can neither endure nor control.... But somewhere within her, not as words, but as a radiant point of stillness, there was the presence of the judge who seemed to observe her, not in stern condemnation any longer, but in approval and amusement, as if saying: Your body?-if he were not what you know him to be, would your body bring you to this?-why is it his body that you want, and no other?-do you think that you are damning them, the things you both have lived by?-are you damning that which you are honoring in this very moment, by your very desire?... She did not have to hear the words, she knew them, she had always known them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After awhile, she lost the glow of that knowledge, and there was nothing left but pain and the palms that were pressed to the sheet-and the almost indifferent wonder whether he, too, was awake and fighting the same torture.\n\nShe heard no sound in the house and saw no light from his window on the tree trunks outside. After along while she heard, from the darkness of his room, two sounds that gave her a full answer; she knew that he was awake and that he would not come; it was the sound of a step and the click of a cigarette lighter.\n\nRichard Halley stopped playing, turned away from the piano and glanced at Dagny, He saw her drop her face with the involuntary movement of hiding too strong an emotion, he rose, smiled and said softly, \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Oh no...\" she whispered, knowing that the gratitude washers and that it was futile to express it. She was thinking of the years when the works he had just played for her were being written, here, in his small cottage on a ledge of the valley, when all this prodigal magnificence of sound was being shaped by him as a flowing monument to a concept which equates the sense of life with the sense of beauty-while she had walked through the streets of New York in a hopeless quest for some form of enjoyment, with the screeches of a modern symphony running after her, as if spit by the infected throat of aloud-speaker coughing its malicious hatred of existence.\n\n\"But I mean it,\" said Richard Halley, smiling. \"I'm a businessman and I never do anything without payment. You've paid me. Do you see why I wanted to play for you tonight?\"\n\nShe raised her head. He stood in the middle of his living room, they were alone, with the window open to the summer night, to the dark trees on along sweep of ledges descending toward the glitter of the valley's distant lights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Taggart, how many people are thereto whom my work means as much as it does to you?\"\n\n\"Not many,\" she answered simply, neither as boast nor flattery, but as an impersonal tribute to the exacting values involved.\n\n\"That is the payment I demand. Not many can afford it. I don't mean your enjoyment, I don't mean your emotion-emotions be damned!-I mean your understanding and the fact that your enjoyment was of the same nature as mine, that it came from the same source: from your intelligence, from the conscious judgment of a mind able to judge my work by the standard of the same values that went to write it-I mean, not the fact that you felt, but that you felt what I wished you to feel, not the fact that you admire my work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired.\" He chuckled.\n\n\"There's only one passion inmost artists more violent than their desire for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such admiration as they do receive. But it's a fear I've never shared. I do not fool myself about my work or the response I seek-I value both too highly.\n\nI do not care to be admired causelessly, emotionally, intuitively, instinctively-or blindly, I do not care for blindness in any form, I have too much to show-or for deafness, I have too much to say. I do not care to be admired by anyone's heart-only by someone's head. And when I find a customer with that invaluable capacity, then my performance is a mutual trade to mutual profit. An artist is a trader, Miss Taggart, the hardest and most exacting of all traders. Now do you understand me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said incredulously, \"I do,\" incredulously because she was hearing her own symbol of moral pride, chosen by a man she had least expected to choose it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you do, why did you look quite so tragic just a moment ago?\n\nWhat is it that you regret?\"\n\n\"The years when your work has remained unheard.\"\n\n\"But it hasn't. I've given two or three concerts every year. Here, in Galt's Gulch. I am giving one next week. I hope you'll come. The price of admission is twenty-five cents.\"\n\nShe could not help laughing. He smiled, then his face slipped slowly into earnestness, asunder the tide of some unspoken contemplation of his own. He looked at the darkness beyond the window, at a spot where, in a clearing of the branches, with the moonlight draining its color, leaving only its metallic luster, the sign of the dollar hung like a curve of shining steel engraved on the sky.\n\n\"Miss Taggart, do you see why I'd give three dozen modern artists for one real businessman? Why I have much more in common with Ellis Wyatt or Ken Danagger-who happens to be tone deaf-than with men like Mort Liddy and Balph Eubank? Whether it's a symphony or a coalmine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes-which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification--which means: the capacity to sew, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before. That shining vision which they talk about as belonging to the authors of symphonies and novels-what do they think is the driving faculty of men who discover how to use oil, how to run amine, how to build an electric motor? That sacred fire which is said to burn within musicians and poets-what do they suppose moves an industrialist to defy the whole world for the sake of his new metal, as the inventors of the airplane, the builders of the railroads, the discoverers of new germs or new continents have done through all the ages?... An intransigent devotion to the pursuit of truth, Miss Taggart? Have you heard the moralists and the art lovers of the centuries talk about the artist's intransigent devotion to the pursuit of truth? Name me a greater example of such devotion than the act of a man who says that the earth does turn, or the act of a man who says that an alloy of steel and copper has certain properties which enable it to do certain things, that it is and does-and let the world rack him or ruin him, he will not bear false witness to the evidence of his mind! This, Miss Taggart, this sort of spirit, courage and love for truth-as against a sloppy bum who goes around proudly assuring you that he has almost reached the perfection of a lunatic, because he's an artist who hasn't the faintest idea what his artwork is or means, he's not restrained by such crude concepts as'being'or'meaning'he's the vehicle of higher mysteries, he doesn't know how he created his work or why, it just came out of him spontaneously, like vomit out of a drunkard, he did not think, he wouldn't stoop to thinking, he just felt it, all he has to do is feel-he feels, the flabby, loose-mouthed, shifty-eyed, drooling, shivering, uncongealed bastard! I, who know what discipline, what effort, what tension of mind, what unrelenting strain upon one's power of clarity are needed to produce a work of art-I, who know that it requires a labor which makes a chain gang look like rest and a severity no army drilling sadist could impose-I'll take the operator of a coalmine over any walking vehicle of higher mysteries. The operator knows that it's not his feelings that keep the coal carts moving under the earth-and he knows what does keep them moving. Feelings? Oh yes, we do feel, he, you and I-we are, in fact, the only people capable of feeling-and we know where our feelings come from. But what we did not know and have delayed learning for too long is the nature of those who claim that they cannot account for their feelings. We did not know what it is that they feel. We are learning it now. It was a costly error. And those most guilty of it, will pay the hardest price-as, injustice, they must. Those most guilty of it were the real artists, who will now see that they are first to be exterminated and that they had prepared the triumph of their own exterminators by helping to destroy their only protectors. For if there is more tragic a fool than the businessman who doesn't know that he's an exponent of man's highest creative spirit-it's the artist who thinks that the businessman is his enemy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was true-she thought, when she walked through the streets of the valley, looking with a child's excitement at the shop windows sparkling in the sun-that the businesses here had the purposeful selectiveness of art-and that the art-she thought, when she satin the darkness of a clapboard concert hall, listening to the controlled violence and the mathematical precision of Halley's music-had the stern discipline of business.\n\nBoth had the radiance of engineering-she thought, when she sat among rows of benches under the open sky, watching Kay Ludlow on the stage. It was an experience she had not known since childhood-the experience of being held for three hours by a play that told a story she had not seen before, in lines she had not heard, uttering a theme that had not been picked from the hand-me-downs of the centuries. It was the forgotten delight of being held in rapt attention by the reins of the ingenious, the unexpected, the logical, the purposeful, the new-and of seeing it embodied in a performance of superlative artistry by a woman playing a character whose beauty of spirit matched her own physical perfection.\n\n\"That's why I'm here, Miss Taggart,\" said Kay Ludlow, smiling in answer to her comment, after the performance. \"Whatever quality of human greatness I have the talent to portray-that was the quality the outer world sought to degrade. They let me play nothing but symbols of depravity, nothing but harlots, dissipation-chasers and home-wreckers, always to be beaten at the end by the little girl next door, personifying the virtue of mediocrity. They used my talent-for the defamation of itself. That was why I quit.\"\n\nNot since childhood, thought Dagny, had she felt that sense of exhilaration after witnessing the performance of a play-the sense that life held things worth reaching, not the sense of having studied some aspect of a sewer there had been no reason to see. As the audience filed away into the darkness from the lighted rows of benches, she noticed Ellis Wyatt, Judge Narragansett, Ken Danagger, men who had once been said to despise all forms of art." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last image she caught, that evening, was the sight of two tall, straight, slender figures walking away together down a trail among the rocks, with the beam of a spotlight flashing once on the gold of their hair. They were Kay Ludlow and Ragnar Danneskjold-and she wondered whether she could bear to return to a world where these were the two doomed to destruction.\n\nThe recaptured sense of her own childhood kept coming back to her whenever she met the two sons of the young woman who owned the bakery shop. She often saw them wandering down the trails of the valley-two fearless beings, aged seven and four. They seemed to face life as she had faced it. They did not have the look she had seen in the children of the outer world-a look of fear, half-secretive, half sneering, the look of a child's defense against an adult, the look of a being in the process of discovering that he is hearing lies and of learning to feel hatred. The two boys had the open, joyous, friendly confidence of kittens who do not expect to get hurt, they had an innocently natural, non-boastful sense of their own value and as innocent a trust in any stranger's ability to recognize it, they had the eager curiosity that would venture anywhere with the certainty that life held nothing unworthy of or closed to discovery, and they looked as if, should they encounter malevolence, they would reject it contemptuously, not as dangerous, but as stupid, they would not accept it in bruised resignation as the law of existence, \"They represent my particular career, Miss Taggart,\" said the young mother in answer to her comment, wrapping a loaf of fresh bread and smiling at her across the counter. \"They're the profession I've chosen to practice, which, in spite of all the guff about motherhood, one can't practice successfully in the outer world. I believe you've met my husband, he's the teacher of economics who works as linesman for Dick McNamara. You know, of course, that there can be no collective commitments in this valley and that families or relatives are not allowed to come here, unless each person takes the striker's oath by his own independent conviction. I came here, not merely for the sake of my husband's profession, but for the sake of my own. I came herein order to bring up my sons as human beings. I would not surrender them to the educational systems devised to stunt a child's brain, to convince him that reason is impotent, that existence is an irrational chaos with which he's unable to deal, and thus reduce him to a state of chronic terror. You marvel at the difference between my children and those outside, Miss Taggart? Yet the cause is so simple. The cause is that here, in Galt's Gulch, there's no person who would not consider it monstrous ever to confront a child with the slightest suggestion of the irrational.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought of the teachers whom the schools of the world had lost-when she looked at the three pupils of Dr. Akston, on the evening of their yearly reunion.\n\nThe only other guest he had invited was Kay Ludlow. The six of them satin the backyard of his house, with the light of the sunset on their faces, and the floor of the valley condensing into a soft blue vapor far below.\n\nShe looked at his pupils, at the three pliant, agile figures half stretched on canvas chairs in poses of relaxed contentment, dressed in slacks, windbreakers and open-collared shirts: John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, Ragnar Danneskjold.\n\n\"Don't be astonished, Miss Taggart,\" said Dr. Akston, smiling, \"and don't make the mistake of thinking that these three pupils of mine are some sort of superhuman creatures. They're something much greater and more astounding than that: they're normal men-a thing the world has never seen-and their feat is that they managed to survive as such. It does take an exceptional mind and a still more exceptional integrity to remain untouched by the brain-destroying influences of the world's doctrines, the accumulated evil of centuries-to remain human, since the human is the rational.\"\n\nShe felt some new quality in Dr. Akston's attitude, some change in the sternness of his usual reserve; he seemed to include her in their circle, as if she were more than a guest. Francisco acted as if her presence at their reunion were natural and to betaken gaily for granted. Galt's face gave no hint of any reaction; his manner was that of a courteous escort who had brought her here at Dr. Akston's request.\n\nShe noticed that Dr. Akston's eyes kept coming back to her, as if with the quiet pride of displaying his students to an appreciative observer. His conversation kept returning to a single theme, in the manner of a father who has found a listener interested in his most cherished subject: \" You should have seen them, when they were in college, Miss Taggart. You couldn't have found three boys \"conditioned\" to such different backgrounds, but-conditioners be damned!-they must have picked one another at first sight, among the thousands on that campus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Francisco, the richest hen-in the world-Ragnar, the European aristocrat-and John, the self-made man, self-made in every sense, out of nowhere, penniless, parentless, tie-less." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, he was the son of a gas-station mechanic at some forsaken crossroads in Ohio, and he had left home at the age of twelve to make his own way-but I've always thought of him as if he had come into the world like Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who sprang forth from Jupiter's head, fully grown and fully armed.... I remember the day when I saw the three of them for the first time. They were sitting at the back of the classroom-I was giving a special course for postgraduate students, so difficult a course that few outsiders ever ventured to attend these particular lectures. Those three looked too young even for freshmen-they were sixteen at the time, as I learned later. At the end of that lecture, John got up to ask me a question. It was a question which, as a teacher, I would have been proud to hear from a student who'd taken six years of philosophy. It was a question pertaining to Plato's metaphysics, which Plato hadn't had the sense to ask of himself. I answered-and I asked John to come to my office after the lecture.\n\nHe came-all three of them came-I saw the two others in my anteroom and let them in. I talked to them for an hour-then I cancelled all my appointments and talked to them for the rest of the day. After which, I arranged to let them take that course and receive their credits for it. They took the course. They got the highest grades in the class.\n\n... They were majoring in two subjects: physics and philosophy.\n\nTheir choice amazed everybody but me: modern thinkers considered it unnecessary to perceive reality, and modern physicists considered it unnecessary to think. I knew better; what amazed me was that these children knew it, too.... Robert Stadler was head of the Department of Physics, as I was head of the Department of Philosophy. He and I suspended all rules and restrictions for these three students, we spared them all the routine, unessential courses, we loaded them with nothing but the hardest tasks, and we cleared their way to major in our two subjects within their four years. They worked for it. And, during those four years, they worked for their living, besides. Francisco and Ragnar were receiving allowances from their parents, John had nothing, but all three of them held part-time jobs to earn their own experience and money. Francisco worked in a copper foundry, John worked in a railroad roundhouse, and Ragnar-no, Miss Taggart, Ragnar was not the least, but the most studiously sedate of the three-he worked as clerk in the university library. They had time for everything they wanted, but no time for people or for any communal campus activities. They... Ragnar!\"he interrupted himself suddenly, sharply.\" Don't sit on the ground!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danneskjold had slipped down and was now sitting on the grass, with his head leaning against Kay Ludlow's knees. He rose obediently, chuckling. Dr. Akston smiled with a touch of apology.\n\n\"It's an old habit of mine,\" he explained to Dagny. \"A'conditioned'reflex, I guess. I used to tell him that in those college years, when I'd catch him sitting on the ground in my backyard, on cold, foggy evenings-he was reckless that way, he made me worry, he should have known it was dangerous and-\"\n\nHe stopped abruptly; he read in Dagny's startled eyes the same thought as his own: the thought of the kind of dangers the adult Ragnar had chosen to face. Dr. Akston shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of helpless self-mockery. Kay Ludlow smiled at him in understanding.\n\n\"My house stood just outside the campus,\" he continued, sighing, \" on a tall bluff over Lake Erie. We spent many evenings together, the four of us. We would sit just like this, in my backyard, on the nights of early fall or in the spring, only instead of this granite mountainside, we had the spread of the lake before us, stretching off into a peacefully unlimited distance. I had to work harder on those nights than in any classroom, answering all the questions they'd ask me, discussing the kind of issues they'd raise. About midnight, I would fix some hot chocolate and force them to drink it-the one thing I suspected was that they never took time to eat properly-and then we'd goon talking, while the lake vanished into solid darkness and the sky seemed lighter than the earth. There were a few tunes when we stayed there till I noticed suddenly that the sky was turning darker and the lake was growing pale and we were within a few sentences of daylight. I should have known better, I knew that they weren't getting enough sleep as it was, but I forgot it occasionally, I lost my sense of time-you see, when they were there, I always felt as ft it were early morning and along, inexhaustible day were stretching ahead before us. They never spoke of what they wished they might do in the future, they never wondered whether some mysterious omnipotence had favored them with some unknowable talent to achieve the things they wanted-they spoke of what they would do. Does affection tend to make one a coward? I know that the only times I felt fear were occasional moments when I listened to them and thought of what the world was becoming and what they would have to encounter in the future. Fear?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes-but it was more than fear. It was the kind of emotion that makes men capable of killing-when I thought that the purpose of the world's trend was to destroy these children, that these three sons of mine were marked for immolation. Oh yes, I would have killed-but whom was thereto kill? It was everyone and no one, there was no single enemy, no center and no villain, it was not the simpering social worker incapable of earning a penny or the thieving bureaucrat scared of his own shadow, it was the whole of the earth rolling into an obscenity of horror, pushed by the hand of every would-be decent man who believed that need is holier than ability, and pity is holier than justice. But these were only occasional moments. It was not my constant feeling. I listened to my children and I knew that nothing would defeat them. I looked at them, as they satin my backyard, and beyond my house there were the tall, dark buildings of what was still a monument to unenslaved thought-the Patrick Henry University-and farther in the distance there were the lights of Cleveland, the orange glow of steel mills behind batteries of smokestacks, the twinkling red dots of radio towers, the long white rays of airports on the black edge of the sky-and I thought that in the name of any greatness that had ever existed and moved this world, the greatness of which they were the last descendants, they would win.... I remember one night when I noticed that John had been silent fora longtime-and I saw that he had fallen asleep, stretched thereon the ground.\n\nThe two others confessed that he had not slept for three days. I sent the two of them home at once, but I didn't have the heart to disturb him. It was a warm spring night, I brought a blanket to cover him, and I let him sleep where he was. I sat there beside him till morning-and as I watched his face in the starlight, then the first ray of the sun on his untroubled forehead and closed eyelids, what I experienced was not a prayer, I do not pray, but that state of spirit at which a prayer is a misguided attempt: a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved.\"He moved his arm, pointing to the valley.\" I did not expect it to be as great as this-or as hard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had grown dark and the mountains had blended with the sky.\n\nHanging detached in space, there were the lights of the valley below them, the red breath of Stockton's foundry above, and the lighted string of windows of Mulligan's house, like a railroad car imbedded in the sky.\n\n\"I did have a rival,\" said Dr. Akston slowly. \" It was Robert Stadler.\n\n... Don't frown, John-it's past.... John-did love him, once.\n\nWell, so did I-no, not quite, but what one felt fora mind like Stadler's was painfully close to love, it was that rarest of pleasures: admiration. No, I did not love him, but he and I had always felt as if we were fellow survivors from some vanishing age or land, in the gibbering swamp of mediocrity around us. The mortal sin of Robert Stadler was that he never identified his proper homeland.... He hated stupidity. It was the only emotion I had ever seen him display toward people-a biting, bitter, weary hatred for any ineptitude that dared to oppose him. He wanted his own way, he wanted to be left alone to pursue it, he wanted to brush people out of his path-and he never identified the means to it or the nature of his path and of his enemies. He took a shortcut. Are you smiling, Miss Taggart?\n\nYou hate him, don't you? Yes, you know the kind of shortcut he took.... He told you that we were rivals for these three students.\n\nThat was true-or rather, that was not the way I thought of it, but I knew that he did. Well, if we were rivals, I had one advantage: I knew why they needed both our professions; he never understood their interest in mine. He never understood its importance to himself-which, incidentally, is what destroyed him. But in those years he was still alive enough to grasp at these three students. \"Grasp\" was the word for it. Intelligence being the only value he worshipped, he clutched them as if they were a private treasure of his own. He had always been a very lonely man. I think that in the whole of his life, Francisco and Ragnar were his only love, and John was his only passion. It was John whom he regarded as his particular heir, as his future, as his own immortality. John intended to bean inventor, which meant that he was to be a physicist; he was to take his postgraduate course under Robert Stadler. Francisco intended to leave after graduation and go to work; he was to be the perfect blend of both of us, his two intellectual fathers: an industrialist. And Ragnar-you didn't know what profession Ragnar had chosen, Miss Taggart? No, it wasn't stunt pilot, or jungle explorer, or deep-sea diver. It was something much more courageous than these. Ragnar intended to be a philosopher. An abstract, theoretical, academic, cloistered, ivory-tower philosopher...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, Robert Stadler loved them. And yet-I have said that I would have killed to protect them, only there was no one to kill. If that were the solution-which, of course, it isn't-the man to kill was Robert Stadler. Of anyone person, of any single guilt for the evil which is now destroying the world-his was the heaviest guilt. He had the mind to know better. His was the only name of honor and achievement, used to sanction the rule of the looters. He was the man who delivered science into the power of the looters\" guns. John did not expect it. Neither did I.... John came back for his postgraduate course in physics. But he did not finish it. He left, on the day when Robert Stadler endorsed the establishment of a State Science Institute.\n\nI met Stadler by chance in a corridor of the university, as he came out of his office after his last conversation with John. He looked changed.\n\nI hope that I shall never have to see again a change of that kind in a man's face. He saw me approaching-and he did not know, but I knew, what made him whirl upon me and cry, Tin so sick of all of you Impractical idealists! 1 I turned away. I knew that I had heard a man pronounce a death sentence upon himself.... Miss Taggart, do you remember the question you asked me about my three pupils?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered.\n\n\"I could gather, from your question, the nature of what Robert Stadler had said to you about them. Tell me, why did he speak of them at all?\"\n\nHe saw the faint movement of her bitter smile. \" He told me their story as a justification for his belief in the futility of human intelligence. He told it tome as an example of his disillusioned hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theirs was the kind of ability, \"he said,\"one expects to see, in the future, changing the course of the world'.\"\n\n\"Well, haven't they done so?\"\n\nShe nodded, slowly, holding her head inclined fora long moment hi acquiescence and in homage.\n\n\"What I want you to understand, Miss Taggart, is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check-before they grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity-whether they know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires. Robert Stadler now believes that intelligence is futile and that human life can be nothing but irrational. Did he expect John Galt to become a great scientist, willing to work under the orders of Dr. Floyd Ferris? Did he expect Francisco d'Anconia to become a great industrialist, willing to produce under the orders and for the benefit of Wesley Mouch? Did he expect Ragnar Danneskjold to become a great philosopher, willing to preach, under the orders of Dr. Simon Pritchett, that there is no mind and that might is right? Would that have been a future which Robert Stadler would have considered rational? I want you to observe, Miss Taggart, that those who cry the loudest about their disillusionment, about the failure of virtue, the futility of reason, the impotence of logic-are those who have achieved the full, exact, logical result of the ideas they preached, so mercilessly logical that they dare not identify it. Ina world that proclaims the non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst-in such a world, the best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies. In such a world John Galt, the man of incalculable intellectual power, will remain an unskilled laborer-Francisco d'Anconia, the miraculous producer of wealth, will become a wastrel-and Ragnar Danneskjold, the man of enlightenment, will become the man of violence. Society-and Dr. Robert Stadler-have achieved everything they advocated. What complaint do they now have to make? That the universe is irrational? Is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled; his smile had the pitiless gentleness of certainty.\n\n\"Every man builds his world in his own image,\" he said. \" He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.\n\nIf he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence-by his own choice. Whoever preserves a single thought uncorrupted by any concession to the will of others, whoever brings into reality a matchstick or a patch of garden made in the image of his thought-he, and to that extent, is a man, and that extent is the sole measure of his virtue. They\"-he pointed at his pupils-\" made no concessions. This\"-he pointed at the valley-\" is the measure of what they preserved and of what they are.... Now I can repeat my answer to the question you asked me, knowing that you will understand it fully. You asked me whether I was proud of the way my three sons had turned out. I am more proud than I had ever hoped to be. I am proud of their every action, of their every goal-and of every value they've chosen. And this, Dagny, is my full answer.\"\n\nThe sudden sound of her first name was pronounced in the tone of a father; he spoke his last two sentences, looking, not at her, but at Galt.\n\nShe saw Galt answering him by an open glance held steady for an instant, like a signal of affirmation. Then Galt's eyes moved to hers.\n\nShe saw him looking at her as if she bore the unspoken title that hung in the silence between them, the title Dr. Akston had granted her, but had not pronounced and none of the others had caught-she saw, in Galt's eyes, a glance of amusement at her shock, of support and, incredibly, of tenderness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "D'Anconia Copper No. I was a small cut on the face of the mountain, that looked as if a knife had made a few angular slashes, leaving shelves of rock, red as a wound, on the reddish-brown flank.\n\nThe sun beat down upon it. Dagny stood at the edge of a path, holding onto Galt's arm on one side and to Francisco's on the other, the wind blowing against their faces and out over the valley, two thousand feet below.\n\nThis-she thought, looking at the mine-was the story of human wealth written across the mountains: a few pine trees hungover the cut, contorted by the storms that had raged through the wilderness for centuries, six men worked on the shelves, and an inordinate amount of complex machinery traced delicate lines against the sky; the machinery did most of the work.\n\nShe noticed that Francisco was displaying his domain to Galt as much as to her, as much or more. \"You haven't seen it since last year, John.... John, wait till you see it a year from now. I'll be through, outside, in just a few months-and then this will be my full-time job.\"\n\n\"Hell, no, John!\" he said, laughing, in answer to a question-but she caught suddenly the particular quality of his glance whenever it rested on Galt: it was the quality she had seen in his eyes when he had stood in her room, clutching the edge of a table to outlive an unlivable moment; he had looked as if he were seeing someone before him; it was Galt, she thought; it was Galt's image that had carried him through.\n\nSome part of her felt a dim dread: the effort which Francisco had made in that moment to accept her loss and his rival, as the payment demanded of him for his battle, had cost him so much that he was now unable to suspect the truth Dr. Akston had guessed. What will it do to him when he learns?-she wondered, and felt a bitter voice reminding her that there would, perhaps, never be any truth of this kind to learn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some part of her felt a dim tension as she watched the way Galt looked at Francisco: it was an open, simple, unreserved glance of surrender to an unreserved feeling. She felt the anxious wonder she had never fully named or dismissed: wonder whether this feeling would bring him down to the ugliness of renunciation.\n\nBut most of her mind seemed swept by some enormous sense of release, as if she were laughing at all doubts. Her glance kept going back over the path they had traveled to get here, over the two exhausting miles of a twisted trail that ran, like a precarious corkscrew, from the tip of her feet down to the floor of the valley. Her eyes kept studying it, her mind racing with some purpose of its own.\n\nBrush, pines and a clinging carpet of moss went climbing from the green slopes far below, up the granite ledges. The moss and the brush vanished gradually, but the pines went on, struggling upward in thinning strands, till only a few dots of singletrees were left, rising up the naked rock toward the white sunbursts of snow in the crevices at the peaks. She looked at the spectacle of the most ingenious mining machinery she had ever seen, then at the trail where the plodding hoofs and swaying shapes of mules provided the most ancient form of transportation.\n\n\"Francisco,\" she asked, pointing, \"who designed the machines?\"\n\n\"They're just adaptations of standard equipment.\"\n\n\"Who designed them?\"\n\n\"I did. We don't have many men to spare. We had to makeup for it.\"\n\n\"You're wasting an unconscionable amount of manpower and time, carting your ore on muleback. You ought to build a railroad down to the valley.\"\n\nShe was looking down and did not notice the sudden, eager shot of his glance to her face or the sound of caution in his voice: \"I know it, but it's such a difficult job that the mine's output won't justify it at present.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nonsense! It's much simpler than it looks. There's a pass to the east where there's an easier grade and softer stone, I watched it on the way up, it wouldn't take so many curves, three miles of rail or less would do it.\"\n\nShe was pointing east, she did not notice the intensity with which the two men were watching her face.\n\n\"Just a narrow-gauge track is all you'll need... like the first railroads... that's where the first railroads started-at mines, only they were coalmines.... Look, do you see that ridge? There's plenty of clearance fora three-foot gauge, you wouldn't need to do any blasting or widening. Do you see where there's a slow rise fora stretch of almost half a mile? That would be no worse than a four percent grade, any engine could manage it.\" She was speaking with a swift, bright certainty, conscious of nothing but the joy of performing her natural function in her natural world where nothing could take precedence over the act of offering a solution to a problem. \"The road will pay for itself within three years. I think, at a rough glance, that the costliest part of the job will be a couple of steel trestles-and there's one spot where I might have to blast a tunnel, but it's only fora hundred feet or less. I'll need a steel trestle to throw the track across that gorge and bring it here, but it's not as hard as it looks-let me show you, have you got apiece of paper?\"\n\nShe did not notice with what speed Galt produced a notebook and a pencil and thrust them into her hands-she seized them, as if she expected them to be there, as if she were giving orders on a construction site where details of this kind were not to delay her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me give you a rough idea of what I mean. If we drive diagonal piles into the rock\"-she was sketching rapidly-\"the actual steel span would be only six hundred feet long-it would cutoff this last half mile of your corkscrew turns-I could have the rail laid in three months and-\"\n\nShe stopped. When she looked up at their faces, the fire had gone out of hers. She crumpled her sketch and flung it aside into the red dust of the gravel. \"Oh, what for?\" she cried, the despair breaking out for the first time. \"To build three miles of railroad and abandon a transcontinental system!\"\n\nThe two men were looking at her, she saw no reproach in their faces, only a look of understanding which was almost compassion.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she said quietly, dropping her eyes.\n\n\"If you change your mind,\" said Francisco, \"I'll hire you on the spot--or Midas will give you a loan in five minutes to finance that railroad, if you want to own it yourself.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I can't...\" she whispered, \"not yet...\"\n\nShe raised her eyes, knowing that they knew the nature of her despair and that it was useless to hide her struggle. \"I've tried it once,\" she said. \" I've tried to give it up... I know what it will mean...\n\nI'll think of it with every crosstie I'll see laid here, with every spike driven... I'll think of that other tunnel and... and of Nat Taggart's bridge.... Oh, if only I didn't have to hear about it! If only I could stay here and never know what they're doing to the railroad, and never learn when it goes!\"\n\n\"You'll have to hear about it,\" said Galt; it was that ruthless tone, peculiarly his, which sounded implacable by being simple, devoid of any emotional value, save the quality of respect for facts. \" You'll hear the whole course of the last agony of Taggart Transcontinental." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You'll hear about every wreck. You'll hear about every discontinued train. You'll hear about every abandoned line. You'll hear about the collapse of the Taggart Bridge. Nobody stays in this valley except by a full, conscious choice based on a full, conscious knowledge of every fact involved in his decision. Nobody stays hereby faking reality in any manner whatever.\"\n\nShe looked at him, her head lifted, knowing what chance he was rejecting. She thought that no man of the outer world would have said this to her at this moment-she thought of the world's code that worshipped white lies as an act of mercy-she felt a stab of revulsion against that code, suddenly seeing its full ugliness for the first time-she felt an enormous pride for the tight, clean face of the man before her-he saw the shape of her mouth drawn firm in self-control, yet softened by some tremulous emotion, while she answered quietly, \"Thank you. You're right.\"\n\n\"You don't have to answer me now,\" he said. \"You'll tell me when you've decided. There's still a week left.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said calmly, \"just one more week.\"\n\nHe turned, picked up her crumpled sketch, folded it neatly and slipped it into his pocket.\n\n\"Dagny,\" said Francisco, \" when you weigh your decision, consider the first time you quit, if you wish, but consider everything about it.\n\nIn this valley, you won't have to torture yourself by shingling roofs and building paths that lead nowhere.\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" she asked suddenly, \" how did you find out where I was, that time? '1\n\nHe smiled. \" It was John who told me. The destroyer, remember?\n\nYou wondered why the destroyer had not sent anyone after you. But he had. It was he who sent me there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He sent you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What did he say to you?\"\n\n\"Nothing much. Why?\"\n\n\"What did he say? Do you remember the exact words?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do remember. He said, 'If you want your chance, take it.\n\nYou've earned it.\" I remember, because-\"He turned to Galt with the untroubled frown of a slight, casual puzzle.\" John, I never quite understood why you said it. Why that? Why-my chance?\"\n\n\"Do you mind if I don't answer you now?\"\n\n\"No, but-\"\n\nSomeone hailed him from the ledges of the mine, and he went off swiftly, as if the subject required no further attention.\n\nShe was conscious of the long span of moments she took while turning her head to Galt. She knew that she would find him looking at her. She could read nothing in his eyes, except a hint of derision, as if he knew what answer she was seeking and that she would not find it in his face.\n\n\"You gave him a chance that you wanted?\"\n\n\"I could have no chance till he'd had every chance possible to him.\"\n\n\"How did you know what he had earned?\"\n\n\"I had been questioning him about you for ten years, every time I could, in every way, from every angle. No, he did not tell me-it was the way he spoke of you that did. He didn't want to speak, but he spoke too eagerly, eagerly and reluctantly together-and then I knew that it had not been just a childhood friendship. I knew how much he had given up for the strike and how desperately he hadn't given it up forever. I? I was merely questioning him about one of our most important future strikers-as I questioned him about many others,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hint of derision remained in his eyes; he knew that she had wanted to hear this, but that this was not the answer to the one question she feared.\n\nShe looked from his face to Francisco's approaching figure, not hiding from herself any longer that her sudden, heavy, desolate anxiety was the fear that Galt might throw the three of them into the hopeless waste of self-sacrifice.\n\nFrancisco approached, looking at her thoughtfully, as if weighing some question of his own, but some question that gave a sparkle of reckless gaiety to his eyes.\n\n\"Dagny, there's only one week left,\" he said. \"If you decide to go back, it will be the last, fora longtime,\" There was no reproach and no sadness in his voice, only some softened quality as sole evidence of emotion. \" If you leave now-oh yes, you'll still comeback-but it won't be soon. And I-in a few months, I'll come to live here permanently, so if you go, I won't see you again, perhaps for years.\n\nI'd like you to spend this last week with me. I'd like you to move to my house. As my guest, nothing else, for no reason, except that I'd like you to.\"\n\nHe said it simply, as if nothing were or could be hidden among the three of them. She saw no sign of astonishment in Galt's face. She felt some swift tightening in her chest, something hard, reckless and almost vicious that had the quality of a dark excitement driving her blindly into action.\n\n\"But I'm an employee,\" she said, with an odd smile, looking at Galt, \"I have a job to finish.\"\n\n\"I won't hold you to it,\" said Galt, and she felt anger at the tone of his voice, atone that granted her no hidden significance and answered nothing but the literal meaning of her words. \"You can quit the job anytime you wish. It's up to you.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Scribe for the author and continue the tale.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 16" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hint of derision remained in his eyes; he knew that she had wanted to hear this, but that this was not the answer to the one question she feared.\n\nShe looked from his face to Francisco's approaching figure, not hiding from herself any longer that her sudden, heavy, desolate anxiety was the fear that Galt might throw the three of them into the hopeless waste of self-sacrifice.\n\nFrancisco approached, looking at her thoughtfully, as if weighing some question of his own, but some question that gave a sparkle of reckless gaiety to his eyes.\n\n\"Dagny, there's only one week left,\" he said. \"If you decide to go back, it will be the last, fora longtime,\" There was no reproach and no sadness in his voice, only some softened quality as sole evidence of emotion. \" If you leave now-oh yes, you'll still comeback-but it won't be soon. And I-in a few months, I'll come to live here permanently, so if you go, I won't see you again, perhaps for years.\n\nI'd like you to spend this last week with me. I'd like you to move to my house. As my guest, nothing else, for no reason, except that I'd like you to.\"\n\nHe said it simply, as if nothing were or could be hidden among the three of them. She saw no sign of astonishment in Galt's face. She felt some swift tightening in her chest, something hard, reckless and almost vicious that had the quality of a dark excitement driving her blindly into action.\n\n\"But I'm an employee,\" she said, with an odd smile, looking at Galt, \"I have a job to finish.\"\n\n\"I won't hold you to it,\" said Galt, and she felt anger at the tone of his voice, atone that granted her no hidden significance and answered nothing but the literal meaning of her words. \"You can quit the job anytime you wish. It's up to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it isn't. I'm a prisoner here. Don't you remember? I'm to take orders. I have no preferences to follow, no wishes to express, no decisions to make. I want the decision to be yours.\"\n\n\"You want it to be mine?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"You've expressed a wish.\"\n\nThe mockery of his voice was in its seriousness-and she threw at him defiantly, not smiling, as if daring him to continue pretending that he did not understand: \"All right. That's what I wish!\"\n\nHe smiled, as at a child's complex scheming which he had long since seen through. \"Very well.\" But he did not smile, as he said, turning to Francisco, \"Then-no.\"\n\nThe defiance toward an adversary who was the sternest of teachers, was all that Francisco had read in her face. He shrugged, regretfully, but gaily. \"You're probably right. If you can't prevent her from going back-nobody can.\"\n\nShe was not hearing Francisco's words. She was stunned by the magnitude of the relief that hither at the sound of Galt's answer, a relief that told her the magnitude of the fear it swept away. She knew, only after it was over, what had hung for heron his decision; she knew that had his answer been different, it would have destroyed the valley in her eyes.\n\nShe wanted to laugh, she wanted to embrace them both and laugh with them in celebration., it did not seem to matter whether she would stay here or return to the world, a week was like an endless span of time, either course seemed flooded by an unchanging sunlight-and no struggle was hard, she thought, if this was the nature of existence. The relief did not come from the knowledge that he would not renounce her, nor from arty assurance that she would win-the relief came from the certainty that he would always remain what he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know whether I'll go back to the world or not,\" she said soberly, but her voice was trembling with a subdued violence, which was pure gaiety." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" I'm sorry that I'm still unable to make a decision.\n\nI'm certain of only one thing: that I won't be afraid to decide.\"\n\nFrancisco took the sudden brightness of her face as proof that the incident had been of no significance. But Galt understood; he glanced at her and the glance was part amusement, part contemptuous reproach.\n\nHe said nothing, until they were alone, walking down the trail to the valley. Then he glanced at her again, the amusement sharper in his eyes, and said, \"You had to put me to a test in order to learn whether I'd fall to the lowest possible stage of altruism?\"\n\nShe did not answer, but looked at him in open, undefensive admission.\n\nHe chuckled and looked away, and a few steps later said slowly, in the tone of a quotation, \"Nobody stays hereby faking reality in any manner whatever.\"\n\nPart of the intensity of her relief-she thought, as she walked silently by his side-was the shock of a contrast: she had seen, with the sudden, immediate vividness of sensory perception, an exact picture of what the code of self-sacrifice would have meant, if enacted by the three of them. Galt, giving up the woman he wanted, for the sake of his friend, faking his greatest feeling out of existence and himself out of her life, no matter what the cost to him and to her, then dragging the rest of his years through the waste of the unreached and unfulfilled-she, turning for consolation to a second choice, faking a love she did not feel, being willing to fake, since her will to self-deceit was the essential required for Galt's self-sacrifice, then living out her years in hopeless longing, accepting, as relief for an unhealing wound, some moments of weary affection, plus the tenet that love is futile and happiness is not to be found on earth-Francisco, struggling in the elusive fog of a counterfeit reality, his life a fraud staged by the two who were dearest to him and most trusted, struggling to grasp what was missing from his happiness, struggling down the brittle scaffold of a lie over the abyss of the discovery that he was not the man she loved, but only a resented substitute, half-charity-patient, half-crutch, his perceptiveness becoming his danger and only his surrender to lethargic stupidity protecting the shoddy structure of his joy, struggling and giving up and settling into the dreary routine of the conviction that fulfillment is impossible to man-the three of them, who had had all the gifts of existence spread out before them, ending up as embittered hulks, who cry in despair that life is frustration-the frustration of not being able to make unreality real." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this-she thought-was men's moral code in the outer world, a code that told them to act on the premise of one another's weakness, deceit and stupidity, and this was the pattern of their lives, this struggle through a fog of the pretended and unacknowledged, this belief that facts are not solid or final, this state where, denying any form to reality, men stumble through life, unreal and unformed, and die having never been born. Here-she thought, looking down through green branches at the glittering roofs of the valley-one dealt with men as clear and firm as sun and rocks, and the immense light-heartedness of her relief came from the knowledge that no battle was hard, no decision was dangerous where there was no soggy uncertainty, no shapeless evasion to encounter.\n\n\"Did it ever occur to you, Miss Taggart,\" said Galt, in the casual tone of an abstract discussion, but as if he had known her thoughts, \"that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires-if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another-if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do notwork, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer's wealth, the artist who envies a rival's higher talent-they're all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune or an immortal fame-they will merely destroy production, employment and art. A wish for the irrational is not to be achieved, whether the sacrificial victims are willing or not. But men will not cease to desire the impossible and will not lose their longing to destroy-so long as self-destruction and self-sacrifice are preached to them as the practical means of achieving the happiness of the recipients.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced at her and added slowly, a slight emphasis as sole change in the impersonal tone of his voice, \"No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You should have had more respect for him and for me than to fear what you had feared.\"\n\nShe did not answer, she felt as if a word would overfill the fullness of this moment, she merely turned to him with a look of acquiescence that was disarmed, childishly humble and would have been an apology but for its shining joy, He smiled-in amusement, in understanding, almost in comradeship of the things they shared and in sanction of the things she felt.\n\nThey went on in silence, and it seemed to her that this was a summer day out of a carefree youth she had never lived, it was just a walk through the country by two people who were free for the pleasure of motion and sunlight, with no unsolved burdens left to carry. Her sense of lightness blended with the weightless sense of walking downhill, as if she needed no effort to walk, only to restrain herself from flying, and she walked, fighting the speed of the downward pull, her body leaning back, the wind blowing her skirt like a sail to brake her motion.\n\nThey parted at the bottom of the trail; he went to keep an appointment with Midas Mulligan, while she went to Hammond's Market with a list of items for the evening's dinner as the sole concern of her world.\n\nHis wife-she thought, letting herself hear consciously the word Dr. Akston had not pronounced, the word she had long since felt, but never named-for three weeks she had been his wife in every sense but one, and that final one was still to be earned, but this much was real and today she could permit herself to know it, to feel it, to live with that one thought for this one day.\n\nThe groceries, which Lawrence Hammond was lining up at her order on the polished counter of his store, had never appeared to her as such shining objects-and, intent upon them, she was only half-conscious of some disturbing element, of something that was wrong but that her mind was too full to notice. She noticed it only when she saw Hammond pause, frown and stare upward, at the sky beyond his open storefront." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In time with his words: \"I think somebody's trying to repeat your stunt, Miss Taggart,\" she realized that it was the sound of an airplane overhead and that it had been therefor sometime, a sound which was not to be heard in the valley after the first of this month.\n\nThey rushed out to the street. The small silver cross of a plane was circling above the ring of mountains, like a sparkling dragonfly about to brush the peaks with its wings.\n\n\"What does he think he's doing?\" said Lawrence Hammond.\n\nThere were people at the doors of the shops and standing still all down the street, looking up.\n\n\"Is... is anyone expected?\" she asked and was astonished by the anxiety of her own voice.\n\n\"No,\" said Hammond. \"Everyone who's got any business here is here.\" He did not sound disturbed, but grimly curious.\n\nThe plane was now a small dash, like a silver cigarette, streaking against the flanks of the mountains: it had dropped lower.\n\n\"Looks like a private monoplane,\" said Hammond, squinting against the sun. \"Not an army model.\"\n\n\"Will the ray screen holdout?\" she asked tensely, in atone of defensive resentment against the approach of an enemy.\n\nHe chuckled. \"Holdout?\"\n\n\"Will he see us?\"\n\n\"That screen is safer than an underground vault, Miss Taggart. As you ought to know.\"\n\nThe plane rose, and fora moment it was only a bright speck, like a bit of paper blown by the wind-it hovered uncertainly., then dropped down again into another circling spiral.\n\n\"What in hell is he after?\" said Hammond.\n\nHer eyes shot suddenly to his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's looking for something,\" said Hammond. \"What?\"\n\n\"Is there a telescope somewhere?\"\n\n\"Why-yes, at the airfield, but-\" He was about to ask what was the matter with her voice-but she was running across the road, down the path to the airfield, not knowing that she was running, driven by a reason she had no time and no courage to name.\n\nShe found Dwight Sanders at the small telescope of the control tower; he was watching the plane attentively, with a puzzled frown.\n\n\"Let me see it!\" she snapped.\n\nShe clutched the metal tube, she pressed her eye to the lens, her hand guiding the tube slowly to follow the plane-then he saw that her hand had stopped, but her fingers did not open and her face remained bent over the telescope, pressed to the lens, until he looked closer and saw that the lens was pressed to her forehead.\n\n\"What's the matter, Miss Taggart?\"\n\nShe raised her head slowly.\n\n\"Is it anyone you know, Miss Taggart?\"\n\nShe did not answer. She hurried away, her steps rushing with the zigzagging aimlessness of uncertainty-she dared not run, but she had to escape, she had to hide, she did not know whether she was afraid to be seen by the men around her or by the plane above-the plane whose silver wings bore the number that belonged to Hank Rearden.\n\nShe stopped when she stumbled over a rock and fell and noticed that she had been running. She was on a small ledge in the cliffs above the airfield, hidden from the sight of the town, open to the view of the sky. She rose, her hands groping for support along a granite wall, feeling the warmth of the sun on the rock under her palms-she stood, her back pressed to the wall, unable to move or to take her eyes off the plane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plane was circling slowly, dipping down, then rising again, struggling-she thought-as she had struggled, to distinguish the sight of a wreck in a hopeless spread of crevices and boulders, an elusive spread neither clear enough to abandon nor to survey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was searching for the wreck of her plane, he had not given up, and whatever the three weeks of it had cost him, whatever he felt, the only evidence he would give to the world and his only answer was this steady, insistent, monotonous drone of a motor carrying a fragile craft over every deadly foot of an inaccessible chain of mountains.\n\nThrough the brilliant purity of the summer air, the plane seemed intimately close, she could see it rock on precarious currents and bank under the thrusts of wind. She could see, and it seemed impossible that so clear a sight was closed to his eyes. The whole of the valley lay below him, flooded by sunlight, flaming with glass panes and green lawns, screaming to be seen-the end of his tortured quest, the fulfillment of more than his wishes, not the wreck of her plane and her body, but her living presence and his freedom-all that he was seeking or had ever sought was now spread open before him, open and waiting, his to be reached by a straight-line dive through the pure, clear air-his and asking nothing of him but the capacity to see. \"Hank!\" she screamed, waving her arms in desperate signal. \"Hank!\"\n\nShe fell back against the rock, knowing that she had noway to reach him, that she had no power to give him sight, that no power on earth could pierce that screen except his own mind and vision.\n\nSuddenly and for the first time, she felt the screen, not as the most intangible, but as the most grimly absolute barrier in the world.\n\nSlumped against the rock, she watched, in silent resignation, the hopeless circles of the plane's struggle and its motor's uncomplaining cry for help, a cry she had noway to answer. The plane swooped down abruptly, but it was only the start of its final rise, it cut a swift diagonal across the mountains and shot into the open sky. Then, as if caught in the spread of a lake with no shores and no exit, it went sinking slowly and drowning out of sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought, in bitter compassion, of how much he had failed to see.\n\nAnd I?-she thought. If she left the valley, the screen would close for her as tightly, Atlantis would descend under a vault of rays more impregnable than the bottom of the ocean, and she, too, would be left to struggle for the things she had not known how to see, she, too, would be left to fight a mirage of primordial savagery, while the reality of all that she desired would never come again within her reach, But the pull of the outer world, the pull that drew her to follow the plane, was not the image of Hank Rearden-she knew that she could not return to him, even if she returned to the world-the pull was the vision of Hank Rearden's courage and the courage of all those still fighting to stay alive. He would not give up the search for her plane, when all others had long since despaired, as he would not give up his mills, as he would not give up any goal he had chosen if a single chance was left. Was she certain that no chance remained for the world of Taggart Transcontinental? Was she certain that the terms of the battle were such that she could not care to win? They were right, the men of Atlantis, they were right to vanish if they knew that they left no value behind them-but until and unless she saw that no chance was untaken and no battle unfought, she had no right to remain among them. This was the question that had lashed her for weeks, but had not driven her to a glimpse of the answer.\n\nShe lay awake, through the hours of that night, quietly motionless, following-like an engineer and like Hank Rearden-a process of dispassionate, precise, almost mathematical consideration, with no regard for cost or feeling. The agony which he lived in his plane, she lived it in a soundless cube of darkness, searching, but finding no answer. She looked at the inscriptions on the walls of her room, faintly visible in patches of starlight, but the help those men had called in their darkest hour was not hers to call." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes or no, Miss Taggart?\"\n\nShe looked at the faces of the four men in the soft twilight of Mulligan's living room: Galt, whose face had the serene, impersonal attentiveness of a scientist-Francisco, whose face was made expressionless by the hint of a smile, the kind of smile that would fit either answer-Hugh Akston who looked compassionately gentle-Midas Mulligan, who had asked the question with no touch of rancor in his voice. Somewhere two thousand miles away, at this sunset hour, the page of a calendar was springing into light over the roofs of New York, saying: June 28-and it seemed to her suddenly that she was seeing it, as if it were hanging over the heads of these men.\n\n\"I have one more day,\" she said steadily. \"Will you let me have it? I think I've reached my decision, but I am not fully certain of it and I'll need all the certainty possible tome.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Mulligan. \"You have, in fact, until morning of the day after tomorrow. We'll wait.\"\n\n\"We'll wait after that as well,\" said Hugh Akston, \"though in your absence, if that be necessary.\"\n\nShe stood by the window, facing them, and she felt a moment's satisfaction in the knowledge that she stood straight, that her hands did not tremble, that her voice sounded as controlled, uncomplaining and unpitying as theirs; it gave her a moment's feeling of a bond to them.\n\n\"If any part of your uncertainty,\" said Galt, \"is a conflict between your heart and your mind-follow your mind.\"\n\n\"Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right,\" said Hugh Akston, \"but not the fact that we are certain. If you are not convinced, ignore our certainty. Don't be tempted to substitute our judgment for your own,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future,\" said Mulligan. \"We do know, but it can't be best until you know it.\"\n\n\"Don't consider our interests or desires,\" said Francisco. \"You have no duty to anyone but yourself.\"\n\nShe smiled, neither sadly nor gaily, thinking that none of it was the sort of advice she would have been given in the outer world. And knowing how desperately they wished to help her where no help was possible, she felt it washer part to give them reassurance.\n\n\"I forced my way here,\" she said quietly, \"and I was to bear responsibility for the consequences. I'm bearing it.\"\n\nHer reward was to see Galt smile; the smile was like a military decoration bestowed upon her.\n\nLooking away, she remembered suddenly Jeff Alien, the tramp aboard the Comet, in the moment when she had admired him for attempting to tell her that he knew where he was going, to spare her the burden of his aimlessness. She smiled faintly, thinking that she had now experienced it in both roles and knew that no action could be lower or more futile than for one person to throw upon another the burden of his abdication of choice. She felt an odd calm, almost a confident repose; she knew that it was tension, but the tension of a great clarity. She caught herself thinking: She's functioning well in an emergency, I'll be all right with her-and realized that she was thinking of herself.\n\n\"Let it go till day after tomorrow, Miss Taggart,\" said Midas Mulligan. \"Tonight you're still here.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said.\n\nShe remained by the window, while they went on discussing the valley's business; it was their closing conference of the month. They had just finished dinner-and she thought of her first dinner in this house a month ago; she was wearing, as she had then worn, the gray suit that belonged in her office, not the peasant skirt that had been so easy to wear hi the sun. I'm still here tonight, she thought, her hand pressed possessively to the windowsill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sun had not yet vanished beyond the mountains, but the sky was an even, deep, deceptively clear blue that blended with the blue of invisible clouds into a single spread, hiding the sun; only the edges of the clouds were outlined by a thin thread of flame, and it looked like a glowing, twisted net of neon tubing, she thought..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "like a chart of winding rivers... like... like the map of a railroad traced in white fire on the sky.\n\nShe heard Mulligan giving Galt the names of those who were not returning to the outer world. \"We have jobs for all of them,\" said Mulligan. \"In fact, there's only tenor twelve men who're going back this year-mostly to finish off, convert whatever they own and come here permanently. I think this was our last vacation month, because before another year is over we'll all be living in this valley.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Galt.\n\n\"We'll have to, from the way things are going outside.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Francisco,\" said Mulligan, \"you'll comeback in a few months?\"\n\n\"In November at the latest,\" said Francisco. \"I'll send you word by shortwave, when I'm ready to comeback-will you turn the furnace on in my house?\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Hugh Akston. \"And I'll have your supper ready for you when you arrive.\"\n\n\"John, I take it for granted,\" said Mulligan, \"that you're not returning to New York this time.\"\n\nGalt took a moment to glance at him, then answered evenly, \"I have not decided it yet.\"\n\nShe noticed the shocked swiftness with which Francisco and Mulligan bent forward to stare at him-and the slowness with which Hugh Akston's glance moved to his face; Akston did not seem to be astonished.\n\n\"You're not thinking of going back to that hell for another year, are you?\" said Mulligan.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"But-good God, John!-what for?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you, when I've decided.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But there's nothing left therefor you to do. We got everybody we knew of or can hope to know of. Our list is completed, except for Hank Rearden-and we'll get him before the year is over-and Miss Taggart, if she so chooses. That's all. Your job is done. There's nothing to look for, out there-except the final crash, when the roof comes down on their heads.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"John, yours is the one head I don't want to be there when it happens.\"\n\n\"You've never had to worry about me.\"\n\n\"But don't you realize what stage they're coming to? They're only one step away from open violence-hell, they've taken the step and sealed and declared it long ago!-but in one more moment they'll seethe full reality of what they've taken, exploding in their damned faces-plain, open, blind, arbitrary, blood shedding violence, running amuck, hitting anything and anyone at random. That's what I don't want to see you in the midst of.\"\n\n\"I can take care of myself.\"\n\n\"John, there's no reason for you to take the risk,\" said Francisco.\n\n\"What risk?\"\n\n\"The looters are. worried about the men who've disappeared. They're suspecting something. You, of all people, shouldn't stay there any longer. There's always a chance that they might discover just who and what you are.\"\n\n\"There's some chance. Not much.\"\n\n\"But there's no reason whatever to take it. There's nothing left that Ragnar and I can't finish.\"\n\nHugh Akston was watching them silently, leaning back in his chair; his face had that look of intensity, neither quite bitterness nor quite a SOS smile, with which a man watches a progression that interests him, but that lags a few steps behind his vision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I go back,\" said Galt, \"it won't be for our work. It will be to win the only thing I want from the world for myself, now that the work is done. I've taken nothing from the world and I've wanted nothing. But there's one thing which it's still holding and which is mine and which I won't let it have. No, I don't intend to break my oath, I won't deal with the looters, I won't be of any value or help to anyone out there, neither to looters nor neutrals-nor scabs. If I go, it won't be for anyone's sake but mine-and I don't think I'm risking my life, but if I am-well, I'm now free to risk it.\"\n\nHe was not looking at her, but she had to turn away and stand pressed against the window frame, because her hands were trembling.\n\n\"But, John!\" cried Mulligan, waving his arm at the valley, \"if anything happens to you, what would we-\" He stopped abruptly and guiltily.\n\nGalt chuckled. \"What were you about to say?\" Mulligan waved his hand sheepishly, in a gesture of dismissal. \"Were you about to say that if anything happens tome, I'll die as the worst failure in the world?\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Mulligan guiltily, \" I won't say it. I won't say that we couldn't get along without you-we can, I won't beg you to stay here for our sake-I didn't think I'd ever revert to that rotten old plea, but, boy!\n\n-what a temptation it was, I can almost see why people do it. I know that whatever it is you want, if you wish to risk your life, that's all there is to it-but I'm thinking only that it's... oh God, John, it's such a valuable life!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Galt smiled. \"I know it. That's why I don't think I'm risking it-I think I'll win.\"\n\nFrancisco was now silent, he was watching Galt intently, with a frown of wonder, not as if he had found an answer, but as if he had suddenly glimpsed a question.\n\n\"Look, John,\" said Mulligan, \"since you haven't decided whether you'll go-you haven't decided it yet, have you?\"\n\n\"No, not yet.\"\n\n\"Since you haven't, would you let me remind you of a few things, just for you to consider?\"\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"It's the chance dangers that I'm afraid of-the senseless, unpredictable dangers of a world falling apart. Consider the physical risks of complex machinery in the hands of blind fools and fear-crazed cowards.\n\nJust think of their railroads-you'd betaking a chance on some such horror as that Winston tunnel incident every time you stepped aboard a train-and there will be more incidents of that kind, coming faster and faster. They'll reach the stage where no day will pass without a major wreck.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"And the same will be happening in every other industry, wherever machines are used-the machines which they thought could replace our minds. Plane crashes, oil tank explosions, blast-furnace break-outs, high-tension wire electrocutions, subway cave-ins and trestle collapses-they'll see them all. The very machines that had made their life so safe, will now make it a continuous peril.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"I know that you know it, but have you considered it in every specific detail? Have you allowed yourself to visualize it? I want you to seethe exact picture of what it is that you propose to enter-before you decide whether anything can justify your entering it. You know that the cities will be hit worst of all. The cities were made by the railroads and will go with them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right.\"\n\n\"When the rails are cut, the city of New York will starve in two days.\n\nThat's all the supply of food it's got. It's fed by a continent three thousand miles long. How will they carry food to New York? By directive and oxcart? But first, before it happens, they'll go through the whole of the agony-through the shrinking, the shortages, the hunger riots, the stampeding violence in the midst of the growing stillness.\"\n\n\"They will.\"\n\n\"They'll lose their airplanes first, then their automobiles, then their trucks, then their horse carts.\"\n\n\"They will.\"\n\n\"Their factories will stop, then their furnaces and their radios. Then their electric light system will go.\"\n\n\"It will.\"\n\n\"There's only a worn thread holding that continent together. There will be one train a day, then one train a week-then the Taggart Bridge will collapse and-\"\n\n\"No, it won't!\"\n\nIt washer voice and they whirled to her. Her face was white, but calmer than it had been when she had answered them last.\n\nSlowly, Galt rose to his feet and inclined his head, as in acceptance of a verdict. \"You've made your decision,\" he said.\n\n\"I have.\"\n\n\"Dagny,\" said Hugh Akston, \"I'm sorry.\" He spoke softly, with effort, as if his words were struggling and failing to fill the silence of the room. \"I wish it were possible not to see this happen, I would have preferred anything-except to see you stay hereby default of the courage of your convictions.\"\n\nShe spread her hands, palms out, her arms at her sides, in a gesture of simple frankness, and said, addressing them all, her manner so calm that she could afford to show emotion, \"I want you to know this: I have wished it were possible for me to die in one more month, so that I could spend it in this valley. This is how much I've wanted to remain. But so long as I choose to goon living, I can't desert a battle which I think is mine to fight\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course,\" said Mulligan respectfully, \"if you still think it.\"\n\n\"If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, 111 tell you; I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right-because I cannot believe that men can refuse to see, that they can remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives depend on accepting it. They still love their lives-and that is the uncorrupted remnant of their minds. So long as men desire to live, I cannot lose my battle.\"\n\n\"Do they?\" said Hugh Akston softly. \"Do they desire it? No, don't answer me now. I know that the answer was the hardest thing for any of us to grasp and to accept. Just take that question back with you, as the last premise left for you to check.\"\n\n\"You're leaving as our friend,\" said Midas Mulligan, \"and we'll be fighting everything you'll do, because we know you're wrong, but it's not you that we'll be damning.\"\n\n\"You'll comeback,\" said Hugh Akston, \"because yours is an error of knowledge, not amoral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you-and, Dagny, when you comeback, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, closing her eyes.\n\n\"We must discuss the conditions of your departure,\" said Galt; he spoke in the dispassionate manner of an executive. \"First, you must give us your word that you will not disclose our secret or any part of it-neither our cause nor our existence nor this valley nor your whereabouts for the past month-to anyone in the outer world, not at anytime or for any purpose whatsoever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I give you my word.\"\n\n\"Second, you must never attempt to find this valley again. You are not to come here uninvited. Should you break the first condition, it will not place us in serious danger. Should you break the second-it will. It is not our policy ever to beat the arbitrary mercy of the good faith of another person, or at the mercy of a promise that cannot be enforced. Nor can we expect you to place our interests above your own. Since you believe that your course is right, the day may come when you may find it necessary to lead our enemies to this valley. We shall, therefore, leave you no means to do it. You will betaken out of the valley by plane, blindfolded, and you will be flown a distance sufficient to make it impossible for you ever to retrace the course.\"\n\nShe inclined her head. \"You are right.\"\n\n\"Your plane has been repaired. Do you wish to reclaim it by signing a draft on your account at the Mulligan Bank?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then we shall hold it, until such time as you choose to pay for it.\n\nDay after tomorrow, I will take you in my plane to a point outside the valley and leave you within reach of further transportation.\"\n\nShe inclined her head. \"Very well.\"\n\nIt had grown dark, when they left Midas Mulligan's. The trail back to Galt's house led across the valley, past Francisco's cabin, and the three of them walked home together. A few squares of lighted windows hung scattered through the darkness, and the first streams of mist were weaving slowly across the panes, like shadows cast by a distant sea.\n\nThey walked in silence, but the sound of their steps, blending into a single, steady beat, was like a speech to be grasped and not to be uttered in any other form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After awhile, Francisco said, \"It changes nothing, it only makes the span a little longer, and the last stretch is always the hardest-but it's the last.\"\n\n\"I will hope so,\" she said. Ina moment, she repeated quietly, \"The last is the hardest.\" She turned to Galt. \"May I make one request?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you let me go tomorrow?\"\n\n\"If you wish.\"\n\nWhen Francisco spoke again, moments later, it was as if he were addressing the unnamed wonder in her mind; his voice had the tone of answering, a question: \"Dagny, all three of us are in love\"-she jerked her head to him-\"with the same thing, no matter what its forms. Don't wonder why you feel no breach among us. You'll be one of us, so long as you'll remain in love with your rails and your engines-and they'll lead you back to us, no matter how many times you lose your way. The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said softly.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"For... for the way you sound.\"\n\n\"How do I sound? Name it, Dagny.\"\n\n\"You sound... as if you're happy.\"\n\n\"I am-inexactly the same way you are. Don't tell me what you feel. I know it. But, you see, the measure of the hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love. The hell I couldn't bear to witness would be to see you being indifferent.\"\n\nShe nodded silently, unable to name as joy any part of the things she felt, yet feeling that he was right.\n\nClots of mist were drifting, like smoke, across the moon, and in the diffused glow she could not distinguish the expressions of their faces, as she walked between them: the only expressions to perceive were the straight silhouettes of their bodies, the unbroken sound of then-steps and her own feeling that she wished to walk on and on, a feeling she could not define, except that it was neither doubt nor pain, When they approached his cabin, Francisco stopped, the gesture of his hand embracing them both as he pointed to his door. \"Will you come in-since it's to be our last night together for sometime? Let's have a drink to that future of which all three of us are certain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are we?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Galt, \"we are.\"\n\nShe looked at their faces when Francisco switched on the light in his house. She could not define their expressions, it was not happiness or any emotion pertaining to joy, their faces were taut and solemn, but it was a glowing solemnity-she thought-if this were possible, and the odd glow she felt within her, told her that her own face had the same look.\n\nFrancisco reached for three glasses from a cupboard, but stopped, as at a sudden thought. He placed one glass on the table, then reached for the two silver goblets of Sebastian d'Anconia and placed them beside it.\n\n\"Are you going straight to New York, Dagny?\" he asked, in the calm, unstrained tone of a host, bringing out a bottle of old wine, \"Yes,\" she answered as calmly.\n\n\"I'm flying to Buenos Aires day after tomorrow,\" he said, uncorking the bottle. \"I'm not sure whether I'll be back in New York later, but if I am, it will be dangerous for you to see me.\"\n\n\"I won't care about that,\" she said, \"unless you feel that I'm not entitled to see you any longer.\"\n\n\"True, Dagny. You're not. Not in New York.\"\n\nHe was pouring the wine and he glanced up at Galt. \"John, when will you decide whether you're going back or staying here?\"\n\nGalt looked straight at him, then said slowly, in the tone of a man who knows all the consequences of his words, \"I have decided, Francisco. I'm going back.\"\n\nFrancisco's hand stopped. Fora long moment, he was seeing nothing but Galt's face. Then his eyes moved to hers. He put the bottle down and he did not step back, but it was as if his glance drew back to a wide range, to include them both, \"But of course,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked as if he had moved still farther and were now seeing the whole spread of their years; his voice had an even, uninflected sound, quality that matched the size of the vision.\n\n\"I knew it twelve years ago,\" he said. \"I knew it before you could have known, and it's I who should have seen that you would see. That night, when you called us to New York, I thought of it then as\"-he was speaking to Galt, but his eyes moved to Dagny-\"as everything that you were seeking... everything you told us to live for or die, if necessary. I should have seen that you would think it, too. It could not have been otherwise. It is as it had-and ought-to be. It was set then, twelve years ago.\" He looked at Galt and chuckled softly. \"And you say that it's I who've taken the hardest beating?\"\n\nHe turned with too swift a movement-then, too slowly, as if in deliberate emphasis, he completed the task of pouring the wine, filling the three vessels on the table. He picked up the two silver goblets, looked down at them for the pause of an instant, then extended one to Dagny, the other to Galt.\n\n\"Take it,\" he said. \"You've earned it-and it wasn't chance.\"\n\nGalt took the goblet from his hand, but it was as if the acceptance was done by their eyes as they looked at each other.\n\n\"I would have given anything to let it be otherwise,\" said Galt, \"except that which is beyond giving.\"\n\nShe held her goblet, she looked at Francisco and she let him see her eyes glance at Galt. \"Yes,\" she said in the tone of an answer, \"But I have not earned it-and what you've paid, I'm paying it now, and I don't know whether I'll ever earn enough to hold clear title, but if hell is the price-and the measure-then let me be the greediest of the three of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they drank, as she stood, her eyes closed, feeling the liquid motion of the wine inside her throat, she knew that for all three of them this was the most tortured-and the most exultant-moment they had ever reached.\n\nShe did not speak to Galt, as they walked down the last stretch of the trail to his house. She did not turn her head to him, feeling that even a glance would be too dangerous. She felt, in their silence, both the calm of a total understanding and the tension of the knowledge that they were not to name the things they understood.\n\nBut she faced him, when they were in his living room, with full confidence and as if in sudden certainty of aright-the certainty that she would not break and that it was now safe to speak. She said evenly, neither as plea nor as triumph, merely as the statement of a fact, \"You are going back to the outer world because I will be there.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I do not want you to go.\"\n\n\"You have no choice about it.\"\n\n\"You are going for my sake.\"\n\n\"No, for mine.\"\n\n\"Will you allow me to see you there?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I am not to see you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I am not to know where you are or what you do?\"\n\n\"You're not.\"\n\n\"Will you be watching me, as you did before?\"\n\n\"More so.\"\n\n\"Is your purpose to protect me?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What is it, then?\"\n\n\"To be thereon the day when you decide to join us.\"\n\nShe looked at him attentively, permitting herself no other reaction, but as if groping for an answer to the first point she had not fully understood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All the rest of us will begone,\" he explained. \"It will become too dangerous to remain. I will remain as your last key, before the door of this valley closes altogether.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" She choked it off before it became a moan. Then, regaining the manner of impersonal detachment, she asked, \"Suppose I were to tell you that my decision is final and that I am never to join you?\"\n\n\"It would be a lie.\"\n\n\"Suppose I were now to decide that I wish to make it final and to standby it, no matter what the future?\"\n\n\"No matter what future evidence you observe and what convictions you form?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That would be worse than a lie.\"\n\n\"You are certain that I have made the wrong decision?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Do you believe that one must be responsible for one's own errors?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Then why aren't you letting me bear the consequences of mine?\"\n\n\"I am and you will.\"\n\n\"If I find, when it is too late, that I want to return to this valley-why should you have to bear the risk of keeping that door open tome?\"\n\n\"I don't have to. I wouldn't do it if I had no selfish end to gain.\"\n\n\"What selfish end?\"\n\n\"I want you here.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes and inclined her head in open admission of defeat-defeat in the argument and in her attempt to face calmly the full meaning of that which she was leaving.\n\nThen she raised her head and, as if she had absorbed his kind of frankness, she looked at him, hiding neither her suffering nor her longing nor her calm, knowing that all three were in her glance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face was as it had been in the sunlight of the moment when she had seen it for the first time: a face of merciless serenity and unflinching perceptiveness, without pain or fear or guilt. She thought that were it possible for her to stand looking at him, at the straight lines of his eyebrows over the dark green eyes, at the curve of the shadow underscoring the shape of his mouth, at the poured-metal planes of his skin in the open collar of his shirt and the casually immovable posture of his legs-she would wish to spend the rest of her life on this spot and in this manner. And in the next instant she knew that if her wish were granted, the contemplation would lose all meaning, because she would have betrayed all the things that gave it value.\n\nThen, not as memory, but as an experience of the present, she felt herself reliving the moment when she had stood at the window of her room in New York, looking at a fogbound city, at the unattainable shape of Atlantis sinking out of reach-and she knew that she was now seeing the answer to that moment. She felt, not the words she had then addressed to the city, but that untranslated sensation from which the words had come: You, whom I have always loved and never found, you whom I expected to see at the end of the rails beyond the horizon-\n\nAloud, she said, \"I want you to know this. I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle\"-you whose presence I had always felt in the streets of the city, the wordless voice within her was saying, and whose world I had wanted to build-\"Now I know that I was fighting for this valley\"-it is my love for you that had kept me moving-\"It was this valley that I saw as possible and would exchange for nothing less and would not give up to a mindless evil\"-my love and my hope to reach you and my wish to be worthy of you on the day when I would stand before you face to face-\"I am going back to fight for this valley-to release it from its underground, to regain for it its full and rightful realm, to let the earth belong to you in fact, as it does inspirit-and to meet you again on the day when I'm able to deliver to you the whole of the world-or, if I fail, to remain in exile from this valley to the end of my life\"-but what is left of my life will still be yours, and I will goon in your name, even though it is a name I'm never to pronounce, I will goon serving you, even though I'm never to win, I will goon, to be worthy of you on the day when I would have met you, even though I won't-\"I will fight for it, even if I have to fight against you, even if you damn meas a traitor... even if I am never to see you again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had stood without moving, he had listened with no change in his face, only his eyes had looked at her as if he were hearing every word, even the words she had not pronounced. He answered, with the same look, as if the look were holding some circuit not yet to be broken, his voice catching some tone of hers, as if in signal of the same code, a voice with no sign of emotion except in the spacing of the words: \"If you fail, as men have failed in their quest fora vision that should have been possible, yet has remained forever beyond their reach-if, like them, you come to think that one's highest values are not to be attained and one's greatest vision is not to be made real-don't damn this earth, as they did. don't damn existence. You have seen the Atlantis they were seeking, it is here, it exists-but one must enter it naked and alone, with no rags from the falsehoods of centuries, with the purest clarity of mind-not an innocent heart, but that which is much rarer: an intransigent mind-as one's only possession and key. You will not enter it until you learn that you do not need to convince or to conquer the world. When you learn it, you will see that through all the years of your struggle, nothing had barred you from Atlantis and there were no chains to hold you, except the chains you were willing to wear. Through all those years, that which you most wished to win was waiting for you\"-he looked at her as if he were speaking to the unspoken words in her mind-\"waiting as unremittingly as you were fighting, as passionately, as desperately-but with a greater certainty than yours. Go out to continue your struggle. Goon carrying unchosen burdens, taking undeserved punishment and believing that justice can be served by the offer of your own spirit to the most unjust of tortures. But in your worst and darkest moments, remember that you have seen another kind of world. Remember that you can reach it whenever you choose to see. Remember that it will be waiting and that it's real, it's possible-it's yours.\"\n\nThen, turning his head a little, his voice as clear, but his eyes breaking the circuit, he asked, \"What time do you wish to leave tomorrow?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh...!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As early as it will be convenient for you.\"\n\n\"Then have breakfast ready at seven and we'll takeoff at eight.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nHe reached into his pocket and extended to her a small, shining disk which she could not distinguish at first. He dropped it on the palm of her hand: it was a five-dollar gold piece.\n\n\"The last of your wages for the month,\" he said.\n\nHer fingers snapped closed over the coin too tightly, but she answered calmly and tonelessly, \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Goodnight, Miss Taggart.\"\n\n\"Goodnight.\"\n\nShe did not sleep in the hours that were still left to her. She sat on the floor of her room, her face pressed to the bed, feeling nothing but the sense of his presence beyond the wall. At times, she felt as if he were before her, as if she were sitting at his feet. She spent her last night with him in this manner.\n\nShe left the valley as she had come, carrying away nothing that belonged to it. She left the few possessions she had acquired-her peasant skirt, a blouse, an apron, a few pieces of underwear-folded neatly in a drawer of the chest in her room. She looked at them fora moment, before she closed the drawer, thinking that if she came back, she would, perhaps, still find them there. She took nothing with her but the five-dollar gold piece and the band of tape still wound about her ribs.\n\nThe sun touched the peaks of the mountains, drawing a shining circle as a frontier of the valley-when she climbed aboard the plane.\n\nShe leaned back in the seat beside him and looked at Galt's face bent over her, as it had been bent when she had opened her eyes on the first morning. Then she closed her eyes and felt his hands tying the blindfold across her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard the blast of the motor, not as sound, but as the shudder of an explosion inside her body; only it felt like a distant shudder, as if the person feeling it would have been hurt if she were not so faraway.\n\nShe did not know when the wheels left the ground or when the plane crossed the circle of the peaks. She lay still, with the pounding beat of the motor as her only perception of space, as if she were carried inside a current of sound that rocked once in awhile. The sound came from his engine, from the control of his hands on the wheel; she held onto that; the rest was to be endured, not resisted.\n\nShe lay still, her legs stretched forward, her hands on the arms of the seat, with no sense of motion, not even her own, to give her a sense of time, with no space, no sight, no future, with the night of closed eyelids under the pressure of the cloth-and with the knowledge of his presence beside her as her single, unchanging reality, They did not speak. Once, she said suddenly, \"Mr. Galt.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"No. Nothing. I just wanted to know whether you were still there.\"\n\n\"I will always be there.\"\n\nShe did not know for how many miles the memory of the sound of words seemed like a small landmark rolling away into the distance, then vanishing. Then there was nothing but the stillness of an indivisible present.\n\nShe did not know whether a day had passed or an hour, when she felt the downward, plunging motion which meant that they were about to land or to crash; the two possibilities seemed equal to her mind.\n\nShe felt the jolt of the wheels against the ground as an oddly delayed sensation: as if some fraction of time had gone to make her believe it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt the running streak of jerky motion, then the jar of the stop and of silence, then the touch of his hands on her hair, removing the blindfold.\n\nShe saw a glaring sunlight, a stretch of scorched weeds going off into the sky, with no mountains to stop it, a deserted highway and the hazy outline of a town about a mile away. She glanced at her watch: forty seven minutes ago, she had still been in the valley.\n\n\"You'll find a Taggart station there,\" he said, pointing at the town, \"and you'll be able to take a train.\"\n\nShe nodded, as if she understood.\n\nHe did not follow her as she descended to the ground. He leaned across the wheel toward the open door of the plane, and they looked at each other. She stood, her face raised to him, a faint wind stirring her hair, the straight line of her shoulders sculptured by the trim suit of a business executive amidst the flat immensity of an empty prairie.\n\nThe movement of his hand pointed east, toward some invisible cities.\n\n\"Don't look for me out there,\" he said. \"You will not find me-until you want me for what I am. And when you'll want me, I'll be the easiest man to find.\"\n\nShe heard the sound of the door falling closed upon him; it seemed louder than the blast of the propeller that followed. She watched the run of the plane's wheels and the trail of weeds left flattened behind them.\n\nThen she saw a strip of sky between wheels and weeds.\n\nShe looked around her. A reddish haze of heat hungover the shapes of the town in the distance, and the shapes seemed to sag under a rusty tinge; above their roofs, she saw the remnant of a crumbled smokestack. She saw a dry, yellow scrap rustling faintly in the weeds beside her: it was apiece of newspaper. She looked at these objects blankly, unable to make them real." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She raised her eyes to the plane. She watched the spread of its wings grow smaller in the sky, draining away in its wake the sound of its motor. It kept rising, wings first, like along silver cross; then the curve of its motion went following the sky, dropping slowly closer to the earth; then it seemed not to move any longer, but only to shrink. She watched it like a star in the process of extinction, while it shrank from cross to dot to a burning spark which she was no longer certain of seeing. When she saw that the spread of the sky was strewn with such sparks allover, she knew that the plane was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What am I doing here?\" asked Dr. Robert Stadler. \"Why was I asked to come here? I demand an explanation. I'm not accustomed to being dragged halfway across a continent without rhyme, reason or notice.\"\n\nDr, Floyd Ferris smiled. \"Which makes me appreciate it all the more that you did come, Dr. Stadler.\" It was impossible to tell whether his voice had atone of gratitude-or of gloating.\n\nThe sun was beating down upon them and Dr. Stadler felt a streak of perspiration oozing along his temple. He could not hold an angrily, embarrassingly private discussion in the middle of a crowd streaming to fill the benches of the grandstand around them-the discussion which he had tried and failed to obtain for the last three days. It occurred to him that that was precisely the reason why his meeting with Dr. Ferris had been delayed to this moment; but he brushed the thought aside, just as he brushed some insect buzzing to reach his wet temple.\n\n\"Why was I unable to get in touch with you?\" he asked. The fraudulent weapon of sarcasm now seemed to soundless effective than ever, but it was Dr. Stadler's only weapon: \"Why did you find it necessary to send me messages on official stationery worded in a style proper, I'm sure, for Army\"-orders, he was about to say, but didn't-\"communications, but certainly not for scientific correspondence?\"\n\n\"It is a government matter,\" said Dr. Ferris gently.\n\n\"Do you realize that I was much too busy and that this meant an interruption of my work?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Dr. Ferris noncommittally.\n\n\"Do you realize that I could have refused to come?\"\n\n\"But you didn't,\" said Dr. Ferris softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why was I given no explanation? Why didn't you come for me in person, instead of sending those incredible young hooligans with their mysterious gibberish that sounded half-science, half-pulp-magazine?\"\n\n\"I was too busy,\" said Dr. Ferris blandly.\n\n\"Then would you mind telling me what you're doing in the middle of a plain in Iowa-and what I'm doing here, for that matter?\" He waved contemptuously at the dusty horizon of an empty prairie and at the three wooden grandstands. The stands were newly erected, and the wood, too, seemed to perspire; he could see drops of resin sparkling in the sun.\n\n\"We are about to witness an historical event, Dr. Stadler. An occasion which will become a milestone on the road of science, civilization, social welfare and political adaptability.\" Dr. Ferris'voice had the tone of a public relations man's memorized handout. \"The turning point of anew era.\"\n\n\"What event? What new era?\"\n\n\"As you will observe, only the most distinguished citizens, the cream of our intellectual elite, have been chosen for the special privilege of witnessing this occasion. We could not omit your name, could we?-and we feel certain, of course, that we can count on your loyalty and cooperation.\"\n\nHe could not catch Dr. Ferris'eyes. The grandstands were rapidly filling with people, and Dr. Ferris kept interrupting himself constantly to wave to nondescript newcomers, whom Dr. Stadler had never seen before, but who were personages, as he could tell by the particular shade of gaily informal deference in Ferns\" waving. They all seemed to know Dr. Ferris and to seek him out, as if he were the master of ceremonies-or the star-of the occasion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you would kindly be specific fora moment,\" said Dr. Stadler, \"and tell me what-\"\n\n\"Hi, Spud!\" called Dr. Ferris, waving to a portly, white-haired man who filled the full-dress uniform of a general.\n\nDr. Stadler raised his voice: \"I said, if you would kindly concentrate long enough to explain tome what in hell is going on-\"\n\n\"But it's very simple. It's the final triumph of... You'll have to excuse me a minute, Dr. Stadler,\" said Dr. Ferris hastily, tearing forward, like an over trained lackey at the sound of a bell, in the direction of what looked like a group of aging rowdies; he turned back long enough to add two words which he seemed reverently to consider as a full explanation: \"The press!\"\n\nDr. Stadler sat down on the wooden bench, feeling unaccountably reluctant to brush against anything around him. The three grandstands were spaced at intervals in a semi-curve, like the tiers of a small, private circus, with room for some three hundred people; they seemed built for the viewing of some spectacle-but they faced the emptiness of a flat prairie stretching off to the horizon, with nothing insight but the dark blotch of a farmhouse miles away.\n\nThere were radio microphones in front of one stand, which seemed reserved for the press. There was a contraption resembling a portable switchboard in front of the stand reserved for officials; a few levers of polished metal sparkled in the sun on the face of the switchboard. In an improvised parking lot behind the stands, the glitter of luxurious new cars seemed a brightly reassuring sight. But it was the building that stood on a knoll some thousand feet away that gave Dr. Stadler a vague sense of uneasiness. It was a small, squat structure of unknown purpose, with massive stonewalls, no windows except a few slits protected by stout iron bars, and a large dome, grotesquely too heavy for the rest, that seemed to press the structure down into the soil. A few outlets protruded from the base of the dome, in loose, irregular shapes, resembling badly poured clay funnels; they did not seem to belong to an industrial age or to any known usage. The building had an air of silent malevolence, like a puffed, venomous mushroom; it was obviously modern, but its sloppy, rounded, ineptly unspecific lines made it look like a primitive structure unearthed in the heart of the jungle, devoted to some secret rites of savagery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dr. Stadler sighed with irritation; he was tired of secrets. \"Confidential\" and'Top Confidential\" had been the words stamped on the invitation which had demanded that he travel to Iowa on a two-day notice and for an unspecified purpose. Two young men, who called themselves physicists, had appeared at the Institute to escort him; his calls to Ferris' office in Washington had remained unanswered. The young men had talked-through an exhausting trip by government plane, then a clammy ride in a government car-about science, emergencies, social equilibriums and the need of secrecy, till he knew less than he had known at the start; he noticed only that two words kept recurring in their jabber, which had also appeared in the text of the invitation, two words that had an ominous sound when involving an unknown issue: the demands for his'loyalty\" and'co-operation.\"\n\nThe young men had deposited him on a bench in the front row of the grandstand and had vanished, like the folding gear of a mechanism, leaving him to the sudden presence of Dr. Ferris in person. Now, watching the scene around him, watching Dr. Ferris' vague, excited, loosely casual gestures in the midst of a group of newsmen, he had an impression of bewildering confusion, of senseless, chaotic inefficiency-and of a smooth machine working to produce the exact degree of that impression needed at the exact moment.\n\nHe felt a single, sudden flash of panic, in which, as in a flash of lightning, he permitted himself to know that he felt a desperate desire to escape. But he slammed his mind shut against it. He knew that the darkest secret of the occasion-more crucial, more untouchable, more deadly than whatever was hidden in the mushroom building-was that which had made him agree to come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would never have to learn his own motive, he thought; he thought it, not by means of words, but by means of the brief, vicious spasm of an emotion that resembled irritation and felt like acid. The words that stood in his mind, as they had stood when he had agreed to come, were like a voodoo formula which one recites when it is needed and beyond which one must not look: What can you do when you have to deal with people?\n\nHe noticed that the stand reserved for those whom Ferris had called the intellectual elite was larger than the stand prepared for government officials. He caught himself feeling a swift little sneak of pleasure at the thought that he had been placed in the front row. He turned to glance at the tiers behind him. The sensation he experienced was like a small, gray shock: that random, faded, shopworn assembly was not his conception of an intellectual elite. He saw defensively belligerent men and tastelessly dressed women-he saw mean, rancorous, suspicious faces that bore the one mark incompatible with a standard bearer of the intellect: the mark of uncertainty. He could find no face he knew, no face to recognize as famous and none likely ever to achieve such recognition.\n\nHe wondered by what standard these people had been selected.\n\nThen he noticed a gangling figure in the second row, the figure of an elderly man with along, slack face that seemed faintly familiar to him, though he could recall nothing about it, except a vague' memory, as of a photograph seen in some unsavory publication. He leaned toward a woman and asked, pointing, \"Could you tell me. the name of that gentleman?\" The woman answered in a whisper of awed respect, \"That is Dr. Simon Pritchett!\" Dr. Stadler turned away, wishing no one would see him, wishing no one would ever learn that he had been a member of that group." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised his eyes and saw that Ferris was leading the whole press gang toward him. He saw Ferris sweeping his arm at him, in the manner of a tourist guide, and declaring, when they were close enough to be heard, \"But why should you waste your time on me, when there is the source of today's achievement, the man who made it all possible-Dr. Robert Stadler!\"\n\nIt seemed to him for an instant that he saw an incongruous look on the worn, cynical faces of the newsmen, a look that was not quite respect, expectation or hope, but more like an echo of these, like a faint reflection of the look they might have worn in their youth on hearing the name of Robert Stadler. In that instant, he felt an impulse which he would not acknowledge: the impulse to tell them that he knew nothing about today's event, that his power counted for less than theirs, that he had been brought here as a pawn in some confidence game, almost as... as a prisoner.\n\nInstead, he heard himself answering their questions in the smug, condescending tone of a man who shares all the secrets of the highest authorities: \"Yes, the State Science Institute is proud of its record of public service.... The State Science Institute is not the tool of any private interests or personal greed, it is devoted to the welfare of mankind, to the good of humanity as a whole-\" spouting, like a dictaphone, the sickening generalities he had heard from Dr. Ferns.\n\nHe would not permit himself to know that what he felt was self loathing; he identified the emotion, but not its object; it was loathing for the men around him, he thought; it was they who were forcing him to go through this shameful performance. What can you do-he thought-when you have to deal with people?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Thompson's address will be carried by every radio station in this country and in all countries throughout the world, wherever radio waves may still be heard.\"\n\nThen the chorus broke loose and went growing day by day. \"Listen to Mr. Thompson on November 22!\" said daily headlines. \"Don't forget Mr. Thompson on November 22!\" cried radio stations at the end of every program. \"Mr. Thompson will tell you the truth!\" said placards in subways and buses-then posters on the walls of buildings-then billboards on deserted highways.\n\n\"Don't despair! Listen to Mr. Thompson!\" said pennants on government cars, \"Don't give up! Listen to Mr. Thompson!\" said banners in offices and shops. \"Have faith! Listen to Mr. Thompson!\" said voices in churches. \"Mr. Thompson will give you the answer!\" wrote army airplanes across the sky, the letters dissolving in space, and only the last two words remaining by the time the sentence was completed.\n\nPublic loud-speakers were builtin the squares of New York for the day of the speech, and came to rasping life once an hour, in time with the ringing of distant clocks, to send over the worn rattle of the traffic, over the heads of the shabby crowds, the sonorous, mechanical cry of an alarm-toned voice: \"Listen to Mr. Thompson's report on the world crisis, November 22!\"-a cry rolling through the frosted air and vanishing among the foggy rooftops, under the blank page of a calendar that bore no date.\n\nOn the afternoon of November 22, James Taggart told Dagny that Mr. Thompson wished to meet her fora conference before the broadcast.\n\n\"In Washington?\" she asked incredulously, glancing at her watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I must say that you haven't been reading the newspapers or keeping track of important events. Don't you know that Mr. Thompson is to broadcast from New York? He has come hereto confer with the leaders of industry, as well as of labor, science, the professions, and the best of the country's leadership in general. He has requested that I bring you to the conference.\"\n\n\"Where is it to beheld?\"\n\n\"At the broadcasting studio.\"\n\n\"They don't expect me to speak on the air in support of their policies, do they?\"\n\n\"Don't worry, they wouldn't let you near a microphone! They just want to hear your opinion, and you can't refuse, not in a national emergency, not when it's an invitation from Mr. Thompson in person!\" He spoke impatiently, avoiding her eyes.\n\n\"When is that conference to beheld?\"\n\n\"At seven-thirty.\"\n\n\"Not much time to give to a conference about a national emergency, is it?\"\n\n\"Mr. Thompson is a very busy man. Now please don't argue, don't start being difficult, I don't see what you're-\"\n\n\"All right,\" she said indifferently, \"I'll come,\" and added, prompted by the kind of feeling that would have made her reluctant to venture without a witness into a conference of gangsters, \"but I'll bring Eddie Willers along with me,\"\n\nHe frowned, considering it fora moment, with a look of annoyance more than anxiety. \"Oh, all right, if you wish,\" he snapped, shrugging.\n\nShe came to the broadcasting studio with James Taggart as a policeman atone side of her and Eddie Willers as a bodyguard at the other.\n\nTaggart's face was resentful and tense, Eddie's-resigned, yet wondering and curious. A stage set of pasteboard walls had been erected in a corner of the vast, dim space, representing a stiffly traditional suggestion of across between a stately drawing room and a modest study. A semicircle of empty armchairs filled the set, suggesting a grouping from a family album, with microphones dangling like bait at the end of long poles extended for fishing among the chairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The best leadership of the country, that stood about in nervous clusters, had the look of a remnant sale in a bankrupt store: she saw Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, Chick Morrison, Tinky Holloway, Dr.\n\nFloyd Ferris, Dr. Simon Pritchett, Ma Chalmers, Fred Kinnan, and a seedy handful of businessmen among whom the half-scared, half-flattered figure of Mr. Mowen of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company was, incredibly, intended to represent an industrial tycoon.\n\nBut the figure that gave her an instant's shock was Dr. Robert Stadler. She had not known that a face could age so greatly within the brief space of one year: the look of timeless energy, of boyish eagerness, was gone, and nothing remained of the face except the lines of contemptuous bitterness. He stood alone, apart from the others, and she saw the moment when his eyes saw her enter; he looked like a man in a whorehouse who had accepted the nature of his surroundings until suddenly caught thereby his wife: it was a look of guilt in the process of becoming hatred. Then she saw Robert Stadler, the scientist, turn away as if he had not seen her-as if his refusal to see could wipe a fact out of existence.\n\nMr. Thompson was pacing among the groups, snapping at random bystanders, in the restless manner of a man of action who feels contempt for the duty of making speeches. He was clutching a sheaf of typewritten pages, as if it were a bundle of old clothing about to be discarded.\n\nJames Taggart caught him in mid-step, to say uncertainly and loudly, \"Mr. Thompson, may I present my sister, Miss Dagny Taggart?\"\n\n\"So nice of you to come, Miss Taggart,\" said Mr. Thompson, shaking her hand as if she were another voter from back home whose name he had never heard before; then he marched briskly off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where's the conference, Jim?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she asked, and glanced at the clock: it was a huge white dial with a black hand slicing the minutes, like a knife moving toward the hour of eight.\n\n\"I can't help it! I don't run this show!\" he snapped.\n\nEddie Willers glanced at her with a look of bitterly patient astonishment, and stepped closer to her side.\n\nA radio receiver was playing a program of military marches broadcast from another studio, half-drowning the fragments of nervous voices, of hastily aimless steps, of screeching machinery being pulled to focus upon the drawing-room set.\n\n\"Stay tuned to hear Mr. Thompson's report on the world crisis at eight P. M.!\" cried the martial voice of an announcer, from the radio receiver-when the hand on the dial reached the hour of 7:45, \"Step on it, boys, step on it!\" snapped Mr. Thompson, while the radio burst into another march.\n\nIt was 7:50 when Chick Morrison, the Morale Conditioner, who seemed to be in charge, cried, \"AH right, boys and girls, all right, let's take our places!\" waving a bunch of notepaper, like a baton, toward the light-flooded circle of armchairs.\n\nMr. Thompson thudded down upon the central chair, in the manner of grabbing a vacant seat in a subway.\n\nChick Morrison's assistants were herding the crowd toward the circle of light.\n\n\"A happy family,\" Chick Morrison explained, \"the country must see us as a big, united, happy-What's the matter with that thing?\"\n\nThe radio music had gone off abruptly, choking on an odd little gasp of static, cut in the middle of a ringing phrase. It was 7:51. He shrugged and went on: \"-happy family. Hurry up, boys. Take close-ups of Mr. Thompson, first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hand of the clock went slicing off the minutes, while press photographers clicked their cameras at Mr. Thompson's\" sourly impatient face.\n\n\"Mr. Thompson will sit between science and industry!\" Chick Morrison announced. \"Dr. Stadler, please-the chair on Mr. Thompson's left. Miss Taggart-this way, please-on Mr. Thompson's right.\"\n\nDr. Stadler obeyed. She did not move.\n\n\"It's not just for the press, it's for the television audiences,\" Chick Morrison explained to her, in the tone of an inducement.\n\nShe made a step forward. \"I will not take part in this program,\" she said evenly, addressing Mr. Thompson.\n\n\"You won't?\" he asked blankly, with the kind of look he would have worn if one of the flower vases had suddenly refused to perform its part.\n\n\"Dagny, for Christ's sake!\" cried James Taggart in panic.\n\n\"What's the matter with her?\" asked Mr. Thompson.\n\n\"But, Miss Taggart! Why?\" cried Chick Morrison.\n\n\"You all know why,\" she said to the faces around her. \"You should have known better than to try that again,\"\n\n\"Miss Taggart!\" yelled Chick Morrison, as she turned to go. \"It's a national emer-\"\n\nThen a man came rushing toward Mr. Thompson, and she stopped, as did everyone else-and the look on the man's face swept the crowd into an abruptly total silence. He was the station's chief engineer, and it was odd to see a look of primitive terror struggling against his remnant of civilized control.\n\n\"Mr. Thompson,\" he said, \"we... we might have to delay the broadcast.\"\n\n\"What?\" cried Mr. Thompson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hand of the dial stood at 7:58.\n\n\"We're trying to fix it, Mr. Thompson, we're trying to find out what it is... but we might not be on time and-\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? What happened?\"\n\n\"We're trying to locate the-\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know! But... We. . we can't get on the air, Mr. Thompson.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence, then Mr. Thompson asked, his voice unnaturally low, \"Are you crazy?\"\n\n\"I must be. I wish I were. I can't make it out. The station is dead.\"\n\n\"Mechanical trouble?\" yelled Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet.\n\n\"Mechanical trouble, Goddamn you, at a time like this? If that's how you run this station-\"\n\nThe chief engineer shook his head slowly, in the manner of an adult who is reluctant to frighten a child. \"It's not this station, Mr. Thompson,\" he said softly. \"It's every station in the country, as far as we've been able to check. And there is no mechanical trouble. Neither here nor elsewhere. The equipment is in order, in perfect order, and they all report the same, but... but all radio stations went off the air at seven-fifty-one, and... and nobody can discover why.\"\n\n\"But-\" cried Mr. Thompson, stopped, glanced about him and screamed, \"Not tonight! You can't let it happen tonight! You've got to get me on the air!\"\n\n\"Mr. Thompson,\" the man said slowly, \"we've called the electronic laboratory of the State Science Institute. They... they've never seen anything like it. They said it might be a natural phenomenon, some sort of cosmic disturbance of an unprecedented kind, only-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well?\"\n\n\"Only they don't think it is. We don't, either. They said it looks like radio waves, but of a frequency never produced before, never observed anywhere, never discovered by anybody.\"\n\nNo one answered him. Ina moment, he went on, his voice oddly solemn: \" It looks like a wall of radio waves jamming the air, and we can't get through it, we can't touch it, we can't break it.... What's more, we can't locate its source, not by any of our usual methods....\n\nThose waves seem to come from a transmitter that... that makes any known to us look like a child's toy!\"\n\n\"But that's not possible!\" The cry came from behind Mr. Thompson and they all whirled in its direction, startled by its note of peculiar terror; it came from Dr. Stadler. \"There's no such thing! There's nobody on earth to make it!\"\n\nThe chief engineer spread his hands out. \"That's it, Dr. Stadler,\" he said wearily. \"It can't be possible. It shouldn't be possible. But there it is.\"\n\n\"Well, do something about it!\" cried Mr. Thompson to the crowd at large.\n\nNo one answered or moved.\n\n\"I won't permit this!\" cried Mr. Thompson. \"I won't permit it! Tonight of all nights! I've got to make that speech! Do something! Solve it, whatever it is! I order you to solve it!\"\n\nThe chief engineer was looking at him blankly.\n\n\"I'll fire the lot of you for this! I'll fire every electronic engineer in the country! I'll put the whole profession on trial for sabotage, desertion and treason! Do you hear me? Now do something, Goddamn you!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do something!\"\n\nThe chief engineer was looking at him impassively, as if words were not conveying anything any longer.\n\n\"Isn't there anybody around to obey an order?\" cried Mr. Thompson. \"Isn't there a brain left in this country?\"\n\nThe hand of the clock reached the dot of 8:00.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" said a voice that came from the radio receiver-a man's clear, calm, implacable voice, the kind of voice that had not been heard on the airwaves for years-\"Mr. Thompson will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is what you are going to hear.\"\n\nThree gasps of recognition greeted the voice, but nobody had the power to notice them among the sounds of the crowd, which were beyond the stage of cries. One was a gasp of triumph, another-of terror, the third-of bewilderment. Three persons had recognized the speaker: Dagny, Dr. Stadler, Eddie Willers. Nobody glanced at Eddie Willers; but Dagny and Dr. Stadler glanced at each other. She saw that his face was distorted by as evil a terror as one could ever bear to see; he saw that she knew and that the way she looked at him was as if the speaker had slapped his face.\n\n\"For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing-you who dread knowledge-I am the man who will now tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chief engineer was the only one able to move; he ran to a television set and struggled frantically with its dials. But the screen remained empty; the speaker had not chosen to be seen. Only his voice filled the airways of the country-of the world, thought the chief engineer-sounding as if he were speaking here, in this room, not to a group, but to one man; it was not the tone of addressing a meeting, but the tone of addressing a mind.\n\n\"You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning.\n\nYou have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith.\n\nYou have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.\n\n\"You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, you have wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish.\n\n\"Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man's mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn't. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren't.\n\n\"While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow.\n\n\"All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty-Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don't, Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.\n\n\"We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.\n\n\"There is a difference between our strike and all those you've practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles any longer. We are only an illusion, according to your philosophy. We have chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face reality-the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it. We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.\n\n\"Are you now crying: No, this was not what you wanted? A mindless world of ruins was not your goal? You did not want us to leave you? You moral cannibals, I know that you've always known what it was that you wanted. But your game is up, because now we know it, too.\n\n\"Through centuries of scourges and disasters, brought about by your code of morality, you have cried that your code had been broken, that the scourges were punishment for breaking it, that men were too weak and too selfish to spill al! the blood it required. You damned man, you damned existence, you damned this earth, but never dared to question your code. Your victims took the blame and struggled on, with your curses as reward for their martyrdom-while you went on crying that your code was noble, but human nature was not good enough to practice it. And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?\n\n\"You wanted to know John Galt's identity. I am the man who has asked that question.\n\n\"Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that's through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to goon living, what you now need is not to return to morality-you who have never known any-but to discover it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have heard no concepts of morality but the mystical or the social." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have been taught that morality is a code of behavior imposed on you by whim, the whim of a supernatural power or the whim of society, to serve God's purpose or your neighbor's welfare, to please an authority beyond the grave or else next door-but not to serve your life or pleasure. Your pleasure, you have been taught, is to be found in immorality, your interests would best be served by evil, and any moral code must be designed not for you, but against you, not to further your life, but to drain it.\n\n\"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors-between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.\n\n\"Both sides agreed that morality demands the surrender of yourself interest and of your mind, that the moral and the practical are opposites, that morality is not the province of reason, but the province of faith and force. Both sides agreed that no rational morality is possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason-that in reason there's no reason to be moral.\n\n\"Whatever else they fought about, it was against man's mind that all your moralists have stood united. It was man's mind that all their schemes and systems were intended to despoil and destroy. Now choose to perish or to learn that the anti-mind is the anti-life.\n\n\"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call \"human nature,\" the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does notwork automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who area human being, the question \"to be or not to be\" is the question \"to think or not to think.\"\n\n\" A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. \"Value\" is that which one acts to gain and keep, \"virtue\" is the action by which one gains and keeps it. \"Value\" presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? \"Value\" presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.\n\n\" There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of \"Life\" that makes the concept of \"Value\" possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.\n\n\"An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.\n\n\" Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An \"instinct\" is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that( hat is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.\n\n\"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.\n\n\"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.\n\n\"Whoever you are, you who are hearing me now, I am speaking to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, to your mind, and I say: There is amorality of reason, amorality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.\n\n\"AH that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.\n\n\"Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being-not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement-not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.\n\n\"Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man-for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it-A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.\n\n\"Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death.\n\nHappiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. Amorality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness-to value the failure of your values-is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man-every man-is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.\n\n\"But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.\n\n\"Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. They, who pose as scientists and claim that man is only an animal, do not grant him inclusion in the law of existence they have granted to the lowest of insects. They recognize that every living species has away of survival demanded by its nature, they do not claim that a fish can live out of water or that a dog can live without its sense of smell-but man, they claim, the most complex of beings, man can survive in anyway whatever, man has no identity, no nature, and there's no practical reason why he cannot live with his means of survival destroyed, with his mind throttled and placed at the disposal of any orders they might care to issue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man's instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live.\n\n\"No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man-by the work and the judgment of your mind.\n\n\"No, you do not have to live as a man; it is an act of moral choice. But you cannot live as anything else-and the alternative is that state of living death which you now see within you and around you, the state of a thing unfit for existence, no longer human and less than animal, a thing that knows nothing but pain and drags itself through its span of years in the agony of unthinking self-destruction.\n\n\"No, you do not have to think; it is an act of moral choice. But someone had to think to keep you alive; if you choose to default, you default on existence and you pass the deficit to some moral man, expecting him to sacrifice his good for the sake of letting you survive by your evil.\n\n\"No, you do not have to be a man; but today those who are, are not there any longer. I have removed your means of survival-your victims.\n\n\"If you wish to know how I have done it and what I told them to make them quit, you are hearing it now. I told them, in essence, the statement I am making tonight. They were men who had lived by my code, but had not known how great a virtue it represented. I made them see it. I brought them, not are-evaluation, but only an identification of their values." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We, the men of the mind, are now on strike against you in the name of a single axiom, which is the root of our moral code, just as the root of yours is the wish to escape it: the axiom that existence exists.\n\n\"Existence exists-and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.\n\n\"If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.\n\n\"Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two-existence and consciousness-are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end. Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it.\n\n\"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to bean entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man who was-no matter what his errors-the greatest of. your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A. thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am hereto complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.\n\n\"Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? AH the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders1 attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A. The purpose of those who taught you to evade it, was to make you forget that Man is Man.\n\n\"Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason, his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind.\n\n\"All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identity it as a solid object: he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can apart contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.\n\n\"Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.\n\n\"The most depraved sentence you can now utter is to ask: Whose reason? The answer is: Yours. No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possessor ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth-and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man's mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.\n\n\" You who speak of a \"moral instinct\" as if it were some separate endowment opposed to reason-man's reason is his moral faculty. A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False?-Right or Wrong? Is a seed to be planted in soil in order to grow-right or wrong? Is a man's wound to be disinfected in order to save his life-right or wrong? Does the nature of atmospheric electricity permit it to be converted into kinetic power-right or wrong? It is the answers to such questions that gave you everything you have-and the answers came from a man's mind, a mind of intransigent devotion to that which is right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A rational process is amoral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest-but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.\n\n\" That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call \"free will\" is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.\n\n\" Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think-not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment-on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict \"It is.\"\n\nNon-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say \"It is,\" you are refusing to say \"I am.\" By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: \"Who am Ito know?\"-he is declaring: \"Who am Ito live?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero.\n\n\"To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.\n\n\"You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island-it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today-and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.\n\n\"If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shall think. But a'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.\n\n\"My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists-and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason-Purpose-Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge-Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve-Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking-that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action-that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise-that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality-that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind-that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.\n\n\"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it-that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life-that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.\n\n\"Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence-that man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness, and that he may permit no breach between body and mind, between action and thought, between his life and his convictions-that, like a judge impervious to public opinion, he may not sacrifice his convictions to the wishes of others, be it the whole of mankind shouting pleas or threats against him-that courage and confidence are practical necessities, that courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one's own consciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud-that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee-that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling-that honesty is not asocial duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.\n\n\"Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price fora rusty chunk of scrap than fora piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero-that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions-that to withhold your contempt from men's vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement-that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit-and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work ft done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others-that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human-that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay-that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live-that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road-that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrapheap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pickup-that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.\n\n\"Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned-that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character-that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind-that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining-that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul-that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice-that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself-and that the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul's shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you beginning to see who is John Galt?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am the man who has earned the thing you did not fight for, the thing you have renounced, betrayed, corrupted, yet were unable fully to destroy and are now hiding as your guilty secret, spending your Me in apologies to every professional cannibal, lest it be discovered that somewhere within you, you still long to say what I am now saying to the hearing of the whole of mankind: I am proud of my own value and of the fact that I wish to live.\n\n\"This wish-which you share, yet submerge as an evil-is the only remnant of the good within you, but it is a wish one must learn to deserve. His own happiness is man's only moral purpose, but only his own virtue can achieve it. Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.\n\n\"Just as your body has two fundamental sensations, pleasure and pain, assigns of its welfare or injury, as a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death, so your consciousness has two fundamental emotions, joy and suffering, in answer to the same alternative. Your emotions are estimates of that which furthers your life or threatens it, lightning calculators giving you a sum of your profit or loss. You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value. Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind. Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you hold the irrational as your standard of value and the impossible as your concept of the good, if you long for rewards you have not earned, fora fortune or a love you don't deserve, fora loophole in the law of causality, for an A that becomes non-A at your whim, if you desire the opposite of existence-you will reach it. Do not cry, when you reach it, that life is frustration and that happiness is impossible to man; check your fuel: it brought you where you wanted to go.\n\n\"Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non contradictory joy-a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does notwork for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.\n\n\"Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires-so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and inspirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to beloved for his flaws, A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit-his love, his friendship, his esteem-except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the traders and held them in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of their sneers: a trader is the entity they dread-a man of justice.\n\n\"Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellowmen?\n\nNone-except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. Ideal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice.\n\nIt is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don't, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason ordeal with men who surrender theirs. I have nothing to gain from fools or cowards; I have no benefits to seek from human vices: from stupidity, dishonesty or fear. The only value men can offer me is the work of their mind. When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever maybe open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate-do you hear me? no man may start-the use of physical force against others.\n\n\"To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival; to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight. Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live.\n\n\" Do not open your mouth to tell me that your mind has convinced you of your right to force my mind. Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins. When you declare that men are irrational animals and propose to treat them as such, you define thereby your own character and can no longer claim the sanction of reason-as no advocate of contradictions can claim it. There can be no \"right\" to destroy the source of rights, the only means of judging right and wrong: the mind.\n\n\"To force a man to drop his own mind and to accept your will as a substitute, with a gun in. place of a syllogism, with terror in place of proof, and death as the final argument-is to attempt to exist in defiance of reality. Reality demands of man that he act for his own rational interest; your gun demands of him that he act against it. Reality threatens man with death if he does not act on his rational judgment; you threaten him with death if he does. You place him into a world where the price of his life is the surrender of all the virtues required by life-and death by a process of gradual destruction is all that you and your system will achieve, when death is made to be the ruling power, the winning argument in a society of men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" Be it a highwayman who confronts a traveler with the ultimatum: \"Your money or your life,\" or a politician who confronts a country with the ultimatum: \"Your children's education or your life, \"the meaning of that ultimatum is:\"Your mind or your life'-and neither is possible to man without the other.\n\n\"If there are degrees of evil, it is hard to say who is the more contemptible: the brute who assumes the right to force the mind of others or the moral degenerate who grants to others the right to force his mind.\n\nThat is the moral absolute one does not leave open to debate. I do not grant the terms of reason to men who propose to deprive me of reason. I do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think. I do not place my moral sanction upon a murderer's wish to kill me. When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him-by force.\n\n\"It is only as retaliation that force maybe used and only against the man who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own. He uses force to seize a value; I use it only to destroy destruction. A holdup man seeks to gain wealth by killing me; I do not grow richer by killing a holdup man. I seek no values by means of evil, nor do I surrender my values to evil.\n\n\"In the name of all the producers who had kept you alive and received your death ultimatums in payment, I now answer you with a single ultimatum of our own: Our work or your guns. You can choose either; you can't have both. We do not initiate the use of force against others or submit to force at their hands. If you desire ever again to live in an industrial society, it will be on our moral terms. Our terms and our motive power are the antithesis of yours. You have been using fear as your weapon and have been bringing death to man as his punishment for rejecting your morality. We offer him life as his reward for accepting ours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" You who are worshippers of the zero-you have never discovered that achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. Joy is not \"the absence of pain,\" intelligence is not \"the absence of stupidity,\" light is not \"the absence of darkness,\" an entity is not \"the absence of a nonentity.\" Building is not done by abstaining from demolition; centuries of sitting and waiting in such abstinence will not raise one single girder for you to abstain from demolishing-and now you can no longer say tome, the builder: \"Produce, and feed us in exchange for our not destroying your production.\" I am answering in the name of all your victims: Perish with and in your own void. Existence is not a negation of negatives. Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from. us. Perish, because we have learned that a zero cannot hold a mortgage over life.\n\n\"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness.\n\nYou exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.\n\n\" You, who have lost the concept of the difference, you who claim that fear and joy are incentives of equal power-and secretly add that fear is the more \"practical\"-you do not wish to live, and only fear of death still holds you to the existence you have damned. You dart in panic through the trap of your days, looking for the exit you have closed, running from a pursuer you dare not name to a terror you dare not acknowledge, and the greater your terror the greater your dread of the only act that could save you: thinking. The purpose of your struggle is not to know, not to grasp or name or hear the thing I shall now state to your hearing: that yours is the Morality of Death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Death is the standard of your values, death is your chosen goal, and you have to keep running, since there is no escape from the pursuer who is out to destroy you or from the knowledge that that pursuer is yourself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stop running, for once-there is no place to run-stand naked, as you dread to stand, but as I see you, and take a look at what you dared to calla moral code.\n\n\"Damnation is the start of your morality, destruction is its purpose, means and end. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. It demands, as his first proof of virtue, that he accept his own depravity without proof. It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not.\n\n\"It does not matter who then becomes the profiteer on his renounced glory and tormented soul, a mystic God with some incomprehensible design or any passer-by whose rotting sores are held as some inexplicable claim upon him-it does not matter, the good is not for him to understand, his duty is to crawl through years of penance, atoning for the guilt of his existence to any stray collector of unintelligible debts, his only concept of a value is a zero: the good is that which is non-man.\n\n\"The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin,\" A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him fora crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with freewill, but with a \"tendency\" to evil. A freewill saddled with a tendency is. like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.\n\n\"What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge-he acquired a mind and became a rational being.\n\nIt was the knowledge of good and evil-he became amoral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor-he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire-he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy-all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was-that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love-he was not man.\n\n\"Man's fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin.\n\nHis evil, they charge, is that he's man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.\n\n\"They call it amorality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, they say, they do not preach that man is evil, the evil is only that alien object: his body. No, they say, they do not wish to kill him, they only wish to make him lose his body. They seek to help him, they say, against his pain-and they point at the torture rack to which they've tied him, the rack with two wheels that pull him in opposite directions, the rack of the doctrine that splits his soul and body.\n\n\"They have cut man in two, setting one half against the other. They have taught him that his body and his consciousness are two enemies engaged in deadly conflict, two antagonists of opposite natures, contradictory claims, incompatible needs, that to benefit one is to injure the other, that his soul belongs to a supernatural realm, but his body is an evil prison holding it in bondage to this earth-and that the good is to defeat his body, to undermine it by years of patient struggle, digging his way to that glorious jail-break which leads into the freedom of the grave.\n\n\"They have taught man that he is a hopeless misfit made of two elements, both symbols of death. A body without a soul is a corpse, a soul without a body is a ghost-yet such is their image of man's nature: the battleground of a struggle between a corpse and a ghost, a corpse endowed with some evil volition of its own and a ghost endowed with the knowledge that everything known to man is non-existent, that only the unknowable exists.\n\n\"Do you observe what human faculty that doctrine was designed to ignore? It was man's mind that had to be negated in order to make him fall apart. Once he surrendered reason, he was left at the mercy of two monsters whom he could not fathom or control: of a body moved by unaccountable instincts and of a soul moved by mystic revelations-he was left as the passively ravaged victim of a battle between a robot and a dictaphone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And as he now crawls through the wreckage, groping blindly fora way to live, your teachers offer him the help of amorality that proclaims that he'll find no solution, and must seek no fulfillment on earth. Real existence, they tell him, is that which he cannot perceive, true consciousness is the faculty of perceiving the non-existent-and if he is unable to understand it, that is the proof that his existence is evil and his. consciousness impotent.\n\n\"As products of the split between man's soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter-the enslavement of man's body, inspirit-the destruction of his mind.\n\n\"The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive-a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society-a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man's mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God, Man's mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man's power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man's right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth-to his great-grandchildren." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And as he now crawls through the wreckage, groping blindly fora way to live, your teachers offer him the help of amorality that proclaims that he'll find no solution, and must seek no fulfillment on earth. Real existence, they tell him, is that which he cannot perceive, true consciousness is the faculty of perceiving the non-existent-and if he is unable to understand it, that is the proof that his existence is evil and his. consciousness impotent.\n\n\"As products of the split between man's soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter-the enslavement of man's body, inspirit-the destruction of his mind.\n\n\"The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive-a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society-a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man's mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God, Man's mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man's power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man's right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth-to his great-grandchildren." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Selfishness-say both-is man's evil. Man's good-say both-is to give up his personal desires, to deny himself, renounce himself, surrender; man's good is to negate the life he lives. Sacrifice-cry both-is the essence of morality, the highest virtue within man's reach.\n\n\" Whoever is now within reach of my voice, whoever is man the victim, not man the killer, I am speaking at the deathbed of your mind, at the brink of that darkness in which you're drowning, and if there still remains within you the power to struggle to hold onto those fading sparks which had been yourself-use it now. The word that has destroyed you is'sacrifice. \"Use the last of your strength to understand its meaning. You're still alive. You have a chance.\n\n\" \"Sacrifice\" does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. \"Sacrifice\" does not mean the rejection of the evil for the sake of the good, but of the good for the sake of the evil. \"Sacrifice\" is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don't.\n\n\"If you exchange a penny fora dollar, it is not a sacrifice; if you exchange a dollar fora penny, it is. If you achieve the career you wanted, after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor's child and let your own die, it is.\n\n\"If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is. If you give your friend a sum you can afford, it is not a sacrifice; if you give him money at the cost of your own discomfort, it is only a partial virtue, according to this sort of moral standard; if you give him money at the cost of disaster to yourself-that is the virtue of sacrifice in full." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you renounce all personal desires and dedicate your life to those you love, you do not achieve full virtue: you still retain a value of your own, which is your love. If you devote your life to random strangers, it is an act of greater virtue. If you devote your life to serving men you hate-that is the greatest of the virtues you can practice,\" A sacrifice is the surrender of a value. Full sacrifice is full surrender of all values. If you wish to achieve full virtue, you must seek no gratitude in return for your sacrifice, no praise, no love, no admiration, no self-esteem, not even the pride of being virtuous; the faintest trace of any gain dilutes your virtue. If you pursue a course of action that does not taint your life by any joy, that brings you no value in matter, no value inspirit, no gain, no profit, no reward-if you achieve this state of total zero, you have achieved the ideal of moral perfection.\n\n\"You are told that moral perfection is impossible to man-and, by this standard, it is. You cannot achieve it so long as you live, but the value of your life and of your person is gauged by how closely you succeed in approaching that ideal zero which is death.\n\n\"If you start, however, as a passionless blank, as a vegetable seeking to be eaten, with no values to reject and no wishes to renounce, you will not win the crown of sacrifice. It is not a sacrifice to renounce the unwanted. It is not a sacrifice to give your life for others, if death is your personal desire. To achieve the virtue of sacrifice, you must want to live, you must love it, you must burn with passion for this earth and for all the splendor it can give you-you must feel the twist of every knife as it slashes your desires away from your reach and drains your love out of your body. It is not mere death that the morality of sacrifice holds out to you as an ideal, but death by slow torture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not remind me that it pertains only to this life on earth. I am concerned with no other. Neither are you.\n\n\" If you wish to save the last of your dignity, do not call your best actions a \"sacrifice\": that term brands you as immoral. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty. If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who's willing.\n\nIf a man refuses to sell his convictions, it is not a sacrifice, unless he is the sort of man who has no convictions.\n\n\"Sacrifice could be proper only for those who have nothing to sacrifice-no values, no standards, no judgment-those whose desires are irrational whims, blindly conceived and lightly surrendered. Fora man of moral stature, whose desires are born of rational values, sacrifice is the surrender of the right to the wrong, of the good to the evil.\n\n\"The creed of sacrifice is amorality for the immoral-amorality that declares its own bankruptcy by confessing that it can't impart to men any personal stake in virtues or values, and that their souls are sewers of depravity, which they must be taught to sacrifice. By its own confession, it is impotent to teach men to be good and can only subject them to constant punishment.\n\n\"Are you thinking, in some foggy stupor, that it's only material values that your morality requires you to sacrifice? And what do you think are material values? Matter has no value except as a means for the satisfaction of human desires. Matter is only a tool of human values." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To what service are you asked to give the material tools your virtue has produced? To the service of that which you regard as evil: to a principle you do not share, to a person you do not respect, to the achievement of a purpose opposed to your own-else your gift is not a sacrifice.\n\n\"Your morality tells you to renounce the material world and to divorce your values from matter. A man whose values are given no expression in material form, whose existence is unrelated to his ideals, whose actions contradict his convictions, is a cheap little hypocrite-yet that is the man who obeys your morality and divorces his values from matter. The man who loves one woman, but sleeps with another-the man who admires the talent of a worker, but hires another-the man who considers one cause to be just, but donates his money to the support of another-the man who holds high standards of craftsmanship, but devotes his effort to the production of trash-these are the men who have renounced matter, the men who believe that the values of their spirit cannot be brought into material reality.\n\n\"Do you say it is the spirit that such men have renounced? Yes, of course. You cannot have one without the other. You are an indivisible entity of matter and consciousness. Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute. Renounce your body and you become a fake.\n\nRenounce the material world and you surrender it to evil.\n\n\"And that is precisely the goal of your morality, the duty that your code demands of you. Give to that which you do not enjoy, serve that which you do not admire, submit to that which you consider evil-surrender the world to the values of others, deny, reject, renounce yourself. Yourself is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" It is your mind that they want you to surrender-all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: \"It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others\"-end up by saying: \"It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.\"\n\n\"This much is true: the most selfish of all things is the independent mind that recognizes no authority higher than its own and no value higher than its judgment of truth. You are asked to sacrifice your intellectual integrity, your logic, your reason, your standard of truth-in favor of becoming a prostitute whose standard is the greatest good for the greatest number.\n\n\" If you search your code for guidance, for an answer to the question: \"What is the good?\"-the only answer you will find is \"The good of others.\" The good is whatever others wish, whatever you feel they feel they wish, or whatever you feel they ought to feel. \"The good of others\" is a magic formula that transforms anything into gold, a formula to be recited as a guarantee of moral glory and as a fumigator for any action, even the slaughter of a continent. Your standard of virtue is not an object, not an act, not a principle, but an intention. You need no proof, no reasons, no success, you need not achieve in fact the good of others-all you need to know is that your motive was the good of others, not your own. Your only definition of the good is a negation: the good is the \"non-good for me.\"\n\n\"Your code-which boasts that it upholds eternal, absolute, objective moral values and scorns the conditional, the relative and the subjective-your code hands out, as its version of the absolute, the following rule of moral conduct: If you wish it, it's evil; if others wish it, it's good; if the motive of your action is your welfare, don't do it; if the motive is the welfare of others, then anything goes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" As this double-jointed, double-standard morality splits you in half, so it splits mankind into two enemy camps: one is you, the other is all the rest of humanity. You are the only outcast who has no right to wish or live. You are the only servant, the rest are the masters, you are the only giver, the rest are the takers, you are the eternal debtor, the rest are the creditors never to be paid off. You must not question their right to your sacrifice, or the nature of their wishes and their needs: their right is conferred upon them by a negative, by the fact that they are \"non-you.\"\n\n\"For those of you who might ask questions, your code provides a consolation prize and booby-trap: it is for your own happiness, it says, that you must serve the happiness of others, the only way to achieve your joy is to give it up to others, the only way to achieve your prosperity is to surrender your wealth to others, the only way to protect your life is to protect all men except yourself-and if you find no joy in this procedure, it is your own fault and the proof of your evil; if you were good, you would find your happiness in providing a banquet for others, and your dignity in existing on such crumbs as they might care to toss you.\n\n\"You who have no standard of self-esteem, accept the guilt and dare not ask the questions. But you know the unadmitted answer, refusing to acknowledge what you see, what hidden premise moves your world.\n\nYou know it, not in honest statement, but as a dark uneasiness within you, while you flounder between guiltily cheating and grudgingly practicing a principle too vicious to name.\n\n\"I, who do not accept the unearned, neither in values nor in guilt, am hereto ask the questions you evaded. Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but amoral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?\n\n\"The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.\n\n\"Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others-it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others-it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch-it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself-it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice-it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.\n\n\"Your code divides mankind into two castes and commands them to live by opposite rules: those who may desire anything and those who may desire nothing, the chosen and the damned, the riders and the carriers, the eaters and the eaten. What standard determines your caste? What passkey admits you to the moral elite? The passkey is lack of value.\n\n\"Whatever the value involved, it is your lack of it that gives you a claim upon those who don't lack it. It is your need that gives you a claim to rewards. If you are able to satisfy your need, your ability annuls your right to satisfy it. But a need you are unable to satisfy gives you first right to the lives of mankind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you succeed, any man who fails is your master; if you fail, any man who succeeds is your serf. Whether your failure is just or not, whether your wishes are rational or not, whether your misfortune is undeserved or the result of your vices, it is misfortune that gives you aright to rewards. It is pain, regardless of its nature or cause, pain as a primary absolute, that gives you a mortgage on all of existence.\n\n\"If you heal your pain by your own effort, you receive no moral credit: your code regards it scornfully as an act of self-interest. Whatever value you seek to acquire, be it wealth or food or love or rights, if you acquire it by means of your virtue, your code does not regard it as amoral acquisition: you occasion no loss to anyone, it is a trade, not alms; a payment, not a sacrifice. The deserved belongs in the selfish, commercial realm of mutual profit; it is only the undeserved that calls for that moral transaction which consists of profit to one at the price of disaster to the other. To demand rewards for your virtue is selfish and immoral; it is your lack of virtue that transforms your demand into amoral right.\n\n\"Amorality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-nonexistence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero.\n\n\"Who provides the account to pay these claims? Those who are cursed for being non-zeros, each to the extent of his distance from that ideal. Since all values are the product of virtues, the degree of your virtue is used as the measure of your penalty; the degree of your faults is used as the measure of your gain. Your code declares that the rational man must sacrifice himself to the irrational, the independent man to parasites, the honest man to the dishonest, the man of justice to the unjust, the productive man to thieving loafers, the man of integrity to compromising knaves, the man of self-esteem to sniveling neurotics. Do you wonder at the meanness of soul in those you see around you? The man who achieves these virtues will not accept your moral code; the man who accepts your moral code will not achieve these virtues." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Under amorality of sacrifice, the first value you sacrifice is morality; the next is self-esteem. When need is the standard, every man is both victim and parasite. As a victim, he must labor to fill the needs of others, leaving himself in the position of a parasite whose needs must be filled by others. He cannot approach his fellowmen except in one of two disgraceful roles: he is both a beggar and a sucker.\n\n\" You fear the man who has a dollar less than you, that dollar is rightfully his, he makes you feel like amoral defrauder. You hate the man who has a dollar more than you, that dollar is rightfully yours, he makes you feel that you are morally defrauded. The man below is a source of your guilt, the man above is a source of your frustration. You do not know what to surrender or demand, when to give and when to grab, what pleasure in life is rightfully yours and what debt is still unpaid to others-you struggle to evade, as \"theory,\" the knowledge that by the moral standard you've accepted you are guilty every moment of your life, there is no mouthful of food you swallow that is not needed by someone somewhere on earth-and you give up the problem in blind resentment, you conclude that moral perfection is not to be achieved or desired, that you will muddle through by snatching as snatch can and by avoiding the eyes of the young, of those who look at you as if self-esteem were possible and they expected you to have it Guilt is all that you retain within your soul-and so does every other man, as he goes past, avoiding your eyes. Do you wonder why your morality has not achieved brotherhood on earth or the goodwill of man to man?\n\n\"The justification of sacrifice, that your morality propounds, is more corrupt than the corruption it purports to justify. The motive of your sacrifice, it tells you, should be love-the love you ought to feel for every man. Amorality that professes the belief that the values of the spirit are more precious than matter, amorality that teaches you to scorn a whore who gives her body indiscriminately to all men-this same morality demands that you surrender your soul to promiscuous love for all comers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As there can be no causeless wealth, so there can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards. To love is to value.\n\nThe man who tells you that it is possible to value without values, to love those whom you appraise as worthless, is the man who tells you that it is possible to grow rich by consuming without producing and that paper money is as valuable as gold.\n\n\"Observe that he does not expect you to feel a causeless fear. When his kind get into power, they are expert at contriving means of terror, at giving you ample cause to feel the fear by which they desire to rule you. But when it comes to love, the highest of emotions, you permit them to shriek at you accusingly that you area moral delinquent if you're incapable of feeling causeless love. When a man feels fear without reason, you call him to the attention of a psychiatrist; you are not 1034 so careful to protect the meaning, the nature and the dignity of love.\n\n\"Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. Your morality demands that you divorce your love from values and hand it down to any vagrant, not as response to his worth, but as response to his need, not as reward, but as alms, not as a payment for virtues, but as a blank check on vices. Your morality tells you that the purpose of love is to set you free of the bonds of morality, that love is superior to moral judgment, that truelove transcends, forgives and survives every manner of evil in Its object, and the greater the love the greater the depravity it permits to the loved. To love a man for his virtues is paltry and human, it tells you; to love him for his flaws is divine. To love those who are worthy of it is self-interest; to love the unworthy is sacrifice. You owe your love to'those who don't deserve it, and the less they deserve it, the more love you owe them-the more loathsome the object, the nobler your love-the more unfastidious your love, the greater your virtue-and if you can bring your soul to the state of a dump heap that welcomes anything on equal terms, if you can cease to value moral values, you have achieved the state of moral perfection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Such is your morality of sacrifice and such are the twin ideals it offers: to refashion the life of your body in the image of a human stockyards, and the life of your spirit in the image of a dump.\n\n\"Such was your goal-and you've reached it. Why do you now moan complaints about man's impotence and the futility of human aspirations? Because you were unable to prosper by seeking destruction? Because you were unable to find joy by worshipping pain? Because you were unable to live by holding death as your standard of value?\n\n\"The degree of your ability to live was the degree to which you broke your moral code, yet you believe that those who preach it are friends of humanity, you damn yourself and dare not question their motives or their goals. Take a look at them now, when you face your last choice-and if you choose to perish, do so with full knowledge of how cheaply how small an enemy has claimed your life.\n\n\"The mystics of both schools, who preach the creed of sacrifice, are germs that attack you through a single sore: your fear of relying on your mind. They tell you that they possess a means of knowledge higher than the mind, a mode of consciousness superior to reason-like a special pull with some bureaucrat of the universe who gives them secret tips withheld from others. The mystics of spirit declare that they possess an extra sense you lack: this special sixth sense consists of contradicting the whole of the knowledge of your five. The mystics of muscle do not bother to assert any claim to extrasensory perception: they merely declare that your senses are not valid, and that their wisdom consists of perceiving your blindness by some manner of unspecified means. Both kinds demand that you invalidate your own consciousness and surrender yourself into their power. They offer you, as proof of their superior knowledge, the fact that they assert the opposite of everything you know, and as proof of their superior ability to deal with existence, the fact that they lead you to misery, self-sacrifice, starvation, destruction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mystics of spirit call it \"another dimension,\" which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it \"the future,\" which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm?\n\nThey keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say-and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge-God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out.\n\n\"It is only the metaphysics of a leech that would cling to the idea of a universe where a zero is a standard of identification. A leech would want to seek escape from the necessity to name its own nature-escape from the necessity to know that the substance on which it builds its private universe is blood.\n\n\" What is the nature of that superior world to which they sacrifice the world that exists? The mystics of spirit curse matter, the mystics of muscle curse profit. The first wish men to profit by renouncing the earth, the second wish men to inherit the earth by renouncing all profit. Their non-material, non-profit worlds are realms where rivers run with milk and coffee, where wine spurts from rocks at their command, where pastry drops on them from clouds at the price of opening their mouth. On this material, profit-chasing earth, an enormous investment of virtue-of intelligence, integrity, energy, skill-is required to construct a railroad to carry them the distance of one mile; in their nonmaterial, non-profit world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish. If an honest person asks them: \"How?\"-they answer with righteous scorn that a \"how\" is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is \"Somehow.\" On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions, rewards are achieved by wishing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that is the whole of their shabby secret. The secret of all their esoteric philosophies, of all their dialectics and super-senses, of their evasive eyes and snarling words, the secret for which they destroy civilization, language, industries and lives, the secret for which they pierce\" their own eyes and eardrums, grind out their senses, blank out their minds, the purpose for which they dissolve the absolutes of reason, logic, matter, existence, reality-is to erect upon that plastic fog a single holy absolute: their Wish.\n\n\"The restriction they seek to escape is the law of identity. The freedom they seek is freedom from the fact that an A will remain an A, no matter what their tears or tantrums-that a river will not bring them milk, no matter what their hunger-that water will not run uphill, no matter what comforts they could gain if it did, and if they want to lift it to the roof of a skyscraper, they must do it by a process of thought and labor, in which the nature of an inch of pipeline counts, but their feelings do not-that their feelings are impotent to alter the course of a single speck of dust in space or the nature of any action they have committed.\n\n\" Those who tell you that man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean that they are unwilling to perceive a reality undistorted by their feelings. \"Things as they are\" are things as perceived by your mind; divorce them from reason and they become \"things as perceived by your wishes.\"\n\n\"There is no honest revolt against reason-and when you accept any part of their creed, your motive is to getaway with something your reason would not permit you to attempt. The freedom you seek is freedom from the fact that if you stole your wealth, you area scoundrel, no matter how much you give to charity or how many prayers you recite-that if you sleep with sluts, you're not a worthy husband, no matter how anxiously you feel that you love your wife next morning-that you are an entity, not a series of random pieces scattered through a universe where nothing sticks and nothing commits you to anything., the universe of a child's nightmare where identities switch and swim, where the rotter and the hero are interchangeable parts arbitrarily assumed at will-that you area man-that you are an entity-that you are." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No matter how eagerly you claim that the goal of your mystic wishing is a higher mode of life, the rebellion against identity is the wish for non-existence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.\n\n\" Your teachers, the mystics of both schools, have reversed causality in their consciousness, then strive to reverse it in existence. They take their emotions as a cause, and their mind as a passive effect. They make their emotions their tool for perceiving reality. They hold their desires as an irreducible primary, as a fact superseding all facts. An honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his desire. He says: \"It is, therefore I want it.\" They say: \"I want it, therefore it is.\"\n\n\"They want to cheat the axiom of existence and consciousness, they want their consciousness to bean instrument not of perceiving but of creating existence, and existence to be not the object but the subject of their consciousness-they want to be that God they created in their image and likeness, who creates a universe out of avoid by means of an arbitrary whim. But reality is not to be cheated. What they achieve is the opposite of their desire. They want an omnipotent power over existence; instead, they lose the power of their consciousness. By refusing to know, they condemn themselves to the horror of a perpetual unknown.\n\n\"Those irrational wishes that draw you to their creed, those emotions you worship as an idol, on whose altar you sacrifice the earth, that dark, incoherent passion within you, which you take as the voice of God or of your glands, is nothing more than the corpse of your mind.\n\nAn emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise.\n\n\"Whenever you committed the evil of refusing to think and to see, of exempting from the absolute of reality someone small wish of yours, whenever you chose to say: Let me withdraw from the judgment of reason the cookies I stole, or the existence of God, let me have my one irrational whim and I will be a man of reason about all else-that was the act of subverting your consciousness, the act of corrupting your mind. Your mind then became a fixed jury who takes orders from a secret underworld, whose verdict distorts the evidence to fit an absolute it dares not touch-and a censored reality is the result, a splintered reality where the bits you chose to see are floating among the chasms of those you didn't, held together by that embalming fluid of the mind which is an emotion exempted from thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The links you strive to drown are causal connections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The enemy you seek to defeat is the law of causality: it permits you no miracles.\n\nThe law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Al! actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. An action not caused by an entity would be caused by a zero, which would mean a zero controlling a thing, a nonentity controlling an entity, the non-existent ruling the existent-which is the universe of your teachers' desire, the cause of their doctrines of causeless action, the reason of their revolt against reason, the goal of their morality, their politics, their economics, the ideal they strive for: the reign of the zero.\n\n\"The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. But if you drown both laws in the blanks of your mind, if you pretend to yourself and to others that you don't see-then you can try to proclaim your right to eat your cake today and mine tomorrow, you can preach that the way to have a cake is to eat it first, before you bake it, that the way to produce is to start by consuming, that\" all wishers have an equal claim to all things, since nothing is caused by anything. The corollary of the causeless in matter is the unearned inspirit.\n\n\"Whenever you rebel against causality, your motive is the fraudulent desire, not to escape it, but worse: to reverse it. You want unearned love, as if love, the effect, could give you personal value, the cause-you want unearned admiration, as if admiration, the effect, could give you virtue, the cause-you want unearned wealth, as if wealth, the effect, could give you ability, the cause-you plead for mercy, mercy, not justice, as if an unearned forgiveness could wipe out the cause of your plea. And to indulge your ugly little shams, you support the doctrines of your teachers, while they run hog-wild proclaiming that spending, the effect, creates riches, the cause, that machinery, the effect, creates intelligence, the cause, that your sexual desires, the effect, create your philosophical values, the cause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who pays for the orgy? Who causes the causeless? Who are the victims, condemned to remain unacknowledged and to perish in silence, lest their agony disturb your pretense that they do not exist? We are, we, the men of the mind.\n\n\"We are the cause of all the values that you covet, we who perform the process of thinking, which is the process of defining identity and discovering causal connections. We taught you to know, to speak, to produce, to desire, to love. You who abandon reason-were it not for us who preserve it, you would not be able to fulfill or even to conceive your wishes. You would not be able to desire the clothes that had not been made, the automobile that had not been invented, the money that had not been devised, as exchange for goods that did not exist, the admiration that had not been experienced for men who had achieved nothing, the love that belongs and pertains only to those who preserve their capacity to think, to choose, to value.\n\n\"You-who leap like a savage out of the jungle of your feelings into the Fifth Avenue of our New York and proclaim that you want to keep the electric lights, but to destroy the generators-it is our wealth that you use while destroying us, it is our values that you use while damning us, it is our language that you use while denying the mind.\n\n\"Just as your mystics of spirit invented their heaven in the image of our earth, omitting our existence, and promised you rewards created by miracle out of non-matter-so your modern mystics of muscle omit our existence and promise you a heaven where matter shapes itself of its own causeless will into all the rewards desired by your non-mind.\n\n\"For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket-by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners. We, the men of the mind, were the unnamed victims of their creed, we who were willing to break their moral code and to bear damnation for the sin of reason-we who thought and acted, while they wished and prayed-we who were moral outcasts, we who were bootleggers of life when life was held to be a crime-while they basked in moral glory for the virtue of surpassing material greed and of distributing in selfless charity the material goods produced by-blank-out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now we are chained and commanded to produce by savages who do not grant us even the identification of sinners-by savages who proclaim that we do not exist, then threaten to deprive us of the life we don't possess, if we fail to provide them with the goods we don't produce." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now we are expected to continue running railroads and to know the minute when a train will arrive after crossing the span of a continent, we are expected to continue running steel mills and to know the molecular structure of every drop of metal in the cables of your bridges and in the body of the airplanes that support you in mid-air-while the tribes of your grotesque little mystics of muscle fight over the carcass of our world, gibbering in sounds of non-language that there are no principles, no absolutes, no knowledge, no mind.\n\n\"Dropping below the level of a savage, who believes that the magic words he utters have the power to alter reality, they believe that reality can be altered by the power of the words they do not utter-and their magic tool is the blank-out, the pretense that nothing can come into existence past the voodoo of their refusal to identify it.\n\n\"As they feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in mind, and proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is stealing. As they use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts while denying the roots and the existence of the concepts they are using. As they seek, not to build, but to takeover industrial plants, so they seek, not to think, but to takeover human thinking.\n\n\" As they proclaim that the only requirement for running a factory is the ability to turn the cranks of the machines, and blank out the question of who created the factory-so they proclaim that there are no entities, that nothing exists but motion, and blank out the fact that motion presupposes the thing which moves, that without the concept of entity, there can be no such concept as \"motion.\" As they proclaim their right to consume the unearned, and blank out the question of who's to produce it-so they proclaim that there is no law of identity, that nothing exists but change, and blank out the fact that change presupposes the concepts of what changes, from what and to what, that without the law of identity no such concept as'change' is possible. As they rob an industrialist while denying his value, so they seek to seize power overall of existence while denying that existence exists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" \"We know that we know nothing,\" they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are claiming knowledge-\"There are no absolutes,\" they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute-\"You cannot prove that you exist or that you're conscious, ' they chatter, blanking out the fact that proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved.\n\n\"When a savage who has not learned to speak declares that existence must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of nonexistence-when he declares that your consciousness must be proved, he is asking you to prove it by means of unconsciousness-he is asking you to step into avoid outside of existence and consciousness to give him proof of both-he is asking you to become a zero gaining knowledge about a zero,\" When he declares that an axiom is a matter of arbitrary choice and he doesn't choose to accept the axiom that he exists, he blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one's mouth, expound no theories and die.\n\n\"An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it. Let the caveman who does not choose to accept the axiom of identity, try to present his theory without using the concept of identity or any concept derived from it-let the anthropoid who does not choose to accept the existence of nouns, try to devise a language without nouns, adjectives or verbs-let the witchdoctor who does not choose to accept the validity of sensory perception, try to prove it without using the data he obtained by sensory perception-let the head-hunter who does not choose to accept the validity of logic, try to prove it without using logic-let the pigmy who proclaims that a skyscraper needs no foundation after it reaches its fiftieth story, yank the base from under his building, not yours-let the cannibal who snarls that the freedom of man's mind was needed to create an industrial civilization, but is not needed to maintain it, be given an arrowhead and bearskin, not a university chair of economics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you think they are taking you back to dark ages? They are taking you back to darker ages than any your history has known. Their goal is not the era of pre-science, but the era of pre-language. Their purpose is to deprive you of the concept on which man's mind, his life and his culture depend: the concept of an objective reality. Identify the development of a human consciousness-and you will know the purpose of their creed.\n\n\"A savage is a being who has not grasped that A is A and that reality is real. He has arrested his mind at the level of a baby's, at the stage when a consciousness acquires its initial sensory perceptions and has not learned to distinguish solid objects. It is to a baby that the world appears as a blur of motion, without things that move-and the birth of his mind is the day when he grasps that the streak that keeps flickering past him is his mother and the whirl beyond her is a curtain, that the two are solid entities and neither can turn into the other, that they are what they are, that they exist. The day when he grasps that matter has no volition is the day when he grasps that he has-and this is his birth as a human being. The day when he grasps that the reflection he sees in a mirror is not a delusion, that it is real, but it is not himself, that the mirage he sees in a desert is not a delusion, that the air and the light rays that cause it are real, but it is not a city, it is a city's reflection-the day when he grasps that he is not a passive recipient of the sensations of any given moment, that his senses do not provide him with automatic knowledge in separate snatches independent of context, but only with the material of knowledge, which his mind must learn to integrate-the day when he grasps that his senses cannot deceive him, that physical objects cannot act without causes, that his organs of perception are physical and have no volition, no power to inventor to distort, that the evidence they give him is an absolute, but his mind must learn to understand it, his mind must discover the nature, the causes, the full context of his sensory material, his mind must identify the things that he perceives-that is the day of his birth as a thinker and scientist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are the men who reach that day; you are the men who choose to reach it partly; a savage is a man who never does.\n\n\"To a savage, the world is a place of unintelligible miracles where anything is possible to inanimate matter and nothing is possible to him.\n\nHis world is not the unknown, but that irrational horror: the unknowable. He believes that physical objects are endowed with a mysterious volition, moved by causeless, unpredictable whims, while he is a helpless pawn at the mercy of forces beyond his control. He believes that nature is ruled by demons who possess an omnipotent power and that reality is their fluid plaything, where they can turn his bowl of meal into a snake and his wife into a beetle at any moment, where the A he has never discovered can be any non-A they choose, where the only knowledge he possesses is that he must not attempt to know. He can count on nothing, he can only wish, and he spends his life on wishing, on begging his demons to grant him his wishes by the arbitrary power of their will, giving them credit when they do, taking the blame when they don't, offering them sacrifices in token of his gratitude and sacrifices in token of his guilt, crawling on his belly in fear and worship of sun and moon and wind and rain and of any thug who announces himself as their spokesman, provided his words are unintelligible and his mask sufficiently frightening-he wishes, begs and crawls, and dies, leaving you, as a record of his view of existence, the distorted monstrosities of his idols, part-man, part-animal, part-spider, the embodiments of the world of non-A.\n\n\"His is the intellectual state of your modern teachers and his is the world to which they want to bring you.\n\n\"If you wonder by what means they propose to do it, walk into any college classroom and you will hear your professors teaching your children that man can be certain of nothing, that his consciousness has no validity whatever, that he can learn no facts and no laws of existence, that he's incapable of knowing an objective reality. What, then, is his standard of knowledge and truth? Whatever others believe, is their answer. There is no knowledge, they teach, there's only faith: your belief that you exist is an act of faith, no more valid than another's faith in his right to kill you; the axioms of science are an act of faith, no more valid than a mystic's faith in revelations; the belief that electric light can be produced by a generator is an act of faith, no more valid than the belief that it can be produced by a rabbit's foot kissed under a stepladder on the first of the moon-truth is whatever people want it to be, and people are everyone except yourself; reality is whatever people choose to say it is, there are no objective facts, there are only people's arbitrary wishes-a man who seeks knowledge in a laboratory by means of test tubes and logic is an old-fashioned, superstitious fool; a true scientist is a man who goes around taking public polls-and if it weren't for the selfish greed of the manufacturers of steel girders, who have a vested interest in obstructing the progress of science, you would learn that New York City does not exist, because a poll of the entire population of the world would tell you by a landslide majority that their beliefs forbid its existence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For centuries, the mystics of spirit have proclaimed that faith is superior to reason, but have not dared deny the existence of reason.\n\nTheir heirs and product, the mystics of muscle, have completed their job and achieved their dream: they proclaim that everything is faith, and call it a revolt against believing. As revolt against unproved assertions, they proclaim that nothing can be proved; as revolt against supernatural knowledge, they proclaim that no knowledge is possible; as revolt against the enemies of science, they proclaim that science is superstition; as revolt against the enslavement of the mind, they proclaim that there is no mind.\n\n\"If you surrender your power to perceive, if you accept the switch of your standard from the objective to the collective and wait for mankind to tell you what to think, you will find another switch taking place before the eyes you have renounced: you will find that your teachers become the rulers of the collective, and if you then refuse to obey them, protesting that they are not the whole of mankind, they will answer: 'By what means do you know that we are not? Are, brother?\n\nWhere did you get that old-fashioned term? '\n\n\" If you doubt that such is their purpose, observe with what passionate consistency the mystics of muscle are striving to make you forget that a concept such as \"mind\" has ever existed. Observe the twists of undefined verbiage, the words with rubber meanings, the terms left floating in midstream, by means of which they try to get around the recognition of the concept of \"thinking.\" Your consciousness, they tell you, consists of \"reflexes,\" \"reactions,\" \"experiences,\" \"urges,\" and \"drives\"-and refuse to identify the means by which they acquired that knowledge, to identify the act they are performing when they tell it or the act you are performing when you listen. Words have the power to \"condition\" you, they say and refuse to identify the reason why words have the power to change your-blank-out. A student reading a book understands it through a process of-blank-out. A scientist working on an invention is engaged in the activity of-blank-out. A psychologist helping a neurotic to solve a problem and untangle a conflict, does it by means of-blank-out. An industrialist-blank-out-there is no such person. A factory is a \"natural resource,\" like a tree, a rock or a mud puddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" The problem of production, they tell you, has been solved and deserves no study or concern; the only problem left for your \"reflexes\" to solve is now the problem of distribution. Who solved the problem of production? Humanity, they answer. What was the solution? The goods are here. How did they get here? Somehow. What caused it? Nothing has causes.\n\n\" They proclaim that every man born is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his \"minimum sustenance\"-his food, his clothes, his shelter-with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright. To receive it-from whom? Blank-out. Every man, they announce, owns an equal share of the technological benefits created in the world.\n\nCreated-by whom? Blank-out. Frantic cowards who posture as defenders of industrialists now define the purpose of economics as \"an adjustment between the unlimited desires of men and the goods supplied in limited quantity.\" Supplied-by whom? Blank-out. Intellectual hoodlums who pose as professors, shrug away the thinkers of the past by declaring that their social theories were based on the impractical assumption that man was a rational being-but since men are not rational, they declare, there ought to be established a system that will make it possible for them to exist while being irrational, which means: while defying reality. Who will make it possible? Blank-out. Any stray mediocrity rushes into print with plans to control the production of mankind-and whoever agrees or disagrees with his statistics, no one questions his right to enforce his plans by means of a gun. Enforce-on whom? Blank-out. Random females with causeless incomes flitter on trips around the globe and return to deliver the message that the backward peoples of the world demand a higher standard of living. Demand-of whom? Blank-out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And to forestall any inquiry into the cause of the difference between a jungle village and New York City, they resort to the ultimate obscenity of explaining man's industrial progress-skyscrapers, cable bridges, power motors, railroad trains-by declaring that man is an animal who possesses an'instinct of tool-making." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Did you wonder what is wrong with the world? You are now seeing the climax of the creed of the uncaused and unearned. All your gangs of mystics, of spirit or muscle, are fighting one another for power to rule you, snarling that love is the solution for all the problems of your spirit and that a whip is the solution for all the problems of your body-you who have agreed to have no mind. Granting man less dignity than they grant to cattle, ignoring what an animal trainer could tell them-that no animal can be trained by fear, that a tortured elephant will trample its torturer, but will notwork for him or carry his burdens-they expect man to continue to produce electronic tubes, supersonic airplanes, atom-smashing engines and interstellar telescopes, with his ration of meat for reward and a lash on his back for incentive.\n\n\"Make no mistake about the character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose throughout the ages-and power, the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust.\n\n\"From the rites of the jungle witch-doctors, which distorted reality into grotesque absurdities, stunted the minds of their victims and kept them in terror of the supernatural for stagnant stretches of centuries-to the supernatural doctrines of the Middle Ages, which kept men huddling on the mud floors of their hovels, in terror that the devil might steal the soup they had worked eighteen hours to earn-to the seedy little smiling professor who assures you that your brain has no capacity to think, that you have no means of perception and must blindly obey the omnipotent will of that supernatural force: Society-all of it is the same performance for the same and only purpose: to reduce you to the kind of pulp that has surrendered the validity of its consciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it cannot be done to you without your consent. If you permit it to be done, you deserve it.\n\n\"When you listen to a mystic's harangue on the impotence of the human mind and begin to doubt your consciousness, not his, when you permit your precariously semi-rational state to be shaken by any assertion and decide it is safer to trust his superior certainty and knowledge, the joke is on both of you: your sanction is the only source of certainty he has. The supernatural power that a mystic dreads, the unknowable spirit he worships, the consciousness he considers omnipotent is-yours.\n\nA mystic is a man who surrendered his mind at its first encounter with the minds of others. Somewhere in. the distant reaches of his childhood, when his own understanding of reality clashed with the assertions of others, with their arbitrary orders and contradictory demands, he gave into so craven a fear of dependence that he renounced his rational faculty. At the crossroads of the choice between \"I know\" and \"They say,\" he chose the authority of others, he chose to submit rather than to understand, to believe rather than to think. Faith in the supernatural begins as faith in the superiority of others. His surrender took the form of the feeling that he must hide his lack of understanding, that others possess some mysterious knowledge of which he alone is deprived, that reality is whatever they want it to be, through some means forever denied to him.\n\n\"From then on, afraid to think, he is left at the mercy of unidentified feelings. His feelings become his only guide, his only remnant of personal identity, he clings to them with ferocious possessiveness-and whatever thinking he does is devoted to the struggle of hiding from himself that the nature of his feelings is terror.\n\n\" When a mystic declares that he feels the existence of a power superior to reason, he feels it all right, but that power is not an omniscient super-spirit of the universe, it is the consciousness of any passer-by to whom he has surrendered his own. A mystic is driven by the urge to impress, to cheat, to flatter, to deceive, to force that omnipotent consciousness of others. \"They\" are his only key to reality, he feels that he cannot exist save by harnessing their mysterious power and extorting their unaccountable consent, \"They\" are his only means of perception and, like a blind man who depends on the sight of a dog, he feels he must leash them in order to live. To control the consciousness of others becomes his only passion; power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator.\n\nA mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims-as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force-he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason. Reason is the enemy he dreads and, simultaneously, considers precarious; reason, to him, is a means of deception; he feels that men possess some power more potent than reason-and only their causeless belief or their forced obedience can give him a sense of security, a proof that he has gained control of the mystic endowment he lacked.\n\nHis lust is to command, not to convince: conviction requires an act of independence and rests on the absolute of an objective reality. What he seeks is power over reality and over men's means of perceiving it, their mind, the power to interpose his will between existence and consciousness, as if, by agreeing to fake the reality he orders them to fake, men would, in fact, create it.\n\n\"Just as the mystic is a parasite in matter, who expropriates the wealth created by others-just as he is a parasite inspirit, who plunders the ideas created by others-so he falls below the level of a lunatic who creates his own distortion of reality, to the level of a parasite of lunacy who seeks a distortion created by others.\n\n\"There is only one state that fulfills the mystic's longing for infinity, non-causality, non-identity: death. No matter what unintelligible causes he ascribes to his incommunicable feelings, whoever rejects reality rejects existence-and the feelings that move him from then on are hatred for all the values of man's life, and lust for all the evils that destroy it, A mystic relishes the spectacle of suffering, of poverty, subservience and terror; these give him a feeling of triumph, a proof of the defeat of rational reality. But no other reality exists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" No matter whose welfare he professes to serve, be it the welfare of God or of that disembodied gargoyle he describes as \"The People,\" no matter what ideal he proclaims in terms of some supernatural dimension-in fact, in reality, on earth, his ideal is death, his craving is to kill, his only satisfaction is to torture.\n\n\"Destruction is the only end that the mystics' creed has ever achieved, as it is the only end that you see them achieving today, and if the ravages wrought by their acts have not made them question their doctrines, if they profess to be moved by love, yet are not deterred by piles of human corpses, it is because the truth about their souls is worse than the obscene excuse you have allowed them, the excuse that the end justifies the means and that the horrors they practice are means to nobler ends. The truth is that those horrors are their ends.\n\n\"You who're depraved enough to believe that you could adjust yourself to a mystic's dictatorship and could please him by obeying his orders-there is noway to please him; when you obey, he will reverse his orders; he seeks obedience for the sake of obedience and destruction for the sake of destruction. You who are craven enough to believe that you can make terms with a mystic by giving into his extortions-there is noway to buy him off, the bribe he wants is your life, as slowly or as fast as you are willing to give it in-and the monster he seeks to bribe is the hidden blank-out in his mind, which drives him to kill in order not to learn that the death he desires is his own.\n\n\"You who are innocent enough to believe that the forces let loose in your world today are moved by greed for material plunder-the mystics' scramble for spoils is only a screen to conceal from their mind the nature of their motive. Wealth is a means of human life, and they clamor for wealth in imitation of living beings, to pretend to themselves that they desire to live. But their swinish indulgence in plundered luxury is not enjoyment, it is escape. They do not want to own your fortune, they want you to lose it; they do not want to succeed, they want you to fail; they do not want to live, they want you to die; they desire nothing, they hate existence, and they keep running, each trying not to learn that the object of his hatred is himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" You who've never grasped the nature of evil, you who describe them as'misguided idealists\"-may the God you invented forgive you!-they are the essence of evil, they, those anti-living objects who seek, by devouring the world, to fill the selfless zero of their soul. It is not your wealth that they're after. Theirs is a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man.\n\n\" It is a conspiracy without leader or direction, and the random little thugs of the moment who cash in on the agony of one land or another are chance scum riding the torrent from the broken dam of the sewer of centuries, from the reservoir of hatred for reason, for logic, for ability, for achievement, for joy, stored by every whining anti-human whoever preached the superiority of the \"heart\" over the mind.\n\n\"It is a conspiracy of all those who seek, not to live, but to getaway with living, those who seek to cut just one small corner of reality and are drawn, by feeling, to all the others who are busy cutting other corners-a conspiracy that unites by links of evasion all those who pursue a zero as a value: the professor who, unable to think, takes pleasure in crippling the mind of his students, the businessman who, to protect his stagnation, takes pleasure in chaining the ability of competitors, the neurotic who, to defend his self-loathing, takes pleasure in breaking men of self-esteem, the incompetent who takes pleasure in defeating achievement, the mediocrity who takes pleasure in demolishing greatness, the eunuch who takes pleasure in the castration of all pleasure-and all their intellectual munition-makers, all those who preach that the immolation of virtue will transform vices into virtue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Death is the premise at the root of their theories, death is the goal of their actions in practice-and you are the last of their victims.\n\n\"We, who were the living buffers between you and the nature of your creed, are no longer thereto save you from the effects of your chosen beliefs. We are no longer willing to pay with our lives the debts you incurred in yours or the moral deficit piled up by all the generations behind you. You had been living on borrowed time-and I am the man who has called in the loan.\n\n\"I am the man whose existence your blank-outs were intended to permit you to ignore. I am the man whom you did not want either to live or to die. You did not want me to live, because you were afraid of knowing that I carried the responsibility you dropped and that your lives depended upon me; you did not want me to die, because you knew it.\n\n\"Twelve years ago, when I worked in your world, I was an inventor.\n\nI was one of a profession that came last inhuman history and will be first to vanish on the way back to the sub-human. An inventor is a man who asks \"Why?\" of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.\n\n\"Like the man who discovered the use of steam or the man who discovered the use of oil, I discovered a source of energy which was available since the birth of the globe, but which men had not known how to use except as an object of worship, of terror and of legends about a thundering god. I completed the experimental model of a motor that would have made a fortune for me and for those who had hired me, a motor that would have raised the efficiency of every human installation using power and would have added the gift of higher productivity to every hour you spend at earning your living." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then, one night at a factory meeting, I heard myself sentenced to death by reason of my achievement. I heard three parasites assert that my brain and my life were their property, that my right to exist was conditional and depended on the satisfaction of their desires. The purpose of my ability, they said, was to serve the needs of those who were less able. I had no right to live, they said, by reason of my competence for living; their right to live was unconditional, by reason of their incompetence.\n\n\"Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality-and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent-that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real-and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on myself-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan-so throughout the world and throughout men's history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values-the impotence of death.\n\nI saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win-and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was \"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I quit that factory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I quit your world. I made it my job to warn your victims and to give them the method and the weapon to fight you. The method was to refuse to deflect retribution. The weapon was justice.\n\n\" If you want to know what you lost when I quit and when my strikers deserted your world-stand on an empty stretch of soil in a wilderness unexplored by men and ask yourself what manner of survival you would achieve and how long you would last if you refused to think, with no one around to teach you the motions, or, if you chose to think, how much your mind would be able to discover-ask yourself how many independent conclusions you have reached in the course of your life and how much of your time was spent on performing the actions you learned from others-ask yourself whether you would be able to discover how to till the soil and grow your food, whether you would be able to invent a wheel, a lever, an induction coil, a generator, an electronic tube-then decide whether men of ability are exploiters who live by the fruit of your labor and rob you of the wealth that you produce, and whether you dare to believe that you possess the power to enslave them. Let your women take a look at a jungle female with her shriveled face and pendulous breasts, as she sits grinding meal in a bowl, hour after hour, century by century-then let them ask themselves whether their \"instinct of tool-making\" will provide them with their electric refrigerators, their washing machines and vacuum cleaners, and, if not, whether they care to destroy those who provided it all, but not \"by instinct.\"\n\n\"Take a look around you, you savages who stutter that ideas are created by men's means of production, that a machine is not the product of human thought, but a mystical power that produces human thinking. You have never discovered the industrial age-and you cling to the morality of the barbarian eras when a miserable form of human subsistence was produced by the muscular labor of slaves. Every mystic had always longed for slaves, to protect him from the material reality he dreaded. But you, you grotesque little atavists, stare blindly at the skyscrapers and smokestacks around you and dream of enslaving the material providers who are scientists, inventors, industrialists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When you clamor for public ownership of the means of production, you are clamoring for public ownership of the mind. I have taught my strikers that the answer you deserve is only: \"Try and get it.\"\n\n\"You proclaim yourself unable to harness the forces of inanimate matter, yet propose to harness the minds of men who are able to achieve the feats you cannot equal. You proclaim that you cannot survive without us, yet propose to dictate the terms of our survival. You proclaim that you need us, yet indulge the impertinence of asserting your right to rule us by force-and expect that we, who are not afraid of that physical nature which fills you with terror, will cower at the sight of any lout who has talked you into voting him a chance to command us.\n\n\"You propose to establish asocial order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others-that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler-that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser.\n\n\" This idol of your cult of zero-worship, this symbol of impotence-the congenital dependent-is your image of man and your standard of value, in whose likeness you strive to refashion your soul. \"It's only human, \"you cry in defense of any depravity, reaching the stage of self-abasement where you seek to make the concept'human'mean the weakling, the fool, the rotter, the liar, the failure, the coward, the fraud, and to exile from the human race the hero, the thinker, the producer, the inventor, the strong, the purposeful, the pure-as if'to feel' were human, but to think were not, as if to fail were human, but to succeed were not, as if corruption were human, but virtue were not-as if the premise of death were proper to man, but the premise of life were not." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: philosophical fiction, objectivism, dystopian, political, capitalism\nAuthor: Ayn Rand\nTitle: Atlas Shrugged\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When you clamor for public ownership of the means of production, you are clamoring for public ownership of the mind. I have taught my strikers that the answer you deserve is only: \"Try and get it.\"\n\n\"You proclaim yourself unable to harness the forces of inanimate matter, yet propose to harness the minds of men who are able to achieve the feats you cannot equal. You proclaim that you cannot survive without us, yet propose to dictate the terms of our survival. You proclaim that you need us, yet indulge the impertinence of asserting your right to rule us by force-and expect that we, who are not afraid of that physical nature which fills you with terror, will cower at the sight of any lout who has talked you into voting him a chance to command us.\n\n\"You propose to establish asocial order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others-that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler-that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser.\n\n\" This idol of your cult of zero-worship, this symbol of impotence-the congenital dependent-is your image of man and your standard of value, in whose likeness you strive to refashion your soul. \"It's only human, \"you cry in defense of any depravity, reaching the stage of self-abasement where you seek to make the concept'human'mean the weakling, the fool, the rotter, the liar, the failure, the coward, the fraud, and to exile from the human race the hero, the thinker, the producer, the inventor, the strong, the purposeful, the pure-as if'to feel' were human, but to think were not, as if to fail were human, but to succeed were not, as if corruption were human, but virtue were not-as if the premise of death were proper to man, but the premise of life were not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" In order to deprive us of honor, that you may then deprive us of our wealth, you have always regarded us as slaves who deserve no moral recognition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You praise any venture that claims to be nonprofit, and damn the men who made the profits that make the venture possible. You regard as \"in the public interest\" any project serving those who do not pay; it is not in the public interest to provide any services for those who do the paying. \"Public benefit\" is anything given as alms; to engage in trade is to injure the public. \"Public welfare\" is the welfare of those who do not earn it; those who do, are entitled to no welfare. \"The public,\" to you, is whoever has failed to achieve any virtue or value; whoever achieves it, whoever provides the goods you require for survival, ceases to be regarded as part of the public or as part of the human race.\n\n\"What blank-out permitted you to hope that you could getaway with this muck of contradictions and to plan it as an ideal society, when the \"No\" of your victims was sufficient to demolish the whole of your structure? What permits any insolent beggar to wave his sores in the face of his betters and to plead for help in the tone of a threat? You cry, as he does, that you are counting on our pity, but your secret hope is the moral code that has taught you to count on our guilt. You expect us to feel guilty of our virtues in the presence of your vices, wounds and failures-guilty of succeeding at existence, guilty of enjoying the life that you damn, yet beg us to help you to live,\" Did you want to know who is John Galt? I am the first man of ability who refused to regard it as guilt. I am the first man who would not do penance for my virtues or let them be used as the tools of my destruction. I am the first man who would not suffer martyrdom at the hands of those who wished me to perish for the privilege of keeping them, alive. I am the first man who told them that I did not need them, and until they learned to deal with meas traders, giving value for value, they would have to exist without me, as I would exist without them; then I would let them learn whose is the need and whose the ability-and if human survival is the standard, whose terms would set the way to survive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have done by plan and intention what had been done throughout history by silent default. There have always been men of intelligence who went on strike, in protest and despair, but they did not know the meaning of their action. The man who retires from public life, to think, but not to share his thoughts-the man who chooses to spend his years in the obscurity of menial employment, keeping to himself the fire of his mind, never giving it form, expression or reality, refusing to bring it into a world he despises-the man who is defeated by revulsion, the man who renounces before he has started, the man who gives up rather than give in, the man who functions at a fraction of his capacity, disarmed by his longing for an ideal he has not found-they are on strike, on strike against unreason, on strike against your world and your values. But not knowing any values of their own, they abandon the quest to know-in the darkness of their hopeless indignation, which is righteous without knowledge of the right, and passionate without knowledge of desire, they concede to you the power of reality and surrender the incentives of their mind-and they perish in bitter futility, as rebels who never learned the object of their rebellion, as lovers who never discovered their love.\n\n\"The infamous times you call the Dark Ages were an era of intelligence on strike, when men of ability went underground and lived undiscovered, studying in secret, and died, destroying the works of their mind, when only a few of the bravest of martyrs remained to keep the human race alive. Every period ruled by mystics was an era of stagnation and want, when most men were on strike against existence, working for less than their barest survival, leaving nothing but scraps for their rulers to loot, refusing to think, to venture, to produce, when the ultimate collector of their profits and the final authority on truth or error was the whim of some gilded degenerate sanctioned as superior to reason by divine right and by grace of a club." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The road of human history was a string of blank-outs over sterile stretches eroded by faith and force, with only a few brief bursts of sunlight, when the released energy of the men of the mind performed the wonders you gaped at, admired and promptly extinguished again.\n\n\"But there will be no extinction, this time. The game of the mystics is up. You will perish in and by your own unreality. We, the men of reason, will survive.\n\n\"I have called out on strike the kind of martyrs who had never deserted you before. I have given them the weapon they had lacked: the knowledge of their own moral value. I have taught them that the world is ours, whenever we choose to claim it, by virtue and grace of the fact that ours is the Morality of Life. They, the great victims who had produced all the wonders of humanity's brief summer, they, the industrialists, the conquerors of matter, had not discovered the nature of their right. They had known that theirs was the power. I taught them that theirs was the glory.\n\n\"You, who dare to regard us as the moral inferiors of any mystic who claims supernatural visions-you, who scramble like vultures for plundered pennies, yet honor a fortune-teller above a fortune maker-you, who scorn a businessman as ignoble, but esteem any posturing artist as exalted-the root of your standards is that mystic miasma which comes from primordial swamps, that cult of death, which pronounces a businessman immoral by reason of the fact that he keeps you alive. You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs-who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a hand-plow fora bowl of rice, or the American who is driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality: the man who sleeps on abed of nails or the man who sleeps on an inner-spring mattress? Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unless you learn the answers to these questions-and learn to stand at reverent attention when you face the achievements of man's mind-you will not stay much longer on this earth, which we love and will not permit you to damn. You will not sneak by with the rest of your lifespan. I have foreshortened the usual course of history and have let you discover the nature of the payment you had hoped to switch to the shoulders of others. It is the last of your own living power that will now be drained to provide the unearned for the worshippers and carriers of Death. Do not pretend that a malevolent reality defeated you-you were defeated by your own evasions. Do not pretend that you will perish fora noble ideal-you will perish as fodder for the haters of man.\n\n\"But to those of you who still retain a remnant of the dignity and will to love one's life, I am offering the chance to make a choice.\n\nChoose whether you wish to perish fora morality you have never believed or practiced. Pause on the brink of self-destruction and examine your values and your life. You had known how to take an inventory of your wealth. Now take an inventory of your mind.\n\n\"Since childhood, you have been hiding the guilty secret that you feel no desire to be moral, no desire to seek self-immolation, that you dread and hate your code, but dare not say it even to yourself, that you're devoid of those moral'instincts' which others profess to feel.\n\nThe less you felt, the louder you proclaimed your selfless love and servitude to others, in dread of ever letting them discover your own self, the self that you betrayed, the self that you kept in concealment, like a skeleton in the closet of your body. And they, who were at once your dupes and your deceivers, they listened and voiced their loud approval, in dread of ever letting you discover that they were harboring the same unspoken secret. Existence among you is a giant pretense, an act you all perform for one another, each feeling that he is the only guilty freak, each placing his moral authority in the unknowable known only to others, each faking the reality he feels they expect him to fake, none having the courage to break the vicious circle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No matter what dishonorable compromise you've made with your impracticable creed, no matter what miserable balance, half-cynicism, half-superstition, you now manage to maintain, you still preserve the root, the lethal tenet: the belief that the moral and the practical are opposites. Since childhood, you have been running from the terror of a choice you have never dared fully to identify: If the practical, whatever you must practice to exist, whatever works, succeeds, achieves your purpose, whatever brings you food and joy, whatever profits you, is evil-and if the good, the moral, is the impractical, whatever fails, destroys, frustrates, whatever injures you and brings you loss or pain-then your choice is to be moral or to live.\n\n\"The sole result of that murderous doctrine was to remove morality from life. You grew up to believe that moral laws bear no relation to the job of living, except as an impediment and threat, that man's existence is an amoral jungle where anything goes and anything works.\n\nAnd in that fog of switching definitions which descends upon a frozen mind, you have forgotten that the evils damned by your creed were the virtues required for living, and you have come to believe that actual evils are the practical means of existence. Forgetting that the impractical \"good\" was self-sacrifice, you believe that self-esteem is impractical; forgetting that the practical \"evil\" was production, you believe that robbery is practical.\n\n\"Swinging like a helpless branch in the wind of an uncharted moral wilderness; you dare not fully to be evil or fully to live. When you are honest, you feel the resentment of a sucker; when you cheat, you feel terror and shame. When you are happy, your joy is diluted by guilt; when you suffer, your pain is augmented by the feeling that pain is your natural state. You pity the men you admire, you believe they are doomed to fail; you envy the men you hate, you believe they are the masters of existence. You feel disarmed when you come up against a scoundrel: you believe that evil is bound to win, since the moral is the impotent, the impractical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Morality, to you, is a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain, across-breed between the first schoolteacher of your past and the tax collector of your present, a scarecrow standing in a barren field, waving a stick to chase away your pleasures-and pleasure, to you, is a liquor-soggy brain, a mindless slut, the stupor of a moron who stakes his cash on some animal's race, since pleasure cannot be moral.\n\n\"If you identify your actual belief, you will find a triple damnation-of yourself, of life, of virtue-in the grotesque conclusion you have reached: you believe that morality is a necessary evil.\n\n\"Do you wonder why you live without dignity, love without fire and die without resistance? Do you wonder why, wherever you look, you see nothing but unanswerable questions, why your life is torn by impossible conflicts, why you spend it straddling irrational fences to evade artificial choices, such as soul or body, mind or heart, security or freedom, private profit or public good?\n\n\"Do you cry that you find no answers? By what means did you hope to find them? You reject your tool of perception-your mind-then complain that the universe is a mystery. You discard your key, then wail that all doors are locked against you. You start out in pursuit of the irrational, then damn existence for making no sense.\n\n\" The fence you have been straddling for two hours-while hearing my words and seeking to escape them-is the coward's formula contained in the sentence:\"But we don't have to go to extremes!\" The extreme you have always struggled to avoid is the recognition that reality is final, that A is A and that the truth is true. Amoral code impossible to practice, a code that demands imperfection or death, has taught you to dissolve all ideas in fog, to permit no firm definitions, to regard any concept as approximate and any rule of conduct as elastic, to hedge on any principle, to compromise on any value, to take the middle of any road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By extorting your acceptance of supernatural absolutes, it has forced you to reject the absolute of nature. By making moral judgments impossible, it has made you incapable of rational judgment. A code that forbids you to cast the first stone, has forbidden you to admit the identity of stones and to know when or if you're being stoned.\n\n\"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have apiece of bread or not, is an absolute.\n\nWhether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.\n\n\"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice.\n\nBut the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You, who are half-rational, half-coward, have been playing a con game with reality, but the victim you have conned is yourself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it's picked up by scoundrels-and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil. As you surrendered to the mystics of muscle when they told you that ignorance consists of claiming knowledge, so now you surrender to them when they shriek that immorality consists of pronouncing moral judgment. When they yell that it is selfish to be certain that you are right, you hasten to assure them that you're certain of nothing.\n\nWhen they shout that it's immoral to stand on your convictions, you assure them that you have no convictions whatever. When the thugs of Europe's People's States snarl that you are guilty of intolerance, because you don't treat your desire to live and their desire to kill you as a difference of opinion-you cringe and hasten to assure them that you are not intolerant of any horror. When some barefoot bum in some pesthole of Asia yells at you: How dare you be rich-you apologize and beg him to be patient and promise him you'll give it all away.\n\n\" You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was \"only a compromise\": you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At the end of your road of successive betrayals, stripped of weapons, of certainty, of honor, you commit your final act of treason and sign your petition of intellectual bankruptcy: while the muscle-mystics of the People's States proclaim that they're the champions of reason and science, you agree and hasten to proclaim that faith is your cardinal principle, that reason is on the side of your destroyers, but yours is the side of faith. To the struggling remnants of rational honesty in the twisted, bewildered minds of your children, you declare that you can offer no rational argument to support the ideas that created this country, that there is no rational justification for freedom, for property, for justice, for rights, that they rest on a mystical insight and can be accepted only on faith, that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but faith is superior to reason. You declare to your children that it is rational to loot, to torture, to enslave, to expropriate, to murder, but that they must resist the temptations of logic and stick to the discipline of remaining irrational-that skyscrapers, factories, radios, airplanes were the products of faith and mystic intuition, while famines, concentration camps and firing squads are the products of a reasonable manner of existence-that the industrial revolution was the revolt of the men of faith against that era of reason and logic which is known as the Middle Ages. Simultaneously, in the same breath, to the same child, you declare that the looters who rule the People's States will surpass this country in material production, since they are the representatives of science, but that it's evil to be concerned with physical wealth and that one must renounce material prosperity-you declare that the looters'ideals are noble, but they do not mean them, while you do; that your purpose infighting the looters is only to accomplish their aims, which they cannot accomplish, but you can; and that the way to fight them is to beat them to it and give one's wealth away.\n\nThen you wonder why your children join the People's thugs or become half-crazed delinquents, you wonder why the looters\" conquests keep creeping closer to your doors-and you blame it on human stupidity, declaring that the masses are impervious to reason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You blank out the open, public spectacle of the looters' fight against the mind, and the fact that their bloodiest horrors are unleashed to punish the crime of thinking. You blank out the fact that most mystics of muscle started out as mystics of spirit, that they keep switching from one to the other, that the men you call materialists and spiritualists are only two halves of the same dissected human, forever seeking completion, but seeking it by swinging from the destruction of the flesh to the destruction of the soul and vice versa-that they keep running from your colleges to the slave pens of Europe to an open collapse into the mystic muck of India, seeking any refuge against reality, any form of escape from the mind.\n\n\"You blank it out and cling to your hypocrisy of \"faith\" in order to blank out the knowledge that the looters have a stranglehold upon you, which consists of your moral code-that the looters are the final and consistent practitioners of the morality you're half-obeying, half-evading-that they practice it the only way it can be practiced: by turning the earth into a sacrificial furnace-that your morality forbids you to oppose them in the only way they can be opposed: by refusing to become a sacrificial animal and proudly asserting your right to exist-that in order to fight them to the finish and with full rectitude, it is your morality that you have to reject,\" You blank it out, because yourself-esteem is tied to that mystic'unselfishness'which you've never possessed or practiced, but spent so many years pretending to possess that the thought of denouncing it fills you with terror. No value is higher than self-esteem, but you've invested it in counterfeit securities-and now your morality has caught you in a trap where you are forced to protect yourself-esteem by fighting for the creed of self-destruction. The grim joke is on you: that need of self-esteem, which you're unable to explain or to define, belongs to my morality, not yours; it's the objective token of my code, it is my proof within your own soul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By a feeling he has not learned to identify, but has derived from his first awareness of existence, from his discovery that he has to make choices, man knows that his desperate need of self-esteem is a matter of life or death. As a being of volitional consciousness, he knows that he must know his own value in order to maintain his own life. He knows that he has to be right; to be wrong inaction means danger to his life; to be wrong in person, to be evil, means to be unfit for existence.\n\n\"Every act of man's life has to be willed; the mere act of obtaining or eating his food implies that the person he preserves is worthy of being preserved; every pleasure he seeks to enjoy implies that the person who seeks it is worthy of finding enjoyment. He has no choice about his need of self-esteem, his only choice is the standard by which to gauge it. And he makes his fatal error when he switches this gauge protecting his life into the service of his own destruction, when he chooses a standard contradicting existence and sets his self-esteem against reality.\n\n\"Every form of causeless self-doubt, every feeling of inferiority and secret unworthiness is, in fact, man's hidden dread of his inability to deal with existence. But the greater his terror, the more fiercely he clings to the murderous doctrines that choke him. No man can survive the moment of pronouncing himself irredeemably evil; should he do it, his next moment is insanity or suicide. To escape it-if he's chosen an irrational standard-he will fake, evade, blank out; he will cheat himself of reality, of existence, of happiness, of mind; and he will ultimately cheat himself of self-esteem by struggling to preserve its illusion rather than to risk discovering its lack. To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is not any crime you have ever committed that infects your soul with permanent guilt, it is none of your failures, errors or flaws, but the blank-out by which you attempt to evade them-it is not any sort of Original Sin or unknown prenatal deficiency, but the knowledge and fact of your basic default, of suspending your mind, of refusing to think.\n\nFear and guilt are your chronic emotions, they are real and you do deserve them, but they don't come from the superficial reasons you invent to disguise their cause, not from your'selfishness, ' weakness or ignorance, but from areal and basic threat to your existence: fear, because you have abandoned your weapon of survival, guilt, because you know you have done it volitionally.\n\n\" The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. The ego you seek, that essential'you'which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you've impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your \"feeling.\" Then you drag yourself through a self-made night, in a desperate quest fora nameless fire, moved by some fading vision of a dawn you had seen and lost.\n\n\"Observe the persistence, in mankind's mythologies, of the legend about a paradise that men had once possessed, the city of Atlantis or the Garden of Eden or some kingdom of perfection, always behind us.\n\nThe root of that legend exists, not in the past of the race, but in the past of every man. You still retain a sense-not as firm as a memory, but diffused like the pain of hopeless longing-that somewhere in the starting years of your childhood, before you had learned to submit, to absorb the terror of unreason and to doubt the value of your mind, you had known a radiant state of existence, you had known the independence of a rational consciousness facing an open universe. That is the paradise which you have lost, which you seek-which is yours for the taking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some of you will never know who is John Galt. But those of you who have known a single moment of love for existence and of pride in being its worthy lover, a moment of looking at this earth and letting your glance be its sanction, have known the state of being a man, and I-I am only the man who knew that that state is not to be betrayed. I am the man who knew what made it possible and who chose consistently to practice and to be what you had practiced and been in that one moment.\n\n\"That choice is yours to make. That choice-the dedication to one's highest potential-is made by accepting the fact that the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four.\n\n\"Whoever you are-you who are alone with my words in this moment, with nothing but your honesty to help you understand-the choice is still open to be a human being, but the price is to start from scratch, to stand naked in the face of reality and, reversing a costly historical error, to declare: I am, therefore I'll think. 1\n\n\"Accept the irrevocable fact that your life depends upon your mind.\n\nAdmit that the whole of your struggle, your doubts, your fakes, your evasions, was a desperate quest for escape from the responsibility of a volitional consciousness-a quest for automatic knowledge, for instinctive action, for intuitive certainty-and while you called it a longing for the state of an angel, what you were seeking was the state of an animal.\n\nAccept, as your moral ideal, the task of becoming a man.\n\n\"Do not say that you're afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience-that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible-that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. In place of your dream of an omniscient automaton, accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that that is his distinction in the universe, that is his nature, his morality, his glory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Discard that unlimited license to evil which consists of claiming that man is imperfect. By what standard do you damn him when you claim it? Accept the fact that in the realm of morality nothing less than perfection will do. But perfection is not to be gauged by mystic commandments to practice the impossible, and your moral stature is not to be gauged by matters not open to your choice. Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality-not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.\n\n\"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not amoral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not amoral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of\" knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality. Give the benefit of the doubt to those who seek to know; but treat as potential killers those specimens of insolent depravity who make demands upon you, announcing that they have and seek no reasons, proclaiming, as a license, that they \"just feel if-or those who reject an irrefutable argument by saying:\"It's only logic\" which means: \"It's only reality. ' The only realm opposed to reality is the realm and premise of death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Accept the fact that the achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness-not pain or mindless self-indulgence-is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.\n\nHappiness was the responsibility you dreaded, it required the kind of rational discipline you did not value yourself enough to assume-and the anxious staleness of your days is the monument to your evasion of the knowledge that there is no moral substitute for happiness, that there is no more despicable coward than, the man who deserted the battle for his joy, fearing to assert his right to existence, lacking the courage and the loyalty to life of a bird or a flower reaching for the sun. Discard the protective rags of that vice which you called a virtue: humility-learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness-and when you learn that pride is the sum of all virtues, you will learn to live like a man.\n\n\"As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man's demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property-and loathsome as such claim might be, there's something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No-if he claims it as his right or as amoral duty that you owe him. Yes-if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim-is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will not miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do not say that my morality is too hard for you to practice and that you fear it as you fear the unknown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever living moments you have known, were lived by the values of my code. But you stifled, negated, betrayed it. You kept sacrificing your virtues to your vices, and the best among men to the worst. Look around you-: what you have done to society, you had done it first within your soul; one is the image of the other. This dismal wreckage, which is now your world, is the physical form of the treason you committed to your values, to your friends, to your defenders, to your future, to your country, to yourself.\n\n\"We-whom you are now calling, but who will not answer any longer-we had lived among you, but you failed to know us, you refused to think and to see what we were. You failed to recognize the motor I invented-and it became, in your world, a pile of dead scrap. You failed to recognize the heroin your soul-and you failed to know me when I passed you in the street. When you cried in despair for the unattainable spirit which you felt had deserted your world, you gave it my name, but what you were calling was your own betrayed self-esteem. You will not recover one without the other.\n\n\"When you failed to give recognition to man's mind and attempted to rule human beings by force-those who submitted had no mind to surrender; those who had, were men who don't submit. Thus the man of productive genius assumed in your world the disguise of a playboy and became a destroyer of wealth, choosing to annihilate his fortune rather than surrender it to guns. Thus the thinker, the man of reason, assumed in your world the role of a pirate, to defend his values by force against your force, rather than submit to the rule of brutality. Do you hear me, Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjold, my first friends, my fellow fighters, my fellow outcasts, in whose name and honor I speak?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" It was the three of us who started what I am now completing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the three of us who resolved to avenge this country and to release its imprisoned soul. This greatest of countries was built on my morality-on the inviolate supremacy of man's right to exist-but you dreaded to admit it and live up to it. You stared at an achievement unequaled in history, you looted its effects and blanked out its cause. In the presence of that monument to human morality, which is a factory, a highway or abridge-you kept damning this country as immoral and its progress as'material greed, \"you kept offering apologies for this country's greatness to the idol of primordial starvation, to decaying Europe's idol of a leprous, mystic bum.\n\n\"This country-the product of reason-could not survive on the morality of sacrifice. It was not built by men who sought self-immolation or by men who sought handouts. It could not stand on the mystic split that divorced man's soul from his body. It could not live by the mystic doctrine that damned this earth as evil and those who succeeded on earth as depraved. From its start, this country was a threat to the ancient rule of mystics. In the brilliant rocket-explosion of its youth, this country displayed to an incredulous world what greatness was possible to man, what happiness was possible on earth. It was one or the other: America or mystics. The mystics knew it; you didn't. You let them infect you with the worship of need-and this country became a giant in body with a mooching midget in place of its soul, while its living soul was driven underground to labor and feed you in silence, unnamed, unhonored, negated, its soul and hero: the industrialist. Do you hear me now, Hank Rearden, the greatest of the victims I have avenged?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Neither he nor the rest of us will return until the road is clear to rebuild this country-until the wreckage of the morality of sacrifice has been wiped out of our way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A country's political system is based on its code of morality. We will rebuild America's system on the moral premise which had been its foundation, but which you treated as a guilty underground, in your frantic evasion of the conflict between that premise and your mystic morality: the premise that man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others, that man's life, his freedom, his happiness are his by inalienable right.\n\n\"You who've lost the concept of aright, you who swing in impotent evasiveness between the claim that rights area gift of God, a supernatural gift to betaken on faith, or the claim that rights area gift of society, to be broken at its arbitrary whim-the source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A-and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has aright to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man's rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.\n\n\"Rights area moral concept-and morality is a matter of choice.\n\nMen are free not to choose man's survival as the standard of their morals and their laws, but not free to escape from the fact that the alternative is a cannibal society, which exists fora while by devouring its best and collapses like a cancerous body, when the healthy have been eaten by the diseased, when the rational have been consumed by the irrational. Such has been the fate of your societies in history, but you've evaded the knowledge of the cause. I am hereto state it: the agent of retribution was the law of identity, which you cannot escape. Just as man cannot live by means of the irrational, so two men cannot, or two thousand, or two billion. Just as man can't succeed by defying reality, so a nation can't, or a country, or a globe. A is A. The rest is a matter of time, provided by the generosity of victims." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality-to think, to work and to keep the results-which means: the right of property." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of \"human rights\" versus \"property rights,\" as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body. Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that \"human rights\" are superior to \"property rights\" simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of \"human.\"\n\n\" The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man's mind and labor. As you cannot have effects without causes, so you cannot have wealth without its source: without intelligence. You cannot force intelligence to work: those who're able to think, will notwork under compulsion; those who will, won't produce much more than the price of the whip needed to keep them enslaved. You cannot obtain the products of a mind except on the owner's terms, by trade and by volitional consent. Any other policy of men toward man's property is the policy of criminals, no matter what their numbers. Criminals are savages who play it short range and starve when their prey runs out-just as you're starving today, you who believed that crime could be \"practical\" if your government decreed that robbery was legal and resistance to robbery illegal.\n\n\"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only a brute, a fool or an evader can agree to exist on such terms or agree to give his fellowmen a blank check on his life and his mind, to accept the belief that others have the right to dispose of his person at their whim, that the will of the majority is omnipotent, that the physical force of muscles and numbers is a substitute for justice, reality and truth. We, the men of the mind, we who are traders not masters or slaves, do not deal in blank checks or grant them. We do not live or work with any form of the non-objective.\n\n\"So long as men, in the era of savagery, had no concept of objective reality and believed that physical nature was ruled by the whim of unknowable demons-no thought, no science, no production were possible. Only when men discovered that nature was a firm, predictable absolute were they able to rely on their knowledge, to choose their course, to plan their future and, slowly, to rise from the cave. Now you have placed modern industry, with its immense complexity of scientific precision, back into the power of unknowable demons-the unpredictable power of the arbitrary whims of hidden, ugly little bureaucrats. A farmer will not invest the effort of one summer if he's unable to calculate his chances of a harvest. But you expect industrial giants-who plan in terms of decades, invest in terms of generations and undertake ninety-nine-year contracts-to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort. Drifters and physical laborers live and plan by the range of a day. The better the mind, the longer the range. A man whose vision extends to a shanty, might continue to build on your quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run. A man who envisions skyscrapers, will not. Nor will he give ten years of unswerving devotion to the task of inventing anew product, when he knows that gangs of entrenched mediocrity are juggling the laws against him, to tie him,, restrict him and force him to fail, but should he fight them and struggle and succeed, they will seize his rewards and his invention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look past the range of the moment, you who cry that you fear to compete with men of superior intelligence, that their mind is a threat to your livelihood, that the strong leave no chance to the weak in a market of voluntary trade. What determines the material value of your work? Nothing but the productive effort of your mind-if you lived on a desert island. The less efficient the thinking of your brain, the less your physical labor would bring you-and you could spend your life on a single routine, collecting a precarious harvest or hunting with bow and arrows, unable to think any further. But when you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.\n\n\"When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.\n\n\"The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? Would you dare to claim that the size of your paycheck was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but it's only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he'll rise. Physical labor as such can extend no further than the range of the moment. The man who does no more than physical labor, consumes the material value-equivalent of his own contribution to the process of production, and leaves no further value, neither for himself nor others. But the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor-the man who discovers new knowledge-is the permanent benefactor of humanity. Material products can't be shared, they belong to some ultimate consumer; it is only the value of an idea that can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making all sharers richer at no one's sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform. It is the value of his own time that the strong of the intellect transfers to the weak, letting them work on the jobs he discovered, while devoting his time to further discoveries. This is mutual trade to mutual advantage; the interests of the mind are one, no matter what the degree of intelligence, among men who desire to work and don't seek or expect the unearned.\n\n\"In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates anew invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability.\n\nThe man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the \"competition\" between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of \"exploitation\" for which you have damned the strong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Such was the service we had given you and were glad and willing to give. What did we ask in return? Nothing but freedom. We required that you leave us free to function-free to think and to work as we choose-free to take our own risks and to bear our own losses-free to earn our own profits and to make our own fortunes-free to gamble on your rationality, to submit our products to your judgment for the purpose of a voluntary trade, to rely on the objective value of our work and on your mind's ability to see it-free to count on your intelligence and honesty, and to deal with nothing but your mind.\n\nSuch was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.\n\nYou decided to call it unfair that we, who had dragged you out of your hovels and provided you with modern apartments, with radios, movies and cars, should own our palaces and yachts-you decided that you had aright to your wages, but we had no right to our profits, that you did not want us to deal with your mind, but to deal, instead, with your gun. Our answer to that, was: 'May you be damned! 1 Our answer came true. You are.\n\n\"You did not care to compete in terms of intelligence-you are now competing in terms of brutality. You did not care to allow rewards to be won by successful production-you are now running a race in which rewards are won by successful plunder. You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value-you have now established an unselfish society where they trade extortion for extortion. Your system is a legal civil war, where men gang upon one another and struggle for possession of the law, which they use as a club over rivals, till another gang wrests it from their clutch and clubs them with it in their turn, all of them clamoring protestations of service to an unnamed public's unspecified good. You had said that you saw no difference between economic and political power, between the power of money and the power of guns-no difference between reward and punishment, no difference between purchase and plunder, no difference between pleasure and fear, no difference between life and death. You are learning the difference now,\" Some of you might plead the excuse of your ignorance, of a limited mind and a limited range. But the damned and the guiltiest among you are the men who had the capacity to know, yet chose to blank out reality, the men who were willing to sell their intelligence into cynical servitude to force: the contemptible breed of those mystics of science who profess a devotion to some sort of'pure knowledge\"-the purity consisting of their claim that such knowledge has no practical purpose on this earth-who reserve their logic for inanimate matter, but believe that the subject of dealing with men requires and deserves no rationality, who scorn money and sell their souls in exchange fora laboratory supplied by loot. And since there is no such thing as'non-practical knowledge'or any sort of'disinterested' action, since they scorn the use of their science for the purpose and profit of life, they deliver their science to the service of death, to the only practical purpose it can ever have for looters: to inventing weapons of coercion and destruction. They, the intellects who seek escape from moral values, they are the damned on this earth, theirs is the guilt beyond forgiveness. Do you hear me, Dr. Robert Stadler?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" But it is not to him that I wish to speak. I am speaking to those among you who have retained some sovereign shred of their soul, unsold and unstamped: \"-to the order of others.\" If, in the chaos of the motives that have made you listen to the radio tonight, there was an honest, rational desire to learn what is wrong with the world, you are the man whom I wished to address. By the rules and terms of my code, one owes a rational statement to those whom it does concern and who're making an effort to know. Those who're making an effort to fail to understand me, are not a concern of mine.\n\n\"I am speaking to those who desire to live and to recapture the honor of their soul. Now that you know the truth about your world, stop supporting your own destroyers. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. Withdraw your support. Do not try to live on your enemies'terms or to win at a game where they're setting the rules. Do not seek the favor of those who enslaved you, do not beg for alms from those who have robbed you, be it subsidies, loans or jobs, do not join their team to recoup what they've taken by helping them rob your neighbors.\n\nOne cannot hope to maintain one's life by accepting bribes to condone one's destruction. Do not struggle for profit, successor security at the price of alien on your right to exist. Such alien is not to be paid off; the more you pay them, the more they will demand; the greater the values you seek or achieve, the more vulnerably helpless you become. Theirs is a system of white blackmail devised to bleed you, not by means of your sins, but by means of your love for existence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not attempt to rise on the looters'terms or to climb a ladder while they're holding the ropes. Do not allow their hands to touch the only power that keeps them in power: your living ambition. Goon strike-in the manner I did. Use your mind and skill in private, extend your knowledge, develop your ability, but do not share your achievements with others. Do not try to produce a fortune, with a looter riding on your back. Stay on the lowest rung of their ladder, earn no more than your barest survival, do not make an extra penny to support the looters'state. Since you're captive, act as a captive, do not help them pretend that you're free. Bethe silent, incorruptible enemy they dread. When they force you, obey-but do not volunteer. Never volunteer a step in their direction, or a wish, or a plea, or a purpose.\n\nDo not help a holdup man to claim that he acts as your friend and benefactor. Do not help your jailers to pretend that their jail is your natural state of existence. Do not help them to fake reality. That fake is the only dam holding off their secret terror, the terror of knowing they're unfit to exist; remove it and let them drown; your sanction is their only lifebelt.\n\n\"If you find a chance to vanish into some wilderness out of their reach, do so, but not to exist as a bandit or to create a gang competing with their racket; build a productive life of your own with those who accept your moral code and are willing to struggle fora human existence. You have no chance to win on the Morality of Death or by the code of faith and force; raise a standard to which the honest will repair: the standard of Life and Reason.\n\n\"Act as a rational being and aim at becoming a rallying point for all those who are starved fora voice of integrity-act on your rational values, whether alone in the midst of your enemies, or with a few of your chosen friends, or as the founder of a modest community on the frontier of mankind's rebirth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When the looters' state collapses, deprived of the best of its slaves, when it falls to a level of impotent chaos, like the mystic-ridden nations of the Orient, and dissolves into starving robber gangs fighting to rob one another-when the advocates of the morality of sacrifice perish with their final ideal-then and on that day we will return.\n\n\"We will open the gates of our city to those who deserve to enter, a city of smokestacks, pipelines, orchards, markets and inviolate homes.\n\nWe will act as the rallying center for such hidden outposts as you'll build. With the sign of the dollar as our symbol-the sign of free trade and free minds-we will move to reclaim this country once more from the impotent savages who never discovered its nature, its meaning, its splendor. Those who choose to join us, will join us; those who don't, will not have the power to stop us; hordes of savages have never been an obstacle to men who carried the banner of the mind.\n\n\"Then this country will once more become a sanctuary fora vanishing species: the rational being. The political system we will build is contained in a single moral premise: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force. Every man will stand or fall, live or die by his rational judgment. If he fails to use it and falls, he will be his only victim. If he fears that his judgment is inadequate, he will not be given a gun to improve it, If he chooses to correct his errors in time, he will have the unobstructed example of his betters, for guidance in learning to think; but an end will be put to the infamy of paying with one life for the errors of another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and certainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No child is afraid of nature; it is your fear of men that will vanish, the fear that has stunted your soul, the fear you acquired in your early encounters with the incomprehensible, the unpredictable, the contradictory, the arbitrary, the hidden, the faked, the irrational in men. You will live in a world of responsible beings, who will be as consistent and reliable as facts; the guarantee of their character will be a system of existence where objective reality is the standard and the judge. Your virtues will be given protection, your vices and weaknesses will not. Every chance will be open to your good, none will be provided for your evil. What you'll receive from men will not be alms, or pity, or mercy, or forgiveness of sins, but a single value: justice. And when you'll look at men or at yourself, you will feel, not disgust, suspicion and guilt, but a single constant: respect.\n\n\"Such is the future you are capable of winning. It requires a struggle; so does any human value. All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal. Do you wish to continue the battle of your present or do you wish to fight for my world? Do you wish to continue a struggle that consists of clinging to precarious ledges in a sliding descent to the abyss, a struggle where the hardships you endure are irreversible and the victories you win bring you closer to destruction? Or do you wish to undertake a struggle that consists of rising from ledge to ledge in a steady ascent to the top, a struggle where the hardships are investments in your future, and the victories bring you irreversibly closer to the world of your moral ideal, and should you die without reaching full sunlight, you will die on a level touched by its rays? Such is the choice before you. Let your mind and your love of existence decide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The last of my words will be addressed to those heroes who might still be hidden in the world, those who are held prisoner, not by their evasions, but by their virtues and their desperate courage. My brothers inspirit, check on your virtues and on the nature of the enemies you're serving. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, your love-the endurance that carries their burdens-the generosity that responds to their cries of despair-the innocence that is unable to conceive of their evil and gives them the benefit of every doubt, refusing to condemn them without understanding and incapable of understanding such motives as theirs-the love, your love of life, which makes you believe that they are men and that they love it, too. But the world of today is the world they wanted; life is the object of their hatred. Leave them to the death they worship. In the name of your magnificent devotion to this earth, leave them, don't exhaust the greatness of your soul on achieving the triumph of the evil of theirs. Do you hear me... my love?\n\n\"In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.\n\nDo not let the heroin your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.\n\n\"You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle-and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world:\" I swear-by my life and my love of it-that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 2" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHALIAPIN ESCAPES!\n\nHaving successfully evaded capture by the Germans, he is now...\n\nA letter from an ensign at the front: \"Today nine Austrian spies were brought in... According to their accounts, the Austrian army is in poor shape...\"\n\nWAR DIARY\n\nThe principal event of the day is our advance on abroad front into East Prussian territory... The country is thickly wooded, but with adequate paths... no obstacle to movement of cavalry and infantry... August 7th brought news of the capture of Gumbinnen... this means that we control all East Prussia... The shattered German corps are incapable...\n\n... constructive war aims...\n\nHIS MAJESTY HAS BEEN GRACIOUSLY PLEASED tO\n\naccept into the armed forces all young men who wish to join the Regular Army for the duration of hostilities, despite exemption through having served their statutory term as Special Volunteer...\n\nGOOD NEWS We are informed from the most authoritative sources that in the Russian Army there is now no unit under the honorary command of any member of the ruling houses of Germany and Austria.\n\nOne year the Tomchaks had paid six hundred rubles to the management of the Vladikavkaz Railway for the privilege of having express trains stop on demand at their own little station, to save them traveling twelve miles to the nearest junction.\n\nThis year they had not paid the money, but the expresses continued to stop at their station all the same. For his return journey today from Ekaterinodar, Zakhar Ferapontych did not wait for the mail train but took the first main-line express. He summoned the head conductor, put two ten-ruble notes on the table, one for the conductor and one for the engine driver, and explained where he wanted to stop. Regarding it as quite natural that a businessman should wish to save time, the conductor agreed and kept his word. It was nearly evening, though still extremely hot, when Tom-chak got down alone from the train, watched by a row of astonished faces thrust out the windows, and walked across the track to the unshaded platform of his tiny halt. Under the quivering heat, the red gravel gave off the sweetish smell of train oil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the shade of a storehouse stood Tomchak's phaeton, which had been waiting for him all day. The coachman leaped up, ran forward on legs that were stiff from so much sitting, and took his master's little suitcase; then he whipped up the horses, which had been plagued for hours by flies.\n\nTomchaic had long ago got rid of his Russo-Baltic carriage, whose springs, spokes, and axles were exactly the same in design as those of an ordinary cart, and had bought a Mercedes, but he used it only occasionally, to showoff when he went visiting. As a rule he went\n\neverywhere by horse-drawn carriage, in which he felt more at home; when he went to church or to the station, where people might see him, he drove in the phaeton, while for business journeys he traveled by droshky or by gig (he did not care for the single-axled little local cart known as a tyrdykalka).\n\nThe stationmaster came out to shake Tomchak by the hand, but he was too late in crossing the track: the phaeton had already galloped off, for Tomchak, as usual, was in a hurry, the more so as he had lost three working days on his trip into town and was itching to see to a number of neglected tasks and to check how everything had been going during his absence.\n\nLess than half a mile away, to his left, he noticed the first of the new threshing machines standing in a cloud of blown chaff and would have turned the phaeton aside at once to go and inspect it, except that he did not want to look ridiculous in front of his men; first he must change into his working clothes and then drive out in a droshky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As was his habit, he was not thinking about the business which had taken him into town and which was now completed, but about various jobs around the farm which he had not been able to oversee and which might have been neglected: the threshing; the need to send a quantity of carbolic up to Lukyanov's farm, where they were about to give the merinos their second clip; whether it was time to start harvesting the maize and to store the cobs in the new eight-thousand-ton capacity barn with its louvered ventilation (the sides could be opened to let the air through or closed to make them watertight; this method of storage, which he had copied from the German colonists, promised to be highly profitable if correctly used).\n\nTomchak had borrowed several ideas from these colonists, and had always found them worthwhile. He greatly respected the Germans and regarded the war against Germany as sheer lunacy-as idiotic, in fact, as the fight which he had had in a first-class compartment of a mail train with Afanasii Karpenko, which had started because Karpenko had called his fiancee a fool.\n\nThe girl was none other than Tomchak's elder daughter, and a fool she probably was, having been snatched away from her fourth year in school to be married to a rich man, and it was ridiculous for two intelligent men to fight over a remark Uke that. Russia, on the other hand, had everything to learn from Germany about running an economy. Now that the lush and prosperous years had started to come to Russia, the last thing she needed was a war; they should have just said a Requiem Mass for that Archduke Franz Ferduiand, after which the three emperors of Germany, Austria, and Russia should have drunk a glass of vodka at the wake and forgotten the whole affair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding these views, he saw no reason to let his son or his good foremen go off to the war, or the Cossacks who had served him faithfully as mercenaries, guarding his estate and his cash after the incident with the robbers. He had arranged for them all, all those in fact whom he wanted to keep, to be exempted from service and he was now returning with this good news. If they had come to the station to meet him, with his own son at their head, that would have been areal sign of respect for the old man and they could all have rejoiced together. His son had not come to meet him-^ he was a devil's brat, and no son of his, perhaps he was a bastard? To calm his indignation as he drove away from the railway station, Zakhar Ferapontych started thinking about urgent matters that lay ahead and putout of his mind things that were now over and done with.\n\nSeveral men were squatting by the white stone pillars at the entrance to the driveway, waiting for their boss: there were two Cossacks, the diesel-engine mechanic, a gardener, and Roman's chauffeur, the butler's brother. Tomchak stopped the phaeton and, as the men stood up and gathered around him, he greeted them with a warmth which impUed that his duty to them was as great as theirs to him.\n\n\"You're all safe, lads. And you can tell the other men, too. Keep on with your jobs, and light a candle in church to thank God for His mercy.\"\n\nAnd he drove on amid their murmurs of gratitude.\n\nThe horses' hoofs rang gaily on the flagstones of the avenue. As they turned toward the main entrance, only his wife was looking out from the top story. Roman had not put his head out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The coachman swept around to the porch in a wide circle. Tomchak got down and strode indoors. By now he no longer wanted to meet his son.\n\nNot a single step of the new, well-built staircase creaked under his weight; at fifty-six he could still stride up it like a young man.\n\nOn the upper landing, her arms stretched out to him weakly but hopefully, stood his barrel-shaped wife.\n\n\"Well, Father, what happened?\" She hardly had the strength in her voice to ask.\n\nHe felt too irritated to reply: here, under his own roof, he felt his son's failure to meet him was a humiliation. Barely pecking his wife's forehead, he went on in silence into the bedroom. She followed him.\n\nWhen Evdokia had stopped doing man's work about the farm, she had been attacked by gout and a dozen other diseases, and the more she tried to cure them the more she fell prey to new ones. \"Don't you listen to any of those damned doctors!\" Old Tomchak himself wouldn't let them come near him-^ he knew how to look after himself better than any doctor. At first they had ordered barrels of special mud from the Crimea and a nurse had been brought out to the estate to give his wife mud baths, then they had been told they should go to various spas such as Yeisk, Goryachevodsk, and Yessentuki, where she had to go everywhere in lace dresses and be driven around in carriages and where her illnesses had only plagued her more.\n\nWhile her husband crossed himself in front of the icon, Evdokia sidled past him and went on into her bedroom. There she clasped him around the chest and almost without words, simply gazing at his beetle-browed, big-nosed, bewhiskered face as if he were Elijah the Prophet, she put her question: would the lightning strike or would it not?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tomchak had no wish to talk. Let the others bustle about and bring what he wanted-^ he would lie down\n\non the divan fora while and getup when he was ready. Most of all, he would have liked just to drive out into the steppe without saying a word to anyone, but seeing the old woman's agony, he took pity on her and barked: \"The district commandant has promised him fuU exemption for the whole war.\"\n\nEvdokia went limp, flushed, turned, and crossed herself in the direction of the principal icon.\n\n\"Ah, glory be, glory be! The holy Mother of God has heard my prayers.\"\n\n\"Not her,\" said Zakhar, frowning as he threw down his hat and pulled off his dustcoat. \"The Mother of God's got nothing to do with it. I was the one who greased their palms so they wouldn't call him up.\"\n\nHe went toward his own room, but swung around and glared at her to make sure she was still there. The lightning flashed from under his shaggy eyebrows.\n\n\"Where are you off to, eh? Don't you go and tell him! Goddamn him fora pig-headed fool!\" Reddened by the winds, lined with thick, knotted, dark veins, his hand clenched into a fist and he shook it. \"Let him come himself, as he should do.\"\n\n\"I wasn't going to Romasha,\" said Evdokia, lying cheerfully. \"What would you like them to bring you?\"\n\n\"Nothing much. I'll take a drmk of balsam. I'm going fora drive in the fields directly.\"\n\nHe pulled off his three-piece town suit, until he stood only in his underclothes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fiery Riga balsam, made from birchwood sap, had been his favorite drink since he had recently discovered it in Moscow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One shiny little jug was kept in the dining room, and another in the bedroom, from which he poured the spirit to drink it out of a tiny silver tot measure.\n\n\"Why not have some Lenten borsch?\" his wife suggested, beaming with joy. \"Shall I heat it up?\"\n\n\"Why bother to heat that stuff up when it's only made with beans and sunflower oil? Give me some cold.\" And he shouted after her: \"Tell one of the Cossacks to run to Semyon and harness up the droshky.\"\n\nZakhar's bedroom led off his wife's and did not have\n\na separate door to the outside. \"That's so there won't be any drafts around me,\" he would say. Out on the steppes in the bad weather, in the rain and the cold, he seemed quite impervious to wind, but at home he was terrified of drafts and loved to sleep warm. Quite out of keeping with their present grand style, he had had abroad, tiled stove-couch built peasant-fashion against the large, upright stove, and in winter slept on it. Here too he had had a large safe fitted into the wall, with a complex set of locks and alarm bells which rang when it was opened, yet he rarely used it and only threw things in or took them out in passing; it contained a few ledgers, but Tomchak never received his employees in the bedroom and himself had little time for figures in books. He kept hardly any money in the form of cash, as all his assets were invested in the soil, in his herds of cattle, and in buildings; all the Tomchaks avoided the use of gold coin, as did everybody who handled money, including workpeople (a little gold piece easily fell out of a pocket or slipped through the lining), and in the bank one had to bribe the clerk to pay one in notes instead of gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his ofi& ce, too, Zakhar Tomchak never spent much time bent over rows of figures or piles of cash; he stayed there no longer than was necessary to make some decision. The real heart of his business was out on the steppes, with the machines and the flocks of sheep, and in the farmyard-there was the place to manage and supervise. The whole success of his estate depended on the fact that his vast steppe lands were divided up into rectangular sectors by long strips of acacia plantations which acted as windbreaks; that he used the seven-field crop-rotation system in which wheat and maize alternated with alfalfa, horse beans, sunflowers, lucerne, and esparto grass, so that each year his crops grew heavier and more lush; that his milking herds were now all German Holsteins, which gave a daily yield of eight gallons; that they would slaughter forty boars at once and hang the meat in the smoking shed (he employed a German colonist whose hams and sausages were every bit as good as those supplied by Eidenbach in Rostov);\n\nand it depended above all on the way in which they sheared the sheep and packed the mountainous piles of fleece into bales.\n\nTomchak himself never missed a chance to watch the departure by rail or long-distance road-haulage of a consignment of grain, wool, or meat from his estate. It was his greatest and never-failing pleasure to see with his own eyes all that bulk and weight of his own produce being sent out into the world. He would sometimes boast: \"I feed the whole of Russia,\" and he liked it when others praised him for it.\n\nWhile his wife went to fetch the borsch, Zakhar Fera-pontych changed into a linen suit and put on a pair of boots with soft double soles (\"to give my feet a rest\"). Right now he would have preferred to eat a slab of pink bacon three inches thick or some hot'shepherd's\" porridge with mutton fat, but the fast of the Assumption was not yet over. Instead, he took a loaf of light wheaten bread squeezed flat in three places by the baker's hand, sliced it himself from end to end with along kitchen knife, and bent his whiskers over a large bowl of cold, thick, Lenten borsch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His wife stood facing him, her arms folded on her fat stomach, and watched him eat. He was in a hurry to finish and be off, but there was a knock at the door and Irina came in.\n\n\"What? Have you told Roman already?\" Zakhar Ferapontych said suspiciously, growling from his bowl like a dog.\n\n\"No, no,\" his wife assured him guiltily. \"Only Ira-it's all right to tell her, isn't it?\"\n\nIrina entered unabashed, tall and erect as ever with her long neck and high, elaborate coiffure. All daylong the only indication she had had that her husband had not died in his bedroom had been what she had heard from the butler: he had served him lunch and taken him fresh newspapers. She watched her father-in-law as he dipped his moustaches in the borsch, and though she did not thank him for what he had done, her silent glance was friendly and approving.\n\nAlthough Zakhar Ferapontych shouted and hurled his thunderbolts at everyone else in the house, he never aimed them at her; from the first day of her arrival, she had behaved with a cool independence. True, she never did anything to cross him, never even put on her expensive clothes and her tsatski (diamonds) at home because he disapproved of it. Having struck the right note with him from the start, she was able to persuade him in matters where no one else could-whether it was to settle his quarrels with the servants or to let the canaries out of their cages. (They had started to keep canaries, in imitation of some neighbors.) Her father-in-law used to sigh: \"Ah, you're a child of God, Irusha,\" and gave way. Whenever there was any political news, he never listened to his son and the opinions of Roman's newspapers, but always paid attention to Irina's reading of the situation from Novoe Vremya." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"WeU, come here, come here.\" He beckoned to her and kissed her proffered forehead after wiping the borsch from his mouth and moustache with a large, thick table napkin. He did not, however, invite her to sit down and addressed no more affectionate remarks to her, but simply went on noisily eating his soup and chewing the second slice of crumbly bread, which he held in his hand.\n\nIn between mouthfuls, he grunted angrily: \"Pity I got him his exemption... Should have gone to the war... Would have taught him a lesson... Devil's brat, never known a worse one...\"\n\nHe went on eating noisily.\n\nCalmly, Irina objected: \"How can you talk like that, Papa?\"\n\nHe finished eating, but seemed to be swallowing when there was nothing in his mouth, as though something were still angering him.\n\n\"Tell him he can go and startup a business on his own. He needn't expect anythmg from me! I'd do better to bequeath the lotto his nephew. Because...\" He had begun hesitantly, but while he was speaking, his features hardened and he seemed to makeup his mind\n\nin between two swallows: \"... because I'm going to take Xenya out of the university right now and marry her off!\"\n\n\"Papa! Papa!\" Irina began, groaning, the line of her eyebrows rising. \"You're in a bad temper and you can't mean it! Why send her off to the university at all if you're going to bring her home in the middle of it? Where's the sense in that?\"\n\nOnce, after hearing some other landowners talk of their future plans, Zakhar Ferapontych had said: \"I've a problem on my hands and I don't know what to do. I ought to have my own agronomist. Where will I find someone who knows his job and works hard, someone I can trust and who's not a swindler?\" It was at that moment that Irina and Roman had persuaded him to send Xenya to read fora degree in agronomy: there's your agronomist for you, your very own daughter! But now Tomchak was staring out from under his shaggy eyebrows with a look of cunning that had quite another purpose. \"I'll teU you what's the sense in it. Ina year's time I shall have a grandson and in fifteen years an heir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped chewing and wiped his mouth. The lower half of his face was covered by the napkin, but the upper half betrayed a look of pain.\n\nZakhar was unable to explain to himself, let alone to these women, the reason for hiis sudden outburst. It wasn't that he was afraid of losing money or of the estate going to ruin-Roman was no wastrel, but somehow he had upset the functioning of the heart, the soul of the family connection. To inherit the estate and run it properly, Hke had to succeed like. And he had not brought it all to such a pitch of efficiency and prosperity just to hand it over to that quarrelsome, ungrateful son of his.\n\nIrina put forward a woman's objection: \"How can you just marry her off without asking her? And who will you marry her to, anyway?\"\n\nTomchak got up. The stockiness of his broad, Cossack figure was particularly noticeable beside tall, stately Irina.\n\n\"And who's she likely to marry up therein Moscow,\n\nmight I ask? Some student who gets sent off to Siberia before we know where we are? I was a fool to let her go and study. Done nothing but learn all these damn foreign languages, and doesn't believe in God anymore. Now if she'd been a son, he could have studied till he was forty for all I cared, and nobody would have thought it strange. Ah, you old baggage!\"he croaked, picking up alight walking stick with a crook at the end, polished smooth from long use.\" Why didn't you give me another son?\"\n\n\"God didn't give us one, Father,\" sighed his wife, with a calm, complacent look on her placid face.\n\n\"Well, I don't know about God's will... but that's my will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a firm, heavy tread he strode out, and they could hear him going down the stairs.\n\nOrya loved mystery. She liked to believe that forces from another world are mysteriously at work alongside us. That was why, for instance, Halley's comet had been seen in the year in which they had built this house and planted this park. Though there was no hint of it in the Gospels, Orya was also a firm believer in the transmigration of souls. She felt that certain concepts of Eastern religion were a beautiful complement to Christian beliefs. Her mind did not regard the mixture of the two as in anyway contradictory; they were merely alternative manifestations of beauty. When daydreaming, she loved to guess who she had been in her previous incarnations and who she would be in later ones, and to wonder whether she would attain the astral plane before being reincarnated.\n\nAll that here is not revealed to us, We shall attain to in the life beyond. . *\n\nShe loved to dream as she wandered at night under a starry sky, but most of all she indulged these fancies in the golden gleam of the sunset, in the westernmost avenue of the park, where the vineyards began and whereon a fine summer evening the boundless, golden afterglow would spirit her away from the park, from the house, from her husband, away from this world as she walked, bathed in sunlight, untroubled, unearthly.\n\nToday there was just such a sunset, and she felt an urge to walk toward it, to wander like a free soul, liberated from her body and all its afflictions. But if she did not go and tell the news to Roman at once, her\n\nmother-in-law would get there first. Besides, there was nothing demeaning in being the first to makeup the quarrel when she had such a good piece of news to bring him. With this to announce, she could even go in without begging his forgiveness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Irina did not give any warning signal such as shuffling her feet, coughing, or knocking before entering. She simply walked quietly up to his room and as quietly opened the door.\n\nStill standing in the doorway, she was suffused with a bright light of mingled amber and rose: the rays of the sunset were striking through the tops of the trees in the park, through the veranda and the French windows, into the bedroom, and bathing the walls in pale pink reflected from the rose-gold counterpanes and the gleaming bronze pillars of the two maplewood double beds. It was still light enough to read and he was sitting in a low, deep armchair with his back to her, holding an open newspaper. He had heard the door and could not help recognizing her step, but he did not turnaround. He was determined to show to the bitter end how wronged he had been and how firm he was.\n\nThe way he was sitting, Irina could just seethe balding crown of his head over the top of the armchair. It was those deep inroads of baldness when he was only thirty-six, the sUghtly defenseless look of the familiar top of his head, that suddenly made her relent. The hesitancy which had held her back fell away.\n\nWith a confident step she went toward him, expecting his head to turn, expecting to see a mixture of resentment, uncertainty, and radiance on his face, doubly shadowed as it was by being turned away from the light, and, for once, unshaven.\n\nIna steady voice she announced: \"All's well, Ro-masha. Papa's come to an agreement and they've promised it will be kept.\"\n\nShe was now standing so close to his chair that he did not have time to rise from its enveloping depths but simply seized her hands and kissed them, murmuring something as he gasped for breath. Not a word" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "was said about their quarrel, about whether it was his fault or hers; it was as if it had never been.\n\nHis father might never have existed either, for Roman said nothing about him, asked no questions, and showed no sign of gratitude. Irina, for her part, could not bring herself to tell him how his father had abused and threatened him.\n\nIrina's arms were uncovered above the elbow and Roman kissed the little dimples inside her elbows, and above them her pure, tender, pink, unblemished skin; beyond that, her arms were covered by her tight sleeves. He turned her around, sat heron his lap, and pressed his head to her breast. Again she was looking down from above onto the bald patch in the middle of his short, coarse, but sparse hair. Tentatively she kissed it.\n\n\"Topper darling.\"\n\nHe liked that nickname, which was a private joke between them about the fact that he was thinning on top.\n\nEager, excited, he began to talk. At first Irina did not quite grasp what he was trying to say. He promised her that after going to America, which he had always wanted to see since it was the most energetic, most efficient, best-run country in the world, or even before going to America-as soon as the war was over, in fact-they would make the journey she had always dreamed of (once, long ago, she had mentioned it; it had been rejected and thereafter became taboo): to Jerusalem, followed by a tour of Palestine and then a visit to India. There was bound to be so much there that was curious and amusing, so many new and exotic things to eat even if he did have to spit them out in disgust!\n\n\"But will you behave yourself,\" asked Irina, \"when we go sightseeing? Or will it be like Paris?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had been about to take the lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower. \"But aren't there so many other things we haven't seen?\" He was afraid of heights.\n\n\"All right-rU go alone!\"\n\nIn that case, he would come too, reluctandy.\n\nIn the Louvre it was: \"Ira, are you going to goon looking at those skulls forever? They make me feel hungry.\"\n\nAt Napoleon's tomb: \"What's Napoleon to us, anyway? We beat him! Now Suvorov-there was a genius for you!\" k'No, no, you can look at everything for as long as\" you like,\" he promised now, but he had already lifted her off his knees, reached for one of his long cigarettes, and was walking out onto the veranda fora smoke, picking up a crumpled copy of the Stock Exchange Gazette.\n\n\"Irina darling, tell them to bring us up something nice and light for dinner, chicken perhaps. We won't go out, we'll just eat together and then go to bed.\"\n\nThere was still some light on the veranda, but in the bedroom it was growing darker every minute and all the colors were blurring and turning gray. Irina, however, did not turn on the electric hght. She walked away from the windows to the far comer of the bedroom. Reluctantly, she picked up the comer of the bedspread, now colorless in the twiUght, which layover one of the enormous beds, and found that the material felt as ponderous as iron. There she paused, holding the raised comer of the unbearably heavy bedspread. Suddenly she wondered why it was that most people lived out their humdmm lives behind some curtain, some impenetrable veil which denied them the experience of that benediction which had come upon her father in his old age, that passion which had driven him, heedless of the world's reproach and of God's judgment, shamelessly to bribe a bishop-so that he could marry his mistress..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Irina's pity for her husband left her as quickly as it\\: had come. Instead, she felt resentment at having had to spend the previous night alone and even at the oppressive loneliness she had felt today, mitigated though it was by a certain sense of freedom. It was as if by: pulling off the bedspread she would uncover a pit, a deep, dark, dried-up well, at the bottom of which she would have to lie tonight racked by sleeplessness. There\n\nwas no rope up to safety, and no sound would come from her throat if she cried out. And no hero would ever come to rescue her.\n\nFor since she was nine years old she had had a secret hero: he was Natty Bumppo, Fenimore Cooper's Hawkeye, a noble and fearless warrior. He washer ideal; but never in her life had she encountered any such person, or even anyone resembling him. The only outward expression of her hidden longing washer passion for shootmg; in her handbag or in a Httle fretwork box she kept a small Browning automatic, while on her wall hung an English-made lady's gun which fired small-shot or ball with enough power to penetrate a couple of two-inch planks. Whenever oflBcers from the nearby garrison headquarters were invited to the estate, a target would beset upon two poles behind the cowsheds and Irina would join them in shooting practice, never missing the bull's-eye. If ever she were to meet her hero, she would be worthy of him...\n\nMeanwhile, Roman, who had already spent hours idly flicking through the newspapers, had only just awakened to the extreme importance and interest of their contents. The newspapers had changed so dramatically that blood was almost visibly pulsing through the letters on the page. It was still not quite dark on the veranda, so he went up to his map to inspect his flags lined up along the frontiers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ever since the East Prussian frontier had been established, forming apiece of land Uke the outthrust stump of an arm, simply asking to be lopped off by the Russians, it had never been put to the test: Russia and Germany had not fought each other since then. In fact, even longer-they had not fought fora hundred and fifty years, since before Germany had existed as a state. And now the first trial of strength on that frontier had come.\n\nThere was an old proverb, dating from the time of Frederick the Great: \"Russians always beat Prussians.\"\n\nThis time the Russians were on the offensive. The communiques from General Headquarters never designated the numbers of the armies, army corps, and\n\ndivisions, so it was impossible to know exactly whereto move the little flags. Nor did the flags themselves indicate anything in particular; Roman had simply ordered as many as he thought suitable. It was entirely his responsibility whether to seize or not to seize an extra dozen or so miles of Prussian territory.\n\nCarefully, so as not to tear the map, he now pulled out the flags by their little pins and shifted them forward two days' march.\n\nThe troops were on the move!\n\nm\n\nDarkness had fallen, and the electric streetlamps were lit around the two-story stone building that housed Second Army Headquarters at Ostrolenka. Smartly turned-out sentries were posted at the gates and the main entrance, while two more patrolled the street, moving in and out of the shadows cast by the trees.\n\nThe army commanded by this headquarters had been advancing on the enemy for the past week, but here there were no urgent comings and goings, no horsemen galloping up or away, no rumbling of carriages, no shouting of orders, no running about, no changing of the guard: an evening calm had descended and the place had relapsed into the same drowsiness that had overtaken the rest of Ostrolenka. A few windows were lighted, but those that were dark stayed dark, adding to the sense of calm. Nor was the headquarters festooned with a network of field-telephone cables; a mere couple of wires from a telegraph pole linked it to the town's telephone system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The inhabitants were not forbidden to walk the streets around the headquarters, and young Poles dressed in white and black, and in gayer colors too, were strolling along the pavements. Since many of the young men had already been called up into the army, the girls were mostly walking with each other, though a few were with Russian ofi& cers. After a hot day, this Sunday evening was still not cool; the air was oppressive, windows were open, and from faraway came the sound of singing from a gramophone.\n\nThe beams from its headlamps looking strangely like two white sheaves of wheat, an automobile came swaying\n\nand rattling around the corner of the block, roared down the street in a whirl of dust, and drove into the gateway past the saluting guard. The car was an open one and in it sat a small, grim-looking major general.\n\nQuietness descended once more on the headquarters building. A fat Catholic priest in a soutane waddled down the street, the Poles greeting him with a deep bow from the waist and a sweep of the hat with outstretched arm in a manner that no Russian ever used to greet an Orthodox priest.\n\nA cab drove up, bringing two officers to headquarters. The officers paid, jumped down, and went into the building. The headquarters duty officer was not in the main hall, but when they did find him, the senior of the two, a colonel, handed him a paper. The paper appeared to be important. Holding his sword against his side, the duty officer ran upstairs to report their arrival to the chief of staff.\n\nAstonished and somewhat alarmed at this news, the latter made as if to go and meet the visiting officer, then thought better of it. About to invite him up to his office, he decided against that too and instead scuttled into the office of the army commander, General Sam-sonov." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his long years of steady, uneventful military service, first as Ataman-in-Chief of the Don Cossacks, then as Governor General of Turkestan and Ataman of the Cossacks of Semirechiye, General-of-Cavalry Samsonov had come to treat work with sensible moderation, and he used to impress upon his subordinates that, like our Creator, each one of us can reasonably do all that he has to do in six days and can, what is more, sleep soundly for six nights, after which he may justly rest on the seventh day. Working on Sundays was no cure for fuss and inefficiency.\n\nFor the last three weeks, however, the life of the fifty-five-year-old general had been filled with exceptional activity and unaccustomed disturbance. Not only was he unable to cope with his duties even by working on Sundays as well as weekdays, but he had lost count of the days, and only toward the previous evening had he\n\nremembered that tomorrow was Sunday. No matter what night of the week it might be, he would be waiting sleeplessly for the delayed arrival of orders from Army Group Headquarters and would then have to issue his own instructions at the most unseemly hours. He experienced a permanent buzzing sensation in his head which disturbed his thinking.\n\nThree weeks ago, by order of His Imperial Majesty, Samsonov had been recalled from his comfortable post in farthest Asia and transferred to the front line at the start of a European war. Once in the past, immediately after the Japanese war, he had served as chief of staff of the Warsaw Military District; it was on the strength of this long-ago appointment that he had now been posted here. It was an honor that His Majesty should place such confidence in him, and, as with every posting in the service, Samsonov would have liked to give a good account of himself. But he was badly out of practice; he had not been in an operational post for seven years, had not even commanded a corps inaction, and now he was suddenly entrusted with an army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had, furthermore, long since ceased to think about the East Prussian theater of operations; in the intervening years no one had acquainted him with the war plans for this region, or told him how those plans had been drawn up and then changed. Now he was under orders to execute in haste a plan that was not only not of his own devising but which he had not even had time to study, whereby two Russian armies, one advancing westward from the river Niemen, the other northward from the Narev, were to attack Prussia with the object of encircling and destroying all enemy forces in that area.\n\nThe new commander needed a chance to analyze the situation and make his dispositions calmly and deliberately. Above all, he needed to be alone fora while, to order his thoughts, to weigh the plan and study the maps; but for none of this was he granted the time. The new commander needed to get to know his staff and find out which of them would make good advisers and assistants; but there had been no time to spare for this\n\neither. He had, too, been treated less than fairly in the way his staff had been allotted to him: before Sam-sonov's arrival, the headquarters staffs of both Second Army and Northwestern Army Group had been formed from the staff of the Warsaw Military District; when General Oranovsky had moved to Army Group Headquarters after being chief of staff of the military district, he had taken all the best men with him, and in hiving off a staff to man Second Army Headquarters had filled in with a motley collection of officers drawn from different places, officers who did not know each other and had had no opportunity to work themselves into a team. Sam-sonov himself would never have chosen his timid chief of staff or his choleric quartermaster general, but they had been appointed before him and had met him on his arrival. The new commander also needed to visit the regiments under his command, to get to know at least the senior officers, to have a look at the rank and file and show himself to them, to make sure that they were all ready-and only then to start advancing into a foreign country, and that gradually, conserving his troops\" strength for battle and enabling the reservists to get used to soldiering. But if the army commander was unprepared, his corps were in afar worse state. Not a single one was up to strength, the allotted corps cavalry had not arrived, the infantry had detrained ahead of schedule and at the wrong places, and the whole army was dispersed over a territory larger than Belgium. On assuming command, Samsonov had found that the supply services were still only unloading from rail transport, that the army service depots did not have the regulation seven days'portable supplies, and, worst of all, that there was not enough transport available to insure for-\\ ward delivery along the full army frontage. Only the left flank could count on rail transportation, while the other corps had to depend on wagons, and even these were inadequate: they had been given one-horse instead of two-horse wagons, and thanks to orders issued by some unknown person in Military Communications, the whole of XIII Corps\" wagon train had detrained before" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "reaching Bialystok and was quite unnecessarily covering the rest of the journey over sandy ground on its own wheels.\n\nThere was no time to spare; schedules were inexorably tight, telegrams exhorted: the whole world must witness the awesome advance of the Russian regiments. On August 2 they moved, and crossed the frontier on the sixth; but they met no enemy and went on, day after day, marching into avoid, wastefully leaving behind units to guard river crossings, bridges, and small towns because no second-line divisions had moved up in support of the first-line formations.\n\nThere was no fighting, but with the rear echelons in such a state of disorganization the very speed of the advance began to have disastrous effects. It became vitally necessary to calla halt fora day or two in order to allow the supply services to catch up, to give the fighting arms the regulation day's rest-^ indeed, simply a pause to shakedown and sort themselves out. Everyday, Army Headquarters reported progress to Army Group Headquarters: the eighth, the ninth day of the advance; the fourth, the fifth day on Prussian territory-a deserted countryside that had been stripped of all supplies, the haystacks burned. Forage and bread had to be hauled forward over ever-greater distances, with increasing difficulty and without the proper vehicles; two-thirds of the army's reserves of hardtack were already consumed; in the heat and over sandy tracks the exhausted columns marched-into emptiness!\n\nYet, although Zhilinsky, the army group commander, sat sixty-five miles to the rear, reading all the reports, he understood nothing, met none of their requests, but simply squawked parrot-fashion: \"Push on! Push on! We can only win by going faster-^ faster! The enemy is slipping away from you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were certain bounds which General Samsonov did not allow himself to overstep, even in thought. He would never have dreamed of criticizing the imperial family, hence he would say nothing against the commander-in-chief; nor would he have ventured to put forward his own interpretation of the higher interests of\n\nRussia. It had been made clear in a directive from General Headquarters that since the enemy had declared war onus, and since our ally, France, had immediately supported us, we were bound by our obligations under the alliance to attack East Prussia as rapidly as possible. Yet, although the directive had spoken of a'steady and deliberate\" advance, the staff at Army Group Headquarters greeted Samsonov's progress reports with incredulity-indeed, with derision-and merely dismissed his complaints as showing alack of the necessary vigor. Samsonov was stung daily by nagging, reproachful telegrams from Zhilinsky-which even he refused to take lying down. Why should his senior commander's refusal to accept the realities of the situation be regarded as a mark of willpower? Why should a subordinate's report of what was actually happening be labeled weakness?\n\nThe army group commander's sole task was to coordinate First and Second Armies; nothing more. With such a ludicrously small job to do, his heavily staffed headquarters inevitably began meddling in the dispositions of the army commanders. From the very beginning, even its efforts at coordination had been nothing but a hindrance. Neither Army Group Headquarters nor ground contact nor cavalry reconnaissance provided Second Army with an inkling of the whereabouts on East Prussian soil of its right-flanking neighbor. And even though for the last three days the Army Group's general orders and the entire Russian press had been lauding First Army's victory at Gumbinnen, Samsonov's troops advancing from the south among the lakes and forests could find no trace of Rennenkampf s men advancing from the east, not even of his numerous cavalry; nor was there any sign of the Germans, who were retreating from east to west. While all Russia rejoiced at Rennenkampf s success, only his companion-in-arms in East Prussia gained nothing from that victory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All might have been otherwise if the personalities involved had been different, but Rennenkampf and Zhilinsky were temperamentally ill-matched: both arrogant, unwilling to listen or to talk face to face. Samsonov had\n\nnot been on speaking terms with Rennenkampf since the Japanese war, as the result of an ugly scene between them caused by the failure of Rennenkampfs cavalry to support Samsonov's Cossacks. In the past, Samsonov had not had occasion to make the close acquaintance of Zhilinsky, and only now, on his way through Bialystok, had he been introduced to him. A few moments\" conversation was sufficient, however, for Samsonov to reaUze that he would never get any sense out of this general. When Zhilinsky spoke to him, it was not in the man-to-man fashion usual between brothers-in-arms: he talked like a bullying cattle drover, not a colleague. He made it clear that he knew best about everything and had no intention of consulting his subordinates. In the quiet of his office he spoke with needless harshness, even cut Samsonov short, probably feeling humiliated by being so much the smaller man.\n\nA further grievance had arisen between them since the spring, when they had been rivals for nomination to the post of Governor General of Warsaw and commander of the military district. Samsonov's candidature had already been approved by the Tsar when Sukhom-linov had intervened and raised an objection, alleging that Samsonov could not speak French, which was a necessity in Warsaw. (In fact, Samsonov could speak French, though not very fluently.) So the Tsar had then accepted Zhilinsky, who had just been dismissed from the General Staff and was in need of a job. Had Samsonov returned to the Warsaw Military District that spring, he would have been able to study the situation and would have known in advance about the war plans. Thus, the fate of the Northwestern Front was decided by the French language." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evil people always support each other; that is their chief strength. Samsonov knew for certain that Sukhora-linov was involved with the Austrian firm of Altschuller on Morskaya Street-and he the War Minister! He knew, too, that Sukhomlinov had an unsavory financial reputation; consequently, his connections and obligations were suspect, too. His divorced wife spent her time traveling around the world and demanding money from\n\nhim. Sukhomlinov backed Zhilinsky, Zhilinsky favored Rennenkampf; Rennenkampf s marriage had made him brother-in-law to the head of His Majesty's Field Chancellery, and he had as his general-in-waiting a prince in exalted ckcles who was close to the imperial couple. Zhilinsky, too, enjoyed access to high places-he had his links with the household of Marya Fyodorovna, which made him independent even of the commander-in-chief, the Tsar's uncle. But here Samsonov came up against his self-imposed limits: it was not for him to judge how far it was proper for the Dowager Empress to influence the fate of the army.\n\nHe did not envy them all their success and promotion; he sought no links of kinship or marriage with the court and chose a general-in-waiting not for his connections but for his military record. Nevertheless, he was inwardly troubled by the thought that if the hour of trial were to come upon Russia, then it would scatter all these brilliant intriguers to the four wmds and their names would vanish forever. Let them rise to the top-provided they did no harm to the nation's cause.\n\nSamsonov would have been content to be left alone to cope with his own problems-the take-over, the training and leading of Second Army. But they insisted on making constant changes of plan which foiled all his efforts. He could not even keep the same corps in his army for two days on end: I Corps had been given to him-^ but not the right to move it; he had been allotted the Guards Corps-then three days later it was taken away again (furthermore, it had been removed without his knowledge, so that for several days he was under the impression that it was advancing under his orders); XXIII Corps had been placed under him-and immediately one of its infantry divisions, commanded by General Sirelius, was transferred to the army group reserve, while another, under General Mingin, was removed and posted to Novo-Georgievsk; the corps artillery was sent to Grodno and the corps cavalry to the Southwestern Front. Then there was another sudden change of plan: Mingin's division was reassigned to Samsonov and was obliged to catch up with the other for-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "mations by marching even faster than before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yesterday a telegram had come from Army Group Headquarters which had really stung Samsonov: he was to transfer his right-flank corps to Rennenkampf. This brought Rennenkampf's strength to seven corps, while Samsonov was left with three and a half!\n\nEven this he would have accepted calmly if there had been any reason in it. But it was wholly senseless. Despite his late arrival on the scene, despite his lack of time to consider the situation and discover what plans had been made over the years for dealing with East Prussia, it was obvious to him from one glance at this piece of land, which looked like the stump of an arm thrust into Russian territory, that the way to cut it off was by a blow under the armpit, not a jab at the elbow, and that consequently it was his southern army, the army of the Narev, which should be the stronger of the two, and not Rennenkampf's eastern army.\n\nMeanwhile, the argument with Army Group Headquarters dragged on and on: how was Second Army's mission to be defined and what was to be its axis of advance? Having failed to achieve an understanding face to face, the two commanders were even less able to do so by telegraph. It was easier to catch the devil by the tail than to grasp the point of Zhihnsky's plan, which rested on the assumption that the Germans would throw all their forces eastward toward the Masurian Lakes to grapple with Rennenkampf and would simply wait for Samsonov to catch them in the rear. Therefore, Zhilinsky maintained, the best line of advance for Samsonov was diagonally northeastward. He had made the whole Second Army detrain and concentrate much farther to the right than was necessary, after which he only gradually allowed it to move leftward, thus causing it to get unnecessarily dispersed over the ground. One look at the map was sufficient for anyone to realize that the army should have deployed much farther to the left-along the Novo-Georgievsk-Mlawa railway, the only one in the entire frontage of the advance; the Germans, on the other hand, could utilize dozens of railway lines. What did ZhiUnsky think he was doing" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "by leaving the only available railway line outside Second Army's left-flank boundary and allowing the army to slog its way forward through a sandy, marshy wasteland devoid of roads?\n\nAlthough late in working out his alternative plans and movement orders, Samsonov sent Zhilinsky a counterproposal in which he agreed that he should advance diagonally, though not in the unsuitable direction laid down by Zhilinsky and Oranovsky: he would move not on a northeastern but on a northwestern axis. He proposed not to linkup with his friend Rennenkampf but to make a rapid move and cutoff the Germans by denying their withdrawal across the Vistula.\n\nOn this Samsonov would not yield; if he did, he could only regard himself as a complete fool, a mere puppet on a string. Everyday Zhilinsky's directives ordered: \"Diagonally right!\" while Samsonov daily requested: \"Diagonally left!\" Without pulling in his right-flank boundary, he began surreptitiously moving his center Une to the left, each order to his corps and divisions embodying a slight leftward shift by two or three villages at a time. And when they crossed the German frontier and for three whole days not a German was seen, not a shot heard or fired, this merely confirmed Zhilinsky in his assumption that the Germans had come to a standstill facing Rennenkampf and were simply waiting to be struck in the rear, that they were cornered and patiently resigned to being trapped in the area of the Masurian Lakes, which formed a slanting divide between Rennenkampf and Samsonov. It was obvious to Samsonov, on the other hand, that Zhilinsky was pushing him into avoid, that the Germans were going to slip free of the Russian pincers and would escape westward; the only hope, therefore, was to widen the jaws of the pincers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So this he did, opening out the left-hand jaw as far to the left as he could, while ZhiUnsky, clinging to the right-hand jaw, refused his consent to the move. The two men put their hearts and souls into the dispute. Meanwhile, the troops marched and counter-marched; zigzagging, pulled hither and thither by the quarreling\n\ngenerals, they wore out their feet in long, fruitless changes of direction. Samsonov felt that mileage on the soles of his men's boots as if they were his own-boots that burned and raised corns, boots whose uppers were steaming at the welts. Yet he still felt compelled to contest the idiotic orders issued by Army Group Headquarters.\n\nA further result of this dispute was that the army's frontage was widening out like a fan: three and a half corps were spread far too thinly over forty-five miles. Zhilinsky nagged and nagged at Samsonov about the over-extension, which was doubly annoying to Samsonov because in this Zhilinsky was right.\n\nSamsonov would have much preferred to carryout his orders precisely as received. But what if the orders were completely senseless? What if they were obviously harmful to the national cause? Ina desperate attempt to clear up the misunderstandings of communication by telegraph, on the previous day Samsonov had, as a last resort, sent Filimonov, his quartermaster general, to give Zhilinsky an oral explanation and to request permission at least to be allowed to advance in a straight line directly northward toward the Baltic Sea. He was also to insist on a day's halt and, in exchange for the right-flank corps which had been withdrawn from Second Army, to ask for full command over the left-flanking I Corps which had been posted to Samsonov from General Headquarters\" reserve but which he was not allowed to move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But while the quartermaster general was on his way, the telegraph keys had continued to tap, and they had tapped out two further directives from Zhilinsky, one of which had arrived yesterday, the other today. Yesterday's had repeated the same message as before: leave I Corps alone, order the other three and a half corps to keep their flanks protected (\"Try doing it yourself, you son of a bitch!\") and advance with all speed in order to insure that the right flank occupies, by\n\nnot later than August 12, the town of. This meant\n\nthat his objective was merely to rub shoulders with Rennenkampf( if it was true that Rermenkampf really\n\nwas beating back the Germans) and to takeover a town already occupied by First Army. Any fool could see that this was atypical piece of staff ofl& cer's balderdash; this was noway to surround the Germans-it would simply push them back. Pointing out that Sam-sonov was faced by no more than an insignificant rearguard, Zhilinsky accused him of advancing too slowly to overtake the retreating enemy's main force.\n\nThis at least was true-there were no Germans in front of Samsonov (at any rate, there had been none up to yesterday). The great question was: where were they? Without probmg, without reconnaissance, without having sent cavalry forward, without having taken a single prisoner, how could they claim to know where the Germans were? Although in reality the Army Group staff did not know, they insisted that they did.\n\nFilimonov achieved nothing by his personal visit, because an hour before his return the directive for the day, August 11, arrived from Army Group Headquarters. It read: \"Having already directed your attention hereto, still strongly disapprove over-extension troops along your frontage in disregard previous orders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These telegraphed instructions were, of course, written by Oranovsky, a handsome man with large, limpid eyes and a curly moustache; neat, vain, and more poisonous than a scorpion. He wrote them and Zhilinsky signed them-this comfortable division of labor had evolved when they were serving together at the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District.\n\n\"Strongly disapprove!\" So they strongly disapproved of Samsonov's efforts at least to seize hold of the German left wing and halt it! They were insisting that he let the Germans getaway intact...\n\nMajor General Filimonov had now returned in the army commander's car and without wasting a moment, without even having awash (only stopping to check that there would be meat pie for dinner as ordered), he avoided seeing the chief of staff (whom he despised as a toy soldier) and knocked on the door of Samsonov's room. On receiving permission, he entered and found the army commander on the divan with his boots\n\noff. Although Filimonov came to attention and saluted, he did so casually and in non-regulation style, a familiarity which Samsonov permitted in his immediate circle. Instead of making a formal report, he merely said: \"I'm back, Alexander Vasilich.\"\n\nHe spoke sullenly, partly out of tiredness. After standing waiting fora moment, he sat down. He suffered from his diminutive stature, which had hindered him in his career. Whenever he could, he would sit down add finger his aiguillettes. His face expressed an abundance of somber determination, an impression increased by his hair being closely shorn with clippers, like a common soldier's.\n\nThe army commander had lain down because he was worn out, because however long he might stand, however much he might pace up and down, it would do nothing to ease the lot of his troops or help them to move faster. He lay on his back without his tunic, hands behind his head, feet resting on a bolster. His heavy, broad-browed face, trained to show the dignity proper to a general, was half hidden by a beard and moustache still only partly streaked with gray; his face never revealed his feelings, never expressed vexation or displeasure. He now turned his large, tranquil eyes toward his visitor and remained lying down as though he had not been waiting impatiently to hear what news Filimonov had to deliver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And how he had been waiting! But those four words: \"I'm back, Alexander Vasilich,\" spoken in a faUing cadence by Filimonov's unexpressive voice, told him everything. With the buzzing noise in his head which no one but he could hear, he remained lying down, staring up at the molded ceiling. His broad, domed forehead was as calm and smooth and unfurrowed as ever; his permanently wide-open eyes never frowned or squinted; no crow's-feet ran down his cheeks; his thick, immobile lips were hidden by his calm moustache and beard. But inwardly the army commander was being assailed by a tremor of insecurity-something which he could never bring himself to admit to anyone and which terrified him. He had had no time to develop a single one of\n\nhis thoughts to a conclusion, to the degree of maturity proper to the working of a sound mind; not one of his decisions had been adequately formulated before being sent out on the telegraph tape. For the first time in all his thirty-eight years of service, right back to the days when he had commanded a half squadron of hussars in the Turkish campaign, Samsonov felt that he was not the instigator but merely the instrument of events and that they were moving past him under their own momentum.\n\nAtone glance Filimonov read all this in the commander's face. Now if he had been in command, he wouldn't have talked to Zhilinsky as Samsonov had, and he wouldn't have harried his corps commanders hke that. But he had not been in command. His neck throttled by his high collar, drumming his fingers on his aiguillettes, he stared with his hard, wolfish eyes at the commander lying stretched out beside him. Filimonov, however, did not know what had happened here while he had been away. At last they had come to grips with, or at least caught up with, the retreating enemy. They had made contact yesterday evening; the news had arrived today and the joy of it was that the contact had been made by the/^/^ flanking unit of the lejt-hand corps of the center-XV Corps-^ which had engaged the enemy by wheeling lejt! Tht action had been successful and the Germans had been forced back!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only a few hours ago, by a messenger who had kept up a steady gallop all the way. General Martos had reported the details of the successful action-and thus for the first time Samsonov had been proved right; it was now obvious that even in this soundless void his assessment of the German dispositions had been accurate. An hour ago, in reply to Zhilinsky's insulting directive, Samsonov had shamed him by dispatching his report of the victory. In his message he had included word for word Martos's account of the valiant action fought by the Chernigov regiment: with colors flying, Alexeyev, the regimental commander, had personally led the color party in a bayonet charge. He had been killed. Hand-to-hand fighting had developed\n\naround the colors, but no German had succeeded inlaying hands on the standard. The standard-bearer had been wounded, the colors had been taken over by a lieutenant, who was also killed. At nightfall the Chernigov regiment had driven off the enemy and had brought back the wounded standard-bearer together with the colors and their St. George's Cross. The colors were now secured to a Cossack lance.\n\nHavmg dispatched this report, Samsonov had taken off his boots and lain down. Nothing in the situation had really improved yet, but at least the Germans had shown up, and, what was more, on the left! This had made Army Group Headquarters look like complete-fools!\n\nSo Samsonov lay with unruffled brow gazing calmly up at the ceiling. He had no wish to hear the details from headquarters; instead, he gave an unhurried account of his own news.\n\nBut it was the commander's duty to be fully informed, and without sparing him, without attempting to tone down Zhilinsky's words, F ilim onov heaped coals of fire on Samsonov's head and repeated them exactly: \"There will be no halt. Your army is in any case advancing more slowly than I had expected, and to seethe enemy where there is none is cowardice, and I do not permit General Samsonov to show cowardice!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From his moustache to his graying, combed-back hairline, Samsonov's calm, heavy-browed face flushed scarlet and he swung his legs onto the floor. As though wounded, he stared at his quartermaster general, who was swearing viciously at the'living corpse\"-the officers\" nickname for Zhilinsky. Samsonov, however, could not swear because he was too short of breath: when excited, he was prone to attacks of asthma.\n\nHe felt deeply wounded because on active service orders had to be obeyed, not as a favor, but as a duty, and however stupid the next order and all subsequent orders might be, one had no alternative but to carry them out; even an army commander had no more freedom than a hobbled horse. He also felt wounded because in normal times one challenged another man to\n\na duel fora remark like that, but to do so was, alas, a thing of the past, and he could neither challenge Zhilinsky's remarks through the'usual channels\" nor attempt to justify himself. A cavalryman bom and bred, he had acquitted himself bravely in the face of Turkish sabers and Japanese bullets; now the only reply he could make to this vicious insult would be to distinguish himself by a display of courage on the field of battle that would equal his twin exploits of the past. It was shameful to have to bow to Zhilinsky-^ yet bow he must.\n\nCut to the quick, crimson in the face, Samsonov sat breathing heavily, too distracted to put his feet into his slippers.\n\nAt this point Postovsky, the chief of staff, entered. Diffident and indecisive, this major general had never before been on active service. Despite his rank (in which he had eight years' seniority) and his considerable height, his attitude toward his comrhander was as timid as though he were a newly commissioned young officer. Having served for years on the staff, and with increasing frequency on special duties, Postovsky valued above all else an undeviating adherence to regulations, and punctuality in the receipt and dispatch of directives, instructions, and reports. Only two things had ever really worried him in his military career: a failure to produce the required piece of paper and an unsatisfactory encounter with someone of influence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stooping, he approached Samsonov, trying not to look at his commander's sweating forehead and stocking feet, and announced respectfully: \"Alexander Vasilich, a colonel has arrived from General Headquarters with a message from His Highness the commander-in-chief.\"\n\nSamsonov blinked as he took in this information. God! What now? Had someone already been sneaking about him to the grand-duke?\n\n\"What's in it?\"\n\n\"He still has it. I didn't read it. I wasn't quite sure on what basis to deal with him.\"\n\n\"You should have taken it and read it.\" The commander stared gloomily at Filimonov.\n\nFilimonov regretted not having grabbed a portion of meat pie before coming into seethe commander; it was clear that dinner was going to be very late tonight\n\nSamsonov called for his boots and tunic.\n\np\n\nExpecting neither help nor enlightenment from this colonel from General Headquarters, Samsonov thought of him as probably just another nonentity sent to tell him the proper way to conduct the campaign. He knew in advance that he was going to disUke the new arrival, because all decent ofificers were serving in their regiments instead of roaming about from one headquarters to another.\n\nWhen they had all moved over into the army commander's office, however, Samsonov changed his mind. After requesting permission without either servility or rudeness, the new arrival entered and advanced a few paces across the empty space in the middle of the room, in the regulation manner yet naturally and unostentatiously. Deciding that this officer, a man of about forty, looked decent enough after all, Samsonov rose to his feet behind the large table at which he had installed himself as an aid to dignity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Vorotyntsev, General Staff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From General Headquarters. A letter for your excellency.\"\n\nDeftly but without making a flourish of it, Vorotyntsev drew a paper from his map case and proffered it to anyone willing to take it.\n\nPostovsky accepted it warily.\n\n\"What's it about?\" Samsonov asked.\n\nRelaxing his stance, and with a frank gaze at the army commander from eyes that were as large and clear as Samsonov's own, Vorotyntsev rephed: \"The grand-duke is disturbed at the shortage of information on the movement of your army.\"\n\nWas this really why the commander-in-chief had sent an officer direct to Second Army, bypassing Army Group\n\nHeadquarters? A novice might have found this flattering. Samsonov, however, merely said gruffly: \"I thought the grand-duke had more confidence in me.\"\n\n\"Oh, I assure you,\" the colonel hastened to reply, \"the grand-duke's confidence is quite unshaken. But General Headquarters cannot manage on so little, so very little information on the progress of operations. Another officer has been sent simultaneously to General Rennenkampf. First Army Headquarters did not report on the battle at Gumbinnen until they were sure of their success and all the fighting was over.\"\n\nThe new arrival looked about him with a frankness and lack of suspicion which seemed to imply that he expected news of nothing less than an undivulged but virtually certain victory.\n\nAs it happened, Samsonov had a victory to boast of, but it would be bad form to do so, and that was not what the commander-in-chiefs emissary had come for. He had come on a flying visit to put things right, to lay blame, and to teach them their job. It was impossible in a quarter of an hour to describe the complexity of the problems that had arisen in every corps throughout the army, and in the army commander's head. It was useless even to start talking about it. The most useful thing was to go and have dinner, as Filimonov sourly invited the colonel to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wearily but politely, Samsonov inquired: \"What exactly would you like to know?\"\n\nWith his rapid, trained glance, the colonel had taken in the whole of the room, in which everything was arranged as comfortably and tidily as though Second Army Headquarters was going to spend the whole war in this house. He had also taken note of the two generals who were supposed to personify the collective brain of the army-the chief of staff and the quartermaster general. (There was a hoary tradition according to which the brains of the army were called the'quartermaster's department,\" but by now it was obsolete.) He had then turned back to face Samsonov when the latter spoke, as politeness required, but he was already casting sidelong glances at the wall, on which hung a\n\nmap of East Prussia consisting of one-inch-to-one-mile sheets joined together, which drew him irresistibly. As the colonel's eyes moved up and down the map, his look had nothing of the idle curiosity of a bystander but shared Samsonov's deep concern.\n\nSuddenly, through all the anxiety caused by a disturbing feeling of having overlooked something vital, it dawned on Samsonov that in this man God had sent him the very person he lacked on his staff-someone he could talk to. (There may well have been-indeed, there probably was-someone like this among the junior officers in the Operations Section, but it would have been humiliating for such a venerable figure as the army commander to descend to that level for advice.)\n\nSamsonov took apace toward the map.\n\nVorotyntsev took two brisk paces.\n\nHis chest bore the ribbon of the officer's grade of the St. George's Cross and the graduate's badge of the General Staff Academy; as was proper on active service, he wore no other decorations. Vorotyntsev, Vorotyntsev...? Samsonov tried to recall the name. There were not so very many General Staff officers in Russia, but he knew hardly any of the recent graduates." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 2" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had met her immediately after his return from the Japanese campaign, in the peculiar mood of postwar elation induced by the mere fact of having survived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm aUve, I've along life in front of me, and now I intend to be happy-^ now's the time to get married! From the moment when he had first stepped up to her to kiss her hand, from the first word she had spoken to him, he had made up his mind that she and she alone was for him. It was pointless to look further, to contrast or compare her with other women. She was the best, the only woman on earth, created especially\n\nfor him. She had not understood this at first when he confessed to loving her, and had hesitated before accepting his proposal. But he had known it at once.\n\nTheir first years of marriage had coincided with the strain of studying at the Academy. All his time and mental resources had been absorbed by the unbelievably full program of studies that was crammed into each year: in addition to all the mihtary subjects, there were several branches of mathematics, two languages, military and civil law, three history subjects, even Slavonic philology, and geology, not to mention three dissertations to write. It so happened that these were also the best years of the Academy, when the deadwood was cleared out (though not all of it, and not for long), when the legend of innate Russian invincibility gave way to concentration on unremitting hard work.\n\nWith so much of his energy taken up by the Academy, they were only too happy to spend the evenings together quietly in their two small rooms alongside the Ekaterinsky Canal. On his academy pay of eighty rubles a month, there was seldom enough money for theaters or concerts, and as there was practically never anytime to spare either, they stayed at home. What could have been more delightful? They were years of utter happiness, of fusion and mutual comprehension: when one would start a sentence, the other would instinctively finish it, or both would say the same thing at once; years of constant, unshakable, everyday happiness without quarrels or disagreements, both having found their hearts' desire. While he was at his desk and she satin the next room at the piano or lay on the couch, their private world gave them a calm and a stability which spared them from the distraction of emotional upsets in an otherwise unsettling time. She miscarried their first child, and they had no more children, but even that cast no cloud over their marriage. Georgii and Alina were convinced, so they told each other, that their love was preordained in heaven and was eternal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theirs, it seemed, was a love which was wholly independent of the kind of life they led or of the demands of\n\nhis profession, a love unaitected by whether they lived in Petersburg or in some dreary provincial garrison. But at some point after the dissolution of Golovia's band of pupils at the Academy, perhaps after one of their changes of garrison or perhaps in their new style of life after they moved to Moscow, Vorotyntsev began gradually to sense, without being able to put his finger on it, that something had gone out of their life.\n\nWhat had happened? Why did one's skin somehow seem to have hardened and shriveled, to have ceased to register the passing touch of the least little hair? Why did they no longer begin their sentences together, why did one of them no longer finish saying what the other had started? Where was the thrill of excitement at the sight of her soft, light, scented clothes? Why, instead, were those clothes now merely objects hanging up or lying about the room? Why, when they kissed, was the touch of their hps less tender and urgent and a peck on the cheek more suitable?\n\nEven the ritual in bed, he noticed with amazement, had turned into a mechanical activity that had lost its old freshness and savor. What did it mean? Had he no physical and emotional needs at all? Was he aging already-and not yet forty? He would go through the same unromantic routine of washing himself, and then too quickly, without even bothering to observe a tactful pause for contemplation, his wife would ask him to take his weight off her or would start talking in a workaday voice about domestic matters lest she forget them later. Then she had bought herself an ugly, thick flannel nightdress. \"I don't Uke it.\" \"Well, I don't care, it keeps me warm.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every plant, every tree suffers the same fate-^ it hardens and grows a bark. Just as inevitably, a kind of bark grows and thickens on every love, and every marriage begins to petrify. It seems to be a natural law that, as the years go by, the urgency and desire of love must weaken. Hence the proverb: Eat when you're hungry, love when you're young. But an ambitious young man has no time for love; life and work are calling him, and it was this that had made\n\nGeorgii break off his first schoolboy love affair. And by the time one is nearing forty there is plenty more to occupy the mind and the senses: the morning dew smells as fresh as when one was young, one leaps into the saddle with as much pleasure as one did at twenty, and there is excitement in annotating the margins of a book by Schlieffen, whether in agreement or indignant rejection.\n\nAlina still wanted him to tell her about everything-about his brother officers, about his reading and his thoughts. She would sit down on the couch and he had to sit down beside her and recount it all. But the sheer number of new names, books, and ideas was like a snowball, always growing as it rolled onward as unceasingly as the earth itself. Even Vorotyntsev's trained mind could hardly keep pace, and Alina's memory was unre-tentive. She would forget names, forget what he had told her and ask him to repeat it fora second and third time, until he found it a boring waste of time which was slowing down the tempo of his mind. Finally, beginning to feel that really she was bored by it too, he stopped telling her about his doings, whereupon she pouted.\n\nOne source of dissatisfaction led to another and then to the others. She noticed new, unpleasant traits in his character: he never had time for other people, he was moody, he was wholly wrapped up in himself and his own affairs. Feeling justifiably aggrieved, she took him firmly and even quite sharply to task. Admitting that perhaps she was right, that perhaps he was getting to be like that, Georgii promised to keep a check on himself. But after everyone of their rows there was an aftermath of resentment and depression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now as he rode farther and farther away from his wife, how much more carefree, how much more liberated and relaxed he felt! Long might it last. He felt no need for letters from her, no need for news of the trivia of domestic life in Moscow. It was not that he could find anything bad in Alina, he was not disappointed in her; he simply felt a need for separateness, to be apart. Every woman naturally tends to lay too many claims on'her\" man and never lets a day pass without somehow extend-\n\ning her holdover him if she can. Atone time he had found this a pleasure, or at least tolerable; now it had become irksome.\n\nIn any case, women and poets exaggerated the whole business of love, with its thrills and agonies and its banal little personal dramas. The only emotions truly worthy of a man were civic duty, patriotism, a concern for all mankind.\n\nOr perhaps he had just grown stale. Family life was no life fora soldier. He needed fresh air.\n\nOn and on he rode through the night. Strong and sure-footed, his stallion measured out the long miles of that fatal six-day journey between army headquarters and the front line.\n\nThis was noway to fight a war. They had fought like this in the past, but this time they would not be given a second chance... And the enemy had vanished. Why?\n\nWith a flash he suddenly remembered those un-coded wireless messages. How in God's name could they do such a thing? They would have been better off with no equipment at all rather than putting it into the hands of those clumsy, incompetent fools.\n\nFar outstripping every horseman, the strength of Second Army was leaking away on those vulnerable, invisible radio waves in the impenetrable darkness of enemy territory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That summer Yaroslav Kharitonov was to have graduated from the Alexandrovsky Military Academy, an event which should have taken place in the following sequence: first a spell at their summer camp, then the solemn graduation parade, followed by a month's leave at home in Rostov before joining his regiment. Countless delights awaited him in Rostov. His brother Yurik would jump for joy, his mother would fuss over him, he would rediscover the familiar rooms of his childhood, see his old school friends; but, best of all, he and Yurik, who was now twelve, and one other friend, would get into their sailboat, which was all ready, provisioned and fitted out, to sail down the Don on a trip to the Cossack villages and see how these people lived. He had been meaning to do this fora longtime; it was, after all, shameful to have been bom and to have grownup in the Land of the Don Cossack Host and to know nothing about the Cossacks except that they dispersed demonstrations with whips. Yet they were a brave, strong, and agile race of people, one of the most vigorous branches of the Russian tree.\n\nBut joining the army did not take place as scheduled; instead, as unexpected and terrifying as a whirlwind, there came the very thing for which armies exist-war. As early as the nineteenth of July, his graduating class put on the coveted epaulettes with their stars. Far from being able to go home to say goodbye to their parents, they did not even have time to have their first photographs taken as officers, but were all drafted to immediate postings, Yaroslav to the Narva regiment in the XIII Army Corps.\n\nHe joined his regiment at Oryol, where part of it was being loaded into troop trains and part had still not been mustered. Although the four regiments of their division bore the first four numbers in the whole Russian army, they lacked permanent cadres. Only now were the lower ranks being brought up to complement, at a rate of three reservists to one regular soldier. Yaroslav himself arrived in time to meet these men, who came in their gray-black peasant clothes, with the remains of their food brought from home tied up in white bundles like Easter cakes being taken to church to be blessed. He had to march the men to the bathhouse, then to change into gray-green breeches and tunics, to be issued with rifles, packs, and ammunition pouches, and finally to be loaded into freight cars. Not only was there a shortage of regular private soldiers; for some reason there were not enough NCO's and ofiicers either, although it seemed extraordinary that a country like Russia with her long military tradition should be unprepared. Companies had to make do with three or four officers each, and although as a newly commissioned officer Kharitonov was put in command of only his own platoon, more experienced officers were given two platoons and one of them was commanded by a mere sub-ensign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For Yaroslav, who strode around straight-backed with a firm, jaunty step, it was all thrilUng. He even enjoyed the three days of bustle and confusion in Oryol issuing uniforms to these country bumpkins, but best of all was the journey itself. Yaroslav did not go in the officers' coach but stayed in the freight car with his own, his very own men-the forty peasants who had been entrusted to him. At the head of the train of thirty freight cars the engine hooted, the buffers clanked and squeezed each other, the couplings tautened and creaked, and the whole train moved off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People talked a great deal about loving the peasants; in the Kharitonov family the talk had been of nothing else: what was thereto live for if not the good of the peasants? Yet somehow they never actually saw the peasants, one was not even allowed to\n\ngo to the nearby market without permission from one's parents and afterward one had to wash one's hands and change one's shirt. There was noway of coming into contact with the peasants, no common ground on which to talk with them, because one would be embarrassed and not know what to say. Yet now it seemed perfectly natural that the nineteen-year-old Yaroslav should be almost a father to these bearded muzhiks, that they should seek him out to ask questions, make requests, and report. What he had to do in return was to fulfill the role which is the most satisfying of all jobs in the service^ namely, to keep his eyes and ears open and to remember the men's names, where they came from, and what they did at home. There was one man called Vyush-kov who was a great talker and it was a pleasure to hear him describe their villages when the train passed through familiar country: over thereon that high hill was the district town of Novosil, this bit of country was full of gullies, there was High Peak Farm where the best pasture was, and the nightingales sang in that wood over there. Yaroslav longed to see it all for himself, realizing that he had been nowhere and seen nothing. He was thrilled because this was the fulfillment of all his wishes-to beat one with these men, to be in their midst in the same freight car and listen to the strumming of their balalaika (what a marvelous instrument it was, how naturally and poetically they sang to it!), to stand beside them all daylong leaning on the long bar which held the door open, while others sat underneath it on the floor with their legs dangling outside, to lie awake at night listening to their singing and chatter and to watch the glow of their home-made cigarettes. Although they could hardly expect war itself to be fun, the journey was exhilarating, and not only for Yaroslav: the troops, too, were obviously in a cheerful mood, always joking, sometimes dancing and wrestling. When the train stopped at junctions, they were met by crowds with bands, flags, speeches, and gifts. It was in this mood that Yaroslav wrote his first letters home to his mother, to Yurik, to Oxana the Pecheneg servant girl, and to his beloved'adopted\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "sister, Xenya, who was like areal sister to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since his sister Zhenya had married and had a child, she had turned into a younger edition of their mother and had grown away from him. He wrote that this was what he had been longing and striving for all his life: to be with the people and living a manly life to the full.\n\nBefore long, however, things became less cheerful and there was a great deal of confusion and muddle. They were suddenly ordered out of the train, although the train itself went on, and almost as though it were done on purpose as a punishment, they were made to march practically alongside the railway track as far as Ostrolenka. They marched Uke this for several days and the raw reservists found the going very hard in boots that were not worn in, in new and unfamiliar clothes, and weighed down with packs and pouches. They could not understand why they had to do it, and there was no one to ask. Probably it was because their corps had an unlucky number. A general rode by in a motorcar and said to them: \"The Germans can go by train if they Uke, but we Russians are tough-we can travel on our own two feet and still beat \"em! Isn't that right, lads?\" And they shouted back at him: \"Right, sir!\" (Yaroslav shouted too.)\n\nThe adjutant of their battalion. Staff Captain Grok-holets, a small dapper man with two sharp upturned ends to his moustache, a soldier to the fingertips, whom Yaroslav tried to imitate, doubled up with laughter as he shouted to the men in the column: \"Hey, you bunch of pilgrims! Where do you think you're going-Jerusalem?\" It was so funny and so apt, Yaroslav thought as he smiled; only areal soldier could have made a joke like that. The reservists dragged their rifles along as though they were heavy, useless sticks they were chained to. Their stiff new boots slowed them down, and when the officers were not looking, the men pulled them off, slung them around their necks on apiece of twine, and marched on barefoot. The battalion was strung out over more than half a mile, the whole regi-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ment was straggling badly, officers were losing the raw troops from their units and spent their time sorting out strays from other battalions and sending them back. Wagon trains and herds of cows being driven along by the supply corps to provide fresh food for their division became entangled in the ragged column of men.\n\nIf only there had been time to train them, to organize refresher courses and to give them some arms drill, those reservists might still have been made into first-class soldiers. Yaroslav could see this from his own men, even from someone like Private Kramchatkin, a man who hadn't been outside his own village for fifteen years, who was already gray-haired, and who had, as the other men said of him, \"done his bit.\" Nevertheless, Yaroslav was amazed at how well he remembered his driU, as though he had come straight from a barracks square and had done nothing aU his life but march up to an officer, salute, and shout in the regulation style: \"Private Kramchatkin reporting for duty, your honor!\" He looked the complete soldier, his eyes alert and wide-open like saucers, his moustaches bristhng-^ but he was totally incapable of shooting (a fact which he concealed and which was only found out by chance).\n\nSo far, every action in this great war. Second Lieutenant Kharitonov's first war, had been conducted in a maimer which in the Military Academy would have earned several days\" confinement in the guardhouse for inefficiency. As though it were all a grim joke, the entire operation was taking place in defiance of regulations. It was as if in their keen young squad at the Academy, with their snappy arms drill, the brisk, clearway they were instructed to make reports, the barked words of command, and the spirited way they sang on the march, they had been purposely shown how things never were, never would or could be done in the army. Everything which the young officers had been taught was discarded or neglected: there was no re-coimaissance, no liaison with flanking units, they were" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "bewildered by countermanded orders, and whole brigades in column of march were stopped by galloping dispatch riders and turned around.\n\nFor two weeks they were not given their regulation day's halt. In the morning the battalions would getup at first light and were usually ready to move off in reasonably good time; then they were made to sit down and wait in the stupefyin^ y hot morning sunshine until orders arrived from division or brigade for the day's march. Sometimes the staffs did not even get things organized by noon, and when the dispatch rider did bring the order, it stated that the battalion was to move off not later than 0800 hours, as a result of which they were then made to march all day without halt in order to makeup for lost time. They would suddenly have to stop in order to clear a wagon train which was blocking the route, or holdup their field kitchens to allow the lagging advance guard to move forward. Then they would be driven on again. They marched until sunset, until twilight and until dark, sometimes even until midnight. Sometimes their billeting officers, who had been sent on ahead, could not be found in the dark, and no one knew where they were to be quartered; at other times the senior officers would quarrel among themselves as to where the various units should spend the night, while the men simply hung around and lit campfires or brewed tea over Httle fires of burning twigs, quite unconcerned that they were giving away their position to the enemy. The field kitchens had to work after dark by the light of kerosene flares, which threw out showers of sparks. At other times the field kitchens would be missing altogether and the men lay down hungry at midnight (like the troops, the officers froze on the ground with nothing to sleep in but their greatcoats), to be awakened at dawn to eat the supper which they should have had the night before. As a result, the nights were too short and they did not have enough sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men would ask: \"When are we going to get some proper bread, your honor? We've had hardtack for two weeks now and it makes your guts ache!\"\n\nAnd there was no reasonable way of explaining to them why it was that in Bialystok, where there was ample bread, their division had not been given any because the supply corps was too mefficient; why it was that at the very start of the war, even before reaching the German frontier, before a single shell had exploded or a single bullet had whistled through the air, the men had been issued with nothing for ten days except hardtack that was stale and smelled of mice, biscuits that had been stored for years, or why the supply services were so erratic that the troops only rarely had salt in their soup.\n\nUp to Ostrolenka there was only one road they could take and their route was therefore quite clear. But after Ostrolenka, where they were not even allowed a day's rest, the corps split up into divisional columns and then, after crossing the German frontier, into brigade columns. It was here that the staff started to get particularly slow with the orders and began to muddle them up, sending one regiment or another trailing off on a useless six-mile march by mistake. This seemed to pass unnoticed by anyone up above-with the exception of the German aviators, who had been flying over the Russian columns even while they were still in Poland. No Russian aircraft were flying, however; they were being kept, so it was said, for when they were really needed. After crossing the German frontier, some units were lucky enough to have firm, metaled roads to march on, but even on these the mass of boots and hoofs raised thick clouds of dust, so that you could feel the grit on your teeth; and sooner or later the roads petered out or led in the wrong direction, or there were no roads at all, and the men not only had to march but had to pull wagons and guns through thick dust and clogging sand in heat which never lessened fora single day, being interrupted only by one rainfall at night-and this in country where wells were few and far between and they often had to march for hours without water. Then the terrain would change completely and they would find themselves bogged down in winding, marshy water-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "courses, following routes that seemed purposely chosen as impassable. Soon horses, men, and officers could think only of the one thing for which they longed so painfully-rest! The regimental standards had long ago been wound around their shafts and were dragged along hke so many useless poles, the drums had been piled onto the wagons, no more orders were given to sing, companies were losing men from exhaustion, and the troops kept going only by dreaming that tomorrow somebody would give the order to halt and rest.\n\nThe heat was killing the men on their feet, but evidently the plan was far too important to allow them a day's rest. With the same relentless speed they were driven forward by forced marches, even though they had not seen a single hve German since entering German territory.\n\nDuring a short break fora smoke. Staff Captain Grokholets, slim as a boy despite his balding head, joked to the other officers: \"This isn't war, this is just maneuvers. There's a dispatch rider from Army Headquarters who's been lookiiig-for us for four days now to tell us to stop and he can't find us. We've just strayed into German territory by mistake. Now they'll have to sendoff a note apologizing to Vasil Fyodorich.\"\n\n\"Vasil Fyodorich\" was for some obscure reason the nickname they used for Kaiser Wilhehn. These jokes made life a little easier to bear.\n\nEver since they had crossed the frontier at Chorzele (or'Khorzheley,\" as they all called it in the regiment), they had been expecting action, in the form of artillery or rifle fire. But neither then nor during the next several days did they hear a single shot, see a single German soldier or civilian, or any sign of a living creature. Here and there, barbed-wire obstacles had been thrown across the path and left unmanned. In some places the Germans had started digging trenches across the road at the edge of a village and had left them half dug, and the Russians filled them into allow a machine-gun troop or other mounted units to pass through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In one village a barricade made of carts and furniture had been setup across the street; it was also\n\nunmanned. \"Things must be going badly for the Germans!\" said Second Lieutenant Kozieko. This was the j& rst cheerful remark that this otherwise permanently dejected, whining officer had made. In the next village, somebody found a bicycle and wheeled it out, and the whole battalion crowded around to watch. Many of them had never seen such a marvel in their lives. One of the sergeants demonstrated how to ride it, to the noisy encouragement of a crowd of soldiers.\n\nBut the uncanniest thing of all to these hot, sleepless, stupefied Russian soldiers was the fact that Germany proved to be deserted.\n\nGermany had turned out to bean unusual country, utterly unlike anything that Yaroslav had imagined from picture books. It was not only the strange roofs, pitched so steeply that they took up half the height of the house, which immediately gave the place such a foreign look. Even more amazing was the si^ t of villages made up of two-story brick houses, stone pigsties, concrete wellheads, electric lighting (even in Rostov, they had this only in a few streets). To think that there were farms supplied with electricity and telephones, and that even in this hot weather there were no flies and no stink of manure! Nowhere had anything been abandoned, scattered, or thrown down at random-and the Prussian peasants were hardly likely to have left their farms in such parade-ground order just because the Russian troops were coming! The bearded peasant soldiers were amazed. How, they asked, could the Germans keep their farms so tidy that there were no traces of work to be seen, everything put away in its place, ready for use? How could they live in such inhuman cleanliness, where you couldn't even throw your coat down? And with so rich a country as this, what on earth could have induced Kaiser Wilhelm to make a bid to conquer and take filthy, backward Russia? Poland, poor and ragged as it was, had seemed familiar enough to them, but when they crossed the German frontier, it was as though they had passed through some magic barrier: the crops, the roads, and the buildings-everything was eerily different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This un-Russian tidiness was, however, the only\n\nthing which aroused their respectful awe. The fact that the countryside was deserted, apiece of lifeless, ominously forsaken booty, produced a sense of unease, rather as though the Russians were a gang of brash little boys who had broken into someone else's silent, empty house and would sooner or later, inevitably, be caught and punished.\n\nEven where there was an opportunity to plunder, the troops had no time to stop and loot the houses. In any case, they had no kit bags in which to carry away booty, and when you maybe marching to your death, it is no time to weigh yourself down with extra lumber.\n\nThe first inhabitants they found who had not runaway were not Germans but German Poles, who somehow managed to make themselves understood in broken Russian. Far from trusting them, the Russians treated them with suspicion and Kozieko's platoon was ordered to make a thorough search of the farm. Ashe set off for this operation, Kozieko said to Kharitonov: \"Somebody warits to get me kiUed. I bet there's a cellarful of Prussian soldiers in that place.\" They met no opposition, made a careful search of the house and found a trumpet which looked rather like a French horn, a bicycle in the hayloft, and in the bathhouse two rounds of Russian rifle ammunition and a pair of boots with spurs. Things looked bad for the Poles, and the general opinion was that they should be shot. They were sent back to regimental headquarters under escort; one of them was about fifty and the other two were lads of about sixteen or seventeen. As they were led past the battalion, they begged every officer and NCO they saw: \"Spare us! Spare us!\" But the sergeant from Kozieko's platoon, who was leading them, only shouted cheerfully: \"Goon, keep moving. Moscow doesn't beheve in your tears!\" The soldiers crowded around to look: \"They're the ones who shoot at us from ambush. It's their sort who go around the paths in the forest on bicycles watching for us and then tell the Germans where we are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was even some shooting that day. Once a\n\nGerman airplane flew overhead and all the men started vigorously firing at it, but without scoring a hit. Later they noticed three men, dressed in civilian clothes, running out of a farm into the forest, shot at them, and hit one. On another occasion a Cossack galloped up, saying that he had been fired on from a wood three miles away by a cavalry patrol, and at once half a company was detached to comb the wood. Cursing the Cossack and their own bad luck, the troops set off on the mission, but found nobody.\n\nBut Kozieko approved of the operation: \"Our chief danger at the moment is that we maybe shot at from the rear.\" The two second lieutenants could not avoid talking to each other, as they had been posted to neighboring platoons in the same company at Bialy-stok. Kozieko never spoke to the other officers; he was afraid of the battalion commander, did not like the company commander, and avoided Grokholets whenever he could, because the adjutant was too prone to make fun of him. Kozieko poured all his observations and his urge for self-expression into his diary, which, for lack of other paper, he wrote in his officer's field message pad. During every free moment he scribbled a few more lines, always noting down the exact time of the entry. \"What a feat!\" Grokholets sighed in mock admiration. \"If no one else writes our regimental history, when the war ends we'll order your book to be bound in gold and sent to headquarters.\"\n\n\"You can't do that!\" said Kozieko indignantly. \"My diary is private, and it's my own property.\"\n\n\"You're wrong there. Lieutenant, that's government property,\" said Grokholets, rolling his eyes. \"The sheets of afield message pad belong to headquarters.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kozieko was older than Yaroslav and had already served his two years as an officer before the outbreak of war, but all the same, Yaroslav found his attitude completely unacceptable.\n\n\"ifou really can't behave like this when we're fighting a war. Instead' of cursing it, we ought to bethink-\n\ning the whole time of how we can wm. In any case, how can a great people avoid wars?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Kozieko winced as though he had a toothache and looked around to see whether anyone could hear them. \"But that's just it. They all dodge fighting if they can! Look at Miloshevich who arranged to have himself posted to a soft job, look at Nikodimov who got himself sent away to buy cattle. Nobody with any intelligence stays in the battaUon if he can help it, don't you worry.\"\n\n\"In that case, I can't understand,\" Yaroslav protested, \"why you ever became a regular ofiicer if you think like that.\"\n\nFrowning unhappily, Kozieko sighed as he bent over his diary. \"It's a secret. If only I could be sitting in the sunshine in my own little home... I know it sounds unpatriotic, but I can't live without my wife. That's why I want the war to end.\"\n\nEverything about their life made Kozieko miserable-either there was nowhere to wash his hands, or he found it impossible to eat without first having washed, or he hated having to go to sleep in his clothes. What was more, the battaUon was growing increasingly dispirited and hopeless as it slogged onward unopposed. Yaroslav had always imagined that an advancing army would be cheerful: we are pushing forward, we are going to take prisoners, we are seizing territory-^ we are the stronger! Armies were after all created to take the offensive, and officers were trained for it. But they were growing dejected after advancing for two weeks without a single engagement, without seeing one German, without one man being wounded, while at night to right and left could be seen the dull red glow of mysterious fires. What had become of the lighthearted joy which not only he but apparently all of them, rank and file included, had felt when they were on the way to the front in the jolting freight cars, with the warm summer breezes blowing past them? Private Kramchatkin was still acting the old soldier, not slouching as he marched, still looking his" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "platoon commander keenly in the eye, but Vyushkov now looked the other way and his garrulous flow of stories dried up. No one in the battalion sang any longer, and the bearded soldiers avoided shouting and reduced their conversation to essentials as though superstitiously afraid of angering God with idle chatter.\n\nEven the countryside became more obstructive as the forests closed in on them. At first, platoons or half companies were sent ahead as scouts to clear the edges of the woods, then the entire regiment would simply pour into the forest and be swallowed up by it The forest was nothing like a Russian one; there were no rotting branches or deadwood on the ground, no fallen tree trunks. It looked as though it had just been swept, the brushwood tied up in neat bundles and the rides and firebreaks clean, straight corridors. A number of roads cut through it in various directions, and except where they had recently been churned up or rutted, they were well kept.\n\nAlthough every officer was supposed to have a map of the area on his map board, no one in their company did; and Grokholets was the only officer in the battalion to have one. Even this was a reprint of a German map; the place names were barely legible and it was inaccurate. Among the platoon commanders, Yaroslav was the one who hovered closest to Grokholets to take every opportunity to have a look at his map. The Germans had burned all the signposts, and as the names of villages were passed orally from officer to officer, they became more and more distorted and incorrect: \"We've just passed through a place called Saddek, this is Kaltenborn and we're to spend the night in Omulefoffen.\" The forest they were in, with its fiity-and seventy-foot pine trees, was called Griin-fliess Forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From midday on August 10, the whole forest began to echo with the sound of artillery fire coming from the west at a distance of about ten miles to their left. It was real sustained firing and it meant that the first battle had begun. But the regiments of XIII Army\n\nCorps paid no attention to it and marched on through the forest to the north, where it was silent and deserted. They spent the night in Omulefoffen.\n\nNext morning, after rising in the dark and for the first time getting no hardtack for breakfast, they went through the usual interminable movements of forming up and dressing in regimental and then in brigade columns, with the guns and supply wagons in their places. The columns were drawn up to march northward out of Omulefoffen, as they had to make a wide detour around abroad arm of Lake Omulefoffen.\n\nThe forming-up drUl went on fora longtime, the usual prayer was read, they were ready to move, and the exhausting heat of late morning had already set in when a dispatch rider from divisional headquarters galloped up and handed an envelope to the brigade commander. At once the brigade commander summoned the regimental commanders and orders were given to the Narva and Kopor regiments to change places. They were not allowed to do this by the quickest means, by simply turning around on the spot, but were made to keep to the regulation order of march fora brigade column, only in this case with the head of the column pointing westward along another street. The August sun was now blazing down in full strength, and their dawn breakfast, which without hardtack had been even less satisfying than usual, was forgotten by the time the regiments set off in the new direction. They had marched little more than a mile when at a road junction they encountered the Sophia regiment marching in the same direction. It was not long before they caught sight of the distant mounted figure of the dashing Colonel Per-vushin, known to everyone as the commander of the Neva regiment. This meant that the entire division was converging on one point. Down the long forest path between colonnades of tall, mast-like pines they first of all marched back to Kaltenborn, which they had passed through yesterday, and then turned westward toward GrUnfliess. Once more a rumble of gunfire could be heard ahead of them, but it was not as loud as" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "yesterday, perhaps because the sound did not carry so well in the heat, perhaps because the firing was dying down. The fact that they were now marching toward the sound of the guns was somewhat heartening; at least they knew they were going somewhere fora purpose instead of milling about in a deserted forest. Kozieko prayed to God that the fighting would all be over by the time they arrived.\n\nThey came to a crossroads of two forest paths where they had to change direction. It was deep in powdery sand and on a slope, and the horses of the gun teams, also exhausted and inadequately fed, could not pull the guns forward; the wheels were embedded in the sand, ' and even the added muscle power of the gun crews was not enough to shift them. Yaroslav ordered his men to go to the help of a cheerful, bullet-headed sergeant major and managed to push two of his guns clear, but the sergeant major had to harness eight horses instead of sLk to each of the others, and the column was delayed still longer.\n\nAs they marched on, the sound of gunfire ahead of them stopped altogether, to Kozieko's delight. After covering ten miles since morning, when the sun was already declining from the meridian, the whole column stopped on a path in the middle of the forest and the men threw themselves down to rest in the shade.\n\nWorried-looking officers on horseback galloped back and forth for an hour, though neither the troops nor the junior officers were told anything. Finally, the regimental commander called for the senior officers, and once again with much creaking, shouting, confusion, and lashing of the horses in the gun teams, the entire divisional column turned around and marched back to where it had come from.\n\nStomachs were rumbling, the soles of the men's feet were burning hot, the sun was already setting behind the trees, and it was well past the time when they should have bivouacked for the night and started cooking supper. But no, back the division marched over the same" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "crossroads and through the same stretch of forest. The peasants in uniform grew sullen and began muttering that their senior officers were all Germans and were purposely driving the troops to exhaustion and despair before they had even started fighting. They did not halt even when the sunset in a yellow ball, promising a morrow as bright, hot, and dusty as today. They did not stop at twilight, but obediently retraced their steps, and the stars were out when they returned to the viQage of Omulefoffen and lit their field kitchens in the same places as the day before. It was well after midnight before supper began to cook, and almost cockcrow before they went to sleep.\n\nTheir limbs felt like lead as they got up, and although none of them felt hungry yet, they gulped down their morning porridge because they knew they would have no more that day. They were at least issued with two days' rations of hardtack. The troops fell in, dressed into line, and formed up to march out of Omulefoffen by the same route as yesterday. Grumbling, the men predicted that they would be made to turnaround again. Himself suffering from lack of sleep, Yaroslav tried to cheer them by laughing at them: \"Of course not! Not today!\" Then, as though the prophets of doom had cast a spell, the column was made to stand there motionless for hour after hour without being allowed to fallout and sleep. Finally, when the sun had reached its zenith and the troops were dripping with sweat, those invisible Germans on the staff (even Yaroslav could think of no better explanation!) gave the order for the whole column to turnaround again and form upon yet a third road, which led out of the village in between the other two.\n\nOnce more a whole hour was spent in redeployment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They set off. The day was unbearably hot, and feet and wheels dragged in the sand more than ever. This time the road was narrower and in a much worse state, the bridges along it were all blown up, and the strength of the Russian troops was drained away as they made detours, each time hauling themselves up the steep embankments onto the road again. The latest novelty was\n\nthat the Germans had filled all the wells near the road with earth, refuse, and timber, so there was nowhere to get water except from the lake, and for that there was no time to spare.\n\nToday no gunfire was heard from any direction. There was no trace of a German-no soldiers, no civilians, not even old men and women. It seemed as if the rest of the Russian army had vanished and the only living thing was their division being driven along an unknown, deserted, forsaken road. There were not even any Cossacks to reconnoiter ahead.\n\nEven the stupidest illiterate soldier realized that his officers had blundered hopelessly.\n\nIt was now the twelfth of August, the fourteenth day of their uninterrupted march.\n\nWith cross and locket on your chest, You may walk all night and trudge all day-A burning wound, though, in your breast Has sealed your fate, do what you may.\n\nThe square in the center of the little town of Neidenburg, which made up for its modest size by the number of its stone-built houses, was so small as to be hardly a square at all. Three streets led from it, on the comer of one of which was a two-story house with smashed shop windows on the ground floor and plate-glass windows on the first floor; smoke was pouring from the interior and an even thicker column of smoke was rising from the courtyard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A half platoon of soldiers, without over-exerting themselves, were trying to douse the smoke. Water was being carried in buckets from around the corner and through the gates into the yard, whence could be heard the sound of splintering wood and chopping axes, while other soldiers had formed a human chain and were passing buckets up a plank placed on the window ledge of the first floor. Working in the sun, the soldiers had taken off their tunics, and many had removed their forage caps and were wiping their brows. They were in no hurry, because it was oppressively hot, and despite the clouds of billowing smoke, the fire was not a serious one. There was no excitement and no shouts of encouragement; the men chatted among themselves as they moved about, occasionally laughing when one of them made a joke.\n\nHaving left a sergeant in charge of the operation, the platoon commander had nothing to do fora while. He was an ensign wearing the badge of a university graduate, with a slightly superciUous but keen expression which belied his rather languid way of moving. With an air of great unconcern, he first paced up and down, then stopped and selected a patch of shade on the steps\n\nof a stone porch on the other side of the street, where a cloth painted with a red cross had been tied around one of the pillars. In front of the house stood a medical-corps two-wheeled van without a driver, the horse in the shafts shivering occasionally.\n\nJust then a doctor in a white coat, with a black moustache and thick black eyebrows, stepped out onto the porch wearily rubbing his head and taking in deep draughts of fresh air. This made him yawn uncontrollably, his head nodding backward and forward as he did so. Noticing a plank on the highly polished stone step, he sat down, stretched his legs down the steps, and leaned back on his arms, as though to stop himself from falling over backward with exhaustion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today there was no sound of gunfire; the only noise came from the soldiers putting out the fire; the only sign of war was the flag with the red cross and the deserted German houses with their steep pitched roofs, so un-Russian in appearance.\n\nThe ensign was left with no alternative but to sit on one of the lower steps. His features had a slightly precocious look of decisiveness, his uniform hung on him like a sack, and his expression as he stared at his troops carrying water was one of boredom. The smoke did not blow in his direction, as there was no wind and it was billowing straight upward.\n\nHaving filled his lungs and finished yawning, the doctor looked across the road to see how the soldiers were putting out the fire, then glanced sideways at the young officer. \"Don't sit on that cold stone, Ensign. There's a plank here you can sit on.\"\n\n\"But the stone is quite warm.\"\n\n\"No, it's not. You'U catch a chill.\"\n\n\"Why should I worry about that? I'm more likely to get my head shot off.\"\n\n\"Well, you'll catch a chill whether you care about it or not. Come on, come and sit up here.\"\n\nUnwillingly, the ensign stood up, then moved over to sit beside the doctor. The doctor was a smooth, dignified man, with bushy moustaches and silky, black side\n\nwhiskers running down to his jaw like a dark shadow. He looked exhausted.\n\n\"What's the matter with you?\"\n\n\"Been operating. Yesterday, all night, and this morning.\"\n\n\"Have there been so many wounded?\"\n\n\"What do you think? You ought to know. Germans as well as ours. All types of wounds... Shrapnel wound in the abdomen with prolapsed stomach, guts and caul hanging out, and the patient still fully conscious. He's only got a few hours to live and he's asking us to put ointment on his stomach because it hurts... Bullet through the skuU, part of the brain spilling out... Hard fighting, to judge by the type of wounds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you tell what the fighting was like by the wounds?\"\n\n\"Of course. If the wounds are predominantly internal, it means heavy fighting.\"\n\n\"Have you finished with them now?\"\n\n\"God, there were so many!\"\n\n\"Go and sleep then.\"\n\n\"I have to rest and relax first. The work makes you tense.\" The doctor yawned. \"It weakens you.\"\n\n\"But it does you good to relax, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"No, nothing does any good; you just weaken. You don't react to death or wounds, otherwise you couldn't do your job. A man looking at you with eyes like saucers and he asks only one thing-will he live? And you must coldly count his pulse rate and workout how you'll operate on him... If only our transportation was any good, we could save a few more of these internal cases; they ought to be operated on at the base. But what sort of transport have we got? Two horse-drawn vans and a covered cart. The Germans have driven away all their carts and horses. In any case, where could we take them? Over the Narev? That's nearly seventy miles, only the first six miles of it on a metaled road, then more than sixty miles over Russian country roads. Sheer murder. Whereas the Germans evacuate their wounded by motor ambulance and in an\n\nhour's time they're in the finest operating theater you could ask for.\"\n\nThe ensign's face took on a severe expression as he looked at the doctor.\n\n\"And what happens if the military situation changes now?\" the doctor went on indignantly. \"Suppose we withdraw? We simply have no vehicles to evacuate our wounded. The hospital would fall into German hands. And if we advance, we then have the responsibility of burying the dead. When they lie out in the fields in this heat, they start decomposing quickly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The worse, the better,\" said the ensign grimly.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" The doctor did not understand him.\n\nUntil now lazily indifferent, the ensign's eyes gleamed. \"Individual instances of so-called compassion only obscure the issue and delay a general solution of the problem. For Russia, in this war, as in everything else, it is a case of the worse, the better!\"\n\nThe doctor's bushy eyebrows rose in astonishment and stayed up. \"What are you talking about? You mean you don't care if the wounded are jolted about, develop fever, delirium, infections? Let our soldiers suffer and die-^ you call that better?\"\n\nThe ensign's keen, intelligent features became even grimmer as he warmed to his theme. \"You have to stand back and take the long-term view if you don't want to be fooled by appearances. There are more than enough people in Russia who have suffered and are still suffering. So let the suffering of the wounded be added to the suffering of the workers and peasants. It even helps if we are so inefficient that we treat the wounded badly. It brings the day of reckoning nearer. So, the worse, the better!\"\n\nThe ensign's manner of holding his head slightly back made it look as if he were not talking to his companion alone but surveying a large audience and saying: \"Anymore questions?\"\n\nAlthough the doctor was more than ready for sleep, he stared at this self-confident young officer with wide-open eyes. \" So, to your way of thinking, you mean\n\nwe shouldn't even operate? Shouldn't even dress their wounds? The more men die, the nearer we are to Hbera-tion? We were treating the standard-bearer from your Chernigov regiment just now. Laceration of the major vessels. The man had lain twelve hours in no man's land before he was brought back. No more than a whisper of a pulse. So why did we bother about him? Is that what you mean by taking the'long-term view'?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ensign's eyes flashed hke tawny fire. \"But why did they flock like sheep behind the regim. ental standard, that symbol of obscurantism and reaction? Now the whole regiment is bleating about how brave they were just because the standard was unfurled! Why, they play with us as if we were lead soldiers!\"\n\nPuzzled, the surgeon asked: \"Excuse me, but you're not a regular ofi& cer, are you? What are you then?\"\n\nThe ensign shrugged his narrow shoulders. \"What does it matter? I'm a citizen.\"\n\n\"No, I mean what's your job?\"\n\n\"I'm a lawyer, if you really must know.\"\n\n\"Aha, a law-yer!\" The doctor understood now and nodded his head as though he might have guessed it. \"A law-yer...\"\n\n\"And what's wrong with that?\" said the ensign guardedly.\n\n\"I might have known it. A lawyer. You lawyers seem to be springing up like weeds allover Russia, if you don't mind my saying so.\"\n\n\"Since the whole country is lawless through and through, if you ask me there aren't nearly enough of us.\"\n\n\"Lawyers in the courts, lawyers in the Duma,\" the doctor went on, disregarding him. \"Lawyers in the political parties, lawyers in the press, lawyers at meetings, lawyers writing pamphlets...\" He spread out his big hands. \"I ask you, what sort of an education is it anyway, when you train as a lawyer?\"\n\n\"I am a graduate of St. Petersburg University,\" the ensign explained with icy politeness.\n\n\"That's no university education. Learn a dozen textbooks off by heart and pass your exams-that's all your so-called education amounts to. I knew plenty of law" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "students. They spent their four years doing nothing but fooling around-writing leaflets, speaking at conferences, upsetting people...\"\n\n\"That's a disgraceful way to talk for an intellectual like yourself!\" the ensign reproved him, his face darkening. \"You're playing their game for them...\"\n\nHe was right. The doctor realized that he had overstepped the mark and that the ensign's rebuke was justified.\n\n\"What I meant/ \"the doctor corrected himself,\" was that you should have read medicine or engineering and then you would have known what hard work really means. When you've studied a practical subject, you don't just lean back and rest on your laurels-you have to work. Russia needs workers, practical men.\"\n\n\"Shame on you!\" The ensign stared at him with the same look of burning reproach. \"What-and shore up the whole revolting system? It should be smashed to fragments without mercy! We should be knockmg it down to let in the light!\"\n\nIt had obviously not occurred to the doctor that he was shoring up anything; he thought he was learning how to heal people.\n\n\"I suppose you graduated from the Army Medical Academy?\" Eyes gleaming, the ensign tapped out the question.\n\n\"Yes, I did.\"\n\n\"In what year?\"\n\n\"1909.\"\n\n\"I see.\" The ensign made a quick mental calculation and the nostrils of his long, straight nose quivered. \"In other words, when the academy was closed in 1905 because of the revolution, you were dismissed, but you were readmitted and were able to take your exams because you signed a declaration of loyalty.\"\n\nThe doctor frowned with displeasure and tugged the end of his moustaches downward, but they sprang up again of their own accord. \" Of course, that would be the first thing that would occur to you. So what if I did sign apiece of paper? What else are you to do if you want to bean army doctor and the academy is" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the only one in the country?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anyway, even if we had the most democratic government in the world, it would have the right to insure that its Army Medical Academy wasn't disrupted by seditious meetings, wouldn't it? In my opinion, what I did was perfectly justified.\"\n\n\"And what about wearing a uniform? And the students having to salute everybody, like private soldiers?\"\n\n\"In the Army Medical Academy? I don't see anything wrong in that.\"\n\n\"Huh! Playing at soldiers!\" the ensign snorted. \"That's typical of the concessions we make, and then we're surprised when...\"\n\n\"But when all is said and done-^ we heal wounded men.\" Now the doctor was getting angry. \"You leave the wounded tome. Playing at soldiers, indeed! You just wait until you're brought inhere tomorrow with a smashed shoulder.\"\n\nThe ensign grinned. He was not malicious but a young man with the sincerity and conviction that were the mark of the best Russian students. \"No one's against humani-tarianism. Heal people as much as you like. You can look upon it as a form of mutual help. But let's have no theoretical justifications for this disgusting war!\"\n\n\"But I wasn't doing anything of the sort... was I?\" The doctor was thoroughly perplexed.\n\n\"\"War of hberation\"! They call it that just to work on people's emotions.\"Save our brothers the Serbs from the hands of Austria! \"So they're sorry for the Serbs, are they? We oppress all the non-Russian people in the empire but we don't seem to feel sorry for them.\"\n\n\"All the same, Germany...\" The doctor found himself faltering, as everyone in Russia tended to when faced by the dogmatic certainty of youth.\n\n\"If you ask me, it's a great pity that Napoleon didn't beat us in 1812. His rule wouldn't have lasted long, and then we would have been free.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so the lawyer, dressed in hated uniform, pressed home point after point." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hard to disagree with him, because his arguments were well thought out. Ina more conciliatory tone, the doctor asked him sympa-\n\nthetically: \"Why were you called up? Why didn't you get an exemption or a deferment?\"\n\n\"Oh, you know how it is. I got into it without thinking... Right turn-as you were! Left turn-as you were! Shoulder arms-as you were! About turn! Double march! Then I passed my examination as an ensign in the reserve.\"\n\n\"Well, let's get acquainted.\" The doctor stretched out a fleshy but powerful hand. \"My name's Fedonin.\"\n\nHe gripped the four narrow, bony fingers of the young lawyer, who said: \"Mine's Lenartovich.\"\n\n\"Lenartovich, Lenartovich... Wait a moment, I've heard that name somewhere, haven't I?\"\n\n\"It depends on where your interests lie,\" Lenartovich replied in a guarded voice. \"My paternal uncle was executed after a certain political trial.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes-of course, of course!\" Ashe nodded in acknowledgment, Fedonin felt guilty and displayed all the more respect, since he was still not quite sure which particular incident was referred to, whether it had been a successful assassination, a bomb that hadn't exploded, or a naval mutiny. \"Yes, yes, of course... Your name is partly German, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, an ancestor of mine was German. Also an army doctor, incidentally; came hereunder Peter the Great. Then the name was Russified.\"\n\n\"Does your family live in Petersburg?\"\n\n\"My mother. And my sister. She's at the Bestuzhev Academy. As it happens, I got a letter from her today, and what do you think? It was posted on the fourth day after the outbreak of war, on the twenty-third of July-and what's the date today? The twelfth of August! What sort of a postal service is that? How do they deliver their letters-on oxcarts? I suppose it's because the censors keep them so long.\" He was growing angrier and angrier. \" It's the same with the newspapers. The last one I had was dated the first of August! What a postal service! How can one find out what's going on in Russia, or in Germany, or in Western Europe? We know absolutely nothing! And then I read in the paper" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "that Neidenburg was captured virtually without a fight, yet for some reason we shelled it and set fire to it and now we've got to putout the fire. Never mind, the good old Russian soldier will carry buckets of water if he's told to...\"\n\n\"Come now, it was set on fire by the Germans...\"\n\n\"Yes, the Germans set fire to the shops in the middle of the town, but it was our Cossacks who set fire to the outskirts. Fine. Meanwhile, there's not a word of news from the Austrian front. The Austrians know nothing about us, and we know nothing about them. Is that anyway to fight a war? We hear nothing but rumors. Some cavalry ofl& cer rides by and whispers something to somebody-and that's all we ever hear byway of news. Who shows any respect or consideration for the army in the field? They despise us. And yet when you talk it's\"Russia this'and'Germany that\"... Some of our soldiers smashed down the doors of some abandoned German houses and grabbed a few things. That, if you please, is a stain on the honor of a Christian army and for that the men are punished and put in the guardhouse. But Lieutenant Colonel Adamantov can pocket as many silver milk jugs as he Ukes-that's aU right, that doesn't matter. There's Russia for you!\"\n\nHad it not been for this filthy war, young girls would not have donned white, would not have coifed their foreheads to the eyebrows so freshly, cleanly, severely. Impersonal and anonymous, her education, social status, and hair color unknown, a nursing sister stepped out onto the porch in her new uniform.\n\n\"What is it, Tanya?\"\n\n\"The patient with the broken jaw is restless. Valerian Akimich. Could you come and see him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The argument on the steps ceased at once. The doctor sighed and went in, followed dutifully by the swan-white nurse, whose eyes, dimmed with unhappiness, gave Lenartovich no more than a passing glance.\n\nThe white headdresses and white uniforms were, of course, merely the toys of the rich and privileged, an opiate for the mass of the soldiery.\n\nSuddenly a Ueutenant colonel, mounted on a restless\n\nhorse, trotted into the square and bellowed, as was his right: \"Who's the senior rank here?\"\n\nThe soldiers immediately started passing the buckets faster, and Lenartovich ran down the steps with carefully moderated speed, doing his best to keep his dignity, and crossed the square. Without seeming overkeen, he came to attention and saluted, although somewhat crookedly. \"Ensign Lenartovich, 29th Chernigov regiment!\"\n\n\"Are you in charge of putting this fire out?\"\n\n\"Yes. I mean-yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, what the hell do you think you're doing, Ensign? Running a Christmas bazaar? Army Headquarters is coming here. It'll be billeted two houses away, and you still haven't put the fire out after three days. It's enough to make a cat laugh-carrying buckets of water all that distance. Can't you find a pump somewhere?\"\n\n\"Where can we get a pump, sir? Our battalion hasn't...\"\n\n\"In that case, you've got to use your brains a little, haven't you? You're not at the university now, you know! What do you mean by exhausting your men like this? Follow me, I'll show you where there's a pump and a hose. All you need to do is look around some of these backyards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the lieutenant colonel set off on his splendid horse like a victorious general.\n\nLenartovich trotted after him like a prisoner.\n\nfc\n\nM\n\nIt took Vorotyntsev another whole day and a night to reach Soldau. He might have gone faster, as he had sent the sergeant back and was riding light, but he did not want to wear his horse out, not knowing what demands he might have to make on it in the next few days. He rode into Soldau in the early hours of August 13, before it was really hot, having watered and fed his horse.\n\nSoldau, like all German country towns, did not sprawl and take up good farmland as Russian towns do; it was not surrounded by a derelict belt of rubbish dumps and wasteland; wherever you entered it, you at once found yourself passing neat, closely built rows of tiled, brick houses, some of them even three or four stories high, with roofs pitched to half the height of the house. The streets in these towns, as neat as corridors, were closely paved with flat, smooth setts or flagstones, while each house had some individual feature-^ with one it might be the windows, with another the finials. Then close together would be found the Rathaus, the church, a tiny square, a monument to someone or other, not just one shop but a whole variety of them, beer gardens, the post ofiice, the bank, and sometimes even a toy-like park behind wrought-iron railings. Then equally suddenly the town would come to an end, the streets would stop, and only a few paces beyond the last house there would be a tree-lined highroad and precise, carefully marked-outfields.\n\nSoldau had been completely abandoned by its inhabitants and was not yet overflowing with Russian troops. Sentries had been placed outside several of the shops and warehouses-a proper measure, as two of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "them had been looted. Vorotyntsev inspected the town, intent on finding his own way and sizing up the situation for himself even if it meant spending a little extra time, and for this reason he did not ask the way to corps headquarters. Outside a little house, which, small though it was, had iron railings, a bench, a fountain, and pillars on either side of the porch, he saw a motorcar made by the Russo-Baltic Carriage Company. This did not look like corps headquarters; it was too deserted. But the sight of the car made Vorotyntsev wonder whether perhaps he had found the man he had to see before going to headquarters.\n\nHe dismounted and immediately the stiffness in his back made him realize how tired he was. He tethered his horse by the reins to a tree near the car and left his greatcoat strapped to the saddle; no one here had paid him any attention, so there was no need to wear the full regulation dress. Bending and stretching his legs, he pushed the wrought-iron gate. It swung open, and he went in.\n\nThe basin around the fountain was still wet, so it was not long since the water had drained away. The flowers still stood undamaged in neat rows in their little parched beds. Only as he skirted a bush by the fountain did Vorotyntsev notice someone in the porch sitting on a stone bench with armrests carved in the shape of lions'heads-an elderly, rather stout officer, his chin covered in black stubble, his hair unbrushed, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette with a look of displeasure on his face. From his belt downward he was the complete officer, with wide Cossack breeches, but above that he wore nothing but a shirt; however, although there was noway of telling his rank, there was a definite air of the staff officer about his face and figure. He showed. little inclination to move as the colonel approached him. f Without giving a regulation salute, Vorotyntsev merely brought two fingers somewhere near the peak of his cap and inquired: \"Can you tell me, please, if these are Colonel Krymov's quarters?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mm-mh.\" The unshaven officer nodded without moving, but with a look of even greater displeasure.\n\n\"Are you Colonel Krymov?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nSince the somnolent Krymov clearly did not intend to stand on service ceremony either, the new arrival thrust out his right hand with the palm open. \"My name's Vorotyntsev. I've come to see you.\"\n\nKrymov rose just enough to satisfy the demands of politeness-indeed, since he was such a ponderous man, his movement was scarcely sufficient even for that purpose-gave a sketchy handshake with his rough hand, drew it back, and pointed to the bench beside him. He continued to smoke without the least apparent curiosity to hear anymore, although colonels of the General Staff were not exactly frequent visitors in the streets of Soldau.\n\nIn no more than the time it took Vorotyntsev to sit down on the bench and mop his brow, he had calculated exactly what manner he should adopt with Krymov: as few words as possible, and no mention of rank. He also sensed that Krymov didn't like him. However, he began at once: \"I've come to you from Alexander Vasilich. He told me about you...\"\n\n\"I guessed you came from him.\"\n\nThis surprised Vorotyntsev. \"How did you...?\"\n\nKrymov gave a slight nod toward the fountain. \"Know that stallion. Rode him myself last week... How'd you bring him here?\"\n\nVorotyntsev burst out laughing. \"I didn't bring him. He brought me.\"\n\nKrymov gave a disbelieving frown. \"You rode? From Ostrolenka?\"\n\nVorotyntsev made a noise meant to convey modesty and to suggest that there was nothing special in that. All the same, his spine had taken a terrible jolting and he could hardly bend his back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Krymov nodded approval, but his eyes were still narrow as he said: \"Good. But why didn't you come by train?\"\n\n\"By train? Too dull. This is war, after all!\" Vorotyntsev rejoined cheerfully, but he sensed from the very slight movement of Krymov's large head that\n\nI\n\n\"\n\nAugust 1914 173\n\nthe latter had asked his question out of consideration for the horse and not for the rider. \" No, I didn't wear the beast out. And I fed him just before I got here.\" *\n\n\"Quite right.\" Krymov nodded more emphatically. \"The train's noway to travel when you're fighting a war.\" He took an oilskin tobacco pouch out of his pocket. \"Have some. It's Ussuri leaf. Good stuff.\"\n\n\"No, thanks, I've given it up.\"\n\n\"Mistake.\" Krymov's eyebrows expressed disapproval. \"Can't fight a war properly without tobacco. Wasn't yesterday, was it?\"\n\n\"No, two years ago.\"\n\n\"I meant, did you leave Ostrolenka yesterday?\" Krymov explained.\n\n\"Oh, I see... Evening, the day before yesterday.\"\n\nKrymov blinked and nodded. \"And what did Alexander Vasilich say? Has he received my reports?\"\n\n\"He didn't say.\"\n\n\"Sent him three. I'm preparing the fourth one now. What about you?\"\n\n\"I...\" Vorotyntsev had still not got used to the laconic manner of this rough diamond with his fleshy, rather somnolent features. \"I...\" Then he guessed what the other man wanted to know. \"I'm from General Headquarters.\" This might betaken as the worst possible recommendation, implying that he had come to checkup, to snoop around; otherwise, why had he descended out of the blue?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-writing with the writer, continue the narrative.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 3" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Krymov nodded approval, but his eyes were still narrow as he said: \"Good. But why didn't you come by train?\"\n\n\"By train? Too dull. This is war, after all!\" Vorotyntsev rejoined cheerfully, but he sensed from the very slight movement of Krymov's large head that\n\nI\n\n\"\n\nAugust 1914 173\n\nthe latter had asked his question out of consideration for the horse and not for the rider. \" No, I didn't wear the beast out. And I fed him just before I got here.\" \n\n\"Quite right.\" Krymov nodded more emphatically. \"The train's noway to travel when you're fighting a war.\" He took an oilskin tobacco pouch out of his pocket. \"Have some. It's Ussuri leaf. Good stuff.\"\n\n\"No, thanks, I've given it up.\"\n\n\"Mistake.\" Krymov's eyebrows expressed disapproval. \"Can't fight a war properly without tobacco. Wasn't yesterday, was it?\"\n\n\"No, two years ago.\"\n\n\"I meant, did you leave Ostrolenka yesterday?\" Krymov explained.\n\n\"Oh, I see... Evening, the day before yesterday.\"\n\nKrymov blinked and nodded. \"And what did Alexander Vasilich say? Has he received my reports?\"\n\n\"He didn't say.\"\n\n\"Sent him three. I'm preparing the fourth one now. What about you?\"\n\n\"I...\" Vorotyntsev had still not got used to the laconic manner of this rough diamond with his fleshy, rather somnolent features. \"I...\" Then he guessed what the other man wanted to know. \"I'm from General Headquarters.\" This might betaken as the worst possible recommendation, implying that he had come to checkup, to snoop around; otherwise, why had he descended out of the blue?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again Krymov frowned slightly. \"Right, wash and breakfast. Just got up myself, only came back late last night. Just woke up, sitting and thinking...\"\n\n\"Where were you?\"\n\n\"With Stempel, cavalry division.\"\n\n\"Listen, are there really two cavalry divisions in this corps or not?\" Vorotyntsev put in eagerly. \"What are they up to? What are they doing?\"\n\n\"What are they doing? Eating hay! Lyubomirov had some hard fighting yesterday. Took a town, but lost it again.\"\n\nThey went indoors. The furniture, polished to a subdued glow, the bronzes and marble would have been\n\nmore in place in one of the best houses in St. Petersburg than herein little Soldau. The place was, however, in some disarray: lace, ribbons, coral brooches, and combs which no one had bothered to pickup were lying scattered around the floor.\n\nThe only occupants of the house were Krymov and his Cossack attendant Yevstafii, who popped smartly out of the kitchen when called.\n\nThe two officers went into the kitchen. Yevstafii was a tall man, nearing middle age but agile and quick on his feet. He seemed fascinated by the innumerable storage jars and boxes of china, tin, and wood labeled with incomprehensible names. He was just starting to cook breakfast and was sniffing and tasting the contents of each of the jars in turn, shaking his head as he did so.\n\nKrymov ordered breakfast for two and showed Vorotyntsev the bathroom, complete with marble panels and mirror. The taps worked, male and female garments were hung upon the back of the door, and everything was as tidy and peaceful as it had been when the owners had left two days ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you don't mind, I'll have a shave,\" said Vorotyntsev firmly.\n\nHis instinct was to shut the bathroom door behind him, but he left it open as he unbuckled his Sam Browne belt, swiftly pulled off his tunic, and stood, like his host, in his shirtsleeves. Instead of going out, Krymov came into the bathroom, sat down on the edge of the bath, rolled himself anew cigarette in a single, practiced movement, and licked it.\n\nYevstafii brought in hot water. Ashe wielded his safety razor, Vorotyntsev gave Krymov the details of his mission, although the latter had asked no questions, and told him how he had come to be sent to I Army Corps. He realized as he did so that his journey was unnecessary.\n\nHe also noticed with irritation that he was not telling Krymov what was really in his mind. Sitting outside on the bench with the hons'-head armrests, he had spoken with complete frankness, but now, while shav-\n\ning, he altered his tactics slightly. When he had been told at Army Headquarters that Krymov was already out thereon the left flank, he had hesitated; he saw now that he should have taken the hint and gone not to I Army Corps but to General Blagoveshchensky on the right flank. But Vorotyntsev was plagued by an unfortunate trait: he was prone to make hasty decisions and then not alter them in time. Even before reaching Ostrolenka, he had decided that he must go to I Army Corps, for it was there that he saw the key to the whole operation.\n\nNow neither train nor horse would be of any use to him. He would need wings on his heels to reach Blagoveshchensky in one hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to feel an increasing respect for Krymov, even for the fact that he was in no hurry to get dressed and don his badges of rank but just remained sitting on the edge of the bath, pufiing out clouds of smoke. Any good that could be done at I Army Corps headquarters would be done by this roughneck on his own, without any help from Vorotyntsev.\n\nKrymov listened to what his visitor had to say, then in his bluff manner said: \"Of course you're unnecessary here. And so am I. That Holy Joe, Artamonov, doesn't accept the army commander's authority. He knows that his corps is under the personal care of the commander-in-chief, and he's hoping that because the Guards Corps was removed from Samsonov's command, I Corps will be too. When he came through Vilna on his way here, he announced in the cathedral: Have no fear! I'm going to fight for you! \"He expects to spend the warlike a tailor's dummy standing in a shop window until suddenly one day it's allover and they start handing out prizes.\"\n\nAs Krymov sat there swinging his legs and sucking in his cheeks, the bath under him reminded Vorotyntsev of a boat without oars or mast. But his very inertia and the cheerless implication of what he was saying actually restored Vorotyntsev's self-confidence.\n\n\"All right, then, first of all let's give Artamonov a good fright. I've brought him a written order from\n\nSamsonov. If he kicks up a fuss, we'll contact General Headquarters direct by telephone. Or, rather, we won't speak to the c-in-c direct; I know a good man there who will make sure the message gets through to the right quarter. He will have to go behind the backs of both Yanushkevich and Danilov and choose a suitable moment to talk to the grandnduke... There's no real teamwork or clear thinking at GHQ either, you know. They were supposed to have transferred I Army Corps to Samsonov's command on the eighth of August, but they haven't issued a written order on it yet. Someone is shirking, as usual. It's absolutely insane-an army corps at the most exposed spot on the extreme flank of the front line and it's not under anyone's command! I hear, by the way, that Artamonov has been inaction. Is that right? They say he took Soldau and has pushed on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pushed on? Think I'll have a shave myself... Pushed on? Lying bastard!\" Krymov suddenly lost his temper and went red in the face as he waddled up to the mirror and turned around to Vorotyntsev, who had sat down on a very small and lady-like chair. \"He sent a message to Army Headquarters that there was a German division in Soldau. He said that, though, without having done any reconnaissance and without knowing a word of German, even though he claimed to have got the information by tapping some telephone line!\" Krymov shook his razor. \"He told that lie so as not to have to attack the town. And it turned out that the only German troops in Soldau were two regiments of Landwehr, and they pulled out on their own. He had to occupy the town whether he liked it or not, so he told another lie and said he had to fight for it!\" Krymov barked angrily from behind a rich coating of lather. \"Now he's saying that the Germans evacuated Neiden-burg because he, Artamonov, captured Soldau.\"\n\n\"What about Usdau?\"\n\n\"He didn't take Usdau, the cavalry division did. And consequently the poor fellow had to push on again.\"\n\n\"I see... I've never met Artamonov.\"\n\n\"Who has? Alexander Vasilich hasn't met him either.\n\nHe was made a general and got his gold-hilted sword for beating a crowd of starving Chinese. Just like Kondratovich...\"\n\n\"Have you met Kondratovich yet?\"\n\n\"Not likely! He's way back in the rear collecting his corps together. And a good thing, too. Notorious coward.\"\n\n\"Whom have you seen lately?\"\n\n\"Martos.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good general, I hear.\"\n\n\"Good? Him? Terrified of the higher-ups and keeps his own staff twitching like puppets. He's ruined the staff of XV Corps, they're all exhausted akeady.\"\n\n\"What do you think of Blagoveshchensky?\"\n\n\"Sack of shit. Dripping-wet shit, too. As for Klyuev, he's not an ofificer, he's a doddering old woman.\"\n\n\"What's the chief of staff like here at I Corps headquarters?\"\n\n\"Complete blockhead. Waste of time talking to him.\"\n\nUnable to restrain himself any longer, Vorotyntsev burst out laughing.\n\nThey went into breakfast. Yevstafii had placed a decanter of vodka on the table, and without asking his guest whether he wanted any, Krymov filled two glasses. At the risk of spoiling the frank atmosphere of their conversation, Vorotyntsev declined. He had the un-Russian characteristic of being unable to drink before starting on a job. He only drank when work was successfully completed.\n\nKrymov grasped his vodka glass in his fist. \"An officer must be bold when faced by the enemy, by his superiors, and by vodka. If he can't face all three, he's not an officer.\"\n\nHe drank alone, frowning, but this did not stop him from giving Vorotyntsev more of his views about Artamonov. The fact was that I Army Corps was short two regiments, and all the other units were under-strength. Artamonov's conclusion from this was that he could do no fighting at all. He talked loudly and glibly enough, saying things like: \"I shall answer attack with attack!\" But he was nothing but a braggart and a" }, { "from": "human", "value": "liar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What could one do with a liar? Punch him on the nose? That was why Krymov had ridden over to Martos and made him agree to detach a column from his corps and attack Soldau from the east. But then the Germans had abandoned Soldau without a fight.\n\nVorotyntsev came back to the question of the cavalry. He thought that it was being misused; the task of the cavalry was flank protection and reconnaissance-in particular, deep reconnaissance along the whole frontage-^ but this was not being done. Or else the entire cavalry should be concentrated on one flank to make a short, sharp surprise attack. The strange thing was that all the generals were cavalrymen: ZhiUnsky, Oranovsky, Rennenkampf, Samsonov-they were aU cavalrymen...\n\n\"Don't say a word against Samonov!\" Ej-ymov ordered. \"And don't try arguing about the cavalry's role if you don't know anything about it!\"\n\nHe drank a second glass and declared angrily that the cavalry had given a good account of itself, having been in some stiff fighting and suffered heavy losses. Just try charging at stone buildings or cycle troops! Still, they were being badly handled: their boundaries and center Hues were always being changed; one cavalry unit had been made to cross a river three times; and they were being given the wrong objectives, such as making a raid on a railway junction somewhere in the rear, which turned out to be a blunder...\n\nIn the end, there was no avoiding the Russian ritual-starting with the third glass, Vorotyntsev had to join in the drinking. Both realized what it was that they had in common: neither of them was in this campaign for reasons of personal ambition.\n\nFrom the cavalry the conversation inevitably turned to the artillery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Our experience in the Japanese war taught us that any future war would be won entirely on firepower, that what we needed was heavy artillery, especially plenty of howitzers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We did nothing about it-but the Germans did. We have a hundred and eight guns in an army corps; they have a hundred and sixty-and\n\nwhat guns! In Russia there's always said to bean'extreme shortage of funds'for the army. Yet, although there's never any money for the army, there's plenty to spare for the court. They want victories and glory without paying for them.\"\n\n\"Yes, the Duma has been up to its dirty tricks there,\" said Krymov, puffing out his cheeks and pouring out another glass. \"It's the Duma...\"\n\n\"On the contrary!\" Vorotyntsev rejoined, springing warmly to the defense of the Duma. \"The committee of the State Duma has consistently blamed the War Ministry for not demanding enough funds to be voted in military credits. The Duma has been insisting for years that we need to increase our artillery and that we're unprepared-and yet the Ministry took eight years to workout an arms program. The program was only approved this May, and then the Germans declare war a couple of months later. The people at the top still think that the spirit of the army will be the decisive factor. Suvorov thought so, Dragomirov thought so, and so did Tolstoy... So why spend money on guns? As for our fortresses, they're so out of date they almost have unicorns in the stables! They still have guns which fire black powder!\"\n\nNone of these arguments had any effect on Krymov, but there were certain questions on which Vorotyntsev felt so strongly that he had to speak out-especially after a glass or two of vodka. So, instead of going to see Artamonov...\n\nKrymov frowned, though amiably enough; he was unaffected by Vorotyntsev's heated arguments, as he knew them all by heart already. He merely nodded in agreement as though acknowledging a law of nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Growing more and more amicable, they were soon calling each other Alexander Mikhalich and Georgii Mikhalich, and before long they were on first-name terms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a stage which Vorotyntsev was normally in no hurry to reach, but again he bowed to Russian custom. They put off their departure and sat fora longtime over breakfast.\n\nThe talk turned to the looting of German property\n\nby Russian troops. Krymov thumped the table with a fist like apiece of knotted rope. \"Field court-martials and a few exemplary executions!\" He had akeady proposed this to Samsonov.\n\nHis point of view was the natural one fora tough-minded, conscientious, professional army ofiQcer. Vo-rotyntsev, however, put both his hands down on the table, stretching his fingers out as far as they would go.\n\n\"No. Say what you hke, I cannot agree to shooting our own men. Just because they're poor and we've picked them up and put them down in a rich country? Just because we've never shown them anything better? Just because they're hungry and we have failed to feed them fora week?\"\n\nKrymov did not unclench his fist but tightened it and rapped on the table. \"But it's a disgrace to Russia! It means the breakup of discipline in the army! If we let that happen, we might just as well not have come here.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps...\"\n\nSo that was what he thought. Krymov withdrew his fist.\n\n\"... perhaps we shouldn't have come at all.\"\n\nIt struck Krymov now that Vorotyntsev had his weaknesses and his limitations. Clever though he was, he was dangerously infected by the ideas of the intelligentsia, and as far as the army was concerned, he was a lost man.\n\n\"The way to tackle the problem is a directive from Army Headquarters,\" he explained, \"laying down a policy of regular and orderly requisition. We need an effective, mobile supply service.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean-mobile?\"\n\n\"I mean that it should be up here operating at regimental level. It should roundup aU the cattle and distribute them to the regiments. It should requisition all the local threshing machines and all the local mills and thresh, mill, and bake the flour and issue it on the spot.\"\n\n\"But that's pure fantasy, Alexander Mikhahch. The Germans might do that, but we never would!\"\n\nI\n\nAugust J914 lol\n\nAlthough he said that, secretly he nursed the proud conviction that there were some Russians like himself who had a German sense of efficiency and the Germans' power of steady application, characteristics which gave him an edge over well-meaning but impetuous and erratic men like Krymov.\n\nIt was time to finish breakfast, time to put an end to this inconclusive conversation, to go and prod Arta-monov forward and make sure that his corps was fully under Samsonov's command. Vorotyntsev had been mentally working out exactly how to get the right man, a colonel, to come to the telephone if he had to speak to General Headquarters. However, Krymov seemed unwilling to getup, as though this morning's talk was all the work he needed to do for one day and it was now time to get some sleep. Of course he would go, he said, and soon. He might also lose his temper with Artamonov and punch him on the nose, no joking.\n\n\"Afterward, why don't you go and see where Min-gin's division has got to? Has it joined Martos's corps yet?\" Vorotyntsev asked casually, not wishing to seem to tell Krymov what he ought to do.\n\nKrymov mumbled something which sounded like yes, but without enthusiasm. He seemed tired from his days in the saddle and obviously found it easier simply to stay where he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly they both heard the unmistakable sound of an artillery barrage opening up.\n\n\"Aha!\"\n\n\"Aha!\"\n\nThey went outside. It was coming from the north, about ten miles away. The hot air dulled the sound of the distant gunfire.\n\nKnowing Artamonov, it could not be he who had opened fire. So was it the Germans?\n\nAs PosTOVSKY AND FiLiMONOV had insisted, there was no question of Army Headquarters moving to anew location on the twelfth of August. A whole day was spent in issuing prelim-inar> ' orders, making preparations, and, what was even more important, testing and checking the new telegraph line to Army Group Headquarters, which ran from Bialystok via Warsaw and Mlawa and then onto Neidenburg, using German Unes. Northwestern Army Group Headquarters would not allow Second Army Headquarters to move farther away until it was certain that Second Army was firmly connected to a reliable wire and so always accessible for the receipt of orders and able to send back reports. The move was therefore ordered for August 13.\n\nThe twelfth was also a day of strain for Samsonov. Whereas yesterday his army corps had been six days'march away, today they had moved a farther day's march forward. Once more a lengthy and detailed request was sent to Zhilinsky asking fora day's halt, which was again refused on the grounds that the enemy was moving away from them and might escape; Rennenkampf, it was pointed out, was still keeping up the pursuit. Information had come in from a reconnaissance by the left-flank cavalry divisions that a heavy enemy concentration was building up in front of them. This confirmed Samsonov's reading of the situation that the enemy was building up to the left. But instead of feeling any pleasure at being proved correct, he was racked with uncertainty over what to do. Commonsense suggested that he should wheel all his army corps to the left instead of continuing to push them forward in their present direction, but yesterday's taunt" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "r\n\nAugust 1914 183\n\nthat he was a coward still rankled; worn outwith quarreling with Zhilinsky, he was keenly conscious that fighting a war was much more exhausting at headquarters than in the front line, and he was anxious to keep to the compromise solution over the line of advance which appeared to have been reached the day before. He was also much mollified by Zhilinsky's first telegram sent today, congratulating him on the successful action at Orlau; presumably, too. Army Group Headquarters must be in possession of some reliable information if it was sticking so firmly to the order to advance on the present axis, whereas the cavalry reconnaissance could easily have exaggerated the strength of the enemy. Yesterday one division of XIII Army Corps had moved leftward to linkup with Martos at Orlau, but instead of staying there, it had by now managed to return to its own corps and was moving northward again; psychologically, it was almost unthinkable to order it to move to the left again. In any case, to get all the corps to change direction was an extremely complicated maneuver which would mean halting the advance and might involve the corps supply trains crossing over each other.\n\nMeanwhile, to Samsonov's great annoyance, the English general Alfred Knox had arrived in Ostrolenka. Nobody knew why he had come; probably to show British goodwill while they spent six months getting their army over to the Continent. Samsonov loathed these meetings with Western Europeans, with their perfunctory, insincere bonhomie; this visit was especially inopportune, inconvenient, and distracting for him. Samsonov had still not found time to sort out the welter of events, thoughts, and plans in his badly confused mind; now there would be all the extra trouble of conducting a diplomatic reception. P* That evening, the twelfth, Samsonov excused himself from meeting Knox because of the lateness of the hour, but he could not avoid inviting him to lunch on the thirteenth. Before lunch, however, there came some disturbing news from Artamonov, who signaled that strong forces were concentrating in front of him. At once, on an empty stomach, Samsonov gathered sev-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "eral of his staff around a map and came close to taking the decision to wheel all his corps to the left. His staff, however, dissuaded him, reminding him that recently detrained reinforcements for XXIII Army Corps were marching toward Soldau; these could be temporarily put under Artamonov's command, which would solve the problem of strengthening his corps in face of the enemy threat. Meanwhile, the center corps would continue their present advance.\n\nIt seemed a reasonable solution, and a fairly simple one, so it was agreed upon. The necessary order was written, and they went into lunch. Samsonov had put on his gold-hilted sword. He should have left at once for the new location, but instead they had to sit through a formal lunch with wine, handshakes, and speeches translated from one language into another, which made it interminably long and delayed the move. Knox, who looked like a thoroughbred horse, the product often generations of selective breeding, was a middle-aged man whose behavior made him seem even younger; he drank with gusto and his manner was generally relaxed and amiable. The air of informality was helped by the British army uniform, with its open collar in which the neck could move freely and its light, unostentatious shoulder tabs and badges of rank. Knox, in particular, treated his uniform without ceremony; the pockets of his tunic were bulging with papers and the cross of his high-rankuig decoration hung slightly awry.\n\nSamsonov hoped that he would be rid of his guest after lunch, that Knox would go straight back to ZhiUnsky, to the grand-duke, or to St. Petersburg-anywhere, as long as he went. But it was not to be. Knox took his seat in Samsonov's car, carrying his waterproof cape rolled up and slung over his shoulder on a strap, leaving the rest of his luggage, as the interpreter explained, to be brought by an orderly with the headquarters baggage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Exchanging glances with his staff officers, the army commander ordered Filimonov not to come in the car but to give up his place to the British officer and his interpreter, while Postovsky sent a telegram chasing\n\naround the kingdom of Poland to Staff Captain Du-cimetiere in Neidenburg, telling him to prepare a special dinner and see that it was properly served.\n\nThey drove off, leaving the rest of the staff to follow them in vans, charabancs, and on horseback. The army commander's open car, with its long, protruding hood and high steering wheel, was escorted by eight Cossacks who were far from being picked men: the crack squadrons were all needed in the front-line divisions. The chauffeur kept his speed down so that the eight Cossack lances could keep pace at a fast trot.\n\nWhat Samsonov needed now was silence; to stare in silence at all these miles of road which his troops had covered on foot and which until now he had never seen: thirty miles from Ostrolenka to Chorzele, then fifteen to Janow and another six or so parallel to the German frontier, finally across the frontier and a journey of eight miles on enemy territory which his corps had won without shedding a drop of blood or firing a single shot.\n\nThe day had become stiflingly hot, like all the preceding days, but the movement of the car created a breeze which made thinking rather easier, so that fora moment it seemed possible that the drive might induce the mental clarity he longed for. He did not precisely know why his thoughts were still unclear: all the necessary orders had been issued and were being carried out, yet there was a blur, a kind of undis-sipated fog of overlapping, unfocused globs that danced in front of his inward eye as though he had double vision. Samsonov was continually conscious of this and it worried him greatly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The army commander arranged a large three-foot-square map board on his knees, on which a 420,000: 1-scale map of the whole theater of operations, tightly fixed though it was, flapped slightly in the wind. He had intended to spend the journey glancing alternately at the passing countryside and at his map. Now, however, there was this inquisitive British officer sitting behind him in the backseat, also wanting to find out all he could, looking over his shoulder and even poking his finger at the map board and demanding explanations for everything.\n\nThe droning buzz of Knox's voice was added to the chattering of the car's engine and Samsonov gave up all hope of spending the journey alone in calm, constructive thou^ t.\n\nKnox showed particular interest in VI Army Corps on the right flank, because this corps had driven deeper than any other into enemy territory and was now not much farther from the Baltic Sea than the distance which it had already covered.\n\nYes, VI Army Corps should have occupied Bischofs-burg yesterday, and by today it was probably already farther north.\n\nIt was shown on the map as being in that position, and for the Englishman's sake, Samsonov had to pretend that it really was there; he could not admit to his Allied colleague that Russians marked their maps with information they did not really possess, that not all radio signals reached their destination, and that apart from radio there were no means of communication except dispatch riders, who were highly insecure since they were sent out unescorted across enemy territory. Blagoveshchensky's corps had, in fact, strayed so far over to the right that it had ceased to act as a flank guard at all; it was no longer performing a screening role but had become a detached, independent corps, the victim of a quarrel. Fortunately, however, this problem had been raised with Army Group Headquarters, and that morning they had been given permission to move VI Army Corps to the left and to close the gap between it and the center corps. Yes, it was already on the move-look, there, beyond Lake Daday-and it was heading for Allenstein." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And over there-^ what about Rennenkampf?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was he advancing? Yes, according to their information.\n\nAnd what was that-a cavalry division? Yes, for flank protection.\n\nThis was General Tolpygo's division, which had been pushed into the gap, but in fact that division was urgently needed close at hand. Another formation lost to Samsonov.\n\nWhat could he tell this uninvited guest? That all his units were under-strength, and that XXIII Army\n\nCorps was still not mustered? That the force under his command was an army. only on paper, that in reality it consisted of no more than the two and a half army corps in the center, toward which he was now driving? And that he was not even sure of their positions either?\n\nKnox was now interrogating him ad nauseam about the center corps. Where were they?\n\nSamsonov pointed at the map with his large finger. \"XIII Corps is here... approximately there... It is moving northward in roughly this direction, between these two lakes...\"\n\n\"Moving northward?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's advancing northward... toward AUen-stein. It should take Allenstein today.\" (It should have taken it yesterday, but had been too slow.)\n\n\"And what about XV Corps?\"\n\n\"Well, XV Corps should be level with XIII Corps and also moving northward. Yesterday it should have taken Hohenstein.\" (Had it?) \"And today it should have moved far beyond Hohenstein.\"\n\n\"XXIII Corps?\"\n\nThe army commander should have known precisely when this corps would be fully mustered and put into the front line. As it was, Mingin's division had been exhausted by forced niarching to keep up with Martos and had been thrown straight into action. \"Well, XXIII Corps... shouldn't be faraway... It ought to cut this road running northwestward from Hohenstein today.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what could he say if Knox were to ask him about the Germans?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where were their army corps? How many were there? Which way were they going? An empty, uninhabited expanse of lakes, forests, villages, roads, and railway lines was all the information that he had about the Germans; nothing had been seen of them or was known of them except for the attractive booty which they had left behind undefended.\n\nThis was the crux of his problem. Everyday he issued precise orders to his army corps; he told them whereto go, which town to take, all in conformity\n\nwith the wishes of the higher command. But a vital element was lacking: these orders were not welded into uniformity by a single, clear plan. He had no idea what he was really supposed to be doing. Press on... cut roads... deny such-and-such objectives to the enemy... This was aU very well, but what was the overall plan of operation? Samsonov was just beginning to reach some conclusions in his own mind when Knox interrupted him again. \"What about I Army Corps? And what are these two cavalry divisions doing?\"\n\nOh, if only the man would go away! \"They are, er... securing the left flank of the operation, providing a firm echelonned flank guard.\"\n\nAs away of damming the flow of questions from the Englishman above the noise of the engine, Samsonov took the map board from his knees and leaned it against the door of the car. His strength drained by all these explanations and by the growing heat, he no longer felt a desire to reflect in private or to study the terrain; he only wanted to be able to doze in his comfortable seat.\n\nThe car's speed was kept down to the pace of the Cossack horses. Atone point in the journey the escort was changed fora relief troop. Whenever they overtook supply wagons, a mobile hospital, or a squadron of remount draft horses, they would stop and the army commander would listen to the men's reports. In Chorzele and Janow they inspected the town commandant's post, inquiring which units had been left behind, by which formation, and with what objective. Once they got out of the car and satin the shade by a stream. The sun was at the meridian when, with the Cossack escort riding beside them in close order, they drove cautiously and solemnly down the Polish side of a hill, across an old wooden bridge, and up the slope on the Prussian side into new territory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They passed through brick-built villages, every house of which, though solid as a fortress, had been abandoned without a shot. Soon they turned onto the excellent main road running from Willenberg to Nei-denburg, which was completely undamaged. This just skirted the southernmost tip of the vast Grunfliess\n\n^\n\nAugust 1914 189\n\nForest, then it took them across open downland, swooping from hilltop to hilltop; although these did not look high, they commanded a view for miles around.\n\nKnox derived a special pleasure from this journey, in being the first EngUshman to set foot on enemy soil during the war. On the way he composed several letters home which he was determined to write that evening in a German town. Meanwhile, he absorbed as many impressions as possible, as it would be bad style to repeat himself from one letter to another.\n\nHeralded by a powerful stench of burning, Neiden-burg rose before them. From a considerable distance they could make out a large white clock face with wrought-iron hands on a green church steeple, surrounded by a cluster of pink, gray, and bluish houses, each with its inscription carved in stome. Before the fighting, it had been a neat, well-built town, but now, although fires were no longer burning, there were many traces of damage: the charred, gaping embrasures of trenches, here and there collapsed roofs, blackened walls, fragments of broken glass on the pavement, reeking blue smoke from several smoldering areas, and a general glow from hot stone, tiles, andiron which added to the oppressive warmth of the day.\n\nAshe drove into the town, the army commander was met by an officer from the advance billeting party, who ran ahead down the street to show the way. As they turned the comer into the Rathaus square, the house selected for Army Headquarters confronted them; not only was it untouched by fire, it was flanked by undamaged houses. Down the steep steps of its porch, a lieutenant colonel ran toward them, snapped to attention in front of the car, and bawled out that the building, the telegraph line, food and accommodation were all ready. He also reported that the town had been burning since the day of its capture, but that the fires were now under control thanks to the efforts of the troops allotted for the purpose. Then came a report from the town commandant, appointed three days previously by General Martos. He also introduced the large, fat burgomaster (the inhabitants, it seemed, had not left but were out of sight)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Driving into the town, they had not noticed at first a distant, incessant sound, muffled and dimmished by the hot air, hke the busy thump of countless sledgehammers. Postovsky was the first to stop and listen once or twice, cocking his head to one side. \"It's near.\" Too near to the site of Army Headquarters. The town commandant assured them that it was faraway. Then it was heard again, this time to the left. The noise indicated heavy fighting. Who could it be? While the Englishman turned away, Samsonov and Postovsky glanced at the map to orientate themselves. From this it appeared that the sound was coming from the left of Martos. Consequently, the most Hkely victim was Mingin's division, the unfortunate half of the still un-mustered XXIII Corps. Yet Mingin should have been farther forward than that.\n\nThey went up the steps into the cool interior. Outwardly very modest in its dimensions, the first floor of the building was taken up by a kind of hall, with carved shields around the walls and a triple Gothic_ window that seemed far too big for the building. Here the table was laid with antique silver and gold-crested goblets, and there was nothing further for them to do but cross themselves and sit down to eat. (Samsonov crossed himself, although he did not oblige anyone else to do so.)\n\nThroughout the meal, blue-gray smoke drifted at ground level between the church and the Rathaus.\n\nAnd the dull, distant sledgehammers went thump, thump, thump.\n\nThe lavish choice of wine promised numerous toasts, and in pleasurable anticipation of all that were to come, Knox rose to propose the first. The army commander's preoccupation, and a look of sad resignation in his big eyes, certainly not the elan of a man who was winning, had not escaped his attention during the long hours of their drive, and the Allied general felt it his pleasant duty to do something to raise the morale of the Russian generals and tell them how well they were doing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are writing a glorious page in the history of the Russian army!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he said. \" Generations to come will\n\nrecall the name of Samsonov along with the name of... Suvorov. Your troops are advancing magnificently and have aroused the admiration of all civilized Europe. You are doing a great service to the common cause of the Triple Entente... At this fateful moment when helpless Belgium is being savaged by a wild beast... at a moment when, not to mince words, a threat hangs over Paris itself, your courageous attack has made the enemy tremble!\"\n\nAt which they drained their glasses and from then on there was no avoiding the hail of toasts, which fellas thick and fast as a barrage of shells. To His Imperial Majesty the Tsar! To His Majesty the King of England! To the Triple Entente!\n\nIf it had not been for his distinguished foreign guest, Samsonov would not have sat down to that meal. He wanted to get the feel of the ground, to walk around the little town and inspect it on foot. He wanted to put his new location on the map and reexamine his dispositions; to see how near his formations were to him, by what routes they could be reached, which of them were linked to him by telegraph, and where the lines ran. He ought to have been making his own assessment of the heavy fighting to the northwest and to have sent someone thereto find out about it. He was still nagged by the urgent desire to sit down and think out his many problems and finally decide on a plan, and for this he needed a clear head. All the wines he was drinking seemed tasteless. But the laws of hospitality and of courtesy to anally obliged him to drink, and although the wines he gulped had no savor, they brought color to his cheeks and made him feel calmer and slightly lightheaded.\n\nPerhaps, after all, he was wrong to see nothing but gloom in a situation where this by no means unintelligent British general was so optimistic. Hoisting his massive body to its feet, the army commander proposed a brief toast. \"Gentlemen: I give you the Russian soldier, the soldier of Holy Russia, to whom endurance and suffering are second nature! As the saying goes: Killing a Russian soldier isn't enough, you have to knock him down as well!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "&\n\nHaving reported their arrival in Neidenburg to Army Group Headquarters, Postovsky tested each dish as it was carried in by the waiters from the hotel to make sure that it was not poisoned. This done, he would have been quite ready to enjoy the occasion had it not been for the gunfire, which sounded rather too close. He inspected the label of every bottle before pouring out the wines (marked with the names of the various estates, which Staff Captain Ducimetiere translated for him) and, overcoming his usual reticence, responded to the lavish praise of their guest. Yes, they had the Germans on the run all right! Yes, it certainly looked like victory! And if only First Army would advance with the same speed as Second...\n\nWith the arrival of two staff colonels, an argument broke out and, in the absence of a map, it was at once plain that there were several conflicting points of view. Everybody understood that Second Army was supposed to encircle and cutoff the Germans, but the officers conducting the operation had different conceptions of how this ought to be done: should the left wing or the right wing swing around in the encircling movement? It seemed impossible to cutoff East Prussia without making a left-flank movement, but in that case why was their left wing required to stay in position while the right wing swung around?\n\nGeneral Knox, however, took up the main point in Postovsky's argument and, deigning to rise (he had the trim figure of a sportsman), he announced as he proposed the next toast: \"The destruction of the army in Prussia will mean the end of Germany! All her main forces are pinned down in the west, leaving her exposed in the east. Once they have taken Prussia and forced the Vistula, the Russian armies will open up the shortest, most direct route straight to Berlin!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The goblets were raised but not yet drained when the duty officer, a captain, entered and stood waiting fora suitable opportunity to report to the army commander. Nodding to him to approach, Samsonov put down his glass untouched.\n\n\"General Artamonov wishes to speak to you on the line, sir.\"\n\nNoisily pushing back his chair and forgetting to excuse himself, Samsonov stumped heavily out of the room. He had had a premonition that something was afoot.\n\nHis expression changing abruptly, the chief of staff followed him across the slippery parquet floor.\n\nThe silence of the telegraph room was broken only by the monotonous tapping of the Hughes teletype machine. Samsonov picked up the flimsy tape in his large, white, soft hands.\n\n\"General-of-Infantry Artamonov presents his compliments to General-of-Cavalry Samsonov.\"\n\nCompliments reciprocated.\n\n\"General Artamonov considers it his duty to inform General Samsonov that together with Colonel Vorotynt-sev of the General Staff he has today had a telegraphic conversation with General Headquarters concerning I Army Corps'degree of subordination to Second Army Headquarters. The matter will be cleared up at General Headquarters. The commander-in-chief's final decision is not yet known.\"\n\n(Still arguing about that? Someone was trying to put a spoke in the wheel.)\n\n\"General Samsonov hopes, however, that General Artamonov has carried out the request of Second Army Headquarters to position his corps firmly to the north of Soldau to insure complete flank protection...\"\n\nYes, General Artamonov had done that before being requested to. Positions north of Usdau had been occupied and were being held.\n\nUsdau...(a look at the map to check)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had any enemy opposition been encountered when carrying out this move?\n\nNo, no opposition had been met yesterday. However, the very large enemy forces which he had reported this morning...\n\n\"You were sent reinforcements...\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, we have received them. The corps has today been under attack from these large forces, and it is for this reason that General Artamonov has felt it necessary to disturb General Samsonov.\"\n\n\"Exactly how large are these enemy forces, and what is the result of the engagement?\"\n\n\"All the attacks have been beaten off, and all units have stood their ground with great gallantry. Enemy strength, as far as can be determined, is greater than one army corps, probably three divisions. This has been confirmed by aerial reconnaissance.\"\n\nThe long, unbroken ribbon of tape passed from the army commander's fingers to Postovsky's, whence it fell in coils on the floor.\n\nSamsonov lowered his large head and stared at the ground.\n\nWhere, if East Prussia was as empty as it seemed, could such a large force have come from? Did this mean that the enemy's East Prussian army had managed to slip out of the trap prepared for it, but without retreating across the Vistula, and was not running away but starting to counter-attack on the left?\n\nOr were these fresh forces recently brought in from Germany itself?\n\nSo should he now, this minute, make the whole corps wheel left?\n\nHe had to make the decision now.\n\nThis minute.\n\nPerhaps, though, Artamonov was exaggerating. He was inclined to be over-excitable. Most likely he was exaggerating.\n\nArtamonov ought to attack at once, without waiting for agreement from General Headquarters... yet the orders were that he was to stay put, even though he now had one and a half corps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the machine ticked over without recording, Postovsky started picking up and straightening the tape to prevent it from getting in a tangle. \"General Samsonov earnestly requests the commander of I Army Corps to hold firm in his present position and not to withdraw on any account, as this will threaten the army's whole operation.\"\n\n\"General Artamonov assures the army commander that this corps will not flinch and will not retreat one step.\"\n\nAt about four o'clock in the afternoon Major General Nechvolodov was leading his detachment along a stony road toward Bis-chofsburg from the south. Nechvolodov, surrounded by several mounted men, was riding at a fast walkabout six hundred yards ahead of his detachment, a shamefully ill-assorted collection of units.\n\nTheoretically, Nechvolodov commanded an infantry brigade of VI Army Corps, having held a similar appointment in various divisions for the past six years. He had always regarded this useless post-placed over two regimental commanders and between them and the divisional commander-as having been created simply as a means of letting major generals forget how to command troops in the field, but despite this, he soldiered onto the best of his ability. However, on being posted to VI Army Corps in Bialystok, he was astounded to learn, only a day before the outbreak of war, that while retaining his post of brigade commander he was also appointed commander of the'corps reserve.\" \"Commander of the reserve\" existed as a tactical appointment, usually designated ad hoc fora particular operation when a reserve might be created to act as a screen force for the main body in an emergency, but this was the first time that Nechvolodov had heard of a reserve being nominated on the very day of general mobilization. General Blagoveshchensky had done it either because he had too many generals in his corps and did not know what to do with them, or because he was making preparations fora retreat before the war had even begun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The composition of the reserve, too, was odd in the\n\nextreme. It was made up of the two regiments of Nechvolodov's brigade, the Schliisselburg and the Ladoga regiments, to which they had simply tacked on various specialist units: a mortar regiment, a pontoon battalion, a company of sappers, a signals company, and seven squadrons of Don Cossacks (including the independent squadron which supplied the escort troops for corps headquarters, to which it was permanently attached). This was Nechvolodov's\"reserve.\" It was as thou^ corps headquarters regarded all these units not as essential auxiliary arms but as a hindrance, as though to Blagoveshchensky's mind they only served to confuse the simple organization of a corps on purely infantry lines: four companies to a battalion, four bat-taUons to a regiment, eight regiments to a corps. A further dehght which awaited Blagoveshchensky on taking over VI Army Corps was something which a corps commander rarely enjoyed. This was a regiment of heavy artillery, equipped with guns of a caliber seldom seen in the Russian army-6-inch howitzers. Having not the least idea how to integrate this unexpected gift into his corps, Blagoveshchensky allotted it too to the reserve. (As an experienced old soldier, he knew that if you were entrusted with a scarce kind of ordnance you were severely taken to task if you lost it. Because machine guns were so precious, he always tried to keep them away from the forward positions, usually at headquarters or in a mobile hospital.)\n\nNot that Nechvolodov was ever given the chance of mustering his motley reserve force together; in any case, it would have been pointless, as well as physically impossible. Even the hardcore of his force, the Schliisselburg regiment, was removed and sent forward, so that his brigade ceased to exist, while he himself was kept in the rear to protect the lines of communication. Now, feeling like a superfluous dummy, he was leading, in the wake of the main body, a detachment which consisted of his Ladoga regiment (short one battalion), the sappers, the pontooners, and the signalers, but without cavalry or artillery. To make matters worse, Nechvolodov knew that both divisions" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ahead of him were also under-strength, each having lost a quarter of their effectives on the way; one was short a complete regiment, the other had shed a dozen or so companies from various regiments.\n\n* Nechvolodov did not possess the usual grandiose attributes of a general-the puffed-out chest, the bloated face, the pompous dignity. Slim, long-legged (even mounted on a powerful staUion, he wore his stirrups low), laconic, serious-looking, and now deep in gloom, he looked more like a dull, unambitious officer permanently stuck in junior appointments.\n\nUntil now he had been depressed by the idiotic lines-of-communication work which had fallen to his lot and by the removal of the Schliisselburg regiment. Today a further cause for gloom was the behavior of the normally sensible corps headquarters, which had this morning leapfrogged ahead of Nechvolodov to Bischofsburg, soon after which heavy gunfire had opened up ahead of them, indicating that the fighting was uncomfortably close. For the last two hours he had been depressed even more by what he had seen moving rearward from the front line: empty supply wagons with terrified drivers, medical-corps vans carrying wounded, a herd of lame draft horses. Ashe went on, the wounded became more numerous, now including walking casualties from the Olonets regiment and the Belozersk regiment and a few from detached companies of the Ladoga regiment, among them an elderly reenlisted sergeant whom Nechvolodov personally knew well. Among the stretcher cases were several officers. Nechvolodov stopped everyone he met and questioned them briefly, trying to piece together from their excited, fragmentary accounts a picture of the fighting which had been going on since early that morning.\n\nAs always with eyewitness reports soon after the event, drawn from different sectors and given by men who have not yet had time to compare their accounts, the story that emerged was wholly contradictory. Some said that they had unwittingly spent last night right alongside the Germans, and that the Germans had not" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "been aware of this either. Others maintained that they had been marching along that morning, suspecting nothing, had been attacked when still on the hne of march, and had come under murderous gunfire completely unprepared and without time to dig in; what was more, the Germans had fired on them from the flank and not from ahead. A third group said that they had been deployed into Une of battle before the fighting began and had even had time to dig into waist height. Some of the ofi& cers thought that they had bumped into the flanking column of some Germans retreating from the east and that we had given them more of a fright than they had given us, but then the Germans had deployed a great deal of artillery and had put down some very heavy fire. We had been expecting them from the east, and orders had been given to send out guard patrols eastward. Others contradicted this, saying that our troops had been advancing northward. The Olonets regiment had even been deployed facing westward. But as soon as the heavy concentration of German guns had opened up (\"Fifty guns\"...\"No, a hundred!\"...\"Two hundred!\"...), firing shrapnel over the tightly packed Russian columns, they had torn great gaps in our ranks and decimated them. At once there was panic and confusion, thousands of casualties, only a dozen or so men left in one battalion. No, said another, our men stood their ground well... No, our company of the Belozersk regiment actually went into the attack... How could they have attacked when we were hemmed in by the lake? There had been nowhere to go, the men had thrown off their equipment, even thrown away their rifles and swum for it.\n\nOne thing was clear from the conflicting accounts: casualties had been heavy, and some battalions had been completely wiped out (in round numbers, a battalion contained a thousand men). The other fact that emerged was that after two weeks in which they had grown used to neither seeing nor hearing a trace of the enemy they had been advancing carelessly and too fast through unknown territory, without reconnaissance" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and in some cases without guard patrols. Thus, yesterday they had advanced more than three miles beyond Bischofsburg, crossing the Germans' most important railroad, which ran in a horizontal east-west axis through East Prussia, and had marched on in the same disorderly fashion as if they had been at home somewhere in Smolensk province, with supply wagons mixed up in the columns of line troops, obviously not expecting to meet any but Russian soldiers in this area. As a result, when the fighting had suddenly begun, there was no plan ready, no orders were given. The mass of troops had sensed this immediately and had broken up in disorder.\n\nHowever, not one of the wounded Nechvolodov met came from his Schlusselburg regiment, and it was impossible to find out where the regiment was and what had become of it. It was unfortunate that the troops of Nechvolodov's detachment behind him would also meet these same wounded; even on the march they would soon learn enough of the bad news from them.\n\nAlready the rumble of gunfire could be heard from the north. In the circumstances, even though Nechvolodov was stUl behind corps headquarters, the time had come for him to send out his own guard patrols.\n\nThe heat of the day had not noticeably lessened, but the sun had now passed around his left shoulder and was burning his left ear.\n\nJust as he caught sight of the gray and red spires and turrets of the town, which was undamaged by fire, Nechvolodov saw a cloud of dust approaching from the left along an unmetaled side road and made out a column of infantry of more than battalion strength, together with a battery of guns. They too were moving slowly and without suitable precautions.\n\nAlthough he was not expecting any enemy from that direction, by rights there should have been no forces on his left at all. This was just the sort of situation in which our troops had been attacked and taken by surprise. A glance through his binoculars, however, showed Nechvolodov that these were Russian troops. The column was led by amounted officer-a captain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "to judge by his epaulettes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His horse was extremely restless, puUmg sideways, trying to turn, jerking its head and baring its teeth as the rider strug^ ed to make it obey him. Nechvolodov had already noticed a very conspicuous black and red dog, with large floppy ears, running along the verge. A dog (each company had its own) was a sure sign that this was a unit of General Richter's division.\n\nAt the speed that they were going, the two men on horseback were due to meet at the crossroads at any moment. Noticing the general and the column behind him, the approaching officer turned his horse-^ the animal swung around more than was necessary and had to be reined back-and shouted to his men: \"Suzdal regiment! Halt! Ten minutes' smoke break! Fallout!\"\n\nThe oflScer gave his commands in a cheerful voice without a trace of fatigue, but his men were exhausted. They did no more than move off the road and, without even removing their greatcoat rolls, stopped only to pile arms before lying down on the dusty roadside grass, although there was a shady wood and clean grass no more than a hundred paces away.\n\nThe officer rode upon his restless bay horse, saluted with a flourish, and reported: \"Captain Raitsev-Yartsev, your ex'ency! Battalion adjutant of the 62nd Suzdal regiment!\"\n\nAshe spoke, one gold front tooth showed between his rather insolent lips. The horse rolled its eyes nervously and jerked its head.\n\nNechvolodov nodded at the horse. \"Not yours?\"\n\n\"Captured it two hours ago, your ex'ency, not used tome yet.\"\n\n\"But you're a cavakyman.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Was, your ex'ency, until God sent me to infantry for my sins.\"\n\nThis captain had the familiar gaiety, the devil-may-care spirit which is such an attractive characteristic of the true regular officer. \"We were born for war,\" it seems to say, \"and we only live when we are fighting.\" The same spirit had once burned in Nechvolodov, but it had been smothered with the passing years.\n\n\"Where did you get it?\"\n\n\"We passed an abandoned estate just down the road with some magnificent stables. I advise you to take a look. Just beside the lake, where it...\"\n\nNechvolodov's hand was already tugging at his side and he opened his map case.\n\n\"Aha, that's a fine map. There it is-Lake Daday.\" Ina whisper, he added an obscene word to rhyme with'Daday.\"\n\nNechvolodov gave a slight smile. \"How did you happen to be there?\"\n\n\"Because our division marched five miles from there... to there... We took a little walk, then we changed our mind and we walked back again!\"\n\nNechvolodov couldn't help liking this cheerful fellow, but the captain's horse was dancing about so much that they found it impossible to look at the map together. In any case, the heat was blistering.\n\n\"Let's go and sit in the shade,\" Nechvolodov suggested.\n\nThe gold-toothed captain nodded in agreement, and they handed their horses to an orderly.\n\n\"Misha!\" Nechvolodov called to his aide-de-camp, a pink, fat-cheeked lieutenant called Roshko whose skin glowed with youth and health. \"Let the column goon, and you ride ahead quickly and see if you can find a road to bypass Bischofsburg. If you can't, choose a street through the town which doesn't lead past corps headquarters.\" Keen and intelligent, Roshko understood at once and galloped off with a small detachment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nechvolodov and Raitsev-Yartsev sat down cross-legged in the cool of the wood, where the general pulled his map from its case and opened it out. Clenching his hand, showing a gold ring on the fourth finger, Raitsev-Yartsev used the long, sharpened nail of his index finger as a pointer and briefly gave the general all his information.\n\nYesterday their division, with only three regiments instead of the usual four, had taken upfront-line positions facing eastward, and the rumor was that the\n\nenemy had been boxed in there and would try to breakout. However, not a shot was fired. Then they were ordered to pullback to Bischofsburg, where they had hung around waiting all morning. Just before noon, the corps commander had ordered their division to march westward, to make a loop around the south of Lake Daday and to push onto AUenstein, a distance of nearly twenty-five miles. So, without having had time to eat, they had set off on their march, meeting no opposition and suffering agonies from the heat. But after they had gone about six miles and had already rounded the southern end of the lake, a dispatch rider from corps headquarters galloped up with anew order from General Blagoveshchensky: they were to return immediately to Bischofsburg and take up a position to the east of the town. Being the last in the divisional column, the Suzdal regiment had been the first to turnaround and had then headed the column on its way back. Meanwhile, an officer had come riding up with yet a third order: the Suzdal regiment only, together with two batteries of guns, was to continue along this route and wait in the vicinity of Bischofsburg at the disposal of the corps commander. The rest of the division was ordered to turn northward up the other side of Lake Daday and to advance beyond the end of the lake until it linked up with General Komarov's division, which was waiting on this side of the lake. It was only by sheer luck that the Suzdal regiment had happened to be in the rear of the column; if the Uglich regiment had been given that order, it would have had to push its way down the column past two regiments, and the Suzdal regiment would have had to struggle on in the original direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raitsev-Yartsev had begun by telling his story cheerfully, as though he had found all this confusion great fun, but Nechvolodov's deadly serious expression soon stopped the gold tooth flashing quite so gaily, and before long his only sign of animation was the pointed fingernail tapping the buckle of the general's map case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their corps commander was proving a veritable Napoleon in the wild abandon with which he maneuvered.\n\nHaving no wish to exercise command as though presiding over a charitable committee in the rear, he could now boldly stride about on enemy territory, crisscrossing every inch of the ground as he moved his regiments hither and thither. A quarter of his corps had been wiped out in the center-so his answer was to send half the corps marching off to the left! He seemed quite fearless; after all, hadn't he formed his reserve even before the outbreak of the war? Very well then, now let Nechvolodov get hun out of trouble.\n\nNechvolodov's detachment was now marching past the two ofl& cers toward Bischofsburg. Raitsev-Yartsev's battalion was still lying on the grass, the guns halted on the road, while the rest of the Suzdal regiment had not yet appeared. Nechvolodov ought to ride forward at once to find his Schliisselburg regiment and the divisional commander, but it was not so easy to reorient himself in view of the new information he had just been given. The previously familiar picture was now changing and threatening unexpected developments.\n\nUnits were being recklessly detached from their formations or cross-assigned, like the Suzdal regiment, which had just been placed under the direct command of the corps commander. For the divisional and regimental commanders, control and subordination had become hopelessly confused. Even if Richter, for instance, did manage to push his way around Lake Daday, how was he going to linkup with a division that had already been attacked and dispersed? What had happened to General Tolpygo's cavalry division on the right? Its lancer regiment had already been broken up for use as corps cavalry, while the division's lines of march and objectives were constantly being changed. The Germans, who were supposed to be on the right, had long since disappeared. And what of Rennenkampf on the right? He was enjoying the fruits of victory and saw no need to hurry, especially since to advance would involve such risks. The place seemed deserted-^ not a sound, not a shot to be heard. And where was XIII Army Corps on the left?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silence. Empty air.\n\n\"Well, thank you, Captain!\" Nechvolodov gripped Raitsev-Yartsev's hand with a callused palm, leaped into the saddle, and trotted with his orderly past his detachment to Bischofsburg.\n\nThe Germans had obviously prepared to defend the place. For the last few hundred yards leading into the town, the bushes had been cut down on both sides of the road in order to give good observation and fields of fire, and a dozen loopholes had been knocked out of the wall of the first building on the edge of the town, a large, brick-built warehouse.\n\nNone of this had been used.\n\nAlong column of walking wounded met General Nechvolodov as he entered the town. Instead of cross-questioning them, he merely shouted: \"Hey there! Any of you from the Schlusselburg regiment?\"\n\nThere were none.\n\nThe calm, round-faced Lieutenant Roshko was waiting for him at the warehouse. He reported that there was no road leading around the town, but he had found a suitable street and had put up signposts.\n\nNechvolodov rode off down the narrow, shady streets with their closely built houses to look for corps headquarters.\n\nSo many white bandages were to be seen on the streets and through windows that his first impression was that the town was full of Russian wounded. But there were also some civilian inhabitants. One German civilian, by no means old, and then two more, were being led off somewhere under escort. At a street comer a lancer officer was surrounded by a number of German women, all of them urgently talking at once and one after another pointing first at his sword, then at their own breasts. Farther on, two German women were carrying enameled buckets and giving the soldiers water to drink and joking with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nechvolodov recognized the corps headquarters building by General Blagoveshchensky's car and by the Cossack escort squadron. Roshko and the others remained outside while Nechvolodov bounded vigorously up the granite steps, strode through the arcaded\n\n►\n\nAugust 1914 205\n\nhallway, and began looking for the corps commander. Everything in the headquarters was packed inboxes and on the move, either because of their recent arrival or because they were about to leave. He failed to find either Blagoveshchensky or the chief of staff, but eventually ran into Colonel Nippenstrom from the quartermaster general's branch.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" said Nippenstrom in horror. \"Haven't you joined up with Komarov yet? He's been waiting for you fora longtime.\"\n\n\"I couldn't go any faster,\" Nechvolodov replied in a voice even colder and slower than usual. \"I want to seethe corps commander...\"\n\nNippenstrom waved his arms. \"I warn you-^ if the corps commander sees you, he'll wring your neck! If I were you, I should get out while the going's good.\"\n\n\"But where am Ito go? I haven't had any orders.\"\n\n\"What? You don't know? Your orders are to muster your reserve and cover the corps\" withdrawal. You'll find them all with Serbinovich...\"\n\n\"Where is my reserve? Where's my artillery?\"\n\n\"It's all there, just waiting for you.\"\n\n\"I've got the sappers, pontooners, and signalers with me...\"\n\n\"You can leave them all here!\"\n\n\"But Where's my Schlusselburg regiment?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Serbinovich knows all that. Go and see him. We're pulUng out. We got too far ahead...\"\n\nNippenstrom was in a hurry. He had to retransmit a wireless signal to XIII Corps saying that VI Corps had been attacked by heavy enemy forces and could not move up to Allenstein in support of XIII Corps. He had already sent the message once, and XIII Corps had acknowledged receipt of it but had sent no signal in reply. VI Corps had no forces available for the move toward Allenstein, but to avoid any awkward questions and to prevent Samsonov from vetoing his decisions, Blagoveshchensky had so far told his staff not to report this yet to Second Army Headquarters but only to notify the flanking corps.\n\nIn the deep shadow of a pillar between two Gothic\n\nwindows, tall, thin, and motionless as the forsaken statue of a knight, Nechvolodov stood drumming his fingers on the stonewall.\n\nSome staff officers were packing a large boxlike a cupboard lying on its side, and hauling it away. No one paid any further attention to Nechvolodov or questioned him. He went outside and mounted. Ashe rode away, he listened while Roshko reported that their detachment was already moving out on the road northward and that the Schlusselburg regiment was nowhere to be found.\n\nJust then a noise was heard outside corps headquarters, and Nechvolodov looked around. The car had started up. General Blagoveshchensky ran diagonally down the broad granite steps, not seeing Nechvolodov or anyone else on the square. The Chief of Staff and another officer with an armful of rolled-up maps ran after him. They got into the car, the doors slammed, and it started to turnaround on the little square to drive away. Blagoveshchensky took off his cap and crossed himself with a wide, sweeping gesture. As a result of either a jerk of the car or a gust of wind, the gray hairs fluttered on his old-womanish head, ahead too stupid to be entrusted with the simplest task." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the tale as the plot helper for the writer.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 3" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Serbinovich knows all that. Go and see him. We're pulUng out. We got too far ahead...\"\n\nNippenstrom was in a hurry. He had to retransmit a wireless signal to XIII Corps saying that VI Corps had been attacked by heavy enemy forces and could not move up to Allenstein in support of XIII Corps. He had already sent the message once, and XIII Corps had acknowledged receipt of it but had sent no signal in reply. VI Corps had no forces available for the move toward Allenstein, but to avoid any awkward questions and to prevent Samsonov from vetoing his decisions, Blagoveshchensky had so far told his staff not to report this yet to Second Army Headquarters but only to notify the flanking corps.\n\nIn the deep shadow of a pillar between two Gothic\n\nwindows, tall, thin, and motionless as the forsaken statue of a knight, Nechvolodov stood drumming his fingers on the stonewall.\n\nSome staff officers were packing a large boxlike a cupboard lying on its side, and hauling it away. No one paid any further attention to Nechvolodov or questioned him. He went outside and mounted. Ashe rode away, he listened while Roshko reported that their detachment was already moving out on the road northward and that the Schlusselburg regiment was nowhere to be found.\n\nJust then a noise was heard outside corps headquarters, and Nechvolodov looked around. The car had started up. General Blagoveshchensky ran diagonally down the broad granite steps, not seeing Nechvolodov or anyone else on the square. The Chief of Staff and another officer with an armful of rolled-up maps ran after him. They got into the car, the doors slammed, and it started to turnaround on the little square to drive away. Blagoveshchensky took off his cap and crossed himself with a wide, sweeping gesture. As a result of either a jerk of the car or a gust of wind, the gray hairs fluttered on his old-womanish head, ahead too stupid to be entrusted with the simplest task." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nechvolodov led his staff out of the town at a fast trot.\n\nStanding in the queue at a well, Yaro-slav Kharitonov heard a hearty shout of'Hey! Your honor!\" and turned around toward the road.\n\nA troop of four guns was passing and the man shouting at Yaroslav was the bullet-headed sergeant major, his acquaintance from the incident on the march the day before yesterday (it seemed Uke a month ago) when Kharitonov's platoon had helped to drag these same guns out of the sand.\n\n\"Aha!\" Yaroslav shouted delightedly, flinging both arms wide in a boyish and most un-ofi& cer-like greeting. \"Want some water?\"\n\n\"What kind of water? Not moonshine vodka, is it?\" asked the stocky, barrel-chested sergeant major, still as cheerful as before.\n\n\"Nice and fresh-come and taste it!\" said an infantryman from another regiment standing in the line. \"They've thrown rubbish on top and there's sand at the bottom.\"\n\nThe sun was already sinking toward the western horizon, but it was still hot.\n\n\"That's right-the Germans threw planks into the well, but we managed to fish them out!\" Yaroslav shouted. (He was ashamed of his clear, boyish voice, but unable to coarsen it.) \"And the water's very decent, we're all drinking it.\"\n\nThe sergeant major took off his cap and waved to his men to stop. He had sparse, fair hair and a completely round head, rather like a Dutch cheese, only bigger. It was adorned with a pair of bushy moustaches the color of wheat, waxed at the ends into two points.\n\nk" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The well stood at the entrance to an abandoned farm consisting of several houses set in a large meadow. The troop parked its guns by the roadside, then the drivers fetched buckets of water for their horses while the gun crews carried a large, tin water can with a screw cap, evidently German.\n\nOther troops always envied the artillery, as they could carry so much extra baggage on their limbers. Yaroslav envied them for something else. He complained to the sergeant major: \"Your men are real soldiers, believe me. Mine have come straight from the plow to march into Germany. What can you do with them?\"\n\nThe sergeant major grinned smugly. \"Gunnery's a science. Can't use plowboys in the artillery.\"\n\nDistinctly older than Yaroslav, the sergeant major was such an imposing, solidly built man that the young lieutenant felt embarrassed by his badges of rank and by the fact that, though so much slighter and shorter, he was the senior of the two. He attempted to compensate for this by treating him with unmilitary politeness. \"What should I call you?\"\n\n\"Why, sergeant major!\" The man smiled, wiping the sweat from his sunburned face.\n\n\"No, I mean, what is your name and patronymic?\"\n\n\"You don't talk to people like that in the army.\" The moustaches quivered on his cheese-like head.\n\n\"You talk to them hke that in normal life.\"\n\n\"Well, all my life I've just been called Terenty.\"\n\n\"What's your surname?\"\n\n\"Chernega.\" He was just going to ask in return, \"What's yours?\" but stopped as his sharp eyes and ears detected something in the farm buildings behind Yaroslav. Almost without looking for the man and without turning around, he gave an order to an artilleryman: \"Kolomyka! Something tells me I can hear chickens cackhng in that farm. Take two of the lads and go and look for them. Take Chuval with you, he'll know how to deal with them!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yaroslav was surprised and annoyed that this model NCO should be sending his well-disciplined artillery-\n\nmen scrounging. If they indulged in it, how could the other troops be prevented from looting? He warned them: \"The farm has been cleaned out. The inhabitants have gone and they've wrung the neck of the last cockerel. I did see some apples in the orchard, though.\"\n\nThey could see from where they stood that troops were already roaming about in the orchard, and although no one had asked or been given permission, others were drifting in that direction too. None of them, however, were men from Kharitonov's platoon, who were so exhausted that they were glad enough to lie down where they were until told to move again.\n\nBut Chemega was not to be put off. \"Maybe, but I still think there's something worth scrounging on the far side of the orchard. Take a couple of buckets and see if you can't find any combins. If there's any oats, give me a shout and we'll unharness the horses.\"\n\nChemega made his arrangements confidently, without asking his officers. However, noticing the indignant look on the good-natured face of the freckled young lieutenant, he said in explanation: \"There are two things the artillery can't do without-oats and meat. Without them, the horses can't pull the guns and the gunners can't pickup the shells. With a nice bit of roast goose under my belt, I'll fight anybody's war!\"\n\nHe'd added this last remark as an afterthought, his face gleaming at the notion of roast goose, and the way he said it made the wish seem perfectly right and proper. On the other hand, if everybody took this attitude... The thought worried Yaroslav." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your soldier's as decent a man as the next, it's only his uniform that makes him into a scrounger,\" Chemega added consolingly. \"They callus light artillery, but in battle order one of our guns weighs two tons. And a shell weighs nearly eighteen pounds-just you try slinging one of them about.\"\n\nKozieko was sitting on a large plank on the ground with his legs tucked underneath him, scribbling on his inevitable field message pad. Eyes and ears permanently on the alert, he gave Chemega a keen and disapproving stare.\n\nThe company commander shouted from a distance: \"Kharitonov! Follow me-hurry up, man!\" With two soldiers he galloped past the farm and around the corner at the end of the orchard, in the same direction as Chernega had sent his gunners.\n\nKozieko watched them go, then turned back to his message pad. Ashe wrote, he gnawed an apple, frowning with distaste either because it was sour or out of general disgust at what was happening.\n\nThe well was concrete and the wellhead above it threw along shadow on the ground. Clanking and banging it inside the concrete shaft, the men raised and lowered the single bucket, turning the windlass and winding the chain onto it with a swing of their strong arms. As soon as the bucket was up, they poured the water into billycans or buckets, jostling and hurrying, swearing at each other for clumsiness or for trying to grab a mouthful of water, upsetting buckets and splashing water until the ground was turned to mud, then pushing forward the empty billycans again in search of afresh 1511. The gunners carried their buckets at a run but without spilling them, to offer water to the big, soft mouths of their bridleless horses. The other soldiers complained that no well was deep enough to fill the gunners'great tin cans. To them it seemed unfair to stock up with water for future use; everyone ought to take as much as they could drink here and now and make do with that. \"... And don't use it to wash your faces with either, you blockheads-if you want to wash, go to the lake and stick your head in!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With all the noise, bustle, and cursing, the unceasing background rumble of gunfire to the west had become so familiar that the men no longer heard the sound of battle. The fighting was not many miles away, but they were separated from it by countless lakes. AH day, as they marched, there had been lakes on their left side, big and small ones, close at hand and faraway, and whatever the intentions of the higher command may have been, their line of march had been forced to veer northward, safely cutting them off from the nearby fighting.\n\nThere were also lakes to the right. An hour ago they had wound their way along a narrow, wooded, quarter-mile isthmus between two large lakes, Lake Plautzig and Lake Lansker, so wide that the unaided eye could only dimly seethe far side. They had moved so rapidly down the long, deserted, wooded corridor between the two lakes that even though they were now well clear of them their division was vulnerable only to another force making its way down the same corridor, and there was no sign of any such force.\n\nA man brought Terenty some water to drink. It was so cold that it hurt the throat, and it was muddy, but the thirst in his gut seemed unquenchable.\n\nChemega sat down on the same plank, inviting Yaroslav to sit beside him. He pulled a tobacco pouch from his pocket and untied the twin ribbons.\n\n\"When I put tobacco in my pipe, I smoke away all my troubles. Don't you smoke, your honor?\"\n\nHis initials'T. C.\" were carefully embroidered in elaborate curling letters on the black silk of the tobacco pouch.\n\n\"Sounds as if the earth's groaning, doesn't it?\" Cher-nega remarked as he looked in the direction of the setting sun. \"Yet we march along without patrolling the woods and I bet you there are Germans sitting up in those fir trees watching us with binoculars and passing back messages on their little telephones. Why, there's probably one sitting up there now ringing up and telling the German headquarters about us, telling them we're drinking water,\" Terenty said with conviction, looking toward the edge of the forest. All the same, he seemed quite unperturbed by this alarming idea, made no effort to run to investigate, and showed absolutely no signs of excitement, either from laziness or from the confidence bred of great strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant Kozieko, however, raised his head with a worried look and said: \" And what about guarding the flanks? We've been moving at such apace that it's all our flank patrols can do to keep up alongside the main column, and sometimes we even overtake our for-\n\nward patrols. We could easily be enfiladed by one man with a machine gun.\"\n\n\"The worst thing,\" Kharitonov added in an anxious voice, \"is not knowing anything. We've already covered ten miles today, and they say we've got to do another six by evening. The only news available is what you can pickup from the regimental commander's attendant. There was a rumor going around this morning that a Japanese division was coming to reinforce us!\"\n\n\"Yes, I heard that nonsense.\" Chemega nodded, puffing contentedly. The overwhelming strength and confidence he exuded seemed almost excessive.\n\n\"What rubbish! How could a Japanese division get here? Perhaps they mean a Russian division posted from the Far East.\"\n\n\"Others say that Kaiser Wilhelm is in command of the German army in East Prussia,\" Chernega put in, apparently quite undisturbed by the thought.\n\nKharitonov was strongly conscious of Chemega's commonsense, kindness, and experience. Although an officer was not supposed to complain to a sergeant major about the stupidity of the higher command, he could not help saying: \"And what happened the day before yesterday? They made us march twenty miles in one direction and twenty miles back again for no reason at all. I reahze that the situation might have changed and we weren't needed once we got there, but they might at least have sent us back by a shorter route. Why did we have to go back all the way through Omulefoffen? We could have got here without going through Omulefoffen again, and we would have had a day's rest like the other division.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chemega nodded calmly and understandingly as he smoked his pipe. It was his imperturbable acceptance of everything that Yaroslav particularly wished he could acquire.\n\n\"And did you hear that rifle fire an hour ago?\" put in Kozieko. \"It could easily mean that the Germans have broken through at the rear.\"\n\nChewing the stem of his pipe, Chemega said out of\n\nthe comer of his mouth: \"What's he writing about? He's not noting down what we say, is he?\"\n\nYaroslav laughed. \"Are you a regular?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, I'm not\" such a fool.\" Although it was set at a very jaunty angle, his cap was firmly planted on his round head.\n\nYaroslav did not know how to ask what he longed to find out: what sort of a man was this sergeant major? How was he to place him?\n\n\"Er, are you... from the town or the country?\"\n\n\"Well... I suppose you'd say I come from the country...\" Chernega answered haltingly and grudgingly.\n\n\"From which province?\"\n\n\"Kursk, I suppose... or Kharkov.\" He frowned.\n\nYaroslav was reluctant to leave this cheerful giant of a man, but he did not know how to talk to him properly.\n\n\"Married, children?\" he inquired affably, his manner almost supplying Chernega in advance with an aflirma-tive reply.\n\nChernega looked at the lieutenant and rolled his round eyes. \"Why bother to get married if your neighbor's got a wife?\"\n\nAt that moment the artilleryman who had been sent scrounging came running up at full tilt and reported to his sergeant major in a whisper, so that the others should not hear: \"There's oats here! And smoked ham! And a beehive! The owner left this morning. There's only one watchman, a Pole, and he says take what you want. I've put sentries on the farmhouse. Better hurry. The infantry have already started grabbing the horses and killing the chickens.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instantly, Chernega came to life and with a businesslike air jumped upon his short, powerful legs. This was just the news he had been waiting for. He shouted to his men: \"Come on, lads! Harness up! Look lively! Get moving!\" Turning to Kolomyka, the artilleryman, he said: \"You lead the troop and I'll go and tell the captain.\"\n\nUnder its jaunty peaked cap, Chemega's sweaty cheese of ahead radiated decisiveness and self-confidence.\n\nAll pulling together, the men dragged the guns to the bend in the road by the orchard, where they stopped and hitched on the ammunition limbers.\n\nJust then a couple of two-horse chaises and a sprung four-wheeler came trotting merrily toward them around the bend from behind the orchard. The watchful Kozieko, who never missed a thing, glanced at them from a distance, recognized them, and said at once: \"There you are-^ first the battaUon commander and now the company commanders are trotting around in chaises, and the chaplain has found himself a four-wheeler. They have so many soldiers acting as coachmen that soon there won't be anybody left to do the fighting.\"\n\n\"That's just fine!\" said Yaroslav angrily. \"You're not much better. Why'did you pinch those apples?\"\n\n\"Oh, the devil led me astray,\" said Kozieko, throwing away his uneaten apple without regret. \"I don't need anything from Germany, except to get out of the place alive...\"\n\n\"You'll survive, I'm sure you will!\"\n\n\"Why do you think so?\" Kozieko looked up hopefully from his notepad. \"A direct hit's not very likely, of course, but all this shrapnel...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"God helps those who help themselves! I expect you'll be sent off to buy cattle. Goon, put your notebook away and make your platoon fall in.\"\n\nThe sun was now well down in the sky, and even if they did not go into action that day, they were bound to goon marching and marching until long after dark. Another battaUon had come to the well, and the leading companies of theirs had already fallen in and were marching off. Yaroslav called to his platoon to fall in.\n\nAs they slogged forward, the sweating, grumbling infantry were overtaken and pushed aside by several mounted staff and senior officers escorted by half a dozen Cossack cavalrymen, two of whom wore fresh bandages, the leading ofi& cer, a grim-looking, unshaven\n\ncolonel, stopped his horse and looked at Kharitonov. The slim, keen young lieutenant ran up, snapped to attention, and reported.\n\nAt that moment, from the far side of the orchard, there came the faint but distinct squeal of a pig.\n\n\"Are those your men looting. Lieutenant?\"\n\n\"No, Colonel! My men are here.\"\n\n\"Then why aren't you marching? Where's your company commander?\"\n\nKharitonov turned his head, but the company commander's chaise had disappeared.\n\n\"I'll go and find him,\" he said hastily.\n\n\"You'll be punished for this,\" the colonel said, but automatically and without malice. \"Don't you realize that you are under orders to make a forced march? You've got to reach the railway line today and then advance a further five miles along the line to the right. And you spend your time messing around at this well. Where's the battalion commander?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Up ahead, sir.\"\n\nThis news made no sense to Yaroslav. If the Germans were supposed to be on the left, why were we turning away to the right?\n\nThe mounted men set off again. Probably even they could make no sense of all this confused movement in the forest among the lakes.\n\nThe officers were from the headquarters of XIII Army Corps. An hour ago they had narrowly escaped death when they had come under heavy fire from their own infantry, who had mistaken them for Germans. To prevent it happening again (on the previous day, one of the staff cars had also been knocked out by rifle fire from Russian troops), they had brought an escort of six Cossacks, whose cavalry lances would make them conspicuous; but in spite of this, some Russian infantry had mistaken them fora German. advance guard and had opened fire on them at two hundred yards' range.\n\nThey were on their way from Army Headquarters with the latest orders, which were that their corps should speedup its advance on Allenstein. But meanwhile, VI Army Corps, lost faraway to the right, had\n\nsent back an unexpected wireless signal, which was obviously important because it had been transmitted twice in succession. Unfortunately, XIII Army Corps Headquarters had been unable to decipher it because the code did not seem to fit, so no one there knew what to make of it.\n\nThe mounted party stopped when it reached the guns, having caught up with two of the battalion commanders, to whom the colonel gave an angry lesson in how to conduct a forced march.\n\nTwo or three miles farther along the forest road, ahead of the regiment, they came across two German civilians laid out by the wayside who had been disfigured by blows and run through with lances.\n\n\"This is your men's work, I have no doubt,\" the colonel said to the senior Cossack sergeant, who had been wounded when they were fired on by their own infantry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, as his jaw was bandaged.\n\nFrom alone house nearby poured a column of thick black smoke, foretelling the imminent outbreak of fire.\n\nWhen Nechvolodov arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon, the divisional commander, General Komarov, who had been waiting for him, directed him to take up positions and hold them, adding that further orders would follow in writing; Komarov and his staff then disappeared in the wake of corps headquarters. He did not use a map to describe Nechvolodov's task, but simply waved his hand through the air, saying that today's advance from the north by the Germans was'highly unexpected,\" that he was not even certain whether this represented the main thrust, and that it might only be a wheeling movement by their flank, but at all events the Belozersk regiment was holding a defensive line to the north and must be relieved. He then begged Nechvolodov not to mistake Richter's half division for Germans and fire on them, as they were marching around Lake Daday from the west and were due to arrive any moment to reinforce him. The divisional chief of staff, Colonel Serbinovich, not only was unable to give Nechvolodov any information on the disposition and strength of the enemy but could not even tell him anything of the whereabouts and fighting strength of the remaining Russian units. Assuring him that a heavy-artillery regiment and a mortar regiment were already in position well forward, he then announced, without giving any reason, that he was withdrawing one battalion of the Ladoga regiment. Meanwhile, he could say nothing definite about the Schliisselburg regiment, which had been deployed eastward during the previous night, nor could he say exactly where the divisional headquarters\n\nwould next be located, promising only to send him regular dispatch riders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They disappeared so quickly that Nechvolodov did not even notice them going. A Ueutenant from the Belozersk regiment, who happened to pass by, reported that he had just seen their regimental commander getting into a car with General Komarov, and that they had driven off toward Bischofsburg. Asked about his regiment, he said that the Belozersk had suffered heavy losses that morning and had just received orders to withdraw completely; however, two of their battalions were still in their forward positions.\n\nSo Nechvolodov, left with only two battalions of the Ladoga regiment, pushed on in search of his artillery. Cautiously, using patrols, he moved along the undamaged railway line to Rothfliess station, where a curving branch line merged smoothly with the mainline. There, behind a wood, he actually saw a battery of 4.2-incli guns in firing positions, and slightly farther on, a battery of 6-inch howitzers. The remainder were presumably in position somewhere nearby.\n\nThe tense feeling in the general's chest relaxed.\n\nHardly had Nechvolodov reached the stone-built shelter in Rothfliess station than he was met by the commander of the mortar regiment, a man with curled black moustaches, and the commander of the heavy-artillery regiment. Colonel Smyslovsky, who was short, with ahead so bald that it shone in the sunlight, but also had along, grayish-yellow beard like a magician's and an air of great confidence.\n\nNechvolodov had seen both men perhaps a couple of times in the past few weeks, but now he was particularly struck by a joyful gleam in the colonel's eyes, as though he had done nothing but wait for this opportunity to go into action and was positively beaming at the chance of firing his guns. (At least they now had the consolation that they were not going to leave their carefully prepared positions.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is your regiment all here?\" Nechvolodov asked, shaking him by the hand.\n\n\"All twelve guns.\" Smyslovsky nodded. \"Ammunition?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sixty rounds per barrel. And there's more in Bischofsburg which can be brought up.\"\n\n\"Are they all in firing positions?\"\n\n\"Yes, all of them. And all linked by telephone.\"\n\nThe practice of linking the forward observation officers with the concealed gun positions was still something of a novelty, and not all artillery officers knew how to do it properly.\n\n\"And did you have enough telephone equipment?\"\n\n\"Enough to run a line here as well. The mortar regiment helped us.\"\n\nNechvolodov inquired no further. There was no time to go into details, but he did notice the mortar colonel stroking his curled moustaches with a satisfied expression.\n\n\"And how much ammunition do you have?\"\n\n\"Seventy rounds per barrel.\"\n\nAll the rest was so obvious that it was left unsaid: that they would fire, that they would not retreat without orders. Nechvolodov was greatly heartened by having such good guns, such good commanding officers-and a telephone link to boot.\n\nThe need for rapid action was now acute. Within the space of a few minutes he had to take in the layout of the ground, determine the enemy's positions and his own, select a defensive line to be occupied by the Ladoga battalions, agree with the gunners on a common observation post, payout the telephone wires, and shoot in the guns by registration fire on fixed targets. If, within those few minutes, mistakes were made in organizing, selecting, or dispatching, and the orders were given in the wrong sequence or incorrectly, then they could not be put right within the next half hour, and if in that half hour the Germans attacked or started firing, then all the men's keenness, their good telephone communications, and their sixty rounds per barrel would be useless; they would simply have to run for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was one of those moments in war when time contracts to an explosion, when action must be instantaneous and nothing can be put off.\n\n\"We must do something about the water tower,\"\n\nSmyslovsky declared. \" We shot in on all the more distant registration points, but then the enemy moved further forward. ' \n\nWithout a word, Nechvolodov ducked his head under the low doorway of the shelter and went out, followed by the two artillery officers. They ran across the tracks, hot and smelling of warm train oil.\n\nNechvolodov called up one of the battalion commanders (his regimental commander had left with the others, but he would have been superfluous anyway) and ordered him to move immediately to relieve the Belozersk battalion, adding that if he thought their position had been badly cbosen he was to select another and dig trenches, even if only shallow ones, if he and his men wanted to stay alive.\n\nA faint crack was heard from behind a distant wood, the sound drew nearer, and a German shrapnel shell burst in a yellow cloud ahead of them, slightly above the water tower and to the left of it.\n\n\"They've fired a few rounds in this direction already today,\" Smyslovsky said approvingly. \"But we don't fij'e back and they soon stop.\"\n\nAs they climbed up the wooden ladder inside the water tower, Nechvolodov untangled the strap of his binoculars. At the top of the ladder there was a platform which commanded a view to the west and to the north. Some signalers with a couple of hand-cranked field telephones were already sitting there. No observation was possible at the moment through the westward-looking window, as it was glazed and the yellow light of the setting sun was blinding, but there was a good view from the northward window, as the panes had been smashed and there would be no flash of light from binoculars to draw the Germans' attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They spread out the map on top of a chest against the wall near the telephones. All they knew of the situation was what they could see with their own eyes and what they could piece together in their imagination.\n\nThe Germans lobbed over one high-explosive shell, then another-probably also registration shots. There was movement and troop concentration on the other\n\nside of the mainline toward Gross-Bessau, also along the edge of the wood, but no enemy column or skirmishing line was to be seen moving in their direction. At any moment, however, they might start coming.\n\n\"Are any of our troops still left up there, toward Gross-Bessau? There's no danger of firing on our own men, is there?\" said Nechvolodov.\n\n\"I am assuming that there are none,\" Smyslovsky replied.\n\n\"There were-plenty,\" said the moustached mortar officer in a serious voice. \"There were too many of them, and that's why they had such heavy casualties.\"\n\nIt was true: there had been no dead bodies on the way to Rothfliess. Plenty of Prussians were lying dead between Rothfliess and Gross-Bessau, but they no longer exactly answered to the description of'our troops.\"\n\n\"The sun on our left-perfect for firing northward!\" said Smyslovsky. \"There's a German trig point on a little hill just up there. How I'd love to knock it out!\"\n\nJust then a German battery fired a few rounds from the direction of the lake to their left. This meant that there must be some German infantry there too, and therefore that General Richter's division could not get through. Nechvolodov ordered the second Ladoga battalion to take up a position facing west and to divide the regimental machine-gun detachment between its two flanks. Now he had no more men left. To the right, extending from northeast to east, a complete sector was still unmanned, but there was no one to put there. Serbinovich had removed a battalion of the Ladoga regiment without saying why and Nechvolodov had tacitly allowed it to go. There had been a time when as a young man he had hotly contested everything, but after his long years of service, frustration had tightened the skin around his cheekbones and he had learned to be silent-when to shut his mouth, and when to keep it shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Besides, the lances of Rennenkampf's cavalry might appear on the right at any moment. As in the Japanese war, however, the cavalry were doing little of the real fighting; it seemed to be the policy to conserve them.\n\nand commanders were praised when they did so. Tnere was not a sign of life from Rennenkampf. This being so, Biagoveshchensky had probably done right by withdrawing. If Rennenkampf's army was immobile and out of touch far to the right, who was therefor Biagoveshchensky to hnk up with?\n\nIf Second Army's advance into Prussia could be likened to the head of a bull, then this detachment at Rothfliess station was the tip of its right horn: it had driven two-fifths deep into the body of East Prussia. By holding Rothfliess station, they were cutting the main one of the two railway lines by which the Germans could move laterally across Prussia; obviously, the station was vital to the Germans. Therefore, the sensible thing would have been to send the whole of VI Army Corps here.\n\nHowever, Nechvolodov and his men could at least be grateful that they were spared the intolerable interference from the pack of fools which made up the corps headquarters. Their tiny, vulnerable force now constituted the tip of the horn; the most they could do was see that they didn't make any stupid mistakes.\n\nTwo battery commanders appeared and began shouting orders.\n\nIf only they could find someone to man the right-hand sector, they might be able to holdout until dark.\n\nFrom their vantage point they could see movement as the Belozersk regiment pulled back, the infantry marching and horse-drawn carts moving along the edge of the wood on the far side of the station. The German gunfire had grown more intense and the retreating troops were glad to get out of an untenable position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Nechvolodov climbed down from the water tower, a tall officer with a desperate expression on his clean-shaven, fleshy face came bounding toward him with huge strides. His last bound brought him up short in front of the general; he flung his arm up in a sweeping salute that ended almost behind his ear and reported in a booming bass voice: \" Lieutenant Colonel Kosachevsky, battahon commander, Belozersk regiment, reporting, your excellency! We think it's a disgrace to\n\nleave you here. Please grant us permission not to withdraw!\"\n\nBadly off balance, the colonel staggered and almost fell on top of the general, the look of desperation still flashing from beneath his spruce eyebrows.\n\nNechvolodov looked at him as though he did not understand. Then his mouth twisted into a harsh grimace and he growled: \"Well, hm... I suppose...\"\n\nAnd his long arms embraced Kosachevsky just as the man was about to fall.\n\nThe long, thin line of troops continued retreating into the distance, wagons swaying, men hobbling, limping, and marching as best they could.\n\nCould these men really want to stay? Or was it only the oflBcers who wanted to-^ perhaps only Kosachevsky himself?\n\n\"How many are you?\"\n\n\"Well, we've been badly knocked about. But we still have two and a half companies.\"\n\n\"Right, turn them around. I'll show you where you're to put them...\"\n\nAhready single rounds were whistling cheerfully through the ah: as the Russian guns fired their registration shots, while German high-explosive shells, bursting in black fountains of earth, began throwing up deadly steel spUnters. Soon the Germans were firing in salvos, quickly answered by battery fire from the Russian guns-four at a time from Smyslovsky's men and six at a time from the mortar regiment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rubbing his hands and dancing with joy, the bald, bearded colonel greeted Nechvolodov on top of the water tower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've hit it, General! We've knocked out their trig point!\"\n\nBut Nechvolodov did not have time to congratulate him. There was a roar like a gigantic tree faUing and a hideous whistle came toward them.\n\nThe water tower shuddered and was enveloped in a cloud of dust.\n\nWhen the guns fire, it is obvious without reconnaissance that the enemy is not running away but is in strength. When the guns fire, the imagined strength of the enemy grows in proportion to the force and volume of the noise. Over there, on the other side of the woods and hills, one imagines the threat of massed ground forces-a division, perhaps, or even a corps.\n\nAnd then again perhaps the enemy's troops are not so strong. Perhaps they are only two under-strength battahons, one of them badly knocked about, whose entrenching tools have only just started to chip the ground as the men dig themselves foxholes.\n\nBut in order to create this effect, the artillery must know its job. It must not run out of ammunition, and it must be well positioned so that the gun pits cannot be spotted, either by smoke or flash, in sunlight or at twilight after the sun has set.\n\nSmyslovsky and the colonel commanding the mortar regiment saw to all these things, as Nechvolodov had expected, having summed them up at first glance as born commanders. And if a man is a born commander, more than half of the success of a military operation depends on him. Nechvolodov had sensed, almost since birth, that he too had a natural gift to command. It was this which had encouraged him at the age of seventeen to leave the Military Academy of his own freewill, to volunteer for regular service, and to earn his commission from the ranks no later than his contemporaries trained in the hot-house atmosphere of the cadet school. He had then immediately started studying for admittance to the General Staff Academy, from" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "which he was graduated at the age of twenty-five not only at the top of his class but having earned accelerated promotion for outstanding competence in military science.\n\nToday fortune had happily brought these three men together, adding Lieutenant Colonel Kosachevsky for good measure, and with then-miserable Uttle handful they had achieved the impossible: in the confined space around Rothfliess station, fora whole afternoon and evening, they had held up a powerful and growing enemy force heavily supported by artillery.\n\nSoon after six o'clock the enemy had begun, after a short bombardment, by advancing on them from the north, not ma skirmishing line but in column of march, so confident were they after their success earlier in the day. At once, however, all twenty-four guns having completed their registration shots, the two artillery regiments opened up with an oblique hail of shrapnel on the advancing troops from five concealed firing positions, dousing them with black fountains of high explosive and driving them back until they disappeared into the woods and behind the folds in the ground.\n\nMeanwhile, the Russian infantry battalions hurriedly dug themselves in while the Germans were halted and silenced.\n\nThe sun crawled slowly down to the horizon.\n\nIt is the natural instinct of every born commander to be prepared to hold on and not to retreat, to regard each particular engagement as the fight of his life, as the culmination of his military career. And thus they held their ground today, forced to it by the enemy, by their disposition, by circumstances. Even so, they would greatly have preferred to have been given orders telling them how long they were to stay there, whether they were going to be reinforced, and what further action to take. No such orders came. The promised dispatch rider never arrived; no one brought instructions or information, no one even came to see if they were still alive. Having made their hasty withdrawal, the corps and divisional headquarters seemed to have forgotten about the men they had left behind" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as reserve-either that, or the headquarters themselves had ceased to exist.\n\nAt twenty minutes past six, Nechvolodov sent a message to the divisional commander asking for further instructions. Without knowing properly whereto go, an orderly was sent off with the message.\n\nThe Germans spent sometime observing and regrouping. They inflated and started to send up a captive observation balloon, which would undoubtedly have pinpointed all the Russian batteries, but something went wrong and it did not rise. They then opened fire from three positions simultaneously, smashed what was left of the water tower, and destroyed all the station buildings, but not before Nechvolodov and his staff had taken refuge in a solid-stone cellar. Finally, the Germans cautiously started pushing out skirmishing patrols from the extreme limits of their positions, but at this the Russian batteries, still unlocated and undamaged, opened fire along the boundaries of the German position, while the mortars brought down a barrage of indirect fire on their troops concentrating out of sight behind cover.\n\nThe sunset behind the lake, whence there soon rose a delicate new moon. The Russians who observed it saw it over their left shoulders, the Germans over their right.\n\nIt grew bitterly cold as the dusk turned into a starry night. With the fall in temperature, the reek of explosives and the smell of destruction were quickly dissipated and carried upward. Everyone put on their greatcoats.\n\nAround eight o'clock the Germans fell silent, either from a general human inclination to regard the evening as the end of the day's efforts or because their preparations were not yet complete. Orders were at once given for everyone to be fed with a combined lunch and supper, which was already cooked and waiting. The infantry battalions were ordered to post forward pickets, and Nechvolodov climbed up onto the ruined wall of the station to catch a last look at the terrain in the final moments of gray twilight. While he could still read the face of his watch, he realized to" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "his amazement at eight o'clock, and again at a quarter past eight, that three hours had passed and no one had come from divisional headquarters.\n\nCarefully picking his way down from the ruined wall and into the cellar, where his long shadow stretched behind him to the very top of the vaulted ceiling, Nechvolodov squatted down on his haunches beside a small candle and on his knee wrote a message to the divisional commander:\n\n20.20 hours. Rothfliess station.\n\nSituation now quiet. Unable locate your position. [How else was he to imply'you've runaway\" to his superior oflficer?] Holding position Rothfliess station with two battalions Ladoga regiment. [He could not mention Kosachevsky's battalion; the latter had disobeyed orders by not withdrawing.] Am trying make contact with 13th, 14th, and 15th regiments. [Meaning, without actually saying so, with all the rest of the division.] Await your orders.\n\nHe went out of the cellar, and as he was dispatching a runner with the message, he could just make out the short, bearded figure of Smyslovsky striding toward him in the darkness.\n\n\"Not much in the way of good news, I'm afraid,\" Smyslovsky said in a cheerful voice. \"We have about twenty rounds per gun left, and the same goes for the mortars. I've sent off for some more, but I can't be sure that they'll bring them. What on earth is going on in Bischofsburg?\"\n\nShould they put the batteries into line of march? That would mean withdrawal.\n\nHowever, there was something to be thankful for-both artillery regiments had only a very few wounded, and even those were light cases. Casualty returns had just come in from the infantry battalions, and they too had escaped very lightly, with far fewer wounded than in the morning's fighting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He who resists is not defeated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Defeat only happens when you start to run.\n\n\"I've been picking up some of the German shell splinters,\" Smyslovsky said cheerfully. \" They were fir-\n\ning at us with little small-caliber mortars-twenty-one centimeters, apparently. They'll never do any damage with those! All the same, I expect they'll knockout this cellar tomorrow.\"\n\nThe wounded, coming in from the infantry battalions, were being treated in the blacked-outfield dressing station and sent back to Bischofsburg.\n\nThe slight creak of the ambulance wagons betrayed the movement on the road.\n\nStaff and signals officers were walking to and fro, signalers and medical orderlies were talking, and although they kept their voices low, the murmur had a healthy, confident ring about it. After their long day's march, in which they had encountered so many wounded and frightened men, all the troops in Nech-volodov's force were heartened by the feeling that they had won the day.\n\nThe silent, windless night grew colder. There was not a sound from the Germans. In the darkness the ruins were invisible and the peaceful starlit sky, in which the young moon had already set, arched overhead like a dome.\n\n\"By nine o'clock it will have been four hours since we heard from them,\" Nechvolodov said as he sat down on the sloping, curved roof of the cellar. \"Is it nearly nine o'clock?\"\n\nSmyslovsky, who had sat down beside him, looked up into the sky, shifted a little, and said: \"It's just coming up to nine o'clock.\" \"How can you tell?\" \"From the stars.\" \"But... so precisely?\"\n\n\"One acquires the knack. I can always tell it to within a quarter of an hour.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you made a special study of astronomy?\" \"A good artilleryman has to.\"\n\nNechvolodov knew of the Smyslovsky family; there were four brothers, all four artillery officers, all competent, even learned. Somewhere he had already met one or other of the brothers.\n\n\"What is your name and patronymic?\"\n\n\"Alexei Konstantinovich.\"\n\n\"Where are your brothers?\"\n\n\"One of them is here, in I Army Corps.\"\n\nNechvolodov felt in his greatcoat pocket for an electric torch which he had forgotten until then. It was a well-made German torch, found that day and given to him as a present by a sergeant. He shone it on his watch.\n\nIt was three minutes to nine.\n\nWithout getting down from the cellar roof, he quietly gave orders fora mounted dispatch rider to get ready, shone his light on his field knapsack, and began writing with an indelible pencil. Directing the spot of light across the paper, he wrote:\n\nTo: General Blagoveshchensky. 21.00 hours, Roth-fliess station.\n\nMy force of two battalions of the Ladoga regiment, one mortar regiment and a heavy-artillery regiment, constitutes general corps reserve. Ladoga battalions have been committed to action. No orders received from divisional commander since 17.00 hours.\n\nNechvolodov\n\nWho else could he write to? And how else was he to tell them in military language that it was now four hours since they had runaway to save their own skins, the cowards! Answer, for God's sake! We can holdout here, but where the hell are you all?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smyslovsky read it through, then Lieutenant Roshko handed it to the dispatch rider, who galloped off. Nechvolodov issued further instructions that the infantry battalions were to strengthen their guard patrols.\n\nNo more was said. Pulling up his knees and clasping his arms around them, Nechvolodov satin silence on the sloping cellar roof. He was a difficult man to talk to, although Smyslovsky knew that this general was no mere simple soldier and that he wrote books in his spare time.\n\n\"Am I disturbing you? Would you like me to go?\"\n\n\"No, do stay.\"\n\nWith that, Nechvolodov lowered his head and lapsed into impenetrable silence.\n\nThe time dragged on. An unknown factor might\n\neasily change the situation, something stirring or moving forward in the darkness. By itself, the thought of losing one's Ufe, dying, was terrible to consider, but as long as two thousand men were forced to sit in hiding, abandoned and forgotten in the peaceful darkness among the ruins, it was somehow not so terrible.\n\nThe stillness was so deep that the violence and noise of only a short while ago seemed incredible-indeed, the war itself seemed incredible. The soldiers hid themselves, concealing movements and muffling sounds; of ordinary peaceful folk there was no trace, no lights, everything dead. The lifeless earth, its features indistinguishable in the dense blackness, lay under a sky alive with movement and constantly changing, a sky in which everything had its place, knew its limits, and acknowledged the laws which governed it.\n\nSmyslovsky leaned comfortably back on the curved cellar roof, stroked his long beard, and looked at the sky. In this position he had, spread out before him, the jewel-like necklace of Andromeda stretching out toward the five, scattered, bright stars of Pegasus. Gradually this pure, eternal brilliance calmed the anxiety which had caused the colonel to come here, to insist to Nechvolodov that his fine batteries of heavy guns should not be left in firing positions without ammunition and almost without protection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lay there a httle longer and then said: \"It's extraordinary. Here we are fighting for someplace called Rothfliess station. And yet our whole planet earth...\"\n\nSmyslovsky had a lively, restless, well-endowed mind which could not let a moment pass without harnessing itself to a thought and putting it into words.\n\n\"... is the prodigal son of the reigning luminary. It lives entirely off the light and heat given out by its father. But every year they're growing less and less, and the oxygen in the atmosphere is getting thinner. The moment will come when our warm blanket will be worn out and all life on earth will perish... If only everyone would bear that in mind all the time, what would East Prussia... or Serbia, mean to us then?\"\n\nNechvolodov said nothing.\n\n\"And what is the inside of the earth? Nothing but a molten, super-heated mass trying to get out. The earth's crust is about thirty miles thick, something hke the thin peel of a Sicilian orange or the skin on a saucepan of boiling milk. And the whole prosperity of mankind depends on that skin...\"\n\nNechvolodov still had nothing to say.\n\n\"It happened once before, about ten thousand years ago, that nearly all life was destroyed. But it hasn't taught us anything.\"\n\nNechvolodov continued to rest in silence.\n\nThere began between them, by tacit agreement, along suspension of talk. Smyslovsky must have known of Nechvolodov's Tales from Russian History, which he had written in simple language that peasants could understand, and since Smyslovsky belonged to the educated classes, it was most likely that he disapproved of the book. But just as war shrinks to nullity compared with the vastness of the sky, so the difference in outlook between the two men receded that evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, although it receded, it did not disappear completely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smyslovsky had mentioned Serbia just now. Serbia was being attacked by a powerful and rapacious nation and the need to defend Serbia could not be diminished even by comparison with the stars.\n\n\"And then again-^ what is the origin of life on earth? When people thought that the earth was the center of the universe, it was natural enough to regard all forms of life as being confined to earthly existence. But is this view reasonable when we know, as we do now, that the earth is just a small and insignificant planet? All scholars are baffled by this dilemma... Life was brought to us by some unknown force; we don't know where it came from, or why...\"\n\nNechvolodov found this line of thought rather more to his liking. Military life, consisting as it did of a series of unequivocal commands, allowed no scope for ambiguities. But when he was reflecting at leisure, he believed in two planes of existence, which to him explained the marvels of Russian history. However, he\n\nfound this a subject on which it was a great deal harder to talk than to write.\n\nHe now repHed: \"Yes... you see everything on avast scale... but I can't see farther than the boundaries of Russia.\"\n\nThis attitude was bad enough; it was even worse that a good general should write bad books and regard it as his vocation. In Nechvolodov's scheme of things, Orthodoxy was always right as opposed to Catholicism, the Muscovite throne was justified when it fought against Novgorod, Russian morals were better and purer than those of the West. It was much easier to talk to him about cosmology.\n\nBut Nechvolodov had mounted his hobbyhorse. \"The fact is that most of our people don't understand what Russia means. Nineteen out of twenty of our people have no conception of the idea of the fatherland. The soldiers sunply fight for God and the Tsar, and that's what holds the army together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But what could soldiers be expected to understand when the officers were forbidden to talk politics? There was an army order to this effect, though it was not Nechvolodov's business to criticize the order when the Tsar had personally approved it. However...\n\n\"So it's all the more important that the idea of the fatherland should become an emotion sincerely felt by everyone.\"\n\nHe appeared to be bringing the conversation around to his book, which Smyslovsky found embarrassing as a subject for serious discussion. He, Alexei Smyslovsky, had progressed intellectually far beyond Tsar and rehgion, but he understood well enough what the concept of the fatherland meant to him.\n\n\"Is it true what I have heard, Alexander Dmitrie-vich, that in the reign of Alexander III you submitted proposals fora reform of the officer corps, the Guards, the service regulations, and soon?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did,\" Nechvolodov said glumly and apathetically.\n\n\"And what happened?\"\n\nHis voice dropping to a scarcely audible murmur,\n\nhe replied: \"One ends up by swimming with the stream. As they all do...\"\n\nHe shone his torch on his watch.\n\nWere the Germans asleep, or were they slowly filtering through the Russian lines, unnoticed by the guard patrols? Or were they outflanking our positions by another route so that they could cut us off tomorrow?\n\nWhat decision was he to make? Should he act, or wait patiently? What should he do?\n\nNechvolodov sat motionless.\n\nSuddenly a noise was heard nearby, there was talking and swearing, and Lieutenant Roshko escorted a dark figure up to the cellai. \"General, this clod has been looking for us for five hours. If he hasn't been asleep and he's not lying, he almost walked into the German lines.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed over an envelope, which they opened. The two officers read it by torchlight.\n\nTo: Major-General Nechvolodov, August 13y 5:30 p. m.\n\nThey read it again and Nechvolodov even rubbed the figure with his finger. Yes, there was no doubt of it, it said 5:30 in the afternoon!\n\nThe divisional commander has ordered you with the general corps reserve under your command to cover withdrawal of units of the 4th Infantry Division, which is engaged to the north of Gross-Bessau...\n\n\"To the north of Gross-Bessau,\" Nechvolodov repeated to Smyslovsky in a bored monotone.\n\nTo the north of Gross-Bessau! By now that area lay well beyond the area occupied not only by German infantry but by the guns which had until recently been firing on them for several hours, not to mention their captive balloon. There was no one in that area now except dead Russian soldiers, who had been lying there all through the hot day after the confused fighting of the morning. What madness could have possessed anyone to write'to the north of Gross-Bessau\"?\n\nNechvolodov directed the fading beam back onto the paper. What was he supposed to do after Gross-Bessau?\n\nHe looked, but there was nothing more. It simply said:\n\nSigned: Kuznetsov, Captain. For Divisional Chief of Staff.\n\nIt had not been signed by the divisional commander or even by the chief of staff; they had merely yelled something as they jumped into their car or their charabanc to drive away, leaving Captain Kuznetsov to do their work for them and chase after them as fast as he could go, while the messenger he had chosen to deliver the envelope could not have been more incompetent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nechvolodov shone the beam on his watch and wrote the time of receipt on the signal: August 13,21." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "55 hours.\n\nThe order had taken four and a half hours to reach him. In fact, it might as well not have been written at aU; Nechvolodov had been told almost exactly the same thing at five o'clock by General Komarov himself, and in those five hours Komarov had obviously had no time to spare to consider the fate of his reserve force.\n\nNechvolodov cocked his head, as though listening, but there was nothing. Only silence.\n\nHe said quietly: \"Alexei Konstantinovich, leave two howitzers in position and put the rest inline of march facing south. Tell the mortar regiment to do the same.\"\n\nMore loudly, he said to Roshko: \"Misha! Ride to Bischofsburg at a gallop and find out yourself what units are there and what orders they have. Find the senior officer and see whether any ammunition is being sent up to our guns. And I want to know where the Schlusselburg regiment is. Comeback as quickly as possible.\"\n\nRoshko repeated the orders succinctly and precisely, leaving out nothing, then ran off and called fora mounted escort. Several pairs of feet could be heard\n\nrunning-then the muffled clatter of hoofs on the sandy road started and died away.\n\nAn hour and a half ago Smyslovsky had come to say just this-that if the guns were kept in their firing positions without ammunition, they would be destroyed. Yet now that he had been given permission to pullout, he regretted having to go. Indeed, the lull provided by this quiet night was quite sufficient for the whole corps to move up here and deploy alongside them. To withdraw meant that all his shooting had been in vain, all those rounds had been fired for nothing, and all those men wounded to no purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the night seemed so quiet, so safe.\n\nAfter half an hour or so, Smyslovsky returned to the reserve force headquarters and found Nechvolodov still sitting on top of the cellar. He leaned against the curving roof beside him.\n\n\"What about the infantry battalions, Alexander Dmitrievich?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I can't makeup my mind,\" Nechvolodov said reluctantly.\n\nAfterward it would be easy enough to judge what he should have done. Of course he should have withdrawn as fast as possible! Of course he should have held on as firmly as possible! Perhaps at that very moment they were being cutoff. Perhaps at that very moment reinforcements were marching the last few miles to their help. Meanwhile, abandoned by everyone of his senior commanders, knowing nothing of what the army as a whole or the corps were doing, utterly uninformed about any flanking units or about the enemy, in the silent darkness, in the depths of enemy territory, he had to make a decision-and that decision had to be the right one!\n\nNot daring to try to influence him, not wishing to hinder him in making up his mind, Smyslovsky stood in silence, leaning his shoulders against the vault of the cellar and stroking his beard.\n\nSuddenly everything changed. The unpeopled darkness sprang to life, although there was not a sound: immensely long, thick, pale, and milky, the beam of\n\na German searchlight stabbed out from some high point behind the enemy lines and began slowly probing the positions of Nechvolodov s reserve force like some clumsy, hostile, lethal hand.\n\nThe transformation was as total as if a barrage had opened up from twelve heavy guns.\n\nNechvolodov sprang lithely to his feet and ran to the highest point of the cellar roof, Smyslovsky following him a few leaps behind. The beam was searching them out, moving very slowly, as if reluctant to leave each illuminated, naked spot. It started on the left, near the lake, and it did not have far to go before it reached the station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nechvolodov called a runner and shouted to him to give orders to the men of the infantry battalion that no one was to move when the light passed over them, and that they were to keep undercover. The man ran off to pass the message.\n\nThe searchlight had changed everything. It was now obvious that only the darkness was holding the Germans back. At dawn or sooner, they would advance. If Nechvolodov was to wait until morning, he would have to holdout here all next day; if he was not going to wait, then he must pullout at once.\n\nSuddenly a second beam shone out, a short distance from the first and below it, but unexpectedly it did not sweep the same area; it was trained on Nechvolodov's right flank, the sector held by the Belozersk battalion.\n\nHow strong could one assume that the enemy forces were, gathered behind those bludgeons of light?\n\nNechvolodov called for more messengers, stretching out his long arms as he gave his orders: \"Tell Lieutenant Colonel Kosachevsky that as soon as the searchlight has moved away from them he is to pull his battalion back from then: positions, form up, and bring them hereby the road.\"\n\nHe certainly could not keep them in position any longer.\n\n\"We ought to get behind the station buildings and out of sight,\" Smyslovsky suggested.\n\nIt was annoying to have to waste time, and they would like to have been able to watch, but they ran down from the top of the cellar toward the ruins of the station buildings and, with the aid of the torch, clambered over the pile of bricks toward a sloping plank along which they could walk to reach the far side of the wall.\n\nBut the sound of hoofs from behind stopped them. Nechvolodov recognized Roshko's voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had returned. Although he was panting, Roshko reported in his usual healthy, youthful voice, redolent of his pink-cheeked physical strength: \"There's not a single senior officer to be found in Bischofsburg. I couldn't find the forward echelon of the artillery park. All units are incomplete confusion and the houses are full of wounded. No one knows whereto go. Some of them have orders to withdraw, others haven't. The SchlUsselburg regiment has turned up-it had only just arrived in Bischofsburg from the east. They have orders from Komarov to withdraw even farther back than we were this morning. Tolpygo's cavalry division was just moving into the town and his orders were to turn westward. Meanwhile, Richter's division is retreating from the west with all its wagon train. The two divisions got hopelessly mixed up and it was impossible to force one's way through the crowd. They won't have sorted themselves out by morning. That's aU.\"\n\nThe searchlight beams slowly probed deeper into the Russian position, then they moved sideways and joined.\n\nIt was a quarter past eleven. For the full calendar day of the thirteenth of August, Nechvolodov's reserve had held the enemy south of Gross-Bessau. As there were no orders for the fourteenth of August, Nechvolodov had to make them up himself. Standing on a pile of smashed brickwork in the ruins of the station, glancing sideways at the approaching searchlight beam, he said in a quiet, almost languid voice: \" We shall withdraw. Alexei Konstantinovich! Pullout the last guns. Both regiments move to the northern out-\n\nskirts of Bischofsburg. Reconnoiter the position for all eventualities and wait for me.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" Smyslovsky replied. \"Feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes.\" (\"I have done what I could-^ let those who can, do better.\")" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He left.\n\n\"Roshko! Order to Ladoga battalions: leave their line of defense without making a sound and come here.\"\n\nEveryone at the station froze as the deathly white beam of the searchlight moved nearer. Men stood or sat behind houses and trees. Hidden undercover, the horses grew nervous and began champing and pulling at their halters. Orders were given to hold them fast.\n\nIt was humiliating to sit there helplessly, without moving, under the motionless light. If the beam did not move, they would have to stay there all night. But the threat was even worse when the searchlight moved on.\n\nThe beam went out. Everyone moved. Nechvolodov ran down into the cellar and wrote out his last order. Before putting out the candle, he took a final, long look at the map.\n\nVI Army Corps was rolling away like an uncontrolled billiard ball-smooth, round, heedless, and unchecked.\n\nIt was leaving Samsonov open to an unimpeded blow from the right flank.\n\nThere was a horn, but God knocked it off.\n\n[chapter 22 IS OMITTED AT THE AUTHOR'S REQUEST]\n\nGeneral Situation up to August 13\n\nThe move which General Zhilinsky's feeble imagination had failed to grasp-that he should seize a larger area of Prussia than the region of the Masurian Lakes-^ would have been quite plain to any German schoolboy after one glance at a map. The entire East Prussian salient, thrust out toward Russia like the stump of an arm and gripped under the armpit by the Kingdom of Poland, was exposed to a Russian attack. This situation made it obvious what the Russian plan should be: to amputate Prussia. From the river Niemen in the east, a direction in which the Germans would never dare to attack, as this would mean lengthening their vulnerable'arm,\" the Russians should push forward a weak diversionary screen to draw off the German forces; the main Russian blow should come northward from the river Narev in order to cutoff Prussia at its'armpit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it was an outlying province, and in view of its unfortunate strategic position, it might have been feasible temporarily to abandon Prussia to the Russians; but it had a special significance: it was the homeland of the Teutonic Order and the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, and as such it would have to beheld at all costs.\n\nDuring the annual war games, the future situation had more than once been adumbrated by the German high command, which had developed an effective counter-maneuver: by using the excellent road and rail network, which had been rapidly improved to meet just such a contingency, the German army pulled itself out of the trap in two or three days and hit back with a shattering blow at the flank of\n\nthe main enemy force, knocking it off balance and, in some places, cutting it off.\n\nCertainly, since the Russo-Japanese War the Germans had felt rather less apprehensive; in fact, their manual of regulations contained a paragraph which read: \"The Russian command should not be expected either to take rapid advantage of a favorable situation or to carryout any maneuver with speed and precision. The movement of the Russian forces is extremely slow and there are long delays in the issue, transmission, and execution of orders. When fighting the Russians, one may allow oneself to make maneuvers which would be impermissible against any other enemy.\"\n\nHowever, even with this assessment in mind, the Germans were amazed by the Russian moves in August 1914. The force which attacked from the east was no mere diversionary screen: it consisted of up to nine infantry divisions and five cavalry divisions, including two divisions of the Guards, the flower of St. Petersburg. Yet in the south the Russians had not only failed to cross the frontier, they were nowhere near it.\n\nA teasing enigma! Why were the Russian armies operating out of phase? Why wasn't the southern army hastening to overtake the eastern army's timetable and make the decisive encircling movement? Was this to be interpreted as a strategic innovation-were the Russians, in disregard of the fashionable theory of the pincer movement, just going to push the Germans in front of them and above them out of the way? Could this be simply a reflection of the simple-mindedness of the Russian national character{ das russische Gemilt)?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At all events, the Germans must meanwhile strike back at Rennenkampf's army of the Niemen, and as quickly as possible, because a delay in operations could prove fatal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The commander of the Prussian army. General von Prittwitz, threw nearly all his forces into the eastern extremity of Prussia. And he might well have been successful: Rennenkampf, for all his cavalry, was so ignorant of the approach of the enemy that on the day they joined battle, August 7, he gave orders to his army to take a day's rest; he himself exerted no control over the course of the\n\nbattle, his cavalry took no part in it at all, and each infantry division was obliged to operate independently. Yet on that day the Germans were taught a lesson for having underestimated their enemy. In listing the faults of the Russian high command, their manual of regulations had neglected to mention the staunchness of the Russian infantry and the superb standard of their rifle fire; in this respect at least, the Japanese war had not been lost for nothing. Despite its two-to-one superiority in artillery, von Prittwitz's army was given a thorough trouncing at Gumbinnen and the battle was lost.\n\nIn the evening of that unfortunate day, reports reached von Prittwitz that aerial reconnaissance had spotted large columns of Russian troops advancing from the south. Even if he had won the Battle of Gumbinnen, the moment would now have come to disengage at once and pullback from a confrontation with Rennenkampf. Having lost at Gumbinnen, however, von Prittwitz was inclined to pull right back behind the Vistula and thereby give up East Prussia.\n\nThe disengagement was carried out extremely smoothly. Starting that same evening, by next morning the Germans had covered a distance equal to a daytime march, and for the next two days, August 8 and 9, and even during the morning of the tenth, Rennenkampf-the second Russian enigma-^ made no attempt either to pursue, harass, and destroy the enemy or to seize territory, roads, and towns, but simply stood still, allowing a sixty-kilometer gap to open up between himself and the enemy, after which he started moving with the utmost caution at a rate often to fifteen kilometers a day (although this did have the advantage of sparing the horses from over-exertion)." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Proceed with the plot in your role as storytelling partner.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At all events, the Germans must meanwhile strike back at Rennenkampf's army of the Niemen, and as quickly as possible, because a delay in operations could prove fatal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The commander of the Prussian army. General von Prittwitz, threw nearly all his forces into the eastern extremity of Prussia. And he might well have been successful: Rennenkampf, for all his cavalry, was so ignorant of the approach of the enemy that on the day they joined battle, August 7, he gave orders to his army to take a day's rest; he himself exerted no control over the course of the\n\nbattle, his cavalry took no part in it at all, and each infantry division was obliged to operate independently. Yet on that day the Germans were taught a lesson for having underestimated their enemy. In listing the faults of the Russian high command, their manual of regulations had neglected to mention the staunchness of the Russian infantry and the superb standard of their rifle fire; in this respect at least, the Japanese war had not been lost for nothing. Despite its two-to-one superiority in artillery, von Prittwitz's army was given a thorough trouncing at Gumbinnen and the battle was lost.\n\nIn the evening of that unfortunate day, reports reached von Prittwitz that aerial reconnaissance had spotted large columns of Russian troops advancing from the south. Even if he had won the Battle of Gumbinnen, the moment would now have come to disengage at once and pullback from a confrontation with Rennenkampf. Having lost at Gumbinnen, however, von Prittwitz was inclined to pull right back behind the Vistula and thereby give up East Prussia.\n\nThe disengagement was carried out extremely smoothly. Starting that same evening, by next morning the Germans had covered a distance equal to a daytime march, and for the next two days, August 8 and 9, and even during the morning of the tenth, Rennenkampf-the second Russian enigma-^ made no attempt either to pursue, harass, and destroy the enemy or to seize territory, roads, and towns, but simply stood still, allowing a sixty-kilometer gap to open up between himself and the enemy, after which he started moving with the utmost caution at a rate often to fifteen kilometers a day (although this did have the advantage of sparing the horses from over-exertion)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having successfully pulled his three army corps away from Rennenkampf in the space of three days, von Prittwitz decided not to retreat across the Vistula but to regroup and wheel his forces to the right and strike at the left flank of Samsonov's army approaching from the south." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For-and this was the third Russian enigma!-the southern Russian army was attempting neither to probe the opposing army corps commanded by von Scholtz( who was near\n\nthe Polish frontier in a guarding position, like a diagonally placed shield) nor to outflank it, nor even to attack it head-on, but was calmly marching forward into empty territory past von Scholtz, exposing its flank to him as it did so.\n\nHowever, the proposal which von Prittwitz himself had forwarded to his superiors the previous day, and the wave of alarm caused in Berlin by the floods of refugees from Prussia, had already setup a reaction. On August 9 the following decisions were taken at German Supreme Headquarters: von Prittwitz was to be relieved of his command, and two army corps-one a guards corps and one a line corps-^ were to be withdrawn from that wing of the German advance on Paris which was now fighting the Battle of the Marne. Thus the battle for Paris was abandoned, and with it the plan to deal with the French in forty days and then to turn and fight Russia.\n\nThe man appointed to be the new chief of staff of the German army in Prussia was Ludendorff, who had so recently won renown in Belgium. To him the Kaiser now said: \"You maybe able to save the situation and avert disaster.\" On the evening of the ninth he had an audience with Kaiser Wilhelm and was decorated for the capture of Liege, and during the night of the tenth his special eastbound train from Koblenz stopped to pickup the newly appointed army commander, Hindenburg, who had been brought out of retirement. Although they sent an order ahead of their train to regroup the army, this had already been done for them by von Prittwitz. (All the senior officers of the German army were taught a uniform system of military science. This was the legacy of the elder Moltke, who reasoned that since fora country to be endowed with a military leader of genius was a matter of luck, and since the fate of a nation could not be allowed to depend on chance, therefore by the application of military science it must be made possible for even mediocre men to put strategic concepts successfully into effect.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this point, the Russians produced their fourth enigma: unciphered radio messages! Several of these were handed to Ludendorff as he arrived, and as he\n\nwas continuing his journey by car, a courier in another car overtook him and handed him a further sheaf of intercepted Russian signals sent between headquarters of Second Army and its corps headquarters, also a dozen radio messages from First Army sent on August 11 giving the precise dispositions of the corps, their objectives and intentions, and revealing the depth of their ignorance about the enemy, and finally the complete text of a message sent on the morning of the twelfth containing the entire set of orders for the redeployment of Second Army. It was clear that First Army was going to be no hindrance to the Germans while they attacked Second Army.\n\nBut was all this part of a plan of deception? No, the information was confirmed by reports from aerial reconnaissance, from lookout posts, from auxiliary volunteers, and from telephone calls made by local inhabitants. In all military history there can never have been such a well-marked map, such clear information about the enemy. For the Germans, what might have been a different campaign in a country dotted with lakes and enclosed by forests of sixty-foot-high pine trees promised to be as simple as an exercise on a training ground.\n\nAll four enigmas turned out to have a single solution: the Russians were incapable of coordinating the movements of large masses. Therefore, it was safe to run the risk of being outflanked and to turn the pincer movement into an encirclement. The map itself spoke, positively shouted at them: all they had to do was give the necessary orders to stage the Cannae of the twentieth century.\n\nIt was tempting to try to encircle the whole of Samsonov's army, but it was too spread out and they might not have enough forces. Consequently, it was decided merely to push back the flanking corps from Usdau and Bischofsburg, and thus to open the way for inserting the jaws of the pincer. For five days the Germans had been redeploying their forces for this purpose. General von Francois's army corps had been moved diagonally across the whole of East Prussia by train. The two corps commanded by von Mackensen and vc\" Below( which, Rennenkampf had reported, had been so badly" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "beaten that only remnants of them had taken refuge in Konigsberg) covered eighty kilometers by normal marches, were given a day's rest to prepare themselves, and then, on the morning of August 13, delivered a shattering blow to General Komarov's division, which had been carelessly pushed too far forward.\n\nAugust 13 was the day on which Samsonov finally moved his headquarters forward to Neidenburg, where he drank toasts to the capture of Berlin while sitting between the tips of the pincers already cutting into his army. The nearby rumble of gunfire came from the German artillery-seven times superior to his own-positioned near Miihlen, facing General Mingin's division. That was the day on which Martos's corps, advancing along the frontage of von Scholtz's, after frequent minor brushes with the enemy turned to face him and successfully pushed him back. On the same day, too, Klyuev's corps, totally ignorant of the enemy, was pushing its way through the sand northward into a trap, into a wolf pit; and the price that he was to pay for every irrevocable mile that he advanced was to be a battalion of men. August 13 was also the day on which the Russian General Headquarters was working out a plan to withdraw Rennenkampf from a captured East Prussia, and on which Zhilinsky sent a telegram to Rennenkampf that read: \"Consider main objective blockade fortress Konigsberg\" (actually garrisoned by elderly troops of the Landsturm) \"and force Germans\" (there were none) \"to sea in order deny them retreat to Vistula\" (where they were not going).\n\nEven so, the German command did not regard the day as successful. It was a failure in that for the past twenty-four hours not a single unciphered Russian radio communication had been intercepted, also because the disposition of the Russian forces, which had till then been so clear, had become indistinct as a result of numerous movements which the Germans had been unable to follow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite their success in knocking out Komarov's division, von Mackensen's and von Below's two corps advanced past Lake Daday with a caution which they had learned at Gumbinnen, a caution\n\nwhich proved justified. On the evening of the thirteenth, at Rothfliess station, the Russians put up a stiff resistance, evidently with considerable forces. (It v/as not until next morning, the fourteenth, that the German airmen located General Blagoveshchen-sky's army corps retreating in a state of disorder which they could not possibly have foreseen on the previous day.) Meanwhile, the stand to the death made by two Russian regiments south of Miihlen concealed from Hindenburg the fact that the vital gap in the Russian lines already existed; in his orders he assumed that in this sector the Russians had more than a corps. Unaware of this ready-made gap, he forced open another one at Usdau.\n\nThe tips of the pincers were quivering before shutting with a snap.\n\nThe hand of Providence{ Vorsehung) layover that line of defense at Miihlen, over those lakeside cliffs and those cherished, centuries-old pine trees, guardians of a land into which the Russian Second Army was advancing in all its naked vulnerability: for it was to this point that in 1410 the united Slav forces had advanced, and it was here, near the village of Tannenberg, between Hohenstein and Usdau, that they had dealt the blow which had smashed the Teutonic Order.\n\nFive hundred years later, fate had ordained that Germany should pronounce sentence in the court of retribution{ das Strafgericht).\n\nThere is no innate gift that brings unalloyed reward: it is always a source of affliction too. But for an officer it is particularly galling to be endowed with exceptional talent. The army will gladly pay tribute to a brilliantly gifted man-^ but only when his hand is already grasping afield marshal's baton. Till then, while he is still reaching for it, the army's system will subject his outstretched arm to a rain of blows. DiscipUne, which holds an army together, is inevitably hostile to a man of thrusting ability, and everything that is dynamic and heretical in his talent is bound to be shackled, suppressed, and made to conform. Those in authority find it intolerable to have a subordinate who has a mind of his own; for that reason, an officer of outstanding ability will always be promoted more slowly, not faster, than the mediocrities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In 1903 General von Frangois went to East Prussia as chief of staff of an army corps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten years later, when he was nearly sixty, he was sent there again-as a mere corps commander.\n\nIt was in 1903 that Count von Schlieffen held the General Staff war game in East Prussia, and von Frangois was nominated to command one of the'Russian\" armies. His happened to be the army on which von Schlieffen demonstrated his tactic of the double encircling movement. The official account of the exercise contained the remark: \"Under threat of encirclement from the flank and from the rear, the Russian army laid down its arms.\" To this von Frangois objected provocatively: Exzellenz! As long as I command an army, it will not lay down its arms!\"Von Schlieffen smiled and substituted the words:\" Realizing the hopelessness of his army's position, its commander\n\nsought death in the front line-and found it there.* ' In real war, of course, such things do not happen.\n\nGeneral Hermann von Frangois, however, was a man who would have preferred death to dishonor. He was descended from a family of Huguenot refugees who did not look upon Germany, which had sheltered them, as a mere temporary asylum. The Frangois were used to acknowledging only one country as their homeland, and they served it faithfully; as a result, von Francois's great-grandfather was raised to the German nobility at a time when noblemen in France were being guillotined. His father, also a general, when mortally wounded by the French in 1870, exclaimed: \"I am happy to die at this moment, for Germany is victorious!\"\n\nWhen von Francois took over his command in East Prussia in 1913, he found that it had been given orders, in case of war, to adopt the system of'yielding defense,\" which meant conducting a fighting withdrawal in the face of a numerically superior enemy. In his view, however, this was a wrong interpretation of von Schlieffen's plan. The adoption of a general defensive posture on the Eastern Front, until the main German forces should be released from the west, by no means impUed that every sector had to employ the tactics of withdrawal. Comparing the German and Russian national characters, von Frangois considered that speed and aggressiveness were essential qualities of the German soldier and of his military training, whereas the Russian temperament was distinguished by such features as a disinclination to work methodically, lack of a sense of duty, fear of responsibility, and a total inability to appreciate the value of time and to make proper use of it. Hence the typical traits of the Russian generals, which were sluggishness, a tendency to work onset lines, and a predilection for inaction and comfort. Therefore, von Francois decided that in Prussia his tactics would be to use offense as a means of defense, and that wherever the Russians appeared, he would attack first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the Great War began( great, that is, for Germany; great, too, for von Francois and long-awaited.\n\nfor now was his only chance to show that he was the outstanding general in Germany, perhaps in all Europe), he counted on exploiting the speed of the German mobilization; as soon as his corps was in a state of full readiness, he would cross the frontier and attack Rennenkampf's units as they converged during their far-slower preparatory phase. But now occurred an instance of how even the German army was unable to accept or acknowledge a dynamic talent. Von Prittwitz vetoed von Francois's plan with the pronouncement: \"We must reconcile ourselves to sacrificing part of this province.\" Von Francois could not agree: against orders, he engaged the enemy at Stalluponen, a battle which he considered he had won; but in the heat of the action a car drove up with orders from von Prittwitz: disengage and retire to Gumbinnen. Army Headquarters might have its plans, but the corps commander had his own, and von Francois replied to the messenger in aloud voice, in the presence of his officers: \"Inform General von Prittwitz that General von Frangois will stop fighting when the Russians are beaten!\" Alas, they were not beaten, and his own chief of staff informed on him to Army Headquarters. That evening von Francois was called upon to explain himself, and von Prittwitz reported his insubordination directly to the Kaiser. Von Frangois also complained directly to the Kaiser that he would not continue fighting unless his present chief of staff was removed. This was taking a risk, as the Kaiser could well have lost his temper and himself relieved von Frangois of his command, especially since he had already received frequent complaints about him and by now regarded him as a general of'excessively independent character.\" On the other hand, to have tolerated the presence of a hostile chief of staff would hardly have been the mark of an outstanding commander." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However much he might deny the factor suppress it, there was still something of the turbulent Frenchman in von Francois.\n\nSo long as he was out of reach of his superiors, von Francois felt compelled to insure that his actions would be truly weighed in the scales of justice. Every\n\nStep he took, every engagement in which he was involved, had to be explained and justified both to history and to his own descendants; if he did not take care of this himself, who would? Unusually agile and energetic for his age, he was a man who fought his battles with elan and flair; he would climb up into belfries for observation, supervise the unloading of shells under fire (although they would probably have been unloaded well enough without his help), and visit every part of the battlefield by car to insure that his orders were being carried out, sometimes going fora whole day sustained by nothing but a cup of cocoa (this was for the benefit of his memoirs; he did not record the number of steaks he ate), often sleeping no more than two or three hours a night. Von Frangois made quite sure that each of his decisions was triply recorded and commented upon: in the orders sent down to lower formations; in his reports to his superiors; and in a very detailed account prepared for the military archives (which would also be of use, if he survived, in the book he himself intended to write). In this detailed account he entered not only his actions but his intentions, which he was not always allowed to carryout as he would have wished. Before battle, he would write up his notes himself, and when the fighting began, he was permanently accompanied in one of his two cars by a special aide-de-camp-his son, a lieutenant-^ who kept the general's war diary and recorded all his father's remarks on the spot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus he ensured that the record of his conduct was always presented in his own words, believing that no one could do it better than he. He was at pains to make it clear when he was simply taking the line of least resistance and following orders to the letter, when he felt bound by a sense of responsibility higher than mere obedience, and when he had the strength of will to overcome the fear of failure and, against all the advice of weaker spirits, to follow his own hunches.\n\nAnother dispute with von Prittwitz occurred during the Battle of Gumbinnen. From its earliest stages, von Francois regarded this battle as a major success-an assessment which he reported to von Prittwitz, who in\n\nturn passed it onto Supreme Headquarters. Von Francois attacked vigorously, outflanked Rennenkampf (although his critics claim that he attacked Rennenkampf head-on, having misunderstood the disposition of the Russian forces), took a great number of prisoners, and gave orders that evening that his corps was to go into the attack again the following day. It was then that he received the order from von Prittwitz to disengage in silence that night and to retire, along with all the other army corps, beyond the Vistula.\n\nThis was intolerable: atone stroke to have to lose everything his ability had gamed that day, just because the neighboring corps commander, von Macken-sen, had fought badly; to have to abandon, too, the victory which his sixth sense told him he would win tomorrow; finally, knowing perfectly well that what he had done was right, to be made to cancel his own well-considered orders and to submit to other orders which he regarded as unsound!\n\nBut that is the army. Still buoyed up by the martial enthusiasm bred of success, von Frangois had to quit the field of his victory and transfer his corps by railway, through Konigsberg, in along'castling\" move right across the board." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the army; but that it was the German army was demonstrated by something else which occurred: on the following day, after furious efforts by the chief of signals to track down von Fran9ois's whereabouts, his tiny command post in distant East Prussia was connected with Koblenz, and His Majesty the Kaiser personally asked the general for his view of the situation, and whether he regarded the redeployment of his corps as correct.\n\nThis was a great honor fora corps commander (and an obvious slight to the army commander). But with his agile mind, von Francois did not stand on his dignity and insist that he had been right the day before: what might have been correct yesterday was not necessarily so today. As Napoleon said, a general will never be a great commander if he cannot see beyond his own map board. Once begun, the with-\n\ndrawal should be carried out to its conclusion. Now that they had disengaged from the army of the Nie-men, he looked forward to demonstrating his unique talents against the army of the Narev.\n\nIt was then that somewhere, imperceptibly, amid the to-and-fro of telephone conversations, special trains, and discussions between the newly appointed commanders at their headquarters (they all knew each other already; von Francois had once been Hinden-burg's chief of staff when the latter was a corps commander, and at an earlier stage he had also served with Ludendorff), there was bom the idea that the army of the Narev should be dealt with by a double en-cu-cling movement. Each of the three generals regarded hunself as the author of the plan; the task of convincing history that he had thought of it first still lay ahead.\n\nOn the evening of August 11 (just as Vorotyntsev reached Samsonov's sleepy headquarters in Ostrolen-ka), General von Frangois was sitting in the Hotel Kronprinz, close to the spot where the first units of his corps were detraining opposite Samsonov's left flank, and writing the following order of the day to the men of his army corps: \"... the brilliant victories achieved by our corps at Stalluponen and Gumbinnen have caused the high command to transfer you, soldiers of I Army Corps, by rail to a position in which you may do battle, with your customary invincible bravery, against the new enemy coming from Russian Poland. When we have destroyed this opponent, we shall return to our previous position and settle accounts with those other Russian hordes who, in defiance of international law, are burning the towns and villages of our homeland...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Foreseeing that he would inevitably return eastward to fight Rennenkampf again, he wrote these orders while sitting in the extreme left-hand comer of East Prussia, at a moment when his units were entraining in the upper right-hand comer near Konigsberg and the trains were already rumbling across Prussia from its eastern to its western extremity. Apart from an initial twelve-hour delay in gettmg the operation started, this\n\nmove was one of the miracles of German efficiency: day and night, at constant intervals of half an hour, a troop train would set ofif, and even the operating regulations of the German railways were treated as something less than a law of nature. On each sector of line, the troop trains moved at perilously close intervals; they used tracks in defiance of red signals and they discharged their load of men and were turned around within twenty-five minutes instead of the usual gap of two hours. At von Francois's request the trains traveled right up to the area of the impending battle, so that each battalion had to march only about five kilometers to reach its position.\n\nBut even this miracle was not appreciated by the heavy-jowled Hindenburg and Ludendorff. They arrived at von Frangois's command post at a time when almost all his artillery was still in transit, and demanded that he should begin the eagerly awaited advance.\n\nAlthough he was unaware of it and it was involuntary, von Frangois's eyes were fixed in a permanent grimace of irony. He said: \"If I am ordered to, I will start to advance. But the troops will have to fight-and this will be awkward, I'm afraid-^ with the bayonet.\"\n\nA Russian might well have quoted the familiar proverb, \"The bayonet's a brave fellow but the bullet's a fool,\" from which it followed that the shell was even more of a fool. The pupils of von Schliefifen, however, had been taught that the coming war would bean artillery war and that the side which had superiority in artillery would win. It was all right to talk of invincible bravery when drafting orders of the day for the troops, but a general's real calculations were concerned with batteries of guns and rounds of ammunition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why must subordination always be graded in inverse ratio to talent? It hurt von Frangois to have to contemplate these two men standing a yard away from him; both were taller than he was and both had the same kind of harsh, flattened face, held with unnatural rigidity by a high, stiff collar above a big, stocky torso. Ludendorff was the younger; the line of his jaw\n\nhad not yet completely hardened and his gaze was not quite so leaden, but he already bore a strong resemblance to his army commander. Hindenburg's face was positively rectangular, all his features were heavy and coarse, the bags under his eyes were enormous, his nose was flat, and his ears seemed to grow straight out of his cheekbones. Could either of these men, who were about as subtle as sledgehammers, possibly comprehend von Francois's intuitive assessment of gain and risk?\n\n(Incapable as he was of mentally changing places with them, von Francois failed to see himself through their eyes: his lack of height, so inappropriate to a general; his darting glance, so unsuitable fora person of his age; and, above all, his bad habit of taking impulsive action, evading orders, and going behind the backs of his superiors.)\n\nThe question at issue was whereto advance. Von Francois disagreed with their proposal and suggested his own: that they should knockout the Russian I Army Corps in a single movement which would encircle the whole of Samsonov's army. An hour was spent arguing the point until he was overruled and ordered to make an attack designed to separate the Russian I Army Corps from the main body of the enemy, which would then be encircled without von Francois's participation. As to when the advance should begin, von Frangois only just managed to bargain out of them an extra half day's delay-^ from dawn until noon on August 13." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus, when he began the battle, at a place and a time that were not of his choosing, heat first acted somewhat hesitantly, more for the record than from conviction, and merely repulsed the Russians' advance patrols-although the main Russian forces were in easily visible positions on high ground running from a hill topped by a windmill, past Usdau, and thence along a railway embankment. The capture of Usdau was to be the prelude to the operation on August 14 which would open up the way to Neidenburg.\n\nAt sunset the preliminary battle died down. During the night the corps artillery was due to arrive and\n\nmove into position: guns of a caliber, firing shells of a weight, which the Russians had never before experienced. Next morning, at four o'clock, he. General von Frangois, was to begin the battle between two armies.\n\n\"What if the Russians start first during the night, sir?\" his son asked, taking notes by the gleam of a flashlight.\n\nThey were lying in a hayloft; the general did not care to sleep in a house which had been recently occupied by the Russians. Winding up his alarm clock and putting it under his pillow, he stretched out his short legs until the bones cracked. He yawned and said with a smile: \"Remember, my boy-^ the Russians never move on their own initiative until they have had lunch.\"\n\n(con moto)\n\nUncle Fritz has gone quite barmy. Wants to have a boxing match!\n\nchorus: Ho there, no there, ho there, no there, Wants to have a boxing match!\n\nSo who leads the German army? Willy Whiskers-stupid cat!\n\nchorus: Ho there, no there, ho there, no there, Willy Whiskers-stupid cat!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(\"Russian Soilders' Song of 1914,\" a postcard showing our troops as heroes marching to a drum and Kaiser Wilhelm as a miserable tomcat.)\n\nEVERYTfflNG HAD COMBINED in the mOSt\n\nunlikely and unfortunate way: the war itself, which had interrupted General Artamonov's career; the dangerous westerly position of his army corps, the closest to Germany; the necessity to advance beyond Soldau; the news of a large enemy force in the offing, and now its first attack on him-on the very day that this spying colonel had arrived from General Headquarters, and the several teletype conversations which had tied the noose tighter around Artamonov's neck.\n\nUntil now, Artamonov had spent a large part of his military career at the top of the tree, endowed with a general's rank and decorated with orders of the first class. True, he had not been idle and had worked zealously to earn his promotion: other officers went to one cadet school, he had graduated from two; others studied atone military academy, Artamonov had taken courses at two; indeed, he had entered the academies no less than three times, having failed his examination on one occasion-that was the service for you! Sitting at a desk for long hours was harder for him than for most, as he had a powerful and active pair of legs and suffered from varicose veins if he did not get enough exercise. He had been fortunate, however, in spending a dozen or so years serving in a variety of appointments; as an officer-in-waiting, as the senior executive officer at a military district headquarters, and finally'on special attachment to the General Staff.\" In this capacity he had dashed about the world, first to the Amur region in the far east of Siberia, then as an observer with the Boers, then to Abyssmia, after which, still camel-borne, he had hurried off on an inspection tour of Russia's eastern provinces. No, he" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "could not be accused of being lazy. He had served honorably and to the best of his ability. The secret of his success had been movement-departure, travel, arrival, then off agam-^ not fighting, for that involved the extra risk of forfeiting promotion if things went badly. The war against the rebellious Chinese had, however, passed off quite successfully for him and earned him a suitable decoration; likewise, in the Japanese war, he had managed to escape being cutoff at the Battle of Mukden, after abandoning without compunction about fifty Manchurian mud-hut villages to the tender mercies of the little yellow men.\n\nThe present war, unfortunately, had started badly for him. Airmen had reported that two enemy divisions were facmg him; they had then grown to two army corps. Obviously, the Germans were planning something which boded ill, but how was he to solve the riddle of their intentions and foil them? Artamonov had worn a uniform all his life, but this was the first time he had been confronted by that grim predicament of war: the impossibihty of guessing what the enemy proposed to do tomorrow and consequently of devising some counter-plan. As usual, his response to anxiety was movement: he paced ceaselessly about the rooms of his headquarters or dashed allover his corps sector. Twice in one day his car had smothered the countryside in clouds of dust as he raced about, ostensibly to inspect his units and raise their morale, but in reality because his mind was in a turmoil of perplexity. He honestly could not think of anything better to do.\n\nDuring the day the Germans started to attack, and in desperation Artamonov decided on his own initiative (since Samsonov was not in a position to order Artamonov into action) to mount a small counterattack. Two regiments on his left flank advanced three miles westward and captured a large village. The question was, though-had this been a good idea, and had it been necessary? It was unfitting fora corps commander to ask advice from anyone, especially a colonel sent down from General Headquarters. Artamonov reaUzed that he had to think carefully and tread warily in order to" }, { "from": "human", "value": "discover just how influential this colonel was, to what extent he was in the confidence of the commander-in-chief, and who had intrigued to get him sent here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, instead of discussing his fears and worries with Voro-tyntsev, Artamonov tried to put a good face on it with bluff, airy, man-to-man talk about generalities. \"The Germans'superiority,\" he would say, \"is supposed to rest on system and order, but really that's their weakness-once we start fighting them unconventionally, in away they haven't bargained for, they're lost!\"\n\nThis colonel stuck to him like a leech; when toward nightfall the fighting ebbed and the corps commander decided to make yet another trip around the forward positions to encourage the troops, the man insisted on accompanying him-a bad sign. And so it proved: every remark Vorotyntsev made en route, every question he asked, was uncomfortably pointed. As tiiey drove out of Soldau, headlamps blazing, overtaking troops marching along the road, the colonel found some pretext to remark on the lack of any defensive ring of trenches around the town, which had been occupied by corps headquarters for four days-perhaps he had missed them? Discussing the day's fighting, he only confused Artamonov by remarking that a regiment had been withdrawn from the right flank, leaving a large gap in the line. No sooner had Artamonov silenced this awkward query by announcing that General Stempel's cavalry brigade had moved into fill the gap than they drove into a village where they found Stempel bivouacked for the night, with no intention of moving into position until the following morning. For this, Artamonov gave Stempel a dressing down. But of course you can always pick holes in anyone's dispositions if you make a tour of inspection and look hard enough. Finally, with what was now open disrespect, the colonel from headquarters started questioning the corps commander about his plan for the next day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Plan! There was something so un-Russian about the word. What plan? Did he think Artamonov was such a fool as to talk about his plan to all comers? In actual fact, his plan was simply to extricate his corps\n\nfrom this situation well enough for their commander to avoid blame and be given a medal, but one could hardly admit to a plan of such stark simpUcity. And now the colonel, who was obviously very well connected, was casually insinuating into the conversation what almost amounted to directives of his own. Since the forces under Artamonov's command were twice as large as an army corps, and since his over-extended left flank contained some cavalry divisions, surely he could put this flank's length and mobility to good use and deUver a stinging blow to the German flank tomorrow; there was still time to countermand his orders and redeploy accordingly. This, he maintained, would be in Artamonov's own interest.\n\nWell, he considered that he was the best judge of his own interests. It was true, though, that today he had found himself saddled with a force twice the normal size, involving twice as many problems. He had been incautious enough to raise the alarm and complain to Army Headquarters that heavy enemy forces were concentrating against him, whereupon Samsonov had telegraphed, transferring to Artamonov the two cavalry divisions and the remaining units which had arrived late to join the still unformed XXIII Army Corps-the Warsaw Guards Division and an independent rifle brigade. This done, the army commander expressed himself'convinced that even an enemy superior in numbers would be unable to break the fighting spirit of the glorious troops of the I Army Corps.\" With equal dignity, Artamonov had tapped out his thanks'for the confidence in him shown by his distinguished commander.\" In fact, the'confidence\" reduced him to cold despair: what in God's name was he to do with this massive burden?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This habit of exchanging hollow, bombastic compliments made Vorotyntsev see red. When mihtary men forsook the crisp, sober language of their profession and began bandying expressions of mutual esteem, like courtiers exchanging bows, he regarded it as a fatal sign of weakness; it could never happen in the German army. Strong enemy forces were concentrating on\n\nthe left flank of Samsonov's army and there was not a moment to be lost-yet here were these two generals trading compliments.\n\nThe Ke^ diolm regiment of Life Guards had detrained early in the day and was already on the march toward Neidenburg to catch up with and join XXIII Army Corps. The Lithuanian regiment of Life Guards had also reached Mlawa by train that day and had now been placed under Artamonov's command. (Two other regiments of the Guards Division, the so-called'Yellow Guard\" of Warsaw, were nowhere to be found, and no one knew the whereabouts of their divisional commander, General Sirelius.) The 1st Rifle Brigade, however, was one of the newest and best-trained units in the Russian army; the battalions of this brigade were now marching toward their forward positions, and Artamonov's car overtook them on the way.\n\nIf the left flank of Second Army had been deployed in the shape of a horn projecting forward from the army's main frontage, the past day's withdrawal would not have been too serious and there would have been no great harm in pulling it back a little farther. But its situation now made it look more like a shoulder-and a bruised one at that.\n\nBy now, ^\\ rtamonov's mind was muddled and dulled. Vorotyntsev's ideas and hints simply bounced off the general's hollow, domed, marble forehead. It was a waste of time trying to discuss with him such questions as how and why the German I Army Corps had got here so quickly from Gumbinnen. Vorotyntsev had spent all day at corps headquarters and had been watching this fussy general dashing hither and thither. Graying temples and walrus moustaches, epaulettes and aiguillettes can make even a fool look imposing and prevent one from seeing a man as he always has been and still is-primeval Adam; but if one made the effort, one could detect that here was really a private disguised as a general: put under a strict sergeant, he would have made an excellent soldier, keen, fast on his feet, never idle, always willing, and probably brave under fire as well. Or he would have made a splendid deacon, tall, dignified, with a good voice, not too lazy to" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "swing his censer in every comer of the church, a bit of an actor, and no doubt devoted to the service of God.\n\nBut why was he a general-of-infantry? Why had sixty thousand Russian soldiers been placed under his imprudent command?\n\nHe was now setting off to visit all his units by night. What arrangements had he made for headquarters to function in his absence? Who was in charge of intelligence? What communications were there between the artillery and the infantry? How many rounds per gun had been brought forward, and were there enough ammunition boxes and wagons to keep the gunners supplied during the battle? He probably didn't know, and was not even aware that he ought to. Why, for instance, had the relatively moderate fighting of the past day obhged his corps to withdraw quite so far in certain locaUties? Artamonov had made no effort to find out the reason and would not reUsh being told it by Vorotynt-sev. In the hands of an inteUigent general, this method can be brilliantly used for pulling stray units back into line, being everjrwhere in time to exercise personal supervision-^ but to add four wheels to two active but totally brainless legs is to invite disaster!\n\nThere was no denying that Artamonov was at least outwardly firm. He was never downhearted at the problems facing hhn, he never sought advice, and a sensitive ear was needed to detect the ring of perplexity in his voice.\n\nAs they drove along the road at night, the unnaturally white light of their headlamps gave a strange, dead look to the trunks of the roadside trees, to bushes, houses, bams, level crossings, bridge railings, wagons, and marching troops, while it blinded anyone coming toward them. Here and there troops would peer curiously at them out of the darkness and the lone soldiers they passed would either quicken their pace or whip up their horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there had ever been any sense in Vorotyntsev's journey to the left flank of the army, there was none now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among the orders given him for his mission, the highest priority had been allotted to'staff reconnaissance,\" meaning that he was to acquire an accurate\n\nknowledge of the situation by personal observation which would enable General Headquarters to corrector supplement the information available to them. He had already amply fulfilled this brief, and the data he had to send to General Headquarters were now in danger of being delayed. It was his clear duty to return with all speed to Second Army Headquarters and thence back to GHQ. Vorotyntsev had not been empowered to hover over staff or regimental officers and offer advice. He might be able to influence the course of the action if he were to stick closely to Artamonov, be present whenever he took a decision, and guard him against mistakes, but Artamonov was suspicious of such tutelage and would reject it. In any case, Vorotyntsev could scarcely bring himself to stay with Artamonov any longer. Everything comes, they say, to him who waits, but patience was not one of Vorotyntsev's virtues. He could not go through with the nighttime tour of inspection in the general's company. It began at Usdau, whence it was fourteen miles byroad to Army Headquarters; it was here that he decided to leave Artamonov.\n\nThe village of Usdau lay on the broad, flattop of a hill, whose slope had a noticeable effect on the car's progress. Kerosene lamps were burning in several of the windows, others were dark, but the number of horses and soldiers to be seen gave the impression that the whole place-^ houses, bams, and farmyards-^ was crammed full. Shielded from the enemy's view by a high wall, several field cookers were hissing away with a steady flame.\n\nBehind the red-brick Gothic church they stopped and switched off the headlamps. They had given notice of their arrival and were met with a report on the situation from Major General Savitsky, the'sector commander,\" as he called himself to conceal the anomaly of his position: actually, he was a brigade commander whose unit consisted of only one regiment, the 85th Vyborg, the other regiment of his brigade having got left behind in Warsaw. ( Nor was this the only irregularity. On the left of the Vyborg regiment was another division also short of a regiment, which was still in" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Warsaw, while to the left of that were two regiments and General Dushkevich, the commander of the division to which the Vyborg regiment belonged. The overlapping and confusion could not have been greater had they been planned.)\n\nArtamonov said he wanted to seethe forward positions, and Savitsky led them around the village by the faint light commg from the windows. Savitsky was already gray, but held himself Hke a much younger man; even in the starUt darkness, one could detect the sound sense in his description of the situation.\n\nAfter a day of being harried by the enemy, the Vyborg regiment was now occupying a strong key position. About two hundred yards from the village, where the hilltop began to slope down toward the enemy, there was a line of continuous trenches which the troops were still busy deepening.\n\nThe regiment was fresh; it had been brought up by rail, there had been no interruptions in its food supply, and it had suffered practically no casualties during the day's fighting. The men were working with a will, as one could tell from the busy, muffled clink of spades and pick-axes and from the jokes and laughter.\n\nSavitsky had a clear perception of the weaknesses and dangers of his position. There was no unit to his immediate right, leaving a gap in the line; furthermore, for this vital sector he had been allotted too Uttle artillery: a regiment of hght field artillery and, almost as a bad joke, two medium howitzers. The other ten corps howitzers and the complete army heavy-artillery regiment were faraway on the left. Artamonov, however, had no time to intervene if he was to complete his tour of the positions that night. Breaking off his conversation with Savitsky and Vorotyntsev, he ordered a platoon to be paraded in front of him-\"that one over therefrom the nearest trench, as they are, in working kit.\" (After all, he had once been in charge of the defensive works of Kronstadt!) The platoon put down its tools, clambered out of the trench, and fell into line without arms. Artamonov strode along the ranks. \"Well, lads-are we going to beat the Germans off?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ina mumbled, ragged chorus the men replied that they would.\n\n\"Easy job, eh?\"\n\nThey agreed.\n\n\"Your regiment captured Berlin in 1813, and for that battle honor you have a set of silver trumpets! You there,\" he asked abroad-shouldered private. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Agafon, your ex'ency,\" the man replied promptly and smartly.\n\n\"Which Agafon? When's your name day?\"\n\n\"The Threshing Floor, your ex'ency,\" answered the soldier, unabashed.\n\n\"Fool! Threshing Floor, indeed! Why threshing floor?\"\n\n\"Because it's the autumn one, your ex'ency! That's when we bring the stooks in from the fields and start threshing.\" \n\n\"You fool, you should know all about your saint-who he was and what he did. And you should pray to him before battle. Have you read the lives of the saints?\"\n\n\"I, er... yes, your ex'ency...\"\n\n\"Your saint's your guardian angel, you see. He keeps you and protects you. And you don't know anything about him. When's the patronal feast in your village, then? Or don't you know that either?\"\n\n\"I know it, your ex'ency! It's around the time of Mary Minor Day.\"\n\n\"And what is Mary Minor Day?\"\n\n In pre-revolutionary rural Russia, the peasant's life was regulated by the Orthodox Church calendar; generally the peasants did not know the times of the year by month and date but simply by saints* days, many of which marked the start or finish of phases of work in the farming cycle. Since there were often three or four saints of the same name, they were given extra distinguishing names or nicknames. There are three Saint Agafons in the Orthodox calendar; the feast of this man's patron saint-St. Agafon Ogumennik (ogumennik= threshing floor)-was August 28. Because the Orthodox Church used (and still uses) the Julian calendar, which in the twentieth century is thirteen days behind the Western (Gregorian) calendar, the equivalent date of St. Agafon's feast day is September 10. By this date the harvest was in full swing and the sheaves of grain were being taken to be threshed on the village's communal threshing floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Agafon faltered, but from behind him came a shout from another soldier, who from his way of speaking was obviously literate. \"The Nativity of the Most Pure Mother of God, your excellency!\"\n\n\"Well then, pray to the Mother of God while there's life in you,\" said Artamonov with finaUty. Bypassing the third man in the rank, he asked the same question of the fourth soldier, who turned out to be named after St. Methodius the Quail Hunter* and knew nothing of the life of his saint either.\n\n\"But at least you're all wearing crosses?\" \"Of course! Everyone of us!\" Holy Russia answered him as one man, even sounding offended that he should ask such a question.\n\n\"Well, then-pray! The enemy will start bombarding us in the morning-so if I were you, I should pray!\"\n\nIt might have occurred to Vorotyntsev that this performance had been staged for his benefit, but this was not so: Artamonov always behaved Hke that. It was impossible to tell whether he did it out of genuine conviction or because, having served for so long in the Petersburg Military District, he knew how much it pleased the grand-duke to see an icon lamp burning in every soldier's tent. One learned nothing from his face on these occasions: his features were a smooth, solid wall, his nose was like a false door handle which opened nothing, and his eyes were equally blank.\n\nLooking up into the sky, he crossed himself. Just as it was his habit to rush headlong from left to right of his corps, so he crossed himself with a hurried, sweeping gesture, tapping his forehead and chest and ending with a violent movement to his left shoulder as though brushing off a gadfly. Then he made the sign of the crossover Savitsky and embraced him, saying: \"God bless you! God bless your Vyborg regiment!\" He might have given the regiment its full title, though that would scarcely have been appropriate, since it was\" His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm II, Emperor of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "* This saint's feast day is June 20, O. S. (July 3, N. S.).\n\nGermany and King of Prussia's Own Regiment.\" The title had now fallen out of use and anew one had not been devised.\n\nThe corps commander drove away. Savitsky set off to the right, where his sector came to an end, to supervise the positioning of a half company of machine guns. Vorotyntsev went with him. He always had to have something to worry about. Now that there was no longer any fear of the army being outflanked on the left, he was nagged by the thought that there was a yawning gap to the right of this corps.\n\nObviously fully aware of the position, Savitsky confined himself to remarks that were brief and to the point. But why was it that good sense and intelligence were never to be found at the very top, where they mattered most?\n\nPassing between the village and the line of forward trenches, they walked toward the windmill. Isolated, on an exposed spot slightly higher than the village, its gigantic black bulk loomed up. Even by the faint starlight, its motionless sails could be seen, looking like human arms crossed in entreaty: * 'Oh, stop!\"or sternly forbidding:\" You shall not pass!\"\n\nWas there an observation post in the mill? Yes, there had been, but it had been withdrawn; it was too exposed and the Germans had begun firing in this direction before nightfall.\n\nFrom where they stood, the road and the railway track ran side by side out of the village on two embankments, which then turned sharply northward, cutting across the front line. It was in that direction that Savitsky had to go to see to his machine guns. He offered Vorotyntsev abed for the night in the house in which he himself was billeted. It was time to retire at last. Vorotyntsev set off back along the track toward the village, and at the point where the Neidenburg road emerged from under the railway, he sat down on the sparse, dry grass of the sloping embankment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the dark expanse, as far as he could see to the east, and from north to south, there was not a glimmer of light, except for Pegasus, the broad nebula in Andro-\n\nmeda, the bright pmpomt of Capella, and the dun cluster of the Pleiades. There was no sound of artillery or rifle fire, of hoofs or wheels; the earth was as it had been on the first day of creation, stiU without beasts and men. A battle was imminent between two corps; on it would depend the fate of armies, perhaps even of the whole campaign; nearby, a stone's throwaway, StempePs brigade would move up at dawn. And what of the Germans? Had they guessed the true position? Were they infiltrating yet or not?\n\nPerhaps the right course of action would be to rundown the side of the embankment and set off along the road to Neidenburg, find Samsonov, and warn him that there was a gap in the line far too close to his own headquarters, that the body of the army had ahready been spht into two parts and Second Army Headquarters itself was defenseless. He could get him to write out an order to attack on the left flank, and bring the order back himself.\n\nBut he would never make it by morning. Even if he could find a two-wheeler and cover the fourteen miles flat out, he would never be able to get things moving before dawn. He might easily be shot at by a patrol. In any case, it was hopeless to expect he could wake up the ponderous Samsonov in the middle of the night, shake him, and persuade him to take such drastic measures.\n\nHe had better stay where he was. Usdau was the key to the situation. Unfortunately, a colonel from GHQ had no business here; the whole point of his mission had vanished. The tens of thousands of officers and men around him were all working within the specific confines of duty; he alone had no direct concern here; yet some vague prompting of conscience made him stay. As soon as he had got out of Artamonov's car, the object of his journey to I Army Corps had ceased to exist and had not been replaced by any other. He had not even sent his report back to the commander-in-chief and he could see noway of intervening. He had begun to feel that he would have achieved more by staying at General Headquarters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always passionately keen to put his abilities to the best use, he had utterly failed to do so.\n\nEver since his youth, Vorotyntsev had been obsessed by one profound desire: to be a good influence on the history of his country, either by pushing it or by pulling it-^ by the roots of the hair if necessary!-in the right direction. But in Russia that kind of power and influence were not granted to anyone who was not fortunate enough to be close to the throne; at whatever point Vorotyntsev attempted to exert pressure and however much he exhausted hhnself trying, the effort was always in vain.\n\nWaves of sleep were washing over him, and he found himself nodding. He had, after all, spent the last two nights in the saddle. Was it really this morning that he had had breakfast with Krymov? It felt like a week ago.\n\nIt would have been quite comfortable simply to lean back a bit against the embankment and go to sleep. But the ground was already cold.\n\nHe ran down to the road and walked slowly back toward the village. He stumbled a little, his thoughts straying. He felt unable to act, make decisions, or even think. Condemning himself for having failed in his mission, despising himself for his muddled thinking, he tottered back to the house allotted for his billet.\n\nAlthough it was only a country cottage, his room had a double four-poster bed on which was alight eiderdown in a pink silk cover. Ever since the Japanese war, his memories of front-line billets had been mostly of Chinese peasant huts, dugouts, or tents. On the marble mantelpiece ticked a bronze clock with atop that tapered to a point. It probably had an eight-day movement and had last been wound by its owners. It agreed almost exactly with Vorotyntsev's watch: a quarter to twelve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room was stuffy and made more so by the kerosene lamp, but this also made it pleasantly warm. With the last ounce of his strength, Vorotyntsev pulled off his belt and boots, thrust his revolver under the down pillow, put a box of matches by his bedside, blew\n\nout the lamp, and flopped down on top of the soft, yielding eiderdown, still with a sense of bitterness at his failure and stupidity. The bed embraced him as though it had been waiting for him, and the edges of his anxiety and confusion softened. The beating of his heart, which he could hear through the pillow, grew slower, and then virtually stopped...\n\nHow long it was later he did not know, but he was in a room, though not the same one. There was only a faint li^ t which did not reach to the corners; he could not see where it was coming from and it shone only in one place. Now it was shining on her face and breast.\n\nIt was she-^ he recognized her immediately, even though he had never seen her in his life. He was amazed that finding her had been so easy, for it had always seemed impossible. Although strangers, they recognized each other at once and rushed to seize each other by the arms.\n\nThere was fight of a kind, and he could see, though not weU enough to make out features and expression, yet he was piercingly aware that it was she-the one, the longed-for, the inexpressibly beloved woman, the loveliest of aU beautiful women, of aU the women in creation!\n\nThey embraced and spoke, yet did not speak; though not one clear word was uttered, their understanding was instant and complete. In the half fight of that room fittle could be seen, but the sense of touch was absolute. From her arms, his hands passed to her narrow, curving back; he pressed her to him and the feel of her was so good, so natural: the finding of what he had always sought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No duty caUed him, no cares burdened him, there was only the ease and joy of her embrace. Strangely, it was as if this was not the first time they had seen each other, as if somehow, somewhere faraway, this meeting had already been agreed between them. He led her confidently toward the bed, whither the light now moved.\n\nSuddenly she faltered and stopped. Not from constraint, for their desire was already at full flood, but\n\nbecause-he knew at once-there was a reason why she could not turn back the covers of that bed.\n\nIn clumsy haste he bent down to do it himself and, as soon as he had drawn back the bedspread and the blankets, saw lying on the sheet, folded several times and half under the pillow-Alina's nightdress, pink and trimmed with lace. Although he could not distinguish color in that hght, not even the color of her dress or her eyes, he recognized the pink nightdress at once.\n\nOnly then did the memory comeback to him: of course-^ Alina! But he felt no inhibition; carelessly, without hesitation or regret, he tossed away the delicate pink material, which at once melted, disappeared. The bed was ready and there was nothing else to disturb them.\n\nEverything happened in an instant; he had no idea how they undressed or got into bed, they were simply lying tightly clasped together, warmed by the boundless joy of the discovery that never, never again would they need to look for anyone or anything else...\n\nThere was a roar and a crash and a tinkle of breaking glass. Georgii woke up, though at first he had not the strength to move his head. No glass had actually broken, but the first German shells were falling nearby. The room was full of the gray light of dawn. He shut his eyes again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parting from her was agony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had only just drowned incomplete intimacy with her and still lay helpless, powerless to move even if the world came to an end that moment. He could still feel her with such intensity that he had not yet begun to think rationally. Who was she? Had he really sought her? He could not remember ever having thought of her before-not in that way.\n\nWhat astounded him was not that he should have dreamed of a woman who did not exist-it often happens, after all-^ but the intensity of the sensual experience, something which Georgii thought had died in hun or at least had long been forgotten.\n\nHe still felt her so powerfully that he could not bear to unclasp his knees and lose her warmth; he con-\n\ntinued to sprawl in a delicious languor from which he could not have roused himself if a shell had knocked down the wall of the house. It all began to comeback to him: his wasted journey-^ today was the day of the battle-^ he was in the wrong place-^ he had to go somewhere: was it to Samsonov? or to Artamonov? In the dawn air he could already distinguish the separate report as each gun fired, the sound of shells in flight, and then, in the village or near it, the explosions as they burst. Three-inch. Six-inch. And that one was even bigger.\n\nHe cursed the impotence of the flesh. He might be killed, the whole house might be blown up, and still he hadn't the strength to move. People compared this state of the body with death and the comparison seemed true enough.\n\nBut what about the men in the trenches? What of Agafon Ogumennik-^ how were things with him?\n\nHe could now make out the time by the clock on the mantelpiece: seven minutes past four. The explosions were getting nearer. The doors in the house were rattling. Then there was a knock on his door: a smart, efficient, round-faced army cook had brought him a mess tin full of porridge, still hot, although the troops had probably had theirs an hour ago. He did not know the man's name, but how he thanked him! His was one of a hundred thousand faces that one saw in Russia, faces that one endlessly saw and forgot-God grant that heat least remember this man forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev jumped out of bed; his legs were still weak for the first few steps, but the weakness soon vanished. He ate the porridge rapidly with abroad wooden spoon which forced his mouth wide open, wound up his pocket watch, put on his belt, greatcoat, and binoculars, and then stopped to think: where ought he to go? The windowpanes rattled again, a shudder went through the whole house, but indoors, as usual, it was hard to determine from which direction the bombardment was coming.\n\nWhen he had scraped every morsel out of the mess tin, he found the cook waiting in the passage. The\n\nmess tin was probably his own. A clasp on the shoulder-\"Thanks, brother\"-and he ran out of the house toward the trenches, wide awake and almost cheerful.\n\nIt was a chilly morning. The low ground that skirted the village was dense with mist. A high-explosive shell burst nearby and the fragments whistled past. After having taken cover behind the brick wall of a bam, Vorotyntsev set off at a fast run to the nearest trench, which happened to be occupied by the same platoon which had been subjected to the general's ridiculous inspection last night. He jumped into the trench between two soldiers. They had made a good job of it; it was dug to the full depth, complete with embrasures, and the sensible fellows had even scrounged a few benches and armchairs.\n\nA little to the left, protected by a niche hollowed out of the parapet, its muzzle facing the enemy and its tail toward its masters in the trench, stood a toy Hon about the size of a cat, with a beautiful, well-combed, tawny skin.\n\n\"What's the animal called, your honor?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They do say...\"\n\nThe men all waited for his confirmation.\n\n\"A lion. Where did you get it?\"\n\n\"Found it in a town we went through.\"\n\n\"Is it solid or stuffed with rags?\"\n\n\"It's solid.\"\n\nAlthough not yet very concentrated or accurate, the shells were still flying overhead, whistling with an evil glee that foretold a hard day's fighting. Had he been alone, he would already have been cowering in silence, pressing his head against the earth wall of the trench, but he was surrounded by men who were putting a cheerful face on it. And then there was the lion. Vorotyntsev liked that. His confusion and indecision of the early morning had been dissipated by this brisk start to the day.\n\nFrom where he stood, there was a wide view, though half of it was still wreathed in mist. Above it the flashes from German batteries positioned on high ground could be seen clearly. Meanwhile, there was a useful job he could do: spread out a sheet of paper on his\n\nmap board, take a compass bearing on the windmill, which was fully visible from this point in the long, curving trench, and draw a sketch map showing the estimated positions of the enemy batteries, calculating the range by eye and, if possible, with the aid of the ranging graticules in the lens of his binoculars. Vorotyntsev liked artillery work, having at his own request taken a course one summer at the ofiBcers' artillery school at Luga, where he had learned a great deal.\n\n\"Hey, lads, why don't our guns shoot back at them?\" one soldier asked another while glancing out of the comer of his eyes at Vorotyntsev." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So as not to give themselves away!\" a taU soldier standing next to Vorotyntsev in the trench replied gravely, though his pursed Hps and serious manner were jokingly assumed. He too glanced sideways at the colonel.\n\nAlthough the main weight of the German fire was obviously concentrated on the other regiments to their left, it was now beginning to thicken around them too. The soldiers'faces tensed, and the strain put a stop to their jokes. One man was holding a prayer book and whispering. Shells screamed overhead Uke steel whips, sphnters whined past them. The soldier on Vorotyntsev's right hand cowered at even the most distant whistle, while the humorist on his left with the broad, flat nose, mouth agape, and pendulous lower lipsticking forward, watched every squeak of the colonel's pencil. It was a very good-natured face. Though his mouth was wide open, the soldier's eyes were keenly watching the map board, not out of idle curiosity but with absorption, as though at any moment he might attempt the job himself.\n\n\"Understand what I'm domg?\" Vorotyntsev asked, as he looked alternately through his binoculars and down at the map board. \"While they're stiU not hittmg us too hard...\"\n\n\"Yes, you're using the time to sort of blaze a trail.\" The big-mouthed soldier nodded confidently. It was clear from his expression that he had gathered that Vorotyntsev was calculating angles and distances but was not quite certain why he was doing it.\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Arsenii.\"\n\n\"Surname?\"\n\n\"Blagodaryov.\"\n\nA good name, and the relish with which he pronounced it conveyed a current of warmth and sympathy. Blagodaryov! With a name like that, he would be a man quick to show gratitude-^ in fact, he seemed about to tiiank Vorotyntsev at this moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind them, dawn was breakmg over the village and the mist in the valley was thickening. In an hour or so, with the sun rising behind them, their hill would darken and grow less distinct to the German batteries firing from the west, but to those positioned to the north it would become a clearer target. Already several shells were starting to fall nearby. Most of it was howitzer fire, heavy stuff too; the Germans, rightly, were using more high explosive than shrapnel. He would not be able to finish his battery-locating work; what he had done would have to suflice.\n\nPushing past the men's backs, the company commander came down the trench. \"They haven't wounded the lion yet, have they?\"\n\nThe men repUed with a laugh.\n\n\"It's a pretty tight squeeze in this trench of yours!\"\n\nVorotyntsev asked the ofiicer to give his sheet of paper to the battalion commander, who should then pass it onto the artillery.\n\nThe company's only casualties so far were three men lightly wounded. There was a rumor that the first battahon, dug in below the windmill, had had a direct hit on a trench and that about a dozen men had been buried by the explosion.\n\nAs the morning grew warmer in the sunlight, the mist began to dissipate and one could now seethe whole battlefield stretched out to the left, thick with puffs of bursting shrapnel and fountains of earth thrown up by the high-explosive shells. The barrage was moving closer and closer toward them along the six-mile frontage on which the two I Corps of their respective\n\n The name is derived from the Russian word for\" thanks, gratitude. ' *\n\narmies faced each other. The date was known: August 14,1914; so far, though, the battle had not been given a name. Would it be known as Usdau? Soldau? Even less certain was how it would be remembered in history. Would it bring glory to one side? Would it simply be forgotten by tomorrow?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After his short night's sleep, his awakening by a bombardment, and the brisk, chilly start to the day, Vorotyntsev had still not started to reason very coherently. What was his duty today? Surely not to sit uselessly pinned down in this trench. Nevertheless, he felt a surge of vigor: now that he was seeing action, the aimless lounging about and dashing to and fro were at last over, and far from regretting his mission, he was actually glad that he was not at General Headquarters, where they did not wake up until nine o'clock in the morning. Today, August 14,1914, was the beginning of the second war in Colonel Vorotyntsev's lifetime-a war whose duration and outcome for both the Russian army and himself were unknown. His entire career and training so far had been a preparation for this; he must not fight this war in vain.\n\n\"They're easing off a bit!\" Blagodaryov announced before any of the others. He had been able to detect the crack of gunfire in between the noise of exploding shells, not just along the whole battlefront but in particular from the batteries facing their sector. He was seconds ahead of the rest, like an experienced con-certgoer who starts to applaud before the last note has died away. At once the barrage directed against their regiment began to lessen.\n\n\"You've a good ear,\" said Vorotyntsev approvingly. \"A pity you're not in the artillery, you could have located the targets by ear.\"\n\nBlagodaryov smirked, though with sufficient restraint not to show how pleased he was at the colonel's praise.\n\nThe men began straightening up and taking deep breaths. Some sprawled on the chairs and began rolling themselves cigarettes. The lion was examined and found to be undamaged. This caused much amusement: if the lion was all right in the open, why did they bother to crouch against the trench wall?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After his short night's sleep, his awakening by a bombardment, and the brisk, chilly start to the day, Vorotyntsev had still not started to reason very coherently. What was his duty today? Surely not to sit uselessly pinned down in this trench. Nevertheless, he felt a surge of vigor: now that he was seeing action, the aimless lounging about and dashing to and fro were at last over, and far from regretting his mission, he was actually glad that he was not at General Headquarters, where they did not wake up until nine o'clock in the morning. Today, August 14,1914, was the beginning of the second war in Colonel Vorotyntsev's lifetime-a war whose duration and outcome for both the Russian army and himself were unknown. His entire career and training so far had been a preparation for this; he must not fight this war in vain.\n\n\"They're easing off a bit!\" Blagodaryov announced before any of the others. He had been able to detect the crack of gunfire in between the noise of exploding shells, not just along the whole battlefront but in particular from the batteries facing their sector. He was seconds ahead of the rest, like an experienced con-certgoer who starts to applaud before the last note has died away. At once the barrage directed against their regiment began to lessen.\n\n\"You've a good ear,\" said Vorotyntsev approvingly. \"A pity you're not in the artillery, you could have located the targets by ear.\"\n\nBlagodaryov smirked, though with sufficient restraint not to show how pleased he was at the colonel's praise.\n\nThe men began straightening up and taking deep breaths. Some sprawled on the chairs and began rolling themselves cigarettes. The lion was examined and found to be undamaged. This caused much amusement: if the lion was all right in the open, why did they bother to crouch against the trench wall?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When are they going to bring up the rations?\" asked the soldier who had wondered why the Russian guns weren't firing.\n\nThey all rounded on him with gusto. \"Greedy bastard!\"\n\n\"It'll come when it's ready, and not before! \"\" What are you worrying about food for? You make sure you don't get a hole through your gut, or you won't have anywhere to put your dinner!\"\n\nThe fire had been lifted from their sector only to be moved onto the neighboring regiments to the left. Centralized fire control, thought Vorotyntsev approvingly. To have the whole corps artillery shift its target simultaneously was impossible in the Russian army: there was not enough telephone equipment and no one was trained in the technique. But why was the barrage shifting? Were they going to put in an infantry attack on Usdau? Although they were facing northwest, Vorotyntsev's binoculars were trained on the terrain to the north; if only they didn't attack from there-that would be the point of greatest danger.\n\nThe crimson sun behind them had already climbed over the housetops, shining through the trees, and some sunlight was falling on their side of the hill. It was getting warmer. The men rolled up their greatcoats and slung them over their shoulders. Slightly crumpled, but still visible on aU their shoulder tabs, was the monogram of Wilhelm II.\n\nThe order was passed down the line for everyone to get ready to fire.\n\nBut no German attack came and not a single German put his head up. Again, Blagodaryov was the first to spot what was happening.\n\n\"Look! Look!\" he said, half to the colonel and half to the others, pointing his long arm over the parapet in great excitement. \"Over there! Over there!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev picked it up clearly with his binoculars: two open-topped cars driving out of a wood, each with four men in it. They were less than a mile away, and with his powerful glasses Vorotyntsev could even make out the faces and the badges on the epaulettes. Sitting in the first car was a short, active-looking\n\nft\n\ngeneral, the light flashing occasionally from the lenses of his binoculars, although, as he was looking into the sun, he could not get a detailed view of the Russian positions. The party was traveling from left to right on the far side of the valley, above the line of the mist. There was no one to warn them or stop them and they were rapidly approaching the Russian lines.\n\n\"It's a general! A general driving toward us!\" Vor-otyntsev excitedly told Blagodaryov and anybody else who was listening. \"Now if only we could give him a good fright! I wouldn't mind having a word with him!\" It was a pity that he was standing herein the trench. If he'd been with Savitsky, he could have stopped all the guns firing and turned them on the general. Could they see him from the command post? It was already too late to run to the telephone.\n\n\"Age-ne-ral!\" roared Blagodaryov at the top of his voice, Uke a hunter who has spied a fine piece of game. \"Let's get him!\"\n\nNow the general's car was dipping down the slope into the mist; soon it would come up the other side, toward Usdau. But the men in the Russian outposts farther down the slope, apparently unaffected by the artillery barrage, could not restrain themselves and several riflemen began firing at the cars at a range of eight hundred yards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The German infantry returned the fire.\n\nSuddenly the cars took fright, stopped to turnaround, and got into difficulties as they maneuvered.\n\nGod, if only they could give them a taste of shrapnel! But first the men in the artillery observation post would have to ring back regimental headquarters, then the message would have to be passed to a battery, and by that time...\n\nThrough binoculars, the general could be seen leaping agilely out of his car, followed with equal alacrity by his staff, who did not bother to open the car doors but simply jumped and ran, crouching.\n\n\"If only we could bring down some fire on them!\" Vorotyntsev shouted in vain. And since there was nothing he could do, he held the binoculars up to Blago-daryov's eyes. He expected him to be unfamiliar with\n\nbinoculars, but the man focused them in a moment and burst into laughter, slapping his thighs and shouting so that the whole battalion could hear: \"Ah, the old devil! Look at him! Leaping about like an old goat! Get him, somebody! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nThe cars managed to turnaround, drove backup the road, and stopped to wait for their passengers. But the officers had already run into the bushes by the roadside, where they had flung themselves into a ditch or the bed of a stream. The general waved to the drivers to goon without them. Then he straightened up and walked up the hill.\n\nOnly then did some Russian three-inchers start firing over their heads from behind the village, the shells bursting close to the spot where the cars had first stopped. At least they had found the target.\n\nWho was the general? And why didn't he know that this position was strongly held by the Russians?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The incident had thoroughly amused the troops and had created a link between them and Vorotyntsev. Ina voice which carried effortlessly for fifty yards, Blagodaryov now described how, thanks to the binoculars, he had practically been on the spot, how he had watched the general skip out of his car like a thoroughbred. The men were amazed: were there generals who behaved like that?\n\nIt was plain that Blagodaryov was a man who laughed easily. He looked as if he would be a good worker too, despite a hint of clumsiness about him-the clumsiness of almost excessive strength. He had given his age as twenty-five, but there was still something childlike in his fat-cheeked face, and that look of trustfulness which is only to be found in countrymen.\n\n\"Hold tight now, boys! And put that lion somewhere safe! That general's going to make things hot for us-he didn't come here for fun!\" Vorotyntsev promised them cheerfuUy.\n\nThere was no fun about it; for many of them, only death or wounds. But, as happens in all-male company, if one of them did long to duck and run, he\n\nconcealed his feelings; they all suddenly began joking, laughing, and showing off their unconcern.\n\n\"Remember, boys-a brave man only dies once, a coward dies a hundred times!\"\n\nVorotyntsev could sense that the company had come to accept him and hke him and he was filled with modest pride that he was, after all, in the right place. He felt, too, an access of something which his years in Petersburg and Moscow had caused him to forget: the vigorous, inexhaustible spiritual strength of Russia that lay hidden under these soldiers' tunics and made them so fearless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where's Ogumennik, lads?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd like to see what he looks like by dayhght!\"\n\n\"Hey, Ogumennik!... Ogumennik!... Just coming, sir! No, he's not, he's gone off to relieve himself!... We'll get him in a moment!\"\n\n\"Well, the Quail Hunter, then.\"\n\nThe puny but cheerful soldier Methodius the Quail Hunter turned out to have been standing only a few men away from Blagodaryov and was already pushing his way along the Une to the colonel. But there was no time to have a look at him: suddenly, added to the crump and roar of the barrage to their left, a dozen or so guns of the batteries facing them opened up with a salvo of heavy shells which came screaming through the air-all in their direction.\n\n\"Remember your saints?\" Vorotyntsev just had time to shout. \"\\ Vell, start praying!\"\n\nThis echo of yesterday's ridiculous scene with General Artamonov produced a final flurry of jokes all around.\n\n\"Praise the Lord-but keep your head down!\"\n\n\"St. Nicholas will take care of us all!\"\n\nBlagodaryov roared: \"Goodbye sunshine-and goodbye home!\" He was already crouching on the bottom of the trench, covering his head and crossing himself at the same time.\n\nThe entire sector of the line occupied by the Vyborg regiment was engulfed by a tidal wave of German high explosive. Instantaneously, thanks to the Germans' centralized fire control and efficient communications, the firepower of dozens of guns and howitzers, light, me-\n\ndium, and heavy, was switched onto their half mile of hillside trenches. Some of the shellbursts were of an unprecedented force, obviously from guns of even heavier caliber than six inches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There, right beside them, the earth was disemboweled by a massive explosion, tearing soul from body. Each shell came screaming straight at you-at the colonel, at every private soldier, every mother's son, God help us!-yet not one actually hit the trench. They were shaken, deafened, occasionally showered with earth or splinters, but there was so much noise that there was no hearing the whine of splinters. They were nauseated by the stinking, clinging reek of explosive, which even the men under fire for the first time soon instinctively associated with death.\n\nNow there was no telling the shellbursts apart. Everything merged into one shattering ordeal of imminent death.\n\nEven Vorotyntsev had never been through such an experience in his life. The Japanese had never put down a barrage like this. When the earth was being torn apart, you felt as though your own body were being lacerated, and it needed an effort of will to remind yourself that if you could hear and think, it was the earth that had been hit and not you. Despite all the years he had been studying war, he realized that he had quite forgotten what it was actually like; he was experiencing everything as though for the first time. With a mental effort he recalled his Military Academy training and reminded himself over and over again that in theory, with a properly dug trench, even an hour-long bombardment of this force would not knockout more than a quarter of its occupants: therefore, one had a seventy-five percent chance of staying alive.\n\nBut how long could one's mind and nerves holdout, without seeing the enemy and without fighting back, simply acting as a human target? He should have been taking compass bearings and looking at his watch, but he found that, involuntarily, his eyes were tightly shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He forced them open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Afoot away from him, halfway up the front wall of the trench and pressed hard\n\nagainst it, with his cap askew, was Blagodaryov. He too seemed to have just opened his eyes.\n\nIn the infernal noise blotting out all other sounds, cutoff from the rest of the world as though they were the only two living creatures on earth, they gave each other what might be the last glance they ever exchanged with another human being.\n\nVorotyntsev winked at him to keep his spnits up. In reply, Blagodaryov tried to stretch his Ups in a crooked smile, but nothing came of it.\n\nNo one had ever told him that he had a seventy-five percent chance...\n\nEach interminable minute was sliced off with terrible slowness. Vorotyntsev's watch was hot from being clutched, but he simply had not the strength of wiU to keep looking at it: the secondhand clicked around too slowly, each one of its revolutions encompassing avalanches of metal, thousands of shell splinters and lumps of earth.\n\nThere was no more sun, no more morning, only black, smoking, reeking night.\n\nThe thoughts that jostled through his mind every second were as crowded and as muddled as the troops in the trench. How can we fight, when we are so unequal in artillery? The range of our guns is less than four miles, while the Germans can fire up to seven-it had been the same in the Japanese war... In the Japanese war he had not been married-^ Alina would cry a little and marry again-^ pity they had no children-^ no, perhaps it was a good thing they had none-^ pity he had never met the woman he had dreamed about last night-^ what, if anythmg, had he made of his hfe?-August 14,1914-a professional soldier shouldn't be afraid of dying-it was his profession, but what about these miserable peasants?-what would their reward be? Simply to stay alive. What had he to live for?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blagodaryov was now staring with considerable interest at the colonel's watch, just as earlier he had looked at his map board. Then he started to crawl toward him. Was he wounded? No, he was shouting in his ear:\"... what's it for?\"\n\nVorotyntsev could not understand. What did he mean? What was his watch for? Surely he knew what a watch was?\n\n\"... threshing floor!\" Blagodaryov roared again, bursting his lungs with the effort.\n\nFor another moment Vorotyntsev still did not get it, then he suddenly understood. Like ears of wheat being battered on a threshing floor, so the soldiers in the trenches could only cower and wait until their bodies were smashed-these bodies which were the only ones they had. Gigantic flails were lashing up and down their ranks to thresh the souls out of their bodies like little grains, to be used for some unknown purpose, and all that the victims could do was to wait their turn. Unhurt or not, it was all the same: the next moment might be their last.\n\nHow, Vorotyntsev wondered, did they survive this hammering? No one was screaming, no one's nerve had broken.\n\nAnd still the minutes ticked on.\n\nFive at least.\n\nTen.\n\nClutching a face streaming with blood, a soldier frenziedly pushed his way along the trench behind their backs.\n\nNot faraway, one man was bandaging another's wound.\n\nBut their link in the chain of trenches was intact.\n\nThey were beginning to get used to it. Living under shellfire is a form of lifelike any other-sooner or later you adapt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev looked at Blagodaryov and saw clearly that he was not terrified. Naturally, like anyone else, he did not want to die; he knew that fear was inevitable, that everyone was bound to feel it in a situation like this, but of terror there was no trace in him: his face betrayed no panic, his eyes were not bulging, his mind was not clouded, his heart not racing.\n\nIt occurred to Vorotyntsev that this was the soldier he had subconsciously hoped to find when, on leaving General Headquarters, he had declined to accept as\n\nhis orderly some spineless clown from the rear-echelon troops. ITiis was a man he would gladly take with him and keep by his side until the end of the fighting.\n\nBlagodaryov was now crouching in the trench in the way that one sits out a rainstorm under a leaking roof. He had weighed up the situation and was by now used to this form of life. Already on the lookout for souvenirs, he was digging out a shell splinter lightly embedded in the trench wall. Then he picked up another one, which was still hot, and burned his fingers. He threw it from hand to hand to cool it and gave it to the colonel to have a look-a jagged fragment of metal, whose warmth was ironically reminiscent of the feel of across one wears around one's neck.\n\nThere was in this soldier a great fund of simple humanity-a goodness that had nothing to do with rank, class, or poUtics but was the unspoiled simpUcity of Nature herself.\n\nJust then Blagodaryov looked up beyond Vorotynt-sev in amazement, as though he had been wearing bast shoes and had found himself in a palace instead of a bam. Vorotyntsev also turned round..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SCREEN SEQUENCE\n\nThe windmill has caught fire! The mill is burning!\n\nThe fire is easily visible in a direct line of sight above the parados of the trench, except that the view is blurred by the smoke of exploding shells, dust, and lumps of earth.\n\nThe hilltop shudders under the infernal shock and noise\n\nof the bombardment.\n\nSo that the mill\n\nburns in silence. It has not been destroyed by shells, but is completely in the grip of\n\nfire.\n\nCrimson tongues are licking at the planking\n\nof its pyramid-shaped base,\n\nflickering wild, scarlet.\n\nThe arms are motionless.\n\nThe fire soon runs up the lower blades and spreads from the boss along the upper blades.\n\nNow the entire mill is burning! The whole building!\n\nFirst of all, the fire consumes the outer planking; the framework holds out longer. The framework is getting brighter, more and more golden, but it has not given way yet! The crossbeams are still intact! Now all the main timbers are on fire-the framework and the arms. * For some reason the arms-because of a current of hot air?-still intact, start slowly, infinitely slowly.\n\nto turn! With no wind? It's uncanny. The ribs of the red-gold blades are turning mysteriously.\n\nLIKE A CATHERINE WHEEL.\n\nAnd the wheel crashes to the ground in a shower of blazing fragments.\n\nSCREEN FADES OUT\n\nFor more than an hour the Vyborg regiment endured a bombardment which at first it had seemed no one could survive for longer than three minutes. Wherever possible, the dead were laid out along the floor of the trench. The men dressed each other's wounds. Evacuation of the wounded was difl& cult, as the trenches were deep and to reach the village there were only two narrow communication trenches per battalion. As a result, the wounded stayed where they were, with muddy faces, blood spattered allover them, hands and lips quivering. The Vyborgers were then battered for another hour, but none of them showed any inclination to runaway and it was unlikely that the idea of doing anything except passively suffering the shellfire entered their heads. Just as stones dragged along by a glacier survive the melting of the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "glacier, survive aeons, survive whole civilizations, withstand thunderbolts and scorching heat, simply lying where they are-so these troops sat it out and were not dislodged. Ingrained in them was the lesson inherited from their forefathers, the inexorable lesson of centuries: suffering must be borne; there is noway out.\n\nLike the others, Vorotyntsev hunched himself up. Because he had been through this barrage of his own freewill, because he now shared a comradeship with the men of a regiment he did not command, he would feel no regret if this proved to be his last resting place.\n\nThere seemed no hope that it would ever stop. And then suddenly the shellfire lessened-it was impossible to tell whether it had stopped altogether or merely shifted elsewhere-and the stinking black night began to clear, revealing a sun that, already high over the hUl, had moved around in the sky and was sending its warming rays into the trench.\n\nThe men began to stretch, walkabout, poke their heads up, and look around. Their voices, hoarse and high from the presence of death, regained their normal pitch as they began talking to each other again-yes, it was a lot worse than yesterday-^ look over thereon the left, they're giving them even more of a pounding than us!\n\nIt was even a relief to see others getting it hotter. To their left, along the railway track and toward the next village, the same hail of shells was now falling, exploding, smothering the position in black smoke; from where they stood, this new pounding, and their comrades' chances of survival, seemed even worse than theirs had been.\n\nIt takes a great wrench to bring oneself back from being a stone to being alive, and, what was more, there was no time to stretch limbs or stare aimlessly around: the urgent task now was for every man to find his rifle-^ to see whether it was jammed with dirt, whether the magazine was charged and the bayonet fixed. For the Germans had not raised the barrage out of pity; they would probably soon launch an attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But something seemed to have gone wrong on the\n\nGerman side; perhaps they had grown careless. The bombardment had stopped, but the infantry was not attacking. Because of this, the enemy lost precious minutes in which the Vyborg regiment regained its strength and its fighting spirit.\n\nIn the valley in front of them the mist had completely vanished. Apparendy, the Germans were not coming. Then all at once, on the right, came a heavy burst of rifle fiire and the rattle of machine guns.\n\nHis head still reeling in a kind of intoxication from the smoke and blast, not fully aware of his actions, Vorotyntsev seized a rifle and cartridge pouch from a dead man and, holding his sword out of the way, began staggering and pushing his way down the trench, squeezing past the dead, the wounded, and the unharmed, toward the right-flank battalion, whose trench curved around the base of the burned-out windmill. Although his head still ached, he actually found thinking easier, if anything too easy-^ his thoughts were random and impulsive. The very fact of having lived through that bombardment had somehow changed the way his mind worked. No theory could justify a General Staff colonel pushing his way through to the right flank merely to help the battalion with a little extra rifle fire, but to do so now seemed to him essential.\n\nYes, he could seethe first advancing wave of spiked helmets.\n\n\"Oh, the fools!\" Vorotyntsev shouted in encouragement to the men around him as he found himself a suitable position on the firing step. \"They're not as clever as we thought, these Germans-that's noway to fight.\"\n\nNot only had the Germans missed the psychological moment for attack by giving the Russians time to recover their nerve after the barrage and failing to advance while they were still dazed, but they were now committing an even worse mistake: as they advanced up the steep slope, instead of being widely dispersed in loose clusters they were coming in regular lines, which made them perfect targets, and were even halting at intervals to fire from the shoulder. This was noway for infantry to attack: they should either move or fire, but not try to do both at once. The Russians had" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "developed much better fire-and-movement tactics. The Japanese had taught them not to advance Uke that, and also how to shoot properly.\n\nAfter the long agony of the bombardment in which they could not see their enemy, he was insight at last! Here was the accursed, relentless enemy who had just put them through the ordeal of a lifetime: they had a score to pay o2, and their shoulders itched for the feel of a rifle butt. You made us huddle on the trench floor-^ now taste a bit of mud yourselves! Let's thin those lines out a bit!\n\nAs though completely unaffected by the bombardment, the right-flank battalion straightened up as one man and discharged a furious, rapid, and accurate fusillade, reveling in the chance to punish Germans for making them cower in their trenches for so long. Vorot3nitsev stood in the line with them, firing with gusto, emptying his magazine, reloading, aiming, firing, picking anew target-and when he thought he had brought a German down, croaking with delight.\n\nThe men in the ugly spiked helmets were coming nearer, firing from kneehng and standing positions. (We don't need helmets! We're all right with our caps, because Russians have thick skulls. Even so, there were men who clutched their heads and spun around.) But the Vyborgers stood and fired unwaveringly, without a sign of giving ground. Even when the Pickelhauben were no more than a hundred yards away, the Russians showed no fear, there was no need for anyone to give orders or make signals: the Vyborg regiment stood and fired with a will.\n\nNow the Germans were beginning to drop, some with cries of pain, some flung backward as they were hit, others falling on purpose and rolling back down the hill to safety. The rest faltered, turned and ran, pursued by the unrelenting Russian fire. A fev/hotheaded enthusiasts leaped out of the trench with bayonets fixed to chase the retreating enemy, but a subaltern seized one of them by the scruff of the neck, pulled him back into the trench, and restrained the others. Quite correct." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "DeUghted at the way the troops had acquitted them-\n\nselves, Vorotyntsev stopped firing. Clearly these troops had it in them to withstand anything-if necessary they would holdout until their colonel-in-chief, Kaiser Wilhelm himself, appeared! Half drunk on powder smoke, at that moment Vorotjmtsev loved these men of the Vyborg regiment. He loved the day, too-August 14-on which they had fought the Battle of Usdau. Above all, he felt a surge of respect and admiration for Savitsky, and started pushing his way back down the trench to seethe brigade commander. A company commander shouted in his ear and pointed out to him that General Savitsky was over therein the vaulted tunnel through which the road passed under the railway embankment. That was exactly the right place for the commander to be. It being quiet there, the sound of machine guns could be heard better, and he was quite capable of detecting how many there were. So there was no point in going to Savitsky. Nor was there any call to go to Neidenburg. Stempel's brigade must by now be in position, so the right flank was secured and a visit there was unnecessary. There was no further reason for him to stay with the Vyborg regiment either, so why was he here?\n\nThe German bombardment was still thundering away to the left, the black smoke of high explosive blotting out the yellow clouds of shrapnel. The line there was held by five regiments in a row; at any point the battle might take a disastrous turn. That was where he ought to be, to insure that the staunchness and bravery of the Vyborg regiment should not be wasted but should inspire the rest of the corps for the next few hours.\n\nStepping over corpses and bumping into the wounded, he made slow progress along the trench, although many of the men had now climbed out and were resting on the open ground. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Vorotyntsev jumped out and walked along the high ground above the trench. Although he was aware of the whistle of shells nearby, walking in the open was so much easier. His hearing had not recovered, and his ears were not properly taking in the sounds about him; strangely, too, he found he was not" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "seeing everything in his field of vision: his eyes and mind were not yet fully receptive. The ground was littered with bloody strips of bandages and tourniquets. There were shrapnel balls strewn everywhere; a rifle with its breech mechanism smashed, surrounded by empty cartridge cases gleaming in the sun; a tin box; the brass buckle of a discarded belt. There was a man crawling; another was clutching his bandaged forehead, the crown of his head bare. A soldier was sitting on the ground, pulling off his boot and pouring the blood out of it hke water from a jug. A man lay staring up out of the trench with hfeless eyes, while others around him were already laughing and joking. Somehow he saw none of it, his eye and his mind refusing to register. There was a kind of cheerful carelessness about his movements, as though he were drunk, a sense of superfluous, uncoordinated strength: his arm would lash out, his foot would stamp down or turn on its heel with unwonted force-a state in which a man can bruise or cut himself and not feel it. Yet, despite his aching, dizzy head, his mind went on working with a curious facility.\n\nIn going to the right-flank battalion Vorotyntsev had completely forgotten about his neighbor Blagodaryov. Now, as he returned, he remembered that he urgently wanted to see him. Was he still alive? Or was he dead?\n\nThe Second Battalion had fought off the Germans as successfully as the First. The wounded were being helped or carried away on stretchers along the communication trenches and aboveground. The trenches themselves were being repaired and strengthened, the men shoveling out the surplus soil from shellbursts like so many gravediggers. Vorotyntsev found the place where he had been standing-he recognized it by the yellow tail of the toy lion sticking out of a pile of earth-and thereto the right of it was Blagodaryov's splendid, intelligent face. Frowning, he was clearing out the trench, throwing away a smashed chair and empty zinc ammunition boxes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev asked a captain for permission to take one of his men on detachment as his personal orderly,\n\nand beckoned cheerfully: \"Blagodaryov! Want to come with me?\"\n\n\"All right.\" Blagodaryov showed no surprise, as though they had previously agreed on it. He ran his tongue around the inside of his fat cheeks, glanced around at the square yard of the trench wherein the past hour he had come close to death, threw his tight greatcoat rollover his head, took a powerful leap out of the trench, and straightened up. \"Where are we going?\"\n\nHe was the same height as Vorotyntsev, and from the way he held himself he seemed to have grown in stature since his first taste of warfare.\n\n\"Give me your rifle, and your greatcoat too. That'll make it easier for you.\"\n\nHe slung Vorotyntsev's greatcoat over his own, shouldered both rifles, and clipped his mess tin onto his belt by its handle. They set off.\n\nIt was half past seven; at General Headquarters they had not yet awakened or had their morning tea; yet here, since dawn, nearly a thousand men had been under murderous shellfire, and there was a whole day's fighting still ahead of them.\n\nThe weather showed every indication of yet another oppressively hot summer's day.\n\nTo move faster and more easily, they walked along the railway track behind the line of trenches. From here one could see a lot that had been both hidden and inaudible in the trench: the Russian artillery was blasting away, the sweating gunners stripped to the waist as they carried up the ammunition or pulled the firing lanyard. But the Germans were wide awake: their shrapnel was bursting here too, and a couple of times it came so close that Arsenii and his colonel had to throw themselves flat on their faces, although compared with the cannonade they had been through, this stuff was a joke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As before, the main weight of the German fire was concentrated on the front-line regiments.\n\n\"Good! The Yenisei regiment is holding!\" Vorotyntsev rubbed his hands. \"Another hour or so, and the whole situation may change.\"\n\nNot long ago a photograph of the Yenisei regiment had been circulated allover Russia, showing it marching at Peterhof in a ceremonial parade past President Poincare, on its right flank, saluting with his head turned toward the guest of honor, the grand-duke himself, stiff as a ramrod. Now, only a month later, these same brave fellows were being butchered.\n\n\"And the Irkutsk is holding too!\" The colonel was delighted. \"If we keep our heads, Arsenii, we may win the battle today.\"\n\nMuch as he liked the idea, Senka would have preferred the war to end.\n\n\"What have we got to do now, your honor?\"\n\n\"Nothing much for the moment, except quickly go and have a look at the left flank. If they don't holdout, we can't win.\"\n\nSenka had astride like along-legged crane; his colonel, he noticed, could cover the ground pretty well too, though of course he wasn't carrying anything. On the other hand, he was continually turning aside and running to ask people: \"What's your unit?\" \"How many rounds do you have left?\" \"What are your orders?\"\n\nAgain the German barrage switched back and started to pound the wretched Vyborg regiment once more, and their sector of the line was smothered in the smoke and flame of high-explosive shells. Arsenii was glad that they were out of it. To him a trench was a grave; once you crawled into it, there was nothing to do but stand and shiver, like a sheep waiting for the poleax on the back of its neck. In the fields you could at least move your arms and legs and die hke a freeman. Out here, they had a chance of living a bit longer. Arsenii had been glad to accompany this keen, tough colonel. He would never have volunteered to bean orderly, but to set off like this as a kind of two-man team was different. The colonel was doing more than just staying alive-^ he was achieving something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev was on the lookout for reserve units coming up to the hne. For the first mile or two, how-, ever, he found none, and even the artillery was very sparse. The only sight that surprised him was a motor-\n\nized ambulance detachment belonging to the Grand-Duchess Viktoria Fyodorovna, probably the only one of its kind in the Russian army. He watched as severely wounded men were put into ambulances at afield dressing station and driven off to Soldau.\n\nAt the curve in the railway Une, where it made a sharp change of direction toward Soldau, they found the corps mortar regiment, minus the two howitzers which had been allocated to Savitsky. In their position, on a reverse slope, good stocks of ammunition were pUed up and more were being brought forward, but the regiment had not done much firing. It was directly subordinate to General Masalsky, the corps artillery commander; he was nowhere in the vicinity, and they had been given no fire tasks, or told which units they were to support. The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Smyslovsky, was preparing his position for defense in case the battle took a bad turn. After some rapid talk, Vorotyntsev persuaded him to be ready to turn his guns through forty-five degrees until they faced northwestward and to putout lateral observation posts to the west, as things were hkely to start getting hot on the left at any moment. They agreed on methods of communication. Vorotyntsev was looking for the rifle brigade, and Smyslovsky suggested that it was probably on its way forward-over thereon the far side of the railway line. Farther away, in a wood, the Lithuanian Guards regiment was waiting; fresh troops, they were standing around doing nothing, without taking up defensive positions or digging a second line of trenches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Senka noticed that his colonel was already out of breath-surely he wasn't going all the way over to the Lithuanians? The ground between was dotted with black piles of ash: it had been afield of rye which the Germans had harvested and then burned-every single sheaf. The colonel made up his mind, ordered Arsenii to sit where he was, and said he would be back soon. Then he glanced at his watch-no, there wasn't time, they must go over to the left flank where the rifle brigade was.\n\nThey set off briskly. Crossing the railway track, the\n\ncolonel looked around and pointed. \"There they come!\" And off he went again, forcing the pace.\n\n\"Why are they called howitzers, your honor?\"\n\n\"For God's sake, don't keep saying \"your honor\"; it wastes too much time.\"\n\n\"But surely...\"\n\n\"There's no one else about, and it's pointless anyway. You saw what those howitzers were Uke-^ they have short but wide barrels. Forty-eight lines.\" \n\n\"What does that mean-\"lines\"?\"\n\nThe colonel sighed. \"Well, the main thing about them is that they fire very high in the air and give what is called \"curtain fire.\" It's good for penetrating the enemy's cover.\"\n\nSenka sighed too. \"Pity I'm not in the artillery.\"\n\n\"Would you like to be? If we manage to stay alive, I could arrange it for you.\"\n\nSenka nodded, but he didn't believe it. One had to have influence for that sort of thing. He might have liked a transfer earlier, in the days when he had thought of making a career in the regular army, but he didn't care much for this war and in any case he thought it would all be over by the Feast of the Intercession on October 1." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In front of them now was an enormous field of potatoes. These Germans certainly knew how to grow potatoes! And they didn't wasteland either: they even cultivated the gullies and the steep slopes, and their fields were all fenced off to keep cattle out. On the far side of the field were two houses standing in their own farmyard; they set off toward them, the potato stalks whipping at their calves as they went. It would be nice to have a little farm like this, all your own, with your land around you in one holding.\n\nThe colonel walked at a cracking pace, and if Senka's legs had been shorter he would have had to run to keep up. Ashe went, Vorotyntsev kept staring ahead through his binoculars. On the edge of a village was a tall, brick-built bam, around which he\n\n In Russian artillery terminology of the time, a'line\" denoted one-tenth of an inch. Thus, a'48-line\" gun was equivalent in caliber to 4.8 inches.\n\ncould make out a large group of infantry. These were the riflemen.\n\n\"What are \"riflemen,\" your hon...?\" Senka inquired as they strode forward.\n\n\"They're infantry too, but they're especially selected. They have more machine guns and their training's tougher. Good healthy lads, like you. That's why they have only two battaUons in a regiment instead of four. You'll see-they'll give a good account of themselves.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Senka said regretfully, \"if only we could go back to our boys and tell them how strong the reserves are. They'd be much easier in their minds then.\"\n\nThey were making a turn to the left, parallel with the curve of the front line. Ahead of them was the Ruttkowitz estate, behind it a wood, and beyond that, Vorotyntsev presumed, were the Petrov and the Neish-lot regiments, which had moved up to this area yesterday. There was much less noise from the German guns here. He had guessed their plan correctly: they dared not try outflanking the Russians to the right, where Stempel's cavalry was now in position; instead, they intended to force a breach through Usdau. If so, all might be saved, the turning point might be here! The question was: who would concentrate the necessary forces, and how were they to be brought here? Who was in charge of those one and a half cavalry divisions which were still uncommitted?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bam turned out to be a cowshed-^ by Russian standards, a magnificent building." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the colonel had been right about the riflemen-they were tall, healthy, fresh troops. They were sitting down and eating their iron rations. Senka had begun to feel hungry too. He had a couple of hardtack biscuits left in his knapsack and felt he ought to eat them before he was killed or wounded. He wondered why his stomach was rumbling loudly-^ he hadn't been plowing or harvesting or doing anything that he regarded as hard work, yet there was a terrible gnawing in his gut.\n\nThe riflemen were arguing about why the cowshed had been built with so many holes in the wall in the shape of crosses. Was it because it was easier to build\n\nthat way, or just for ornament? Or was it to protect the cattle from evil forces? They greatly approved of the steeply pitched roof, from which the snow would fall by itself without having to be shoveled off.\n\nVorotyntsev could not find the regimental commander, who had gone off to look for someone to give him orders, anybody-^ the corps commander, if necessary. However, the two battaHon commanders and the regimental adjutant were there, and the four of them sat down on the ground. The rifle brigade had arrived in Soldau without its brigade commander, without the brigade headquarters, and without its allotted artillery. It simply comprised four separate regiments, each of which had set off to find a task as it thought fit. Had they had no orders at all? There had been a general order from corps headquarters to move northwest, but nothing more precise than that: no sectors, no boundary lines between units, and no indication of which formations would be on their left and right.\n\n\"Very well, gentlemen!\" Vorotyntsev fired them with his enthusiasm. \" Corps headquarters is six miles away from here, and, as you can see, they've sent you no orders. There's a paragraph in the regulations which states that under certain circumstances what is called a \"council of the senior officers present\" may take command. We shall form one of these councils, even if it does consist of regimental officers. I'll tell you the details of the situation in a moment. First of all, let's select a concentration area-for the time being, I suggest we take the Ruttkowitz estate. Ah, one regiment's there already? Excellent. Your battalions can go there too and keep undercover in the woods. How are we to arrange for all four regiments to concentrate on the estate? I suggest that each one send a senior officer to Ruttkowitz to arrange for his regiment to move there independently. As for the junior officers, can you give me two or three as liaison officers? I want one of them to go to the Lithuanian regiment with a message; we maybe able to persuade them to move farther left. Another should go to Colonel Krymov at corps headquarters. If he can be found, Krymov will immediately move those cavalry divisions to us here-^ he may even" }, { "from": "human", "value": "have moved them akeady." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then another officer... Where's that heavy-artillery regiment?\"\n\nThe heavy regiment was a mile to the rear. Through some quirk of the command structure, it was not subordinate to the corps artillery commander but apparently was able to do exactly as it liked.\n\n\"At this range they'll never achieve anything. They must be moved up here. I'll go and see them myself... No. I'd better go to Ruttkowitz. The heavies haven't strung any telephone wires out there yet by any chance, have they? They must have an observation post at Ruttkowitz. I'll send a message to their position, too...\" The bright flame of Vorotyntsev's self-confidence kindled the senior officers of the rifle brigade into life; no hardened old-timeservers, they were agonized by their fruitless inactivity surrounded by the thunder of a decisive battle. On their map boards, pencils racing in a hurried scrawl, they wrote out a series of tersely worded messages. Then, holding their stupid, useless swords to their sides, the young liaison officers ran off. With much clinking of arms and equipment, the two rifle battalions got to their feet, fell into line, and marched off to the Ruttkowitz estate.\n\nSenka and his colonel were left alone at the bam, Vorotyntsev sitting with his back against the wall, still thinking or waiting for something.\n\nIn the meantime, Senka had walked over to a pond where some ducks were swimming around, oblivious of the war, and scooped out a mess tin full of water, which he brought to the colonel. His stomach was groaning, and there was almost nothing to eat. The hardtack had probably been lying in the store for five years, and without water, you couldn't even get your teeth into it. It was amazing that none of the troops had thought of shooting the ducks yet. One of them would make a good meal, but it would mean getting wet feet wading in. He glanced dubiously at the colonel-no, he'd never allow it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Care fora biscuit, your hon...?\"\n\nVorotyntsev started, took a biscuit with a vague movement of his hand, then noticed the mess tin and dipped it in.\n\n\"Only nine o'clock,\" he said. \"Better save your rations for lunch.\"\n\nThey nibbled at their biscuits.\n\nThe colonel stared at his map, then looked up at the road, where some ammunition carts and supply wagons were moving along on the far side of the fence. He went on nibbling.\n\n\"Are you married, Arsenii?\" His voice sounded vague and distant.\n\n\"Sure I'm married! But we haven't been together a year yet. Married last Shrovetide.\"\n\n\"Is she a good wife?\"\n\n\"Well, the first year they're all good, aren't they?\" Senka replied with a worldly air between bites at his biscuit. He said this out of politeness; it was not what he really thought.\n\n\"What's her name?\"\n\n\"E-ka-te-ri-na,\" Senka said as he chewed.\n\nShe had never been known as Katya. Her nickname in the village had been'Mitten.\" There was more than one unkind implication in the name: it was partly that she was small, but also that she was said to bean easy girl whom a man could pickup and drop again without much trouble. When Senka started walking outwith her, the boys and girls of the village laughed at him-^ why couldn't he find himself a big, good-looking girl who'd be a worker? What would he do with his little midget? And they teased her, saying that he would crush all her ribs. But despite the joking he trusted his instinct, because he could not help loving her-and what a warm, sweet, loving wife she made him! He knew that not only was she the best wife in then* village of Kamenka, but he wouldn't find a better one in the whole of Tambov province. It was Uke the way you love a horse, when you never need to use the whip or the reins, or even speak to it, a thought is enough-it even seems to know before you do which way to turn and whereto go. And if a woman is like that, she is priceless. He never had to worry about anything at home; whenever he awoke, she was already up and about; her only concern was that Senka should be weU fed and his home orderly and cheerful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that wasn't the best thing about her: making love to her was as sweet as sucking the marrow from a bone. And the things she would think up! Joyfully he made her pregnant, and he was never tired of patting her belly and watching it swell. But he was called up before their happiness was complete.\n\nArsenii wiped his hand across his brow to drive away the aching thought. Everyone of these soldiers waiting nervously or eagerly to go into action, he realized, had left some Katya behind him, and not a minute passed without him thinking of her. Would he himself be alive by the end of the day?\n\n\"Can you ride?\"\n\n\"'Course I can. We all can where I come from. There are stud farms in our district, and as for horses...\"\n\nThe colonel leaped to his feet as though he had sat on a hot stove-\"That must be the riflemen!\"-and ran down the path to the main road. Senka followed him in a moment, slinging the rifles over one shoulder and the greatcoats over the other before he strode ofl One of the liaison officers, a lieutenant, ran up with a message that the heavy-artillery regiment had already moved off on its own initiative and was on the way.\n\nVorotyntsev was delighted. \"Good, now we're really moving!\"\n\nAt this point they met the men of the rifle brigade and set off with them to the estate, Vorotyntsev talking to the regimental commander, who leaned down from his horse. The riflemen were elite troops, smartly turned out, their ranks steady, keeping step as they marched.\n\nThey questioned Senka: \"Has your colonel got some orders for us? Where are they sending us-do you know?\"\n\n\"Do I know?\" Senka replied importantly. \"There's plenty of hot stuff flying about where you're going! How come you're so late, though?\" And he told them about the morning's bombardment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just before they reached the estate, there was a strange noise overhead which was new to Senka. The troops all unslung their rifles and fired into the sky. Senka staggered back-ah, there it was, the devil, flying over them with black crosses on its wings. He was too encum-\n\nbered to fire at it himself and stood wondering how this heathen thing managed to keep up in the air. What would happen if someone hit it? Would it come tumbling down to the ground?\n\nIt flew on.\n\nThe estate was a big one. It had an orchard of several hundred fruit trees, but they had already been given a good shaking; most of the fruit had been stolen and many branches had been broken. Near the orchard was a small wood of centuries-old lime trees and oaks, beautifully kept, with neat paths. Cattle, obviously high-grade pedigree beasts, were browsing under the trees. The stable doors were all open, the stalls spotlessly clean, the drinkmg troughs full of water, but all the horses gone. Some soldiers were dragging out of the house fringed divans and armchairs, richly upholstered in red, on which they then sprawled to light their cigarettes. As soon as the colonel appeared, they leaped to their feet and vanished. Senka amused himself by sitting down on one of the divans. Vorotyntsev and two Ueutenants from the rifle regiment decided to go upon the roof fora lookout, and Senka went into find the way up to the attic. The house was full of marvels. There had been a mirror covering the whole of one wall which had been smashed by the troops, who had picked up the pieces to see their reflections. Most of the furniture had been overturned or smashed. And there was the strangest billiard table: it had no cloth and no sides, and was black and smooth and shaped like an ax. How did they keep the balls from rolling off?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bumpkin!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A heutenant pushed Senka's forage cap down over his face. \"That's not a billiard table, that's a grand piano!\"\n\n\"And what's that thing they've smashed, over thereon the wall?\"\n\n\"That's their family tree, carved in marble. Shows who their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were.\"\n\nThere was no less destruction on the next floor: lace curtains torn from the windows; cupboards rifled; a fluted, flower-painted porcelain dinner service smashed on the floor; clothes, books, and papers scattered every-\n\nwhere. The lieutenant picked up a book. \"Studbook. He must have bred some good horses.\"\n\nSenka found the way to the attic and opened the window. Vorotyntsev leaned out, and even before he had put the binoculars to his eyes, he shouted: \"Look, over there beyond the park! It's a squadron of cavaky-tell their officer to come here.\"\n\nSenka missed his footing, fell down two steps, and landed heavily on the third. It was all very well for them-he hadn't enough time to see where he was going.\n\nThe cavalry was a squadron from the 6th Don Cossack regiment which had been assigned to replace the normal divisional cavalry regiment and ordered here as a reinforcement. Senka found the captain in command and had the good sense to ask the officer to give him a mare, scrounged a two-wheeled cart, threw in an armful of straw, and drove back, urging the mare along with the reins over a sandy path covered with branches to keep out the rain.\n\nThe colonel had a talk with the Cossack captain and gave him some written orders. Meanwhile, the crash and thunder of gunfire had opened up nearby. Between the estate and the adjacent wood was a unit of light field artillery, who had opened fire at a furious rate. They were really hammering the enemy savagely; it was as if all the dogs in the village had turned on another dog and were tearing it to pieces. It seemed to be a turning point in the battle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a flurry of action all around. Clutching their swords to their sides, the lieutenants ran off to their regiments. Vorotyntsev leaped into the two-wheeler as though he had personally ordered it.\n\n\"The Petrov and Neishlot regiments have gone into the attack!\" he shouted into Senka's ear. \"On their own! Without waiting for orders from corps headquarters! That's the way to do it! The riflemen are giving them covering fire, and the howitzers will be herein a moment to support them too.\" He seemed ready to race ahead before the mare had started moving.\n\nThe squadron of Don Cossacks galloped past them toward the wood.\n\nNow this was fun! For two pins Senka would have galloped off to chase the Germans himself, even if it had meant pulling the cart after him. This was the way to finish off the Germans quick-and then they could all go home. This was better than village fighting against village. It was thrilling to watch the way the troops went into action. Good lads-they had attacked on their own. Better than standing around while the German guns knocked you to bits. It was a splendid warm day, there was plenty of space, and it was a foreign country, so it didn't matter how much they churned it up. Still, it wouldn't be so much fun if the fighting had been going on at home around Kamenka. In their part of the world, thank the Lord, there had been no fighting since anyone could remember.\n\nThe guns were right behind the estate, firing rapidly, the guimers working fast and well: this was the spirit that won wars. Even in daylight, the muzzle flash showed clearly as each gun fired. After every round, one of the layers shook his fist in the direction of the forest-take that, you bastards! An artillery captain standing close to Vorotyntsev shouted to him: \"We're raising our sights!\" The colonel explained to Senka that this meant our troops were moving forward. And forward they went! Surely they must win, must succeed!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the Germans too were probing the Russian positions with gunfire, aiming not at the estate but at these batteries. A little in front of them was a patch of open ground where a slight breeze was making the grass sway. A shell burst in the middle of it and a black column of earth flew up higher than the tallest tree, wider than the nearby clump of oaks, completely blackening the sand in the crater that it left.\n\nThe next moment, one of the Russian batteries got a direct hit right between the guns, and an ammunition box blew up in a crackle of explosions. Crazed horses galloped in every direction as the splinters flew and the few surviving men crawled away. The mare shied off the path and bolted into the wood, Senka scarcely able to control her.\n\nThey turned back to another battery, where the\n\nlimbers had been brought up ready for the guns to be hitched on and moved forward.\n\n\"Are they shortening the range again?\"\n\n\"They're going to fire point-blank!\" Vorotyntsev waved his arm in the direction of the enemy. \"Over open sights! Get your whip out, Arsenii, we must move!\"\n\nThey drove at breakneck pace through a small wood, overtaking a rifle regiment-the other two were already deployed for action-and on over open fields, through a village captured the day before, past farms and toward a big, dense forest. Here, according to Vorotyntsev, they should find the Petrov regiment. However, puffs of shrapnel were bursting all along the edge of the forest. As soon as one dispersed, it was followed by another, forming a continuous barrage aimed at hampering the advance of the Russian infantry.\n\n\"Can you hear that? Over thereon the right. Howitzers! They're firing this way, over the heads of the Petrov.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are those the ones we saw by the railway line?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's them.\"\n\n\"Well, we've come along way since we saw them!\"\n\nWith an ear-splitting roar, a shell burst on the road in front of them, throwing up a black fountain as thick as the trunk of an oak. Deafened, they were just able to jump down and fling themselves to the ground by the roadside (Senka keeping hold of the reins) before a swarm of splmters went whining over their heads. It was a miracle that the horse was not hit and that they themselves were safe and sound. The cart was riddled the holes. They must turnoff the road now and drive across the fields, their unsprung cart bumping and crashing as the mare set out at a trot across country, then onto a winding cart track.\n\n\"Shall we go over there, your hon...? That looks like the riflemen over thereon the left.\"\n\n\"No, we're going right-we must try to drive around that shrapnel barrage and get to the Petrov regiment.\"\n\nThey drove past positions which the Germans had been holding that morning. German and Russian dead were scattered around and there were wounded men\n\ntoo, but there was no time to do anything for them. There had been a German battery here, some shell cases had exploded, two guns were knocked out, and a few dead horses were lying in their harness, the rest captured and taken away.\n\nThe barrage of shrapnel was still blocking their way into the forest. They turned the cart farther to the right to avoid it.\n\nJust then two high-explosive rounds burst behind them without having passed over their heads. That meant Russian artillery firing short--the clumsy devils!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On they drove at full tilt. The colonel felt his shoulder. \"Tve had a scratch, Arsenii.\" He unbuttoned his tunic and felt his shoulder again. It might have been a splinter from those Russian shells, but was more likely the German high explosive which had just burst on the road in front of them; the wound had only just begun to hurt.\n\n\"Shall I bandage it, your honor?\"\n\n\"Bandage, hell! Drive faster!\"\n\nThe Germans had been here only half an hour ago. The place was littered with ammunition pouches, cartridge clips, discarded knapsacks, machine-gun belts, and helmets. To one side lay a corpse without ahead, and another intact (their pockets had already been rifled); nearby were rifles, some whole and some smashed, and something which looked as if it might have been food wrapped in colored paper, but there was no time to stop and look. Just as they turned into the forest, they heard the rattle of machine-gunfire nearby. Was it Russian or German?\n\n\"It's too risky to drive any farther. Tie the horse up to a tree, we'll go forward on foot.\"\n\nWalking wounded were coming toward them through the wood-poor fellows, they had along way to go. One of them waved his arm, describing excitedly how they had killed a lot of'him,\" as they called the enemy, and how our men were sweeping forward. Another, his whole chest swathed in bandages, his greatcoat flung over his shoulders, croaked: \"They're hitting us hard, though.\" A lieutenant, wounded in the neck, was staggering along, unable to turn his head.\n\nHe wept as he spoke to the colonel, but not from pain: \"WeVe nothing left to shoot with, we've fired off all our ammunition. Why the hell don't they bring up some more? What do those idiots think they're doing?\" \"But how much ammunition was thrown away or lost?\" asked Vorotyntsev." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spitting blood, the lieutenant gestured helplessly. \"Yes, you're right; the troops are wasting their ammunition, they don't know how to conserve it.\"\n\nA Uttle farther on, they reached a large clearing in the forest. Along its edge ran a ditch full of water, behind which men of the Petrov regiment were lying, keeping their heads down, not firing. Across the clearing ran a road and moving along it, less than four hundred yards away, was an extraordinary apparition. It seemed to be on wheels, yet the wheels were not visible; it was like a great beast but without ahead or a tail. On its top was a rotating turret. They could hear the sound of its machine gun firing, and it occasionally emitted a puff of smoke with a roar and a whistle.\n\nWhat was it? The men were frightened: this was something they had never seen before. Could it move in the wood or only on the road?\n\n\"It's an armored truck!\" shouted the colonel. \"It'll never drive over that ditch, it'll get stuck.\"\n\n\"What's that along its sides?\"\n\n\"Sheets of armor plate, that's why it's heavy. It can't come here.\"\n\n\"What's it firing with-that's not a cannon, is it?\"\n\n\"Small-caliber quick-firer; it's meant to give you a fright more than anything else, it can't do much damage.\"\n\n\"Why don't we try and capture it, sir? We could probably get it if we went at it from both sides and dug ditches, or blew it up.\"\n\n\"How can we do that when you've run out of ammunition? There's a rumor they're bringing up some more. It should be here soon. In the meantime, just lie low and wait.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But before the ammunition arrived, a sergeant ran up and reported that a message had just come from\n\nthe Neishlot regiment on their right: the order was fora general withdrawal.\n\nThe colonel turned on him. \"I'll knock your block off for that word'withdrawal\"! I'll murder you!\"\n\n\"It's true, your honor, I didn't make it up. I'll take you to our battalion commander at the farm. He got a message, then he was told the same thing by telephone...\"\n\n\"Battalion commander! Stay where you are, and don't Hsten to this nonsense! When they bring up the ammunition, push forward as far as you can go. Listen. Do you hear that? That's the heavy regiment moving forward and shooting in. Ina few minutes you'll have more artillery support than you ever dreamed of. You come with me, Sergeant-^ we're going to the farm to check what you've told me, and if you're wrong I'll shoot you! Goon, you son of a bitch, tell all these men here you got it wrong!\"\n\n\"You can shoot me if you like, your honor, but that message came through by telephone...\"\n\n\"Blagodaryov, take the cart and drive back to the farm byroad.\"\n\nVorotyntsev was still in a mild state of shock from the pounding of the bombardment at Usdau. Ever since then, he had been moving at a tempo unthinkable in normal life; his mind had been working furiously and he had been doing the work of three men. At the same time the smoke of countless explosions and fires seemed to be drifting through his head, and everything was still slightly blurred by a blue-gray haze.\n\nHe had studied the map carefully and understood exactly how the operation had developed: when the enemy's pressure on the left flank had weakened, the pent-up Russian forces, thirsting for action, had burst forward on their own initiative. This had not come from divisional headquarters-it had been a spontaneous movement at company level. (It was the immeasurable strength latent in the Russian people: these men were used to winning, that was all!) Without being ordered to, the men of the Petrov and Neishlot regiments had advanced-not without some help from Vorotyntsev," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "who had brought up three rifle regiments to support them, had induced them to deploy farther to the left, and had enlisted the help of two regiments of artillery. (He was particularly proud of having guessed, an hour before the attack, that it would begin.) With their first success, the men had lost all fear of danger and, exchanging excited glances, had pressed forward with increasing bravery. A regimental commander had shouted to one of the batteries: \"Well done-and thanks for the good work!\" and the gunners, artillerymen, and sergeants had shouted: \"Hurrah!\", throwing their caps into the air. This successful advance, launched by the men themselves, had lasted no more than an hour, until half past ten, but in that interminable hour Vorotyntsev had experienced the ecstasy of total fulfillment-not merely because they had gained a mile or two of ground and put the enemy to flight, but more from the elemental spontaneity of the attack-surely the true sign of an army destined for victory. At the same time, he managed to keep innumerable details clearly in his mind. How could he best help the attack to develop? How could he make it swing to the right, to strike at the German flank? Where could he find General Dushkevich? How could he bring the Lithuanian Guards into action?\n\nIn comparison, everything else, more trivial matters, faded to a confused blur. Why had they been sitting nibbling biscuits beside a duck pond? They had been walking to begin with-^ where had this two-wheeler come from? Just when had he been winged in the shoulder? And through the confused haze of battle elation Blagodaryov's face was constantly beside him: never servile, but always willing; kind to the point of indulgence; never impertinent but with an intelligent, independent personality. More than once Vorotyntsev congratulated himself on having found him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the sergeant had appeared with his order to withdraw, this mood had instantly collapsed as though the ground had given way under his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotynt-sev's voice rose to a shout. He really was ready to shoot the sergeant on the spot, not because he took him fora liar, but out of despair, from a premonition which\n\nhe had had all morning that this might happen; the only uncertainty was how. The moment he heard the news, Vorotyntsev knew with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that it was true. His fear had been realized; it was only too disastrously typical of the Russian army.\n\nThe Petrov regiment had received no such order, but through Vorotyntsev the debilitating rumor spread Hke an electric current from the Petrov to the rifle regiments. At the Neishlot regiment, which had already started to retreat, all Vorotyntsev's efforts to dissuade the officers were in vain; the order had been received by a telephonist, a reliable, Hterate Ukrainian sergeant, who repeated it verbatim from his own written notes: \"To divisional commander. Corps commander has ordered immediate withdrawal to Soldau.\" The order had been given by the divisional signals officer, Lieutenant Struzer; the sergeant knew his voice well, as he was directly under Struzer's command.\n\nOn the high ground at the southern edge of the centuries-old pine forest, at the point from which the regiment had reeled out its now useless telephone line, high up in a pine tree was a newly constructed German lookout post which had been knocked out an hour ago and was swaying precariously. Almost falling off the rickety, unfinished ladder, Vorotyntsev climbed up, and as he did so, he began to feel pain in his shoulder. His head swam and he thought fora moment that he would not reach the top. Though he was not quite sure what to expect, he was determined to get an all-round view of the terrain. The lookout post was at a height of about fifty feet and had no raiUngs; he would have to tie himself to a branch or be left with only one freehand. He used his uninjured arm to hold on with, grasping the binoculars and moving the focusing screw with the other. He first looked to the left, toward the now familiar Usdau hill-the stone-built base of the burned-out mill, and the trenches he had sheltered in that morning, now pockmarked with black shell holes. Advancing down the hill inline, walking upright, opposed by neither bullet nor bayonet, came the German infantry!" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Scribe for the author and continue the tale.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the sergeant had appeared with his order to withdraw, this mood had instantly collapsed as though the ground had given way under his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotynt-sev's voice rose to a shout. He really was ready to shoot the sergeant on the spot, not because he took him fora liar, but out of despair, from a premonition which\n\nhe had had all morning that this might happen; the only uncertainty was how. The moment he heard the news, Vorotyntsev knew with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that it was true. His fear had been realized; it was only too disastrously typical of the Russian army.\n\nThe Petrov regiment had received no such order, but through Vorotyntsev the debilitating rumor spread Hke an electric current from the Petrov to the rifle regiments. At the Neishlot regiment, which had already started to retreat, all Vorotyntsev's efforts to dissuade the officers were in vain; the order had been received by a telephonist, a reliable, Hterate Ukrainian sergeant, who repeated it verbatim from his own written notes: \"To divisional commander. Corps commander has ordered immediate withdrawal to Soldau.\" The order had been given by the divisional signals officer, Lieutenant Struzer; the sergeant knew his voice well, as he was directly under Struzer's command.\n\nOn the high ground at the southern edge of the centuries-old pine forest, at the point from which the regiment had reeled out its now useless telephone line, high up in a pine tree was a newly constructed German lookout post which had been knocked out an hour ago and was swaying precariously. Almost falling off the rickety, unfinished ladder, Vorotyntsev climbed up, and as he did so, he began to feel pain in his shoulder. His head swam and he thought fora moment that he would not reach the top. Though he was not quite sure what to expect, he was determined to get an all-round view of the terrain. The lookout post was at a height of about fifty feet and had no raiUngs; he would have to tie himself to a branch or be left with only one freehand. He used his uninjured arm to hold on with, grasping the binoculars and moving the focusing screw with the other. He first looked to the left, toward the now familiar Usdau hill-the stone-built base of the burned-out mill, and the trenches he had sheltered in that morning, now pockmarked with black shell holes. Advancing down the hill inline, walking upright, opposed by neither bullet nor bayonet, came the German infantry!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was enough. The battle was lost. The day was lost.\n\nIt meant that the Vyborg regiment had been wiped out, and that all those men had withstood that terrible hammering in vain.\n\nA voice shouted from below that General Dushke-vich had arrived and wanted to know what could be seen. But with so many others present, this was information that Vorotyntsev did not want to broadcast. He replied that he would be down soon. Then he turned his binoculars to the right and saw that the Germans were already swarming over the railway track; only where it made its sharp curve was there a Russian battalion still firing from positions on the reverse slope of the embankment. Behind it and supporting it, Smyslovsky's howitzers were firing away from their original position. Even farther to the right, concealed by a fold in the ground, the sound of guns betrayed the presence of the heavy-artillery regiment, identifiable by their especially rapid rate of fire. Their shots were falling close by, just beyond the edge of the big forest, at the point where the whole attack should have been directed, where indeed it had already begun to advance-in vain. Over the whole field of battle, men and units were moving back and forth at random, lacking the guidance of unified command.\n\nThe strap of his binoculars had got caught around a branch, his shoulder was aching, and his legs were so weak that climbing down was difi& cult and again he almost fell off.\n\nIn addition, he seemed to have gone deaf; he could hear neither what he was saying to Dushkevich nor Dushkevich's reply. Despite the deafness and a feeling in his facial muscles that he was asleep, he realized that the division had started to withdraw as a result of an order telephoned from Soldau which the divisional commander knew nothing of. Dushkevich had come forward to his troops, who were advancing in a double encircling movement. But who was to cover the withdrawal? There was no mention of this in the order. Were they simply to be left to pullback without artillery cover? Fortunately, both artillery regiments had good telephone commimica-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "tions; the only chance of getting out unscathed would be with their cooperation in giving covering fire. Countless wounded had been left lying allover the batdefield-what was to become of them?\n\nDushkevich was gone, but Blagodaryov had turned up with his cart and they raced off headlong, sometimes along roads, sometimes bumping over fields. They passed an eight-gun light field battery which was pulling up stakes and moving; its battery commander, who seemed to have been wounded in the head, was sitting on a stone, shaking. Wagons were rumbling along the main road, their horses so lathered in sweat that they were scarcely able to move. Infantry from broken, straggling units were grumbling and cursing in the grip of that peculiar exasperation that seizes the rank and file when they know the fault is not theirs but the higher-ups'.\n\nThey passed near the bam where they had held the conference with the rifle brigade, and meta battalion of the Lithuanian Guards regiment. Without official orders, at the personal request of Colonel Krymov, the battalion commander was marching forward to hold the fine and cover the retreat. As the retreating horde streamed past them to the rear, the Guardsmen, without turning their heads, marched forward as though on parade. They seemed unconcerned, absorbed with their own thoughts and the numbered minutes of Ufe ahead of them.\n\nThe corps commander, however, was nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of his ubiquitous car. This was the man Vorotyntsev was looking for with all speed, although no one could halt the German advance and save the battle now. His first impulse was to deUver a slap to that stupid, arrogant face, to spit at the man, to knock him down, to say things that Artamonov had never heard in his life and would never hear again; but the way to Soldau was along one, the first few miles jammed with men and transport which only gradually thinned out enough to enable Blagodaryov to whip his mare along as fast as she could go. As Vorotyntsev stared at the animal's moving legs, he rehearsed everything he wanted to say" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "to Artamonov. Yet, as the journey wore on, he grew calmer and reason prevailed. He wanted the answer to only one question from that thick-headed dummy: why had he ruined the attack which had developed with such spontaneous verve from the rank and file itself? How on earth could he have let slip the chance to shore up the collapse of the army's left flank? He did not expect a reasonable answer, but he wanted to hear what excuse the man would give for perpetrating that stroke of idiocy.\n\nArtamonov's car was dozing peacefully in front of the headquarters building.\n\nVorotyntsev flung himself out of the two-wheeler, bounded up the steps, pushed open the heavy door just as Artamonov, with his drooping moustache, his hooked nose, the blank, mindless stare beneath the resolute forehead, was emerging from the telegraph room. Chest flung out and shoulders back, he was as ready as ever to give battle, even to seek death for his God and his Tsar. Oh, to take a sword and split that sheep-like skull! His eyes misting over, all sense of rank gone, Vorotyntsev just managed to salute before shouting at the corps commander in a strange voice that was not his own: \"Your excellency! How could you give the order to withdraw when we were winning the battle? How could you allow those men to be destroyed-^ for nothing?\"\n\nHe wanted to goon, but how could he find away of saying that there was more to this battle than just saving one's own skin-there was Russia?\n\nA dark purple flush of cowardly denial spread across Artamonov's face. \"I... gave no such order...\"\n\nAh, you har, you slimy eel with your fish-like moustache-I might have known you'd try to wriggle out of it! Who dreamed up that order, then-Lieutenant Struzer?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Samsonov had just been on the line, and Artamonov had reported to him: \"All attacks beaten off. Am standing firm as a rock. Will carry on until task completed.\" What else could he have said without disgracing himself? It was a proud, tough, soldierly statement. After all, if the worst came to the worst, he could always\n\ncount on being able to pickup the pieces again somehow. Artamonov was quite used to doing this. The line to Neidenburg had been cut a moment ago, and just as well. Afterward he could report that he had been forced to withdraw under pressure from two enemy corps-no, two and a half corps. Three hundred-no, four hundred guns. And armored cars, equipped with cannon. Everything could eventually be hushed up and smoothed over; influential protectors would speak up for him.\n\nEven so, things looked grim. Artamonov did not prize his life highly. He cared for his career and his reputation, but not his life. If he could save his name by dying with dignity, he would do so now.\n\nHe jumped into his car and ordered his chauffeur to drive on-anywhere, that way, forward to the troops! Finding it too airless behind the windshield, he rose and was driven off standing up, gulping the wind in his face. The skirts of his greatcoat billowed and flapped behind him, their silk linings looking like two red flags.\n\nHe drove to meet his retreating troops, to shame them with the sight of their general fearlessly advancing toward the enemy. He had given no orders to cover the retreat, told no battery whereto move to lay down defensive fire, given no new set of targets-other people were supposed to do that. He drove on simply to encourage the troops, to show himself, to fill his lungs with fresh air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lining of his coat flapped in the breeze, but he himself stood firm as a rock.\n\nDocument No. 1\n\nAUGUST 14. NICHOLAS II TO SAZONOV, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS\n\n/ have ordered the Grand-Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to open up the road to Berlin as quickly as possible and at all costs... Above all, our aim must be the destruction of the German army.\n\nDuring the afternoon of August 14 the leading battalion of the 1st Neva (His Majesty the King of the Hellenes' Own) regiment was the first Russian unit to enter the town of Allenstein-without firing a shot; indeed, without even loading their rifles.\n\nSo many improbable factors had simultaneously combined to bring this about that the town quivered like a mirage before the eyes of the men of the Neva regiment. Was it there or not? Were they really marching into it or were they dreaming? For days and days they had been slogging their way through the deserted countryside without seeing a single inhabitant, passing only ruined farms and the occasional abandoned forest hamlet, giving every town a wide berth and choosing the most overgrown woodland paths between the countless lakes. Now, suddenly, in broad daylight, they were marching-hungry, dusty, bedraggled-into one of the finest towns in Prussia, clean and shiny, with all the bustle of its peaceful, ordinary, yet to Russian eyes glittering everyday life. It was filled not only with its normal inhabitants but with quantities of refugees. This remarkable sight greeted the Russians the moment they stepped out of the deserted forest. For two weeks they had pushed ahead without fighting, virtually without seeing any evidence that there was a war in progress. Now, as they entered the town, it really seemed as if there was no war: the inhabitants were walking up and down the pavements going about their business, finding safety in their very numbers and de-fenselessness. As they went in and out of the open shops with their purchases, pushing baby carriages," }, { "from": "human", "value": "some of them looked around at the Russian troops as they marched in; others did not even bother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was ahnost as though the battalion were returning from maneuvers to their familiar hometown of Roslavl-except that all these buildings were very different from shabby little Roslavl and the townspeople were, by comparison, extremely smartly dressed. The soldiers stared open-mouthed at them, breaking step, their ranks wavering.\n\nAgainst this curiously unreal, alien setting, which seemed as if it might vanish if they actually touched it, one thing was solidly familiar to the men of the Neva regiment-the sight of Colonel Pervushin, their much-loved commanding officer. There he was, marching along with his usual sprightly step, swinging his arms and glancing about him cavaUerly, a knowing look on his slightly puffy features-the look of a tough, resourceful, decisive man who tries not to make it too obvious that he thoroughly understands his men and their needs and does everything for them with great efficiency. Having halted his battalion in a shady spot and given orders to post sentries, in particular outside the wine shops, Pervushin announced to his officers: \"And now, gentlemen, those of you who wish may take turns to go fora shave and a haircut.\"\n\nAfter two exhausting weeks on the march, this might have seemed like a joke-judging by the jocular roll of the colonel's eye and the grin concealed behind his bushy, uncombed moustaches-^ but it was no joke; the officers set off as though they were back in Smolensk or somewhere in Poland. They proffered coins embossed with the two-headed Russian eagle and the shopkeepers promptly and courteously supplied their orders. It was not long since these men had been arresting German civiUans for transmitting messages and volunteer cyclists for acting as scouts, but now German razors glided smoothly and innocuously over the necks of Russian officers. The moral double standard of war ended as though a twist of the knob on a pair of binoculars had abruptly brought the situation into proper focus: war was something that was waged by two different" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "sets of uniforms-total war would have exceeded the bounds of common humanity. Outside one large house hung a notice in Russian, reading:\n\nMENTAL HOSPITAL\n\nPLEASE DO NOT ENTER\n\nAND DO NOT DISTURB THE PATIENTS\n\nNo one went in and no one disturbed the patients. Noticing that a passing Russian oflQcer knew German, some women stopped to argue with him.\n\n\"What do you thmk you can gain? Surely you don't believe you can defeat a civihzed nation like ours?\"\n\nThe gready increased size of the population had the novel effect of making it especially hard for the Russians physically to occupy Allenstein; there was simply no room to billet a single regiment, far less an entire army corps. Pervushin went off to find his divisional commander and the other regimental commanders, who were already in the center of town or on the outskirts, to suggest that they should have their units bivouac outside the town-by the lake, near the river, or on the edge of the forest from which they had emerged.\n\nHe met his friend Colonel Kabanov, commander of the Dorogobuzh regiment, a man of few words, who agreed at once. He also found the commanding officer of the Kashira regiment. Colonel Kakhovskoy, who had a nervous habit of holding his head in a stiffly upright position; again, the two men quickly came to a decision. Without interference from higher formations, the unit commanders roughly allocated the areas to be occupied by theu: regiments. Under their previous corps commander, General Alexeyev, independent action and cooperation between regimental commanders had been encouraged and developed to a high degree; unmarred by envy and petty spite, relations between them were generally amicable and businessUke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At a higher level, however, Pervushin was not so successful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe was crossing the little town square, a dozen or so mounted men had halted; some were now holding the horses, others sitting on a bench near the\n\nfountain. He could hardly pretend that he had not noticed the corps commander, and was therefore obhged to report to him.\n\nFar from belonging to the spoiled, privileged elite of the military caste, Pervushin was the son of an ensign, completely without private means and married to a merchant's daughter. Although he had been decorated with the Order of St. Vladimir and the Cross of St. George after being wounded at Mukden in the Japanese war and although he was almost the same age as the corps commanders and the army commander, he had been passed over for promotion and had already spent eight years as a colonel. It was impossible to discover the real reason for this; no one ever spoke about it, although it had been the subject of confidential correspondence. It was obvious, however, that due to a secret directive his further promotion had been barred as a reprisal for insubordinate behavior toward some highly placed personage. Yet, in his dealing with his seniors, Pervushin never allowed resentment to show and never referred to his grievance-especially not in wartime.\n\nUnable to avoid the corps commander. Colonel Pervushin, whose waistline, gestures, and voice were those of a man much younger than his sixty-odd years, reported to his exalted contemporary, General Klyuev, about the posting of sentries and other measures that had been taken, information which might not have been considered strictly necessary fora corps commander.\n\nKlyuev had the superficial facial characteristics of a military man; his moustaches, especially, were of the kind that were de rigueur for an officer. But, on closer inspection, his face revealed itself as not only unmili-tary but as no face at all; it lacked personal, distinctive features. Whether they noticed this or not, his subordinate officers had grown accustomed to seeing in Klyuev's place the plain, shghtly frowning but universally beloved features of General Alexeyev, who only recently, at the outbreak of war, had been promoted to the headquarters of Southwestern Army" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Group. And whenever they reported to their new corps commander, the thought that involuntarily crossed their minds was that, try as he might, Klyuev could never replace Alexeyev.\n\nKlyuev himself could not help reading this in their expressions, for which he disHked his officers. He was particularly irked by Pervushin, above all by the relentless bravery in his eyes, whose tendency to protrude gave him an unintended look of shght insolence. This dislike had increased four days ago when the sound of gunfire had broken out on their left and Colonel Pervushin had had the impertinence to appear without authorization in the corps commander's tent-having gone behind the backs of both his brigade and his divisional commanders-and had requested permission'on behalf of the officers of the regiment\" to mount an attack leftWard in support of XV Army Corps. Such indiscipline General Klyuev did not expect from his subordinates; indeed, it was unthinkable in the Russian army. That might have been the way things were done under Alexeyev, but it caused Klyuev's displeasure to be especially directed against Pervushin.\n\nHe had refused the request; he had not scrupled, however, to turn the idea to his own advantage by reporting to Army Headquarters that he was prepared to go into action in support of any other corps, should this be required. He now listened disagreeably to Pervushin's report, trying to think how he could cause the latter some annoyance. On this occasion, too, Pervushin inevitably had a suggestion to make; he did not refer to the disposition of the regiments outside the town, knowing that this would be organized far better without Klyuev's interference, but instead asked the corps commander whether he would not give orders, for purposes of greater security, to destroy the four railway lines which converged on Allenstein from various directions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Klyuev replied disdainfully that this was not a matter fora regimental commander, but that if Pervushin really wanted to know, there was a directive from the army group commander that the German railways\n\nk\n\nwere not to be destroyed but kept intact to assist the Russian advance. \"I should be obliged, Colonel,\" he went on, \"if you would move one of your battahons to the north of the town-give me a map, please-to the woods known as the Stadtforst, and deploy them in abroad semicircular position of defense.\"\n\nPervushin knew that this encounter was bound to bring some kind of trouble; a chance meeting with a senior commander was always likely to be fatal, and doubly so if one tried to do his thinking for him and tell him how to do his job.\n\nThere was nothing for it now but to compose his keen, if rather fat and choleric features into an expression of respect and repeat the order, his only revenge being a look that said: \"You can never bean Alexeyev!\" Then, after marching thre& brisk regulation paces away from General Klyuev, he dropped into his normal gait and set off to move forward the bat-taUon that was to advance farther into German territory than any other Russian unit throughout the war.\n\nIn the absence of any ofiBcers from the supply and finance branches, the ofl& cers of the operational staff sat down on a bench in the shade to calculate how much bread to order from the town's bakeries to supply the troops by evening, how much to pay for it, and what other additional provisions would have to be requested. Several units had no more hardtack or salt, others had enough left for only one day, and none of the horses had been given any oats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Herein the shade the heat was pleasantly tempered. The httle fountain with its allegorical figures played gently. A few paces away, German women in summer dresses were passing by, wheeling or carrying children; opposite, a dry-goods shop was open for business, and a cab drove by with an elderly German couple. Apart from the random peaceful noises of a small town without trolleys and motorcars, there were no other sounds to be heard; there was not even a hiQt of the distant rumble of gunfire, which is like the bottom of a huge tin drum being pushed in and out. After two weeks of unreal warfare, marching continu-\n\nally and never firing a shot, XIII Army Corps had ended up in this divinely peaceful spot, and the war seemed to have stopped altogether.\n\nIn all his nearly forty years of service. General Klyuev had never once been inaction-neither as a cadet nor as an ensign nor even as commander of the Volhynian regiment of Life Guards, and least of all as an officer of His Imperial Majesty's personal suite. He had spent the Turkish campaign in the rear echelons as'general-in-waiting\" and the Japanese war as\" general on special duty/\" Frequently decorated and recommended for promotion, by the time he was appointed chief of staff of a military district he hoped he might never have to see active service. Now, however, it had come, and he had been ordered to replace Alexeyev in command of a corps.\n\nGeneral Klyuev, it was true, had been on maneuvers quite often, and indeed the two weeks in which his corps had been advancing had passed quite smoothly, very much as though they were on maneuvers. The advance had been complicated only by inadequate ration supplies for the troops, difficulties in communications, and heavy gunfire on the left. (Only that morning he had extricated himself from direct involvement infighting by sending Martos a brigade composed of the Narva and Kopor regiments-the two units that had been assigned to him to no purpose and then recalled.) He was not responsible for events outside his corps boundaries, and in his own sector everything had so far gone tolerably well; his only fear was that through some mistake or carelessness in disposing of his forces he might upset the unstable equilibrium and provoke an outbreak of real fighting. Klyuev was plagued by indecision, and he was conscious of the lack of moral support from his staff, none of whom were men of his own choice. Of the enemy he knew nothing. In Allen-stein he had just given orders to select a building for his headquarters, yet he could still hardly beheve that he had captured the town and was going to spend the night there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly (was this the start of the real fighting?) a\n\ntwo-wheeler came insight. To lessen the noise of its wheels on the cobbled street and so attract less attention, it drove right across the sandy soil to where Klyuev was standing. As it drew up, an airman jumped out to report. He had just returned from a reconnaissance flight which had taken him nearly twenty miles to the east. Near Lake Daday he had seen two columns of troops-each, to judge from its size, of divisional strength-^ marching toward Allenstein. He had not flown low enough to distinguish whether they were Russians, but...\n\nStaff ofiBcers put their heads together to discuss the report, peering at their map boards to interpret the information. Then a map was taken to General Klyuev and General Pestich: there could be no doubt-it was Blagoveshchensky's corps moving up to support them on Samsonov's orders. The timing, direction, and numbers were all right. Tomorrow a mighty striking force of two army corps w^ ould be concentrated in this locality, and if these were then to linkup with Martos, their combmed strength could deliver the enemy a crushing blow.\n\nThe corps chief of staff. General Pestich, did, it is true, suggest that they should send a senior and more experienced pilot to check the report, but Klyuev vetoed the proposal and ordered a written message to be sent immediately to General Blagoveshchensky, telling him to bring three-quarters of his corps to Allenstein, where it could spend the night, there being no enemy in the area. At dawn Klyuev would move his corps to join up with Martos, leaving Allenstein to Blagoveshchensky.\n\nSuddenly (this was it!) there came a heavy burst of rifle-and light-artillery fire from just outside the town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Klyuev turned pale and his mouth went dry. How could the Germans have crept up so close without warning, and where had they come from? This meant that they had already cut the line of advance of the approaching corps.\n\nAmounted officer galloped off to find out what was happening.\n\nThere was a desultory exchange of shots fora few more minutes. The Germans in the street did not conceal their excitement. The firing, however, was confined to one area; it soon grew less and then died down.\n\nKlyuev signed the message to Blagoveshchensky, sealed the envelope, and handed it to the pilot with orders to land alongside one of the columns and deliver it to the first general he met.\n\nProud of his mission, the young airman leaped into the two-wheeler and set off at a brisk pace back to his airplane.\n\nThe mounted staff officer returned. The firing had been caused by the unexpected arrival from the west of a German armored train, which had steamed right into the outskirts of Allenstein and opened fire on the bivouac areas of the Narva and Sophia regiments. The Russian troops had kept their heads and had driven off the intruder.\n\n\"We must blowup the railway lines!\" ordered Pestich.\n\nAn hour, two hours went by; night fell, and still the airman did not return.\n\nHowever, no one was disturbed; these flying machines frequently broke down.\n\nAn officers' mounted reconnaissance patrol was sent out to meet the approaching column. Toward evening one of the officers came galloping back to report that they had been fired on by the troops in the column.\n\nBut this caused no alarm either, because it was quite a common occurrence in the Russian army to be fired on by one's own men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "r\n\nI\n\nGeneral-of-Infantry Nikolai Nikolae-vich Martos was, as the saying goes, a stickler for detail. He could not tolerate Russian procrastination, the attitude of'wait and see,\" the tendency to sleep on a problem and trust to God for the morrow. The least sign of alarm, the slightest unexplained blemish in his plans would cause him to insist on an urgent inquiry, a decision, or an answer. He could not sleep at night if the most trivial matter remained unresolved; this burning sense of responsibility meant that he got very little sleep but smoked more and more. Because he slept so little, the staff of his corps headquarters hardly slept either, for he never forgave the person responsible for whatever tiny matter of detail had kept him awake; he could never understand how it could have been overlooked, and always demanded that it be instantly put right. Every failure to carryout an order, every unresolved, unexplained problem made him sick. He would tirelessly insist that to every trivial question his subordinates should produce an answer that was as neat and shiny as a polished silver coin. Unfortunately, his officers cursed Martos because, being Russian, they were unused to this kind of regime. It was this which Krymov found so intolerable, and this was why he too swore at Martos for pushing his staff too hard over matters of detail. To Krymov* s rather sluggish mind, there was no general more irritating than Martos.\n\nAlthough he had spent all his life in the army (starting with the Russo-Turkish War, when he was nineteen), Martos was utterly unlike the other imposing but slow-witted Russian generals: rather, he resembled\n\na cleverly disguised starling-^ thin, active, sharp-tongued, and to complete the picture he went everywhere in a flapping, unbuttoned greatcoat and carried a stick which he used as a pointer. Beneath his epaulettes he was less of a general than a professor, constantly setting examination questions for his subordinates." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been in command of XV Army Corps for four years; he knew everyone in it, and the corps was up to strength, except for the cavaky. As it had been stationed locally, in the Warsaw Military District, Mar-tos had trained it in precisely this theater of operations, and it was perhaps only right that events had taken the course they did: throughout the past two weeks, in which the rest of the army either had advanced blindly into empty space or had been kept stupidly marking time, only XV Corps had headed straight for the enemy and, having started fighting on August 10, had been inaction almost everyday since then.\n\nLike any complex undertaking, it is the start of a war which is hardest; but once the yoke is put on, in no time at all the wearer feels it to be the most natural form of neckwear and it no longer seems uncomfortable.\n\nHis corps had, for instance, recently been deprived of its permanent cavalry regiment. It was replaced by a regiment of Orenburg Cossacks, who were unfamiliar with field service, having been employed on police duties in Warsaw. Thanks to the cowardly behavior of these men, who confined their reconnaissance activities to collecting rumors from the local inhabitants, Martos was deprived of intelligence about the enemy. He had expected to go into action at Neidenburg, where there had been no fighting at all, while at Orlau his corps had unexpectedly bumped into the enemy and, unprepared, had been forced into an engagement. Both Army Group and Army Headquarters, having even less information than Martos about the Germans-imagined the enemy to be somewhere to the north and retreating, whereas he was not retreat-\n\n^\n\ning but waiting in prepared positions, and not ahead, as they imagined, but on the left of the advancing Russians. It was Martos, brushing almost daily with the enemy on his left flank, who was the first to realize that the true position of Scholtz's corps was in a diagonal line to his left, and it was Martos who, without waiting for orders, was the first Russian commander to start veering leftward. He also had pilots whose aerial reconnaissance was of great value; it was they, for instance, who discovered the Germans\" fortified line of defense behind Lake Miihlen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, the attack mounted against Miihlen on August 13 was a failure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although Martos's left-hand division under General Mingin charged into Miihlen with great dash, it was repulsed and forced to withdraw southward as fast as it had advanced. At the same time the center of Martos's corps became overextended while his right flank advanced northward. Martos realized that his already hard-pressed divisions could not be expected to defend such a wide front; they needed the help of fresh troops. These would have to be provided by Klyuev, who was still marching northward unopposed through deserted territory. Soon the evening of the thirteenth-bypassing the higher command, which is always the simplest method-Martos sent Klyuev a message requesting him to detach his nearest two regiments in support of XV Corps. Then, in a bold'castling\" move, Martos himself wheeled the frontage of his corps from a northward to a westward axis to face the Miihlen line. (This move threw the supply trains into confusion fora longtime.)\n\nMartos was also the first of the corps commanders to spend his time not at corps headquarters but at a command post, insight of the enemy and often under fire. He found it invaluable to be in this forward position, regarding every enforced absence from it as a waste of time. On the morning of the fourteenth, when his sector was already under bombardment from two directions, and when he calculated that even Army Headquarters was shortly due to rise from its slumbers.\n\nMartos sent a colonel to the telephone in the nearest village to urge Army Headquarters to transfer the whole of Klyuev's corps to Martos's sector.\n\nSeveral hundred shrapnel and high-explosive shells had burst, dozens of stretcher-bearers had passed on their way, several battalions in the front line had been relieved by reserve units, several damaged batteries of guns had been pulled back, and a Russian airplane had almost been shot down by fire from Russian troops before the colonel returned from making his telephone call. By ill luck he had been put through to Postovsky-^ he could hardly have insisted on speaking directly to the army commander-and Postovsky had refused the request, on the grounds that the army commander did not want to interfere with General Klyuev's freedom of action." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing was more calculated to make Martos writhe with fury than this answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dropped his binoculars, ran down from the loft where he had established his command post, through the pine trees, and up the winding path to the hilltop, cursing and swearing under his breath as he stumbled on his way. He was not so naive as to believe that his request had really been passed to the army commander, that the brain inside Samsonov's overlarge head had carefully weighed the matter in all its aspects and had then decided to encourage the indecisive Klyuev's\"freedom of action.\" On the contrary, he had immediately recognized the stamp of Postovsky's flabby, inky Uttle soul, his fear of diverging from the two-day-old directives issued by Army Group Headquarters and his self-important air of speaking with the army commander's authority when in fact he had never reported the matter to Samsonov at all. He was in any case most unlikely to risk agreeing to Klyuev's being placed under Martos's command, since Martos had never been more than a corps commander, whereas Klyuev had only recently been chief of staff of a military district where Postovsky had served under him as quartermaster general.\n\nSo Martos had no alternative but to leave the battle which he had been fighting since morning-at a mo-\n\nment when his men had already crossed a fortified river line, when they were on the point of capturing Muhlen and a German battalion had just fled in panic-and run to the rear in order to ring up and find out whether the army commander was awake yet. It was at such infuriating moments, inevitable in military service, when one's wooden-headed superiors were apparently conspiring to do everything as badly and as disastrously as possible, that the only solution seemed to be to strip off the trappings of the military profession and, devoid of any semblance of army uniform, drown oneself stark naked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon, however, came messages, reports, and questions that required his decision, followed by an answering signal from Klyuev: the Narva and Kopor regiments had been dispatched to Hohenstein. So the tireless Martos regained his equilibrium and once more directed his energy to the battle.\n\nInstalled in his forward command post, with good communications to his regiments and artillery units, smoking his way through thirty cigarettes and missing his lunch, Martos might have spent a tolerably satisfactory day. The fighting died down, some new units were brought up into the line, others changed their positions. News arrived that the regiments sent by Klyuev had reached Hohenstein, at which Martos at once ordered them to push farther. At four o'clock in the afternoon, without giving either the Germans or his own troops time to draw breath, Martos launched anew attack with all his regiments, which went well: the Russian troops surrounded Muhlen and cut it off. But Martos was not to be allowed to witness the culmination of the action: an orderly galloped up to summon him to the telephone-he was urgently wanted on the line to Army Headquarters.\n\nThis was the very moment when Martos was most needed at his command post, when it was more than he could do to tear himself away to speak on the telephone, even to go and meet Klyuev himself; yet his army training forbade him to disobey the call. Leaving everything to his chief of staff, Martos galloped off to the telephone, so as to return as quickly as possible.\n\nIn the large, heavy earpiece of the German civilian telephone, Martos clearly recognized Postovsky's tiresome, squeaky voice. But it was not the man's vocal mannerisms that made Martos refuse to believe his ears and hop from foot to foot as though he were standing on hot bricks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"General Martos, these are your orders,\" Postovsky whined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are to move your corps to Allenstein tomorrow morning to join up with XIII Corps and VI Corps. This will form a massive striking force of three corps.\"\n\nMartos was so amazed that he said uncomprehend-ingly: \"You mean-^ Klyuev is not to come here, but I'm to go there?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's right.\"\n\nMartos's narrow chest exploded as though blown up by a direct hit. It was more than he could bear. That dummy Postovsky knew as much about war as a paperweight. He was incapable of grasping that today was the most glorious day in Martos's life, in his whole military career! He did not realize that alone XV Corps was successfully waging a heated battle with the whole of the enemy forces so far seen in East Prussia, that each hour of the battle was of incalculable value to the whole army, and that all available forces should be thrown into it, not withdrawn. Postovsky was simply incapable of talking sense: right now he was droning on about XV Corps having fuHed to carryout its orders to advance farther northward...\n\n\"Call the army commander to the telephone!\" Martos shouted furiously in his high-pitched, parade-ground voice. \"Call him this minute!\"\n\nPostovsky refused. It was difficult for him, after all-^ he would have to search from room to room and perhaps even lookout on the staircase.\n\nWhy did General Martos need the army commander? The order was issued in Samsonov's name...\n\n\"No!\" Martos screamed, almost suffocating with fury. * \"No! Only the army commander will do! It is up to him to decide who is to takeover XV Corps-because, as far as I am concerned, he can dismiss me. I refuse to serve any longer! I shall resign!\" *" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Postovsky did not shout back (he was in any case incapable of it), but lowered his tone and said in a worried voice: \"Very well, I'll tell him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll bring him to the telephone in an hour's time.\"\n\n\"In an hour's time-^ hell! If you ring then, you won't get me!\"\n\nHis slight, boyish figure bouncing like a ball, Martos leaped into the saddle and galloped back to the command post so fast that his aide-de-camp was hardly able to keep up with him.\n\nAfter nightfall came news that Klyuev's corps in its entirety had been placed under Martos's command. Martos rushed to telephone the commander of his right-hand division, ordering him to send Klyuev an immediate message: \"Move here at once in support.\"\n\nCommunications in the Russian army relied chiefly on lone dispatch riders galloping across unknown terrain that might be patrolled by detachments of the enemy. There were telephone lines everywhere, but no technical units to maintain them.\n\nSo it was the middle of the night before the reply came back that Klyuev's corps could not possibly be moved in the darkness; it would set off in the morning of August 15, but the transfer could achieve its object only if General Martos undertook to maintain his present position fora further twenty-four hours, until August 16.\n\nThe arrival in Neidenburg did nothing to clarify the working of Samsonov's mind, nor did it make it any easier for him to intervene directly in events. He awoke to find an unfamiliar ceiling overhead; outside were the rooftops and spires of an ancient fortified town of the Teutonic Order, the inexplicably close sound of gunfire, the drifting smoke of unextinguished fires, and the intermingling of two forms of life in one town-the life of the German civilians and that of the Russian military. Each of them proceeded according to its own laws, meaningless to the other, but the two were inevitably obliged to coexist within the same stonewalls, and this morning, before any of his staff officers came to see him, the army commander had agreed to receive a joint visit from the Russian town commandant and the German burgomaster. Flour had to be obtained from the town's stores to bake bread for the troops; this entailed settling accounts, dealing with objections, and agreeing on terms. Was the military poUce service setup by the commandant likely to disturb the civilian population? The Russians had taken charge of a well-equipped German hospital, but it still contained German doctors and German wounded. Were the Russians justified in requisitioning a building and transportation for their military hospital, and on what terms?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Samsonov honestly strove to delve into these problems and to resolve the disagreements fairly and equitably. But he could not concentrate. Stirring in his mind was a dull anxiety about the invisible, intangible things that were happening out therein the seventy-mile radius\n\nof sand and forest, things which his staff officers were never in a hurry to report to him.\n\nAlthough in the hierarchy of the army a senior commander holds complete power over his staff, and they exert none over him, the erratic course of events often reverses this order of things: the commander depends on his staff officers for what he is told and is not told, and they can determine the scope within which he may exercise his command.\n\nThe previous day, like everyday, had ended with the dispatch to all corps of the most reasonable of all possible orders, telling them what they were to do today; in the knowledge that they had done the utmost to insure the army's well-being, Army Headquarters had then gone to bed. By morning some officers of the staff had thought of certain objections to yesterday's plans, but to report them further might run counter to the principle they had laid down only the day before-^ namely, that the staff must be selective in the reports that it showed to the army commander. Although some of yesterday's orders should perhaps have been modified, the new situation produced by this morning's fighting had already made it too late to change them. As a result, the army commander could spend an undisturbed morning, on the assumption that with God's help matters would develop as he hoped-that is to say, for the best.\n\nHowever, because it was under bombardment nearby, the plight of General Mingin's division could not be concealed from Samsonov. The division-^ which for some reason had not been transported from Novo-Georgievsk to Mlawa by rail, but had had to march the sixty-five-mile distance alongside the railway track, and a further thirty miles after that-had yesterday been sent straight from its forced march into a full-scale divisional attack. Its right-flank regiments had almost succeeded in taking Miihlen, while the left-hand regiments-the Reval and Estland regiments-had also made a very successful push before being apparently met by heavy fire just short of the village of Tannenberg, where they were forced to retire. When" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mingin heard that his left-hand regiments were pulling back, he also withdrew the two regiments on the right, thus breaking contact with Martos and exposing his flank. Further news was vague: it was not clear how heavy his casualties had been or how far he had retreated. The maccuracy of the information gave Army Headquarters a pretext to assess it in terms that were not unduly pessimistic, especially smce the artillery bombardment had moved away this morning and had swung over toward Martos's corps on the right.\n\nSamsonov was shown a map and studied it intently. He issued an order naming a village about six miles from Neidenburg, beyond which no unit was to withdraw. He had a strong hope that at any moment the regiments of Sirelius's Guards Division would turn up to reinforce Mingin. Samsonov was expecting either General Sirelius himself or his corps commander. General Kondratovich, to arrive at Army Headquarters that morning, but neither of them appeared.\n\nSamsonov wondered whether he had been wrong in sending an officer to clarify the news from General Mingin; perhaps he should have gone to have a look himself. But if he were to go to Mingin's division, some vital report from another sector was bound to come posting in.\n\nThus, with no reliable information on the course of operations, and therefore having no particular task to carryout, Samsonov spent the first half of the day in uncomfortable suspense. For some of the time he went fora ride with General Knox; he conferred with the supply staff; he visited the medical director of the hospital; then he saw Postovsky, and followed this by studying the telegrams from Northwestern Army Group. It was nearly lunchtime when a Cossack patrol brought a message from Blagoveshchensky which had been dispatched at two that morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The message was so strange that Samsonov blinked, frowned, and puffed with incredulity as he read it. Neither he nor his staff could make head or tail of it. Blagoveshchensky appeared to be ignorant of the order that he had been given, which was to go and help\n\n&\n\nKlyuev out of trouble; he did not even give any explanation or excuse for having failed to do so. His ignorance of the Germans was even greater; the only mention of them was the curious phrase: \"Reconnaissance has provided no information about the enemy.\" Then came a statement that during the previous morning's fighting at Gross-Bessau (What fighting? When had he reported it?) the losses sustained by General Komarov's division amounted to more than four thousand men. (That was half a division! And after all that, he had no information about the enemy!) Then came mention of a point some twelve miles south of Gross-Bessau to which his corps was retreating-^ having clearly abandoned Bischofsburg altogether, without saying a word about it.\n\nAnd how strong were these German forces? They were supposed to be retreating across the Vistula. If they had merely lashed out at Blagoveshchensky with a sideswipe as they retreated, how had he managed to lose four thousand men?\n\nSomehow managing to slip away from Knox, Sam-sonov clutched this evasive-no, lying-^ report in his hand as he paced up and down the dimly fit council chamber of the Landrat like an angry bear, then sat down at the dark oaken table and clutched his head in his hands.\n\nHow disastrously the conditions of warfare had changed, making a commander as impotent as a rag doll! Where now was the battlefield that was no wider than one man's field of vision, across which he could gallop over to a faltering commander or summon him to his side? The extent of the battlefield had started to grow unmanageably large in the Japanese war-and now the situation was far worse. For ai distance of forty-five miles, across enemy country, under threat of bullets or capture, those trusting Cossacks had ridden for twelve hours carrying this base, lying, treacherous document! Any attempt to get further uSormation, to rectify the situation, to put some backbone into a cowardly officer or countermand his orders was impossible until the Cossacks had fed and rested their horses-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and even then it would take them another twelve hours to ride back. The wireless telegraph stations were unable to make contact with each other, the aircraft either could not fly or did not return. Nor was it any solution to send his only motorcar with an answer to Blagoveshchensky: a car, too, needed a cavalry escort. And so to cover those forty-five miles-which in Kutu-zov's time had been a mere three miles-the only means remained the same horses\" hoofs, whose stride had not increased by an inch since Kutuzov's day. It would be the same time tomorrow before he could find out whether VI Corps had been able to rally and redeploy, or whether it had been completely knocked out of action, leaving Samsonov's army with an amputated right arm.\n\nFeeling like a creature that has had a limb cutoff or awing smashed, Samsonov sat down to lunch. He could eat nothing and was openly disagreeable and offhand in answering Knox's questions.\n\nIn the middle of lunch, however, there came some unexpected good news: the line to I Corps, disrupted since morning, had been repaired, and a message had come from Artamonov: \"Under attack since dawn by heavy enemy forces at Usdau. All attacks beaten off. Holding firm as a rock. WiU carryout orders to the bitter end.\"\n\nSamsonov's high, receding brow lightened; he was rejuvenated and the gloom around the table vanished. Knox, enthusiastic as ever, pressed keenly to be told the details.\n\nAlthough the army's right arm was cutoff, its left arm, now the most vital, had taken on anew access of strength. Samsonov regretted having been so unfair to Artamonov recently, having thought him a careerist and a stupid ditherer. Now he was holding the most important sector in the whole army; it was unthinkable that he was exaggerating, or he would not have used such a strong, expressive phrase as'firm as a rock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lunch ended cheerfully. Samsonov would have liked to learn more details by calling up Krymov or\n\nVorotyntsev-^ whichever was the nearer to the telegraph-but the hne was disrupted again.\n\nIt was now more than ever essential to give some attention to the center corps. And although it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, it was also clearly time to start drafting the army order for tomorrow-indeed, the earlier, the better. It would have been more sensible, of course, not to issue orders fora whole day at a time but hourly, as circumstances dictated; however, it was an established, accepted rule that orders were sent out once every twenty-four hours.\n\nA map was spread out on an oval table in front of the army commander. With two colonels to hold down the comers, Samsonov and Filimonov paced up and down, bent over the map, and pointed with their fingers, while Colonel Vyalov brought them up to date by reading aloud from the previous dispatches and orders.\n\nSamsonov always treated this kind of staff work as a ritual. The fate of battalions, even whole regiments, might be affected by chance factors such as the lighting, the bUnk of an eye, the thickness of a finger, a blunt pencil, or whether one is standing or sitting at the table. Ashe attempted to reconcile the lines and arrows on the map with the orders from higher command and his own considerations, Samsonov strove conscientiously and to the best of his ability to arrive at a reasonable solution. Sweat dripped onto the map and Samsonov mopped his forehead with a handkerchief-perhaps because the hot, sultry day made it stuffy in the council chamber of the Landrat, with its small, narrow windows.\n\nThe orders, as usual, began by recapitulating progress to date. It sounded quite good: I Corps had beaten off a German attack, Mingin's division was holding onto its designated position at all costs, XV Corps had captured Hohenstein and was on the point of taking Miihlen, XIII Corps was in Allenstein, and VI Corps... well, even VI Corps might still straighten itself out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What of tomorrow? Obviously the center corps would have to wheel farther leftward; Artamonov's\n\ncorps, holding fast where it stood, was to be the axis on which the whole army would turn. The order to Artamonov would have to be worded diplomatically, without actually suggesting that he advance-something along the lines of'Hold position forward of Soldau.\" By this means the commander-in-chiefs wish not to allow I Corps beyond Soldau would not be contravened. Klyuev would be ordered to linkup with Martos by forced march. As for Martos... here Filimonov insisted on a subtle piece of phrasing: Martos was to^ \"sidestep leftward and deliver a knockout blow to the enemy's flank.\"\n\nThere was, however, one thing they could not tell the corps commanders: the strength and dispositions of the enemy.\n\nThere, almost ready, was tomorrow's army order. Although the work of drafting it was rather hke trying to find away through the bushes in the dark, the order that resulted was an immaculate document, written out in beautiful, sloping handwriting.\n\nYet Samsonov was still not sure that all possible preparations had been made. He felt slightly unwell, finding it hard to breathe.\n\n\"I think, gentlemen, I shall go outside for some fresh au-. There will still be time to sign the order later.\"\n\nFilimonov and Vyalov requested permission to accompany him. The chief of intelligence, a man with a gleaming, bald, pumpkin-shaped head, took the draft order into the next room to Postovsky, who immediately noticed that the order conflicted with the latest instructions from Northwestern Army Group, which were that Second Army should continue advancing on a strictly northward axis.\n\n\"What do you think you're doing?\" he asked. \"Martos should be linking up with Klyuev, not Klyuev with Martos. Then we should form a striking force like a great fist!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was by now five o'clock in the afternoon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weather was no longer so hot, but the stones were still giving off heat, and even in the street Samsonov\n\nfound it hard to breathe. He took off his cap and again wiped the sweat from his brow.\n\n\"Let's walk to the end of the town, gentlemen-there'll be a wood or cemetery there, and we can find some shade.\"\n\nAlthough he had seen it yesterday, and it was now in the hot sun, the army commander stopped in front of the monument to Bismarck. With flowerbeds around its base, it was mounted on a jagged lump of natural, unworked, brownstone from which another rock reared upward. As though emerging from the upper third of this piece of stone, carved in harsh lines and sharp angles, was a black Bismarck wrapped in black thoughts.\n\nThe street they had chosen led out of the town in a northwesterly direction-^ toward the position held by Mingin's division, a route which Samsonov might have chosen on purpose. He walked in his favorite attitude, with his hands clasped behind his back. From the front this gave him a look of earnestness, but from behind he looked more like a manacled prisoner-an effect which was increased by his bowed head. He did not talk to the other two officers, who walked to one side of him.\n\nSamsonov sensed that he was doing something wrong, or rather, that he was failing to do something essential, but he was unable to grasp what it was, because he could not penetrate the veil that dimmed his inner eye. His urge was to gallop off somewhere and flourish his sword, but that would have been pointless and inappropriate in his position.\n\nHe was dissatisfied with himself. Filimonov was obviously displeased with him all the time; it was unlikely that the corps commanders harbored many kind thoughts about him either; the army group commander had called him a coward, and General Headquarters disapproved of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet no one could tell him what he ought to do.\n\nA little wood began slightly beyond the last houses in the town. Just as the three men were about to\n\nturn into it, there was aloud rumbling as a gig came insight at full speed, followed by a two-horse supply wagon. The drivers were lashing their horses as though escaping from pursuit, careening along with more speed and less care than was permitted in the proximity of Army Headquarters. Samsonov's companions ran to stop them, and Filimonov, tugging at his aiguillettes, marched angrily out into the middle of the road. Samsonov, who had not noticed anything, walked on into the wood and sat down on a bench.\n\nThe commotion in the street continued: as the first two carts stopped, others drove up. There was a babble of voices, which grew quieter as they approached. The threatening tones of Filimonov were heard as he questioned a soldier, refusing to let the mango. Having been requested by Samsonov to find out what was happening, the courteous Vyalov returned to the army commander hesitant and embarrassed, while Filimon-ov's voice could be heard from the street, growing louder as he delivered a sharp reprimand.\n\nVyalov explained that these men were the disorderly remnants of the Estland regiment (which was supposed to be standing firm'at all costs\" in a position some six or seven miles away). They were retreating headlong and had reached Neidenburg, unaware that Army Headquarters was located there. They were so demoralized that they could scarcely be stopped.\n\nBreathing with difficulty, Samsonov stood up in alarm. Forgetting to put on his cap, which he carried in his hand, he walked out into the blazing heat of the roadway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Several wagons, four officers standing to one side, and about a hundred and fifty men, who were being joined by new arrivals, were formed up into the semblance of a squad. They had been ordered to Une up in four ranks, although they could hardly be called ranks: ragged, curving lines of men with hot, red faces, many of them bareheaded as though on a church parade, except that they were too untidy for that-some had lost their greatcoat rolls, some still had them but unfastened and hanging down to their knees, and several\n\nof them had no rifles. The right marker, a short, dark man, was still carrying his mess tin hooked onto his belt, although the bottom had been knocked out of it by a shell splinter. A couple of dozen men were wounded; some had been bandaged by medical orderlies, some had bandaged themselves, while others exposed open, inflamed wounds. Although they had halted, they still seemed to be on the move: a force was making them bend and sway in the direction they had just been running. They had a wild look to them, and it was amazing that they were able to keep some kind of formation.\n\nAt the approach of the army commander, Filimonov barked: \"\"Atten-tionr Samsonov ordered him to stand the men at ease, then Filimonov reported to him-or rather let loose a blast of anger at this cowardly, un-soldierly rabble... Until now, Samsonov had only heard his quartermaster general speaking indoors and had no idea that the man's voice was capable of such violent, resonant fury. Filimonov shouted at the troops with all the frustrated martial ambition of a staff ofi& cer and that assertiveness peculiar to small generals.\n\nAs Samsonov listened to Filimonov accusing the whole Estland regiment of betrayal, cowardice, and desertion, he noticed the desperation in the flushed faces of the troops. It was the utter desperation of men at breaking point, of men who were deaf to any general's reprimand. The miracle was that they had allowed themselves to be brought to a halt: in the state they were in, a stonewall could not have stopped them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Samsonov at once noticed, however, that there was a difference between this, the courage of despair, and the ugly, mutinous boldness he had witnessed in 1905 on the Siberian railways, when the troops had staged angry meetings and formed committees, when with cries of'Down with the war!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and'We're going home!\" they had wrecked stations, looted refreshment rooms, and seized locomotives by force so that their train should be the first to return home from the hated war. The officers had lost all authority then, and from a hundred throats the mutinous hordes had yelled with impunity: \"Down with the war!\" Their elemental fury\n\nwas turned against all officers, however good they might have been: these men simply wanted what no officer could ever give them.\n\nBy contrast, the men of the Estland regiment, who had just escaped death against all odds, now stared at their officers with a look of agony which said, \"We've done all that men could do for you, damn you-and what have you done for us?\"\n\nFeeling that his face was reddening (although it was unHkely that anyone would notice it in the bright sunlight), Samsonov held up his hand, palm outward, and stemmed the roar of his quartermaster general's voice. Then he began quietly questioning the men-first the officers, only one of whom was a company commander; then the troops.\n\nUnused as these men were to giving descriptions, their stories were fragmentary and disjointed; it was, in any case, hopeless to expect them to make any sense out of the chaos in that whistling inferno of death and the devastating fire from hundreds of guns which they had withstood without trenches and with only the shallow furrows of sugar-beet fields for cover. The Russian artillery had either been lacking altogether or had failed to return the fire, and the few guns that did start firing were immediately located and knocked out. Even so, the Russian infantry had managed to answer the German artillery with rifle and machine-gunfire at long range. They even went into the attack and reached the German trenches; although they had fired all their ammunition, they began overrunning the enemy's lines and the attack was followed up by cavalry support (this part of the story, however, was dubious). The noise of the bombardment had been worse than the Last Judgment; the old soldiers among them had never heard anything like it. Up to three thousand men in their regiment had been wiped out It was indescribable..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Samsonov's fault. He had heard that fixing yesterday, and this morning he had wanted to ride out to them. Why had he not done so? His guilt lay\n\nin the very fact that he had stayed in Neidenburg until they came, instead of going to find out if they were in trouble. Yet this was not the real cause of the disaster. Ina flash of insight he now perceived the blunder he had made in the dim council chamber of the Land-rat: yesterday he had sent them orders (on the advice of this same incompetent general who was now bawling at them) to advance and cut a certain main road; as the crow flies, the distance was no more than fourteen miles. But doing this he had sent them straight into an inferno-to the only sector where the Germans had been reported in force. And this morning he had ordered the tattered fragments of these regiments to hold on'at all costs\"...\n\nWhile the men were talking to Samsonov, there was a commotion at the end of the line and a regimental standard, the cross and ribbons of the Order of St. George fastened to its upper shackle, marched up, escorted by a party of soldiers who halted in silence on the left flank-a decimated remnant of wounded, shattered men.\n\nEven though the calm, reasonable tone of his voice could be heard by all the men present, Samsonov raised it so as to be audible to the new arrivals and inquired: \"How many of you from the Reval regiment?\"\n\nA sergeant barked jerkily: \"The colors. And one platoon.\"\n\nFrom the rear rank of the Estland regiment came the hoarse voice of a soldier too impatient to wait to be questioned: \"Your excellency! Did you know we haven't had any hardtack to eat for three days?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" The army commander swung around, more shocked and amazed than ever. \"Three days!\" All day yesterday, advancing through that inferno, cut to pieces by shellfire, storming the German lines with bayonet charges, nine out often of them dying-all this without even hardtack to sustain them...\n\n\"That's right-no hardtack!\" A ragged chorus confirmed the protest.\n\nInsight of them all, the army commander's tall.\n\nponderous frame swayed. An aide-de-camp ran up to support him, but Samsonov stayed on his feet and straightened up without help.\n\nIt would have been a relief to have fallen to his knees and cried out: \"I am the culprit-I sent you to your destruction!\" A weight would have fallen from his heart if he could have taken all the guilt on himself and risen to his feet no longer the army commander.\n\nInstead, he calmly gave the order: \"Feed them all at once. And send them to the rear fora rest period.\"\n\nBut his burden grew no less, and Samsonov walked back into town, stumbling like a man under a curse.\n\nJust as he was passing the plinth of the Bismarck monument, a party of men on horseback, led by a staff officer, came toward the army commander. The staff ofificer pointed Samsonov out to them. They dismounted and approached him on foot, with their brisk, bandylegged cavalryman's gait.\n\nThe three men were a cavalry general, a colonel of dragoons, and a Cossack sergeant major.\n\nThere were so many generals in his army that Samsonov had to wrinkle his brow in an effort to recall the name of this one. Then he remembered it-^ Major General Stempel, a cavalry brigade commander in General Ropp's division. Stempel reported that he had arrived at the head of a special detachment consisting of a regiment of dragoons, three and a half squadrons of the 6th Don Cossack regiment, and a battery of horse artillery. The detachment had been formed by Colonel Krymov, acting on the army commander's authority, and had been given the task of reestablishing live communication between I Corps and XXIII Corps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although in his mind's eye Samsonov could still see those men of the Reval and Estland regiments, and his thoughts were still dominated by his own guilt at the disaster they had suffered, somewhere in his memory there stirred the thought that ad hoc formations and special detachments, such as this one led by Stempel, were always a sign that things were going badly. But\n\ntime was pressing; he must make an effort to grasp the new situation and cope with it.\n\n\"Detachment?\" he said. \"Good. There does seem to have been a breakdown between these two corps...\"\n\nShaking hands with the three men, he discovered that he knew the Cossack sergeant major. A stocky, grizzled man with a simple, honest face and a bristly little graybeard, Samsonov recognized him from the days when he had served in Novocherkassk.\n\n\"Alexei Nikolaevich Isayev, isn't it?\"\n\nAlthough he was nearly seventy, the sergeant major replied briskly: \"That's right, your excellency!\"\n\n\"But why three and a half squadrons?\" Samsonov asked with a weak smile.\n\nGlad of a chance to complain at being sent on this detachment and hoping that he might be sent back to rejoin his regiment, Isayev explained the reason, glancing somewhat strangely at Samsonov as he did so.\n\nStempel, too, had an odd look about him. The two men exchanged glances.\n\n\"Bad news, I fear,\" said Isayev, fidgeting uncomfortably.\n\nSamsonov's heart sank. \"What is it now?\"\n\nThin and haggard, Stempel came to attention and handed over an envelope as though he expected to be punished for it. \"Personal dispatch from Colonel Kry-mov. He asked me to give it to you.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In partnership with the author, move the story forward.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although in his mind's eye Samsonov could still see those men of the Reval and Estland regiments, and his thoughts were still dominated by his own guilt at the disaster they had suffered, somewhere in his memory there stirred the thought that ad hoc formations and special detachments, such as this one led by Stempel, were always a sign that things were going badly. But\n\ntime was pressing; he must make an effort to grasp the new situation and cope with it.\n\n\"Detachment?\" he said. \"Good. There does seem to have been a breakdown between these two corps...\"\n\nShaking hands with the three men, he discovered that he knew the Cossack sergeant major. A stocky, grizzled man with a simple, honest face and a bristly little graybeard, Samsonov recognized him from the days when he had served in Novocherkassk.\n\n\"Alexei Nikolaevich Isayev, isn't it?\"\n\nAlthough he was nearly seventy, the sergeant major replied briskly: \"That's right, your excellency!\"\n\n\"But why three and a half squadrons?\" Samsonov asked with a weak smile.\n\nGlad of a chance to complain at being sent on this detachment and hoping that he might be sent back to rejoin his regiment, Isayev explained the reason, glancing somewhat strangely at Samsonov as he did so.\n\nStempel, too, had an odd look about him. The two men exchanged glances.\n\n\"Bad news, I fear,\" said Isayev, fidgeting uncomfortably.\n\nSamsonov's heart sank. \"What is it now?\"\n\nThin and haggard, Stempel came to attention and handed over an envelope as though he expected to be punished for it. \"Personal dispatch from Colonel Kry-mov. He asked me to give it to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's this all about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Samsonov asked, as though hearing the news orally would make it more bearable. But he was already unfolding the paper with its message in Krymov's elaborate handwriting:\n\nYour Excellency, Alexander Vasilievich! General Artamonov is a fool, a coward, and a liar. For no good reason he has issued orders to his corps as a result of which it has been retreating in disorder since midday. This fact has been concealed from you. A brilliant counter-attack mounted by the Petrov and Neishlot regiments and a rifle regiment has been nullified and wasted. Usdau is lost, and it is doubtful whether Soldau can beheld till evening...\n\nIf anyone else had told him this, even under oath, he would not have believed it. But when Krymov wrote something, he meant it.\n\nTurning purple in the face, Samsonov drew himself up, shook himself, and threw out his chest. He had been walking along feeling weak and guilty-but here was a scoundrel who was a greater culprit than himself. Full of righteous anger, he bellowed out to everyone standing near him at the crossroads: \"The swine! I shall dismiss him!\"\n\nLeaning with one hand against the rough stone of the monument, he went on: \"These are your orders. Reestablish immediate contact with Soldau. General Artamonov is relieved of the command of I Army Corps. General Dushkevich is appointed in his stead. Inform I Corps and Army Group Headquarters.\"\n\nHis army's left arm, which he thought had been supported on solid rock, was gone.\n\nIt, too, had been amputated.\n\nThroughout the previous day the Narva and Kopor regiments had been made to march northward at a breakneck pace; they were forbidden to stop at any wells, were still marching when twilight feU, and had to bivouac in the darkness. There was a rumor that when they reached Allenstein next day, bread would be baked and issued to them. But on the morning of the fourteenth-after the usual holdups, delays, and failures to issue and distribute orders, while the troops stood around idle, knowing full well that it was they who would have to pay for these delays later by being made to march all the faster-the Narva and Kopor regiments were given the order to wheel leftward and march back, away from Allenstein, thereby giving back to the invisible Germans aU those miles they had gained by footslogging the day before. They were to move rapidly in support of a neighboring unit just as they had done three days ago-and to no purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The brigade commander was perhaps given some explanation of this order, some information about it might even have been passed onto the regimental commanders, but at battalion level the officers were told nothing, and with the best will in the world it was hard to explain the previous day's forced march as the result of anything other than stupidity or a malicious joke. And what must the troops think? Where his men were concerned, Yaroslav Kharitonov felt as ashamed about the exhausting way in which they were being driven to and fro as if he himself were that sinister traitor at headquarters whom the troops suspected of being the cause of all their troubles.\n\nHowever, the two regiments were granted an unexpected reward for their tortuous, fortnight-long march on empty stomachs: at midday, with the bright sunshine tempered by a steady breeze and the sky patterned with fleecy white clouds, they saw their first town spread out before them below the heights of Griesslinnen. An hour later, they marched unopposed into the little town of Hohenstein. No more than half a mile square, it amazed them not only by the way so many neat, roomy houses with their steeply pitched roofs were packed into such a small space, but by being totally deserted. It was so empty that it was at first somewhat eerie. There were no Russian soldiers in it, no civilian inhabitants, no old men, no women, no children, not even any dogs; the only living creatures were some wary cats. Here and there were a few broken shutters, a few window frames pulled off their hinges, and some broken panes of glass. To begin with, the leading regiment could not believe their luck: expecting to fight for the town, they had deployed and sent forward a skirmishing patrol. Not far ahead of them there was the rumble of artillery and the rattle of machine-gunfire, but by the chance of war the town itself, with its steep roofs and tapered spires, was completely empty and undamaged. It was obvious that even before their arrival no one had fought over the town, and if it had been captured it had fallen without a fight and been abandoned again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the regiments poured in along the road from Allenstein, they were still keyed up fora fight, still prepared to go straight through the town and out on the other side as they had been ordered to, but just as in the fairy tale where the hero's strength drains away as he enters the enchanted circle and he casts aside lance, sword, and buckler under the magic influence, so as each battalion passed the first few houses a strange spell seemed to affect it. The men broke step, they stared from side to side, the urge to press on toward the sound of battle weakened and faded, and the cohesive power which welded them into brigades and regiments ceased to exist. No one urged them on,\n\nno dispatch riders galloped up with fresh orders. Somehow, spontaneously, battalions began to turn aside to right and left, looking fora suitable place to camp; then even battalions began to drift apart as companies took on an independent existence, only to disintegrate in turn into platoons. Amazingly enough, no one was surprised at this, such was the debiUtating effect of the town's magic spell.\n\nYaroslav struggled to resist this mood, telling himself that they ought not to be behaving like this, that other regiments further forward needed their support. But his authority extended no further than his own platoon, and shortly even platoons began silently and imperceptibly to breakup and seep away Uke water from a leaky pipe seeking its own level. Kharitonov could hardly keep the good, well-disciplined men of his platoon standing alone in marching order under the hot sun; they too had earned the right to a halt.\n\nAnd what about food? After so many exhausting days on short rations, it was surely not wrong if his men too began to sUp away in response to the gnawing urge of hunger. Some of them even asked his permission, like the exemplary Private Kramchatkin, who marched up and snapped to attention. Eyes rolling, his stomach at the mercy of his platoon commander, he said: \"Permission to make a request, your honor? Permission to fallout and supplement the rations?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Others simply vanished around the comer and were back again in a moment carrying sugar, or biscuits in brightly colored packages, which they passed huniedly from hand to hand to hide them from their platoon commander." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was this wrong? Should they be punished? After all, they were hungry, and if their hunger was satisfied, they would fight better. Was it really so necessary to take such care of abandoned enemy property? He felt he should consult his fellow officers, but none of them seemed to be around to offer him advice. Anyway, he was a grown man and an officer-he should be able to decide for himself.\n\nSome of his men found some macaroni, which they had never seen before in their lives. Even more miracu-\n\nlous to these peasants was stewed veal preserved in glass jars. Nabyorkin, a fat, ingratiating little man, offered some to Kharitonov, his eyes beaming with pleasure. \"Don't be shy, your honor-try some! Look at the clever way these Germans do things!\"\n\nThere really seemed nothing wrong in what these soldiers were doing. They were acting in all innocence, and they deserved a chance to sit down, to make afire indoors or outside in a yard, and cook themselves a meal. Most fascinating of all, and something which amazed even the officers, was the way the Germans preserved eggs: they put them into a white liquid which looked like a solution of lime in water, and when the eggs were taken out they were as fresh as if they were newly laid, although they had been kept for months.\n\nThe padlocks that the Germans put on their storerooms were not strong, and they seemed to hold the ridiculous belief that any lock on a door, however small, was enough to prevent someone from trying to break it open. A rumor went about that there were some big storehouses in the town but that other Russian battalions had already been there and broken into them.\n\nNo, thought Yaroslav, that's wrong. We must put a stop to this. I must parade the men at once and explain to them..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At that moment the platoon sergeant, a smart regular NCO on whom Yaroslav greatly depended, reported to him that there was a barracks on the edge of town and that one of the offices in it was full of maps. Yaroslav was seized with an urge to look at these maps before the regiment moved on farther. The men in his platoon were, after all, good soldiers; leaving his sergeant with strict instructions, Kharitonov ordered an unwilling private to go with him and hurried off to the barracks.\n\nA few looters were wandering around the barracks buildings, but none of them showed much interest in stealing German uniforms or training equipment. But among the piles of paper in one of the wide-open\n\noffices was a large stock of maps of East Prussia, on a scale of one centimeter to one kilometer, beautifully printed in German and much clearer and more legible than those which were issued by the Narva regiment at the rate of one mapper battalion. Having shown the soldier how to hand them out to him and put away the ones he had looked at, Yaroslav selected a number of maps of the areas they had passed through and of those they might be likely to go to in future. Fighting a war was an entirely different matter when one had a complete set of maps. He eagerly examined the maps covering the route to the river Vistula, thrilled by the topographical details of regions where he had never been but where he would soon be going. Kharitonov gathered up a large selection fora crossing of the Vistula, together with three complete sets of the surrounding locality, one of which he intended to present to Grokholets.\n\nBut as he deftly and rapidly picked out the most essential maps, Yaroslav was even more rapidly overcome by a vague feeling of disquiet. His delight in finding the maps was somehow hollow and unreal, and a much stronger feehng of anxiety, even of fear, came over him-fear that he might be staying too long and the regiment might leave without him. Or was it? Was it not perhaps a different kind of fear, a foreboding of disaster? And although what he was doing was essential, he felt like throwing all the maps away and running back to the regiment to set his mind at rest. There was really no time to stay and inspect a German barracks, whereby all appearances the rank and file lived in conditions far better than those provided for officer cadets in Russia. He felt a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach; he lost all interest in examining and choosing the maps, his only desire now was to get back to his men as quickly as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the soldier carrying the maps in a bundle, Yaroslav hurried back to his platoon. On the way, he noticed how much the town had changed in a mere hour: from being alien and unfamiliar, it had become Russianized. Untidy-looking soldiers were strolling\n\nabout and seemed as thoroughly at home as if they were in their own villages; since their own officers were not calling them to order, it was not up to Yaroslav to interfere. A few men were rolling a barrel of beer. Others had obviously found poultry in the town, as bloodstained feathers from a plucked chicken were being blown along a pavement by the breeze, mixed with colored wrapping papers and empty cartons. Spilled sugar and shattered glass crunched underfoot. Through a broken window Yaroslav saw a ransacked home; although the careful, loving tidiness was still in evidence, wardrobes and chests of drawers had been turned out and tablecloths, women's hats, and underwear were lying scattered over the floor.\n\nHis anxiety increased. Surely his platoon would not behave like this...?\n\nAs though on sentry duty, two NCO's were standing in the door of a shop, keeping the rank and file out but making way for officers. Passing by, an officer of his acquaintance entered the shop and Yaroslav found himself following the man in. It was a dry-goods store. Waiting around by the front counter were a few privates, among whom Yaroslav recognized Lieutenant Kozieko's orderly, while at the back of the shop the fitting rooms were full of officers undressing, changing clothes, and trying on the merchandise-waterproof cloaks, knitted pullovers, woolen underwear, gaiters and gloves; the whole affair was being conducted very efficiently without any noise and fuss, with the help of chairs to stand on and orderlies to reach for the goods. Elsewhere, officers were examining rugs and ladies' overcoats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kozieko appeared, wearing a pair of brownish-yellow woolen underpants. He shouted excitedly: \"Khar-itonov, Kharitonov! Now's your chance to choose some warm things! It'll start getting cold soon, the nights are chilly enough already. You can't spend all your time brooding about death, you've got to look after number one sometimes.\"\n\nAs the light from the only window was obscured, Yaroslav could not make out whether any of the officers\n\nwere known to him; from where he was standing in the dim room he could not even see Kozieko's sunburned face very clearly; the most striking thing about him was the warm, fleecy, yellowish pair of underpants. Ina voice that was perhaps a shade too loud, he said to him: \"You ought to be ashamed of yourself.\"\n\nArgumentative as ever, Kozieko bounded up to him and grabbed the leather strap of Yaroslav's cross-belt to make him stay and hear him out. \"What's thereto be ashamed of, Kharitonov? Just think fora moment. You and I haven't any warm things, and when are they likely to give us any? You know what our army supply service is hke-^ they'll just let us freeze. We have to sleep on the ground in nothing but our greatcoats. The nights are getting colder already and we'll catch cold in no time. It's not even a matter of personal comfort, the army needs us fit so that we can fight better. Goon-get yourself a sweater!\"\n\nYaroslav suddenly feh overcome, not so much by irritation or by his haste to see that all was well with his platoon, as by a kind of profound lassitude that was stealing over his legs, his eyes, his whole self. If only it would all vanish from his sight, if only this affluent little town could be swallowed up and disappear; he wished they were still slogging their way through the sand. He suddenly felt a revulsion against all material things: how much easier it would be to five without possessions..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, but not like this,\" Kharitonov said wearily, with a gesture of refusal. He tried to make Kozieko let goof his cross-belt, but the latter was not so easily shaken off. \"Well, how then? Tell me-how? Do you mean we should buy these things? We came in intending to buy them, but there was no one to take our money. The owners have runaway. And if we did put the money down, who do you think would pick it up? Anyway, you and I couldn't afford much on our pay, could we?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know.\" Yaroslav could not think what to say. He was overcome by a curious revulsion. He\n\npulled himself free and turned to go, but Kozieko strode after him and gripped him by the shoulder. His face crumpling as though about to burst into tears, he went on, almost whispering into Yaroslav's ear: \"All right, I agree-it's disgraceful. When you realize that the Germans might advance and push the front line as far as my home in Vilna, and they might shove their snouts into my home, start wrecking the place and pawing my wife, just as our men treated the nice German homes in this town. And I'm not on the make-I don't want any rewards from the army-you know that!\" He was pleading, almost weeping. \"But they'll never let you go until you lose a leg or an arm. So take my advice-get yourself some warm clothes. We shall have to fight a winter campaign, you know, Kharitonov. Take some woolen underwear, and a sweater...\"\n\nHurrying back to his platoon, Yaroslav still believed firmly that his men would not misbehave. Sickened by the thought of material possessions, he had now ceased to feel hungry or thirsty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His foreboding of disaster grew stronger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fires were burning in the town, tall, fierce flames leaping high into the air. It was pointless to order the troops to put them out. Here and there, smoke was rising from the fires which they had lit in ovens and out of doors. Having collected their loot, soldiers were sprawled around their campfires like gypsies. How the Narva regiment had changed in two hours!\n\nPiled on top of other goods, including a crate of perfume, a bicycle was being loaded onto a cart. A lieutenant was stroking its nickel-plating and saying approvingly: \"Good! Now my young Borya will have something to ride on.\"\n\nIt was disgraceful that the officers of the regiment should behave like this, but Yaroslav was still certain that the troops, with the peasant's firm grasp of simple moral principles, would recognize that looting was wrong; no one had told them, that was all. Yaroslav himself was guilty. It had started when he had tasted the preserved food and praised it. He hoped against\n\nhope that his platoon would behave differently; otherwise, how could he maintain his authority when it came to the fighting? He felt helpless; what right had he, a beardless youth, to teach the rules of behavior to these peasants, many of whom had sons of their own-^ yet it was his duty, for otherwise why was he wearing epaulettes?\n\nTaking a wrong turn, he lost his way and did not recognize his platoon area when he reached it. Then he saw one of his men, Vyushkov, a tall, thin fellow, carrying a bundle wrapped in a sheet across his shoulder.\n\nSurely this could not be Vyushkov? He ran to catch up to him, shouting the man's name.\n\nAnguished, his voice sounded sharp. Vyushkov dropped the bundle and started to run, but thought better of it and turned around with a hangdog expression, not daring to look his officer in the face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was this the man who had been so full of jokes and stories on the train journey, the smiling, deHghtful companion who had kept them all amused, who had told them about his home country as they passed through Oryol province? What a secretive, evasive, shifty look he had now; what a rogue he had turned out to be!\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Yaroslav harangued him with all the persuasive force he could muster. \"Where are you going? Who is that stuff for? Any moment now we'll be fighting, none of us may even be alive tomorrow-have you gone out of your mind?\" Then hopefully, in an agonized voice: \"What's come over you, Vyushkov?\"\n\nStill without looking up, with a sidelong, downcast glance, he replied: \"Sorry, your honor. The devil tempted me.\"\n\n\"Now you come along with me!\"\n\nBut Vyushkov's legs seemed to have taken root and refused to move away from the bundle.\n\nThen Kramchatkin, the best soldier in the platoon, came toward them. But was it Kramchatkin? Why was he so red in the face, why was he staggering as he walked, half singing and half muttering to himself?\n\nBut Kramchatkin it was, and as he saw his oflScer he pulled himself together and tried to smarten up, banging his heels down on the paving stones, and although his legs would not quite obey him and his eyes had a wild, glazed look, he managed to make a very creditable regulation salute as he said: \"Permission to report, your... ex... honor. Private Kramchatkin, Ivan Feofanovich, reporting...\"\n\nBut the momentum of his arm as he saluted made him keel over, and his cap rolled away as he fell flat on his face on the pavement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this was the pride of his platoon, the man whom Yaroslav had cherished as though he were his younger brother!\n\nAppalled, and now getting angry, Yaroslav hurried on. They had been warned that looters would be subject to corporal punishment and flogged mercilessly. Yet somehow he had always thought of'looters\" as a remote category of evildoers-not as the men of the Narva regiment, and certainly not the men of his platoon.\n\nHe would order them to parade at once with rifles and full equipment in the blazing sun! Then he would reprunand them, give them the greatest dressing down they had ever had! Each man would be forced to give up whatever he had taken and throw it away!\n\nThere was the house. The gates were wide open, and in the little yard he could see a smoke-blackened cooking pot suspended on a tripod of poles, its sides lapped by the heat from glowing coals. Seated around it on bricks, on boxes, and on whatever else was at hand, were fifteen men of Kharitonov's platoon. Littered on the ground at their feet were empty tins and remnants of assorted foodstuffs. By now they had finished eating and were drinking something from the pot, which they scooped outwith their mugs.\n\nAt first the thought flashed through Yaroslav's mind that there was some kind of liquor in the cooking pot and the men were drunk. But if so, why had they lit afire under it?\n\nThe look on their faces was not intoxication but the\n\nbenign good humor of men replete with their first meal after the Lenten fast. They were chatting and joking, relaxed, smiling, and convivial. Piled upright to one side, unneeded, stood their rifles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they saw their platoon commander, they showed no signs of alarm but jumped cheerfully to their feet and cleared a place for him. \"Come over here, your honor, come and join us!\"\n\nTwo men hurried forward; one rinsed his mug while the other dipped his into the pot still dirty, both competing to be the first to offer him a mug, hot and brimful, as though welcoming a guest to the Easter feast. \"Just try this cocoa, your honor, it's good!\"\n\nAnd Nabyorkin, who was quick on his feet despite being small and fat, was the first to offer his mug, adding in his squeaky voice: \"Have a drink of cocoa, your honor! It's what the Germans drink, lucky devils!\"\n\nYaroslav could not shout at them, admonish them, or order punishment drill. He could not even refuse the drink offered him with such childlike enthusiasm.\n\nA lump came into his dry throat, then he took a gulp of cocoa.\n\nBehind the low wall at the back of the yard was an empty lot; beyond it a two-story house with a mansard roof was blazing. One by one the tiles on the dormer window exploded with little pops. At first thick black smoke poured out of the dormer, then all at once several broad, steady tongues of flame broke through.\n\nNo one ran to putout the fire.\n\nCrackling, the smoke and flames consumed the abandoned wealth, the now useless products of German ingenuity and German labor, and the fiery voices hissed and groaned. All was now lost, they said: chaos and hatred were come, and the old life was gone forever.\n\nAfter a night spent in retreating a distance of nearly fifteen miles from Bischofs-burg, screened from the Germans by are-formed rearguard (still commanded by Nechvolodov), the shaken Blagoveshchensky halted on the morning of August 14 in the village of Mensguth. Fora whole day, neither he nor his staff issued any orders to VI Corps. Nech-volodov's rearguard was holding its position for as long as it was thought necessary. Various infantry and cavalry units of the corps had pulled back on their own initiative, without asking the corps commander's permission or informing him of their whereabouts; it was so much less trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General-of-Infantry Blagoveshchensky had never commanded so much as a company in war-and now he had suddenly been given an army corps. As chief of military communications, he had once been in charge of all army rail movements. In the Japanese war he had served as senior duty officer at General Headquarters, where he had spent his time writing out rail-travel warrants and had devised a scientific system for organizing how, to whom, and in what circumstances they should be issued. Yesterday he had been delivered a crushing blow; today the general's soul needed peace and quiet to pickup the pieces and put them together again.\n\nMost of the day was quiet. VI Corps had retreated so far the previous night that the Germans had not caught up with them. But calm is never long-lived in war, and they were not granted a full day's peace. Between five and six o'clock in the evening, sounds of fighting were heard coming from the direction of the\n\nrearguard in the north. High-explosive shells even began to fall on Mensguth from long-range German guns. Once more, alarm stirred in General Blagoveshchen-sky's breast, and his staff looked grim.\n\nSuddenly-^ this was the last straw-^ from quite a different direction, a Cossack galloped into Mensguth with a message from a Don Cossack squadron on flank picket duty. Everything in the message was correctly stated: the squadron had been in contact with the enemy at a point some nine miles away. But the messenger himself was bursting to tell someone how he had just been inaction against the Germans. Ashe rode into Mensguth, he saw another squadron of his own regiment, and...\n\nSCREEN\n\nReining in his horse, the bold Cossack\n\nwaves the message and," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "pointing over his shoulder{ meaning\" We've\n\nbeen in a fightback there!\"),\n\nshouts cheerfully to his fellow Cossacks:\n\n\"The Germans! The Germans!\" and gallops off again; he must not be delayed-he has a message for headquarters, = But the other Cossacks, camped in a large farmyard beyond a fence, glance around at each other in alarm:\n\n\"Germans? The Germans-^ here? God almighty! We're not even saddled up!\" They hurriedly saddle up, lead their horses out of the stables at a run, carry something out of the farmhouse, tie it up with spare stirrup leathers, mount-\n\nand out of the yard. Clatter of horses' hoofs.\n\n= Almost the whole squadron is galloping down the street, Sound of hoofs\n\nalong the street.\n\n= But a Cossack lieutenant (of the same regiment, wearing the same epaulettes), standing some distance away at a crossroads,\n\nsees them and fails to recognize them. = He turns his horse around and heads at full speed for nearby headquarters. He rides up to a colonel of dragoons, who at that very moment is reading the dispatch brought by the first Cossack. = The lieutenant says:\n\n\"Permission to report, Colonel. German cavalry coming down the next street in squadron strength!\" Unafraid, the lieutenant asks:\n\n\"Permission to deploy headquarters squadron to beat off the enemy cavalry?\" ^ At once the colonel of dragoons roars out the order:\n\n\"Headquarters duty ofiBcer! Headquarters squadron to stand to!\" = The duty captain shouts as he runs:\n\n\"Stand to! Stand to!\" = Well trained, the infantrymen are already running out of their billets, rifles in hand. There are two companies of them. The officers bark out orders: \"By platoons-^ fall in! Right-dress!\" No time to dress the ranks. The cavalry are already galloping in twos and threes through the open gates and immediately turn= in the direction where the lieutenant is" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "pointing. Over there! = Indoors, the colonel of dragoons reports to an exhausted, weakened, gray-haired general, who lapses into helpless indecision as he hears the news:\n\n\"Your excellency! Enemy cavalry have broken through to Mensguth! I have taken the necessary...\"\n\nWhat agony for the sick old man. He has been expecting some such horror. How he longs to belying at home in safety on his big bed... Even on a peasant stove would be better than this... The general is ill and suffering. He should betaken to a doctor, to a hospital ward... His lips slacken and droop, unable to take on the form of a mouth:\n\n\"To Ortelsburg... to Ortelsburg...\" = The dragoon colonel rapidly gives instructions. = Load up! We're moving! = Some staff officers are just about to hang a map on the wall-\n\ngood thing they don't have time to do it. Roll it up. = The headquarters is soon on the move,-Everyone knows what to do, what to carry, = The general's car is ready and waiting, = The general, too, hastens as fast as he can; he is helped out. The car is full. They move off, escorted by mounted Cossacks and followed by a procession of wagons and carts,\n\nmen clamber on any vehicle they can find-through the gates! Lefs go! Faster! = The main road.\n\nNot a road-a flood of men running away,\n\nthough not running (too crowded), but\n\npouring along.\n\nEveryone wants to save his skin, no one\n\nwants to betaken prisoner.\n\nThe infantry ride\n\non ammunition limbers,\n\non gun carriages, in headlong retreat, each" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "man insisting on the right to a place,\n\nA cook rides on afield kitchen, the\n\nchimney lowered onto its side.\n\nThe wagon drivers, above all, must get\n\naway as fast as they can, and away is cleared for them. Confused rumble of movement.\n\n= Amid this river of humanity,\n\nhow is the corps commander's car to get through, so that it can move faster than all the others, overtake them? He must move the fastest-his life is the most precious! Blow the horn?\n\nUseless, = Like this: the leading Cossacks of the escort clear the way.\n\n\"Move over to the curb, you bastard!\" The car glides forward through the cleared space, which immediately fills up again behind it. = The general can hardly hold his head up; nothing matters to him anymore. \"Drive on, drive on.\" = The sun is setting. In the distance\n\nvisibility is getting worse. The gray mass flows on. Ahead, something is burning. Closer.\n\nA huge fire. Close-up.\n\nIt is Ortelsburg-burning. The whole town is on fire. Constant, frequent explosions as roof tiles crack from the heat.\n\nAt the head of the column: = The town is impassable. = The column comes to a halt. = Only the corps commander's car moves on with the help of Cossacks waving their sabers:\n\n\"Move over, you damn sheep!\" The car forces its way through the last few yards of the jammed road and turns aside to find a detour.\n\nLurching over bumps,\n\nit follows a road leading around the town. The column follows (lit by the burning town)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is growing dark behind them. But jar to the rear-sudden movement. It is coming toward them. Piercing shouts:\n\n\"Cavalry!\"\n\n\"They're outflanking us!\" = Alarm! Nowhere to turnoff the road. Caught in a trap\n\nFear and terror on men's faces (by the light of fires). = A two-wheeler turns off the road over the ditch, the ruts, and overturns! = Who cares? Every man for himself. In the rear: rifle fire.\n\n= The shots are coming from the men in the column.\n\nThey are firing at pursuing cavalry, which cannot be seen. Shadowy horsemen vanish. = A runaway horse knocks a man down and tramples him:\n\n\"A-a-a-hh! ' * Farther back a shout of:\n\n\"Hurrah!\" Heavier firing.\n\n= No one knows who's supposed to be firing. Random shots. Infantry officer's word of command:\n\n\"Company! Inline-down!\" = Figures throw themselves prone on either side of the road.\n\nFlashes from their rifle muzzles close to the ground. = Horses are wounded. A limber team bolts, running down men and crushing them.\n\n\"A-a-a-hh!\" A runaway wagon. Men leap out of its way, off the road, dropping everything they are carrying. = A gun team bolts, knocks over a wagon, then another. Cracking and splintering as wagon shafts snap, = Somebody cuts the traces.\n\nThe wagon rolls on into the ditch, men run to catch the loose horses. Everything is seen either by the reflected light of the burning town or against its background glare, = Another runaway limber team. Men jump out of its way. The road clears of people, horses trample abandoned equipmenty prance wildly about; wheels spin in the air. Splintering sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "= A horse-drawn ambulance at full speed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly a wheel comes off. The wheel rolls on ahead and overtakes the ambulance.\n\nThe wheel seems to grow bigger and bigger until it fills the whole screen!\n\nTHE WHEEL rolls on, lit up by fire-alone, unstoppable, crushing everything--thewheel!!! Mad, tearing sound of rifle fire, machine-gunfire, ar--tillery fire!\n\nReddened by fire, thewheel still rolls. = The firelight glitters with savage joy, = turning the wheel purple! = Faces of little, frightened men:\n\nWhy is it rolling by itself? Why is it so big? = No longer. It is growing smaller. Wheel shrinks in size. f= It is fust an ordinary wheel from an am^\n\n^ bulance wagon.\n\nNow it is slowing down. It falls over.\n\n= The ambulance races on without one of its wheels, dragging the axle along the ground; behind it comes afield kitchen, its chimney broken, just about to drop off.\n\nFiring.\n\nLine of men, prone, firing to the rear. Out of the murk, alongside the road, galloping horsemen: Cavalry attacking the column! It's allover-we're finished! The dragoons shouting:\n\n\"We're Russians! We're on your side, you motherfuckers! What the hell are you shooting at us for?\"\n\nToday something had broken through the veil which shrouded Samsonov's mind and the buzzing sensation which had lately so hindered his thinking. It was a completely useless thought, however; simply one sentence from a school textbook of German: Es war die hochste Zeit, sich zu retten\"(It was high time to escape). The quotation was from a passage about Napoleon in the burning city of Moscow. He remembered nothing else of it but that one sentence, thanks to the unusual combination of words\" die hochste Zeit\"-which literally meant\" the highest time,\"implying that time could form a peak, at the summit of which was one single moment in which to escape. No one, perhaps, would ever know whether Napoleon had been in such peril in Moscow, or whether the timing of his escape really had been a now-or-never matter; but at this moment Samsonov's heart was gripped by a feeling of dull, nagging unease that the next few hours would have precisely that significance for him:\" die hochste Zeit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unfortunately, he could not perceive where that peak of time might be or in which direction he should apply a push in order to set events moving on the right course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could neither achieve a clear grasp of the overall situation of his army nor devise a resolute course of action.\n\nThanks to Artamonov's treacherous work, the entire left flank of the army had been laid bare. Did this therefore mean that the daily order to the corps of Second Army, which was already prepared, should now be changed? And if so, what changes ought to be made? Obviously, the center corps should wheel left at once and strike at the enemy. How was this to be done?\n\nShould he bring the advance of the center corps to a complete halt? This was the course most likely to get him into trouble. For the past four days Samsonov had been smarting under the slur cast upon him when Zhilin-sky had called him a coward. Should he order the flanking corps to return to the attack? This would be desirable, but to do so was at present out of the question.\n\nNone of the officers of his staff produced any suggestions for decisive change in the orders.\n\nThe telegraph apparatus was working again. Having crossed in transmission with Samsonov's order dismissing him, Artamonov's most recent dispatch had just arrived, after some delay: \"After heavy fighting and under strong enemy pressure have withdrawn to Sol-dau.\" Since Artamonov was such a liar, it could well be that Soldau had already been given up. But this was evidently not so; throughout the evening, the telegraph line from Soldau continued to operate.\n\nA report came from I Corps that General Dush-kevich was in the forward positions and that for the time being the corps inspector of artillery, General Prince Masalsky, would assume command.\n\nThere was also some delay before Second Army Headquarters telegraphed to Army Group Headquarters the news that Artamonov had been relieved of his command. Since I Corps was only partially subordinate to Second Army, the dismissal might not be confirmed. However, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky did not react to the news. They were, in fact, silent for most of the day, as though nothing was happening and no serious fighting was due to take place the next day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glum and scowling with the strain of concentration, the army commander left the headquarters to take a rest in his nearby billet. No one could have guessed it from his look, but he was perturbed by something which only he could sense: he felt as though somewhere deep in his mind two layers of consciousness, which should be welded together, had become detached and were beginning very slowly to slide irretrievably apart.\n\nAll the time Samsonov was straining to hear the sound of that imperceptible dislocation.\n\nHis room was cool during the daytime but now, as evening approached, it had become hot and stuffy, even though one casement was open and the window was covered with thin wire mesh.\n\nSamsonov took off his boots and lay down.\n\nUntil the twilight grew too dark, he could see on the wall, from his pillow, a large engraving which might have been placed thereto mock him: it showed Frederick the Great surrounded by his victorious generals-a gallant band of men sporting waxed moustaches.\n\nIt was strange. In the last few hours, his anger at Blagoveshchensky, and at Artamonov for his lying incompetence, had evaporated. It was, after all, only as a result of pressure, bad luck, and hellish enemy bombardment that they had behaved as they did. To be angry with them was unjust, irrelevant, and an evasion of the real issue: how could he blame them when he himself was quite as guilty? Putting hunself in their places, Samsonov even found it possible to justify them; in this war, with the field of action so extensive, a corps commander had too little control over events.\n\nBut having justified the mistakes of his subordinates, what was thereto be said for his own conduct?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In all his military career, Samsonov had never imagined that so many dire problems could combine to face him at once, as was happening now.\n\nJust as ajar of sunflower-seed oil, shaken until it is cloudy, needs to stand fora while for the dregs to settle to the bottom and for the rest to regain its sunny, transparent color with a few bubbles floating on the top, so Samsonov longed for some peace and quiet to clarify his mind. He knew what was needed for this: he must pray.\n\nHis daily morning and evening prayers, overfamil-iar and mumbled in haste while his thoughts raced ahead to cope with more mundane matters, were like washing one's hands while fully dressed: a mite of cleanliness so small as to be almost imperceptible. But concentrated, dedicated prayer, prayer that was hke a hunger that must be satisfied and for which there\n\nwas no substitute-that kind of prayer, Samsonov recalled, always transformed and fortified him.\n\nWithout calling for his orderly Kupchik, he got up, fumbled for matches, lit the httle wick of his cut-glass bedside lamp, and shut the bolt on the door. He did not draw the curtains, as he was not overlooked from the house opposite.\n\nHe opened the little white-metal, portable folding icon and arranged its three panels so that it stood firmly on the table. He lowered himself heavily to his knees without bothering to see whether the floor was clean. Feeling satisfaction from the pain in his knees caused by the weight of his ponderous body, he stared at the crucifixion in the central panel of the icon and at the two saints on the smaller side panels-Saint George and Saint Nicholas. He began to pray.\n\nAt first he recited in full two or three familiar prayers-\"Let God arise!\" \"Whoso dwelleth under the defense of the most High\"-^ but after that he prayed in a flow of thought that formed itself unconsciously and without spoken words, only occasionally leaning on the support of certain powerful, memorable phrases that stuck in his mind: \"Thy most radiant countenance, O Giver of Life!\"...\"O Mother of God, thou that lovest God and art prodigal of grace...\" Then, in wordless prayer, he would return to the vaporous clouds, the mists swirling across the layers of his consciousness, which groaned and shifted like ice breaking upon the rivers in spring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To express truly and completely the anguish which was burdening him, neither set prayers nor even his own words sufficed; the only means was to kneel upon aching knees (although he was now oblivious of the pain) and to gaze before him intently in silent devotion. This was the way he could lay before God the totality of his life and his present suffering. God must surely know that he had not spent his life in the service for the sake of personal glory or to wield power; the medals he wore were not mere adornments and he was praying for the success of his troops not in order to save his own reputation but to serve the might of Rus-\n\nsia, for much of her future destiny might depend upon this opening battle of the campaign.\n\nHe prayed that the victims of war might not die in vain; that there might be a reward for the sacrifice made by those who, struck down unawares by lead andiron, might not even have time to cross themselves before dying. He prayed for clarity to be granted to his anguished mind, so that on that crucial, topmost peak of time he might take the right decision-and thus insure that those who gave their lives did not do so in vain.\n\nAshe knelt, the full weight of his body pressmg to the floor through his knees, he stared at the folding icon placed at the level of his eyes. Whispering, he prayed and crossed himself-and each time he did so, the weight of his right arm seemed to grow less, the burden of his body seemed to lighten, and light filled his mind; soundlessly and invisibly the heaviness and darkness fell away from him, vanished, evaporated: God had taken all the burden upon Himself, for in Him lay the power to give rest to all who were heavy-laden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Samsonov felt as though he had been freed of rank and position; he was no longer conscious of the tower of Neidenburg or the nearby Army Headquarters, and as he prayed he seemed to float into union with the powers above and to give himself up to their will. For were not all strategy and tactics, the problems of supply, communications, and intelligence no more than the swarming of ants, in the eyes of God? And if it should please the Lord to intervene in the course of the battle, as according to legend had happened more than once in days gone by, a miraculous victory would be won despite all the petty failings of sinful men.\n\nFor sometime a dark, brilliantly colored moth, so large and noisy that it might have been a bird and not a moth, had been beating against the wire mesh of the window. Perhaps, with its unusual size and vaguely sinister coloring, it was a portent of ill fortune...\n\nWiping away the sweat caused by the stuffy room, Samsonov rose from his prayers. No one had disturbed him to ask a question, or to bring either good or bad\n\nnews. The wide-flung battles in which tens of thousands of men were engaged seemed to be continuing under their own momentum and without concerning the army commander. Perhaps, though, his staff had purposely not disturbed him so that he might rest. It would look better if he himself went to see what was happening.\n\nOutside, it was pleasantly cool and dark (the streets were unlit, due to damage caused to the power station). The noise of battle was muffled and distant as though the Russian forces were pushing the enemy back farther and farther. (What if a miracle had already begun to happen?)\n\nLarge numbers of kerosene lamps and candles had been brought into the headquarters buildiQg, which made the rooms even hotter and stuffier. All the staff officers were at their posts and busily at work preparing the daily report due to be sent to Army Group Headquarters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhat nervous of the irritating effect it might have on Samsonov, the staff nevertheless handed him the latest message from Artamonov, which had arrived early in the evening:\n\n\"After heavy fighting, I Corps has held Soldau...*\n\n(The man certainly knew how to turn a cunning phrase to cover up his mistakes. He might have added that he had'held Warsaw,\" in which case Samsonov would have had to recommend him for the St. Andrew's Cross!)\n\n\"All forward communications severed. Casualties very heavy, especially officers. Troops in good heart\" (were they?) \"and obeying orders...\"\n\n(By now they had been ordered to breakaway and retreat.)\n\n\"Am holding the town with an advance guard composed of remnants of several regiments...\"\n\n(And he calls his rearguard an advance guardi God, what cheek!)\n\n\"In order to counter-attack need reinforcements, since all those already received have suffered heavy losses. Will reorganize and re-form all units by night and then attack...\"\n\nAttack-even without reinforcements? The infuri-\n\nating fool! Anyway, why had he signed the telegram at all? How dare he not accept his dismissal? Relying on his highly placed connections, no doubt...\n\nHowever, Samsonov's mood kept him from losing his temper completely. The work at headquarters was going ahead well. The chief of staff trotted up to him carrying the twice redrafted text of the daily report to be telegraphed to Army Group Headquarters:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For the second day running. Second Army has been inaction along the whole front. Information from interrogated prisoners revealed...\" (Maybe it did, maybe not, though...) \"On the left flank, I Corps held its positions, but then abandoned them with insufficient cause.\" (Samsonov could not express himself in overly strong language when sending an official report.) \"For this I relieved General Artamonov of command of the corps. In the center. General Mingin's division has suffered heavy casualties, but the Libau regiment stood its ground with great gallantry. The Reval regiment has been almost completely vdped out...\"\n\n\"Add the following sentence,\" Samsonov ordered. \"\"Only the colors and one platoon survived.\"\"\n\n\"... The Estland regiment withdrew to Neiden-burg inconsiderable disorder... XV Corps launched a successful attack... XIII Corps has captured Al-lenstein. According to latest information, VI Corps has been engaged in stubborn fighting at Bischofs-burg...\"\n\nAll in all, the report was by no means a dismal one. It even sounded as if Second Army were winning. It was all more or less true. Even Blagoveshchen-sky had not retreated too precipitately; he was holding Mensguth and would shortly move onto AUenstein. So perhaps things really were not so bad after all.\n\nTomorrow morning Zhilinsky would learn that the Germans, far from retreating across the Vistula, had flung all their forces against Second Army.\n\nIt was half past eleven. It only remained to sign the report and then, all being well, go to bed.\n\nAnd yet... and yet there was surely some important change which ought to be made in tomor-\n\nrow's orders. Some new, vital directive was missing; if only Samsonov could think what it was, the confusion which was clouding his brain would be resolved and he would regain his peace of mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But his head seemed to be shrouded in a kind of fog.\n\nWith head bowed, the army commander went off to bed.\n\nJust before his orderly Kupchik, who had been a trumpeter in a battery of Cossack horse artillery, blew out the light, the figures of the proud paladins of Frederick the Great flickered on the wall.\n\nSamsonov expected to go to sleep at once; it was dark and quiet, everything possible had been done, and he was so very, very tired. Whenever duty obliged him to move and act, he longed to be able to lie down and lapse into obUvion. Now that he was lying undressed in a comfortable bed, the pillow under his head turned to stone and an urge to be inaction tugged at his limbs, making him toss and turn.\n\nWhat he craved was to do the simple, soldierly thing: to leap onto his horse, ride into the thick of the fighting, and see for himself. As the man who had once been Ataman of the Don Cossacks and Ataman of the Cossacks of Semirechiye, where else should he be but on horseback?\n\nIt would be so much easier. The need to wrack his brains to stupefaction for so many days on end had been intolerable. Worst of all was the nervous waiting by the telegraph apparatus while the white strip of tape crawled snake-hke through his hands, not knowing when it might next bite him or humiliate him with some insult. Samsonov realized that he hated the telegraph more than anything else. The direct telegraphic link with Zhilinsky was like a noose around his neck.\n\nAs always when one cannot sleep, time fled away with merciless speed. All his problems crowded, unchanging, through his mind. Flicking open the double cover of his watch with his fingernail, Samsonov glanced miserably at its luminous face: a quarter past one. . five to two... half past two..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At four o'clock it would begin to get light.\n\nIn an attempt to induce sleep, Samsonov again said his prayers, repeating the'Our Father\" and the'Mother of God\" many times.\n\nHe could see nothing, but beside his ear he thought he could hear the sound of breathing and the clear voice with a prophetic timber: \"... Assume... assume...\"\n\nThen it was repeated.\n\nSamsonov turned cold with fear. The voice sounded not only prophetic but authoritative, it might even have the power to predict the future, yet he could not understand its meaning.\n\n\"Assume command? But I am in command,\" he said hopefully.\n\n\"No... assume... keeping...\" said the inexorable voice.\n\n\"Am I sleeping?\" said the man.\n\n\"No, thou shalt be assumed into my keeping!\" replied the angel relentlessly.\n\nIt was altogether incomprehensible. Straining to understand, Samsonov woke up with the effort.\n\nWith the curtains undrawn, it was already light in the room, and with the light the meaning of what he had heard became clear. \"Assumed\"... the word came from'Assumption,\" the term the Church used for the death of the Virgin Mary. Therefore it meant: \"Thou Shalt die.\"\n\nWide awake, he broke out into a cold sweat. Faint but resonant, the prophetic voice still echoed. When was the Day of the Assumption?\n\nHe concentrated: we are in Prussia, it is August and today is the fifteenth.\n\nHe turned ice-cold and goose flesh crept allover his skin. The Day of the Assumption was today. The day of the death of the Virgin Mary, the patroness of Russia, was today. The Feast of the Assumption had already begun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he had been told that he was to die. Today.\n\nTerrified, Samsonov sat up. Barefoot and in his underclothes, he sat on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed.\n\nThe mumble of uninterrupted gunfire could be\n\nheard in the distance. The sound of the guns gave Samsonov back his courage, and in the same moment his mind cleared.\n\nSoldiers were dying out there-and their commander was afraid!\n\nHe banished the dream to where it belonged-in the shadows of a night that was past.\n\nIna firm, wide-awake voice, Samsonov called to Kupchik in the next room to getup. A few minutes later, awake and dressed, the orderly was bringing in a bowl and a jug of water.\n\nInvigorated by the cold water on his face, by the bright light coming through the window and the insistent sound of gunfire, the army commander realized in a flash of insight what he must do: he must get out of this place and move the headquarters forward closer to the fighting troops. He must go there himself and lead the men into the attack!\n\nHow he would have loved to gallop away, leading a cavalry charge himself! To capture an enemy battery in a sudden raid! Ah, it made the blood pulse through your veins! That was the way to wage war! Ah, those days in the Turkish campaign...\n\nHe was like a bear roused from his lair. Without a shirt, his fleshy torso covered in hair, he walked over to the wmdow, flung it wide open, and took a deep breath of the dehcious, cold air. The httle town was swathed in mist like a bridal veil, and here and there, as if stretching up to greet the rising sun, were finials, turrets, spires, and the ridge trees of almost perpendicular roofs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All might yet be well. What a liberation-^ not to have to sit cooped up indoors like a prisoner at headquarters with the telegraph apparatus, but to ride forward into action! He should have done it yesterday. The idea was gloriously simple. And at the same time he could rid himself of General Knox. Not that there was anything wrong with Knox as a man; from the way he strode about waving his swagger cane, he might even make a good gun-crew member!\n\nThe army commander ordered his staff to getup. The people at Army Group Headquarters in Bialystok\n\nalways slept late. By the time'the living corpse\" woke up, he would find that communications with Second Army had been broken and that Samsonov was no longer on the end of the line for him to harass.\n\nHe was free!\n\nHis staff, however, who were as slow as old women, took a further two hours before they were ready to move. The staff officers needed much longer than their commander to getup and come to terms with the new situation.\n\nThe headquarters was divided in two. The administrative and supply branches were sent fifteen miles to the rear, across the Russian frontier to the safety of Janow. The operations branch, consisting of seven officers, was to ride forward with the army commander.\n\nAll the officers scheduled to go to the rear accepted the decision without complaint. Those selected to go forward were gloomily resentful. Having eaten scarcely anything for breakfast, invigorated by the bright morning, Samsonov strode briskly up and down, hastening them all on. His spirits were raised even hi^ er-especially as it seemed to be a gesture of reconciliation from his ill-wishers-^ by a telegram sent from Bialy-stok atone o'clock in the morning, but only just handed to him, which read: \"To General Samsonov. The gallant troops under your command have done their duty honorably in the battles of August 12,13, and 14. Have ordered General Rennenkampf to send his cavalry to make contact with you. Hoping you will today throwback the enemy by combined action center corps. Zhilinsky.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It appeared that his prayers were being answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might have had their disagreements, but he and Zhilinsky were, after all, both Russians and could makeup their differences, forgive past offenses and insults. He had been right-^ his place was with the center corps. And Rennenkampf was going to come galloping up in support today. Together, united as one, they must surely wia!\n\nIn contrast to his mood, the surly attitude of all seven of the staff officers chosen to go with him was\n\nparticularly annoying to Samsonov. He summoned them to a conference and addressed them standing: \"Have you any objections or suggestions, gentlemen? If you have, please say so.\"\n\nPostovsky did not dare to speak. In his view, of course, it would have been more sensible to take the whole headquarters back to Janow and fight the battle from there, but he lacked the strength of will to argue with his army commander. Indeed, all the officers felt themselves to be in a wealc position, because when the move had been planned they had all suggested that they should go back to the rear headquarters, and not forward. So they hesitated.\n\nGlummest of all was Filimonov, who never agreed with any point of view except his own. \"Permission to speak, Alexander Vasilich. At the moment, Neiden-burg is as near the front line as Nadrau, the place you are proposing to go to. The enemy is in the immediate vicinity of Neidenburg. That being so, the whole headquarters ought to move to Janow. Martos is managing perfectly well by himself-^ what is the point of going to join him?\"\n\nThen one of the colonels spoke: \"Your excellency! You are responsible for all the corps of this army, not just for the ones which happen to be bearing the brunt of the fighting at the moment. By going forward, you are neglecting the army commander's duty to control the whole army. In breaking off communications with Army Group Headquarters, you have also cut the link to all the army corps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How they managed to complicate a clear, simple idea, and justify any evasion! For the first time in a week, Samsonov felt that his mind was at full pitch, his conscience clear, his mood bold, strong, and decisive-and now they all wanted to tie him in knots and weaken him. But it was too late. He could not change his mind now. \"Thank you, gentlemen. In ten minutes we shall leave on horseback for Nadrau. My car will take General Knox to Janow.\"\n\nKnox, however, had been expecting to go forward with Samsonov. He had done his morning exercises, breakfasted, and now appeared, dressed infield ser-\n\nvice order, keen to be off to the front. He agreed that his valise should be sent back to rear headquarters. But Samsonov told him to get into the car.\n\n\"Is the news bad?\" Knox asked in astonishment.\n\nTaking him to one side without an interpreter, Samsonov laboriously explained in his best English: \"The situation of the army is critical. I cannot tell what may happen in the next few hours. My place is with the troops, and you must go back before it is too late.\"\n\nEight Cossacks handed over their horses to the eight oflficers. The little group was to be escorted by a squadron and a half, as the situation near the front might be dangerous.\n\nAt five minutes past seven, hoofs clattering over the smooth paving stones of the streets of Neidenburg, the cavalcade set off northward at a slow trot. In bright sunlight they turned around fora last look at the old castle of the Teutonic Order.\n\nOn the army commander's instructions, it was not until he had left, just before the apparatus was removed at 7:15 in the morning, that the last message was telegraphed back to Army Group Headquarters:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Am moving to headquarters XV Corps Nadrau to direct advance of center corps. Am disconnecting Hughes teletype. Therefore will be temporarily out of communication with you. Samsonov.\"\n\nFate does not seek its victim-the victim seeks his own fate.\n\nAugust 14\n\nDay after day the German Eighth Army fought the battle as an integrated whole, and a break in communications with von Mackensen's flanking corps caused severe disruption for several hours; airmen were dispatched, and a search was made for secondary telephone lines in order to reestablish com-mimications. The operational control of the Russian Second Army, on the other hand, disintegrated with every passing day and devolved more and more onto the corps; as each corps commander lost the feeling of overall direction by Army Headquarters, he conducted (or failed to conduct) his own separate campaign. At Soldau the situation was in an even more advanced state of collapse: the town was no longer being defended by a corps but merely by those imits which had chosen not to withdraw.\n\nNevertheless, the Germans gave the Russians a whole day in which to pull themselves together. Although the Russians' unexpected abandonment of Usdau enabled General von Frangois to occupy it by midday, and the road to Neidenburg lay open in front of him, he did not feel tactically justified in running the risk of having only alight screen of troops facing Usdau; by evening his corps was digging itself in, expecting a counter-attack. This course of action was also indicated to him by the army order for the following day: he was not to march on Neidenburg but was to throw the Russians back beyond Soldau.\n\nHindenburg was particularly alarmed about his southern flank, because on the evening of the fourteenth, when he returned to Army Headquarters after coping with an awkward situation in von" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scholtz's sector, he received an unconfirmed report that von Francois's corps was almost totally destroyed and that the remnants of it were arriving at a railway station twenty-five kilometers from Usdau. Hindenburg immediately asked to speak to the station commandant on the telephone, who confirmed this report. (Only during the night did it transpire that this story had been occasioned by one battalion of grenadiers which, panic-stricken by the attack of the Petrov regiment, had fled, seized some supply wagons along the road, and driven them all the way to Army Headquarters.)\n\nMeanwhile, von Scholtz's reinforced corps, only half a division smaller than both of Samsonov's center corps put together, and actually stronger in artillery, had been defending itself all that day from intense pressure by Martos on the Miihlen line. Atone moment it was reported that Martos was bypassing Hohenstein, next that he had captured Muhlen. It was then said that he was hastily sending a division there, having withdrawn it from a counter-attack and having even ordered the troops to discard their knapsacks for greater speed, but that the division had not been needed.\n\nIn the middle of the day, news also came that the Russians had captured Allenstein, so that von Be-low's corps, positioned on the other jaw of the pincers, had to be abruptly diverted to Allenstein-as were von Mackensen's corps, which had already started making the encircling movement down the corridor opened up for him by Blagoveshchensky-a passage twice as wide as von Mackensen actually needed\n\nThe headquarters of the German army in East Prussia was blinded by its caution: a gap in the Russian line had already opened up to the south of von Scholtz's corps, and the front there had collapsed; one quarter of the still-incomplete XXIII Corps was barely holding out, with no more than a cavalry brigade galloping back and forth acting as a screen. Yet Hindenburg assumed that there were two Russian corps in this sector, and failed to see that here lay the route for his encircling movement. The day's operations appeared to be unsuccessful, and far from being able to issue orders fora com-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "plete encirclement on the classic pattern of Cannae, he could not even penetrate deeply enough to outflank the Russian army. The intention of the high command in Prussia was to draw its thirteen scattered divisions closer together. In the orders issued that night for August 15 the encirclement plan had been reduced even further: the aim was to surround only Martos's corps, the one which was being most troublesome.\n\nThe Germans still did not dare to assume that the generals of the apparently mighty Russian empire were so ossified that they would display a total inability to lead their hundreds of thousands of men. It was presumed that there must be some plan behind Samsonov's strange tactic of moving his army forward like the outspread fingers of a hand. Presumably there was also a purpose behind the mysterious inamobility of Rennenkampf, whose army was raised like a hanamer over the head of the badly shaken German army. Even at this stage, Rennenkampf could still have intervened in the battle between the two armies and wrecked the German plans. But the Russians did not exploit the twenty-four hours which the Germans had lost.\n\nIn order to encircle Martos, it was planned to strike at Hohenstein from three sides, to move around Lake Muhlen at dawn with the one full-strength division which von Scholtz still possessed, and to capture the village of Waplitz and the heights above it.\n\nThis order reached the division in question between eleven o'clock and midnight. It had been digging in for several hours, on the assumption that its role was defensive; it had received its daily rations somewhat late, and the troops had just turned in. The divisional commander decided not to wait for dawn but to exploit the surprise effect of an attack in the dark. Shortly before midnight the division was roused and began preparations to advance. The hilly locality and the unfamiliar, sandy paths made orientation diflBcult. Groping in search of their assembly points, the troops lost their way. The advance guard was deflected too far to the right of the axis of advance, the head of the main body went too far to the left, and the rest took the cor-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "rect route. But the division was unaware that German dragoons had already entered Waplitz unopposed by the Russians and had halted near the positions held by infantry of the Poltava regiment. The Russian patrols recognized them, and the German cavalry rode away at full gallop pursued by a furious burst of rifle fire. While it was still dark, Russian pickets outside Waplitz noticed an advance party of Germans approaching, and withdrew under covering fire. Before dawn, screened by a dense milky fog, a German regiment deployed and attacked Waplitz; however, it ran into very heavy rifle and machine-gunfire from the Russians, which is always particularly daunting and demoralizing at the break of day.\n\nThen the artillery of both sides joined in the battle.\n\nIt was, on balance, somewhat unfortunate for General Martos that by nature he was easily roused and slow to calm down. The last few days had kept him constantly on the boil, but yesterday had been worst of all: the unstable pattern of the all-day battle; his arguments with Postovsky; chaos at Hohenstein instead of support from the brigade sent by Klyuev; and the strain of trying to predict what the Germans would do next.\n\nUsually he gave way to exhaustion in the evening, went to bed and woke up later, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Now, though, he was thrown so badly off balance that he found he could not sleep even in the evening. The moon had set, and it was quite dark. Martos came out of the farmhouse where his headquarters was, to sit on a bench and smoke awhile, rather as the farmers in his native province of Poltava like to take the air in the late evening seated on the low wall of earth surrounding their cottages. The difference was that in Poltava it was still warm in September, whereas here it was already turning chilly. Martos put his greatcoat over his shoulders, but sat bareheaded to cool his head, which he brushed with his hand backward from the temples in an attempt to soothe the stabbing darts of pain." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Serve as the author's scribe, continue the tale.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "rect route. But the division was unaware that German dragoons had already entered Waplitz unopposed by the Russians and had halted near the positions held by infantry of the Poltava regiment. The Russian patrols recognized them, and the German cavalry rode away at full gallop pursued by a furious burst of rifle fire. While it was still dark, Russian pickets outside Waplitz noticed an advance party of Germans approaching, and withdrew under covering fire. Before dawn, screened by a dense milky fog, a German regiment deployed and attacked Waplitz; however, it ran into very heavy rifle and machine-gunfire from the Russians, which is always particularly daunting and demoralizing at the break of day.\n\nThen the artillery of both sides joined in the battle.\n\nIt was, on balance, somewhat unfortunate for General Martos that by nature he was easily roused and slow to calm down. The last few days had kept him constantly on the boil, but yesterday had been worst of all: the unstable pattern of the all-day battle; his arguments with Postovsky; chaos at Hohenstein instead of support from the brigade sent by Klyuev; and the strain of trying to predict what the Germans would do next.\n\nUsually he gave way to exhaustion in the evening, went to bed and woke up later, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Now, though, he was thrown so badly off balance that he found he could not sleep even in the evening. The moon had set, and it was quite dark. Martos came out of the farmhouse where his headquarters was, to sit on a bench and smoke awhile, rather as the farmers in his native province of Poltava like to take the air in the late evening seated on the low wall of earth surrounding their cottages. The difference was that in Poltava it was still warm in September, whereas here it was already turning chilly. Martos put his greatcoat over his shoulders, but sat bareheaded to cool his head, which he brushed with his hand backward from the temples in an attempt to soothe the stabbing darts of pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took a pill, intending to relax by sitting for an hour or so before turning in.\n\nToward midnight the boom and flash of gunfire stopped altogether. Faint and soundless, the occasional flare glowed and died. The starry sky promised another fine day tomorrow, which in view of the widely scattered disposition of the army was just as well.\n\nThroughout the recent fighting, Martos had, indeed.\n\nbeen consistently successful: at the end of the day he had never left the field of battle to the enemy, he had everywhere unceasingly attacked and pressed the Germans, although he was noticeably weaker in artillery and there were defects in the supply of ammunition; where rations and forage were concerned, the situation was even worse. Yet Martos failed to detect any sign of a major victory resulting from his own unbroken series of local successes. All his gains seemed somehow to be won in vain.\n\nBut he continued fighting hard, just as an experienced actor goes on playing despite the fact that his partners are missing their cues and fluffing their lines, that the heroine's wig has come unstuck, that one of the scenery flats has fallen over, that there is an intolerable draft backstage, that the audience is whispering loudly and seems to be jostling for the exits. So, like the professional that he was, Martos went on playing his role: at least the show was not going to flop if he could help it, and he might even succeed in pulling the rest of the company through.\n\nAh! The sound of firing had started up again, coming from beyond Waplitz. There was no letup in that sector.\n\nTomorrow was the fifteenth, always a significant date in Martos's life, as was the same figure doubled, the thirtieth. Many were the fateful or merely notable events, both good and bad, which had happened to him on those dates. When he had commanded a division, it had been the 15th division, and now his corps was XV Corps; as it happened, this corps also included the 30th regiment, which by another coincidence was the Poltava regiment, named after Martos's homeland. So tomorrow he would have to keep particularly wide awake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The firing went on without respite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, it was coming from between Waplitz and Wittmansdorf. There was a deep ravine in that stretch of country-a dangerous spot.\n\nGreat numbers of men had been killed in these last few days, and those who had survived were exhausted. How many officers had perished, Martos thought bit-\n\nterly; he had known them all for years, and in one week they had all been swept away. Soon they would receive new men to replace them. But how could the army insure that there were adequate replacements for experienced regular officers, unless they were distributed between line regiments and regiments of the reserve, instead of all being sent to the front line in the first days of war? An army could fight like that for two or three months, but suppose the war lasted longer?\n\nThe firing continued. To an untrained ear, it was simply a ceaseless noise, an incident in the night, but Martos's ear could tell that this was no chance engagement. That noise betrayed the movement of large masses of men in the dark. The firing was probably coming from the Russians, and the Germans were preparing some move.\n\nHe put himself in von Scholtz's place, mentally running over the situation of the past day. Yes, von Scholtz's corps would now be facing in a suitable direction and the time was right.\n\nAlthough the general's body now felt ready to drop asleep, somewhere within him a little warning hght flashed. He went indoors, woke up his lazy and reluctant staff officers, and called up the orderlies by telephone.\n\nHe gave orders for the corps reserve to stand to, to march to the ravine between Waplitz and Wittmans-dorf and deploy across it, promising to go there soon himself. He then issued instructions to the artillery: two batteries were to change their positions, a third was to prepare newlines of fire. On the left, to the two weakened regiments that remained of Mingin's division-^ the Kaluga and the Libau regiments-he sent a warning to expect trouble. The commanding officer of the Poltava regiment, in Waphtz, was ordered to prepare fora possible night attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By now the staff officers were on their feet, hating their gadfly general with his little wasp waist (which they suspected was not achieved without the aid of a corset). The regiments and batteries which had been made to getup and move in the dark swore even\n\nharder: the exhausted, sleepy men could only see these nighttime orders as sheer, pointless harassment.\n\nOblivious of the ill will that he was causing, Martos was once more smoking and striding with his springy gait through the lighted rooms, as he received reports confirming that his orders had been carried out. His foreboding might, of course, have been caused by his hypersensitive hearing and the deceptive characteristics of the terrain around Waplitz, but his corps had not spent ten days marching here and five days fighting simply to be caught napping by a surprise attack. It even seemed as though the general actually wanted a German attack rather than a peaceful start to the next day.\n\nSuddenly a barrage from several himdred guns came down like a deluge on Waplitz itself. Martos rushed up to the attic and just managed to catch sight of the flickering, dull red glow coming from Waplitz before it died down again.\n\nSo he had not been mistaken. He called for his horse and galloped off to join his reserve troops in the ravine.\n\nThe company in which Sasha Lenartovich was a platoon commander had been one of the first to enter Neidenburg. They had approached in skirmishing order, firing as they went, but there was no battle. As they were then detailed to carryout policing and sentry duties in Neidenburg, they also missed the fighting at Orlau, although they had to bury the dead there. It was only after lunch on the fourteenth that they caught up with their own unit again, the Chernigov regiment, which was then immediately transferred to the corps reserve. However, until evening the crash of gunfire was heard from every side, an endless stream of wounded walked or were carried past them, and it became obvious that they too would not escape being caught up in the slaughter on the following day. A whole war, a single campaign, a month, a week, even a day was far more than enough to cut a company or a platoon to ribbons or cripple a man for fife: it needed only a quarter of an hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the cold night of the fourteenth to the fifteenth.\n\nLenartovich's platoon slept in a hayloft, which was warm enough ft one burrowed deep into the hay. The troops slept soundly and well, unconcerned about the morrow. In theory, Sasha should have approved of these thoroughly democratic sleeping quarters, but the past few days of being unable to wash or undress, and the handling of rapidly decomposing corpses, had made hun feel repugnance at so much dirt and discomfort; his whole skin itched, and it was having a fraying effect on his nerves. Finding that he could only toss and turn in the hot straw, he went outside to cool off.\n\nHe was kept awake not by the possible imminence of death but rather by the thought of how wasteful it would be. For the great, bright cause of revolution Sasha was prepared to lay down his life at any moment. Ever since childhood, his heart had beaten faster at the thought that soon that vital something would happen: that it would burst forth, illumine and transform the whole of life in Russia and throughout the world. He had been well into his boyhood when in 1905 revolution had erupted; the new dawn seemed to be breaking, the longed-for moment seemed to have come-^ but then the hght was extinguished and stamped out. Since then, Sasha had been ready to smash the iron chains not merely with his bare hands but, if need be, with his own head. Now the chief source of his gnawing discontent, which disturbed him much more than his dirty clothes, was the feeling that he was in the wrong place and that he might all too easily die a pointless death for the wrong cause. Nothing could possibly be worse than to die at the age of twenty-four defending autocracy. Having succeeded, while still so young, in perceiving the truth and having set out on the right road, he had no need to waste the rest of his life in fruitless searching or in Hamletlike doubts: he could be working for the cause. Yet now he was likely to perish in the bloody shambles, a miserable pawn of the oppressors of the Russian people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was sheer bad luck that Sasha had not been imprisoned or exiled; among fellow political prisoners the goal would be clearly kept insight, and he would\n\nhave been safe and sound to take part in the coming revolution. All self-respecting revolutionaries were in exile or had emigrated. He had actually been arrested three times-fora student demonstration, for taking part in a banned meeting, and for distributing leaflets-but each time he had been released because of his youth and thus denied the chance to prove his manhood.\n\nStill, all was not lost. If he managed to survive the next few days of chaos and butchery, he would look fora reliable way of getting out of the army; the best means was to have oneself court-martialed-though not, of course, for some offense agamst normal military law but for political agitation.\n\nAgitation, in fact, was the real purpose of his service in the army. He had tried to carry it out, but in vain. As though chosen on purpose, the troops of his platoon turned out not only to be oblivious of proletarian ideology but to lack even a spark of class consciousness. Even the most elementary economic slogans, calling for changes that would be to their direct advantage, seemed incapable of penetrating their thick skulls. The stupidity and submissiveness of these men were enough to make anyone despair.\n\nAnd the tortuous complexity of the historical process! Instead of heading in a straight line toward revolution, it had diverged into this war-and he and everyone else were powerless.\n\nThe gunfire had begun to lessen since nightfall, but when Sasha finally started to doze, rifle shots kept hammering into his sleep like nails. Then came shouts nearby, the clatter of boots, someone looking for someone else; and though he longed to be left alone, to lie there curled up, even under a hail of bullets-anything rather than to getup-inexorably the cry reached Sasha's company: \"Stand to! Stand to!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Curse the army! The whole system was sheer lunacy, but there was nothing for it; you had to obey. You had to crawl out of the delicious warm hay and stumble out of doors into the damp and darkness; there you not only faced the chance of a bullet while you tripped over your useless sword, but you had to\n\nput on a bold voice in front of the troops and pretend it was of the utmost importance to parade the platoon in full equipment and listen to the sergeant and the men addressing you as'Your honor\" in that detestable regulation phrase of enforced servihty...\n\nAnd then with a'Right turn! Quick-march!\" they left their warm barn, and stumbling, bumping into each other, almost having to hold hands, they shambled off into total darkness.\n\nThe rumor was that they were going to help the Poltava regiment out of trouble. To hell with them-if they hadn't got themselves into it in the first place, others wouldn't have to pull them out.\n\nGroping their way, they crossed a railway line, catching their feet in the points and tripping over the rails. Then they bumped into the wall of the abandoned Waplitz station, which they had seen in daytime. After following a crooked, uneven path they reached a smooth road; here Sasha carried out an order tore-form his platoon into four ranks, as their whole battalion was now mustered. Together with other units they formed up into a body and set off again into the dark; now tiiey were at least marching on a smooth surface.\n\nThey crossed abridge, after which the word was passed down the Hne: \"Take care, ravine on the left.\" It was so dark that the ravine was invisible.\n\nSuddenly a violent, staccato roar of rifle fire opened up ahead. It was the kind of barrage which would have been terrifying in daytime, and at night it was far worse. However, the fire was not aimed at them; no one fell, no bullets whistled past them, and for some reason the flashes could not be seen. But it was obviously not far ahead of them, and before long they were likely to be walking into it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The effect on the men was a strange trembling in one part of their bodies: they felt the odd sensation of their kneecaps shuddering and jumping about quite independently of their legs. If it had been light, they might have been ashamed, but in the dark they could not even see it happening to themselves.\n\nLoud, urgent orders were given to deploy into\n\nskirmishing order, some to the right and some to the left of the road. After stumbling down a steep roadside embankment, they found themselves squelching blindly across marshy ground, cold water pouring into their boots; after a patch of tussocks, they crossed a few shallow ditches and blundered across what seemed like a kitchen garden; by the time the order came to lie prone, the firing ahead of them had died down completely. New orders came to rejoin the road and form up inline of march. Back they stumbled once more, tripping over the ditches and wading through the same marshy ground until they clambered back onto the roadway.\n\nAnd still their kneecaps quivered and jumped uncontrollably.\n\nFora longtime there was more shouting, sorting out, lining up. Then off they went again. Dark though it was, they were able to make out that the road was leading into a forest. As they marched through it, even the flashes of gunfire were blotted out.\n\nThe battalions marched on down the road until once again the men were made to slither down the embankment-^ this time onto the dam of a millpond, then across a stream. From there they trudged uphill across open fields, but on firm ground.\n\nThe heavy firing had stopped again, and once more Sasha decided that they were being sent on another exhausting wild-goose chase. His kneecaps had stopped trembling. It had not been fear that had made them tremble: he was never afraid. It was just that he felt that he was doing the wrong thing in the wrong place and that this was no place for him to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to begetting lighter, but the visibility did not improve: even though they were on high ground, the darkness of the night had only given way to thick mist.\n\nThey struggled onward across rough paths and open fields, where the crop, whatever it was, caught at their boots; the main feature of the ground was that it was crisscrossed with little gullies and ditches, and so dotted with potholes, mounds, and rocks that the sol-\n\ndiers said the devil had been playing ninepins here and had left his skittles lying allover the ground.\n\nAll at once, less than a mile to their right, another fusillade from several hundred rifle barrels and machine guns opened up. But still no bullets came their way: the fighting was lower down and away to the right, and their orders were to get to the top of the high ground as fast as possible. Then, with a roaring and whistling, the gun flashes flickering dimly through the mist, the Russian artillery opened up, to the dehght of the advancing troops. Shrapnel shells burst with a faint glitter in the milky fog, and soon German guns began to reply, their shells falling a short distance away to the right.\n\nAlthough he had no desire for victory, Lenartovich could not help noticing with satisfaction that the Russian artillery was getting the better of this duel. This contradicted his principle of'the worse, the better,\" but at least it meant that he was less likely to be riddled by shell splinters. There was undoubtedly a kind of horrible beauty in the thunder of gunfire that was coming from one's own side.\n\nAlthou^ it was growing Ughter, it was so foggy that visibility was no more than three paces, and the gun flashes were even harder to see than they had been in the dark. And still they were driven on through the thick, milky mist, across the treacherous gullies, rifles at the ready-^ faster and faster, lest they reach their objective too late. They ran panting uphill, then down a slope, up again and down again. It would have been safer to have crouched as they ran, but at that speed to run crouching was too much of a strain on the legs. So they ran upright. A few shrapnel shells burst overhead, but so high that the balls fell like a harmless shower of dried peas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The order was given to deploy into skirmishing order and fire from the shoulder. They fired, although their target was completely invisible, and then ran on again. No Russians fell kiUed or wounded. It seemed as if they were making an outflanking movement around some German position. The hillside grew steeper and steeper. Each man's heart was thumping, his lungs\n\nbursting; it was impossible to keep up this pace, all the more in the damp, foggy air.\n\nIt was now completely light and, for all they knew, the sun might be out, but nothing around them could be even vaguely seen in the dense, all-enveloping fog.\n\nThen just as the slope began to go slightly downhill, the invisible enemy struck at them, the unseen attackers. They could barely see his muzzle flashes, yet the bullets were whistUng very close; one of them struck a stone and sent up a bright spark.\n\nThey had long ago forgotten about their broken sleep, their unwilling blundering about in the dark, their wet feet, and even their heaving lungs; now it was a matter of minutes-^ would they knockout the Germans or wouldn't they? Who would come out on top? It was touch and go. Every man understood this, every man threw himself into the spirit of the attack, and Sasha with them. Then-pouches crammed full of ammunition, they fired with reckless enthusiasm, deafened by the sound of their own shots, choking on their own powder smoke as they slashed and slashed at the mist with bullets. Wherever he could help, Sasha did his best to stop his platoon from firing at their own side. He suddenly noticed that he was firing his own revolver, although this was completely pointless. Then over a ditch and through a hedge they jumped, and now they were having to leap over bodies too-^ not Russian, but German bodies! Fear and pride gripped him at the same time: keep it up, we're doing fine-say what you Hke, but we know how to fight!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now they were fighting in a village, taking cover behind houses, sticking theu: heads around corners, outflanking German strongpoints. There was no holding the men as they charged in with fixed bayonets, and Sasha felt a strange satisfaction as he blazed away. He hit and wounded a German, who was immediately taken prisoner.\n\nAll the while, a yellow ball had been growing stronger and stronger to then: left, until finally it burst through-the sun! Everything was still obscured in swirling mist, but it now began to thin out and everything grew clearer. They could seethe heavy dew\n\nwhich had settled on their rifle bolts and bayonets, some of which were streaked with blood. As they were on such high ground, the fog was rapidly dispersing in wisps and the men's faces were plain to see, panting, elated with the savage joy of battle. And Lenarto-vich felt the same. Blue, red, and orange droplets glinted on the grass, and the sunshine of the new day was already shedding its warmth over them-the victors.\n\nSomehow it was allover with surprising ease. This was no hollow boast, no hearsay account of other men's deeds: a guard detail drawn from men of their own battalion was escorting through the village a column of about three hundred prisoners and a handful of officers, squinting glumly into the sun, some without caps, some having lost their carbines. And after the roll call, only three men in Sasha's battalion were reported killed and a dozen or so wounded, only one of whom was from his platoon. His men had kept together and were now cheerfully strolling about and swapping stories.\n\nMeanwhile, the surrounding countryside was slowly emerging from the fog like a cunningly lit theater set: height, depth, and perspective began to fall into place. Right down into the nearby ravine everything stood precisely delineated and contrasted-^ things and creatures, living and dead, sunlight above and shadow in the valley, the greenery and the colors of field and garden. From the top of the slope where they stood in the village of Wittmansdorf, they could clearly see a column of several hundred spiked helmets being led away, and beyond it, piles of corpses struck down by Russian case shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No longer in a hurry, no longer running, no longer afraid, Sasha Lenartovich sat watching it all from a bench behind a garden fence where he had sat down to rest. Still possessed by a strange sense of triumph, he was bursting with elation at having had apart in a victory which had not been merely scored in verbal debate but won with his body, his own arms and legs. He sat there as though he was the great commander-in-chief in whose honor the defeated enemy was being\n\nled past in triumph below. The troops were given no time to rest; they had been ordered to dig in on the edge of the village. Sasha had to pass the order onto them, but he was not expected to do any digging himself and could stay sitting on his bench to admire the theatrical spectacle of the captured village and the dark blue depths of the ravine. In the silence around him (all firing in the vicinity had stopped), he was able to savor his joy and analyze his sudden, newfound emotion.\n\nHe now felt buoyed upon a surge of confidence. Hope had welled up and was spilling over: he would survive-he would survive this war! How he wanted to live! How precious life was! On a morning like this, it was joy enough simply to sit and look or walkabout in the cool breeze or take a bicycle and ride down that road between the fields untU the wind whistled past him or stuff apricots into his mouth-soft, melting apricots of the South. And the book he still had to read! And the things not yet begun and not yet accomplished! But even that was not the best of all: thrusting relentlessly upward like an obelisk through the great pile of books, pamphlets, and his staple diet of illegal literature, which he had pored over for years in the public library, he now felt a sharp pang of regret-women! How had he managed to do without women all these years, preferring ideology and political activity? Perhaps they weren't, after all, the most important thing there was left to live for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was abase, unworthy thought, but there was no getting away from it: that was how it was. Half an hour ago he might have lost everything in a split second-the knowledge he had acquired, his convictions, life itself. And now the thought of the love of women seemed to be the most real, the most solid thing to have survived with him. It was somehow impervious to bullets, and the awareness of it would have made it easier to die.\n\nAt this moment he felt a joyful certainty that it would come to him. Lately Sasha had experienced this need like a searing, open wound which was being prodded when he least expected it. He had been en-\n\nthusiastically arguing with that doctor on the steps of the hospital when a nurse had come out-a hefty, big-breasted girl-^ who had said not a word to him, whom he would never see again, and who had then gone, leavmg him with a feeling that she had flicked at his open wound with a towel. Even the most insignificant, half-forgotten memories of the past had lately started to comeback to him, to crowd in on him and probe that wound.\n\nNot so very long ago, when he had last been in Petersburg, there had been Yolya, his sister Veronika's classmate at the university. He had seen her only a few times: when she had come to visit his sister and when a party of them had gone out on a boat trip in midsummer to admire the midnight sun, and later at a student party. They had never once been out alone together for the evening. On the boat trip he had been bad-tempered, irritated by then: conventional enthusiasm for the'white night,\" and he had snapped at everybody; Yolya, meanwhile, slim and silent, had sat on the bow of the boat like one of those figureheads with which the Scandinavians decorate the prows of their ships. At the party, however, Sasha had been in his element-quick, witty, unbeatable at repartee, they had all listened to him, Yolya with particular attention. Yet her manner was unusual for their group: all the other girls always spoke out boldly, had their own opinions and stuck up for them, while she simply watched with her dark eyes and sat through all their conversations and arguments in enigmatic silence. It was impossible to make out whether she agreed or disagreed or was in anyway fired by their discussions. The Hps on her narrow Uttle face were set in a childish pout but were very memorable-once, as a joke, he had actually given her a fleeting Idss, and even now Sasha could feel those yieldmg, childlike lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, he had never allowed his emotions to lead him on, and he made no attempt to be alone with her: there had been so much to do in those days in Petersburg, there was no sign of war, and he expected his\n\nmilitary service to be over soon. If only because of her views, which were not well received in his circle of friends, he had paid litde attention to her.\n\nBut as soon as war broke out, he suddenly began to see Yolya in a different light, and he pined for the aching sweetness which he had missed, regretting his own stupidity in Petersburg that June. How could he have failed to notice and be attracted by that peculiar tremulous quality about her. Ina man, hesitancy is the worst of faults: in her, it was the essence of femininity: the perplexed tremor of her eyebrows, the trembling of her head and neck, the trembling of her shoulders, and above all, the way her thin, finely shaped figure quivered when, as she quickened her pace, she broke into a comical little run.\n\nLike a deceptively faint swell at sea which gently rolls up to a boat and sets it violently rockmg, Yolya's tremulous quality was now stealing upon Sasha and pulling him, together with all his great plans for the future, in her wake. Now he realized that, come what may, he must take that tremulous creature in his own hands; to calm her trembling was the only way to achieve peace within himself.\n\nHe had not even had the sense to ask for her photograph; now when he wrote asking for it, his letters crawled through the censorship at the speed of a tortoise and the only thing he had received from Yolya had been a couple of joking lines scrawled at the bottom of a letter from Veronika." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And now-^ he had to carry on and defend Russia, that damned country of his.\n\nk\n\nThe Russian commandant of Neiden-burg, Colonel Dovatur, learned only by chance from a telegraphist that Second Army Headquarters had left the town, with the exception of a rear party which was just about to go, and that the telegraph had been disconnected. No one had left him any instructions: they had been so busy with strategic matters that he had been forgotten. He ran to find some of the remaining staff ofi& cers, but they were busy packing the last of their boxes to be loaded onto wagons and transported to Janow, and only shrugged their shoulders.\n\nJust then a sergeant from the 6th Don Cossack regiment rode up with a dispatch for the army commander from the commander of the composite cavalry brigade. The commandant did not know whereto send him, nor was it his place to accept the dispatch. During the night he had happened to overhear that the brigade had been placed under the command of General Kondratovich, but no one had the least idea of the whereabouts of Kondratovich or his staff. At that point, another dispatch rider appeared: he had ridden at night from Mlawa, bringing the mail from Warsaw, among which, he insisted, was a letter for General Samsonov from his wife. To both these messengers, neither of whose missions related to him, the commandant was as incapable of giving advice as were the staff ofi& cers to him.\n\nNot until yesterday evening had the commandant and his men succeeded in extinguishing all the fiures and tidying up the streets; after six days of Russian occupation the town had just begun to look normal, and\n\nthe shops had started trading again. But the headquarters was now gone, and as though waiting for this, wagons and troops on foot began streaming through the town from north to south-not in marching order, but in small, straggling groups, some men even on their own, and all of them asking to be told'the way to Russia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The streets of Neidenburg were so narrow that it took only two wagons abreast to block them completely, and the lead wagon team of a column had only to stop in the Rathaus square for the whole town to be jammed; without officers to supervise them, the troops shouted to each other to halt, wagons were hitched together like barges, harness ropes broke, the soldiers began fighting and behaved insolently to a polite officer who came up to sort them out. Meanwhile, German women sat watching from their windows with keen Schadenfreude. The wretched commandant was supposed to keep order in the town with only a depleted guard company (which was in any case dispersed on sentry duty) and the kind cooperation of the portly burgomaster.\n\nUsing the small forces at his disposal, the commandant blocked the two northern entrances to Neidenburg and ordered the guards to have all approaching units bypass the town. This would have solved the problem, but after a visit to the divisional field hospital the commandant gave out anew set of instructions: wagons were to be searched at the roadblocks, all non-essential loads jettisoned and the wagons themselves made available for evacuating the wounded. Then he himself set off to the roadblocks, instructing a guard platoon to be ready to use armed force should the need arise.\n\nMeanwhile, in the field hospital, the doctors held a conference. During the hour or two since Army Headquarters had left, there was a whiff of surrender in the air. The war had only just begun, and no one could yet know for certain how scrupulously the 1864 Geneva Convention on wounded would be observed. This stated that hospitals were to be regarded as neutral,\n\nthat they could neither be fired upon nor captured, and were obliged to take in wounded from both sides; that hospital personnel enjoyed immunity and were at all times free to remain at their posts or to leave; that after regaining their health, the wounded themselves should be sent home, having given a solemn promise not to take up arms again; that a private house which took in a wounded man was also afforded the protection of the Convention. Half a century after the signature of the Convention, there were as yet no groimds for assuming that warfare would become brutalized, but the newspapers were assuring their readers that the Germans were ruthless; the doctors themselves had also noticed that when there was an excess of wounded and a shortage of beds, it was impossible to behave with absolute impartiality toward both their own men and the Germans. Thus, as they prepared the hospital for partial evacuation, it was impossible to predict what would happen to those who remained behind. Some doctors and nurses were picked to go, others to stay behind. Of the nurses, the older and more experienced ones belonging to the Red Cross were all selected to stay, while the young voluntary nurses, who had managed to sneak their way to the front line during the confusion of mobilization, were sent to the rear. Although by imitation-and with varying degrees of success-^ they had learned some of the rudiments of nursing, most of them could still do nothing useful; they giggled a lot, and one practical joker among them had knocked over a pharmacist while riding a bicycle down the corridor. However, Dr. Fedonin requested the senior surgeon that Tanya Belo-bragina, a quiet, sad girl, should definitely stay: although she had not had any real training, she was very dedicated, and besides doing normal ward duties, she had specialized in head and neck wounds. She was unlikely to ask to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The work of the hospital was in any case slowing down: while waiting for the order to move, and with the wards already crammed with hundreds of patients, it was impossible to operate, and treatment was con-\n\nfined to dressing wounds. There began the process of selecting patients for evacuation. This was a hard choice to make: even in abase hospital there were no really effective means of combating gangrene, and on along and rough journey the risk was infinitely greater.\n\nThe staff tried to conceal the news from the patients, but the men themselves sensed it from the change in routine and began to grow uneasy. Every man who was conscious and able to move begged to go. Perhaps because they were lying together and in view of each other, they all felt ashamed at the idea of staying thereto rest while their comrades were fighting.\n\nA medical orderly reported to Fedonin that a colonel urgently wanted to see one of the doctors.\n\n\"Will you go, Valerian Akimich?\" he asked.\n\nFedonin walked quickly to the main entrance. Empty wagons were already beginning to lineup on the three-sided space in front of the hospital, almost filling it. On the stone porch, opening out his map case, a disheveled, sunburned colonel whose tunic was torn over a bandaged shoulder was interrogating a wounded sergeant.\n\nHe swung around to Fedonin: \"Are you a doctor? How do you do. My name's Vorotyntsev, from General Headquarters.\" He shook hands as though in a great hurry. \"Tell me, have you any wounded who have been recently admitted from forward positions and who are conscious? May I ask them some questions? Any officers?\"\n\nDoctors were used to working at speed, yet this thickset but extremely active colonel functioned unusually fast. Caught up by his sense of urgency, Fedonin quickly thought back and said: \"Yes. Some came in last night-and this morning, too. And there's a second lieutenant from XIII Corps. He has a bad concussion, but he managed to get out and now he's fully conscious.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From XIII Corps? Interesting!\" Surprised, the colonel pricked up his ears and quickened his pace even more. He was already leading Fedonin with a firm grip on his elbow. \" Ths hospital belongs to XV Corps-\n\nhow does a man from XIII Corps come to be here?\"\n\nThey had some Htde distance to go-^ up a staircase, along a corridor, through two wards-and Fedonui, too, quickened his pace.\n\n\"Tell me,\" he asked, \"what is going to happen to this town?\"\n\nThe colonel threw Fedonin a keen look. Only now did he stop treating him as a mere provider of information. Glancing to right and left, he said quietly: * 'If we manage to organize a defense, we may holdout a bit longer.\"\n\n\"Organize a defense?\" Fedonin put in. \"You don't mean to say... What about Army Headquarters...?\"\n\nIn reply, the colonel only pursed his lips.\n\n\"West of the town...\"\n\nBut they were entering award, and for all his eagerness Vorotyntsev stopped, frowning with distaste at the thick stench of blood, medicaments, and putrefaction which hit them on the threshold. In the first ward, standing by the aisle, a priest was administering extreme unction to a dying man, whose face he had covered with his stole. \"I beheve, O Lord, and I confess...\" How many, many times in the last few days he had intoned the familiar words in a low voice, yet each time with sincerity and without sounding bored.\n\nBy a window in the next ward they found the second lieutenant; Tanya Belobragina, who happened to be sitting on his bed, rose as they approached and stood against the wall between the windows, her hands behind her back, staring fixedly ahead with her sad, dark eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although his forehead was thickly bandaged, the quick, keen glance of youth had already returned to his face, and he made a special effort to look welcoming for his visitors.\n\nFedonin felt his cheeks and took his pulse. \"Feel-mg a bit better?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" the freckled lieutenant assured him cheerfully. Not knowing what was required of him, he pushed himself higher up in the bed.\n\n\"You don't find it too difficult to talk or answer questions, do you?\"\n\nTanya said, blushing, \"We've been talking a little. It turns out that we are from the same part of the country.\"\n\nNo one was likely to suspect her of talking too much.\n\n\"What is your regiment?\" The colonel was already sitting on the bed and unfolding his map. \"Were you in the XV Corps sector? When did you join it? Where were your positions? Where were you wounded? Which units were on either side of you?\"\n\nHalf sitting up in bed, the lieutenant stared with hero worship at the colonel and answered him as though his questions were some delightful kind of examination; he was proud that he knew all the answers, both to the questions on the paper and to the supplementary questions thrown in at random. He was sufifused by that sublime, youthful glow of virginal suffering. Although he felt dizzy and there was a ringing in his ears, and although he had difficulty in speaking, he tried to overcome these handicaps and to make his answers as precise as possible. He confidently pointed out on the map how the previous evening they had been made to march to the west toward the fighting (privately he recalled the sheer effort required to muster the regiment, call the roll, and make sure they were up to strength before marching out of the town), and how they had been brought back again (their regiment had started out without reaching the fighting many times before), for some reason making their way back to Hohenstein by a roundabout cross-country route (there had also been a moment of panic that evening, when they had fired at their own troops, but that was an irrelevancy). Then they had marched out of Hohenstein once more (again with considerable difficulty) in battle order to the edge of the town, and it was there that...( The rest he would describe to his mother but not to this colonel: the shell bursting so unbelievably close that there was only time to think: \" This is" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "it!\"and cross himself-\" Forgive me, Mother!\"-and he did not even hear the next explosion.)\n\n\"What's happened to your shoulder?\" Fedonin, returning, asked Vorotyntsev.\n\nReminded of his wound, the colonel said: \"Would you take a look at it? I think I was grazed by a splinter yesterday.\"\n\nThe surgeon probed. \"Do you find it hard to move the shoulder?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is rather difficult.\"\n\n\"Come to my room--it's on this floor. The nurse will show you the way.\" To Tanya he said: \"The senior surgeon has agreed to allow you to stay. You don't mind, do you? You maybe stuck here for sometime.\"\n\nThere was no change in the nurse's fixed expression; she did not show a flicker of interest, but merely nodded: \"Why not? Of course.\"\n\nShe waited to show the colonel out. Whenever he turned his head quickly, all the decisiveness in his nature seemed to be expressed in the short beard which framed his face. With a beard like that, his moustache was completely inconspicuous: it did not bristle or droop, nor were the ends twisted; he covered his upper lip only because it was not right for an officer to be clean-shaven.\n\nThe lieutenant had neither moustache nor beard, and there was as yet no character in his mouth; he was still in his earliest, unspoiled youth, with the innocence and good manners of a boy brought up by women. He knew absolutely nothing of life. Tanya was only a year older than he, but in wisdom she felt herself to be ten years his senior.\n\nWhat if there was a chance of being taken prisoner? Tanya was prepared for anything. She regarded every possibihty-capture, wounds, death-with complete indifference. The best thing would be if she were killed as soon as possible. It was, in fact, in the hope of killing herself without committing the sin of suicide that she had made a dash for the front. Nothing could" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "be worse than what had happened to her: death in war would be the lesser evil.\n\nBelow the window, the narrow, crowded street was a scene of confusion. Soldiers were hurrying about, alone and in scattered, disorganized groups. They would stop fora rest in the shade, wipe away the sweat, throw anything superfluous out of their knapsacks, discard entrenching tools, axes, ammunition boxes, and then quickly set off again. No one stopped them. Two Cossacks, by contrast, were actually busy strapping something to their saddles.\n\n... They had gone for walks together, read books together holding hands. And as they had talked, by degrees they had trodden the path whose every inch is unique and unretraceable, its memory treasured all one's life. Then* love grew like a plant, each stage in its proper season: first the leaf, then the bud, then the blossom. Could Tanya not have hastened the process a Httle? Impossible-woman's lot forbade her to do such a thing. And then that other woman-no better, no prettier, no kinder, no more faithful than she-had swooped, had seized and carried him off. No court of law existed to punish that sort of misdeed. Men! Firm and decisive in war they might be-but in nothing else...\n\nHow well the army trained its officers in two years-and how surely it ruined them in the next twenty. The total willingness, the agonized concern for the success of the whole campaign on that boyish forehead!\n\n\"Colonel!\" Catching him by the sleeve, the lieutenant gazed hopefully at him. Straining to overcome the difficulty he had in speaking, he went on: \"I have heard there is to be a partial evacuation. I couldn't stay-it would be too shameful. I don't want to start my life in a prisoner-of-war camp!\" Tears glinted in his eyes. \"Please ask them to make sure I get out, whatever happens!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, I will.\" The colonel shook the young man's hand with a powerful grip. Then, impatiently: \"Nurse!\"\n\nTanya turned sharply away from the window, leaving all her private thoughts behind her and showing to the outside world only the keen attention of one of those sensible, unspoiled faces that Russian girls so often have.\n\nThere was a latent fire in her look, a resolute expression that promised great strength as yet unrealized. Or was it simply an effect of the severe nurse's headdress which covered her forehead, neck, and ears?\n\n\"Nurse, I shall make a pomt of asking the doctor to see that Second Lieutenant Kharitonov is not left behmd, but I also want you to make sure.\" Although he could see that she looked thoroughly reliable and needed no threatening, rather to his own surprise he found himself wagging his finger at her. \"Beware-^ I shall find you wherever you maybe! Where are you from?\"\n\n\"Novocherkassk.\"\n\n\"I'll even find you there!\" With that, he nodded and marched briskly off between the rows of beds.\n\nEach bed was a closed world, where a unique struggle was being waged in a unique body, each man asking himself the crucial question: will I live or not? Will they leave me my armor not? The war, the strategy of armies and army corps faded into insignificance. Here lay an elderly but sturdy peasant-probably a reserve NCO, one of those whom in war the Russian army so wastefully employed as private soldiers-staring out at everyone from under the sheets with a sharp, suspicious look. Another man was tossmg his head from side to side on the pillow and moaning hoarsely.\n\nVorotyntsev hurried to escape as quickly as possible from the overpowering stench of the ward before he suffocated. The nurse led the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When after some delay she returned to the same window, the lieutenant had sunk back into the bedclothes, pale and weak, but he still managed a smile for Tanya. \"So you're staying, are you? Write a letter to your people at home-I'll take it with me and I promise to post it. Who is thereat home?\"\n\nThe skin of Tanya's face tightened as though it had been smeared with egg white. She shook her head grimly. She would not be writing any letters to anyone.\n\nThere was no one.\n\nAfter the war she would go anywhere rather than back to Novocherkassk.\n\nVorotyntzev would have reached Neidenburg early that morning and might have been in time to catch Samsonov if he had not turned aside en route to see who was holding the line. He found that there was no one. He had also chased after the elusive Kondrato-vich-and did not find him either. Thus he arrived too late for Samsonov.\n\nOn the left flank of the front line there was a gaping hole, which hurt Vorotyntsev as much as if it had been a wound in his own side; but no one had ordered any troops to fill it-indeed, there were no troops to do so, apart from the Kexholm regiment, which had relieved the Estland and Reval regiments, and it was under the command of General Sirelius, who was also wandering about somewhere, not having once been near the front line.\n\nVorotyntsev was equally aghast at Samsonov's departure. Why had he not organized a defense of the northwestern approaches to Neidenburg? Why had he not contracted the army front, instead of going where it was most extended?\n\nThe remnants of the Estland and Reval regiments and their supply trains were almost out of hand in Neidenburg, but Vorotyntsev had no time to deal with them. Leaving the horses to Arsenii, he spent an hour and a half scouting around various parts of the town before he was able to discover what had become of Army Headquarters. He persuaded the Cossack sergeant dispatch rider to show him the message from the cavalry brigade, and induced him to wait awhile before riding off again. Then, from various people, mostly from the wounded, he was able to reconstruct fairly accurately the situation of the army's center corps; from Kharitonov he found out how things were going" }, { "from": "human", "value": "at Hohenstein, but the fate of the rest of XIII Corps remained an unpenetrable enigma." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even harder to deduce was the likelihood of a supporting attack by Blagoveshchensky and Rennenkampf. He would have gallopedover thereto find out for himself, but the gaping hole on the left flank was calling more urgently for his attention. Ashe hurried away from the hospital, Voro-tyntsev already seemed to have a plan.\n\nEven yesterday's retreat to Soldau was not the ultimate catastrophe, provided the necessary counteraction was taken within the next few hours.\n\nHe had arranged to meet the Cossack sergeant at the monument to Bismarck, a conspicuous landmark.\n\nIt was under Bismarck that the League of the Three Emperors had been created and Eastern Europe had enjoyed half a century of peace. Peace between Russia and Germany was far preferable to this disastrous alliance with those circus artistes in Paris.\n\nThe horses stood tethered to a tree, and in the shade of the statue's plinth, beyond the flowerbed, sat Arsenii. He rose hastily, but still stooping, and said in a solemn, confidential tone: \"Time fora bite to eat, your honor!\"\n\nThere was some concoction in his mess tin.\n\n\"You almost ruined my stomach yesterday with your hardtack... Have you fed the horses?\"\n\n\"Of course I have!\" Arsenii was offended. His mouth, big enough already, gaped even wider. \"Found a cemetery-good grass there.\"\n\nBehind the monument were two stones designed as a bench, and a spoon handle was sticking out of Ar-senii's fist.\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\n\"After you,\" Arsenii demurred with studied politeness.\n\n\"No, let's eat together.\"\n\n\"Very well, then.\" Blagodaryov agreed, knelt down in front of the mess tin, and began eating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev spooned up the food with his left hand, hungrily yet distractedly, without looking to see what he was eating. At the same time, with his right hand\n\nhe began writing a message to Samsonov, pressing against the firm, smooth leather of his map case on his raised knee-hurriedly, so as not to delay the Cossack sergeant:\n\nYour excellency!\n\nOn the left flank, under pressure but far from beaten{ they won the battle at Usdau and only withdrew because of a stupid misunderstanding), is a third of your army. But at the moment there are three corps commanders in that sector (Artamonov, Masalsky, Dush-kevich) and no clear leadership. If you yourself found it possible to go there{ the 6th Don Cossack regiment would escort you there safely in two or three hours) ^ you could, by mounting a vigorous attack, save the situation for the whole army: you would halt and repulse General von Frangois, who is now intending to cut you off.\n\nKrymov joins me in begging you urgently to adopt this course of action. Colonel Krymov has just taken over as chief of staff of I Corps.\n\nI shall be to the west of Neidenburg, where there is a gap in the line: the town is virtually undefended.\n\nColonel Vorotyntsev\n\nHe should also have advised the army commander to pullback the center corps, but he dared not make the direct suggestion. Samsonov would have to guess that for himself.\n\nThe Cossack sergeant rode up. Vorotyntsev warned him that he must burn or eat the message rather than let it fall into enemy hands.\n\nMeanwhile, the courier from Warsaw had gone astray, and Samsonov was fated never to receive the letter from his wife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was along time since Samsonov's mind had been so clear or he had felt so confident in his actions. At the head of the dejected group of staff officers he rode boldly out of Neidenburg, his horse keeping up a brisk trot beneath him. He felt fresh, despite having slept so badly. The freshness was enhanced by the damp August morning, in which the sun was triumphantly ripping the mist to shreds and dispersing the haze which had veiled the sky since dawn.\n\nHow splendid it was to getup early in the morning, how magnificently well one could think and act in the morning! How optimistic he felt about the outcome of the fighting in the bracing morning chill! And there would be many more fine mornings fora man of fifty-five to enjoy.\n\nThe route, which was not of his choosing, led in a wide eastward loop that passed through the village of Grunfliess and a comer of Griinfliess Forest. The commander of the Cossack escort and the officers of the staff assured Samsonov that the shorter route to Nadrau was unsafe; a German patrol might breakthrough, or they might be ambushed. And sure enough, when they were nearly halfway, cavalry was seen approaching in a cloud of dust from the right. The escort deployed into battle order and sent out a picket.\n\nThe cavalry turned out to be Russian-a troop of dragoons from VI Corps escorting dispatches. They had covered thirty miles across the half-deserted no man's land in enemy territory, and if Army Headquarters had not taken this roundabout route, they would never have found Samsonov.\n\nIt was now 8:30 in the morning and Blagoveshchen-\n\nsky's dispatch had been sent off at 1 a. m.-just twenty-four hours after the previous day's routine report, as though nothing important had occurred in the interval. What was Blagoveshchensky doing? Had he gone to help Klyuev? Was he covering the exposed flank of the center corps? Or was he standing firm? Samsonov read: \"... have withdrawn to Ortelsburg...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without dismounting, Samsonov called fora map: yesterday Blagoveshchensky had inexplicably retreated to Mensguth, which was bad enough. If only he had stayed at Mensguth today! But no, he had retreated another twelve miles-back toward Russia, of course. The cornet of dragoons in command of the troop was obviously bursting to tell more about that retreat, but the army commander restrained him. He purposely spared himself any possible distress, in order outwardly to maintain a stolid, confident air for the benefit of those around him.\n\nIn the seven hours which the dragoons had taken to ride here, Blagoveshchensky might well have abandoned Ortelsburg as well. He might even be back in Russian territory by now...\n\nWhat orders could Samsonov give him? Should he tell him to hold onto Ortelsburg at all costs? Yes... at all costs... On the staunchness of your corps depends...\n\nThe cornet and his troop galloped off carrying the message, which they would deliver by the middle of the afternoon.\n\nBlagoveshchensky's dispatch passed from hand to hand among the staff officers. Klyuev should be informed of VI Corps\" latest withdrawal. But how? Klyuev was moving to linkup with Martos, and Samsonov was on his way to join Martos.\n\nPerhaps the best thing to do was to inform Zhilin-sky of this; there was just a chance that it might, for once, galvanize him into action to save the situation. A message should be sent by dispatch rider to Janow, whence it could be telegraphed to Zhilinsky.\n\nHis large map board resting on his horse's head, Samsonov wrote in his scrawling handwriting: \"... According to an officer who was an eyewitness, VI Corps" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "has withdrawn to the south of Ortelsburg in disorder. The corps has been physically weakened and its morale has suffered badly. I am going to Nadrau, where I shall take the necessary decision concerning the center corps...\"\n\nHe wrote'I shall take the necessary decision,\" as though it had not already been taken. One set of plans having been changed for him by events, it was reasonable for him to change the rest of his plans too, despite his extreme reluctance to do so. The battered flanks of his army were collapsing; yet for Samsonov this invigorating ride to the front line was a psychological necessity. Therefore, he would'take the necessary decision\" in the front line, toward which he now spurred his horse.\n\nGrumbling, his staff rode after him, (An expert in army paperwork, Postovsky consoled himself with the thought that these few hours which he was having to spend in dangerous proximity to enemy artillery fire would at least count favorably in his service record.)\n\nFrom the top of a hill abroad, magnificent view down the oblong length of Lake Maransen was spread out before them. With the sun shining from behind them, the water did not sparkle but lay dark and calm, surrounded on all sides by dense forest. Here and there the red roof tiles of abandoned German farmhouses could be seen on the slopes of the surrounding hills. Gladdened by the sight of this unspoiled natural beauty, Samsonov forgot his troubles fora moment and exclaimed: \"What a beautiful country, gentlemen! Did you ever see such hills, such a magnificent view?\"\n\nComing toward them up the hill was a cartload of wounded, many of them with bayonet wounds. Some of them were groaning, but others were able to talk quite coherently, especially when they saw that the party included three generals. They had been engaged in a nighttime bayonet attack at a village about six miles away. They asserted unanimously that the fight had been won by the Russians." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, from nearby to their left, came the roar of gunfire.\n\n\"God and the Virgin Mary protect us!\" Samsonov cried. \"Forward, gentlemen-and hurry; we must find out what we can about this battle!\"\n\nAlthough the location of Martos's command post was given as Nadrau, it was actually positioned in a semicircle of forest on some high ground sHghtly to the west of this small village-an excellent spot, commanding a wide view. As the front line had by now moved well forward of Nadrau, it was safe from shellfire, and several officers were standing in the hot sun on the hillside, taking turns looking through a pair of binoculars.\n\nDown below, along the main road leading to the railway and beyond it, a column of men-^ no less than a thousand prisoners-was slowly trudging-or rather was being escorted by a cordon of Russian troops.\n\nMartos, short and narrow-shouldered, was sitting on a chair, also peering through binoculars. Unaware that Army Headquarters was being moved, he turned around into the sunlight and at first did not recognize the approaching horsemen.\n\nThe corps commander bounded nimbly to his feet, changing over to his left hand the swagger cane which he always swung as he walked. Springing to attention in front of the thickset, mounted figure of the army commander, he reported, squinting into the sun: \"Your excellency! Last night the enemy in divisional strength tried to attack us in Waplitz by a concealed approach. Not only was his intention discovered and frustrated, but he lost control of the operation: at Waplitz cemetery the enemy troops were knocked out by their own artillery, which was obviously firing to a prepared plan without direct observation. The division which made the attack was dispersed and thrown back, and we have gained an important vantage point-^ the Witt-mansdorf Heights. We have taken two thousand two hundred prisoners, including nearly a hundred officers, and have captured twelve guns. Although greatly weakened, the Kaluga and Libau regiments also contributed to the success by attacking the enemy in the rear!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Giving credit where it was due, Martos made a\n\npoint of mentioning the part played by the two regiments from XIII Corps.)\n\nIt was all laid out before their eyes: there were the prisoners being led away, and a small group of captured officers was being escorted uphiU toward corps headquarters. This was the moment of triumph which Samsonov had envisaged: this was his reason for tearing away from Neidenburg this morning. He had not come in vain!\n\nSamsonov remained in the saddle as he listened to the report. Then, ponderously but confidently, he dismounted and handed over the reins. He walked straight up to Martos and, towering over him, clasping the neat, slim Martos around the shoulders with his massive arms, he kissed him. \"You are unique! You alone wiU save us, my dear fellow!\"\n\nHe stepped back, looking at Martos as though about to reward him with the gift of a quarter of his kingdom, hke the king in the fairy tale. He knew which order would most suitably adorn that narrow chest-were it not for the rules which specified the suitability of decorations according to seniority...\n\nPerhaps this was the moment to wheel XV Corps and deal the enemy a smashing blow in the rear, the moment to make that sidestepping attack already envisaged in the army order sent out the previous night. Who better to advise him than the victorious corps commander himself?\n\n\"What do you think of the idea, Nikolai Nikolae-vich? I'd hke your opinion.\"\n\nLooking resolutely at Samsonov, head held high, eyes flashing, Martos did not have to make a show of wrinkling his brow in thought or asking for time to consider the problem. As quick off the mark as a young subaltern, his shoulders squared, the end of his moustaches neatly curled, he replied crisply: \"With your permission, we must withdraw at once!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had not heard the news of Artamonov's and Blagoveshchensky's precipitate retreats, but some sixth sense told him that his corps had no business to be in this exposed forward position but should move back\n\n\\\n\nas quickly as possible. Just as air pressure or astral\n\nrays enable snails and birds to sense a storm before it comes, Martos felt a premonition.\n\nSamsonov was dumfounded. \"What? I don't understand. Why?\"\n\nHelped by a Cossack, Postovsky had cautiously dismounted. Seeing that the army commander disagreed with Martos, he came up and said: \"What's the matter with you? Ina panic? Lost your nerve? The Kexholm regiment will becoming upon your left at any moment, and on the right you've been given a brigade from XIII Corps. And the whole of XIII Corps will be here before long...\" Postovsky looked around, as though expecting to seethe corps marching out of the forest at that moment. \"And then there will be Rennenkampf's cavalry. What possible reason do you have for withdrawing?\"\n\nMartos was never indecisive. Briskly he rapped out his reasons: \"My corps has been fighting now for five out of the past six days, and for the last three days without a break. I have lost my best officers, and several thousand men. The corps is weakening and is no longer fit for offensive action. I have no cavalry, so I cannot reconnoiter and must operate in the dark. Artillery ammunition is running low and no new supplies are being brought up. Our incessant attacks are not helping the army as a whole to win the battle but are in fact only making its situation more difficult. We must withdraw, and at once.\"\n\nThe inexorable logic of his conclusions dashed all the hopes which Samsonov had cherished that morning into irrecoverable fragments. There was to be no exhilarating attack into which he could send his men or gallop himself. The battle had been decided without him-everything won that was to be won, all discussions and proposals already made, everything lost that was fated to be lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Samsonov blinked slowly, as though fighting off sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took off his cap to relieve the pressure on the hairline of his graying head, and wiped his brow.\n\nFor the first time, there was a helpless look about his great forehead: a white target above a defenseless face.\n\nIn the heat of the moment Vorotyntsev had made an error: having started the day lookmg for Kondratovich, he should not have given up the search for this evasive general but should have tracked him down and used the prestige of General Headquarters to shame or frighten him. By this means it might have been possible to deploy to the west of Neidenburg all the remnants of XXIII Corps that were capable of fighting a defensive action.\n\nIt had been General Kondratovich's good fortune to have had his corps broken up piecemeal, and he was able, on the excuse of mustering it, to spend along time shuttling back and forth by train between Warsaw and Vilna. Although on the morning in question General Kondratovich was undoubtedly somewhere in the vicinity of Neidenburg, it proved impossible to locate him: first he was said to be somewhere near the front line, wherein one place he was seen an hour, in another half an hour before Vorotyntsev arrived. But the colonel lacked the patience to keep chasing after Kondratovich, and while Vorotyntsev had been collecting information from the wounded, Kondratovich had galloped into Neidenburg and, finding no officer senior to himself, had given orders to the commanding officer of the Estland regiment to detail six companies and a machine-gun detachment to escort him. General Kondratovich, eastward along the main road. Obviously he had calculated that since the single, battered division of his unmustered corps had in any case been subordinated to Martos; since the Kexholm regiment was already in a forward position and able to fend for itself; and since" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the remaining Guards regiments which should have comprised his corps were likely never to arrive, then there was nothing for him, the corps commander, to do, and it would be safer for him to retire across the Russian frontier, where he could await the outcome of the battle.\n\nAll this Vorotyntsev learned, to his fury, after he had dispatched his message to Samsonov.\n\nOnly this morning, Neidenburg had been the site of Army Headquarters, a road junction and communications center; by midday there was not a single general left in the town, in fact no one senior to Vorotyntsev. There were no communication links either forward to the corps or rearward to Army Group Headquarters, and anyone left behind would have to choose his own course of action in accordance with his conscience and his abilities.\n\nFortunately, Vorotyntsev was still in a mood of supreme energy, of utter buoyancy and freedom from dependence on the physical and psychological demands of his own organism: he was simply a mobile device for saving whatever could be saved of the situation. He felt the chill draft blowing through the gap in the army's left flank as though it were a stitch in his own chest, and his overriding thought was that this gap must be plugged during the few hours needed for the army commander to ride over to the I Corps sector.\n\nIn the uneasy, blockaded town of Neidenburg he found Lieutenant Colonel Dunin, who commanded a battalion of the Estland regiment: his four severely battered surviving companies had been resting in the town since the previous day, and he was unable to decide what to do. A further five companies of the same regiment, under another lieutenant colonel, had also come from the north; these companies were, however, in such a state that each was hardly bigger than a platoon. They had been in the line all night, until they had been relieved that morning by the Kexholm regiment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ina few sentences Vorotyntsev explained to these two lieutenant colonels and to half the surviving company commanders the situation of the town, the situa-\n\ntion of the army, the fact that their regimental commander had retreated back to Russia along with the remaining companies of their regiment, and the job that he wanted the rest of them to do. Ashe spoke, he looked into their faces and saw, as though in his own features, that fundamentally they all bore the indelible impress of a similar background: army tradition; long spells of garrison service in a world isolated from the rest of society; a sense of alienation, of being despised by that society and ridiculed by Hberal writers; the official ban on discussing poUtics and poUtical literature, resulting in a blunting or stultifying of the intellect; a permanent shortage of money; and yet, despite it all, the knowledge that they represented, in purified and concentrated form, the vitaUty and courage of the whole nation. Now was the moment they had lived for, and Vorotyntsev had no doubt what theu: answer would be.\n\nIf it must be done-it must be done, that was all. Both lieutenant colonels agreed to place themselves under Vorotyntsev's command, but pointed out that their men might not stand and fight: they were in a state of considerable shock from bombardment by German heavy artillery endured without the protection of trenches. Vorotyntsev asked only that the men should be paraded at the western edge of the town, on the road to Usdau.\n\nWhile the troops were fined up and marched out-dejected, grumbling, and surly-^ Vorotyntsev had time to seethe commandant. Colonel Dovatur, a very polite, obliging, and stout little man with a paunch. They agreed on arrangements for the supply and replenishment of ammunition, and fixed on a point to the west of the town, to which Dovatur should send Vorotyntsev a message as soon as the town was clear of ail wagons and troops retreating on foot." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the story as the writer's narrative assistant.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ina few sentences Vorotyntsev explained to these two lieutenant colonels and to half the surviving company commanders the situation of the town, the situa-\n\ntion of the army, the fact that their regimental commander had retreated back to Russia along with the remaining companies of their regiment, and the job that he wanted the rest of them to do. Ashe spoke, he looked into their faces and saw, as though in his own features, that fundamentally they all bore the indelible impress of a similar background: army tradition; long spells of garrison service in a world isolated from the rest of society; a sense of alienation, of being despised by that society and ridiculed by Hberal writers; the official ban on discussing poUtics and poUtical literature, resulting in a blunting or stultifying of the intellect; a permanent shortage of money; and yet, despite it all, the knowledge that they represented, in purified and concentrated form, the vitaUty and courage of the whole nation. Now was the moment they had lived for, and Vorotyntsev had no doubt what theu: answer would be.\n\nIf it must be done-it must be done, that was all. Both lieutenant colonels agreed to place themselves under Vorotyntsev's command, but pointed out that their men might not stand and fight: they were in a state of considerable shock from bombardment by German heavy artillery endured without the protection of trenches. Vorotyntsev asked only that the men should be paraded at the western edge of the town, on the road to Usdau.\n\nWhile the troops were fined up and marched out-dejected, grumbling, and surly-^ Vorotyntsev had time to seethe commandant. Colonel Dovatur, a very polite, obliging, and stout little man with a paunch. They agreed on arrangements for the supply and replenishment of ammunition, and fixed on a point to the west of the town, to which Dovatur should send Vorotyntsev a message as soon as the town was clear of ail wagons and troops retreating on foot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men of the Estland regiment were drawn up in six ranks in close order; all the men were in the shade, and the ranks were short enough so that they were all within easy earshot. While the parade fell in, Vorotyntsev, his hands behind his back and his feet planted\n\nfirmly apart, was able to cast an eye over this detachment, with a tall, dark, long-service soldier as its right marker, of which he now unexpectedly found himself in command.\n\nDuring the two days in which their regiment had taken such a battering, the survivors had noticeably aged. They had acquired the dignified lack of haste of men condemned to death; no one made any effort to hurry, to appear keen or put on a show of smartness in carrying out an order. There was not a carefree face or a trace of false bravery among them; after such intimate contact with death, all the enforced features of military behavior had begun to peel away from them. The process was not, however, so far advanced that they had ceased to obey any command. A direct order might still suffice to send them back to the firing line, but most probably they would then runaway as soon as they got there-and the situation demanded that they hold firm.\n\nSo what was he to say to them? Their eardrums had not yet recovered, they had not yet had time to get their breath back after barely escaping death-and now they had to be told to go back and face it all again. Who was he, anyway? Some unknown colonel who, they doubtless thought, would never share the risk with them and would vanish as soon as he had ordered them into action.\n\nThere was no point in using words like'honor\"-the concept was an incomprehensible piece of aristocratic fiddle-faddle; still less would he impress them by talking about'their obligations to Russia's allies.\" Should he invite them to sacrifice themselves in the name of their Little Father the Tsar? They understood that, and would probably respond to the notion of fighting for the nameless, faceless, timeless figurehead. But to Vorotyntsev there was no eternal, anonymous Tsar-only the real, present-day Tsar, whom he despised and who headed a system of which he felt ashamed; it would be sheer hypocrisy to invoke him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "God, then? The name of God would touch a chord in them. But in Vorotyntsev's eyes an appeal to God\n\nwould be blasphemous and intolerably hollow-as though it were a matter of supreme importance to the Almighty to defend a German town against the Germans themselves. In any case, everyone of these men was capable of realizing that God would scarcely choose to give His exclusive support to the Russians; why treat them as if they were fools?\n\nOne last appeal remained-their fatherland. This was something that did mean something to Vorotynt-sev, but he realized that it did not mean much to them-their fatherland scarcely extended beyond their local districts; and since he would probably be unsure of himself, his voice was bound to convey a note of falsity and sentimentality which would only make matters worse. Obviously he could not appeal to them in'the name of Russia.\n\nSo he did not compose a speech. Ashe gazed at the rows of grim, tired, sullen faces, he put himself in their place, draped in their sweaty greatcoat rolls, in sweaty shirts and leather straps that cut into their shoulders, in their hot boots with the reek of unwashed feet. Having called them to attention and stood them at ease, he began to talk to them-^ not in bold, ringing, hectoring tones, but in a voice that sounded as tired and stiff as they felt, rather as though he had not yet finally made up his own mind what to do.\n\n\"Men of the Estland regiment! You have been through more than enough in the last few days. Some of you have had time fora rest, some haven't. But look at it Hke this: the others, half your regiment, have laid down their lives. The chances are always unequal in war-that's what wars are about. And what we ought to bethinking of now is not how we can get ourselves out but how we can avoid letting our comrades down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this point he was very tempted to give them a straightforward, truthful account of the position: to describe the whole situation and explain the military objectives, in away that army regulations forbade an ofiBcer to address the rank and file but which in reality was the only proper way to do it. He would have said to them: \" The center corps of the army is about to\n\nbe smashed to pieces. The generals have bungled it-all our generals are either fools or cowards, so it's up to you peasant lads to get us out of this mess!\" But instead he again imagined himself standing in those ranks, under that equipment and those rifle slings.\n\n\"Brothers!\" Ashe flung out his arms, he seemed to take root in the ground, and the men saw and felt his utter sincerity. \"Isn't it selfish to save ourselves at the expense of others? We haven't far to go from hereto reach Russian territory, we could easily make it-but if we did, other regiments would simply be cut to pieces. And after that, the Germans would catch up with us too, and even we might not getaway... I know it's asking a lot of you, but right here there's nothing but a gaping hole in the line-there's simply no one there! For just as long as it takes the wagons to get the wounded out of the town we must plug that gap! We must holdout until evening. There's no one else to do it-except you.\"\n\nHe was not giving them orders or threatening them-^ he was explaining. And in aU those grim, stubborn faces there suddenly shone the light of understanding and sympathy, and they almost smiled-^ with a man's spontaneous smile of pity fora wounded bird. They hated the idea of going back into action, and they were weak and unwilling; instead of giving an articulate reply in an obedient, well-drilled chorus, they responded with a warm, indistinct murmur, a confused rumble o^ approval." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing them breakout in greathearted smiles and hearing them murmur in agreement, the colonel snapped to attention, reassumed a military air, and shouted in a voice of command: \"I want volunteers only! Front rank! Any man volunteering to go-three paces forward-march!\"\n\nThe whole rank stepped forward.\n\nMore confidently, almost triumphantly, Vorotyntsev shouted: \"Second rank! Volunteers-three paces forward-march!\"\n\nThe second rank stepped forward.\n\nAnd the third rank.\n\nAll six ranks stepped forward to a man. Grimly, without enthusiasm-but they took three paces forward.\n\nAlthough he realized that there was no cause for rejoicing, that any such feeling was out of place, almost indecent, in spite of himself Vorotyntsev roared: \"Well done the Estland regiment! Mother Russia hasn't run out of good men yet!\"\n\nAt this moment the talk of Mother Russia did seem appropriate...\n\nThe horse-radish hates being grated, but it dances on the grater when it has to.\n\nWith no time to spare, Vorotyntsev hurried back to his party of horsemen-three Cossacks on detachment from the 6th Don Cossack regiment, and Arsenii. The Cossacks were men of just the right type: one with a big curly forelock; one with a stoUd, sleepy face; the other with a shock of hair-all three of them superb horsemen. As for Arsenii...\n\n\"As for you, Arsenii, I am downright ashamed of you. You told me you could ride!\"\n\n\"And so I can! Only bareback, though, without a saddle. In our village we all ride like that. A saddle's just a fancy toy for the gentry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yesterday, in his haste and enthusiasm, Arsenii had ridden with a saddle. It had given him a sore behind, so he had thrown the saddle away and was now riding without stirrups. Stung by Vorotyntsev's reproach, he had done his best to improve his seat by tying on a down cushion with a strap passed under the horse's belly, and was now seated cheerfully upon it, his legs dangling, as he parried the jibes of the laughing Cossacks.\n\n\"Is this all right, y'r\"onor?\" he said, pretending to be willing to untie the cushion at once, but making no effort to do so. \"I could ride all the way to Turkey like this,\" he growled with bravado, puffing out his cheeks.\n\n\"Yes, with that thing, Turkey's where you belong!\"\n\nVorotyntsev slung a rifle across his back, cavalry fashion, and they rode off.\n\nOne problem followed on the heels of another. A moment ago, Vorotyntsev had been worried whether he could persuade the troops to go back into the hell-\n\nfire of the front line. Now, having promised they would have to stay there only until evening, his concern was: who was going to relieve them if it proved necessary to hold the line longer? He also wondered if they would stick it out even until evening. And then, if they did, would their sacrifice have been worthwhile-or was he deceiving them? He had no control over what happened on the rest of the front; it was all in the lap of the gods. At his relatively minor tactical level, Vorotyntsev had more than enough to do in deciding where and how to position these five companies (which, although brought almost up to strength by merging the two Estland battalions, were stiU weak), and how to spread these troops between the Kexholm regiment and the Neidenburg-Usdau road. The available forces were clearly inadequate to man the frontage in strength, yet the whole point of the operation was to insure that the fine was held unbroken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They rode out several miles northwestward along cart tracks toward the region where Vorotyntsev sensed there was a gap. His hunch proved correct. The area was completely devoid of life: there were neither Russian nor German troops, no local inhabitants, no stray horses, dogs, or chickens; there were not even any corpses. It was like the eye of a cyclone: while all around was roaring, swirling darkness, here there were calm and blue skies.\n\nHere, and no farther, was the place to position the Estlanders; leaving behind one Cossack as a marker, he set off with the rest to find and make contact with the neighboring unit which was to be on their right flank, and then to return.\n\nUndimmed by a single cloud, the sun poured down pure heat, scorching the deserted, open countryside, where, it seemed, not a living soul was to be found. In front of them was a hillock, its slope dotted with a sparse growth of young pine trees, and Vorotyntsev decided to ride up thereto have a look around. Their powerful horses easily took the slope in their stride, and the way through the pine trees provided cover and soft going. Just before reaching the top, they\n\n►\n\nAugust 1914 419\n\nwere suq> rised to hear a strange, growling noise, which immediately stopped. As they rode over the brow of the hill, therein front of them were-Germans! Facing them only ten paces away was a car that had obviously just driven up and switched off its engine.\n\nSeated in the car were four Germans, no less amazed than the four mounted Russians.\n\nAt first both sides were too nonplused to do anything. Then with a hissing rustle the Cossacks drew their swords." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The officer sitting behind the general produced his revolver and flourished it. With some difficulty, the man sitting on the other side of the rear seat pulled out alight machine gun.\n\nArsenii deftly unslung his rifle and pushed around into the chamber.\n\nThey were all sufficiently keyed up fora fight to have broken out spontaneously, which would have finished them all. But the Cossacks-and the Germans even more so-were trained to wait fora word of command.\n\nThe diminutive general did not draw his revolver and gave no order. Bolt upright, sharp-eyed, and unafraid, he surveyed the unusual situation with amused astonishment.\n\nRealizing this, Vorotyntsev did no more than keep a grip on the handle of his sword (being unfamiliar with a rifle, he would take too long to unsling it).\n\nAs the horses did not neigh, and the car's engine was no longer running, the silence on the warm hilltop was such that the only sounds to be heard in the resin-scented air were the horses\" breathing and the buzzing of gadflies or mosquitoes.\n\nAs the moment of sun-warmed quiet and faint humming went by without a shot being fired, the threat of death passed from all eight men.\n\nThe general (\"He's the same one we saw yesterday, your honor,\" Arsenii whispered), his head craning, continued to stare ahead of him with extreme curiosity, as though forbidding anyone to shoot or slash at him. His ears were flattened against his head as though in fear, although he was not in the least frightened. A\n\ntrace of humor lurked in his features, perhaps in the twitch of his bushy moustache, which bristled out to either side; at any rate, he clearly had a sense of the absurd, which he showed at once as he said with mock severity: \"Herr Oberst, ich hatte Sie gefangennehmen sollen.\" (\"Colonel, I should have taken you prisoner.\")" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even before he had had time to grasp the significance of this encounter and decide how best to act, Vorotynt-sev caught the tone of relaxed, cheerful reproach. In the same mood, and with a shade more jocularity, Vorotyntsev flashed his fine set of even teeth in a smile and replied: \"Nein, Exzellenz, das bin ich, der Sie gefangennehmen soil!\" (\"No, your excellency, I'm the one who should take you prisoner.\")\n\nMachine gun, revolver, and swords were all lowered. Reasonably enough, the general countered: \"\"Sie sind ja auf unserem Boden.\"(\" You are, after all, in our territory.\")\n\nEntering into the spirit of the exchange, Vorotyntsev put forward an equally sound argument: \"Diese Gegend ist in unserer Hand.\" (\"This area is in our hands.\") This was pure bravado but was a good card to play in an uncertain situation: the Russian infantry might well be lined up in position just over this hill. Then he added in a slightly crisper tone: \"Und ich wage einen Ratschlag, Herr General-lieber ent-fernen Sie sich.\" (\"And if I may venture to give you apiece of advice, General, you would do better to leave.\")\n\nArsenii had been right; he was the man they had seen yesterday jumping so nimbly out of his car-and obviously he was no younger than Samsonov.\n\nHowever, the general had no wish to carry on this kind of talk, and instead asked: \"Bitte, Ihren Namen, Oberst.\" (\"Please, Colonel, what is your name?\")\n\nThere was no need for secrecy over names. He answered: \"Oberst Vorotynzeff.\" (\"Colonel Vorotyntsev.\")" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Either because he felt that a colonel might be embarrassed to ask a full general for his name, or because he was enjoying the conversation, the general politely introduced himself, the same glint of humor sparkling\n\nin his eyes: \"Und ich bin General von Frangois.\" (\"And I am General von Frangois.\")\n\nAha! So he was the commander of the German I Corps. And almost in their hands. Perhaps they could take him prisoner...?\n\nUnfortunately, it was not clear who was in whose hands.\n\nAnd although it was natural enough to shoot and hack at an opponent when you were strangers, it was somehow inhuman when you had made each other's acquaintance in this way.\n\n\"Aha! Ich erkenne Sie. Wares gestern Ihr Auto-mohil, das wir abgeschossen haben? Was suchten Sie dennin JJsdau?\" (\"Ha, I recognize you. Was it your car we fired at yesterday? Why were you trying to get to Usdau?\")\n\nThe general nodded and burst out laughing. * 'Es wurde gemeldet, meine Truppen seien schon drin.\"(\" There was a report my troops were already there.\")\n\nHe looked up at Vorotyntsev with an approving frown. It was one of the jokes of war, which one should be able to appreciate.\n\nThe Cossacks sensed this, and grinning as they caught the mood of the conversation, the two men-Kasian Chertikhin, with the quiff and a slight squint, and the sly, shock-headed Artyukha Serga-sheathed their sabers with a satisfying rattle.\n\nThe German officer had by now also put away his revolver, and only the machine gun was just visible behind the driver's back. Arsenii, too, had slung his rifle again, and whispered once more to Vorotyntsev: \"Look, your honor... the lion! They've stolen our lion!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having kept his eyes fastened on von Frangois and the machine gun, Vorotyntsev had not noticed that a mascot was fastened to the car's radiator: it was the same toy lion which had so helped to keep up everyone's spirits in their section of the trenches at Usdau-sometime long ago, it now seemed... Amazingly, the lion was still unharmed.\n\nAt the moment that the Russians noticed the lion,\n\nthe Germans noticed something else and whispered with amusement.\n\n\"\"Wer sind Sie aher, ein Russe?\"(\" Are you Russian?\") von Francois asked appraisingly. He seemed to want to continue this talk. Conj& dent of his power to fascinate, he clearly enjoyed the idea that he could charm even the enemy.\n\n\"Ein Russe, ja.\" (\"Yes, I'm Russian.\") Vorotyntsev smiled, not too surprised that a Western European should ask such a question.\n\nHe finally decided that they had better go. The Germans now probably believed that the Russian forces were close by. He must hurry and put the Estlanders in position. With an expression of polite regret, he saluted and said: \"Pardon, Exzellenz, tut mir leid, aber ich muss mich beeilen!\" (\"Sorry, your excellency, but I'm afraid I must hurry.\") Another look into the general's eyes, and a fleeting glance at the machine gun. Would the Germans shoot them in the back? No, impossible! \"Leben Sie wohl, Exzellenz!\" (\"Goodbye, your excellency.\")\n\nWith the same blend of amiable irony, tinged with regret, the general replied with a wave of three fingers of his hand: \"Adieu, adieu!\"\n\nThe Cossacks, too, understood the meaning of this gesture and, following the colonel, they jerked their horses around and galloped off down the hill, guffawing with amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At that moment the Germans burst into a roar of laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe heard it, Vorotyntsev realized the cause of it, and for the first time he lost his temper with Arsenii: \"They're laughing at your cushion! You've disgraced the whole Russian army!\"\n\nArsenii rode on with unshakable dignity, but from his scowHng face, it was obvious that he was offended.\n\nThe German machine-gunner might still shoot them all down with a burst of fire. But that would be unthinkable after their civilized encounter, and utterly unseemly fora great commander who was about to take his place in history.\n\nFora military commander of the superior kind, winning battles is not enough: he must also fight with panache and flair. History will not fail to record his every gesture, every detail of his method of command: if these are carefully fashioned and polished, they will create an image of perfection; if not, then he will be written off as nothing more than a clumsy boor who happened to be lucky.\n\nOn the evening of August 14, General von Francois could not yet issue his orders for the fifteenth. His instinct was tugging him toward Neidenburg; but there was a threat of a counter-attack from Soldau, and it was toward Soldau that he was being pushed by Army Headquarters. In this kind of situation a mediocre commander will torment himself and his staff all night wanting to see what will turn up, and then, in the small hours of the morning, pens will start scratching as orders are written out. But Hermann von Frangois merely issued this laconic statement: \"Divisions are to prepare to advance in their sectors. The nature and timing of the advance will be given tomorrow morning at 6 a. m. on Hill 202 near Usdau. Officers will kindly report thereto receive orders.\" Then, in one of the still-undamaged houses in Usdau, the general went to sleep under an eiderdown with a pink cover. This was a calculated gesture: the commanders of divisions and subordinate units would not dare to presume that there might not bean advance or that the corps commander did not know what he was going to do tomorrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An important adjunct to this gesture was the choice\n\nof the site where orders would be given out. Had his troops not already advanced so far beyond it, von Francois would have chosen Windmill Hill at Usdau, instead of Hill 202. Windmill Hill was the most beautiful and prominent height in the vicinity; also he felt a special link with it since the previous day, when it had still been intact and he had made his mistaken and unsuccessful but exhilarating attempt to go there. It was yesterday that half his corps artillery, working to a system of concentrated fire that was being introduced for the first time, had set about scouring that hill and annihilating the Russian troops positioned on it. In the afternoon General von Frangois was able to inspect the pile of dead and dying Russian bodies in the trenches and on the slopes of the hill, the first time in his career that he had ever seen a comparable result from an artillery barrage. Ashe walked up that hill, on which stood the smoldering ruins of the mill (they were not extinguished until the dew and fog settled on them that night), von Frangois realized that every step he was taking was historic. Here began the road to Neidenburg, along which he was destined to accomplish his leap into fame. It was here, too, that von Francois noticed a patch of yellow in the banked-up earth of the parapet of a Russian trench, and his drivers enthusiastically dugout a beautifully made, undamaged toy lion, which had survived the murderous bombardment. Someone had the idea of afiSxing the lion to the radiator of one of the general's cars, and to mark the capture of Usdau the animal was given the rank of sergeant major in anticipation of along and victorious military career that would culminate in afield marshal's baton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was necessary, however, to issue orders closer to the front line. A thick mist was obscuring even the high ground and blotting out detail. Arms folded on his chest, von Francois paced up and down, having arrived at the rendezvous ahead of the appointed time. His isolation and his importance were only stressed by the fact that for the past ten days he had continued\n\nto ignore his chief of staff, having decided to exclude this traitor from all participation in the work of the corps.\n\nEarlier that morning, von Frangois had made up his mind: of his three divisions, half would begin by advancing on Soldau as the higher command required, while he would keep back the other half in readiness to make his secret dash for Neidenburg. For this purpose, too, he would assemble his mobile detachment-made up of motorcyclists, bicycle troops, a regiment of uhlans, and a battery of horse artillery-at the start of the Usdau-Neidenburg road. Judging by the unconcern and silence of the Russians in Soldau, he felt confident that he would not be threatened from that direction and that the Russians there were wholly preoccupied with their retreat across the river.\n\nWhen the great moment of opportunity comes and knocks at the door, its first tap maybe no louder than the beating of one's heart, and only a sensitive ear can detect it. Although there was no proof that the supposed threat from Soldau was an unreal one, and although artillery fire had broken out in von Scholtz's sector on the far side of Soldau during the night and had continued until morning, nevertheless General von Frangois felt sure that he had sensed the fateful, unheard signal. Soon his own initiative he launched his'flying squad\" toward Neidenburg-although not by the direct route but with a southward loop, in order to capture the Russian supply trains that would undoubtedly be pouring south. He left the main road open to be used by his main forces, and so that he could follow them into action without delay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At Soldau things looked promising: the Russian gunfire covering their retreat was listless, and they were abandoning the town without counter-attacking. But the bombardment in von Scholtz's sector was lasting i for an uncomfortably longtime, and at ten o'clock in the morning von Frangois's plans to take independent, unauthorized action were ruined at the last moment when a car drove up with an urgent order from Army Headquarters: \" A division of General von Scholtz's\n\ncorps has been pushed out of the village of Waplitz by the enemy and is still in retreat. You must give it immediate support by sending the whole of your corps reserve. This maneuver must take the form of an attack. Move at once. Situation calls for speed. Report when action taken.\"\n\nTo von Frangois, this proved that neither Ludendorff nor Hindenburg were bom commanders. They had not heard fate knocking at the door. The least action by the enemy threw them into a fright, and they mistook what was no more than a shallow trickle fora deep-flowing river. What a cowardly, imimaginative order-to send his corps into a frontal counter-attack (and to tell him to make a fifteen-kilometer advance in the'form of an attack\"!) just when the most magnificent encircUng movement was ripe for execution!\n\nHowever, with a reputation for insubordination which had reached as far as the Kaiser himself, von Francois had no choice but to obey.\n\nAt the same time, he could not bring himself to submit entirely to the dictates of fainthearted mediocrity.\n\nIn war, compromise proves more often to be fatal than wise. But the oiiy way out of the situation was a compromise: von Frangois sent one division of his reserve in the direction required of him, while he himself remained with a reinforced brigade at the starting point of his proposed dash for Neidenburg. And then by midday, as soon as Soldau was taken, he would pullback the division from that sector and reconstitute his corps reserve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew, in any case, that Ludendorffs orders were never long-lasting. Sure enough, before one o'clock in the afternoon a Uaison officer appeared from Army Headquarters with anew set of instructions: he was to divert the division sent to support von Scholtz onto a more easterly, downhill axis. No, Ludendorff was no general! These fickle, womanish changes of mind were noway to run an army. He had no clear idea of what he wanted to do, except safeguard his own prestige by avoiding every possible risk.\n\nAugust 1914 All\n\nRegretfully, von Frangois realized that he need not have obeyed the first order after all, as it had inevitably been countermanded by Ludendorff himself. The latest order had concluded: \"... from now on, the outcome of the entire operation depends on your corps.\"\n\nIt had, of course, depended on von Francois's corps from the very beginning-and would do so until the very end.\n\nAt tiiat point he launched the brigade (reinforced by amounted Jager regiment) along the Usdau-Nei-denburg road. They were to take the town and advance beyond it. Leaving behind a thin line of patrols and roadblocks, they were to push on along the same road toward Willenberg, thus extending the jaw of the pincers as fast as possible. These detachments were to be closely followed by mobile field kitchens, to keep them fed. (A good commander always remembered his soldiers' rations.)\n\nVon Francois himself, who no longer felt any great need to be in telephone communication with Army Headquarters, set off with two cars to observe and direct the departing brigade.\n\nAmong some scattered pine trees on an isolated hilltop he had an amusing encounter with a Russian patrol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The division that had been sent to the aid of von Scholtz had become involved on its way in a fight with a Russian Guards regiment, when at three o'clock in the afternoon a third order caught up with General von Francois: he was to withdraw that supporting division, as it was no longer required! In the view of Army Headquarters, the task of von Francois's corps was now as follows: \"To block the enemy's line of retreat to the south, for which purpose you must occupy Neidenburg today and move on toward Willenberg starting at dawn tomorrow.\"\n\nWhere would he be, von Frangois wondered, if he always waited for those great strategists at Army Headquarters to perceive the obvious? He need not have split his forces in two this morning after all, and he\n\ncould have captured many more Russian supply wagons. Compromise in war was always a mistake.\n\nAnd so the long summer day passed imperceptibly in a series of orders, counter-orders, suggestions, disappointments, and successes. At about five o'clock in the afternoon the mounted Jager regiment entered Nei-denburg without a fight, and found no Russian fighting units but only rear-echelon services and supply trains. The only defense of the town was a thin line of infantry spread out to the north of the main road (von Francois himself had come under fire from part of this force positioned in a potato field). The general was amazed: were the Russians really so incapable of understanding a situation that they had not even made a serious attempt to defend this key town? What, indeed, did they expect to gain from fighting this war at all? What had induced them to get involved in it?\n\nThe chief obstacle to the advance of von Francois's corps was the great Russian supply wagons. The mobile detachment sent off that morning had caused a complete blockage on the roads south of Neidenburg by stopping the fleeing Russian transport, whose booty had included a paymaster's cashbox containing three milHon rubles. The congestion caused by the Russian supply trains was even worse in the town itself: when von Francois and his staff drove into Neidenburg shortly before twilight, his cars had to stop and he was obliged to reach the hotel in the marketplace on foot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A military-police detachment and a battalion of grenadiers (this was the same one which had retreated twenty-five kilometers in panic from Usdau yesterday, so that the battalion commander, a major, was now showing particular zeal in an effort to redeem himself) were searching all the houses, attics, and cellars, to rout out any hidden Russians and remove them under escort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All this was accomplished virtually without a shot being fired.\n\nIn front of the hotel the general was introduced to two men at once: the German burgomaster and the Russian commandant. The latter reported on the completion of his duties, on the state of the hospital, on the\n\nstores of German equipment, and on the arrangements made for prisoners of war. The burgomaster was full of praise for the measures that the commandant had taken to preserve order in the town and protect the lives and property of the inhabitants. Von Francois thanked the commandant and asked him to choose himself a room, where he would remain under house arrest on his word of honor. He also asked him his surname.\n\n\"Dovatur,\" said the short, stout, dark-haired colonel.\n\nVon Francois's ginger eyebrows were raised expressively. \"And what is your Christian name?\"\n\n\"Ivan.\" The colonel smiled.\n\nHermann von Francois's eyebrows rose even higher, and his Hps pursed in a smile of thoughtful irony.\n\nTwo far-flung descendants of the French aristocracy, from two different phases of their unhappy history of political emigration-Bourbon and Huguenot-had met fora moment on the outer extremity of Europe, one to deUver his report, the other to place him under arrest.\n\nA room in the hotel had already been prepared for General von Frangois. Darkness was setting in. The town hummed with voices, shouted commands, the creak of wagons, and the neighing of horses, and in this chaos night feU.\n\nIn the meantime, the mobile brigade and mounted Jager were already pushing on in the twilight, eastward along the road from Neidenburg, to close the second half of the encircling ring.\n\nOHermann the German, you're wicked and silly! Almost as bad as that fool Kaiser Willy! And stupid old Fritz, always huffing and puffing, Just wait till we catch you and Icnoc/c out your stuffing!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the hillside behind Martos's command post stood a neat spinney of beech and fir trees, and beyond that were two farmhouses; in them Samsonov's mobile headquarters and their Cossack escort squadron were temporarily installed.\n\nIf there was to be no retreat, what were they supposed to do instead? The staff officers wandered about, grumbling: deprived of telephones, telegraph, and even of dispatch riders, they had been forced to come here without rhyme or reason, far up among the forward positions. German shells were bursting close by; they could distinctly hear the boom of the Russian artillery and the rattle of machine guns. The Miihlen line, where the Germans had held out until yesterday, was now in Russian hands but showing signs of cracking; it was held by one of Martos's divisions, the flanks of which were exposed, and it was under enemy pressure that increased hourly. At Waphtz the Poltava regiment also seemed unlikely to hold until evening the positions which it had won that morning. The army commander had refused a withdrawal; but he had not been able to propose any other way out of this desperate situation. A retreat had begun to flow of its own accord, as solid metal will inexorably flow when it reaches its melting point.\n\nUnable to express their complaints to the army commander, they were, however, sensible enough not to wait idly until Samsonov's ponderous brain assimilated the facts and induced him to change his mind; instead, they concentrated on drawing up a subtle plan of withdrawal( although, due to Postovsky's foresight, they reframed from calling it'withdrawal,\" lest\n\nit beheld against them later). On a little table, its legs set into the ground under an apple tree, lay a map, to which Filimonov pointed with confident gestures as the staff officers buzzed around him. To avoid any subsequent blame, this complicated plan was designed above all to bean impeccable model of tactical doctrine. The system was known as the'sliding shield.\" In the manner of an endless belt sliding over pulleys, a constant westward-facing defensive frontage was to be maintained: each unit, as it reached the rear, would slide left to act as cover for the others, which would then pullback through it and perform the same function in their turn. The first to withdraw under the protection of this defensive barrier would be the supply trains, followed by XIII Corps (which, unfortunately, had still failed to linkup with XV Corps). While this was in progress, XV Corps would hold the front line (this would be its seventh day of uninterrupted fighting), together with the remnants of XXIII Corps. Then, leaving the Poltava and Chernigov regiments as a rearguard, XV Corps would sidestep leftward. (How huge, clumsy, and unmaneuver-able an army corps seemed when it had to retreat!) As soon as XV Corps had pulled back as far as Or-lau, the scene of its first successful battle, it would hold the front line again, only now on a southwesterly axis toward Neidenburg, while the remaining elements of XXIII Corps would pass across its rear. Meanwhile, XIII Corps, having spent the whole of the previous day moving rearward (at a rate of twenty-four miles a day), would in turn take up a position even farther to the left of the others, allowing them to pullback across the Russian frontier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under a fir tree, alone and apart on a wide, crude peasant bench without aback rest, sat the army commander; he was within sight of the others, yet he might have been shut up inside his private study. His gold-hilted sword and his map case lay on the bench beside him; he had taken off his cap and from time to time he wiped his bare, prominent forehead with a handkerchief, although he could hardly have felt hot\n\nin the shade of the trees, fanned by a gentle, cool August breeze. To the despair of his staff, Samsonov had sat like this for several hours-his neck rigid and strained, scarcely moving, his small eyes betraying little comprehension, his answers courteous as ever but monosyllabic. He might have been reflecting on away out of the situation for them all; or he might equally well have forgotten that he had a whole army under his command. With his powerful hands planted on the bench to either side of him, he would sit motionless, staring at the ground id front of him, for half an hour at a time. He took nothing to eat or drink, he was not resting, and he did not seem to be waiting for news-he was simply engaged in agonized thought, the insoluble problem bearing down upon the crown of his head like a boulder; it was this which made him mop his brow.\n\nWhat could he be waiting for? Was he expecting to see Klyuev's column approaching in a thick cloud of dust from the northeast, the direction ia which he was staring? The lances of Rennenkampfs cavalry, perhaps? Or could he see nothing and was he looking nowhere but merely listening to what was happening within himself-the muffled shifting of the deepest strata of his consciousness or the hollow rumble as they collapsed?\n\nIn the direction he was facing, the hillside sloped away to a peat bog, while beyond it, easily visible half a mile distant as it scaled another hill, the Hohen-stein-Nadrau road cut across the landscape from left to right. There had not been much traffic on that road all day, except for ambulances: it was not a lateral route, and therefore of little tactical use to XV Corps. But by the late afternoon the traffic down the road from Hohenstein began increasing-supply and ammunition wagons, limbers but no guns, and all in disorder; then, in twos and threes among the transport, stragglers from the infantry appeared. With the sun behind them as they watched, the staff officers could plainly see that these men not only were detached from their units but had ahready lost their rifles or were throwing them" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "away and discarding their equipment as they went\n\nSamsonov, motionless and apparently unseeing in his patch of shade, was one of the first to notice this rout. Abruptly standing upon his strong legs, he loudly ordered the officers of his staff to move as fast as they could to stop these men and restore order.\n\nSo they ran-the grumblers and the less critical ones, colonels and captains, some ordering Cossacks to go with them, others drawing their unused staff officers' revolvers-down the little-used grassy path, along the barbed-wire fence dividing a cattle pasture from a stone dike that skirted a marsh, and up the hill on the far side. They could be seen brandishing their revolvers and waving their arms, causing a crowd to form and block the road; the men at the back had already thrown away their equipment, while those in front were forced to pick it up again. Messengers galloped back and forth to report to Samsonov that the troops fleeing in disorder from Hohenstein were men of the Narva and Kopor regiments who had abandoned an artillery regiment in its positions, leaving it without infantry cover; that the machine-gun detachment had also broken and run; that the commanding officer of the Kopor regiment had behaved disgracefully; that the retreating men had gone out of their minds and were convinced that all was lost, but that thanks to the action of the staff officers...\n\nIn return, the army commander issued his orders: the stragglers were to be sorted out into their units along the roadside; the senior officers of the two defaulting regiments were to be further interrogated as to the cause of the panic flight and as many as possible were to be sent back to Hohenstein, after first being paraded by battalions alongside their regimental colors.\n\nSamsonov came to life, strode up and down and peered through his binoculars; the firm, confident frown above the hirsute lower half of his face gave promise of calm leadership and a wise solution to every problem: nothing was irretrievably lost, the army commander would save them all! At last the great moment" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "had come-the very situation, perhaps, that he had been seeking when he rode here this morning. Day after day the urge to go to the forwardmost sector of the front had grown stronger-and now the front line had come to him, in full view and less than half a mile away.\n\nThe army commander's horse was already saddled and waiting for him, but the confusion was slow to be sorted out. In the time it took the two battaUons to form upon parade outside Nadrau, hundreds of shrapnel shells burst over Martos's corps, and the disposition of its units changed, undoubtedly for the worse. The sun had moved on its course from afternoon to early evening when the army commander was at last able to ride over to where the defaulting battalions stood on parade. He mounted easily and set off with confidence.\n\nThe two battalions were drawn up to await the general's verdict on them, the regimental colors of each unfurled on the right flank. Their commander, a mighty mounted figure of godlike superiority, his massive head planted solidly upon his massive body, rode up to inspire his troops to miraculous deeds of martial valor. Without strain, in a powerful voice that had a certain affinity to the tolling of Russian church bells, Samsonov boomed out his words over the ranks and the surrounding countryside:\n\n\"Men of the Narva regiment, General Field Marshal Golitsyn's own! Men of the Kopor regiment. General Konovnitsyn's own! Shame on you! You have sworn allegiance to your colors! Look at them! Remember the famous battles in honor of which those standards were adorned with eagles and with the Cross of St. George!\"\n\nThis was the bitterest reproach he could make; he could not curse and swear at them-they were all Russians, honorable men, and it was to their honor that he was appealing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then mysteriously, as his powerful voice floated above the soldiers'heads, Samsonov's confidence seeped out of him. A moment ago he had known exacdy\n\nwhat words to use, known how he would work the miracle of making not only these battalions but their regiments and the center corps turn back and fight; now, suddenly, his memory failed him, he forgot what else he wanted to say, and into his blurred mind there drifted an incident from some vaguely remembered time in the past, when he had barely managed to halt another mob of fleeing troops, whose shirts, rifles, and mess tins had been even more ragged and battered, their faces still more distorted and flushed than these. What had he said to them? He could not remember...\n\nA speech by a general ought to be effective: military history is full of instances where, in a nx) ment of crisis, the commander addresses his troops, inspires them, and they...\n\n\"So, remember that you are soldiers-and soldiers are brave. Keep faith with your regimental colors and the glorious names which...\"\n\nNo, it was gone; the vital, galvanizing phrase eluded him. But he went on: \"How could you do this? How could you bring such shame...?\"\n\nWhen he makes a speech, a general has the advantage of a captive audience; his listeners cannot protest or heckle. And although Samsonov asked them: \"How could you...?\" he was not really expecting to be told how bad the conditions were which every officer and man standing there had endured. Certainly Staff Captain Grokholets, whose curled moustaches made him look keen and dashing even on a punishment parade, could have given him an answer-in a sharp voice with a snort of indignation: he could have told him how, after standing their ground fora whole night beyond Hohenstein, they had gone into the attack next morning on Martos's orders and prevented the enemy from turning the flank of XV Corps; how they had then come under the fire of more than a dozen German batteries-a barrage of a ferocity that the army commander himself had probably never experienced; how only three Russian batteries had replied, and even these were short of ammunition. How they" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "had pulled back into Hohenstein, and managed to hold it, but the promised help from XIII Corps never came; how the enemy began to exert pressure on Hohenstein concentrically, from three sides at once, in an arc from the southwest to the east; how when the German cavalry broke through to cut them off they still held their ground, and when a cloud of dust was seen coming from northeast it had not been Klyuev coming to their support but the enemy-only then had they turned and run...\n\nLieutenant Kozieko, blinking as he stood in the rear rank, might have put his complaints to the army commander in sUghtly more personal terms: how the situation at Hohenstein was such that it was bound to end in a rout; how bad it had been, and how terrible was the thought of being covered with blood, ripped to shreds, or with a bayonet thrust between the eyes; how his beloved little wife would suffer if he were missing, or taken prisoner; how many corpses they had seen in those last few days, until it was no consolation that some of the dead were German; how heavy their casualties had been-and all to what end? Was such sacrifice justified?\n\nPrivate Vyushkov, who could just seethe general out of one eye from behind another man's head, would have said to him: \"It's your job to preach to us; but we're not stupid and we know what really happened.\"\n\nAnd there was Private Nabyorkin, on his stumpy short legs, who was thinking: \"Those Germans shoot hellish well, your excellency!\"\n\nAnd Private Kramchatkin, standing in the front rank right below the general, stood stiffly to attention, straining every sinew; his head was held back so hard, his protruding eyes sparkled as he stared in admiration at the general; his whole stance showed that he had done what he could-^ more than this was not in him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The general could not help noticing this fine, keen soldier staring at him with faith and devotion-and he gained strength from this man's trust.\n\n\"The commanding officer of the Kopor regiment is\n\nrelieved of his command! This colonel here is to be your new commander and will lead you into battle. He is a brave soldier-I know him from the Japanese war. Follow him bravely and be worthy of your traditions...\"\n\nA large man, well seated on a large horse, Sam-sonov resembled a monument. And with a monumental gesture he raised his hand and pointed toward Hohen-stein. At the signal, the regimental choir leader broke into the opening lines of the regimental marching song with the thrilling sweep of a falcon rising into the air. The battalions turned about and stumbled backup the road whence they had fled. The army conamander returned to his staff.\n\nYet he still felt that there was something he had failed to say. He was not satisfied with his speech; he had made better ones. Somehow the great event he had hoped for had not taken place.\n\nWeakened, Samsonov slumped in his saddle. Ashe rode up the hill and saw Martos coming out of the wood-supple as ever, though by now looking tired-^ in that moment Samsonov realized that Martos had been right, that he now agreed with his advice to retreat which he had rejected that morning. Ten minutes ago, as he had raised his aim in martial exhortation, he had been telling those men to do the very opposite. Yet now, in the grayish shade of the spinney, screened from the blazing sunlight, he met Martos's exhausted, reddened eyes-and changed his mind. Even before Martos had finished recounting how the troops were falling back of their own accord, how regimental command posts had inevitably been forced to withdraw, how one by one the telephones had stopped working, how his best officers had been killed, Samsonov concurred. He had just upbraided two battalions for retreating; now he realized that they had had no choice..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The greatest decision of his lifetime had been taken in one moment, and it did not seem to have required any mental effort. But when had the change come about, where had the turning point been? At what\n\npoint of time had it suddenly become necessary to reverse the direction of his troops after two weeks of movement which pressing logic decreed should be in precisely the opposite direction? It was as though north had become south, east had become west, as though the sky above those pine trees had been turned upside down. If Samsonov had been able to define that point of time, he might have discovered when and how he had lost the battle.\n\nHis staff oflficers were now showing him their neat, sensible plan of the'sUding shield\"; this too was something that revolved, as the sky seemed to be revolving. Clutching for some solid support amid so much movement, Samsonov put his heavy, trusting paws on the thin, sharp shoulders of the man who, although he had underestimated him at first, was now his favorite corps commander.\n\n\"Nikolai Nikolaevich! According to the plan, your corps wUl beat Neidenburg tomorrow. Everything will be decided there. Kondratovich should be somewhere in that vicinity too, as well as the Kexholm regiment. Give your instructions now for your corps to move, and then go ahead to Neidenburg yourself to reconnoiter and choose the positions fora last-ditch defense of the town.\"\n\nBy once more placing the main burden upon him, the army commander was showing how much confidence he had in Martos. But the latter misunderstood him: did this order mean that he was being reheved of command of the corps? Otherwise, why was he being asked to leave it? What could he do without his corps? To whom should he give orders? Did the army commander realize what he was doing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And hurry, my dear fellow. Remember-every-thmg will be decided at Neidenburg tomorrow. My staff and I will go there too.\"\n\nAbandoned this morning as useless, Neidenburg was now apparently the key that would release them from dan'ger.\n\nMoved by kindness and goodwill, as he said goodbye Samsonov kissed Martos. And destroyed him.\n\nAll the energy which had boiled within Martos suddenly cooled. Instantly he was changed from a Toledo blade into a brittle reed. As ordered, he left his corps and went where he was told.\n\nDarkness was coming on. The day's army order was distributed (a captain was sent to I Corps, ordering it to advance immediately to Neidenburg; VI Corps... well, there was little they could do except tell VI Corps to hold on... at all costs...). The staff was ready. They tried to persuade the army commander to go to Janow, but Samsonov refused to move farther than Neidenburg.\n\nThe town, which that morning had seemed intolerable, now beckoned invitingly, even though they might have to die defending it.\n\nWith more insistence, the staff officers then persuaded him that this morning's route was now too dangerous and that on the return journey they would have to follow a path that was even more circuitous. Enemy shrapnel shells were bursting almost above headquarters itself, the jagged flashes sharply visible in the fading light, and in Nadrau, through which they would have to pass, two houses had already been set on fire by high-explosive shells. The sound of machine-gunfire could also be heard coming from the town-whose was it? All around was the seething confusion left behind by a day of disorder and defeat. In the light of the fires, men could be seen running back and forth. Or were they running away?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the machine guns stopped. With no one to put them out, the glowing fires lit up the sky. Unnoticed by day, the dogs now began to bark.\n\nThe Day of the Assumption was coming to an end, and despite his incomprehensible dream, Samsonov had survived.\n\nGeneral Samsonov was alive; but his army was dead.\n\nWho can undertake to name the decisive battle in a war that lasted four years and strained the nation's morale to breaking point? Of the countless battles, more ended in ignominy than in renown, devouring our strength and our faith in ourselves, uselessly and irretrievably snatching from us our bravest and strongest men and leaving the second-raters. Nevertheless, it can be claimed that it was the first defeat which set the tone of the whole course of the war for Russia: having begun the first battle with incomplete forces, the Russians never subsequently managed to muster enough men in time for an engagement. Unable to discard bad habits acquired at the start, they went on throwing untrained troops into action direct from the railhead without a pause for acclimatization, thrusting them into the line wherever there was a breach or a leak, in a series of convulsive attempts to regain lost ground, without considering whether these attempts were strategically justified, and regardless of losses. From the very first our spirits were damped, and our self-assurance was never regained; from the very first, both our enemies and our allies were disappointed by our poor showing, and with the stigma of that contempt we had to battle on until we collapsed; from the very first, too, the doubt was awakened in us: did we have the right generals, did they know what they were doing?\n\nWithout allowing anymore scope to one's imagination than what can be learned from precise data, preferring historians to novelists as sources, we can only spread our hands and admit it once and for all: no one would dare to write a fictional account of such" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "unrelieved blackness; for the sake of verisimilitude, a writer would distribute the light and shade more evenly. But from the first battle on, a Russian general's badges of rank come to be seen as symbols of incompetence; and the further up the hierarchy, the more bungling the generals seem, until there is scarcely one from whom an author can derive any comfort. (In which case there might appear to be some consolation in Tolstoy's conviction that it is not generals who lead armies, not captains who command ships or companies of infantry, not presidents or leaders who run states or political parties-^ were it not that all too often the twentieth century has proved to us that it is such men who do these things.)\n\nWhat novelist would be believed if he wrote that General Klyuev, who led the center corps farthest of all into Prussia, had never before seen active service? There are no grounds for assuming that Klyuev was stupid, or that he was not in some respects able and adroit. In his dispatches, for instance, he was able to describe the belated, pointless dash to Orlau by one of his divisions in such terms that in the reports submitted to the commander-in-chief and to the Tsar himself, he and not Martos was represented as the victor at Orlau who had forced the enemy to retreat by threatening to outflank him. And in his memoirs, written in prison, he managed to slant, color, and blur his account of events so that everyone was shown to beat fault except himself. Nor have we any direct proof that Klyuev was wholly worthless; indeed, if one is to judge by many later historical instances of this kind, we do not doubt that plenty of reliable, mitigating evidence could be found to show that he was a good family man and loved children (especially his own), a delightful companion at table, and perhaps an amusing raconteur. But the fact remains that these virtues do not suffice to whitewash or justify a commander who undertook to lead thousands of men on a fateful enterprise-and led them badly. We may feel pity for the novice soldier when, caught in the evil toils of war, he first faces bullets and shellfire; but the novice" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "general, however dazed and nauseated he may have been by the fighting, we can neither pity nor excuse.\n\nThe following is an account of what General Klyuev did. While his corps spent virtually the whole of August 14 in Allenstein, the farthest point to which Sam-sonov's army penetrated, he made no attempt tore-connoiter the locality and discover whether the enemy was to his right, in front of him, or to his left, or in what strength; instead, he asked Army Headquarters in Neidenburg to provide him with all this information. On the morning of the fifteenth, before abandoning Allenstein as a fruitless prize, he announced his intention to do so by sending an uncoded radio signal, thus informing the enemy as well as his own side of the route, boundaries, and timing of his move to support Martos. Klyuev had at his disposal six regiments, which he scattered around with prodigality. To hold Allenstein'until Blagoveshchensky arrived,\" he left behind (to their destruction) two thousand men-a battalion of the Dorogobuzh regiment and a battalion of the Mozhaisk regiment. Soon after that, with his corps strung out in column of march along the road to Hohenstein, he left the rest of the Dorogobuzh regiment in a rear-guard position (which was also to prove a deathtrap) because he thought he was being pursued.\n\nActing on Klyuev's radio signal, which they intercepted at eight o'clock that morning, the Germans had hastened to send troops to harry his column from the rear, unaware that, since Russians can never keep to time, when Klyuev stated he would beat a certain point by midday he would not, in fact, get there until evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Klyuev reached the Griesslinnen Heights above Hohenstein-the key town which he was to hold in order to help Martos, and which two of his own units, the Narva and Kopor regiments, were already holding-^ he stopped to wait. Did he do this to allow the rest of his column to catch up with him? Or did he pause, as seems more probable, from uncertainty as to who exactly was occupying Hohenstein-a distance of two\n\nand a half miles away? (As it happened, the Narva and Kopor regiments, from the low-lying town, thought that their own corps on the heights above was a concentration of German troops.) Klyuev made no effort to prevent another-a German-detachment from deploying between himself and Hohenstein. Was he waiting for the situation to clarify? Or was he waiting for new orders?\n\nThe only orders which he gave were to send his leading regiment, the Neva, out to one flank and involve it in a useless battle that lasted all day in the dense Kammerwald Forest. Without artillery and with only a machine-gun company in support, the objectionable Colonel Pervushin led his regiment into an engagement of a kind peculiar to thickly wooded country, in which visibility is more than twenty paces in any direction, no one can tell where firing is coming from, and the crack of a shot is particularly loud and vicious. The noise of bark being ripped from trees by rifle fire makes the bullets sound as if they are explosive, and ricochets sound like new shots; troops have to fire over the heads of their own side and are killed by their own bullets; even brave men lose their heads, and the fighting dissolves into chaos. In that battle, for hours, the Neva regiment pressed back a German force of up to divisional strength (they even scattered the remnants of a divisional headquarters consisting of a general and eight soldiers) and pushed their way through several miles of dense forest until at twilight they emerged on the far side as victors. But though successful, the action was pointless: the forest was of no tactical value." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As late as the morning of August 13, the progress of XIII Corps could have been regarded as a purposeful advance; but during the half day's inactivity spent without firing or moving on the Griesslinnen Heights, there came a moment when the corps imperceptibly degenerated into something about as useful as a heap of junk. At all events, it should have moved-either to support Martos's nearby XV Corps (from whom an officer came requesting help) or at least to escape by\n\nwithdrawing southward without delay while the narrow isthmus between the lakes was still open. But throughout the Day of the Assumption Klyuev dithered until evening, and he was still in the same place when night fell.\n\nDuring that period of inactivity the Narva and Ko-por regiments abandoned Hohenstein to the Germans and retreated south. At the same time, the two bat-tahons left as a rearguard in Allenstein were overwhelmed and cut to pieces by German cavalry (the civilian inhabitants joined in by firing out of windows, and a machine gun opened up from the lunatic asylum, still hung with a notice in Russian requesting that the inmates should not be disturbed). The supply trains, which had sensibly been sent to the rear that morning by a detour, were seized and their escort killed to a man. Acting as cover for the rest of the corps while it marked time to no purpose, the Neva regiment took a severe beating as it fought in the forest. But the unit which did most to guarantee Klyuev's security while he stood still instead of pulling out of trouble by a tactical withdrawal was the Dorogobuzh regiment, left to fight a rear-guard action six miles back.\n\nSoon after leaving Allenstein, the Dorogobuzh regiment, made up of three under-strength battalions, was drawn into a rear-guard battle. Its commander. Colonel Kabanov, received no phased plan of withdrawal from corps headquarters but was simply told to conduct a rear-guard action until he was relieved. It is very probable that Colonel Kabanov's opinion of Lieutenant General Klyuev and of his plans and dispositions was extremely unflattering, but this in noway influenced Kabanov's execution of his duty. He had one task to perform: to judge where and how he could best delay the enemy pressing forward, and then to hold him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We, whose daily life is governed by considerations of self-preservation, are able to ignore the enigma of professional officers and other people whose behavior is guided by a sense of duty (as if such people, though they are trained in a hard school, were not recruited from ordinary mortals like ourselves): how is it that\n\nthey will unflinchingly face a premature death, so fatal to the plans they have made for their lives? What makes a human being cease to shun death? In every army there area number of outstanding officers in whom is concentrated the utmost potential of manly courage.\n\nAt a time such as that Day of the Assumption, Colonel Kabanov clearly did not pay excessive regard to doubts or dilemmas (if one is a professional soldier, it is part of one's job to die sooner or later). Obviously, he would have laid down his life without hesitation if by doing so he could delay the enemy. But to achieve this effectively he would have to use all his troops, especially since the forces pressing them amounted to a whole German division. If he was troubled by doubt, it can only have been whether he should try to save the main body of the corps by the sacrifice of his beloved regiment or attempt to get the regiment away to safety. For the regimental commander, the agony of his position was that he must assume the role of fate for the men under his command: it was he who would have to pronounce sentence of death on his regiment. Kabanov had been given no artillery support. His ammunition wagons had been unable to get through to his position, and as a result he was so short of ammunition that only one out of four of his machine guns could operate. Before long, there would be no rifle ammunition either. So in the fourteenth year of the twentieth century the only weapon left to the Dorogobuzh regiment with which to fight against German artillery was the Russian bayonet. Evidently, the regiment was doomed to perish; but though the death sentence which he had to pronounce on every single man lay on his conscience, this did not affect the clarity with which he took the necessary decisions: whereto draw his boundary lines, whereto position strong points so that bayonet attacks could be made across the shortest possible stretches of ground, how to sell their lives most dearly, and how to gain as much time as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One such boundary Kabanov chose at Dereuten, where the high ground was favorable; one of his\n\nflanks was secured by a large lake, the other by a chain of smaller lakes. There the Dorogobuzh regiment stood and held its ground throughout the bright, sunny afternoon and the evening. There they exhausted their ammunition; there they counter-attacked three times with the bayonet; there, at the age of fifty-three, Colonel Kabanov was killed, and of every company fewer than one in twenty were left alive.\n\nThis miracle was due to more than just the bravery of the officers. Half of the troops were reservists whoa mere month ago had reported to their assembly points wearing bast shoes, fresh from their villages, their fields, 3ieir private aspirations, and their families. They knew nothing about European politics, the war, the battle that Second Army was fighting, or the objectives of their army corps, whose designation they did not even know. And yet they did not runaway, they did not waver or malinger, but drew on some unknown source of strength to cross the barrier that divides a man's love of family and instinct of self-preservation from devotion to cruel duty. Three times they stood up and walked into fire with their silent bayonets. If that regiment, instead of the Narva regiment, had been set down in the midst of the booty of the empty town of Hohenstein, it too would have looted and swilled (indeed, a week before, the Dorogobuzh regiment had broached the liquor barrels in Willenberg). And if it had been the men of the Narva regiment that had been obliged to fight that rear-guard action (though, despite Tolstoy's view, they would have needed Kabanov and his battalion commanders), they too would have attained the heights of bravery in which simple peasants are transformed into heroes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had burned their boats. Others like them would retreat, return home; they owed such men nothing: they were not their relatives, or their brothers-yet they would stand and die so that the others might live.\n\nWho knows what they thought that day, those doomed men, as they looked up into an alien blue sky, across alien lakes and forests? There they stayed,\n\nburied in communal Russian graves, which the Germans preserved at Dereuten until the Second World War.\n\nWhat did Colonel Kabanov look like? Either because his heroism passed unnoticed or because his photograph was difl& cult to find, his picture never appeared in any newspaper; and much less the faces of any of the rank and file, as it was thought quite unsuitable to publish photographs of them in newspapers or journals. It was in any case impracticable, as they were so numerous; amass, they were only of value when called upon to holdout to the death. The press did its duty by them by lumping them together under the phrase'the gray heroes.\" But photographs there were none; and more's the pity, because since then our physical characteristics have changed completely. Our features have altered, and no camera lens can ever again find those trusting, bearded men, those friendly eyes, those placid, selfless faces.\n\nNo one was sent to tell the regiment that its task was done, that it could withdraw. The Dorogobuzh regiment perished; only a very few of its men survived. Ten men carried away the body of their colonel and the colors. It is a known fact that the Germans who attacked them from AUenstein made no progress until far into the night, when it was time for them to halt and sleep.\n\nIt is not known how much longer Klyuev intended to stay where he was, but around midnight a rider broke through with an order from Army Headquarters:" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help keep the tale going for the author.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had burned their boats. Others like them would retreat, return home; they owed such men nothing: they were not their relatives, or their brothers-yet they would stand and die so that the others might live.\n\nWho knows what they thought that day, those doomed men, as they looked up into an alien blue sky, across alien lakes and forests? There they stayed,\n\nburied in communal Russian graves, which the Germans preserved at Dereuten until the Second World War.\n\nWhat did Colonel Kabanov look like? Either because his heroism passed unnoticed or because his photograph was difl& cult to find, his picture never appeared in any newspaper; and much less the faces of any of the rank and file, as it was thought quite unsuitable to publish photographs of them in newspapers or journals. It was in any case impracticable, as they were so numerous; amass, they were only of value when called upon to holdout to the death. The press did its duty by them by lumping them together under the phrase'the gray heroes.\" But photographs there were none; and more's the pity, because since then our physical characteristics have changed completely. Our features have altered, and no camera lens can ever again find those trusting, bearded men, those friendly eyes, those placid, selfless faces.\n\nNo one was sent to tell the regiment that its task was done, that it could withdraw. The Dorogobuzh regiment perished; only a very few of its men survived. Ten men carried away the body of their colonel and the colors. It is a known fact that the Germans who attacked them from AUenstein made no progress until far into the night, when it was time for them to halt and sleep.\n\nIt is not known how much longer Klyuev intended to stay where he was, but around midnight a rider broke through with an order from Army Headquarters:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In order to assist in concentrating the units of Second Army and provisioning them with all types of supplies, XIII Corps must withdraw during the night\n\nto the region, making use of the following\n\nroute between the lakes...\" (It then named a route which had been ignored the previous day and was now totally inaccessible.)\n\nThank God, Klyuev observed, no mention was made in the order of all the tasks and objectives assigned to his corps in the last few days. Coming from the hand of Postovsky, the order assumed that all was\n\npeaceful, that regular routine could take its course, and that for reprovisioning purposes it would be convenient for XIII Corps to move at night over a distance of twelve miles and across seven lakes to reach a tiny village of a dozen houses-and that there all its requirements would be met.\n\nIt was certainly in need of provisions: since leaving Allenstein on the previous day, the corps had had nothing to eat.\n\nEscape! The time had come to escape, and this order gave him a pretext to get out, as Klyuev well understood. So, by unmarked tracks and byroads, sometimes bumping into the enemy, XIII Corps melted silently away.\n\nIt no longer even amounted to a corps; it had only three regiments, all the rest having been thrown away. A further regiment had been destroyed when Klyuev left the Kashira regiment, with sixteen guns, to fight still another rear-guard action near Hohenstein. The Neva regiment now had to give up the position that it had won and hack its way throu^ the forest by night to rejoin the main body of troops. And then there was a sapper company which corps headquarters simply forgot; when it woke up next morning, it was to discover that it was alone, without orders to move and surrounded by the enemy. Further adventures awaited it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "August 15\n\nThe quartermaster general of General Headquarters, Danilov, was third in rank in the Russian army, but first in initiative. He had spent the last few days diligently working out matters of the first importance: he had drawn up one plan for the speedy transformation of conquered East Prussia into a separate governor-generalship, and another plan for the immediate cessation of warlike operations there; the task of Rennenkajnpf's army thus being completed, it would be moved forward across the Vistula for operations aimed at Berlin. As part of this plan Danilov-had asked Northwestern Army Group to have one army corps transferred from Rennen-kampf to Warsaw.\n\nSince the chief of staff of Northwestern Army Group, General Oranovsky, was in no position to protest this directive (any objection made by a junior to an order from above simply undermines his status and career prospects), he had already issued instructions for the corps in question to be pulled back to the railhead. (Rennenkampf, having misinterpreted the order of the previous night instructing him to send help to Samsonov, had pushed this corps deeper into Prussia, and received a severe reprimand for this error.) Nor did Oranovsky, in reporting to his superiors, dare lay much stress on the anxiety that was beginning to make itself felt among the staff of Northwestern Army Group. He merely reported that I Corps had been forced to withdraw near Soldau'in a certain amount of disorder\" and that the two corps of von Fran9ois and von Mackensen, \"which have disappeared from the enemy forces facing Rennenkampf,\" had suddenly\n\nshown up in front of Second Army. But General Headquarters was unperturbed by any of this, and in along telephone conversation on the night of the fifteenth to the sixteenth, Danilov, in pursuit of his latest plan, induced Oranovsky to effect the immediate transfer of the Guards Corps from Warsaw to the Austrian front, remarking with complete unconcern that Samsonov would have to do without the Guards-he already had nearly five corps anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zhilinsky and Oranovsky might have passed on some of the anxiety they felt on that day by harrying Samsonov, but to their annoyance (and partly to their relief, because he would then be entirely to blame for anything that went wrong), Samsonov cutoff communications. This absolved them of any responsibility for intervening directly to make Bla-goveshchensky's VI Corps and Artamonov's former corps (I Corps) move inward to go to the aid of the center corps of Second Army. To have done this would have been too much trouble for Army Group Headquarters; it would also have been beneath their dignity, since according to service practice they were not obliged to interfere.\n\nMeanwhile, Blagoveshchensky* s corps was living a wholly separate existence, just as if it did not form the flank of Second Army and had no responsibility toward it. Uncontrolled and unstoppable, it had rolled back almost to the Russian frontier, where it was no longer in anyone's way-indeed, it was temporarily out of the war. By sheer luck, General Blagoveschensky had avoided being suspended from command of his corps on the day before Artamonov's dismissal; this had been entirely due to the delay in communications and the adroit wording of his reports. However, after the bad fright that he had had on August 13, caused by his sudden clash with the Germans-about which the higher command had not forewarned him-and after his fear of being taken prisoner at Bischofs-burg and of being killed at Mensguth; after a series of nightmarish withdrawals on August 14 and at dawn on August 15, when a wave of terror had seized his whole corps and swept it into headlong retreat, what Blagoveshchensky needed was some\n\ntime for his nerves to recover (the more so as he was sixty years old), and a breathing space in which he would not be plagued by orders from above or be forced to spend time making them up himself. So far, thank God, no one had come from Army Headquarters to investigate the situation on the spot, so as he was cutoff from all telegraph or telephone links, Blagoveshchensky himself now had time to recuperate and to let his corps recover. Therefore, he did not order them to hold onto Ortelsburg, a road and rail junction, but to bypass it as it was on fire, to abandon it without a fight and retreat away from the roads into the depths of the countryside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How Blagoveshchensky wished that the detachment of dragoons which he had sent off the previous night with a dispatch to Samsonov would never return! Of course he did not wish them killed, but merely that they might be detained at Army Headquarters and attached to some o* her unit. And if they did return with orders, let it not be today, but tomorrow or the day after, which would give them the chance to repair their morale by getting a good night's sleep in some quiet spot. Alas, his hopes were in vain. The tireless dragoons made their way back across thirty miles of enemy country, and at midday on August 15 they arrived, bringing these lines, written in Samsonov's sprawling hand: \"Hold your ground at all costs in the area of Ortelsburg. On the staunchness of your corps depends...\"\n\nHopeless! Ortelsburg was fourteen miles away... Profoundly depressed, Blagoveshchensky read and reread the impossible order. He summoned his staff officers and discussed with them in detail the reasons why it was out of the question to carryout these unwelcome instructions.\n\nSo Blagoveshchensky decided, for the safety and well-being of the corps that was entrusted to him (and to the relief of many of his subordinate officers), to revise the army commander's directive: not only would the corps not move that day, but he would declare the following day a rest period. The only person to exert himself would be Blagoveshchensky himself: he would compose a carefully worded, convincing dispatch explaining why\n\nhe had had no alternative but to abandon Ortels-burg: \"... On approaching Ortelsburg, we found the whole town on fire, having been set alight by the inhabitants. It was, of course, a deliberate trap. Realizing that it was impossible to remain on the heights above the town, I withdrew the corps southward.\" Then he added: \"The men are exhausted. I request permission to give them a day of rest.\" He skillfully decided not to send the document at once (by dispatch rider to the nearest town inside Russian territory, thence by telegraph), but to wait until the following morning, when the day of rest would already have begun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for I Corps (where Artamonov, although dismissed, still made his presence felt to the nervous General Masalsky, who had temporarily assumed command for twenty-four hours before Dushkevich arrived and took over), lacking a guiding hand and demoralized by its retreat, it had also taken the line of least resistance and withdrawn for safety to Mlawa, across the Russian frontier. Although the frontier was not fortified, was not even a line of trenches but merely an imaginary boundary on a map, it was reassuring because it offered apparent protection from the Germans. The senior officers of I Corps knew that Neidenburg was already in enemy hands; yet, in the absence of firm instructions ordering them to take decisive action, not one of the dozen or so generals was capable of acting decisively on his own initiative.\n\nThus, on August 15, the Russians did everything needed to insure their opponents'triumph-^ the long-awaited revanche of Tannenberg Only the doomed center corps failed to behave submissively. The Kexholm regiment, which only reached the front line at midday, had by evening lost more than half of its complement. The battle at Waplitz ruined the Germans\" plan fora'tight\" encircling movement around Hohenstein. All the battles in the center that day were either won by the Russians or at least not won by the Germans. But in the vortex of the fighting, the aspect of war can turn and be altered so completely that what is won by first-class regiments is thereupon reduced to ashes by incompetent command at corps and army level. With each\n\ntactical engagement won in the center, the Russians were more and more the losers in the battle as a whole and plunged themselves deeper into ruin.\n\nOn the German side, however, none of this was quite so obvious. The costly attacks made by von Scholtz's divisions all seemed to end clumsily in setbacks, due to failures in coordination. Frequently the German infantry took their own returning cavalry for Russian cavalry, and subjected them to heavy fire, at times even routing them. German guns fired on their own troops; a unit was hit by sudden enfilading fire from the Russians and thrown back. After fighting all day, they hardly gained an inch. In Kammerwald Forest a whole division, including its headquarters, was cut to pieces by the Neva regiment. Even Hindenburg and Ludendorfif, in their car, were briefly caught up in a panic near Miihlen that day, caused by Russian prisoners: some medical units and artillery ammunition trains had mistaken the prisoners for fighting troops and had fled with shouts of: \" The Russians are coming!\" " }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two German corps commanders, von Below and von Mackensen, spent the day arguing over who should advance on Hohenstein and who should move southward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the senior in rank, von Mackensen ordered von Below to clear the way for his corps. Von Below refused to obey. An airman was sent to Army Headquarters fora solution to the argument. Then von Mackensen stopped moving altogether and gave his corps a day of rest. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon before Hindenburg managed to reach von Mackensen by telephone and ordered him to advance southward to carry, out the encircling movement. Less than an hour after this telephone call, however, the encirclement plan had to be abandoned, and both von Mackensen and von Below were made to wheel and face Rennenkampf. Information (false) had been received that three of Rennenkampfs corps, together with his cavalry, were moving westward, at a moment when the German corps were in disarray and had their backs turned to this new threat. (Ludendorff wrote: \"Rennenkampf need only have closed with us and we would have been beaten.\")\n\nIn actual fact, Zhilinsky's principal order to Ren-\n\nnenkampf that day was to advance to surround and maintain observation on Konigsberg (which was garrisoned by a handful of elderly reservists and second-line troops). However, on the night of the fourteenth to the fifteenth, still possessed by anxiety over the incomprehensible goings-on over on Sam-sonov's front and the appearance thereof new German corps, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky sent Ren-nenkampf a telegram ordering him to make a left-flanking movement toward Samsonov and to push his cavalry forward in that direction. In order not to disturb General Rennenkampfs sleep, the telegram was not delivered to him until six o'clock the next morning. He issued the necessary orders, but the main cavalry force (commanded by General Khan Nakhichevansky) was unable to get on the move until the evening of the fifteenth; General Gurko was nearer to the scene of the fighting, but he, too, failed to arrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the German army in Prussia, the orders for August 16 had already been altered and redrafted. Ludendorff does not mention those particular orders in his memoirs, but in Golovin's opinion they were excellently drawn up according to the very best principles of military science: with a minimum of redeployment by von Mackensen's and von Below's corps anew front was formed against Rennenkampf, while von Frangois's and von Scholtz's corps, by simultaneously pursuing and enveloping Samsonov, formed a trawl net, open atone end, which would also serve to scoop up the approaching Rennenkampf.\n\nOn the evening of that day-the very day on which German Supreme Headquarters withdrew two corps from the Marne to reinforce the army in Prussia!-^ Army Headquarters in East Prussia, aban'doning its dream of another Cannae, reported to Supreme Headquarters:\" The battle is won. Pursuit wiU be resumed tomorrow. Encirclement of the northern corps probably no longer possible.\"\n\nThe decision made by Hindenburg and Ludendorff was a triumph of mediocrity. The only thing it lacked was the flash of intuition.\n\nThat spark of intuition came, however, from the self-willed von Francois, who was probably ignor-\n\nant of Tolstoy's advice: \"It is senseless to stand in the path of men who are bending all their energies to escape.\" In disregard of his orders, von Francois drove his uhlans, his cycle troops, and his armored cars on and on-through Neidenburg and ever farther eastward toward Willenberg.\n\nAnd the stubborn von Mackensen, cursing at the change in orders from Army Headquarters and offended by the way his quarrel with von Below had been decided, broke off communications (allegedly before the rewritten orders reached him) and then, inaccessible to any further changes and counter-orders, set off hell-bent southward-also to Willenberg!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor should we forget the imperturbably efficient German supply services, who saw to it that, despite all the sudden changes in plan, the German troops lacked for nothing.\n\nMaking a farewell tour of Moscow on foot, be it only of the chief sights, is an undertaking beyond even the powers of two tireless pairs of young legs. Where three or four roads branch out from every crossroads, each street not chosen is a whole lost tour. They spent the morning in the offices of the Alexandrovsky Military Academy, where they were told to report back in the evening; then a final visit to the university, and with that their official business was largely done. For the rest of their time they were free to say a last, sentimental goodbye to the city. Although they were not Muscovites bom but temporary citizens by adoption, they felt a heavy pang of regret-ah, Moscow!-and the thought of leaving it hurt them.\n\nThe traditional starting pomt for anyone arriving in Moscow or leaving it was the spacious square in front of the Church of Christ the Saviour. From there you had to stroll only a short way along the embankment to seethe vast, unique Moscow roofscape-^ towering housetops, belfries, the turrets of the Kremlin. As 2 of their own accord, then: legs took them along the embankment-a hundred yards wide and with a completely different set of views from the houses on one side and the riverside parapet on the other. The bridges invited them to cross to the far bank: over there was the Tretyakov Gallery, and they would have liked at least to have patted the familiar tracery on its walls, but there was no time to spare. Instead, a look around the Kremlin-it was a unique sight, a walk they had never taken before because they had always been too busy, but this was just the moment to see it at last. So they toured those cities-within-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cities, the Kremlin and Kitaigorod, the districts of the Varvarka and the Ilinka, and Nikolskaya Street-crammed with houses adorned with carved and molded stucco fagades, with a church on every comer crowded with worshippers for the Day of the Assumption, each street, so it seemed, with at least two monasteries, with noblemen's palaces and cramped, jostling shops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Did you know that old Moscow was not built to any plan? Perhaps that was a good thing: everyone simply fenced off apiece of land wherever he thought fit, so that no one comer of the city is like another, and this is what gives Moscow its character.\n\nThere was so much else they wanted to do: seethe ring boulevards and the lakes, pay their respects to the Moscow Arts Theater, stuff themselves at the food stands on Okhotny Ryad, and then wander down every single one of the little alleyways around the Arbat. But when would they find the time? They still had to go back to the Academy and collect their papers and their posting orders. And how could they miss a visit to the Pushkin statue on Strastnoi Boulevard? And what about a trolley ride? No, that would feel too much as if their student days were completely over and they were saying goodbye to them forever. Of course those days were not over! Other young men might never comeback from the war, but they would. Of course they would return and finish their courses, take their degrees...\n\nThe dear old place was just the same; and now that they were taking their leave of them, the pavements and roadways somehow felt softer to walk on, as though their feet were striking the ground with less than the full force of gravity. In the two short years since Sanya and Kotya had first stepped out onto the square in front of the station in Moscow, they not only had come to know and love Moscow but in a certain sense had already outgrown it-and with that sense of slight superiority they now felt a particularly generous affection for it.\n\nIn their tour of Moscow there was another thing they noticed: the city did not seem very conscious of the war, did not sense it as something fateful. If\n\none had not heard about the war and had not peered hard at the few announcements posted here and there, or if one had failed to notice an occasional squad of soldiers from a reserve regiment being marched to the public baths, it was quite possible to be unaware that Russia had been at war for four weeks. The pedestrians and carriages in the Moscow streets were no fewer, the faces and the colors of people's clothes had not darkened, the shops were as cheerfully noisy, the showcases as bright as ever. There were perhaps a few more men in uniform, and a few flags and portraits of the Tsar, not yet taken down after the pomp and splendor of his recent visit to Moscow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kotya and Sanya kept up a lively exchange of comments on all this; the sum total of it, however, aroused a hint of doubt which disturbed them both and which neither mentioned aloud: had they not, they wondered, been too hasty and made too rash a decision in cutting themselves off from this exciting, carefree, abundant life? It would have felt quite natural to leave Moscow if the city had been in a mood of grief and mourning or anger-^ but were they not in a little too much of a hurry to say goodbye to a place that was so fuU of vitality and gaiety? However, as long as this doubt stayed deep inside them, vague and unspoken, it remained unreal. For one of them to have brought it out into the open by uttering it aloud would have meant hurting the other, and neither of them could be so unkind. Kotya in particular was incapable of mentioning it, because that would have implied a reproach to Sanya for having come to Kotya in Rostov and proposed that they should both volunteer for the army. The idea, after all, had been Sanya's in the first place. It was quite another matter that Kotya had instantly agreed: \"You're right, let's go!\" To be honest, the thought had never occurred to him until Sanya had arrived, but in a second it had dawned on him that of course they should join up. His mother would object strongly, but they had to go all the same. ( She objected so violently, in fact, that they had to suffer the nervous strain of twelve continuous hours of tearful entreaty, imtil finally Kotya left his robust, sturdily\n\nbuilt mother prostrate in a faint.) Even this morning, in the oflfices of the Academy, it had not been too late to withdraw (although they would have been too ashamed to do so in front of each other), but now there was no going back. The two friends were more carefree than ever as they laughed and shared all their thoughts-all, that is, except one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On their second visit to the Academy they were given posting orders to the Sergievsky Heavy-Artillery School, which was what they had wanted, and were told when to report there next morning and what to bring with them. The church bells were ringing for Vespers when, their feet aching pleasantly from so much walking, they crossed Arbat Square toward Nikitsky Boulevard, then walked between the glass cases of Blank's Zoological Store (a magnet for small boys) and the Church of St. Boris and St. Gleb, down an alleyway so narrow that two drunks clutching each other could hardly pass through but along which by some amazing feat a little trolley car managed to squeeze its way. As it turned into the Vozdvizhenka, the warning clang of its bell mingled with the vaster tolling of church bells and the general hubbub of the Arbat-the clatter of cab horses\" hoofs, the ponderous clip-clop and rumbling wheels of a dray passing over the cobbles, the shouts of news venders, and the cries of hawkers. \"Out of my way there!\" came the peremptory bark of a cabdriver to a pedestrian. \"Gid-dup!\" shouted another as he whipped up his horse, one wheel of his cab scraping the curbstone.\n\nAs evening approached, the two young men found themselves growing more sensitive to various powerful aromas wafting on the air-the smell of a pastry cook's, of a cook shop, of freshly baked bread-and they planned to have a bite to eat in some tavern before continuing their stroll.\n\nThen on Nikitsky Boulevard they saw walking in the same direction ahead of them a tall, thin, gray-haired man carrying a pile of books under his arm. They recognized him almost as soon as they saw him, having once spent hours staring at his back: he was an acquaintance of theirs from the reading room of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the Rumyantsev Museum. Giving Sanya a dig in the ribs, Kotya said: \"Look-^ the Stargazer!\"\n\nAnnoyed, Sanya restrained him. Unaware of the carrying power of his voice, Kotya never could talk quietly; the Stargazer might overhear them and turnaround, which could be very embarrassing. He was not exactly an acquaintance, as they had never been introduced to him or talked to him. Once in the reading room he had reduced them to silence by glancing reproachfully in their direction when they had been whispering loudly. On another occasion, in the corridor, when he had been carrying a dozen books under his arm as he was now, and had dropped them, the two boys had happened to be there and had bounded over from either side and picked them up. After that, although strictly speaking still unacquainted, they would nod to him in passing and exchange half smiles, and they frequently saw him in the reading room. There was something distinctive about the Stargazer, even among the extremely serious, learned readers who used the library of the Rumyantsev Museum. It was partly the extreme thinness of his side view and his head, partly his dark, gUttering eyes in their cavernous sockets, which gave his face such an inveterate look of profound seriousness, or it may have been his peculiar mannerism when he was deep in thought: he would lean his elbows on the table, form his long arms into the shape of a wigwam by linking his fingers, and then, brushing them lightly with the tip of his beard, stare fixedly over the other readers' heads toward the topmost bookshelves and galleries. It was atone of these moments that Kotya had called him the Stargazer, though they had no idea what he was studying and were too embarrassed to ask him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now they both said at once: \"Shall we go and talk to him?\"\n\nThe mood of their farewell visit had overcome their natural inhibitions, they were eager to miss nothing and to seize every opportunity. Overtaking the Stargazer on either side and glancing across at each other, their friendly intonation softening the discourtesy of ad-\n\ndressing him without a name, they said in chorus: \"How do you do?\"\n\nThe old man did not start in surprise. Turning his deep-set eyes on the two young men, he looked at them (he was not as tall as they remembered; being so thin had made him appear taller than he was), recognized them, and replied: \"Ah, young men! Delighted.\" Arranging his pile of books with his left hand, he held out the other to them. The wrist that emerged from his cuff was thin, but his palm was as broad as a workman's. \"The name's Varsonofiev.\"\n\nThey introduced themselves. Fora moment they stood silent in their pale, belted linen shirts and students'caps. Then Kotya took the initiative and announced loudly: \"It's our last day! Tomorrow we join the army-as volunteers.\"\n\nHe was not bragging; it was simply his nature to sing out aloud whatever was on his mind. His broad face, with its high cheekbones, shone with enthusiasm, and his arms spontaneously flung themselves wide to express his zest for life.\n\nPavel Ivanovich Varsonofiev allowed the stiff bristles of his clipped graybeard and his thick gray moustache to part slightly. It was obviously a smile, although his Ups could hardly be seen. Staring intently at them each in turn, he said: \"Really? H'mmm.\" His voice, which seemed to issue from cavernous depths, was a deep rumble. He looked at them again. \"Aren't you afraid that your friends will sneer at you as^ patriots'?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, er...\" Sanya tried to find something to say in self-justification. \"Of course, they do callus that. But then in a certain sense that's what we are...\"\n\n\"And why shouldn't one be patriotic?\" Kotya blurted out loudly and aggressively. \"After all, we didn't attack them-they attacked us. Or, at any rate, they attacked Serbia.\"\n\nHis head bent forward, the old man gave them a searching look. \"Indeed, so it would seem. I only ask because, until a few weeks ago, to call someone a patriot in Russia was practically equivalent to calling him a member of the Black Hundreds.\"\n\n\"What do you think, though?\" Kotya pressed him. \"Are we domg the right thing, or not?\"\n\nThis was a heaven-sent opportunity for Kotya to raise the question which had been troubling him and to test his own feelings without offending his friend. The old fellow might come outwith something sensible.\n\nVarsonofiev raised an eyebrow: \"Whether you are doing right or wrong depends on your convictions.\" Then, with a sparkle in his dark, piercing eyes, he inquired: \"I suppose you are sociaUsts?\"\n\nShyly, Sanya shook his head.\n\nKotya pursed his lips as though deploring the suggestion.\n\n\"What? You aren't? Then I hope you are at least anarchists?\"\n\nNeither of the boys gave an affirmative nod. They noticed that the old man did not seem to be making fun of them-or rather it was unimaginable that his deeply serious features should ever express sarcasm. Although it was hard to detect anything in the way of an expression in the slight movement of his lips between his beard and moustache, there was a faint but definite gleam in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I for one am a Hegelian,\" Kotya declared firmly and solemnly. He had a very decisive way of speaking, jaw firm and chin thrust out.\n\n\"A pure HegeUan?\" said the old man in amazement. \"That's a rarity!\"\n\n\"That's right-a pure Hegelian,\" Kotya affirmed proudly. \"And he\"-poking his finger into Sanya's chest-\"is a Tolstoyan.\"\n\nThey had meanwhile started walking again, back along the Nikitsky Boulevard.\n\n\"A Tolstoyan?\" The old man sounded even more surprised as he looked the shy, diffident Sanya up and down. \"Good heavens, how can you go to war, then?\"\n\nHe saw how crushing and wounding this remark was. Sanya knew only too well that he was behaving inconsistently; unable to find anything to say and looking deeply pained, he could only brush his soft, corn-colored hair away from his forehead.\n\n\"Oh, he's serious about it, all right!\" Kotya groaned, feeling more and more at ease with this splendid old man. \"He didn't eat meat for two years. Today in Okhotny Ryad I managed to stuff some meat pies down him for the first time. Just think how he'll manage in the army. He won't be able to pick and choose there-you all eat out of one pot.\"\n\nSanya was not upset at this teasing between friends. He smiled gently, but still felt awkward.\n\nGlancing kindly at them both, the old man asked: \"Well, young men, if you're not in a hurry to join some young ladies, why don't we have a glass of beer? And I expect you're hungry, aren't you?\"\n\nNo, they were not going to see any young ladies. Scarcely exchanging a glance, they accepted with delight. Gettmg to know the Stargazer better would be a fascinating way of spending the rest of their last day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then, if you wouldn't mind, just wait a moment for me here-I have to go to the chemist's.\"\n\nThey were standing at the side of the chemist's shop on the comer of Nikitsky Boulevard, and Varsonofiev went around the comer. He stooped slightly as he walked.\n\n\"Hell!\" Kotya burst out. \"We should have offered to carry his books for him, then we could have seen what they were. We didn't think of looking when we picked them up for him that day in the library, either. Listen, don't goon about Tolstoy too much, everyone knows all about Tolstoy and Tolstoyans.\"\n\nSanya smiled in agreement.\n\n\"The best thing is to let him say what he thinks about us joining the army. Then we'll get him to talk about history-you know, give us his general ideas about Russia and the West, and soon...\"\n\nTrolleys passed, clanging, their pickups hissing along the wires; cabs trotted by, their pace brisk or leisurely depending on the kind of passengers; passers-by streamed unconcernedly along the boulevard, as though oblivious of the war. A girl with long plaits carried her score to a music lesson; a scmffy waiter in a stained white jacket trotted across the road with a pile of covered dishes, delivering an outside order. Be-\n\nside the semicircular building at the intersection of Nikitsky Boulevard, which was livened up by a gay advertisement for'Uncle Kostya\" cigarettes, stood a tall poUceman in his black and white uniform, observing the exemplary public order around him. Other advertisements streamed past them on billboards affixed to the tops of trolley cars. The long row of shop signs, whose attractions had brought them here, immortalized the names of countless solid tradesmen in elaborate lettering-^ painted and embossed, curling and straight-and affirmed the lasting material solidity of Moscow. At the same time the city was completely unreal, because tomorrow the two boys would no longer be in it. Only the Union Cinema proclaimed that it knew this:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "IN DEFENSE OF QUR BROTHER SLAVSl\n\nSensational Kinematic Record of the Great Historic Events\n\nMeanwhile, apart from that solitary sign of the times, the city moved on and stood still, changed and stayed the same, unaware in its vast insensitivity of the special, exalted character of this, their last day, unconcerned at the braveness of the step they were taking. Whether the massive city collapsed or survived no longer mattered to them, because they had already absorbed all that was best in Moscow and would carry it away with them, locked within, together with their own unique selves.\n\nThen they did something that they called'starting to sneeze.\"\n\nLeaning his head back slightly, Sanya narrowed his eyes and said pensively as he put his hands on his friend's shoulders: \"Listen. All this... all this...\" He looked around in search of words to sum it all up, but could not find them. Anyway, they both knew what he meant-no two people understood each other better. \"We must comeback hereafter the war. To this same spot. Shall we?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" As a sign of agreement, Kotya grasped him under the armpits and lifted him a little off the\n\nground; he was as strong as Ivan Poddubny, the great wrestler.\n\nTheir buoyant spirits carried them high above the gleaming, clanging, clattering, seething reality around them. A force of furious joy propelled them into the future. And if disaster were to strike, or had already struck, they were convinced that they could survive unharmed, that they could savor even the fearful beauty of catastrophe.\n\nVarsonofiev came out of the chemist's shop and waved them toward the Union Cinema. They noticed now that he did not stoop but held his head of gray-white hair, cut en brosse, slightly forward, as though he were straining to hear or see something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a very decent beerhouse under the Union, and it's usually full of interesting people.\"\n\nThe old man was not soother-worldly as he had seemed; he obviously knew his way around.\n\nAs they walked in, the first thing that struck them were the smells-warm, delicious, tangy smells, mixed with an overpowering aroma of beer. The place simply consisted of three interconnecting rooms, one of them giving onto Nikitsky Boulevard and another onto an interior courtyard, and they passed through into the last room. Kotya nudged Sanya: sitting over beer and vobla was a famous professor from the Natural Science Faculty, surrounded by students. Here and there were army officers, and some men who looked like lawyers. There was not a woman to be seen. The place was a haven of male leisure. One could see from the quantities of beer bottles-^ left on the tables as a means of adding up the bill-that people spent hours here, talking to their hearts' content. They also read newspapers and magazines supplied by the management. As they walked through, Kotya picked up a copy of Niva and Sanya took Russkoye Slovo. They chose a table by a window, beside a huge pile of beer crates.\n\n\"The war news is good so far,\" said Sanya as he glanced through the newspaper. \"We're advancing in Austria and in Prussia. It's going well everywhere.\"\n\n* Roach, a fish delicacy in Russia, eaten as a snack with drinks.\n\n\"Listen to this!\" Kotya exclaimed loudly. \"An order to the troops by the British War Minister Lord Kitchener: ... Treat women with courtesy, but avoid intimacy with them! ' How about that, eh? What are they worrying about?\" He burst into deafening laughter; it really was very funny. The beerhouse was not a quiet place: all around, people were talking noisily and laughing. By now they were both extremely hungry, their appetites titillated by their sense of smell, and they were more than ready fora drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well now, young men-^ what is it to be? Solyanka, meatballs, scrambled eggs?\" said the old man invitingly, \"How do you manage about meat?\" he inquired solicitously of Sanya.\n\n\"\"Solyanka for both of us!\"said Kotya firmly.\" You'll just have to make a clean sweep of it, Sanya. You're going off to fight anyway, so that makes nonsense of all your Tolstoyan ideas. Just for the occasion and in honor of Pavel Ivanovich, stop fasting and eat some red meat for once!\"\n\nAt that moment some solyanka was carried by, the thick, deUcious soup giving off clouds of subtle, tantalizing vapor. Sanya gave Pavel Ivanovich a defensive, guilty look, in an agony of choice. But as he had already eaten meat pies and was about to set off to kill people, it would be hypocritical to spht hairs over a bowl of solyanka.\n\nVarsonofiev ordered two. \"What about you, Pavel Ivanovich?\" The Stargazer held up one long finger like a white candle. \"At your age, eating is a pleasure; at my age, pleasure lies in abstinence.\"\n\n\"How old are you, Pavel Ivanovich?\" \"Around fifty.\"\n\nFrom his gray hair and fined face they had expected him to be older, but fifty was still a respectable age. Having given the order, he poured out the beer and ate some salted peas with relish. To Sanya, who had, after all, chosen solyanka with cabbage instead of meat, he said consolingly: \" What is the hardest thing to do in life? It is to adhere to a belief in its pure form, as your friend follows Hegelianism. Eclecticism is al-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ways easier-anyone can play at it. So if you haven't any teeth you must live off solyanka.\"\n\nVarsonofiev discovered that they had finished their third year in the Faculty of History and Philology, that Kotya was more of a historian, Sanya more of a philologist. With poUte interest he asked Kotya a more specific question: \"Might I ask which of Hegel's ideas, for instance, is your favorite? Just say the first one that comes to mind.\"\n\nAs easily as it broke into laughter, Kotya's broad Slav face took on a pensive look. There was so much that he found fascinating in Hegel-the dialectic, his defense of a principle for its undeveloped potential... But he knew which concept appealed to him most.\n\n\"The idea of advance by the \"dialectical leap.\"\"\n\nKotya found something very attractive in the'dialectical leap.\"\n\nDelightedly, Varsonofiev clasped his fingers on the table. \"But if you area Hegelian, then you must afl& rm the existence of the state.\"\n\n\"Yes... I do,\" Kotya agreed after a slight hesitation.\n\n\"But the state does not like a sharp break with the past. It favors gradualism. A sudden change, a leap forward, is destructive to the state.\"\n\nThey ate, and drank the strong and perfectly cooled beer. Varsonofiev nibbled at some salted biscuits. His teeth were white, umblemished, and even.\n\n\"And may one ask, Pavel Ivanovich,\" Kotya boomed, \"what you do? You see, we tried to guess...\"\n\n\"Well, let me see... I read certain books and write certain others. I read thick ones and write thin ones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not exactly clear.\"\n\n\"When things are too clear, they are no longer interesting.\"\n\nKotya's manner of blurting out his thoughts without regard for politeness made Sanya wince. In an effort to make the talk soundless like an interrogation, he said: \"Do you really think so?\"\n\n\"You see, the more important something is to us,\n\nthe more impenetrable it seems. Only simpletons find things absolutely clear. The best poetry of all is in riddles. Haven't you noticed what delicate complexity of thought there is in a riddle?\"\n\n\"\"I have two ends, I have two rings, and a nail right through the middle\"!\" Kotya said, reciting with the snappy rhythm of an abacus, and burst into laughter. Loud though it was, his laugh was drowned by the general babble; cutoff by the wall of sound around them, they could hear each other more clearly than if they had been in quieter surroundings.\n\n\"I know a better one than that,\" said Varsonofiev, savoring the last of his beer and pouring out some more all around. \" At eventide the little white hare is running free, by midnight she's served on a platter.\"\"\n\nHe pronounced the words in a peculiar, deep, singsong tone, unlike his normal voice and in even greater contrast to the booming chorus of beery, guzzling men around them.\n\n\"What's the answer to that one?\" asked Kotya quickly.\n\nIn the same mysterious voice came the oracular reply from between the old man's moustache and beard: \"A bride.\"\n\n\"Why on a platter?\"\n\n\"Because if one simply said* on a bed'there would be no riddle. It's a poetic metaphor. She's on a platter because she has been handed over, helpless, spread-eagled.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Did Sanya blush slightly? No, he was thinking it over.\n\nThey ate and drank some more. Varsonofiev mentioned something to do with Tolstoyanism. Kotya, who could not tolerate the subject, rushed to his friend's defense. \"Don't provoke him-^ he's not really much of a Tolstoyan, you know. In his village, for instance, they call him a narodnik.\"\n\nVarsonofiev puffed out his moustache. \"Well, really, I have fallen among strange company-^ you seem to profess every possible creed!\"\n\nAnd he ordered four more bottles of beer.\n\n\"But words get worn out and often obscure the mean-\n\ning of things after awhile. What does it mean to be a narodnik nowadays?\"\n\nIgnoring what was on the table in front of him, Sanya concentrated his thoughts. For all its glowing health and steppe-land sunburn, which was noticeable even in the dim light cast by the little windows of the beerhouse, his face had a softness that was quite untypical of a Kuban farmer's son; in the gentle blue eyes beneath the tousled fringe of hair, one could read unceasing mental effort. He was not very keen to talk, and when he did speak he was always ready to make concessions to the other person. \"Well... It's someone who loves the people. Believes in their spiritual strength. Places their eternal interests above his own petty, short-term ones. Someone who doesn't live for himself but for the people's happiness.\"\n\n\"Happiness?\"\n\n\"Ye-yes, for their happiness.\"\n\nGleaming brightly, though screened behind the broad ridge of his eyebrows, Varsonofiev's eyes pursued their quarry. \"But, for the majority of the people, happiness is having enough to eat, enough to wear-in fact, prosperity and material satisfaction, isn't it? Do you tiiink a whole century is needed to feed and clothe them? As for their \"eternal interests,\" presumably the obstacles to realizing them are poverty, serfdom, lack of education, bad government-and to change all that and put it right, do you think the narodniks will need three generations?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, possibly.\"\n\nStaring ahead, as he was able to do without blinking, Varsonofiev kept his quarry in his sights. \"And if all these narodniks, in trying to save nothing less than all the people, refuse to save themselves until that goal is reached? According to their creed, they are forced to. And they are equally forced, are they not, to regard anyone who does not sacrifice himself for the people as worthless-everyone, for instance, who is concerned with art for art's sake or with abstract speculation on the meaning of life, or worst of all, with rehgion-everyone, in fact, who cultivates and saves his own soul.\"\n\nSanya listened with painful attentiveness. He raised\n\nhis hand, holding up a finger to get his word in before he forgot what he wanted to say. \"But can't a soul be saved in the very process of sacrificing itself for the people?\"\n\nVarsonofiev blew through his moustache. \"But what if that sacrifice proves to have been misconceived? Don't the people have any obligations? Or do they only have rights? Are they simply meant to sit and wait while we first supply them with happiness, then provide for their'eternal interests\"? And what if the people themselves aren't ready? Because if they aren't, then neither food nor education nor a change of institutions will be of any use.\"\n\nSanya wiped his forehead, staring fixedly at Varsonofiev as though he could draw understanding directly from the other man's eyes. \"Not ready-^ but in what sense? In moral stature? In that case, who is?\"\n\n\"Exactly-who is? It maybe that the people were at a high level of moral development before the Mongol invasions in the Middle Ages; and we have assumed that they have retained that level ever since. But once serfdom was introduced, and tsars and revolutionaries began alternately to shackle the people and incite them to throw off their chains-starting, perhaps, with Ivan the Terrible, or, if you prefer, with Peter the Great on the one hand and the rebel Puga-chev on the other, right up to the present fumbling regime and including the 1905 revolution-^ who knows what happened to the Russian people? What is written on their inscrutable faces now? What goes on in their heart of hearts? Look at our waiter over there-a pretty unpleasant-looking face, don't you think? Upstairs in the Union Cinema there's a pianist thumping away in the dark: what sort of an ugly mug does he have, and what lurks in his soul? Why should one perpetually be obliged to sacrifice oneself for his sake?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A cinema pianist and a waiter,\" Kotya objected, \"hardly constitute \"the people.\"\"\n\n\"Then who does?\" Varsonofiev turned his gray, bristling head toward Kotya. \" How much longer must we continue to identify \"the people\" with the peasantry?\n\nAugust 1914 All\n\nMillions of peasants have left the land-^ what has become of them?\"\n\n\"In that case, we need a strictly scientific definition of what we mean by \"the people.\"\"\n\n\"Yes, we all like being scientific, but the fact remains that, so far, no one has ever defined precisely who \"the people\" are. At all events, it isn't just the illiterate peasantry. Nor can you treat the intelligentsia as separate from'the people. '\"\n\n\"So you must define the intelligentsia too!\" Kotya said, forcibly as ever.\n\n\"No one can do that either. The clergy, for instance-^ you don't regard them as part of the intelligentsia, do you?\" He caught a momentary snort of agreement on Kotya's part. \"And no one who holds \"reactionary\" views counts as one of the intelligentsia either, though he maybe the most eminent philosopher. But students, of course, are automatically members of the intelligentsia, including failures and second-year blockheads who need a trot to pass their exams...\"\n\nUnable to keep up his earnest tone, Varsonofiev parted his bearded moustache in an unmistakable laugh. Beer froth clung to his whiskers. Beckoning to the unpleasant-looking waiter, he said: \"Two more bottles, please.\"\n\nThe seriousness which had informed the conversation was dissipated, but Sanya was still held by it: he felt there was something in the short discussion that had been left unresolved and hanging in the air. He was not simply reflecting on their talk; he was overwhelmed by it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By the way, young men, if it's not an impolite question, I'd very much hke to know who your parents are. What is your social background?\"\n\nKotya blushed deeply and fell silent, as though he had choked. After a pause, he said reluctantly: \"My father's dead.\" And poured himself some more beer.\n\nSanya knew that this was Kotya's raw spot: he was ashamed that his mother was a stallkeeper in the market, and he avoided the subject whenever possible.\n\nTearing himself away from the problem which was still worrying him, Sanya spoke up for his friend: \"His grandfather was a fisherman on the river Don. And my parents are peasants. I'm the first person in our family to go to the university.\"\n\nGratified, Varsonofiev linked and unlinked his fingers. \"There you are-a perfect example. You are both from the land and you are both students at Moscow University. You belong both to the people and to the intelligentsia. You are narodniks-and you volunteer to go to war to defend the state.\"\n\nThe choice was indeed difficult as well as flattering: to which category did they really belong?\n\nKotya slit open a fish as thou^ cutting into his own flesh. \"I thmk I'm beginning to understand that you are not exactly a supporter of democracy-is that right?\"\n\nVarsonofiev made a sUght affirmative inclination of his head and asked: \"How did you guess?\"\n\n\"So you don't think democracy is the highest form of government?\"\n\n\"I do not,\" he said quietly but firmly.\n\n\"Then what would you propose instead?\" Kotya rejoined with his keen, almost childlike enthusiasm.\n\n\"Propose? I wouldn't venture to.\" His dark eyes flashed from their twin caverns. \"Who is conceited enough to imagine that he can actually devise ideal institutions? The only people who think they can are those who believe that nothing significant was ever done before their own time, that their generation will be the first to achieve anything worthwhile, people who are convinced that only they and their current idols possess the truth, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them is a fool or a knave.\" The old man seemed to be growing angry, but checked himself. \"I'm not specifically accusing the youth of Russia; it's a universal law-intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sanya could hardly keep up. While listening to each new turn the conversation took, he was still mentally struggling with the previous phase-they had touched\n\non so many things, dropped them and passed on. However, leaving the rest aside as hopeless, he seized on the last subject. \"In general, though, do you believe that it is possible to develop an ideal social order?\"\n\nVarsonofiev's resigned yet unwavering stare was capable of kindness, as was his voice, and the look he gave Sanya was kindly. Quietly, pausing occasionally, he said: \"The word'develop'has a better and more important application-^ we should develop our soul. There is nothing more precious than the development of a man's own soul; it is more important than the well-being of countless future generations.\"\n\nThat was it-that was the thought they had failed to pursue earlier! It was the need for that choice that Sanya had been groping for. The cultivation of one's own soul: wasn't that what Tolstoy had taught? But then what of the people's happiness? Were the two incompatible?\n\nLines of concentration spread across Sanya's forehead. Varsonofiev went on: \"Above aU, each one of us is called upon to perfect the development of his own soul.\"\n\n\"What do you mean-called upon?\" Kotya interrupted.\n\n\"Another riddle!\" Varsonofiev held up a finger to stop him. \"It is the reason why, while you may pray for the people and sacrifice everything for their good, you must never trample your own soul underfoot-for who knows when one of you may not be fated to catch an echo of the true, the secret order of the world?\"\n\nAshe spoke, he looked at them both. Was this beyond them? He fell silent and drank up his beer. Then, as he had done countless times that evening, he wiped the froth from his moustache. Young people might well find his ideas tempting, as he could tell from the immediate reaction in their eyes: what if he's telling the truth? What if those vague stirrings in me really are something of ultimate importance?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the boys were still interested in their previous question: \"And what of the social order?\"\n\n\"The social order?\" With an evident waning of interest, Varsonofiev took a few peas. \" Obviously one\n\nkind is less evil than all the others. Perhaps there may even be a perfect one. Only remember, my friends, that the best social order is not susceptible to being arbitrarily constructed, or even to being scientifically constructed-everything is allegedly scientific nowadays. Do not be so arrogant as to imagine that you can invent an ideal social order, because with that invention you may destroy your beloved \"people.\" History\"-his long, thin head nodded up and down-\" history is not governed by reason.\"\n\nThere it was again! Sanya seized on the words, clasping his hands in a gesture of urgency. \"Then what is history governed by?\"\n\nBy good? By love? Pavel Ivanovich would probably reply in some such terms, which would tie in with what Sanya had already heard from many other sources. How good and how simple it would be if he were to confirm this.\n\nBut Varsonofiev disappointed him. Agaui he sprang a surprise on them. \"History is irrational, young men. It has its own, and to us perhaps incomprehensible, organic structure.\"\n\nHe said this with despair. He had been sitting bolt upright; now he sagged, leaning against the back of his chair. He was no longer looking at them but at the table or through the distorting green glass of the beer bottles. Then, although he had failed to convince either Kotya or Sanya of anything, he began speaking again, this time taking care not to be vague or inconsistent; it occurred to the two boys that he must have given lectures at sometime.\n\n\"History grows like a living tree. And as far as that tree is concerned, reason is an ax: you'll never make it grow better by applying reason to it. Or, if you prefer, history is a river; it has its own laws which govern its flow, its bends, the way it meanders. Then along come some clever people who say that it's a stagnant pond and must be diverted into another and better channel: all that's needed is to choose a better place and dig anew riverbed. But the course of a river can't be interrupted-^ break it off only an inch and it won't flow any longer. And we're being told that the bed" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "must be forcibly diverted by several thousand yards. The bonds between generations, bonds of institution, tradition, custom, are what hold the banks of the riverbed together and keep the stream flowing.\"\n\n\"So it's impossible even to propose any changes?\" said Kotya, pufi& ng his cheeks. He was tired.\n\nSanya gently put his hand on Varsonofiev's sleeve. \"Where should one look for the laws that govern the flow of the river?\"\n\n\"That's the riddle. It maybe that they are unknowable.\" The thought gave Varsonofiev no comfort, and he sighed. \"At all events, they are not to be found on the surface, where every busy little halfwit casts around for them.\" Again he raised a finger as long as a candle, \"The laws of the perfect human society can be found only within the total order of thmgs. In the purpose of the universe. And in the destmy of man.\"\n\nSilent, he lapsed into the characteristic pose he adopted in the library, his forearms forming a triangle with the table, his round, carefully trimmed beard brushing back and forth across his interwoven fingers.\n\nPerhaps he should not have said all that. But then these two students were rather out of the ordinary.\n\nKotya gloomily drained his beer. A vein on his forehead was knotted in concentration.\n\n\"In that case, there is absolutely nothing to be done except stand to one side and observe. Is that so?\"\n\n\"Every true path is very hard to follow,\" Varsonofiev repUed, resting his chin on his hands. \"And virtually inaccessible.\"\n\n\"But is it right to join the army and go to war?\" Kotya blinked.\n\n\"I must say-yes, it is.\" Varsonofiev nodded emphatically and approvingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why? How are we to know?\" Kotya went on obstinately, though his posting order was in his pocket. \"How can anyone judge?\"\n\nVarsonofiev unlocked his fingers and spread them in a gesture that embraced the two young men as his equals. \" I can't prove it, but I feel it. When the trumpet sounds, a man must be a man, even if merely for his\n\nown self-respect. This, too, is something inscrutable. For some reason it is important that Russia's backbone not be broken. And for that, young men must go to war.\"\n\nSanya appeared not to hear the last remark. He was thinking that the way ahead, or the bridge across the river, would remain invisible forever-or visible only to the unknown few. Otherwise, mankind would have found and crossed that bridge long ago.\n\n\"What about justice?\" he put in doggedly, sensing another idea that had been left unconsidered.\n\n\"Yes!\" Varsonofiev turned his glittering, deep-sunk eyes on him. \"But again not our own invented justice, which we have simply thought up to fit our convenient earthly paradise. Tliere is a justice which existed before us, without us and for its own sake. And our task is to divine what it is!\"\n\nKotya sighed noisily. \"You're full of riddles, Pavel Ivanovich, and they're all difi& cult. You should give us one that's a little easier.\"\n\nPavel Ivanovich smiled slyly and said: \"Well, here's one. * If I stood up, I'd reach the sky; had I arms and legs, I'd tie up a thief; had Ia mouth and eyes, I would teU aU.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, Pavel Ivanovich,\" said Kotya, protesting humorously, already slightly drunk, but pleased that his taste for riddles was appreciated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tapped on his plate with the tail of a fish. \"We must leave it to you to put the most important question. Otherwise, when we join the army we'll regret not having heard what it is.\"\n\nVarsonofiev relaxed and said with a tired smile: \"Important questions always have long, tortuous answers. And no one can ever answer the most important question of all.\"\n\nThe answer to a riddle is short, but there are seven leagues of truth in it.\n\nTerenty Chernega hardly remembered his father; he was brought up by his stepmother until he could fend for himself, then she married again and Terenty left home without having gained a great deal from his stepparents. Nor did he acquire much of an education from two years at a village school and a year at a commercial school. In any case, book learning was not essential to a lad who knew how to keep his eyes and ears open. When necessary, Chernega's agile native wit enabled him to follow the talk of educated people, including ofi& cers.\n\nOnce Chernega heard the brigade commander, Colonel Khristinich, talking to his battery commander, Lieutenant Colonel Venetsky, about the general state of affairs in the artillery. They were discussing the inefficient use of draft horses and the amount of time wasted while guns stood idle, as there were eight guns in a battery, whereas the Germans had six-or four-gun batteries. The goverimient lacked the funds to convert six eight-gun batteries into eight six-gun ones; it was cheaper simply to keep the extra guns in a battery without firing them. Battery commanders, they complained, were so bogged down with administration and the task of maintaining and cleaning spare equipment that they had no time for firing practice, or for studying gunnery manuals-these were all out of date, anyway, and the latest ones did not reach them before war broke out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This only confirmed Chernega's views that the most important man in the artillery was the sergeant major. Who else took care of all the administration and maintenance?\n\nDuring his term of military service, Chemega had been promoted from trail-number to gun loader and then to gun captain. Called upon the first day of the war, he was posted two days later to Smolensk, where he caught the eye of Colonel Khristinich, who glanced at Chernega in passing from under his bushy gray eyebrows and said to Venetsky: \"Pity fora good manlike that to stay a sergeant. You ought to make him your battery sergeant major.\"\n\nHe was right in guessing (Chernega himself knew it already) that Chemega would make an excellent sergeant major. When Chernega came to know Lieutenant Colonel Venetsky better, he realized that Khristinich would not have advised every battery commander to take a man into his battery and promote him to sergeant major. Venetsky knew all about gun sights, fuses, and ranging, but he was too easygoing; when talking to his men, he invariably used language that was above their heads and issued requests rather than orders, and no one would have kept a tight grip on the battery if Chemega had not been appointed its sergeant major.\n\nFrom his first cheerful roar of command, he fitted into his new job as to the manner bom, and the whole battery accepted him. Owing to the nature of the campaign in the first fortnight of the war, the sergeant major was plainly the mainstay of the battery. For two weeks the guns were never unlimbered, the unit never once took up a firing position, and whether the officers had mastered their gunnery manuals or not was of no consequence. Although they showed the men which route to follow, the general direction taken by the divisional column made this obvious enough; otherwise, the officers did nothing but write reports. The man who actually led the battery, who saw that it was fed and watered, who organized the move to each new bivouac, who looked after the horses and ammunition, was Chemega; all the men recognized him as the boss, and the horses, by the way they pricked up their ears, showed that he understood them. ( Horses responded to Chemega from the moment he first patted" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "them on the neck. He knew everything there was to know about horses, having bought and sold many-not for profit, but for love of them. He felt more passionately about horses than about women.)\n\nAt country fairs, Terenty had carried fifteen-gallon barrels of sauerkraut, bent horseshoes and ten-kopeck pieces, rung the bell with sledgehammers-had taken part, in fact, in all the favorite spare-time competitions enjoyed by strongmen in Russia. He was like a barrel himself. Despite his lack of inches, his strength was prodigious; but, except in fire or flood, he had almost never had occasion to use it to the full. He never needed to exert more than half of it to get all he wanted in life, because he had learned many skills and trades, relying more on brains than on brawn and keeping his muscle power in reserve. Up until now, Chemega had still had no cause to show his full strength. He did his job with the relaxed ease of a natural leader. The war had come on as an unwelcome interruption while he was in his prime, at thirty-two, at a time, as always seems to be the case, when he was finding life more interesting than ever. So he decided that, though he would do his duty, he would also see to it that he did not wear himself out.\n\nThen in the middle of one night the troops were roused to the sound of the alarm. For the previous week, anxiety had been building up in the men's minds, caused by lack of information, the eerie emptiness of the countryside, and the feeling that they were walking into a trap. When this mood was suddenly dispelled by a clear order-^ which came as a release-to get on the move with all speed, Chemega, in the space of time between two heartbeats, unleashed all the strength in him and ran to his battery commander: \"Just tell me what we have to do, your honor,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the light of a candle in his tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant Colonel Venetsky clasped the sergeant major by his sinewy forearm and said: \"We must get the battery across this damned river, Chemega...\"\n\nA lock of white hair falling over his forehead as he pointed to the map spread out on his folding camp\n\nbed (which he was to leave here forever), he explained the situation with more than his usual rapidity and assurance: \"... so as to avoid moving along the main road and making a big detour. It seems the Germans are in this area. There's some kind of abridge across the river-here. It maybe damaged, and it maybe rotten, and the approaches to it are marshy, but we must get across it. If we do, we save six miles and we'U dodge the Germans. Then we must move on immediately and cross this causeway, called Schlage M.\"\n\nThe map was not much help-^ just a series of marks in green, black, and blue. Much of the area was dotted with lakes and impassable. Chemega's round eyes took it all in quicker even than was necessary. One thing puzzled him, though.\n\n\"What is Schlage M?\"\n\nSchlage, the officer explained, was the German word for sledgehammer; there was a Pohsh saying'Szlag trafi\" which meant roughly'Drop dead,\" or'I hope you get hit by a sledgehammer.\"\n\n\"In this case,\" he went on, \"it's obviously the German name for the dike or causeway across this stretch of water, which is either a millpond or the village pond of the hamlet of Merken. We can bypass Merken by going this way, but we can't avoid crossing Schlage M. If we can get across that dike, we'll come out of this alive, whereas if we stay here...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If we stay here-^ we're done for!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gently, so as not to crush him in his grip, Chemega clasped Venetsky by the shoulder. \"We'll do it, your honor. You just send the officers ahead to reconnoiter the route and we'll see to the gun teams!\"\n\n\"And... the ammunition... you do understand, Chemega?\"\n\n\"Of course I understand!\" Chemega ran out of the tent. \"We'll get the ammunition through even if we have to pull our arms off to shift it. We'll waddle along with two rounds apiece like fat old women swinging their tits!\"\n\nThis was an emergency worse than afire or a flood; at moments like this, officers were useless-a sergeant\n\nmajor with two brawny arms was what was needed. For all their generations of book learning, oflficers could only cough apologetically when there was man's work to be done; should he leave them in the lurch and let them go to hell this time? It occurred to Chemega not to take the ammunition-they could have ordered him a hundred times and he would still have left it behind. But he was keenly aware that they were short of ammunition and that each round might save the lives of five, if not twenty, men.\n\nChemega roared at his men like a lion, drowning the noise of other orders being given, of grumbling, of horses nei^ ing and the clank of equipment. Although the men of the battery thought they knew their sergeant major, until then they had not realized the full extent of his abilities; the real war began for them that night. That leonine roar told everyone of them that from now on they would have to strain every sinew, that if the horses failed, the men would have to haul the guns themselves. (His roar, though loud, was not as loud as it might have been; sound carries far at night, and there was no point in telling the Germans that the battery was moving and where it was going.)" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extende the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If we stay here-^ we're done for!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gently, so as not to crush him in his grip, Chemega clasped Venetsky by the shoulder. \"We'll do it, your honor. You just send the officers ahead to reconnoiter the route and we'll see to the gun teams!\"\n\n\"And... the ammunition... you do understand, Chemega?\"\n\n\"Of course I understand!\" Chemega ran out of the tent. \"We'll get the ammunition through even if we have to pull our arms off to shift it. We'll waddle along with two rounds apiece like fat old women swinging their tits!\"\n\nThis was an emergency worse than afire or a flood; at moments like this, officers were useless-a sergeant\n\nmajor with two brawny arms was what was needed. For all their generations of book learning, oflficers could only cough apologetically when there was man's work to be done; should he leave them in the lurch and let them go to hell this time? It occurred to Chemega not to take the ammunition-they could have ordered him a hundred times and he would still have left it behind. But he was keenly aware that they were short of ammunition and that each round might save the lives of five, if not twenty, men.\n\nChemega roared at his men like a lion, drowning the noise of other orders being given, of grumbling, of horses nei^ ing and the clank of equipment. Although the men of the battery thought they knew their sergeant major, until then they had not realized the full extent of his abilities; the real war began for them that night. That leonine roar told everyone of them that from now on they would have to strain every sinew, that if the horses failed, the men would have to haul the guns themselves. (His roar, though loud, was not as loud as it might have been; sound carries far at night, and there was no point in telling the Germans that the battery was moving and where it was going.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The still, fine night, lit only by starli^ t after the moon had set, became a whirlwind of urgent action. No official announcement was made, but the rumor quickly got around and was accepted by everyone as genuine that somewhere there was abridge which they had to reach as fast as possible, and that if the Germans knocked it out, they were lost. Never stopping to draw breath, Chernega ran up and down the column, always in time to solve problems as they arose. Without pause they strained and heaved as though struggling against a violent storm or as though under fire. The cart track between the fields twisted and was crossed by other tracks; at every intersection, signposts awaited them, placed thereby the officers' reconnaissance party. As they approached the river, Chemega carried out his own personal reconnaissance, testing the ground with his foot to discover where it was boggy and how soft it was. Every man lending a\n\nhand, stumbling, sinking in, they unharnessed the limbers and manhandled the guns up to the bridge. There was more work awaiting them on the bridge itself: in the last village they had dismantled ashed and lashed the timbers to the gun barrels; now in the dark they made good the bridge by replacing missing or rotten planks with sound beams. Then they watered the horses. After the bridge came along haul over low-lying marshy ground, and to prevent the teams from getting bogged down, the guns were once more unharnessed and puUed by hand. After this the terrain rose fairly steeply, so once more the teams were harnessed up, the crews helped by heaving on the wheels, and at last they breasted the rise and drove onto firm ground. That was war: awakened at midnight, they had accomplished in the dark a feat which by day would have seemed impossible. The operation had taken the whole of the short summer night. Leaving the bridge and the dark, rutted cart track for the rest of the regiment behind them, the battery silently hauled itself up to the main road at first fight, undercover of a wood. No one had fired at them, no one had tried to bar their way; the furious German attacks of the last few days seemed to have slackened. The night was as quiet as if there were no war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before reaching the road, the battery halted in the wood. They were the first to arrive, which meant that the alternative route, which the infantry were following, was along one and that some of the regiments had probably gone astray. Although it was not yet quite daylight, the visibihty was much better. The village of Merken lay on high ground half a mile off to the right. Down the road to the left, at a distance of some six hundred yards but separated from the road by the height of the embankment and a further dip in the ground, was the fateful Schlage M, and if the party sent out to reconnoiter it was not met by enemy fire, the whole battery could be across in fifteen minutes. The commander of No. 1 troop, however, had reported that, three miles farther on, there was another, similar bottleneck. When they had made their way across that,\n\nthey would then have reached the point where they had been less than three days ago.\n\nThus, they had had to drag all their guns, ammunition, spare parts, and supply wagons for three days, without firing a single round, making a twenty-five-mile loop across country, just to get back to the place from which they had started.\n\nChemega slumped down on abroad tree stump at the edge of the wood, hungry and longing for sleep, his arms and legs aching.\n\nThey could already hear the creak of wheels and the sound of voices coming from the village. This was the leading unit of the Russian column, and it meant that the battery must push forward agam if it was to reach the causeway before the others.\n\nThe reconnaissance party returned: Schlage M was open for them to pass. Although free of obstructions, the roadway over it was only seven feet wide, which was dangerous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since there was no longer any need to keep the noise down, the order to move off rang out in loud, resonant voices: \"Gun teams-stand to! Drivers-mount!\" And the battery swung out onto the road and started its drive toward the Schlage.\n\nSuddenly German shells began to rain down on the village, and a house burst into flames. Then machine guns opened up from the German lines. It was impossible to tell exactly where the Germans were positioned, but Germans and Russians seemed to be mixed up in the same area. The Russians were in greater numbers, however, since a whole corps of them was converging on the village. In the pale dawn light the muzzle flashes of rifles sparked from all sides, left and right of the village, and then from behind it as the firing shifted. Only one spot was still absolutely safe: Schlage M, down there below the road embankment, was free; to reach that causeway they had struggled through the marsh, torn their fingernails until the blood ran, and lashed their horses to exhaustion. If the battery could get out onto the road quick enough and drive down, they might still make it ahead of the sup-\n\nply train, which at this moment was racing toward them at a gallop to escape the bombardment in Merken. The rattle of the wheels could be heard, and the first infantry units were already approaching through the ditches along the road.\n\nThese few moments constituted one of those crucial turning points when uncertainty reigns, when no voice is heard and no officer is to be seen and a man has to make his own decision-^ though decision is hardly the word, since there is no time to think-and in a flash all is decided.\n\nThe guns were on the road, and now was the moment to turnoff, down the embankment and across the causeway. As they stood, they were in an ideal firing position, but the guns would be unable to shoot from below the embankment. Chemega galloped up and with a wave of his arm, as though casting a thousand rubles to the wind, stopped the first two guns from driving down and showed them whereto deploy on the other side of the road into firing positions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a chance that the troops might not obey. Why should they take orders from die sergeant major? They might decide to wait for the troop commander. There was the causeway-^ the way back to Russia. They had struggled, sweated, and hauled all night; they had aright to be the first to getaway to safety.\n\nBut Chemega's generous spirit of self-sacrifice spread like a violent contagion, and with practiced skill the drivers wheeled their teams, and soon artilleryman Kolomyka, with his flat, high-cheekbone face, was un-limbering his gun. At that moment the staff captain came running up, waving his arms. In an instant of doubt, Chemega wondered whether he was signaling to them because they had done wrong. Perhaps he should not have deployed the guns... Then-^ yes! He was right, for Christ's sake! Well done, lads!\n\nThe thin, tall Lieutenant Colonel Venetsky came out of the wood and ran up the hillside toward the village, clutching sword and knapsack to his sides. Behind him came the battery signalers, reeling out their telephone wires as they went\n\nAlthough the rising sun was still hidden by the trees behind them, it was already brilliant daylight. The sound of firing spread in all directions around the bare hillside ahead of them. They were not going to getaway as had been intended last night; neither was the rest of XIII Corps; they were caught.\n\nFour guns of Chemega's battery deployed on the uphill side of the road, and the limbers drove back into the wood, where the ammunition supplies were waiting to be brought up-an ideal position. The first of the retreating supply wagons began to appear, tangling as they tried to overtake each other in a mad, furious rush; this was risky enough here, but on the narrow causeway it could be disastrous. Blocking their path, the remaining gun teams of the battery sprawled across the roadway as they wheeled to take up their positions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon the first of the infantry came miming down the road as fast as their legs could carry them.\n\n\"Who are you?\" with his lion's roar Chemega called out from over the top of a gun shield. \"What's your outfit? What the hell are you doing?\"\n\n\"Zvenigorod regiment!\" came the reply. Chemega's face turned purple with fury.\n\n\"Where do you think you're going, you motherfuckers-^ trying to save your own skins while we stay here firing just so you can getaway? Turnaround, damn you, and give us covering fire!\"\n\nThe gunners around Chemega ran down the hillside to the road and less by shouting than by using their arms and fists stopped the men of the Zvenigorod regiment. They argued, milled about, fights broke out; then the first wave, hesitant, still prepared to start mnning again, turned back. Before long, some of their officers appeared and, instead of urging the men toward the causeway, led them off the road and showed them whereto take up positions.\n\nBefore the sun had risen from behind the forest, as the first red glow was coloring the treetops, the Zvenigorod men were digging in on the slope ahead of the guns, the gunners were revetting their gun pits with\n\nfelled timber, and ammunition was being piled into a bunker dug into a small reverse slope. The defenses of Schlage M were prepared-an operation wholly unforeseen by the corps commander, who was in headlong retreat.\n\nThe firing did not start at once. Nearby, to left and right, from the center outward and into the center from the encircling ring, the two sides exchanged desultory rifle shots. Then the Russians began falling back toward the right of the position, making for the road along which Chemega's battery had come. From the same spot on the edge of the forest from which the battery had emerged, two battalions of the Neva regiment came out, led by the tall, grim-looking Colonel Pervushin-a familiar figure to all the artillerymen and to everyone in the division. Ina gully below the roadside they halted, took a short rest, and attended to the wounded; they described how they had made their way all night from a distant forest, how two of then: battalions had fallen back toward Hohenstein and had been lost, how they had been caught and enfiladed between Russian and German fire, and how they had only just managed to getaway. By now the Zvenigorod regiment was blazing away at the enemy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The relative positions of the two sides were now clearly defined. The Germans were pressing from the right simultaneously on this position, on the village, and on the town of Hohenstein. As the sun began to climb up behind the pine trees, from the depression in which they were located the tiled rooftops and chimneys of Hohenstein came into view-the town they had been making for all the day before and had never reached. Some Russian troops were in Hohenstein, but they were caught in a trap that was fast closing.\n\nThen the orders began coming from Venetsky: \"No. 1 gun! Elevation... range... shrapnel... fuse... gunfire!\" And following the first gun, the whole battery belched smoke and flame.\n\nShrapnel is deadly against bodies of troops: fire it at a battalion inline of march, and m three minutes they will be wiped out.\n\nThe German guns opened up in reply, and the rounds began getting closer, but against the sun they were unable to locate the Russian battery.\n\nThe Sophia regiment passed through, followed by supply wagons and ammunition trains.\n\nThe Mozhaisk regiment passed.\n\nThe success of the action was now to be measured not in minutes or in rounds of gunfire or in wounded but in the number of marching columns that passed. How many would succeed in scraping through? How many would be cutoff?\n\nA gunner was knocked out, an^ Chernega took over in his place.\n\nSmoke was billowing up from several burning houses in the village-and still Russian troops were pouring out of the smoke, mounted and on foot, running and walking in an endless stream: two more battaUons of the Zvenigorod regiment, mixed stragglers from several shattered units, a handful of men from the Dorogobuzh regiment, and then their own brigade commander, Colonel Khristinich, together with the remaining half battery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He recognized them and waved: \"Well done, lads! Magnificent!\" And his gunners waved back at him, shouting in reply. Khristinich leaped from his horse and embraced the battery's staff captain. But this was no time or place for congratulations, and they both had to take cover in a ditch. The Germans had the range of the main road, and any man who had not been hit ran off it for safety. It was over: they were cutoff and no more troops would be able to get through.\n\nPervushin had been expecting it; he led the Neva regiment down the embankment to the Schlage, now empty of fleeing troops.\n\nThe Zvenigorod regiment, too, started to pullout of their covering positions and withdraw.\n\nThen Khristinich himself gave the order to the battery: \"By numbers in turn-limber up.\" As soon as each gun was harnessed, the team immediately set off for the Schlage at the center.\n\nWhat about Venetsky, the men wondered. Surely he\n\nwouldn't stay and be cutoff? That would be a pity-^ he was a good oflficer and looked after his men. No, he was safe: he and his signalers came running down the hill; the Germans could pickup their telephone wires for all they cared.\n\nTwo guns were still roaring defiance.\n\nRemember us, brothers-we did what we could for you!\n\nBut for any Russians left behind in Hohenstem it was the end.\n\nDocument No. 2\n\nCOMMUNIQUE FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, AUGUST 16,1914\n\n... on the East Prussian fronts throughout August 12,13, and 14, stubborn fighting has continued in the Soldau-'Allenstein-Bischofsburg area^ where the enemy has concentrated the army corps which retreated from Gumbinnen, together with fresh forces. Allenstein is held by Russian troops. The Germans suffered particularly heavy losses at Miihlen, where they are in full retreat* . . Our energetic attack continues. * " }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The story has it that Abgar, Prince of Edessa, being covered with leprosy sores, heard of a prophet in Judaea and, beheving him to be the Lord, begged him to come to his principahty, where he would be welcomed; if he could not come, he should ask an artist to paint his picture and send the likeness instead. While Christ was teaching the people, the artist tried his best to record his features, but they constantly changed in so miraculous away that he labored in vain and let fall his hand, helpless: it was not within the power of man to make a Ukeness of Christ. Then Christ, seeing the artist's despair, washed His face and pressed it to the canvas-and the water changed into paint. Thus was made the Miraculous Uncreated Image of Christ, and by that canvas Abgar was cured. Afterward it was hungover the gate of the city, protecting it from attack, and the princes of ancient Russia adopted the Uncreated Image of the Savior as the battle standard of their armies.\n\nThis legend was once told to Samsonov by the dean of the Cathedral of the Cossack Host at Novocherkassk. Beginning with the little village church of his childhood in Ekaterinoslav province, Samsonov had stood in countless churches through hundreds of vigils, liturgies, thanksgiving services, and requiems; if all those hours had been put together, they would have added up to months and months spent in prayer, meditation, and spiritual uplift. In many churches, among the blue-gray clouds of incense, he had been granted awareness of the healing grace of the Spirit; in many churches, as he stood with head erect, there had been much for the contemplation of his inner eye. Yet nowhere had he felt so much at home, nowhere had" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "his spirit ranged with such freedom as in the mighty Cathedral of Novocherkassk, high on its rocky crag, yet intimately linked with both the Don Cossack host and the city. The whole of Novocherkassk, in fact, was a place after Samsonov's heart: soUdly built above steep-sided ravines, spreading out spaciously from the foot of the mountain into three avenues, each wider almost than the great avenues of Petersburg; with its covered market, too, that rivaled the Gostiny Dvor of Petersburg, and its statue of Ermak in front of the cathedral, in whose square ten regiments could march on parade with room to spare. His two years in Novocherkassk had been among the happiest in his life; and whenever he lay awake unable to sleep, of all the memories of those years he recalled with particular nostalgia the August days spent attending service in the cathedral.\n\nThis year, at midnight-^ between the Assumption of the Blessed Mother of God and the Feast of the Uncreated Image of Christ, which follows it-General Samsonov was in the saddle, retreating. The last minutes of the Day of the Assumption had inexorably run out, and still the Mother of God had not stretched out her compassionate handover the Russian army. Nor was it very likely that Christ Himself would save them now.\n\nIt was as though Christ and the Virgm Mary had rejected Russia.\n\nAt the darkest hour, toward two o'clock in the morning, by a roundabout route over the almost nonexistent tracks, the Army Headquarters party reached a hamlet, consisting of half a dozen houses, near Orlau-earlier the scene of Second Army's first successful battle, whose name now had the bitter ring of irony. Here, as they blundered around in confusion, groping in the dark, they learned from a squadron of the 6th Don Cossack regiment and from supply-train drivers of the Kaluga regiment that there was no defensive screen to the west of the army, as had been envisaged in the'sliding-shield\" plan; that on the previous evening the Kaluga and Libau regiments (having held on, to the hmits of human endurance) had pulled out of the position they had been ordered to hold for the whole of the coming day; and that the front Une was now somewhere" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "out therein the darkness-only a mile away. In Orlau itself two supply trains had become entangled and the drivers were fighting each other to clear away.\n\nTwo army corps were stiU up thereto the north, caught in a trap shaped like an inverted flask, the neck of which was rapidly narrowing. And Neidenburg-so they all loudly agreed, as there was no other explanation for the situation-was already in German hands.\n\nLonging desperately to ride on as fast as possible, the staff officers were now more than ever justified in warning Samsonov that it was useless for them to go to Neidenburg, that they should push onto Janow at once. But the army commander, alas, appeared not to hear or understand them: he had lost all sense of his position and his duties. Instead of concerning himself with the whole army, he started giving directions to battalion commanders.\n\nHour by hour, Samsonov felt more confident and less dependent on his advisers; it was as though in his eyes they had ceased to be a headquarters staff and were simply an irrelevant handful of officers who for some reason had been detached from regimental duty. By the light of a kerosene lamp in a room cleared of other occupants, Samsonov sat at a table, his large head bare, his forehead creased with an expression of apparent perplexity. He summoned various officers to him and with the aid of a map gave them instructions on how to get the Kaluga and Libau regiments back to their positions; he specified which artillery units should support them, which roads should be reconnoitered and cleared for the approaching supply trains of XV Corps. He gave precise explanations, listened to all objections without giving way to bad temper, and spoke with unfailing kindness, prefacing his orders with'my dear fellow\" and'please.\"\n\nDawn was beginning to whiten the sky and the morning light was seepmg in at the window, competing with the lamp. Unhurried, Samsonov remained seated over the map, slowly curling his fingers through either side of the parting in his beard and around his smoothly clipped side whiskers. His large, wide-open eyes seemed to have no need of sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Surely he could now evacuate his headquarters staff?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But no; he had lost all sense of his proper function: shrugging their shoulders and hunched with cold, the staff ofl& cers mounted their horses to make a journey, for no apparent reason, right up to the very front line at Orlau.\n\nThe normally untrodden forest path, shown on the map as a dotted line, had already been driven over and rutted by a succession of carts, two-wheelers, and wagons bringing up rifle and artillery ammunition needed in the area. It was enough for one two-horse cart to come to a halt for all the rest to be forced to stop too; there was noway around the obstacle, and it was easy to imagine the chaos that would result when two army corps were trapped on paths like these. In single file, the line of mounted staff officers and Cossacks, pushing aside the branches of trees, overtook the blocked supply trains.\n\nThe forest narrowed to a thin, wedge-shaped strip. Until now, only the indirect light of the sun had been visible in the pme tops, but as the path led them out into open country the semi-gloom of the forest gave way to the full blaze of the bright crimson sun, which had just risen over the top of another line of trees-the interminable twenty-square-mile expanse of Griin-fliess Forest, thick and dark, whose brooding depths lay waiting for the retreating Russian army. Four hundred yards in front of the edge of the forest, the meadows sloped abruptly toward a river at the bottom of a ravine, now fidl of quivering mist that rose upward in wraith-like wisps.\n\nShuddering, Samsonov stared at the vapor and at the sun as though seeing them for the first time. The great floating orb brou^ t more illumination than had been vouchsafed to him in all the mental exertions of the past few days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cavalcade rode down through the vaporous mist, across the damaged weir of a millstream, and up again toward Orlau. They were now crossing tiie field of the recent battle, scene of many costly attacks and of the hand-to-hand struggle for the colors of the Chernigov regiment; if they had taken time to ride around and look, they would undoubtedly have found many fresh commu-\n\nnal graves. But no one, apart from the army commander, seemed to spare a thought for the battlefield. When they reached a crossroads, it was free of the long, congested lines of supply trains, but it might not be for long-anew line of wagons was already rolling in from the west.\n\nThere they spent the morning. All lines of communication were broken. In enemy country, caught in a series of desperate, unexpected situations, there were dispersed five infantry divisions, five artillery brigades, cavalry and sappers; but news, and only bad news, was brought by random individuals from all parts of the surrounding forest with a speed and accuracy that even the best signals officer could scarcely have arranged.\n\nIt was learned that Colonel Kabanov had been killed and the Dorogobuzh regiment wiped out; that yesterday, after being ordered back into the line near Hohenstein, the Kopor regiment had held out for less than an hour before running away again, and that the newly appointed regimental commander, after planting the staff of the regimental colors in the ground, had knelt down beside it and shot himself. Worse still was the report that General Martos had been killed, as was reliably stated by some Cossacks of his escort.\n\nWhen the news of these three deaths reached Sam-sonov, he took off his cap three times and crossed himself; but even this did not disturb the look of melancholy calm and new-won understanding on his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He seemed to be listening to something: not to the hubbub around him, or to the distant sound of firing, but to something beyond them.\n\nHe left his staff in Orlau and rode off with a small escort to the forward positions held by the Kaluga regiment. There, as they rode up, they found a battalion commander in a gully using his stick to chase his men out of the bushes, where they had taken refuge from the firing line. Turning aside from his task, which was to strengthen the position as a whole, Samsonov stopped fora personal talk with this lieutenant colonel.\n\nMeanwhile, not daring to leave without the army commander, the angry staff officers wandered around Orlau with nothing to do. Then something encouraging\n\nhappened: suddenly General Pestich, chief of staff of XIII Corps, rode up to report and ask for further orders. The corps, it appeared, was alive and intact and marching in this direction, but it lacked news of the situation and had no orders. Furthermore, units of XV Corps were also approaching Orlau.\n\nThe staff came to life: they would resurrect their'sHd-ing-shield\" tactics, and all might yet be well. The officers sat down to compose and draft a modified plan. XIII Corps was to withdraw by forced march( it had\n\nnot exactly been wasting time before!) toward\n\nallowing such-and-such a period to cover the distance. XV Corps and the remnants of XXIII Corps were to\n\nhold the line at. The trouble was that none\n\nof the corps and divisional commanders was present; if only they could be assembled and given their instructions, the staff of Army Headquarters would have done its job and be free to withdraw to Russian territory. To deal with this problem, they devised the following solution: one senior ofi& cer should be nominated to take command of all the units that were threatened with encirclement. Yesterday Martos would have been the man to do this, but Martos was dead. The next most suitable would have been Kondratovich, but no one knew where he was. The obvious candidate for leadership of the retreat was therefore Klyuev, although he was farthest away; nevertheless, Pestich himself undertook to convey the order to him. The question remained, however: would Samsonov sign an order of that kind?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All this time afield near Orlau was filling up with units, some broken up and some still intact, assembling with a growing sense of desperation as they waited to be told what to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Supply trains and ammunition wagons drove away carrying the wounded, but the crowding grew no less. The field was without shade, the morning sun was burning hot, there was not enough water and no food. More and more soldiers swelled the numbers of what was little more than a confused, defenseless, gypsy encampment.\n\nThe fighting, after five furious days, seemed to have slackened, as though the Germans had relaxed and re-\n\nlented and were no longer so intent on driving the Russians out.\n\nAn airplane flew over the horde of men, but no one even bothered to fire at it.\n\nAround noon Samsonov returned from the forward positions. However, he did not turnoff at a bend in the road to the house where his staff was quartered but rode on uphill through standing corps-straight toward the dense mass of men in the field.\n\nThe muddle that reigned among this medley of units, all lacking orders, was abnormal enough; even more unusual was a general riding up to them without the usual orders to fall in, dress the ranks, look to the front, and reply to his greeting with a concerted roar from several hundred throats. Oddest of all was the general himself: his cap held in his lowered hand, exposing the crown of his head to the boiling sun; his look not one of martial command but of compassion and sorrow. It might have been a church festival, though a strange one, lacking the sound of bells and the gay kerchiefs of the womenfolk: it was as though a crowd of sullen peasants from the surrounding villages had gathered on a hillside and amounted figure were riding around to inspect them-a landlord or a priest on horseback-and promising them land or paradise in the hereafter to makeup for their sufferings in this life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The army commander did not shout at the soldiers to ask why they had left the firing line, gave them no order to move, demanded nothing of them. In an ordinary, kindly voice he asked the men around him: \"What's your regiment, lads?\" (They replied.) \"Have you had many casualties?\" (Again they replied.) At which he crossed himself in memory of the fallen and said: \"Thank you for doing your duty,\" and nodded to either side. The soldiers did not know what to answer, but simply responded with a sigh or an inarticulate groan which never quite formed itself into the regulation reply: \"Happy to do our best, your excellency!\" With that, the army commander rode on, repeating his remarks in a more muffled voice: \"What's your regiment, lads?\" \"... Many casualties?\" \"Thank you for doing your duty.\"\n\nAs the general was making his farewell round of the encampment, two horsemen rode up by another track and rounded the comer into the field: a colonel, and a private whose long legs dangled down without stirrups. The colonel had intended to present the soldier to the army commander and recommend that he be awarded the St. George's Cross. Under the circumstances, however, he left the man on the edge of the crowd and went forward into it.\n\nThe colonel had come after hearing a rumor that the army commander was here. He made his way untn he reached Samsonov, and began to speak-but the general, distracted and remote, did not notice him. The colonel rode on, staying close beside him.\n\nThe army commander's voice was kindly, and all the men, as he passed them to say farewell and thanks, followed him with looks of equal goodwill, none with resentment. That bared head, the expression of exalted sorrow; that unmistakable, purely Russian face with its thick black beard and large, plain ears and nose; those heroic shoulders weighed down by an invisible burden; that slow, regal progress, reminiscent of the hieratic bearing of the tsars of ancient Muscovy: where was the man who could curse him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only now did Vorotyntsev perceive (he wondered how he had failed to notice it before; it could not be something that Samsonov had just acquired) the look of pre-ordained doom in Samsonov's face: for all his great bulk, Samsonov was a sacrificial lamb. Looking slightly upward all the time, he seemed to be expecting a blow from a great club to fall on his proffered brow. All his life, perhaps, he had been unconsciously expecting that blow and at this moment he was quite prepared for it.\n\nEver since they had last seen each other, Vorotyntsev had tried to think well of the army commander; much had occurred for which Samsonov was to blame, but he had always sought excuses for him, waiting anxiously for him to take action that would be decisive and timely. On that first evening he had felt that he might be able to exert a strong and positive influence over him at crucial moments. He had even\n\nhesitated whether to stay at Army Headquarters, where he was an unwanted outsider, an interloper likely to get on everyone's nerves. During the last few days he had felt an urge to see Samsonov again, to warn him, to prevent him from taking a false step-for, from the very beginning, Vorotyntsev had, he now realized, expected Samsonov to make that false step.\n\nIn the space of four and a half days, catastrophe had overtaken Second Army-^ in fact, the Russian army as a whole. If only (watching Samsonov's solemn valediction), if only (sensing the instinct which had prompted this age-old Russian gesture), if only things had been otherwise...\n\nHe had come to tell Samsonov how, after retreating all day yesterday, the remnants of the Estland regiment were still holding out, in open ground, with one machine gun and the last few rounds of ammunition; but what was the use of telling him now? Why had the army commander not gone to I Corps? And why was this disorganized rabble gathered here, which should be a defended area? Why were the troops being allowed to trickle away in small, defenseless groups? They should at least be made to stand and fight for half a day, to be formed into a striking force; only then would they have some chance of breaking through. But Samsonov seemed no longer to need such advice, vital though it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your excellency!\"\n\nSamsonov turned around to look at the dusty, sunburned colonel with the bandaged shoulder and the bruise on his chin, and nodded amiably, though with no sign of recognizing him. He said goodbye to him, too, and thanked him for doing his duty.\n\n\"Your excellency! Did you get the message I sent you yesterday from Neidenburg?\"\n\nVorotyntsev realized that the cloud that had been hovering over Samsonov's brow was a cloud of guilt. Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps half aware of what he was saying, Samsonov replied: \"No, I didn't.\"\n\nWhat more could he do? Who now would listen to his story of what had happened at Usdau and at Neidenburg only yesterday?\n\nIt was too late, it was no use now: Samsonov was so far above it all that he had no need for any such news. He was no longer surrounded by an earthly foe, no longer threatened; he had risen above all such perils. The cloud which darkened the army commander's brow was not, after all, one of guilt but one of ineffable greatness: perhaps outwardly he had done things which were wrong by the petty canons of strategy and tactics, but from his point of view, what he had done had been profoundly right.\n\n\"I am Colonel Vorotyntsev, from General Headquarters! I...\"\n\nAshe floated rather than rode above that encampment, above the whole field of battle, the army commander was past the need to recall former meetings and mundane, bygone matters.\n\nWhy was he saying goodbye?. Where was he going? Yesterday morning he had ridden off to the center corps. In whose charge was he leaving them now? Why had he not formed a breakthrough force? Was the magazine of his revolver loaded?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No. By virtue of his age and his many years of seniority-even if he had not been in this trance-hke state-this general-of-cavalry was immune to good advice from a colonel. His was the helplessness of high position.\n\nThe heads of their horses were side by side. Suddenly Samsonov smiled at Vorotyntsev and said simply: \"From now on, the only thing left for me is a lifelike Kuropatkin's.\" \n\nHad Samsonov recognized him?\n\nMaking no objections, Samsonov signed the army order that was handed to him.\n\nSuddenly he slumped and went limp. He could lide no farther. When Army Headquarters left Orlau that afternoon on horseback. General Samsonov and General Postovsky were crammed side by side into a small open carriage.\n\n* General A. S. Kuropatkin (1848-1925) was the Russian commander-in-chief in Manchuria at the start of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. He suflfered a series of defeats culminating in the disaster of Mukden. He resigned in disgrace and admitted his mistakes in his history of the war, published in 1909.\n\nSasha Lenartovich's experience of the strange, wild, brutal joy of victory (victory over whom-and what for?) did not outlast the morning. It would have taken him along time to forgive himself for that animal feeling, if it had not spontaneously vanished after an hour or two.\n\nWhat gain had the victory brought their regiment? A column of prisoners, some captured guns? In fact, nothing had been gained, or could have been; all it had done was prolong their agony and increase their casualties. The fighting had not been shortened by it, nor did it make the rest of the day any easier for them-in fact, it made it much worse: the Germans subjected them to a furious bombardment all day, backing up a relentless series of counter-attacks with unremitting gunfire. The heavy caliber of the German artillery and their inexhaustible supplies of ammunition forced the victors of that morning's attack to sit there as living targets all day, constantly expecting certain death. Forced by the barrage to dig in deeper, they extended their line of trenches, while the wounded crawled, walked, or were carried away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While the general bombardment was far from mild, at times the salvos thickened to a sudden, squall-hke intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Physically drained, mentally e^ diausted, Ustless, self-alienated, and self-hating, Sasha despaired of staying alive until evening. Hunched in a too shallow slit trench, he despised all cannon fodder and himself especially for being cannon fodder. It was no use blaming the illiterate and uneducated soldiery for accepting it as their lot, when he, apolitically active intellectual, was incapable of devising any alternative\n\nand could only crouch in a little hole in the ground, his head bent between his knees for safety. All daylong, one thought obsessed him as he waited passively, devoid even of the will to live: would he be hit or not? He tried to concentrate his mind on some interesting, rational problem, but nothing came into his head; the empty box of bone at the top of his neck simply hung down, waiting for the blow to fall.\n\nIt was, of course, obvious that, given the fact of universal military service, this senseless form of warfare was the only possible kind: the conscript troops were not required to hate the enemy; they were merely driven forcibly to fight against another anonymous and equally unfortunate mass of men. There could be no justification for wars of this kind. A war fought by volunteers was quite another matter-a war, for instance, against the true, age-old enemies of one's social class, in which one knew one's foe and chose to fight him; in that case fortified by the will to destroy the enemy, one would feel no fear of death.\n\nIf only a tenth of their present casualties, a tenth of these men's endurance, and half this number of shells were expended in a revolution-then what a wonderful new life could be built!\n\nOne such day spent under shellfire ages a man. Just let him survive this one, last day-and then something would have to be changed. Of that, Sasha was firmly convinced: there must be change. Tonight, when the bombardment died down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But how was he to alter the situation?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was beyond his power to end the whole war; therefore, he must bring his own part in it to a stop. The most sensible solution would have been to emigrate, as many others had done, but he had missed this blessed opportunity. There, in Switzerland or France, they could disregard the war and were free to carry on with party politics, discussion, and active work. Here, though, in the East Prussian trenches, the only way to emigrate was through the enemy lines--in other words, to surrender.\n\nThat was it! Surrender was a sensible and practical step: the important things-his life, his educated mind, and his political views-would be preserved. There was nothing reprehensible in that; later he would devote those talents to the workers. But surrender, though feasible, was also difficult. It was impossible to cross no man's land under shellfire; if he went at night, he might blunder, go astray, get killed. The ideal conditions for success would be when the opposing forces were at close quarters and in confusion. What would happen, though, once he had surrendered? How could he be sure that the Germans would believe he was a socialist? Would an officer of the Kaiser's army know enough about politics to understand his motives? Besides, they might not have much sympathy for socialists-they were, after all, sending German socialists off to fight along with everyone else. They would not let him go to Switzerland, but would pack him off to a prisoner-of-war camp. Still, it would mean saving his life. But how was he to cross the lines?\n\nWith ahead that felt as if it were swelling, he found it extremely difficult to follow a logical train of thought. Would the day ever end? Would the shelling ever stop? How could the Germans have quite so many guns, quite so much ammunition? How could Russia's leaders, brainless idiots that they were, have dared to go to war in such a state of military inferiority?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But mercifully the sun sank behind the German lines and at last the day, August 15, came to an end. The firing subsided too, though not entirely; several machine guns went hanunering on long after dusk; but when night came, Sasha was still alive.\n\nGradually the cool of the night began to be felt. The field kitchens drove up and fed them. There was plenty to be seen to in his platoon-the roll call and casualty returns, inventories of dead men's property to be made-but Sasha left all that to his platoon sergeant. As they slowly straightened up and stretched their legs, the men began talking in louder voices.\n\nThey discussed what had happened since the night before, who had been killed and who wounded, how they felt about it, and here and there a burst of laughter could even be heard-^ what an incorrigibly resilient people the Russians were! They were in no hurry to go to sleep but were relaxing and enjoying the gathering night. Officers went the rounds, visiting each other.\n\nAn hour, two hours passed, and still Sasha had made no decision; he had eaten his supper and then simply sat on a log beside a broken fence in a kind of lethargy. The moon was bright enough for him to go, but he stayed. It was hard to pluck up his courage and make a move. Yet all he had to do was getup and go; dangerous it might be, but no more dangerous than going into the attack at dawn.\n\nHaving been given no orders or information, the regiment was completely ignorant of the situation. But the power of rumor was great, and from somewhere or other the news filtered down to officers and men alike: we're starting to retreat. The Kremenchug regiment has already been ordered... The Murom and Nizhni-Novgorod regiments are also preparing to... General Martos has pulled out... General von Torklus is nowhere to be found... Soon it will be our turn... our turn..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The feeHng was percolating from above that their leaders were running away. How did they know? Their leaders might well have been killed or taken prisoner. No, the rumor spread like an infection: the generals are on the run; soon we shall be running too. Sasha's heartbeat faster. This was the moment-now! He should not wait until the regiment was ordered to withdraw; even if they withdrew, they would still be subjected to an equally ferocious bombardment in the next village. He must getaway. If General von Torklus could save his skin, why shouldn't he? If he were caught, he could easily invent some pretext in the chaos of a retreat.\n\nIt did not occur to him to take anyone with him. Lenartovich hardly made use of his orderly, and by\n\nand large, the men of his platoon were frightened, silent men with whom he had no real contact. Even if he were to approach some of the more articulate ones and suggest, as though joking, that they might get back at the generals by deserting, the most that he could expect would be tight-lipped silence.\n\nHe had no map, so he went to the staff captain on some pretext, looked at the map by candlelight, and committed it to memory. The road running through Wittmansdorf went on eastward. A mile farther on, cross a railway line... another mile, turnoff at a church, then continue until the junction of three roads... take care not to end up in another sector of the front line... then there was a river, and soon afterward the village of Orlau... there was something familiar about the name.\n\nSasha quickly absorbed all the necessary information and went out.\n\nHe had no more duties that night; the platoon sergeant would take care of everything. His most precious possession-a notebook containing his thoughts and jottings-^ was in his pocket. His idiotic sword he would throwaway by the roadside as soon as possible, as well as his revolver, which he had never been able to shoot well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was now so quiet as to be almost peaceful. After the machine-gunfire, the few solitary rifle shots were reassuring rather than disturbing. The half moon was setting, its light fading. The road was alive with the creak of wheels, the clatter of hoofs, the crack and whips, and the sound of men swearing at their horses. Obviously, some people were wasting no time and were already getting out.\n\nWithout returning to his platoon, Lenartovich strode off down the road with a sense of release. Being on his own, he easUy overtook the stream of traffic. If he was stopped, he would think up an excuse for his journey. But no one was checking or directing the heavUy laden ambulances and creaking ammunition wagons as they crawled along, the chains of their traces clanking against the shafts. At first there\n\nwas only a single line of transport, then another stream joined it from aside road, forming a double line which took up the entire roadway. Any vehicles coming in the opposite direction were sworn at, pushed aside, and not allowed to pass, though on the whole the stream flowed peacefully enough, the drivers chatting to each other as their teams plodded side by side, cigarettes glowing here and therein the darkness.\n\nWith no one to check him, the lieutenant's legs carried him joyfully onward. There was still time to turn back, no one would yet have noticed his absence, but he was convinced that he had made the correct decision: that he had no right to run the risk of dying a senseless death in an alien cause. Having firmly turned aside from the way of the unthinking majority, he felt secure in the dignity of his refussd to be a lump of cannon fodder.\n\nHowever, following the road did not prove to be so easy as it had looked on the map, and this prevented him from giving full rein to his thoughts. There were many features of the route-^ hills, dips, bridges, dikes-^ which he had not noticed before. He found the church, but it was followed by some houses which he did not remember, and he had forgotten how far it was till he reached the main-road junction. When he did reach a junction, what appeared to be the right road turned out to be lined with trees, whereas he had been expecting a minor, cross-country road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not like to ask anyone, and it was quite dark now that the moon had set. It was at this point that exhaustion caught up with him and the overexertion of the last few days made itself felt. Sasha turned off the road and lay down in a stook. He was very thirsty, but he had no water bottle and it was useless to try to search for water.\n\nHe woke up at dawn, shivering with cold despite the straw. PulUng himself to his feet, he was about to go back to the road when he saw on it, spaced out at intervals, several small detachments of Cossacks moving along at a walk. He went back to the stook. The\n\nreaction was innate and stronger than reason. Since childhood he had instinctively regarded a Cossack as an enemy, and a Cossack unit as a blunt weapon of repression. Even though he was now dressed as an officer (and people said the uniform suited him well), at the sight of Cossacks he still felt like a rebellious student.\n\nWhen the Cossacks had passed and a supply train had rumbled slowly by, Sasha returned to the road. There he stumbled against a pile of something which turned out to be loaves of army bread, already stale and moldy. While they had been advancing, they had had no bread-and nowhere was bread thrown away, obviously shoved off a ration cart to make room for someone to ride.\n\nHe longed to eat, but it would look odd for an officer to be seen carrying loaves of bread under his arm. He cut one of them in half with his sword, gobbled several mouthfuls, chewed it, and went on.\n\nBy sunrise, he had still not been stopped or questioned. All the people he met on the road, whether mounted or on foot, had an unfamiliar look about them to which at first it was hard to put a name. Though they might be armed and wearing full equipment, on detached duty or in unit formation, though it was not yet a rout and the army was still obeying orders, something was not quite right. There was an oddness in the way the men turned to look at theu: officers: their faces expressed a concern for themselves that was beginning to override their sense of duty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Excellent! This meant that Sasha would be all the safer.\n\nThe road turned out to lead to Orlau after all, but just where it started to slope down toward a weu: across a millstream, it was joined by another, and here so many guns, ammunition wagons, carts, horsemen, and troops on foot were piling up that there was noway around the bottleneck and it was somewhat risky for Sasha simply to wait his turn inline. Horses which had collapsed, exhausted, in their shafts\n\nwere being unharnessed and shot. The nearer to the weir, the worse was the crowding, with wagons entangled with each other. Carried downhill by its own momentum, one aromunition wagon rammed its shaft into the team in front and killed a horse. With much shouting, which almost developed into a fight, the animals were unharnessed. Soldiers and officers began to lose their tempers, and a short staff captain with a bandaged forehead was shrieking ferociously at a tall battery commander: \"We won't let you through even if we have to use our bayonets!\" To which the battery commander replied, with a threatening wave of his long arm: \"I'll crush your infantry under my wheels!\"\n\nEveryone was struggling to get his own men and vehicles through, and damn anyone else. At that moment, two of the planks on the weir gave way and a shout went up for them to be repaired. Some soldiers who were carpenteers volunteered to help. From higher upon the road, people watched as officers crowded aroimd showing the men how it should be done, until a more experienced carpenter, a paunchy old man with a bushy gray moustache and a shirt hanging out unbelted, pushed aside officers and men indiscriminately and did the job his way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was now high in the sky, beating down on the dense crowd. Horses were led down to be watered in the narrow stream, which was no more than chest-deep, and soon soldiers, and then a few officers, stripped and bathed.\n\nThe top of the bank on the far side was, as it happened, the site of that earlier, notorious battle which had cost several thousand lives and filled the hospitals of Neidenburg. There could have been no better illustration of the senselessness of war. Atone moment thousands of men had died to push the Germans a few miles to the north; now, thousands more, hungry and furious, were crowding into a defile, lashing their horses and threatening to punch one another, just so that the Germans could push the Russians back a few miles south from the same spot.\n\nBut no disaster, no amount of bloodshed, is ever\n\nenough to galvanize Russians out of their passive endurance. Of the fifteen hundred-odd men crowded around the approach to that weir, not one understood the facts of the situation, and there was noway of enlightening them.\n\nLenartovich had already heard from several men that Neidenburg had been surrendered to the Germans the night before. Where, in that case, was this stream of men to go? What of his own plans? It was difficult to decide; he had only envisaged going as far as Orlau and had no notion of what he should do after that.\n\nFarther back in the column, waiting by the roadside to take their places inline, were several ambulances. In one lay a hkable, wounded lieutenant colonel. They got into conversation. The lieutenant colonel produced a map, which he opened out above him, and they looked at it together. Sasha spun him some yam about having been sent on a mission from his regiment, while he took careful note of the terrain on the map: there was along strip of forest... if he could cross it by that path... the village of Griinfliess near Neidenburg... Could he just disappear into the forest and wait for the Germans to find him? Now, though, he was beginning to feel it might be a pity to let himself be captured; in all this chaos there was a chance of slipping through and getting clean away to Russia. But could he do it? The huge forest lay like a green barrier in the path of the retreating army, and beyond it, no doubt, the German machine guns would be waiting. Already the rumor had sprung up from somewhere and was passing from man to man: encirclement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being unwillmg to undress and wade through the marshy ground on either side of the stream, Sasha lost a great deal of time waiting at the weir.\n\nNear Orlau he found a huge, disorderly horde of troops gathered in afield, apparently waiting for some-thmg. They were rifling the nearby kitchen gardens and digging up whatever they could find, eating raw turnips and carrots. He had to pass through this mob\n\nto reach the forest he had decided to make for. Quite unafraid, he started to push his way through, certain that amid the disorder and confusion no one would stop him or ask him where he was going.\n\nHe was wrong. Although it was no more than a mob, some senior officer appeared to be inspecting it as if this were a parade, exchanging greetings and talking to the men. Lenartovich recognized the army commander, whom he had seen at close quarters in Neidenburg.\n\nThere was no doubt-it was General Samsonov! A big man on a big horse, looking like a legendary knight in some oleograph, he was slowly riding around the gypsy-like horde, apparently unaware how shamefully it differed from a body of men on parade. No one called the men to attention for him, there was no one to whom he could give permission for them to stand at ease. Now and again he lifted his hand to the peak of his cap. Instead of saluting in the military fashion, he took off his cap in a gesture of farewell. He seemed thoughtful, distraught, divested of the chief attribute of a commander-^ the ability to inspire fear.\n\nAshe approached. Lieutenant Lenartovich made no move to step aside. He was fascinated by a sight which gladdened his eyes. Ah, that's what the like of you need-a taste of defeat! Then see how mild and kind you suddenly become! You maybe be-, decked with medals, but give you one good crack over the head and look how you wilt! Just wait-^ there's more coming to you yet!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Sasha stared at him, spellbound with hatred, the army commander rode straight toward him and as if directrog the question at hun personally, although he did not address him by rank, gazed at the lieutenant with his resigned, vacant, bovine stare and inquired paternally: \"And you men here?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which regunent are you from?\"\n\nIt was an awkward situation. There was no time to think; he could not runaway, everyone was waiting to hear what he would say. Should he tell a lie? That\n\nwas no good either. The best thing was to sound as keen and brisk as possible.\n\n\"Twenty-ninth Chernigov regiment, your excellency!\" And at the same time, in place of a salute, he made a vague movement with his hand like the wave of a fish's fin. (One day he must tell this story to his sister Veronika and his Petersburg friends, if he ever got out alive!)\n\nSamsonov showed no sign of surprise or of stopping to wonder what the Chernigov regiment was doing in this area, where it had no right to be. Instead, he smiled, and a warm glow of reminiscence spread across his face. \"Ah! Splendid regiment!\"\n\n(My God, now he was in a mess! Supposing the old man started asking him questions?)\n\n\"My special thanks to you, men of the Chernigov regiment...\"\n\nAnd he gave a nod-dismissive, understanding, grateful.\n\nHe passed slowly on, his horse, too, seeming to nod in acknowledgment as it lowered its neck.\n\nSamsonov's broad back view made him look more than ever like the knight in the fairy tale who paused, sad and perplexed, in front of the signpost at the parting of the ways: \"Go to the left-and death awaits you. Go to the right-and death awaits you.\"\n\n4^\n\nIf it had been purposely handicapped in some game, XIII Corps could not have been more awkwardly placed fora retreat. The lakes were so situated that the corps was prevented from taking the only direct escape route. It had to start withdrawing diagonally to the southeast, but then it was immediately confronted by the three-mile-long Lake Plautzig, whose two long arms were flung out as though to stop their progress and whose blue depths glittered with the sinister warning: \"No road!\" Beyond the tip of the left-hand arm was stretched the seven-foot-wide causeway of Schlage M, and from there ran a string of minor lakes succeeded by a further hostile stretch of Prussian water blocking the corps' route, the two-mile expanse of Lake Maransen. Having paid dearly for the crossing of Schlage M, which had at least enabled it to breakout to the southeast, the corps was again faced with only one possible loophole-the bridge and dam at Schwedrich, which it had to pass in a thin, single j& le. Once over that, it was not free to follow its first diagonal line of march but was penned into a north-south corridor between two stretches of water: behind it was the chain of lakes which it had just crossed, north of it was Lake Lansker, three miles long, and a string of small lakes linked by the marshy river Alle. Having negotiated this second obstacle, the corps would find itself heading into yet a third watery embrace-two more miles of the vastly ramified, many-armed Lake Omulefoffen. Prevented from moving in the direction in which it wanted to go, it had no alternative but to push due south, getting entangled with the neighboring XV Corps, and then move along roads that might" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "already have been cut by the enemy. Even after looping around Lake Omulefoffen, it would come up against the limitless expanse of the Griinfliess Forest at a point where the only good, straight road in the area-the Griinfliess-Kaltenborn road-cut straight across its route at aright angle, so that the corps was obliged to cross the forest by winding woodland paths.\n\nIn its retreat from Allenstein the wretched XIII Corps, which had advanced the farthest into German territory, was forced to cover forty-two miles in forty hours, without so much as a bite of hardtack and with horses that were never once fed or unharnessed.\n\nBut a description of the state of the horses is hardly sufficient for an understanding of the peculiar nature of a retreat as a military operation. In order to make the rank and file advance, the leaders must devise slogans and produce convincing reasons, must offer rewards and utter threats, and above all, they must themselves head the advance.\n\nRetreat, on the other hand, is instantly aod unquestionably grasped by everyone from top to bottom, and the private soldier is infected by it with no less immediacy than the corps commander. Ina single urgent impulse every man responds, though he may have been awakened in the middle of the night, may not have eaten for three days, maybe barefoot, ready to drop, unarmed, sick, wounded or slow-witted-^ the only ones who remain indifferent are those who can never again be roused from sleep. Whether by night or in foul weather, the stark notion of retreat is understood by all, and all are ready to make any sacrifice without reward.\n\nThe previous night, XIII Corps had been unable to go to the help of XV Corps because the men were exhausted and the supply trains had not caught up. But on the next night no one grumbled about the absence of field kitchens, no one asked about a rest day; instead, the corps began to withdraw its bruised body with unusual speed from the forests and lakelands of Prussia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Except, that is, the rearguard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-\n\nIn the Russian army of 1914, rearguards did not save themselves by surrendering. Rearguards died.\n\nIn the low-lying basin of Hohenstein the Kashira regiment and two battalions of the Neva regiment were subjected to all-around attack by von Below's corps, and two Russian batteries were silenced by sixteen heavy-caliber German guns and seventy field guns. Even without artillery, the Kashira regiment fought until two o'clock in the afternoon, and then mounted a counter-attack on the railway station, after which isolated groups in houses still held out until evening. Colonel Kakhovskoy, killed beside the regimental colors, had won time-as he had been ordered to do.\n\nOn the narrow isthmus between lakes at Schwed-rich, the Sophia regiment, which had so far suffered the fewest casualties, dug in and fought a bloody action until 3 p. m., thus redeeming its disgrace of two years before: since 1912 its record had been stained and it had been banned from taking part in parades, because at the centenary review held on the field of Borodino a soldier of the regiment had broken ranks and hurled himself at the Tsar's feet with a petition. Now, at Schwedrich, two out of every three companies were annihilated, and of the remaining company barely a hundred men were left. But their pursuers were halted.\n\nIn this way, XIII Corps escaped from all its dangerous, exposed positions.\n\nYet the valor of its rearguard was not enough: due to the terrain, it could no longer move back on abroad front and was still retreating by the night of August 16. It then had to squeeze past the rear echelons of XV Corps, which was itself under heavy pressure and retreating fast toward the same roads that XIII Corps was makmg for. By now XIII Corps was no longer a corps, very few regiments were up to strength, and some amounted to only a few companies, although it was true that a hundred guns were still intact, as was the brigade ammunition train. Around noon Klyuev was suddenly presented with" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the 40th Don Cossack regiment, whole and in fine fettle, just arrived from Russia-the very corps cavalry regiment, in fact, which he had lacked throughout the fighting.\n\nGeneral Klyuev was not pleased with his new burden; he had no idea what to do with this regiment of Don Cossacks. He was even less pleased by the order, brought by General Pestich, informing him that he was to take command of all three corps. Those cunning devils at Army Headquarters! They were aU running away and leaving him to perish like a rat in a trap. Anyway, how was he to make contact with those three corps, when he was not even sure where all the units of his own corps were?\n\nThere was one compensation, however: until now, Klyuev had believed that Martos had been given the more suitable westerly routes for his withdrawal, while he had been left with the much poorer forest terrain. Now he could rearrange all that.\n\nSo in the late afternoon, without reconnoitering the roads, Klyuev wheeled his whole corps away from Lake Omulefoffen-not leftward, as he had been ordered, but to the right-and cut straight across the rear of XV Corps.\n\nIn the preceding few days, XV Corps had so worn down the enemy that it had now secured for itself a moderately unimpeded withdrawal. Its only harassment was from artillery fire, and the Germans were not seizing any locaUties until XV Corps had left them. But it was withdrawing without a headquarters and without many of its senior commanders, who were killed or missing, and it started to puU back half a day earlier than had been scheduled in the'slid-ing-shield\" plan, thereby wrecking the plan. Until darkness, the only formation holding the'shield,\" which it had done at untold cost, was the relic of XXIII Corps, while XV Corps, because of the Germans' seizure of the roads around Neidenburg, was drawn farther and farther toward the vast Griinfliess Forest, grim and dark long before twilight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was there that the two corps collided at right\n\nangles at the fateful crossroads in the impenetrable darkness of the forest night. Ina place whereby daylight there was not enough room for four carts to pass indifferent directions, two army corps were supposed to pass through each other at nighttime! If until that time the Russian Second Army could still be said to have existed, it ceased to exist after that incident.\n\nOnly someone who has been on active service can have any notion of the shouting and cursing, the grabbing of reins and shafts, the wrenching aside of wagon teams by drivers coming from the other direction, the vehicles pushed into the ditch, the crunch of breaking branches. Naturally, no senior officers were at the heads of the two columns, no one but a few junior officers, who recognized each other only after sometime spent in a shouting match, and who then devised a rough-and-ready technique to cope with the situation: they would stand at the crossroads as though rooted to the spot, seize each man by the shoulder and ask his unit, and accordingly direct the whole of XIII Corps eastward toward Kaltenbom, and XV and XXin Corps southward. Thus, sorting them physically was the only way to get the corps to diverge rather than cross.\n\nThe forest crossroads, whereby day the sun shone gently through the silent pine trees, seemed like a black passageway in hell. After exercising his voice hard enough at the crossroads, though not hard enough to make himself hoarse, Chemega fell silent only when he had counted all his wheels and made sure they were across. He did not realize that at that same crossroads five days ago they had been given a helping hand by the infantry platoon commanded by the obHging, freckled-faced Second Lieutenant Khari-tonov. Nor did Kharitonov recognize in the blackness which swallowed them the same path, so cool in the heat of the day, along which they had slogged their way from Omulefoffen and back again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After dividing, the two masses of men flowed on" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "through the forest, groping blindly, stopping now and then. The troops, who had not eaten for two days, were staggering; their water bottles empty, their mouths were dry as dust; having lost all faith in their generals, they refused to believe there was any reason for this forced march. Some began covering up their company numbers, so they could not be recognized and pulled into line; others simply dropped by the wayside and fell asleep on the ground.\n\nThe cavalry, whose speed and mobility had not been utilized during the past days, was now able to make use of these characteristics. Horseman joined up with horseman (more often than not, they were Don Cossacks) whenever they saw each other, and gradually formed themselves into a single cavalry column. They too had been affected by that irreversible sea change that affects units and individuals and causes an army to fall apart. The cavalry made for the spot where, as far as they knew, there was still away out: the farthest point of the neck of the flask, which the Germans had not yet plugged. They had already passed by daylight over the fatal crossroads where everything was later to be reduced to chaos. Keeping ahead of the Germans, they rode through village after village, where from dawn and throughout the next day the Russian infantry would have to stand and fight. The horses soon put behind them the twelve-mile forest road leading to WUlenberg, which tomorrow was to seem to the infantry as endless as the road to heaven. On their way, the Don Cossacks picked up the legendary General von Torklus, who had been unable to find his division, and the dragoons came across the staff of Army Headquarters. Willen-berg being in German hands already, the cavalry wheeled away from it, forced their way through the forest, left a rearguard to hold the river crossing at Chorzele, and rode on farther." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the plot as the author's writing partner.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "through the forest, groping blindly, stopping now and then. The troops, who had not eaten for two days, were staggering; their water bottles empty, their mouths were dry as dust; having lost all faith in their generals, they refused to believe there was any reason for this forced march. Some began covering up their company numbers, so they could not be recognized and pulled into line; others simply dropped by the wayside and fell asleep on the ground.\n\nThe cavalry, whose speed and mobility had not been utilized during the past days, was now able to make use of these characteristics. Horseman joined up with horseman (more often than not, they were Don Cossacks) whenever they saw each other, and gradually formed themselves into a single cavalry column. They too had been affected by that irreversible sea change that affects units and individuals and causes an army to fall apart. The cavalry made for the spot where, as far as they knew, there was still away out: the farthest point of the neck of the flask, which the Germans had not yet plugged. They had already passed by daylight over the fatal crossroads where everything was later to be reduced to chaos. Keeping ahead of the Germans, they rode through village after village, where from dawn and throughout the next day the Russian infantry would have to stand and fight. The horses soon put behind them the twelve-mile forest road leading to WUlenberg, which tomorrow was to seem to the infantry as endless as the road to heaven. On their way, the Don Cossacks picked up the legendary General von Torklus, who had been unable to find his division, and the dragoons came across the staff of Army Headquarters. Willen-berg being in German hands already, the cavalry wheeled away from it, forced their way through the forest, left a rearguard to hold the river crossing at Chorzele, and rode on farther." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would, perhaps, have been too much to have asked them to hold off the Germans while the slower infantry and artillery pulled back to safety.\n\nSomehow the poor old footsloggers just didn't getaway fast enough.\n\nOn the morning of August 16, Second Army was a unified formation; by that evening it was a disorganized, uncontrollable rabble. On the morning of the sixteenth, the Don Cossacks formed a loyal part of the Russian armed forces; by evening they had discovered that Cossack blood was thicker than Russian water.\n\nKwe stick with Mother Russia, we'll end up in hell! So let's stick together, Cossacks-the Don looks after her own!\n\nThey were not to be blamed, though; the attitude was far older than they were.\n\nThus, the discharge from a schoolboy's magnetic coil maybe a prophetic foretaste of a thunderstorm of incomparable magnitude in the skies.\n\nA SENSATION OF PURITY was Seeping through his resting body. He had no recollection of lying down to sleep or of waking up, indeed he was not yet sure whether he had awakened. He had just enough strength to force his eyelids apart and see some grass immediately in front of him. Untrodden, smooth, silky, the grass was the source of the purity that was pouring into him. Possibly he was aware that he was lying on his side, possibly he may have had a vague glimpse of the comer of the forest glade, but it was the grass which occupied the whole of his feeble, blurred attention.\n\nThe grass of his childhood. Grass exactly like this, perhaps mixed with mallow, had grown in the derelict farmyard of their estate at Zastruzhye and in the wide village street: dense, thick-stemmed, and short, unsuitable for hay. There were not many farmsteads in Zastruzhye, cattle were never putout to graze in the street, and it was so rarely driven over that no track ran down it and there were not even wheel ruts in the grass; it was a solid expanse of turf, on which he and the village children ran around and played games together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was just able to move the fingers of the hand nearer the ground and touch the grass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, it was the same sort.\n\nHe lacked the strength to do more. Some defensive mechanism prevented him from even remembering what the date was, where he was lying, why he was here, and why everything was so quiet. But the grass gently awakened older memories.\n\nA chapel. A tiny stone chapel on the same vil-\n\nlage street, behind its own fence. Hardly even a chapel, because there was not room in it for one man to stand up straight; it was more of a roofed-in shrine.\n\nThe church services. They were held either in front of the chapel or simply out in the fields; the procession came from the parish church three miles away on the Feast of the Assumption, a date probably chosen because it marked the end of the harvest in the Kostroma region.\n\nWhen was the Assumption? Was it over? Was it still to come? He could not remember. Everything that might have brought hirrr back to full awakening was still veiled in protective oblivion.\n\nThe venerable, gray-haired priest never came in a carriage but always on foot and bareheaded. A pair of icons were carried before him, each borne by two peasant women. Most of the voluntary members of the procession, however, consisted of the older children in the village. With a look of solemn self-importance, two or three of the oldest carried the religious banners, surrounded by a crowd of shaven-headed httle boys, for once not laughing or mischievous, in white or colored Russian shirts belted at the waist, peaked caps clutched in their hands. The little girls were in long, long skirts, and all of them, down to the very smallest, wore headscarves: it was not proper fora female head to be bare. They came in their best shoes or barefoot, but always in neat, clean clothes, their faces so full of naive trust and pure faith that no trace of childish naughtiness remained. For the rest of the feast day the two solitary banners were carried around the countryside from village to village." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every recollection of the place where one grew up brings a twinge of nostalgia. Others maybe indifferent to it or think it a very ordinary place, but to each one of us it is the best on earth-the unique sadness evoked by the memory of a country cart track as it twists and turns to avoid the boundary posts; the rickety, lopsided coach shed; the sundial in the middle of the yard; the bumpy, neglected, unfenced tennis\n\ncourt; the roofless summerhouse made of birch shingles.\n\nWhen his grandfather's impoverished estate was divided among the ten children, his father had declined his share on condition that he could have the estate of Zastruzhye-for the peace of his soul, for the sake of the lonely walks he could take reflecting on his imsuccessful Ufe, and because there were no longer any tenant farms attached to the estate; its few small fields only sufficed to feed the family of the bailiff (who was also the groom). At Christmas and Easter the bailiff sent the owners in Moscow two or three turkeys and a crock of clarified butter. The severe, two-story eighteenth-century manor house had been built by Yegor Vorotyntsev, a lieutenant of the Horse Guards, whose commission, written out in fine calligraphy and signed by the Empress Elizabeth, was preserved in their apartment in Moscow.\n\nThe career of Georgii Vorotyntsev derived directly from the imperial commission granted to that lieutenant of Horse Guards, for he had been the first in the family to return to the army after two generations of civilian life. (He was also vaguely convinced that his family was a branch of the extinct boyar house of the Vorotynskys of the Ugr region, one of whom, the renowned Prince Mikhailo Vorotynsky, had been burned at the stake by Ivan the Terrible, who saw him as a rival to the throne. But the genealogy was incomplete and it could not be proved.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes were now fully open and in the light of late afternoon took in the whole glade, fringed by a sprinkling of oaks iu an otherwise unbroken sea of copper-green conifers; at that moment he suddenly pricked up his ears at the sound of a rumble of artillery, steady and not very faraway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With one violent wrench the fragile cocoon of tranquillity was torn away and the hollow caldron of his soul reverberated again, struck by returning memory like a red-hot blacksmith's hammer.\n\nSamsonov's farewell to the army! It had all taken place today, only a few miles away. It was the end, there was nothing more to be done.\n\nAnd his Estlanders were gone-men whom he had persuaded to return to the fight; had he sent them to destruction in vain?\n\nHis horse, too, was gone. Or, rather, both horses... Where was Arsenii?\n\nVorotyntsev raised his stiff body on one elbow and looked to right and left-^ Arsenii was not there. Twisting his neck to see behind him, feeling pain in his shoulder and jaw, he^ anced around and saw Arsenii. He was lying at full length on his back, his head resting on a log. If he Was asleep, he was sleeping with half-closed eyes. No, he was not asleep but was staring ahead with the tranquil look of a dreamer.\n\nArsenii was the only one left. Vorotyntsev had striven to exert his influence, to help an entire army, and this single soldier was all that remained to him.\n\n\"Have we been asleep?\" he inquired anxiously.\n\nAfter a slight pause, military protocol forgotten, Arsenii opened his mouth in a delicious yawn. \"Aha.\"\n\n\"How? We shouldn't have gone to sleep,\" Vorotyntsev said in astonishment. Still lacking the strength to getup, he could only rollover on his other side to face Arsenii. He pulled out his watch but, when he looked at it, the face conveyed nothing to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The body has its own rhythm, its own permitted tempo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However rapidly divisions and regiments might be swept up and whirled around m the maelstrom of defeat, that lump of clay, the body, could not begin its autonomous counter-movement until some intervening stage had run its course, until it had passed through the immobility of sleep and the lazy, restful contemplation of blades of grass. In order to change from a previous tempo and direction to new ones, the body was apparently obhged to traverse a phase of numbness and rediscovery of self.\n\nHow could he have gone to sleep? And for almost four hours! He had simply lain down for five minutes... The army had been heading toward its destruction, he might have been able to extricate some troops in those four hours, do something useful-and he had slept.\n\n\"Why didn't you wake me up? You know we shouldn't have slept.\"\n\nArsenii smacked his lips, sighed, and yawned. \"I fell asleep too, your honor. I haven't slept for three nights, and you haven't slept for five. Where's therefor us to go, anyway?\"\n\nHe was right, they had needed sleep; Vorotyntsev's body still lay pressed gratefully to the earth, unable to rise. But Arsenii could not know that the colonel had not thrown himself to the ground out of exhaustion, that after leaving Ostrolenka he had spent five days galloping back and forth, persuading, exhorting-and had collapsed here from despair. Never before had he known despair, and he could not forgive himself for it. He had lain here mumbling and thinking about the past-and one does not recall the past when one's mind is alert and active.\n\nHis shattered consciousness was recovering, but his memory was still unable to grasp the full extent of the catastrophe: it was boundless, irremediable. The time for saving apart of the army, let alone the whole, was past. But could he not do something? Ah yes, now he remembered: his map had gone when he had lost his horse. Without a map, he was blind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev groaned and beat his forehead with his fist. It was all due to the weakness of his body-though it was grateful for the rest. He pulled up his knees and clasped them with his hands. If only he had a map!\n\nAll that remained to him was his memory, which had retained an approximate idea of the lie of the land; but that was not enough.\n\nVorotyntsev turned around to look more closely at Arsenii, who, feeling the colonel's eyes on him, raised himself reluctantly, pushmg his body up from behind with both hands but not moving his legs. His cap had fallen to the ground, his hair was rumpled, and he had a sullen look as though he had been drinking too much. He blinked.\n\n\"It's my fault that you're here,\" Vorotyntsev said reflectively. \"If you'd stayed with the others, you wouldn't have been caught in the encirclement.\"\n\n\"If I'd stayed with them, maybe I'd be ahead shorter by now,\" Arsenii countered, nodding to emphasize his point. \"The dice fell that way, and there's no changing it.\"\n\nOnce again Vorotyntsev was astonished at the man's dignified self-assurance, at his abihty to be natural and genuine without being familiar. With none of an officer's condescension in his voice, as though speaking to an equal, Vorotyntsev said: \"But we'll get out of here, don't you think?\"\n\n\"I should hope so!\" Arsenii thrust out his thick lips. \"But this is some forest!\"\n\n\"It's nowhere near a main road, though, and that's where the Germans are-on the roads.\"\n\n\"Well, we can always sit it out here until the Germans move on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sit it out?\"\n\n\"Yes, build a hut and hide in it till winter. We can stay alive on roots and berries.\"\n\n\"For three months?\"\n\nBlagodaryov frowned, peering solemnly ahead. \"People have done it. For years.\"\n\n\"Who has?\"\n\n\"Well, hermits in the desert.\"\n\n\"You and I aren't hermits! We wouldn't last long.\"\n\nBlagodaryov looked down sideways from his raised position, and said confidently: \"You can do anything if you have to.\"\n\n\"But we're not monks, we're soldiers! We'll breakthrough. And as soon as possible, while we're stiU fit. Are you hungry?\"\n\n\"My stomach thinks my throat's cut.\" Arsenii's teeth champed on an empty mouth.\n\nTheir sleep, side by side on the ground, had done them good. The task now was not to rally troops but to get themselves through the German liiies, and he, Vorotyntsev, had to get to General Headquarters to tell them the truth about what had happened. Then his mission would not have been in vain. That was his duty, and of all the men in this encircled army he was the only one who could perform it. There were other officers to rally the men; let them do it.\n\nAgain he pricked up his ears. Silence. The artillery had stopped firing, and there was only an occasional distant rifle shot and a few short bursts of two or three rounds of machine-gunfire.\n\nIt could mean that it was allover.\n\nHe was about to push himself to his feet, but found that he was using the wrong arm-his shoulder was too painful. At that moment he froze, listening. Arsenii had heard something too and, throwing off his lassitude, was staring keenly through the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a crunch of twigs. Someone was approaching, alone and with uncertain tread.\n\n\"One of ours,\" said Arsenii confidently.\n\nIf he was alone, he would undoubtedly be a Russian.\n\nThey remained on the ground.\n\nThe figure coming toward them was an officer, staggering slightly. He was thin and very young, hardly more than a boy. Was he wounded? He seemed to find his sword too heavy. There was something familiar about him.\n\n\"Lieutenant!\" Vorotyntsev recognized him, shouted, and stood up. \"Aren't you the young fellow from Rostov I spoke to in the hospital?\"\n\nThe expression on the second lieutenant's beardless, childlike face changed at once from fear to delight. \"Colonel-it's you!\"\n\n\"Weren't you evacuated? Don't tell me you walked here from the hospital?\" Then, without giving him time to answer: \"You don't happen to have a map on you, by any chance?\"\n\nThe lieutenant was not wearing a sword frog, but the two leather straps with buckles running vertically down his chest from under each epaulette to his belt made him look particularly dignified. At his slim flank was an ofiBcer's knapsack of the largest size, full to bursting.\n\n\"Yes, of course!\" The pale young man beamed and unfastened his knapsack. Eager for praise, he added: \"And a good one, too-it's German. I found it in Hohenstein, and I glued the sheets together while I was in the hospital.\"\n\nIt was obviously costing him an effort to stand and talk. Perhaps he was feeling dizzy and wanted to lie down.\n\n\"Well done, lad, well done!\" Vorotyntsev slapped him on the back. \"Where are you wounded? Oh yes, I remember-concussion. Headache? It is getting better, though? Lx) ok-takeoff your greatcoat and lie down fora while, you're pale... Goon, do as I say-^ lie down!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was already opening up the map, folded in three double folds, and spreading it out on the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hovered over it like a falcon over its prey. The fact that half an hour ago he had been asleep, or had even been capable of relaxing and lying down, now seemed inconceivable.\n\n\"Arsenii, bring me some twigs to hold the corners down. Now, Lieutenant, show me how you got here.\"\n\nVorotyntsev knelt down in front of the map and Kharitonov lay on his stomach, his rolled-up greatcoat propping his chest. Stopping now and again to regain his breath and occasionally putting his handover his eyes, he tried his best to give an accurate, coherent account and to sound wide awake. Pointing to the map with fingers whose nails were bitten and untrimmed, he described how he had left Neidenburg the previous evening after the Germans had cut the main road, how he had approached the road and veered away from it, and where he had spent the night. Today he had been making for the village of Griinfliess, but the Germans...\n\n\"What? Grunfliess too? When did they take it?\"\n\n\"As far as I know, about three hours ago.\"\n\nWhile they had been sleeping...\n\nKharitonov went onto say how he had hoped to find his regiment somewhere in XV Corps' area.\n\n\"And where do you reckon we are now?\"\n\n\"Exactly here. If we goon farther, there should be a clearing on the right, then we come to the edge of the forest and we should be able to see Orlau from there.\"\n\n\"Correct. Excellent, Lieutenant. We came here from the other direction; the position tallies exactly. But\n\nit's no use trying to find your regiment now, I'm afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had a map; they knew where they were; for the rest, he must simply use his eyes and brain. His mind rapidly grasped the essentials, acting on the same sort of reflex with which a gun crew springs into action or an infantry company stands to.\n\nThe Russian troops are all headmg for the last gap in the encirclement; they will all be trying to get as jar as possible from the Germans'western line of advance; therefore, we must try and go as close to it as possible. The Germans in this area will have no time to spare; they will be pushing on as hard as they can go to close the ring. There are no proper roads in this vicinity, hence not much military traffic-all the better fora small group trying to slip through unnoticed. And the forest paths all run southeast, which is just what we want. \\ Ve must merely make one detour of a mile or so to avoid the triangle of open country around Griinfliess village, and after that it's all forest. Then comes a railway line running through dense forest; there won't be anybody there. More forest tracks. There are just two places half a mile apart, near the village of Moldtken, where the forest comes right up to the main road-that's the place to cross it. We must try to keep the route as direct as possible. The less distance we have to cover, the less exertion-the sooner we shall get out. To think we can sit in the forest and wait until the German troops move and leave the main road free is a false calculation, because by then they will have put up barbed-wire roadblocks. No, we must move as quickly as possible. We won't make it tonight, though. So it must be tomorrow night. That gives us twenty-four hours to reach the main road.\n\nThere was then: plan, all ready: route, timing, and objective." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev stared at the green expanse of Grun-fliess Forest on the map spread out in front of him: it was vast, but it was neatly divided into two hundred and fifty rectangular numbered sectors, making it easy enough to find one's way through it on\n\nfoot; if the German foresters were thoroughly at home there, why shouldn't he be?\n\nHe explained some of his thoughts aloud to Khari-tonov. This boy in concussion could be their weak link, but the Ueutenant was so keen and showed such radiant enthusiasm as he listened to the senior officer's plan, appearing to draw strength from the very ground i he was lying on, that Vorotyntsev was certain he would not weaken.\n\nEnjoying the feel of the grass under his huge, bare feet, Blagodaryov stood upright beside the map, hopping from foot to foot. He was gazing down, as though from an airplane, on Prussia spread out before him: now the Germans had seized it back from them.\n\nA few hours ago Vorotyntsev had collapsed on this spot, overcome by stupefying weakness. An hour ago he had not even had the strength to think what to do. Now that his mind was clear again and he had devised a sound plan, he was eager not to waste a moment: the mainspring inside him was released and urging him forward. \"Come on! Let's get moving! Right, Arsenii, pickup the map by the corners.\"\n\nAs they turned the map around and oriented it by compass, their forsaken little glade fell into precise place within the layout of the forest, and the path that crossed it showed them which way they should set off.\n\n\"Well, lads, shall we go?\" Vorotyntsev said impatiently. And glancing apprehensively at the lieutenant: \"How do you feel? Want to lie down a little longer?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kharitonov needed more rest, but he replied: \"I'm ready. Colonel.\"\n\nSmacking his lips loudly, Arsenii started to puU on his boots.\n\nVorotyntsev carefully picked up the map, deciding which part of it would be needed next, and bent it into new folds so it would not fray and get torn along the old creases.\n\nAlthough the western edge of the forest was not faraway, the sun no longer shone into the glade from\n\nthat side, having set behind the thick wall of trees. The rustling, bronze-colored woods were dark, only the seventy-foot pine tops still tinged with gold.\n\n\"Right! Throw it away!\" Vorotyntsev ordered firmly, seeing that the sick lieutenant was hindered by his sword.\n\n\"What?\" said Kharitonov in uncomprehending amazement.\n\n\"Get rid of it!\" Vorotyntsev said cheerfully, making a throwing movement. \"I order you to. I'll take the responsibility. I shall throw my own sword away too.\"\n\nBut he did not do so.\n\n\"Then shall I... break it. Colonel?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you feel strong enough. You go last, Ar-senii. Take the lieutenant's greatcoat.\" He raised a finger to forestall the lieutenant's protest.\n\nThey set off in single file. With only his leather straps and knapsack now, head firmly erect, the thin young man did his best to keep pace between the brisk, stocky colonel and the huge, slow-striding soldier. Besides two greatcoats and rifles, a pack, mess tin, and water bottle, Blagodaryov was also carrying a heavy, sealed ammunition box, and an entrenching tool was bumping against his hip-all of which he managed with ease." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They passed three sectors of the forest, then turned. Halfway along the next sector, despite the premature onset of darkness in the forest, Arsenii noticed a man sitting on a stump about ten trees' distance into the wood from a path.\n\n\"Ha!\" he boomed as though shouting into a barrel. \"Someone's sitting over there.\"\n\nGiven the present situation, a man might be hiding behind every bush.\n\nThe officers turned and looked. The man continued to sit, without attempting to fire, runaway, or hide. Nor did he make any move to join his fellow Russians.\n\nThen he stood up and walked slowly toward them.\n\nOn the pathway there was still enough light to see that he was smeared allover with earth, but although\n\nhis face was dirty, it had a proud, stem look. An ensign, also without his sword. Noticing the colonel's epaulettes, he hesitated whether to salute. He did not, nor did he come to attention; they were, after all, in the depths of a forest. He frowned. After a pause, as though in pain or trying to think, he announced himself: \"Ensign Lenartovich, Chernigov regiment.\"\n\nAt that moment, Vorotyntsev noticed the university graduate's badge on the tunic under his open greatcoat. It being his habit to size up every officer and soldier as if he were serving under him in his regiment, he mentally took stock of this young man. He was wondering too how he came to be in these parts: the Chernigov regiment ought not to have been in this area. However, one never could tell in this chaos.\n\n\"Are you wounded?\"\n\n\"No.\" Sullenly and with an air of independence, he added: \"But I was almost killed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't understand.\" Vorotyntsev checked him sharply. Virtually everybody could claim he had been'almost\" killed. That was the sort of story you told women after the war.\n\nLenartovich pointed over his shoulder. \"I was trying to make for the village, but the Germans were already there. A machine gun pinned me down ma potato field and I just managed to crawl away.\"\n\n\"Where's your platoon?\" Vorotyntsev put in quickly. The moon, in its first quarter, could be seen in the gray sky, but it did not give much fight in the forest. They must not waste time and lose the night. A cluster of olive-colored clouds was strung across the sky, but they were unlikely to mean bad weather. While looking at the sky, he missed the ensign's reply. He probably would not have believed his story; anyway, greater things were at stake than the fate of one ensign. Nor would he have cared to have the young man in his regiment, but even so, he could see that even this young student who despised military service might make a good officer yet. He was taU and good-looking and held himself well.\n\nHurriedly, he asked: \"Do you want to stay here? Or will you come with us? We are going to breakthrough the lines.\"\n\nA moment of hesitation, then with more animation than before, he answered readily: \"With your permission.\"\n\nVorotyntsev said harshly: \"I warn you, we share all our duties without regard to rank. There are the fit and the woimded, that's the only difference among us.\"\n\n\"Good, good,\" Lenartovich agreed enthusiastically. He liked that; it was thoroughly democratic, and he had always hated the way the army classified people into'upper\" and\"\"\"lower\" grades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a nod, Vorotyntsev gave the order to his party: \"Quick-march!\"\n\nAnd they set off again.\n\nLenartovich was truly glad that he had, evidently, fallen into rehable hands. He had swallowed mouthfuls of earth in the potato field, been spattered with dirt from bullets that had only just missed him, and had said goodbye to life-the life he loved so much, unfulfilled, scarcely even begun. Worming his way along, he had crawled out of that endless furrow, never once raising his head from the ground. He had wandered around the forest in a daze, deafened, his hands torn and bleeding, with a sprained finger, spitting earth from his mouth and digging it out of his nose and ears.\n\nSurrendering had proved to be even more dangerous than fighting. This was war: there was noway to shake oneself free of it. Provided these people did not suspect him or accuse him, and as they intended to breakthrough the lines, there was nothing for it but to go with them, to stay and fight on. If the enemy was so intent on killing him and had almost done so, he had the right to pay them back in the same coin-and may the best man win.\n\nHe noticed that the soldier had a water bottle. His throat was parched with thirst, but for some reason he could not bring himself to ask fora drink.\n\nHe was being led, carried along, his body not moving of its own volition; he was absorbed in thought. His world had finally collapsed; the dust had settled, the ruins were plainly visible. The time of desperate, confused movement back and forth was over; past and present now stood outwith absolute clarity.\n\nThe film that had dulled his mind was removed and a great weight had fallen from his heart: since the moment at Orlau when he had ridden among the troops to thank them and take his leave of them, a stone had fallen away from him and his soul felt the relief. Although those few soldiers on that hill at Orlau were incapable of forgiving him for what he had done to their army and to Russia, he had longed for their forgiveness. He was not much concerned by the thought of a court of inquiry: ofi& cers of his seniority were never hauled before a tribunal. They might be reproached and relegated to the reserve, or they might be given another appointment; the shame was something that one could, after aU, survive. Even if a court of inquiry were to beset up, it would find the case impossible to investigate-^ the events were beyond anyone's powers to unravel, and in any case it was too late. What had happened was evidently part of God's purpose, and that was something which was beyond the comprehension of the men of our time. Samsonov was no longer the proud rider, high on his horse, but a passenger in a cart, jolting over tree roots and potholes. Although he and Postovsky were bumping shoulders, the two men did net talk; Samsonov had forgotten about him, absorbed as he was in his own reflections." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not thinking about Zhilinsky or about Army Group Headquarters, nor was he dwelling on the insulting and offensive treatment which had recently hurt him so deeply. He was not racking his brains for ways to prove that Zhilinsky was more to blame than he was for what had happened. His mind was clearer and less heated now; he was no longer piqued at the thought that Zhilinsky might be able to wriggle out of the responsibility and emerge unscathed. It was strange that an accusation of cowardice from that insignificant man had a short while ago stung Sam-sonov so hard that it had influenced his decisions affecting entire army corps.\n\nInstead, he was thinking how hard it was for the Tsar to choose the right advisers. Evil, selfish men were more self-assertive than the good and loyal ones; it was always they who tried hardest to showoff their false loyalty and their pretended abilities to the Tsar. No one had to deal with as many liars and flatterers as did the Tsar; yet how was he, a mere man, to acquire the godlike insight needed to see into the dark corners of other men's souls? Thus it was he who became the victim of his mistaken choices, and his self-seeking appointees were gnawing like worms at the strong tree trunk that was Russia.\n\nJolting and swaying in a cart, Samsonov was still thinking as though he were exalted leader, a man on horseback. Calmly absorbed in these elevated thoughts, his mind was wholly unconcerned with the present mission of the officers of his staff, which was to find a gap in the encirclement and escape through it. When interrupted, he was slow to absorb the import of what they were telling him-that the route to Janow, which they were following, was cutoff by the Germans, who were shelling the road where it emerged from the forest. The officers proposed to change their southward line of march and turn east, making a wide detour toward Willenberg, which should still be occupied by Russian troops of General Blagovesh-chensky's corps. Samsonov made no objection and merely nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This meant losing precious space and time in re-\n\ntracing their steps, and then turning aside as soon as they found^ a suitable escape route to the east. Sam-sonov took no interest in the time-consuming business of finding a gap in the enemy lines. A protective mental wall seemed to be shielding him from every source of outward distress and irritation; the faster and more irrevocable the flow of external events became, the slower grew Samsonov's reactions to them and the more his mind became concentrated on his private thoughts.\n\nHe had wanted only to do good, yet what he had achieved was an unmitigated evil. If such disasters could result from decisions taken with the best intentions, what might be the outcome of actions whose motivation was base and selfish? And if there were more defeats, might not rebellion rear its head again in Russia, as had happened after the Japanese war?\n\nThe knowledge that he. General Samsonov, had served his sovereign and his country so lamentably was a terrible, painful burden for him to bear.\n\nIt was now nearly evening and the sun was low in the sky. The staff ofiicers had reverted to a plan to make an attempt to turn south again and to try to find away out in that direction. The army commander merely nodded, without paying proper attention.\n\nThe going was beginning to be much harder. They had left the tall pine forest with its dry, firm floor and were now crossing some low-lying ground dotted with bushes, crisscrossed with sandy tracks which slowed up their progress, and full of unexpected obstacles such as streams and ditches, which could only be crossed by wading through them on foot.\n\nSeveral times the Cossack escort rode on ahead to reconnoiter, only to return quickly, after a burst of machine-gunfire, with the news that wherever they looked, the way ahead was blocked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These Cossacks should never had been in a headquarters escort squadron; they were second-and third-grade troops, so unreliable and cowardly that they disappeared into the bushes at the first sound of firing. It was as though Russia herself was so de-\n\npleted of manpower that the general who in his time had been Ataman of the Semirechiye and the Don Cossacks could not even muster a squadron of good Cossacks for his personal escort.\n\nThe army commander was still being forced to make frequent decisions. Both Postovsky and Fili-monov should have been able to takeover the leadership of this little headquarters group, but these men had collapsed. The wolfish look had vanished from Filimonov's face, and he now sat hunched and sniveling as though suffering from influenza. When they reached the village of Saddek, the junior staff officers had to ask the army commander himself for permission to send the Cossack squadron into the attack to try to breakthrough.\n\nOver half a mile lay between their position on the edge of the forest and the high ground that flanked the main road, and this open terrain looked most unpromising fora cavalry attack, but the officers insisted hotly that they should at least be allowed to have a try at it, and Samsonov, as though in a dream and without giving it sufficient thought, gave his permission.\n\nColonel Vyalov tried to persuade the surly Cossacks to get into the attack, but they hung back, refusing to leave the safety of the woods, complaining that their horses were exhausted. Only when Staff Captain Ducimetiere, shouting'Hurrah!\" and waving his sword, had galloped off alone toward the German machine gun, followed shortly by Vyalov and two more officers, did the Cossacks move. They streamed out in a disorderly mob, firing aimlessly into the air and shrieking and yelling-not so much to frighten the enemy as to bolster their own spirits. But three of them were shot off their horses, and fifty paces short of the machine-gun position the Cossacks wheeled aside and turned into a nearby copse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sight of this disgraceful performance shocked Samsonov into decisive activity. He recalled the whole party, and forbade the officers to try a second attack, which they were now proposing to make on foot. He\n\nthen ordered the. headquarters group to turn back northward and make another attempt to breakthrough toward Willenberg in the east.\n\nIn the growing darkness they rode back into the forest, where they made rapid unhindered progress along a metaled road toward Willenberg. Two miles short of the town, however, as they came out of the forest in the twilight, they meta Polish peasant and asked him if there were many Russian soldiers in Willenberg.\n\nClasping his head in his hands, he replied: \"Nie^ panowie, tarn wcale niema Rosjan, tylko Niemcy, duzo Niemcow dzis przyszh.\" (\"No, gentlemen, there are no Russians thereat all, only Germans; many Germans came there today.\")\n\nBewildered and despairing, the staff officers sat down. Where could Blagoveshchensky's corps possibly be?\n\nSamsonov sat on abroad tree trunk, his beard sunk on his chest. If even the Army Headquarters staff had failed to breakout, what fate must now await the army itself?\n\nThe officers conferred. Their last hope, it was decided, was to slip through the German lines that night. To Samsonov the news was nothing less than a sign of divine retribution. Why had his judgment been so clouded that he had abandoned his army? The finger of God was pointing at him.\n\nFirmly he announced: \"I release you all, gentlemen. General Postovsky, you will take command of the headquarters party and breakthrough the German Unes. I shall return to XV Corps.\" (At that very moment, in the twilight seventeen miles away behind Samsonov, XIII and XV Corps had become tangled in irretrievable confusion at that fatal crossroads in the forest and had ceased to exist.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, as one man, all the officers of the staff gathered around the army commander and, each with his own argument, joined in the attempt to persuade Samsonov how wrong, how absurd, how unthinkable, how impossible his decision was. He was in command of the whole army, and even if he was out of touch with the center corps, he had a duty to the flanking\n\ncorps and to Army Group Headquarters. He was the only one who could rally the remaining forces of Second Army in the few hours that remained. Only he could save the country from a German invasion. Yesterday, when opinions had been divided over whether to withdraw from Neidenburg to Nadrau, his staff would not have dared argue with him so forcefully. But much had changed since then. Samsonov sat on his natural wooden throne and closed his eyes as he listened to them. He thought how disagreeable all the members of his staff were; having been selected at random, they were all, to a man, uncongenial to him in mind and spirit. The only man he liked and trusted was Krymov, and he had been sent away.\n\nAlthough they sounded cogent enough, Samsonov detected a note of falsity in the staff officers' arguments. He did not openly accuse them of cowardice, but it was plain enough to him as he listened that they were not concerned about the army but about themselves: none of them wanted to go back with him into the thick of the fighting, yet service tradition forbade them to breakout of the encirclement without him. Samsonov, however, no longer had the energy to compete against the pressing arguments of a dozen of his subordinates. Worse still, he lacked the strength to set off alone with his orderly, Kupchik, on the long trek through the gathering darkness.\n\nCuriously enough, no one suggested the other alternative-to order combatant units to move to this locality and to fight their way out. The idea simply did not occur to anyone. The problem of escape thus remained to be solved. Opinion was unanimous that the Cossack squadron was useless as a means of getting out by force, so the Cossacks were released from their duty as escort and told to try to breakthrough independently. The headquarters staff would go forward on foot, having persuaded themselves that without horses it would be easier to escape at night through this trackless countryside. The region was inhabited by Poles, who were regarded as pro-Russian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Samsonov, his head on his chest, sat on his tree trunk as though oblivious of the discussion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The de-\n\nfeated command. er, calmer than all the officers of his staff, sat waiting for an end to all the bustle and confusion, which was distracting him from his thoughts; he was looking forward to getting on the move again, as the steady, regular movement would help him to thmk.\n\nHowever, when they had dismissed the Cossacks, had unbridled their horses and released them, the officers were not ready for their night march but were still busy with preparations. As the last of the gray Ught of day merged into moonhght, Samsonov could just make out that they were digging a hole and putting into it things they were taking from their pockets and uniforms. Although he saw this, he did not grasp it^ significance: he had ceased to regard himself as their commander with the power to give them orders. He was, instead, simply waiting for them to take him on the next stage of the journey.\n\nThen the short, officious figure of Postovsky approached and leaned toward him. \"Your excellency, allow me to point out... We don't know what may happen to us... If we fall into enemy hands... All documents, all badges of rank... There is no reason why we should make it easy for them...\"\n\nSamsonov did not understand. Make what easy for them?\n\n\"Alexander Vasilich, we are burying everything that could identify us. We have made a record of this spot and we will either comeback for our things later or send someone to recover them. If you have any documents, or anything likely to reveal your name... And you should remove your epaulettes...\"\n\n\"My epaulettes?!\" Realizing at last what they were doing, Samsonov gave a hoarse roar and stood up from the tree trunk hke a bear roused from its lair. As though unused to standing on two legs, leaning forward sUghtly, forearms dangling, he placed his hands on Pos-tovsky's narrow shoulders. Unable to beheve his eyes in the faint light of the moon shining between the pine trees, Samsonov found that it was true: the shoulders of his chief of staff were devoid of epaulettes. Only a torn scrap of cloth stiU flapped on his coat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the same stooping gait, his arms hanging slightly forward, stiff from having sat so long, he walked up to the nearest oiBBcer and put a hand on his shoulder-the epaulettes were gone. He moved onto the next man-gone, too!\n\n\"Gentlemen!\" Samsonov roared, straightening up. \"You are betraying your oath of allegiance. Who gave you permission?\"\n\nEach man stood stiffly to attention, but not one showed regret or begged pardon. No one rushed to dig his epaulettes out of the hole in the ground and place them back on his shoulders. The junior officers among them approached him and again began confidently to persuade him that they must not let the enemy know whom they had captured; that the Germans should be led to believe that the army commander and his staff had escaped; that they should not allow the badges of rank of a general, alive or dead, to be mauled by unworthy hands; they would, they insisted, do the same thing with the regimental colors if a unit was cutoff-the colors would be cutup, burned, or buried: anything rather than let them fall into enemy hands. After all, documents and epaulettes were not weapons-they were just pieces of paper, metal, and cloth...\n\nPerhaps they were right... But how quickly everything had changed. A mere quarter of an hour ago he could still have made the choice of agreeing with them or refusing to go with them. They had begged him to stay with them, that was all; nothing had been said about removing their epaulettes. Had it come to that so soon?\n\nMaybe it was a sensible precaution. But he could not bring himself to do it.\n\nThen Postovsky sidled up to him, fussy and ingratiating, discreetly offering assistance. \"I'll help you, Alexander Vasilich... Won't take a moment... There we are... And your St. Vladimir's Cross will have to go too, I'm afraid... That's it, that's all... And check through your pockets... There maybe something...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The feeling of being stripped naked... The feeling of being degraded, humiliated, punished... His\n\nwatch? His wife's medallion? He could keep those. The Tsar's presentation sword? That he would keep till his death!\n\nSomething irretrievable seemed to have been lost in those two minutes. His shoulders and his chest no longer felt the same. He could not holdup his head as he had before: he was, in fact, no longer the army commander. That was why they did not obey him-indeed, they had ceased to obey him some hours ago. As though he were a golden idol, like savages they continued to carry the statue of their powerless god with them lest curses fall upon their heads.\n\nAnd upon his.\n\nBut as all his badges were removed, the last of his cares seemed to fall away from him. At last his head and chest felt free.\n\nThey set off in single file, Samsonov somewhere in the middle, followed by Kupchik carrying the saddlecloth from the general's horse, which had been set loose. By the faint moonlight, which penetrated where the woodland was thinner, it was just possible to make out tree trunks, undergrowth, clumps of scrub, or open space, but only in the immediate vicinity; human figures could not be distinguished unless they were very close. The men at the head of the file were making their way forward by compass, half groping; whenever they stopped to check the direction, the whole party stopped. It proved impossible to advance in a straight line: they were constantly forced to make detours to avoid ditches, swampy ground, or thickets, and then to pickup their direction again.\n\nSamsonov was free to think. Undisturbed, with no one to interrupt him, he could at last follow his thoughts to their conclusion. Yet there now seemed no point in pursuing them any further. What was the use? Everything had already been thought out and decided for him. The slate was wiped clean, the responsibility over. Memories were the only pleasure left to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The memory that kept returning was not that of his country childhood in Ekaterinoslav, not the cadet school, nor the cavalry-training camp, or the countless\n\nevents, places, and brother officers of his army career; instead, for some reason, the image which insistently came back to his mind's eye was the huge, grim Cathedral of the Don Cossack Host, perched on a hilltop, with its intricate ornamental brickwork. Born in the Ukraine, he had lived in Moscow, in Petersburg, in Warsaw, in Turkestan, and in the Trans-Amur territory, but although he was not a born Don Cossack, his thoughts kept returning to that great hill in Novocherkassk. What bliss it would be to seek eternal rest in that cathedral-not on the upper side, the burial place of Ermak the Conqueror of Siberia, but on the lower side, on Kreshchensky Hill, whereon a low granite tomb only slightly higher than the surrounding cobblestones there lay a cast-iron cape and Cossack hat, as lifelike as though their owner, Baklanov, had just been there, had shrugged them off and gone.\n\nThat was where he longed to be: in the tomb in the crypt, where soldiers are buried... When they have won victories which can be carved in granite...\n\nHe was finding it difficult to walk. His legs had grown unused to walking, but worse still was his shortness of breath, which made him wheeze asthmatically even when unburdened and moving at an ordinary walking pace.\n\nWhen a man loses not only his eminence over other men but also his means of conveyance and his means of protection, it can be a testing time for his body. Sam-sonov discovered that his Achilles' heel was not the spiritual wound caused by the removal of his epaulettes, but the failure of his bodily organs: his pounding heart; the inadequacy of his lungs, as though they were two-thirds blocked up; and his weak, unreliable legs, with their clumsy gait, their proneness to trip, to stumble on tussocks and stray brushwood, to slip on mossy ground. He began to find that his only source of relief was not the fact that the party was making good progress or that they might escape but the chance of resting against a tree trunk and getting his breath back whenever the column halted at an obstacle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although Samsonov was too ashamed to ask fora\n\nrest, out of consideration for him the group halted once an hour and sat down. Kupchik would then appear and promptly spread out the saddlecloth for his general to sit on.\n\nGlad though Samsonov was of the chance to stretch out and ease his aching legs, the party did not dare to rest for too long: the hours of darkness, their last chance to escape, were all too short. At midnight the moon began to set, then clouds began to cover both the moon and the stars high in the sky. It soon became quite dark, and nothing could be seen; only by the crunching of twigs underfoot, by the sound of breathing, or by touch, were the links of the moving human chain aware of each other. The going, too, was getting worse-a squelch of marshy ground underfoot, an impenetrable thicket blocking the route, or a dense copse of fir. It was considered too dangerous to veer in the direction of Willenberg, where they might easily bump mto a German patrol. There was an equal danger that they might get lost. The officers gathered into a huddle and conferred in whispers. There were to be no more halts. Whenever they came to a ditch, Kupchik and a Cossack captain each took one of Samsonov's arms and helped to drag him across.\n\nIt was his body and nothing else which was pulling Samsonov down. It was the dead weight of his body alone which had dragged him down into pain, into suffering, shame, and disgrace. All he needed to gain release from the burden of pain and shame was to free himself from his body. It would be a simple step to take, and one which he desired as much as he longed to draw the first full, deep breath into his congested lungs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That evening, only a few hours ago, the officers of his staff had regarded him as a kind of taUsmanic idol; by midnight he had become a millstone around their necks, a lump of carved stone.\n\nThe only difficulty was to escape from Kupchik, who had kept close behind his general all the way, now and again reaching out to touch his back or his arm. But while skirting one of the frequent clumps of bushes,\n\nSamsonov gave his Cossack orderly the slip, stepped to one side, and hid.\n\nThe sound of breaking twigs and the crunch of heavy footfalls passed him by, faded into the distance, and died away.\n\nIt was completely quiet. The whole world was silent, as though the clash of armies had never been; only the breath of a gentle night breeze was sighing in the tops of the pine trees. There was nothing hostile about this forest: it was not a German or a Russian forest but simply God's forest which gave refuge to all manner of creatures.\n\nLeaning against the tree trunk, Samsonov stood and listened to the sound of the forest. From nearby came the rustle of apiece of torn pine bark, and from above there was the faint, sobbing hum of windblown tree-tops.\n\nHis sense of ease grew and grew. He had lived out along life of army service in which danger and the risk of death were inevitable; now that he had reached the moment of death and was ready for it, he realized as never before how easy, how much of a reUef it would be.\n\nThe only problem was that suicide was accounted a sin.\n\nWith a faint cUck, the hammer of his revolver slipped readily into the cocked position. Samsonov put it into his upturned cap, which he had laid on the ground. He took off his curved sword and kissed it, then felt for his wife's medallion and kissed it too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked a few paces to a small clearing open to the sky.\n\nIt was cloudy now, and only one tiny star could be seen. It vanished, then reappeared. He knelt down on the warm pine needles, and because he did not know where the east lay, he prayed to the star.\n\nHe began with the set prayers, then none at all: he simply knelt, breathing and looking up into the sky. Then, casting aside restraint, he groaned aloud, like any dying creature of the forest: \"O Lord, if Thou canst, forgive me and receive me. Thou seest-I could do no other, and can do no other now.\"\n\nAugust 16 and 17\n\nThe main road from Neidenburg to Willenberg was so smooth that it might have been especially prepared for von Francois's mobile units to race along it to linkup with von Mackensen as fast as possible. This highway, which the center Russian corps, unaware of their impending fate, had crossed a few days before, had in the meantime been turned into a fortified barrier designed to trap them. After a short night's rest, von Francois's leading units set off before dawn on the sixteenth and made for Willenberg with all speed, occasionally shooting up supply wagons and stray Russian units. There was no opposition, and by evening they had occupied Willenberg-although the forty kilometers of roadway behind them was held only by isolated pickets and a few patrols, so that the encirclement was still an extremely tenuous one. It took one of von Francois's divisions more than a day to spread out along this highway and occupy it.\n\nOn much poorer roads, the troops of the leading brigade of Von Mackensen's corps v/ere also pressing forward on the eastern flank; to make the march less arduous, they had loaded their knapsacks on commandeered civilian carts and then climbed on top of them. Von Mackensen headed down from the north toward the same Neidenburg-Willenberg road, sending out detachments to either side as he went-to Ortelsburg and deep into the forests toward the encircled Russian center." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toward evening on the sixteenth, even though the jaws of the pincers had not quite closed, the space between them was no more than six or seven miles of trackless, impenetrable forest in an area so far from the nearest Russian unit that for any Russian\n\nforce to have reached it was unthinkable. Yet, as Hindenburg signed the army order that evening for the following day, he was still unsure of the success of the encircling movement: in the rest of the semicircular ring the fighting, which had been so keen during the day, had slackened. The pursuing Germans had been successfully held up in skirmishes on several of the narrow necks of land between lakes, and there were no forces to spare for defense if on the sixteenth the Russians had broken through the ring from outside.\n\nBut no such attempt was made.\n\nSamsonov's last dispatch, sent on the evening of August 15, had succeeded in getting through the incomplete line of encirclement and reached Bialy-stok on the morning of the sixteenth, just before Zhilinsky and Oranovsky sat down to breakfast. Ill-fated and unsuccessful, but dogged as ever, Samso-nov announced that he had given his whole army the order to retreat behind the Ortelsburg-Mlawa line-that is, almost to the Russian frontier. In Zhilinsky's eyes it was a fate he had deserved-indeed, it could have been foreseen. It was a good thing that by assuming responsibility for the withdrawal without asking Army Group Headquarters Samsonov had taken the shame of it on himself. Over breakfast on that fine morning (when the doomed Kashira regiment had already been surrounded in Hohenstein), Zhilinsky and Oranovsky decided that they had been mistaken the previous day in having Rennenkampf advance into an area which was clearly empty, since Samsonov had now vacated it. They therefore telegraphed Rennenkampf: \"Second Army withdrawn to frontier. Halt any further movement of your troops going to its support.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rennenkampf had only started to move the previous evening after dinner; even if his corps had been able to head straight for the scene of today's battle (which was impossible in that terrain), the distance for the infantry was sixty-five miles, for the civalry forty-five. So at midday he gladly gave immediate orders to his corps to halt at once and pullback the next day.\n\nHowever, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky felt anew tremor of anxiety, and at two o'clock in the after-\n\nnoon they sent Rennenkampf a contradictory telegram: \"In view of Second Army's engagement in heavy fighting, move your forward corps and cavalry to i^ lenstein.\"\n\n(Why to Allenstein? How could anyone in their right mind send eight divisions to a place where no one had needed their help for at least the past forty-eight hours?)\n\nAnyone with military experience can judge what a happy effect these rapid counter-orders had on troop movements.\n\nManeuvering such vast masses far from the field of battle, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky did not concern themselves with moving the flanking corps which were close to the fighting; it was in any case regarded as improper for Army Group Headquarters to bypass the army commander and interfere with the functioning of his corps. However, since Bla-goveshchensky's corps was having a rest day, there could be no harm in having his cavalry division undertake some offensive action.\n\nSo in the middle of the day General Tolpygo's cavalry division was sent out on the march. Its route was barred by the ill-omened town of Ortels-burg, which yesterday had been empty (when Sam-sonov had ordered it to beheld at all costs), but today there had been intermittent gunfire coming from it since dawn. The cavalry division therefore skirted the town and advanced cautiously through an abandoned village on the route that it had been told to follow until it met the enemy. But the gathering darkness and the forest were unsuitable for cavalry, and General Tolpygo decided that he had better rejoin his corps. Although movement at night was difficult and dangerous, by morning his division had returned. A comic incident had occurred during their ride: they had surprised a German general, a divisional commander; although he managed to escape in his car, he left behind his greatcoat, which had a map in it. The map was marked to show von Mackensen's plan for encircling the center Russian corps. No attention was paid to this map. (It was much less trouble to disregard it.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I Corps did not have such a quiet time as Bla-goveshchensky's VI Corps. Despite the great distance it had retreated, on the night of the fifteenth\n\nto sixteenth a captain, sent by Samsonov, managed to reach I Corps with an order to advance immediately on Neidenburg to relieve the situation of the center corps, who were surrounded by the enemy. (If the one and a half corps which were at Mlawa had moved immediately to Neidenburg, then by midday on the sixteenth, with their overwhelming superiority in numbers, they could have entered the town without hindrance; not only would the German encirclement have been smashed, but, as happens in mobile warfare, von Francois's corps would have found itself gripped in a tight pincer movement and threatened with a retaliatory encirclement.)\n\nHowever, even though they had received a definite order, it was not so easy for the random collection of generals from various divisions and other units to meet together to carry it out. Nor was Colonel Krymov, whom General Dushkevich had selected as the chief of staflf of I Corps, able to induce the generals to agree. It was obvious that someone would have to carryout the order-but who? In the absence of any officer of undisputed seniority, each general was able to assert that his unit would not go as long as he was in command. All day on August 16 the generals in Mlawa haggled over the makeup of the composite detachment and who should lead it. In the end, its one wholly intact component unit was the Petrograd regiment of Life Guards, taken from the shattered Guards Division, while the other battalions, squadrons, and batteries were drawn from any units that could spare them. It therefore fell to the lot of the commander of the Warsaw Guards Division, General Sirelius from Petersburg, to lead the detachment on this desperate venture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When all the arguments and preparations were over, Sirelius set out at six o'clock in the evening, and then only with the advance guard; the remaining units were to follow in an agreed order. For the rest of the evening and throughout the night, Sirelius's detachment covered the required twenty miles, and the first clash with the German screen took place on the morning of August 17, three miles from Neidenburg.\n\n546' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nThen a German airplane appeared in the sky above them.\n\nBy then General von Francois had spent two nights in Neidenburg; he had already received two sets of daily orders from Ludendorff and had scoffed at them; Ludendorff still had not realized that the encirclement was well underway, being more concerned with taking precautions against Rennen-kampf. Von Frangois had little sleep on the night of the sixteenth to the seventeenth, because on his own orders a large number of captured Russian guns were hauled into the market square to be put on show. Von Frangois woke up and jotted down a few felicitous remarks for his memoirs. On the morning of this'proud and wonderful day in his life,\" he leaped out of bed feeling keen and refreshed, sent a triumphant telegram to Ludendorff, and sensing that he was on the point of achieving fame in Germany-indeed, throughout Europe-as the victor of a modem Cannae, he went out on the porch to inspect the spoils of war. Then came the hum of an engine in the sky: a reconnaissance plane had returned from a mission to observe the retreating Russians. To spare the general the suspense while he landed and delivered his message, the pilot neatly dropped the package on the road in front of the hotel. Von Frangois smiled his congratulations. An aide-de-camp ran and handed the envelope to the general, who unsealed it. \" Aircraft flown by" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant Route Message dropped\n\nColumn, made up of all arms, observed Head\n\nof column, 5 kilometers south of Neidenburg. End of column, 1 kilometer north of Mlawa...\"\n\nJust as in a game of chance where an unlucky throw of the dice can send a player tumbling back from the finish to square 1, so the beaming smile on the face of the victor was at once replaced by the chastened look of a pupil who must learn his lessons allover again. He tossed the report over to his staff officers, but he needed no calculations to realize that a twenty-mile-long column was an army corps. A rapid burst of decisions followed. There was no time for written instructions; they would have to be oral. The reserve (was it two battalions?)\n\nwas to advance to contact and engage the enemy. One battalion was dispersed on sentry duty; all sentries were to be recalled. There were no artillery batteries south of the town, but two to the north; they must be transferred to the south. No troops were to be removed from the main road: the encirclement must be maintained. The Russian prisoners in the town were to betaken north. A Land-wehr brigade had remained in Soldau; it was to be brought to Neidenburg with all speed. A report was ordered to be sent by telephone to Army Headquarters; but the town was under fire, and the line had been cut. No matter, there were plenty of cars: they must be used to take dispatches. Russian shrapnel was bursting overhead, high-explosive shells falling-this was no place for corps headquarters. Retreat? No, advance-along the road to Willen-berg!\n\nA yellow lion was mounted on the radiator of von Francois's car. His son was noting down the general's thoughts. A car came toward them bringing a Russian general captured at dawn. They stopped, and the Russian was brought over. He was exhausted, his clothes snagged by branches and torn by bullets, his eyes wandering, his lips parched. Slim and light on his feet, unlike the familiar type of Russian general, he was clutching a useless cane. Ashe was a full general, it was not hard to guess that he had been in command of the corps which had been harassing von Scholtz's fora whole week. Von Frangois got out to meet him, shook hands, and said a few words of praise and consolation: a bold general, he said, was never safe from capture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sent to Neidenburg on a fruitless errand, Martos had spent a whole day lurking on the edge of Grun-fliess Forest, deprived of troops to attack the town which he had himself captured a week ago. His Cossack escort had deserted and he had come under close shrapnel fire. That night a German searchlight had picked him out on the road; he had broken his sword and handed the pieces to a German officer.\n\nHowever, Martos's hopes rose as, to his amazement, he heard the sound of Russian artillery firing on Neidenburg from the south. So it was still not certain who was encircling whom...\n\nSaid von Francois: \"Tell me, General, what is the name of that corps commander? I shall suggest that he surrender...\"\n\nUntil the morning of the seventeenth, Luden-dorff restrained himself from making a premature announcement; but on that morning he reported to Supreme Headquarters that avast encircling operation had been accomplished. Half an hour later came a telephone call from von Francois howling for support-then the line was cut. At once three divisions were detached from von Scholtz's pursuit of the enemy and made to march twelve, fifteen, and eighteen miles, respectively, to the relief of Neidenburg. In the ensuing hours came a report that several of Rennenkampf's cavalry divisions were advancing farther into Prussia. Another airman reported a Russian detachment advancing on Willenberg.\n\nThe encirclement was beginning to crack open. Faced by eight companies of second-line infantry, General Sirelius held out for ten hours, waiting for the rest of the corps to join him. By the evening of the seventeenth, he had pushed the Germans out of Neidenburg, but it was too late for him to cover the remaining few miles needed to breakthrough and linkup with the main force: a hundred guns were already ranged against him, and the Germans were being reinforced from all sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In distant Bialystok, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky learned of these events not from airmen or from reconnaissance, or from reports by the commanders of units in the field but from a deserter-General Kondratovich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On August 15, Kondratovich had withdrawn half a dozen companies from the front line for his personal protection, had fled over the Russian frontier to Chorzele, and spent the sixteenth there anxiously awaiting the reports of dispatch riders, to learn whether the Russians or the Germans were gaining the upper hand. Then, ingeniously concealing the fact of his desertion, he reported by telegraph that he had only just arrived, and to the gratitude of Army Group Headquarters he supplied them with information about the center corps which he could not possibly have received.\n\nAt an unseemly hour Zhilinsky and Oranovsky\n\nwere roused from their beds (possibly at about the time that Samsonov was cocking his revolver to shoot himself). After a quiet day, they were now forced to spend the night trying to decide how to save the situation. Until then it had seemed to them that Samsonov was responsible for the defeat and rout of Second Army: he, after all, had given the order to retreat. In the changed circumstances it was now apparent that Zhilinsky should have ordered Second Army to retreat even before Samsonov did; in that case, part of the blame for the encirclement must fall on Zhilinsky too. How was he to wriggle out of it? His solution was to makeup a telegram that read: \"Commander-in-chief has ordered Second Army to retire to line Ortelsburg-Mlawa...\" The message was not marked with a precise time of origin, and it was made to look as if it had been sent in time to Samsonov; Zhilinsky could then claim that it was not his fault that the telegraph line to Second Army Headquarters had been cut.\n\nA further message was sent to Rennenkampf ordering him to'organize a cavalry search to clarify the situation of General Samsonov's forces.\" Bla-goveshchensky was ordered to concentrate his corps on Willenberg (it was not thought necessary to specify that he should capture it). Kondratovich was told to rally all troops at his disposal (his bodyguard) in Chorzele (where he was already), whence he was to linkup with Blagoveshchensky and'act as the situation demands.\" The airmen were given instructions to ascertain the whereabouts of Second Army Headquarters, I Corps, and XV Corps, which were thought to be somewhere in the region between Hohenstein and Neidenburg; all reports were to be passed on verbally, and on no account in writing. Finally, I Corps was told to'try to occupy Neidenburg\"!" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Scribe for the author and continue the tale.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In distant Bialystok, Zhilinsky and Oranovsky learned of these events not from airmen or from reconnaissance, or from reports by the commanders of units in the field but from a deserter-General Kondratovich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On August 15, Kondratovich had withdrawn half a dozen companies from the front line for his personal protection, had fled over the Russian frontier to Chorzele, and spent the sixteenth there anxiously awaiting the reports of dispatch riders, to learn whether the Russians or the Germans were gaining the upper hand. Then, ingeniously concealing the fact of his desertion, he reported by telegraph that he had only just arrived, and to the gratitude of Army Group Headquarters he supplied them with information about the center corps which he could not possibly have received.\n\nAt an unseemly hour Zhilinsky and Oranovsky\n\nwere roused from their beds (possibly at about the time that Samsonov was cocking his revolver to shoot himself). After a quiet day, they were now forced to spend the night trying to decide how to save the situation. Until then it had seemed to them that Samsonov was responsible for the defeat and rout of Second Army: he, after all, had given the order to retreat. In the changed circumstances it was now apparent that Zhilinsky should have ordered Second Army to retreat even before Samsonov did; in that case, part of the blame for the encirclement must fall on Zhilinsky too. How was he to wriggle out of it? His solution was to makeup a telegram that read: \"Commander-in-chief has ordered Second Army to retire to line Ortelsburg-Mlawa...\" The message was not marked with a precise time of origin, and it was made to look as if it had been sent in time to Samsonov; Zhilinsky could then claim that it was not his fault that the telegraph line to Second Army Headquarters had been cut.\n\nA further message was sent to Rennenkampf ordering him to'organize a cavalry search to clarify the situation of General Samsonov's forces.\" Bla-goveshchensky was ordered to concentrate his corps on Willenberg (it was not thought necessary to specify that he should capture it). Kondratovich was told to rally all troops at his disposal (his bodyguard) in Chorzele (where he was already), whence he was to linkup with Blagoveshchensky and'act as the situation demands.\" The airmen were given instructions to ascertain the whereabouts of Second Army Headquarters, I Corps, and XV Corps, which were thought to be somewhere in the region between Hohenstein and Neidenburg; all reports were to be passed on verbally, and on no account in writing. Finally, I Corps was told to'try to occupy Neidenburg\"!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unfortunately, it looked as though Zhilinsky was also due fora little trouble over his handling of I Corps: in a message dated August 8, the commander-in-chief had given permission for I Corps to be moved beyond Soldau. Zhilinsky had ignored this, and he would be called to account for it.\n\nHad it not been for the well-kept paths dividing the forest sectors, it would have been impossible to move at night; but the number and location of these paths corresponded exactly with the German map. Checking the route by the Ught of an occasional match and pacing out the distances to verify them, Vorotyntsev led his group in a detour around the triangle of open country, ending up at precisely the lonely homestead in the forest for which he had been aiming.\n\nIt was not a forester's cottage, as they had supposed, and in the dark it was impossible to tell exactly what it was. They stumbled across a pile of mysterious objects, flat and crumpled, soft and hard. Only later, when they found and lit a lamp, did they see that their boots and breeches, and in some cases their hands, were smeared with blood. The objects were animal skins, and someone had been slaughtering cattle here. There was a well, which enabled them to wash and drink their fill; there were stocks of dried and smoked meat, more than enough to eat and take with them, also some bread and a kitchen garden. Blagodaryov found a selection of meat cleavers and long, straight-bladed knives, several of which he chose for himself. Vorotyntsev took a small, handy ax and stuck it under his belt. Searching for booty, they took care not to let the light show. Then, well fed, three of them lay down fora short sleep while Vorotyntsev kept guard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Given his character, sleep was impossible for him. The breakout plan and the calculation of their chances obsessed him, and until it was accomphshed, he was incapable of relaxing or sleeping. His thoughts ran ahead even further-he began considering what he\n\nwould say at General Headquarters if he got out, how he would say it, and what effect it might have.\n\nHis great need was not to keep himself awake but to control his impatience. He paced up and down the spacious, grassy farmyard, which nestled in an oval-shaped clearing cut from the tall, protective forest. The setting moon, still occasionally to be glimpsed through the black wall of trees, was reflected in the oval patch of sky by a strip of small, fluffy clouds, shedding a gentle, diffused light against which the lofty tops of the nearest trees stood out clearly. Neither the ragged-ness of the clouds nor their slow speed was a likely omen of bad weather, which was all to the good. Around midnight, when the moon had gone down completely, the sky clouded over altogether, but it cleared again later. The night turned cold, but the dew was light.\n\nAll around, an army was collapsing, regiments and divisions were being destroyed-yet not a sound was to be heard. Near Neidenburg and along the German front line to the west, even the rifle fire had stopped, as though the Germans were content with what they had already achieved, and satisfied, did not intend to pursue the Russians any further.\n\nFew stars were left. From its deep, nocturnal black, the sky was slowly turning gray, and had it not been for the stars, it would simply have looked overcast. It was the hour when color disappears altogether: the sky gray and everything else a uniform, neutral dark. If one had never seen the color green, for instance, it would have been impossible to guess what it was like from looking at the trees and grass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could not waste much more time, and Vorotynt-sev went to wake up his party. Kharitonov awoke easily, as though he had not been asleep but waiting for the sound of footsteps. Lenartovich jumped at the touch as though he had been hit, but got up without delay. Arsenii groaned, protesting in an incoherent mumble; only after being shaken by both shoulders did he wake up, and even then he lay therefor awhile, breathing deeply.\n\nLaden even more heavily with meat and butchers'\n\nknives, they set off again in single file. Branches, or human figures, could only be seen against the sky; otherwise, everything merged indistinguishably into the dense, surrounding darkness.\n\nAlthough they had not slept long, Yaroslav Khari-tonov's head felt clearer and steadier than yesterday. He was feeling better everyday; only his ears remained partly deafened, and in consequence he did not hear the faint, rustling sounds of the woodland. While still in the hospital, he had enviously wished that he were serving under this quick-thinking colonel with the keen, mobile glance; and he had felt a wave of relief and delight at stumbling across him again in the forest-especially as he had done him such a service by producing the map. Things were going badly for the army and for his regiment, and he had lost his platoon, but he himself could not have fallen into better hands: he would return to his own, unique, beloved life, which he would not change for any other.\n\nAs the deserted forest began to grow light with the morning, they became more alert. After careful checks, they crossed two sectors and turned at the second path, which widened out into along, winding clearing. It was rapidly getting lighter and visibility had increased to nearly four hundred yards. At that moment they noticed a group of men walking through the same clearing ahead of them. They were soldiers in caps, not spiked helmets, so they were Russian. They were moving slowly, weighed down by a heavy load on their shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no other way but to catch up with them. The other group had noticed them by now, and two men with rifles broke away from the party toward the cover of the trees, but Vorotyntsev raised his cap and waved, and they recognized him. The party of four quickly caught up, and the eight stretcher-bearers ahead put down their two loads on the ground.\n\nThe stretchers, made of branches plaited between two poles, with small logs lashed on as legs, had been rapidly put together in the forest by skilled peasant hands. Yaroslav had never imagined such a thing was possible.\n\nOn the rear stretcher was the large, thickset body of a dead man. A white handkerchief, knotted at the four corners, covered his face and he wore colonel's epaulettes. On the front stretcher lay a lieutenant whose trouser leg was cutaway to reveal a heavily bandaged knee. The ten men on foot were private soldiers, not a single noncommissioned officer among them, and almost all middle-aged reservists. Close to, the gray-blue light was now strong enough so their features could be made out-haggard, hollow-cheeked, some with clots of dried blood, all in dirty, rumpled uniforms. The eight stretcher-bearers had no easy task: they were all carrying rifles, some of them also had heavy knapsacks hanging down from their belts, and the two men not carrying stretchers were hung with more equipment.\n\nWhere had they come from? Who were they? Voro-tyntsev and Lieutenant Ofrosimov both introduced themselves. The lieutenant's arms were uninjured, as was the upper part of his body, so that he was able to give orders and to shoot but could not walk. The lieutenant, coarsely spoken and with pitch-black, curly hair, had a hoarse voice and told his story incoherently and somewhat reluctantly, rather as if he had been stopped and questioned all the way through the forest and was by now tired of telling the tale. He raised himself from the stretcher on his elbow, but as this scarcely brought him above ground level, Vorotyntsev squatted down to him on his haunches. The ten soldiers did not move out of earshot of the conversation between officers as was proper but remained standing or sitting in a tight group as equal participants in the discussion, some even putting in a few words. (This is good, Yaroslav thought. This is the right way to treat soldiers. If they have to share the risk of being killed, they should be granted equality in everything else.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were all from the Dorogobuzh regiment, left behind as rearguard the day before yesterday. They had held off the Germans until dark, mostly with bayonets, as they were badly short of ammunition. ( Now, having learned the lesson that ammunition was more valuable than bread, they had filled their pouches with\n\ncartridges discarded by other troops.) Their regiment had been destroyed, a dozen men or fewer surviving from each company.\n\nThey had decided to take their regimental commander, Colonel Kabanov, home to Russia for burial.\n\nThat was all they had to tell-a glum, wounded lieutenant and ten soldiers. The lieutenant was the type of oflBcer Yaroslav disliked-^ he looked as if he mi^ t be a gambler, swore obscenely, and told unfunny dirty stories. Yet these men must have loved him if they had carried him all this way, grunting and panting, with superhuman exertion. What a fight that must have been, bayonets against machine guns and artillery. Yaroslav could not begin to picture the reality.\n\nWhen they had told their tale, they were silent in their tight circle fora minute or so before having to return to their places and pickup the stretchers-they were heading in a different direction. But they delayed their start, held back by something that inspired then: confidence. (The thought occurred to Yaroslav that his favorite colonel might take these men of the Dorogobuzh regiment under his wing too. Ultimately, they were all making for the same place, and it would require no extra effort.)\n\nVorotyntsev himself, the bruise on his jaw suffused with blood, was interested not so much in having the men's confidence as in learning more about the recent fighting. Spreading out the map over the cones and pine needles, he was mentally trying tore-create the situation of their distant, annihilated regiment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"\"There-is that where you were? Which way did you come? How far was it?\"\n\nBefore the lieutenant could answer, the soldiers spoke up:\n\n\"About twenty-five miles...\"\n\n\"Maybe more...\"\n\n(Twenty-five miles! And carrying those stretchers! What faith, what strength was it that had sustained them?)\n\nThe lieutenant was notable to indicate much by means of the map, because he had been without a map for days; all he could remember was the village of\n\nDereuten and a compass march south toward a narrow neck of land between two lakes, which they had crossed earlier during the advance. After that, the soldiers took turns describing the journey: through a wood of oaks and pines, climbing hill after hill; through the German lines; a ruined farm; along stretch of woodland; a densely overgrown isthmus; a village with a church; fording a river; then in the dark they had turned away from the mainstream of the retreating Russian troops-and that was all...\n\nSomehow these survivors of the Dorogobuzh regiment did not seem to belong to their coq) s any longer: having paid so dearly, they had settled accounts with it for the rest of the war. On that Day of the Assumption they had all died, as it were, and any man whose legs could still carry him now had the right to get out as best as he could. They had covered the retreat of all the others with their own defenseless bodies and they owed them no further sacrifice. Although none of them expressed this idea openly-they were probably not even conscious of it-it was implied in all they said and in their silences, and in the special air of complicity with which they talked to this unknown colonel over the head of their lieutenant; it was implicit, too, in the two stretchers they had carried uncomplainingly along twenty-five miles of remote forest paths. (As the crow flies, the distance was twenty miles, but the twists and turns made it more than twenty-five.) They had kept apart from their former corps, having crossed its route in secret so as to follow their own line of march. No one had forced them to do it: no sergeant had given them orders and hurried them along, and clearly they were not acting on Ofrosi-mov's instructions, because no officer could have commanded his men to carry him, wounded, on their shoulders for twenty-five miles. All the disruptive factors that might have existed between them up to the day before yesterday-mutual recrimmations, dislike, exasperation-had been scorched out of existence by that day of death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had one more secret to tell, and they were so reluctant to tell it that they kept it until the very end,\n\n556. ALEXANDER SOLZHENTTSYN\n\nalthough there was no point m concealing it: they had brought the regimental colors with them. These were wrapped around the lieutenant's body.\n\nYaroslav felt a lump in his throat. He envied Ofrosi-mov: what away to merge oneself with the people! It was in the hope of something like this tiiat he had joined the army. But in his platoon the soldierly-seeming Kramchatkin had turned out to be a fool who could not shoot, and Vyushkov had been revealed as a rogue and a thief. K he had dared, Yaroslav would have pulled at the colonel's sleeve and whispered to him: \"Let's take them with us! They're such noble fellows!\"\n\nThe colonel seemed to have guessed what was in his mind. Folding the map into a small square, he asked in a quiet voice: \"When did you last eat, lads? Would you like a bite?\"\n\nMurmurings. They would.\n\n\"Good. That means less for us to carry. Go and sit down over there, under the trees, and take the lieutenant with you. No need to sit out herein the open. Arsenii! Give them all the meat.\"\n\nBlagodaryov raised his eyebrows and coughed, looking at the colonel as though he had not understood. Then he reached for his large gypsy-like bundle, knelt down in front of it, untied it, and began slicing up the meat with his butcher's knife.\n\n\"Ye-e-es,\" he said, as he handed the meat around, \"I can see you've had a hard time-^ very hard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men were ravenously hungry, and one shoulder of beef among them was not much of a breakfast; but there was more.\n\nVorotyntsev walked over, lifted the covering from the dead man's face, and looked at it. Yaroslav would also have liked to gaze upon the face of a hero; though now far above earthly things, it might still bear some trace of the inspiration with which he had summoned his men to the last counter-attack. But feeling too embarrassed, he did not dare to intrude.\n\nThe sky above the pine trees was turning blue and the few vaporous clouds that had not yet dispersed\n\nwere tinged with pink. Another quiet, beautiful day had dawned, innocent of war. The only firing that could be heard was muffled and faraway.\n\n\"I've a feeling you're from Tambov, are you?\" an elderly soldier with a beard like a birch broom said thoughtfully to Arsenii. \"What district?\"\n\n\"Why, from Tambov district!\" Still kneeling, Arsenii replied with his usual promptness.\n\n\"So am I!\" the bearded soldier said with dignified surprise. He had the air of a literate peasant. \"Which parish? Which village?\"\n\n\"I'm from Kamenka,\" said Arsenii, delighted.\n\n\"Kamenka? What's your surname?\"\n\n\"Blagodaryov.\"\n\n\"Which Blagodaryov? You're not the son of Elisei Nikiforych Blagodaryov, by any chance?\"\n\n\"Yes! I'm his youngest son!\" Arsenii said, beaming.\n\n\"Well, well,\" his elder neighbor said approvingly, stroking his beard with leisurely, civilian dignity. \"I know you. Do you know Grigory Naumovich?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I do!\" Arsenii was almost offended. \"We call him the boss. Got a good head on his shoulders, too. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"I'm from Tugolukoye.\"\n\n\"Tugolukoye!\" Arsenii flung out his arms for all the world to see. \"That's where all the good horses come from. We've bought some.\"\n\n\"My name's Komei Luntsov.\"\n\n\"There are five hundred farmsteads in your village-too many for me to know them all.\"\n\nEveryone broke into dehghted smiles at the discovery of this link between the two groups. What was regimental comradeship compared with the bond between neighboring villagers?\n\n\"There's another one of us from Tambov. Kachkin!\" Luntsov pointed to a suUen man of about thirty, with pig-like eyes, abroad head, shoulders that seemed too wide for his short arms, avast, barrel-hke torso, and a chest thrust out almost as far as a woman's breasts, except that it was so obviously male that he looked as if he could easily be harnessed to a plow. \"Only he's from faraway, from Inokoye.\"\n\n558. ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\n\"Ah!\" Arsenii waved his arm. \"Inokoye-^ isn't that near the river Vorona?\"\n\n\"Yes. Listen, Averyan, here's a fellow from the next village tome.\"\n\nKachkin scowled at him, but approvingly. \"He fed us-^ good lad.\" He screwed up his small eyes even narrower, into two cunning sUts. \"Throw me one of those knives.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What for?\"\n\n\"To stab myself a German with.\"\n\n\"I need it for that too!\"\n\n\"Yes, but you've got more than one.\"\n\nIt was true; Arsenii had brought several spare knives. But should he give one to a soldier he didn't know? He glanced at his colonel.\n\nVorotyntsev looked at Kachkin's barrel chest and said: \"Give one to him.\"\n\nArsenii did not getup to handover the knife. From where he was kneeling, about eight paces away from Kachkin, he drew back his arm and threw the knife past another man's shoulder. Slicing the bark oflE a protruding birch root, it plunged itself upright into the ground at Kachkin's feet.\n\nKachkin did not flinch or move his foot. He pulled out the knife and said: \"Not bad. You're from Tambov all right.\" He held the blade up to the light and inspected its cutting edge.\n\n\"Anyone here from Kostroma?\" Vorotyntsev asked.\n\nNo, there were none; one man from Voronezh, two from Novgorod.\n\nSlowly and attentively the colonel looked them allover. One surly devil among them did not matter. He noticed another man, keen and obliging-looking, who seemed to be eager to be questioned.\n\n\"Where are you from?\"\n\nThe man leapt to his feet, beaming. \"Archangel, your honor. Pinega district. The monastery of St. Artemy the Righteous is in our village-^ perhaps you've heard of it?\"\n\n\"Yes. Sit down, sit down.\" He looked further and saw a big, round-eyed reservist with a beard that would need a harrow to comb it. \"And you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without getting up, he replied casually, as though chatting to a friend: \"I'm from Olonets.\" He was eating slowly and had glanced up unhurriedly.\n\nVorotyntsev was beginning to look worried. \"Had enough to eat? You'll find water a little farther on, there's a small lake. Are your legs in good shape?\" They replied that they were, but he was not thinking about their legs. \"You can come with us if you like.\"\n\nKharitonov beamed. He had been right.\n\n\"We'U have to cross the lines at night,\" Vorotyntsev explained, with increasing concern. He was not looking at the lieutenant but gazing at the soldiers\" faces, particularly at the man from Olonets, and at Luntsov and Kachkin. \"Tonight, in fact. We'll have to cross the main road. It'll be dfficult. Then after the road we'll probably have to run for it.\"\n\nOn a stump someway apart sat the stiff-backed Lenartovich, looking at Vorotyntsev in horror. He had been too hasty in thinking this colonel was intelligent. Had he gone mad? If they were going to have to run for their lives after crossing the main road, how could they lug the lieutenant along on his stretcher? And take the corpse too? They would all be shot down. Sacrifice the living to the dead? Surely he wouldn't?\n\nIt was this very quality of irrational persistence which thrilled Yaroslav and touched him deeply-^ the fact that these men insisted on carrymg the corpse with them, that they refused to leave their regimental commander behind in a foreign land even when he was dead. He also understood why Vorotyntsev was worried and hesitant: there was something odd about this group, something unmilitary. Their relationship was not based on subordination but on trust. Lieutenant Ofrosi-mov was not in command of them, the group seemed to run itself, and that was why the soldiers themselves had to be asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev looked around at the men, who said nothing.\n\nThen it dawned on Lenartovich that there was a certain logic in the situation. It would have been difficult for Ofrosimov to have ordered the men to leave the colonel's body behind and carry only him: if he had\n\nassailed their na'ive superstition about the dead man, they might have left him behind as well. But Vorotynt-sev had the necessary authority to order them to bury the corpse; he should also think carefully before agreeing to take the lieutenant.\n\nThe Dorogobuzh men were seated, scattered, on tree stumps, on the ground, on rolled-up greatcoats; it was like a meeting of a village commune but for the two pyramids of piled rifles. Vorotyntsev, usually so active, confident, and firm, now seemed unsure of himself, standing with his legs apart, twisting his locked fingers, and staring out from under the peak of his cap. Silent, he looked at the men.\n\nThe soldiers, too, were silent, not all of them looking at the colonel; some were staring at the ground, others glancing at the stretchers.\n\nWhen, after another look around the group, the colonel's glance fell on Komei Luntsov, Luntsov stroked his gray, bnch-twig beard, which was so full he could not grasp it in one hand, and asked significantly: \"How many miles from hereto Russia, your honor?\"\n\nWhat idiots they were, thought Sasha, all they could think about was Russia-as if the Germans could not advance into Russia and catch them there too! Machme guns meant nothing to them-^ they could think only in terms of miles. K the colonel gave into them and agreed to go the shorter but more dangerous way, then Sasha would have to leave them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kachkin, with the little stubby ears, was throwing apiece of gnarled root from hand to hand: this way and that, this way and that...\n\nVorotyntsev turned again to fathom the deep waters in the eyes of the man from Olonets. Then he straightened up, hesitation gone, and said crisply: \"Right, let's go! Lieutenant!\" He frowned at the proud face of Lenartovich. \"You and I will take the place of two of the men carrying the colonel's body.\"\n\nCleverly, he had put Sasha on the spot. Ridiculous business, but there was no alternative: Sasha had to obey. He looked up incredulously, then shrugged his shoulders, slowly got to his feet, and walked over to the stretcher. A funeral procession-the idiots.\n\n\"ril help too, Colonel!\" Kharitonov stepped forward unsteadily, but Vorotyntsev motioned him aside.\n\nThe colonel and Lenartovich stood beside the front poles of the stretcher and raised them to their shoulders, coinciding more or less with the hoist by the two men at the back. Equal in height, they set off, falling into step to keep the stretcher from swaying too much. With four men it was not particularly heavy, but it was awkward and they tended to stumble.\n\nAlthough the colonel had accepted him yesterday evening with hostility and evident distrust, since then Sasha had come to realize that he had been lucky to meet him. If anyone could get them out, this man could. The hours ahead were going to be so exhausting, their strength would be so taxed simply by their moving on and staying out of danger, that it would be reassuring to submit to a trained mind-not to have to think or worry, but just keep going and do what one was told. What was more, this clearheaded colonel, as Sasha had readily perceived from the beginning, was an extremely rare type of officer: a genuinely intelligent and educated man. On the other hand, if he really was educated, why, since he wielded the necessary authority, was he giving into the ridiculous obscurantist notions of these peasant reservists from the darkest comers of Russia? It was not so bad about the colors; even though they were just a scrap of government-issue, dyed cloth which every sensible person jeered at, at least the rag weighed nothing, and anyway it was a good excuse for Ofrosimov to persuade them to carry him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the same, he could not help saying to Vorotyntsev: \"Colonel, why must we carry this dead man? It's sheer superstition.\"\n\nAs they were in front, walking with their heads down, and swaying to the motion of the stretcher, they could be heard only by someone very close behind them.\n\nVorotyntsev made no attempt to contradict him.\n\n\"Surely this isn't the way to behave in modem war?** Sasha ventured boldly.\n\nThe boy looked intelligent; it was no good trying to fob him off with some routine piece of army claptrap.\n\nBut the tone of Vorotyntsev's reply made even Sasha's intelligent eyes blink.\n\n\"Modem war will catch up with us soon enough, Lieutenant, when we reach the road. You'd better be worrying about what you can use to shoot with. You won't hilt anything with that popgun of yours.\"\n\nThat might be true, but it was an evasion nonetheless. Sasha was not one to give up easily. \"Now you're making us carry this corpse, later you'll order us to carry that lieutenant. I can tell from his face that he's a Black Hundreds.\"\n\nSasha was counting on making the colonel lose his temper. But no; crisply as before, but almost absent-mindedly, he said: \"Yes, I shall. At a time like this. Ensign, party political differences are just so many ripples on the water.\"\n\n\"Party politics-cripples?\" Astounded, Sasha tripped and almost dropped his pole. He could think of several answers, but decided that attack was the best defense. \"What about international politics, then? Is that just ripples on the water? It's because of that that we're fighting, isn't it? In that case-^ what differences mean anything at all?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The difference between decency and swinishness. Ensign,\" Vorotyntsev snapped back. With his free outside hand he lifted up his map case, snapped it open, and glanced down as he walked, now at the ground underfoot, now at the map.\n\nSasha was not just objecting on principle. In fact, principle scarcely entered into it: the truth was that it was not easy, indeed it was extremely difficult, to carry a stretcher when the man on it weighed almost as much as two men and the pole cut into your shoulder, forcing you to bend forward. The man behind was shouting at him now: \"Higher, your honor!\"\n\nAll his life Sasha had cultivated his brain as being of prime importance; he had never had time to exercise his body. The recent day's fighting had exhausted him. Gritting his teeth as he carried the stretcher, he picked out a tree ahead of them which he could reach before asking to be relieved. Then he would carry on for another stretch.\n\nNow the sun was shining almost directly on them over the tops of the distant trees, and a glade opened out to their left. Crossing it, they found themselves again on a straight path between dark, dense pine trees. The ground started to rise and carrying became still more diflBcult, making Sasha's heart thump. The colonel turned the party away from the path, up an even steeper slope straight into the woods. Here, though, the trees were thinner, the ground was clear of brushwood and undergrowth and the going was much easier on the soft pine-needle carpet, made uneven only by scattered pine cones. Feeling that it would be shameful to give out on this slope, Sasha endured.\n\nJust before they reached the top, the colonel himself gave the order: \"Halt! Set it down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were deep in the forest on the open, sunlit slope of a ridge. Here the surrounding pine trees grew more sparsely, their bronze-colored truAs occasionally wind-bent, their great, gaunt crowns supported on a scaffolding of spreading branches. The early sun was warming the trees; it would be late evening before the party could set off again. It must have been a favorite spot in spring for squirrels to take the air after their winter hibernation: here would be the first place where the snows melted, and the water would always drain away. Behind them, in the direction they had come from, the ridge fell away in along, sweeping slope toward abroad hoUow, the carpet of clean pine needles inviting one to roll all the way down between the trees.\n\nOn the top of the ridge was a small mound, beside which they put down the stretchers.\n\nWithout a word of explanation Vorotyntsev stopped and gazed around, and the others followed his example. Unhesitatingly, no hint of entreaty in his tone, he announced firmly to the soldiers of the Dorogobuzh regiment: \"Now, lads, we're gomg to bury Colonel Kabanov here. We won't find a better place. And the Germans are Christians too.\"\n\nThe men exchanged looks.\n\nVorotyntsev added quietly: \"There's no alternative. If we don't, we'll never get through.\"\n\nThe inadmissible thought, left unspoken when they\n\nhad iBrst met at the clearing in the gray dawn light, became acceptable as he uttered it on this pleasant, open ridge, with the gentle morning sunlight starting to bring out a whiff of resinous aroma in the pines-and it was all the more easily accepted since he himself had helped to carry the stretcher. The grim shadow on their faces-an indefinable look, perhaps of guilt at having survived when so many of their comrades had been killed-^ was swept away by the colonel's words, leaving no sign of protest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man from Olonets took off his cap and turned to the east; praying in silence, he crossed himself fervently, bowed from the waist, and said gravely: \"God will forgive us.\"\n\nSeveral others crossed themselves.\n\nAnxious not to waste a moment, Vorotyntsev called out: \"Arsenii, where's your spade? Start digging. Over there.\" He pointed to the mound.\n\nFuUy equipped for any task, and always ready, Bla-godaryov uncomplainingly took out his entrenching tool as though he had come here just for this, and climbed to the top of the mound, which was large enough for the whole party to assemble on. Kneeling, which hardly seemed to reduce his great height, he started hacking at the ground in a place free of roots.\n\nTwo of the Dorogobuzh men also had spades. Always the most active of them, ICachkin ran up the hill with surprising speed fora man of his bulk and, likewise kneeling, began thrusting and digging with savage force, never pausing for breath.\n\n\"Well done, Kachkm, you'll do it in no tune,\" Vorotyntsev said encouragingly.\n\nKachkin paused, grinning, on his knees. \"Kachkin can do anything, your honor. Even this.\"\n\nThen another soldier, an ailing, elderly man, clumsily, with the last remnants of his strength and gasping for breath, began picking at the earth as best he could with the tip of his spade.\n\n\"If you can do it, so can I!\" said Kachkm with a maUcious glance from his little pig-like eyes as he scooped away again. Soon the soil began to be looser and easier to dig, as though his was the fairy-tale" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "spade which could magically build palaces overnight.\n\nSure enough, Kachkin could do anything: he was swinging his spade this way and that, this way and that.\n\nLuntsov and another man set off to cut down saplings to plait a cover that would transform the stretcher into a coffin.\n\nThe forest was so dense and vast that the war, raging all around it fora whole week, had not yet penetrated as far as this: there was not a slit trench to be seen, not a shell hole, no wheel marks, not even a discarded cartridge case. The peaceful morning grew warmer, bringing out the smell of the pmes more strongly, and birds chirped softly or flitted among the trees in the calm August weather. A sense of freedom and security came over the men too, as though there were no encurcling Germans and after the funeral they would go home.\n\nThe grave and the cover for the stretcher were ready, but what sort of ceremony could they hold? A fragment of the Burial Service? Vorotyntsev had heard it often enough, but he could never have recited the words or told anyone else the sort of thing to say. That was a chaplain's duty; an ofl& cer was not expected to know it.\n\nDubiously he glanced at Arsenii, who was getting to his feet and straightening his back. Ashe did so, Vorotyntsev realized that the fellow, uneducated but with quick-witted shrewdness, had guessed what was in his mind. In those last three, action-packed days an unspoken division of rights and duties had been mutually agreed between them, of a kind normally unthinkable between a colonel and a private soldier or between men of such different ages. Thus, without receiving a word of command or making a suggestion himself, Arsenii, who had aheady shown himself so versatile, displayed yet another side of his nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drawing himself up majestically to his full height, he took off his cap and threw it behind him without looking; frowning, his expression and tone taking on a dignity borrowed from some source in his past life, in a strangely exalted, authoritative voice head-\n\ndressed a question to the assembled company: \"What were the names of the deceased?\"\n\nNone of the soldiers knew; they had never had to call him anything but'your honor.\" They would never have known had not Ofrosimov spoken up. From his stretcher on the ground he looked up at the tall private and said: \"Vladimir Vasilievich.\"\n\nAt that, Blagodaryov strode up to the dead man, bent down, and took the handkerchief from his face-something which five minutes ago he would not have dared to do. Chest out, head up, he turned to the rising sun and in a clear, strong voice, precisely m the style of an Orthodox deacon, intoned to tiie high pine tops: \"In peace let us pray to the Lord!\"\n\nIt was so powerful, so compelling, and so exactly like a church service that no further invitation to join in was necessary. The man from Olonets and two more responded at once, crossing themselves, each man bowing to the east where he stood: \"Lord have mercy onus.\"\n\nLeading them, his voice rismg above the others, Arsenii sang the response, changmg the tone from that of deacon to choir leader. Then, after the response, he reverted to his rich, powerful diaconal voice, reproducing with astounding accuracy the rhythm and intonation of ecclesiastical plain-chant. Although he could never have repeated them, Voro-tyntsev recognized the verses as entirely correct.\n\n\"For the ever-memorable servant of God, Vladimir, for his repose, his peace, and his blessed remembrance, let us pray to the Lord!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of them, including the officers, had now gathered, bareheaded and facing east, around the body. \"Lord have mercy onus.\"\n\nHow amazingly many-sided this young peasant from the depths of the Tambov countryside was! Vorotyntsev had been through death with him for three days and afterward might have lost sight of him without ever discovering, were it not for this incident, that he had sung in a church choir-and obviously sung in it for sometime, listening attentively to the services, taking it all in; this was something important in his life\n\nwhich he loved and which he did well. His enunciation of every sound, his observance of every pause was so precise that he unquestionably had a deep understanding of its meaning.\n\n\"That he may take his place without blame at the dreadful throne of the Lord of Glory, let us pray to the Lord.\"\n\nOfrosimov was carried up to the graveside, his face to the east, and from a sitting position he crossed himself and sang. Kharitonov, at last having seen the hero's face, sang too, feeling the onset of tears-but tears of comfort and relief.\n\n\"Lord have mercy onus.\"\n\nOn rolled the deacon-like voice, undisturbed by the alien surroundings of the Prussian countryside.\n\n\"That the Lord our God may take him into the place of light and plenteousness and peace, where all the righteous repose, let us pray to the Lord.\"\n\nThe prayers for the man's soul were almost over; for his body they had done what they could to find the quietest, most pleasant spot.\n\nFacing east, they could see only each other's backs; unseen behind them, never joining in the responses, with a twisted smile of condescension yet with head bared, stood Lenartovich. In front of them all, bowing from the waist and straightening again, was the supple back of Blagodaryov, which because of his great height seemed much less broad than it was. Frequent and fervent were the sweeps of his great, strong arm as he crossed himself, an arm prepared with equal readiness to work or to fight for his life in the dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Having besought the mercy of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the forgiveness of sins for them and for ourselves, let us commend ourselves and one another and our whole life unto Christ our God.\"\n\nAnd soarmg higher than the sun, higher than the sky, directly to the throne of the All-High, from fourteen men's voices the familiar chant arose, not in supplication but in sacrificial offering, in renunciation: \"To Thee, O Lord...\"\n\nHaving lost their commanders, now a motley collection of different arms of the service and units filling the forest paths to the verges, the Russians were able to move relatively unhindered as long as they kept to the depths of the woods. But each time they emerged into open country, such as a large glade or clearing or a village, they were met by gunfire. One burst of fire evoked another, and there were times when, mistaking each other for Germans, they fired on then: own troops.\n\nAt the edge of a wood five hundred yards from the village of Kaltenborn, at dawn on August 17, the head of a disorganized column of what yesterday had been XIII Corps was met by artillery and machine-gunfire. Although the column had not been formed into a composite unit and had no commander, by chance Colonel Pervushin was in the advance guard, and with the help of casual volunteers from various units he deployed several guns which happened to be there. The guns opened fire, while the colonel attacked the village with a scratch company headed by the unfurled colors of the Neva regiment. TTie Germans ran, leaving four guns.\n\nThe ground won at Kaltenborn, however, amounted to no more than half a mile square, and agam the column had to turn back into the forest. A mile farther on, there was another open stretch around a village, and again a barrage of fire came down, accurately distributed over the paths and tracks coming out of the forest. Mikhail Grigorievich Pervushin, who in all his years of service had never lost his gift of leading men, was also the heart and soul of the next breakout There was such an aflfinity between him and the troops that he never led them into an attack that was beyond" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "their powers-^ but if he had, they would have followed him. His advance guard was an assortment of men from the Neva, Narva, Kopor, and Zvenigorod regiments. They were supported by two under-strength batteries, including Chemega's.\n\nAgain the few available machine guns and field guns were put in position and suddenly opened up with running fire-whereupon the infantry was once more launched into the attack. Once again Pervushin led them, and received a bayonet wound. Here, too, the Russians' unexpected breakout was conducted with such dash that the German screening force, in regimental strength, took to its heels, abandoning several machine guns and twenty pieces of artillery, some of them complete with draft teams.\n\nIn these feats of arms, as our forefathers would have put it, Pervushin's advance guard was engaged all day. There were still many miles of forest to traverse before the final breakthrough, obstructed by one German detachment after another, by roadblocks and barbed wire; machine guns at crossroads and artillery at defiles lay in wait for their disorderly, bunched-up prey. The Russians had only to show their faces for the Germans to greet them with every kind of enfilading fire. With each successful action, progress became harder and harder for the Russians: fewer men, increasing hunger and thirst (the wells were blocked), dwindling supplies of rifle and artillery ammunition, more wounded, stronger opposition. Their only remaining hope was a bayonet attack.\n\nIt was late in the afternoon. The strength of the column had dwindled since morning. Unhinged by the strain, the men were less and less able to act rationally and were losing hope.\n\nBefore the last desperate push. Colonel Pervushin, now with two bayonet wounds, gave the order to the standard-bearer..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SCREEN\n\n= who is holding the colors, now juried. He is the kind of man who never gives\n\nup, but would die with the colors. = Pervushin, one wound bandaged, the\n\nother not, gives a wave of his unhurt arm:\n\ntake down the colors! Gunfire. Shells burst nearby.\n\n= The colors are decorated with St. George's\n\nCross, fastened to the ornamental fretted\n\nspike of the color staff. = Deeply distressed, the standard-bearer\n\ncrosses himself.\n\nHe unmounts the colors and hands the\n\nstaff to\n\nhis deputy, who breaks off the staff below\n\nthe banner\n\nand throws away the lower part-now just\n\na stick. = Dejectedly they take a spade= and start digging. Having dug a hole,\n\nthey glance at the trees for recognition marks.\n\nThe treetops quiver in the blast of shellfire. Explosions. To the sound of\n\nthis music= Pervushin sits down on a tree stump,\n\nsits and thinks. In close-up we see\n\n= him, his movements stiff from his wounds.\n\nThere is blood on his face, his neck, his\n\ntunic.\n\nHis cap is torn, and he wears it askew, at a\n\nnon-regulation angle.\n\nHis bristling moustaches are drooping.\n\nHis eyes\n\nhave lost their bold, humorous sparkle-\n\nhe has lost hope. = He talks to no one, no one comes up to\n\nhim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These moments of thought maybe the last\n\nin his fifty-four years. Explosions. Crackle of rifle fire.\n\nHe turns his head\n\ntoward the standard-bearer, who reports\n\nthat the order has been carried out. The\n\ncolors are buried. It is as though they\n\nwere a\n\npiece of his heart.\n\nWith an effort( how can he drag himself\n\nto his feet?)\n\nhe shouts:\n\n\"Staff Captain Grokholets!\" Here comes the familiar figure of Grok-holets.\n\nHe has lost his cap and is bald except for two strips of hair on either side of the crown\n\nof his head. He is far from young; how does he\n\nmanage to be so keen and agile? Perhaps it is\n\nbecause he is so thin. The ends of his moustaches are still curled, but now perhaps they\n\nare curled in desperation. Pervushin says to him:\n\n\"Well, shall we try for it? Muster\n\nevery man\n\nwho can hold a rifle. Post the\n\nmachine guns.\" Grokholets:\n\n\"Very well, let's try. Right away.\n\nWe'U make it.\" Pervushin gets up. He is badly hurt. He looks grim.\n\nHe is like a father to his men; they will follow him.\n\nTakes off his cap and waves twice to the guns. There are two guns, ready to fire, but\n\nthey are at some distance through the trees and are\n\nmanned by over-strength crews so they can be dragged to the edge of the wood. We see Chernega, stripped to the waist. His shoulder" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "muscles standout so they look\n\nlike snakes\n\ncrawling over him.\n\nStill the same round head like a Dutch\n\ncheese, and the\n\nshort moustache, he roars: \"Right, boys! Heavel\"\n\nThe guns roll forward. Crunching, crashing, tramp of feet. Then Chemegds\n\ndesperate voice, scarcely recognizable: \"Rumiing-^ fire!\" The guns roar. And the machine guns open up some'\n\nwhere nearby.\n\nThere are not many, but they are all that\n\nis left. From behind we see:\n\n= through the distant trees and undergrowth,\n\nthrough pine saplings,\n\nRussian troops come running.\n\nJunior officers in the lead, of course,\n\nwaving\n\ntheir swords over their heads-\n\nhelpless gesture, no threat to the enemy,\n\nbut to\n\ntheir own men it means: Keep\n\ngoing, lads, we're\n\nin this with you! Alongside the men running forward= others stumble, too weak to attack. They shout, all that they can muster of a* 'hurrah\":\" A-a-a-a-h...\"\n\nThey have rifles with fixed bayonets but can\n\nbarely carry them-how will they find the\n\nstrength to lunge arui thrust?\n\nOne man turns head over heels.\n\nHas he been killed? No, he has simply\n\ncollapsed-^\n\nfrom exhaustion under a young pine\n\ntree: \" Goon\n\nwithout me, Fm all in, Til just wait here for\n\nwhat's coming tome,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The officers' swords are beginning to\n\nwaver, then fall. Chatter of machine guns.\n\n= Our men are falling! Falling, dropping their\n\nrifles...\n\nWhat's happening? One rifle with its\n\nbayonet thrust\n\ninto the ground, the butt swaying,\n\nswaying. = Grokholets, with his bald head, runs for\"\n\nward desperately.\n\nHas he been hit? No, he's still running, = Ahead of them all is the tall Pervushin,\n\nHis face turned grimly around to his own men,\n\nmoustache bristling,\n\nwaving a rifle with fixed bayonet!\n\nHe stumbles on an unseen tripwire. = Out of the cover of a slit trench there\n\ncomes toward him\n\na strapping German,\n\nwho bayonets him-\n\nthe great, the terrible Pervushin!\n\nHis third bayonet wound-just his luck.\n\nColonel Pervushin falls. Machine-gunfire\n\n= slices through the attacking Russians, who\n\nfalter and\n\nturn back. = On the edge of the wood, Chernega, muscles\n\nrippling with savage exertion, sees that\n\nthis is no time to goon firing: they must\n\nrun for it.\n\nJumping up onto the wheel of the gun, he\n\nstarts unscrewing the gun sight; at a\n\nsign from him\n\nthe crews start dismantling and removing\n\nthe breechblocks from the guns. = Following him, they all take to their heels," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "running into the forest,\n\nrunning back...\n\nGeneral Klyuev himself was neither at the head of the corps, where Pervushin was, nor with the rearguard, where the Sophia regiment fought the enemy to a standstill over a hundred-yard stretch of woodland; he remained in the middle of the colunm, where he tied it into knots by veering away from every German harassing detachment. The encircling ring seemed to him unbreakable, and there was no one to whom he could entrust a half corps in order to make a breakout in force.\n\nThe remnants of the artillery acted on their own initiative: they changed positions, fired at the enemy over open sights whenever they saw him and, when forced to run, either towed the guns away or abandoned them. At the pomt where the Griinfliess Forest opens out, there is abroad marshy region crisscrossed with ditches; this barred the Russians' passage, and the artillery and supply trains sank in the swampy, low-lying hollow. Although the main road was insight only a mile ahead, the gunners had to veer westward toward German-occupied WiUenberg in search of a route over dry ground. The stream of men in retreat melted away, hundreds, even thousands disappearing hourly, no one knew where. The chaotic mob around Klyuev poured out into open ground near Saddek, where it was met by shrapnel crossfire and shied back into the woods.\n\nAt this point General Klyuev's cup of endurance ran over. \"To avoid useless bloodshed\" the commander of the two center corps ordered the white flag to be raised-when he had twenty batteries of guns, still intact\n\nafter being dragged halfway around Prussia, against only eight German batteries, and when his tens of thousands of men dispersed through the forest were faced in this sector by no more than six German battalions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To avoid bloodshed\"-golden words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every human action can be disguised with a coating of gilt. \"To avoid bloodshed\" sounds noble and humane; who could argue with that? One might perhaps raise the objection that the truly farsighted way of avoiding bloodshed would have been not to become a general.\n\nHowever, it turned out that there was no white flag; they were not, after all, issued to units in the Table of Equipment along with the regimental colors.\n\nThe scene took place in a clearing near the edge of the forest.\n\nSCREEN\n\n= Everything on wheels-supply, artillery, medical-\n\nhas filled the clearing in disorder: no lines, no ranks, no direction.\n\nIn two-wheelers and ambulance wagons-^ wounded, nurses and doctors. Carts piled randomly with weapons, equipment, baggage, probably including goods looted from the Germans... Infantry soldiers standing, sitting, changing boots,\n\nsorting out their belongings... Mounted Cossacks in uneasy groups. . Individual guns separated from their units...\n\n= A doomed mob of soldiery.\n\n= The general and his suite, on horseback and\n\naccompanied by an escort squadron of Cossacks.\n\n= General Klyuev. Straining to maintain outward dignity.\n\n576' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nHe must keep up appearances, must raise\n\nhis eyebrows\n\n\"otherwise, they will cease\n\nto obey him); he calls out:\n\n\"Sergeant major! Takeoff your shirt! Tie it to your lance and ride slowly toward the enemy.\" = The sergeant major does as he is told. He hands his\n\nlance to his neighbor, takes off his tunic, takes off his shirt... then= dressed in his tunic again, with his shirt tied to the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "top of his lance... will he ride off? Murmur of voices.\n\n= The Cossacks are muttering among them--\n\nselves. = The sergeant major looks at them, freezes to the spot.\n\nKlyuev turns around to them. Murmuring dies down.\n\nKlyuev waves his arm,\n\nand the sergeant major rides away bearing the white flag. Loud murmurs.\n\n= A voice from another group of Cossacks, standing\n\nslightly farther away: \"We'll stick it out!\"\n\n\"Cossacks don't surrender! Whoever heard of it?\" And Artyukha Serga, a bulbous, cheerful rogue,\n\nhis cap askew, shouts from behind another man's back, in aloud, cheeky voice:\n\n\"They can't order us to give in if we don't want to.\" = Klyuev, with a supreme effort (but no confidence in his voice), shouts:\n\n\"Who's in command over there?\" ^ An officer rides up. He wears captain* s\n\nepaulettes\n\nwithout stars; tall, supple, a born rider, with\n\nfinely molded features and black eyes. His\n\nattitude-\n\narms akimbo, one hand on his sword-be-\n\ntrays his complete lack of respect. He says: \"Captain Vedyomikov, 40th Don Cossack regiment.\"\n\nHe looks at the general. Should he say\n\nanything more?\n\nHe says no more. More voices, exclamations.\n\n= Klyuev looks around\n\nat the infantry, at the crowded mass of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "humanity.\n\nReactions differ. Some men are exhausted\n\nand ready to surrender.\n\nBut there is a soldier, one hand clasping\n\nthe nape of his neck, his cap knocked off\n\n-what has become\n\nof the troops' discipline?-who shouts:\n\n\"What's that? Surrender? We won't let 'em!\" Chorus of approval\n\nfrom the troops around him.\n\nTheir commanding officer, a lieutenant\n\ncolonel,\n\nmarches up, cutting his way\n\nthrough the crowd,\n\navoiding wagons,\n\ntoward the mounted general. Change of angle:\n\n= Klyuev viewed from below. The lieutenant\n\ncolonel looks like an assassin about to\n\nmake an\n\nattempt on the Tsar. His arm\n\nmakes a flourish-\n\nbut he is merely saluting. He says:\n\n\"Lieutenant Colonel Sukhachevsky, Alexeyev regiment. You have taken\n\ncommand of XV Corps as well. It is your duty to lead us out of this. . * General!\"Looks up at him with piercing contempt. = He has jailed to address him as \"\"your eX' cellency,\"\n\nbut Klyuev lacks the courage to object. His Inead svi? ims. He closes his eyes, opens them again.\n\nSukhachevsky is still there. Of course he knows his duty. Does Sukhachevsky\n\nthink he finds it easy? And he gave his reason: \"To avoid bloodshed\"... But he is incapable oj insisting on anything. Weakly, he says:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "anyone who wants to may try\n\nto escape as best he can.\" He takes out a jiandkerchiej to mop his brow. He looks at it: A handkerchiej! It's white and large, a general's handkerchiej. = Holding it in jront of him, waving it as a talisman\n\nof safety-anything to avoid any further scenes with his mutinous subordinates-he walks his horse toward the edge of the wood to\n\nsurrender, following the sergeant major and his white shirt. = His staff follows him in a cavalcade. Everyone else who wants a quick end to the agony starts to follow him...= Near tjie crowd of ambulance wagons a doctor on horseback gives the order:\n\n\"Listen! The corps commander has declared a surrender. Everyone near\n\nmy field hospital\n\nmust lay down his arms.\n\nGoon-throw them\n\naway!\" = Baffled, nursing his rifle in his arms, a little soldier says:\n\n\"Where shall we throw them!\"\n\n\"Under the trees, over there!\" A wounded man, bandaged and in nothing but his\n\nunderwear, emerges from an ambulance and shouts:\n\n\"Never! Give me your rifle, pal!\" Takes it from the little soldier and in his underpants stalks off with it. = Others take their rifles and throw them on the ground under the trees, A soldierly voice rings out:\n\n\"Hey, Cossacks!\" = It is Captain Vedyornikov, turning his horse to face his men:\n\n\"This is no place for us!\" = His Don Cossacks will stand with him. They won't surrender. Rumble of approving voices.\n\nArtyukha Serga grins. Do we notice something attractive about him now that we can see him? = Vedyornikov gives the order:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Detachment-mount! By the right,\n\nin column of threes, at the trot\n\n-march!\" A wave of his arm and they move off. Following him, the Cossacks fall into line by threes. = Lieutenant Colonel Sukhachevsky (he is short and cannot see over the men's heads too easily) shouts:\n\n\"Men of the Alexeyev regiment! Shall\n\nwe surrender-or breakthrough?\" = The troops shout back:\n\n\"Breakthrough! Breakthrough!\" Not all the men shout it, so Sukhachevsky adds in aloud voice:\n\n\"No one is forced to go. Anyone who\n\nwants to volunteer...\" he thrusts out his arm-\n\n\"... fall in over therein four ranks!\" The men jostle their way forward and sort themselves out into four ranks. Some of them would prefer to stay, some can scarcely walk, but the urge to stick with their comrades is stronger. = Some men from another regiment come up to him and ask:\n\n\"We're from the Kremenchug\n\nregiment-can we\n\ncome too, your honor?\" Grim but pleased, Sukhachevsky replies:\n\n\"Good lads! Yes, come on and join\n\nus.\"\n\nSCREEN FADES OUT\n\nGeneral JQyuev surrendered nearly thirty thousand men, most of them unwounded, though the majority were stragglers who had lost their units.\n\nLieutenant Colonel Sukhachevsky successfully broke outwith two thousaiid men.\n\nCaptain Vedyomikov's cavalry detachment charged the Germans and captured two guns.\n\nGeneral Blagoveshchensky had read about Kutuzov in Tolstoy's War and Peace and at sixty years of age, gray-haired, fat, and stiff, he felt himself to be just like Kutuzov, except that he still had the sight of both eyes. Like Kutuzov he was wary, cautious, and cunning. And hke Tolstoy's Kutuzov he realized that one should never issue sharp, decisive instructions; that'nothing but confusion could result from a battle started against one's will\"; that'military matters go their own way, which they are fated to follow whether or not it corresponds to what men propose\"; that'there is an inevitable course of events\"; and that the best general is the one who'declines to participate in those events.\" His long military service had convinced the general of the correctness of Tolstoy's views; there was nothing worse than sticking one's neck out by using one's initiative-people who did so always got into trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For three days, VI Corps had been happily resting in a quiet, deserted spot right on the Russian frontier. The corps commander had billeted himself, separately from his staff, in a little country cottage whose very lack of space he found comforting. The distant sounds of artillery, merged into an indistinct rumble, could only occasionally be. heard, and there were grounds for hoping that the major events of the Prussian campaign would pass by without involving Bla-goveshchensky's corps.\n\nResting, the corps did not know that it owed its well-being to the skillfully contrived dispatches written by its commander. Tolstoy neglected to point out that\n\nif a general refrains from taking decisions it is all the more important for him to be able to compose the right sort of dispatches; that without carefully drafted, decisive-sounding dispatches which can make inaction sound like hard fighting, one cannot extricate one's troops from a bad thrashing; that in the absence of such reports a general cannot, as Tolstoy's Kutuzov could, \"direct his efforts not toward killing and destroying men but toward saving them and caring for them.\"\n\nThus, in his report for August 16, Blagoveshchen-sky honestly described how General Richter's division, at last brought up to strength by the belated arrival of a regiment, had moved off on the following day to seize 3ie town of Ortelsburg (abandoned in panic only two days ago to a nonexistent enemy), where there were said to be strong enemy forces in divisional strength (in fact, two companies and two squadrons), while General Komarov's division was holding its ground to the left'in echelon\" (an important, modish expression in Russian strategic terminology, without which no military document looked convincing). The many moves of General Tolpygo's division, too, were a great embellishment to the report, and Blagoveshchensky felt quite justified in expecting to survive August 17 without excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the morning of the seventeenth, Richter's division, which had so far not been inaction once, deployed itself outside the half-empty town of Ortelsburg according to aU the rules of the art of war. The artillery preparation having opened up, it was advancing to the assault and the town was bound to betaken-^ when suddenly at eleven o'clock, after a five-hour delay, the morning's directive from Army Group Headquarters descended upon them. It stated that Blagoveshchensky's corps must go to the rescue of the disintegrating center corps, and should therefore not advance on Ortelsburg, which was almost due north, but on Willenberg, almost due west. It concluded: \"The commander-in-chief insists that this task be energetically carried out and that communications be established with General Samsonov as rapidly as possible.\"\n\nThis was just what General Blagoveshchensky had been afraid of. In its final phase, the edge of the tornado had caught up with him-but it was still not too late for this final phase to bring about his destruction.\n\nThe operational task, however, allowed fora certain freedom of interpretation. It was as if the forces had been advancing from Ryazan north-northwest toward Moscow and had then been ordered to go west to Kaluga. What solution could be neater and more convenient than to make them go back to Ryazan and then set off again for Kaluga? Blagoveshchensky ordered Richter's division, which had already forced a successful entry into Ortelsburg, to leave the captured town and, instead of wheeling leftward to Willenberg, to retire nine miles and only then, without losing momentum, to make for Willenberg.\n\nEven before executing these maneuvers, Blagoveshchensky had sent a briskly worded message to Army Group Headquarters:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To find and contact General Samsonov have dispatched patrol to Neidenburg; to establish communications with XXIII Corps have dispatched patrol to Chorzele. No information so far. Am engaging enemy at Ortelsburg.\n\nIntend to withdraw headquarters via route to\n\n[After all, the new situation required corps headquarters to pullback farther still]... in order to conduct operations toward Willenberg.\n\nIt was natural, also, to employ Tolpygo's cavalry division for the advance-even though this meant that they simply went back to the same place from which they had returned on their own initiative that morning. General Tolpygo, however, in a lengthy report which matched Blagoveshchensky's in skill, explained in detail that his exhausted division had just unsaddled its horses and could not move off to repeat the difficult task required of it. Blagoveshchensky sent him a second written order, which Tolpygo also answered in writing. Only at the third asking, which was accompanied by threats, was the order obeyed and the division made to saddle up.\n\nNow that the more complex part of the maneuver had been satisfactorily accomplished, it was thought\n\nproper to send someone straight to Willenberg. A suitable unit for this purpose was the composite detachment commanded by General Nechvolodov. Yesterday, during the calm of a rest day and by the most reprehensible'creeping\" tactics, which Blago-veshchensky thoroughly disapproved of, Nechvolodov had already carried out a raid of this kind, but now he was told to wait for instructions. It was men like Nechvolodov whom Blagoveshchensky found intolerable as subordinates, and he punished them by contriving to make their Uves as difficult as possible. What was worse, Nechvolodov was a writer and had pretensions to holding opinions on all sorts of matters apart from the service. He was therefore the obvious choice for this dangerous advance-guard mission." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-write with the author and continue the story.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To find and contact General Samsonov have dispatched patrol to Neidenburg; to establish communications with XXIII Corps have dispatched patrol to Chorzele. No information so far. Am engaging enemy at Ortelsburg.\n\nIntend to withdraw headquarters via route to\n\n[After all, the new situation required corps headquarters to pullback farther still]... in order to conduct operations toward Willenberg.\n\nIt was natural, also, to employ Tolpygo's cavalry division for the advance-even though this meant that they simply went back to the same place from which they had returned on their own initiative that morning. General Tolpygo, however, in a lengthy report which matched Blagoveshchensky's in skill, explained in detail that his exhausted division had just unsaddled its horses and could not move off to repeat the difficult task required of it. Blagoveshchensky sent him a second written order, which Tolpygo also answered in writing. Only at the third asking, which was accompanied by threats, was the order obeyed and the division made to saddle up.\n\nNow that the more complex part of the maneuver had been satisfactorily accomplished, it was thought\n\nproper to send someone straight to Willenberg. A suitable unit for this purpose was the composite detachment commanded by General Nechvolodov. Yesterday, during the calm of a rest day and by the most reprehensible'creeping\" tactics, which Blago-veshchensky thoroughly disapproved of, Nechvolodov had already carried out a raid of this kind, but now he was told to wait for instructions. It was men like Nechvolodov whom Blagoveshchensky found intolerable as subordinates, and he punished them by contriving to make their Uves as difficult as possible. What was worse, Nechvolodov was a writer and had pretensions to holding opinions on all sorts of matters apart from the service. He was therefore the obvious choice for this dangerous advance-guard mission." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After midday on August 17 he was dispatched with the Ladoga regiment and two batteries of guns. He was ordered to move with speed; the main body of the division would leave later.\n\nNechvolodov's chief attribute, however, was not speed but dogged persistence. He had observed more than once in his lifetime that with persistence one reaches one's goal in no less time than by hasty, unsteady advance along a wavering course.\n\nUnconcerned with personal advancement, he had a selfless goal. Still a bachelor at fifty, and having without undue strain brought up one adopted son, he had the leisure, the private means, and the personal freedom to devote himself to other, hi^ er interests. He had entered a military high school in an access of boyish enthusiasm and had taken the oath of allegiance as a cadet the year Alexander H, the Tsar Liberator, had been basely assassinated; since then, his aim had been to serve the throne and Russia. And for forty years his devotion to that aim had not weakened, had remained undivided and unshaken; only the rhythm of his life of service had changed. As a youth, striving impetuously to move mountains with his own two hands, he had finished the routine course of an officer's training well ahead of the scheduled time, and,\n\nhaving barely graduated from the Military Academy, had written a paper proposing the reform of the General Staff and the War Ministry. That, however, marked the end of his remarkable progress in his military career. For the first of many times he came up against the united ill will of the senior officers, the generals, and the Guards. Nechvolodov expected all of them to be ready to make certain sacrifices necessary to strengthen the Russian army and-as a consequence-the Russian monarchy. But it happened that even in these circles, although it was customary to talk about the monarchy in resounding tones, to be genuinely devoted to it was simply not done. The higher they were in rank, the more thoroughly they were imbued with an ardor that was not patriotic but self-seeking; they were not serving the Tsar because he was the Lord's Anointed but because he was the source of patronage. And before Nechvolodov had summed them up, they had summed him up-as an alien and dangerous presence for the very reason that he was not seeking personal advantage and his actions might therefore prove ruinous to his fellow officers. From then on, Nechvolodov was kept firmly within the slow, tedious system of promotion by seniority and of precise conformity to orders without scope for individual initiative. Prevented thus from serving the throne by dash or speed, he had only persistence left, and on occasion bravery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In searching for an outlet for his surplus mental energy, Nechvolodov had occupied himself with an unsuccessful textbook of Russian history written for simple peasants. He perceived Russian history as nothing less than service to a cause, a national tradition, within which he also found the sole justification for his present service as an army officer. For himself he sought in history the vitalizing, refreshing effects of contemplating another age, an age in which Russians had had a different attitude toward theu: monarchs; as for his readers, he sought to convert them to the old ways and thereby lend even greater scope and durability to the achievement of his unchanging aim. But although this history book was accorded\n\n586' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nthe Tsar's approval and recommended for inclusion in army and public libraries, the author found no evidence either that it was widely and eagerly read or that it was changing people's attitudes. Nechvolodov's devoted monarchism, which had alarmed the generals because it was so extreme, now aroused the derision of people in'educated\" circles who were convinced that Russian history could only evoke laughter or repugnance; they even questioned whether there was such a thing as Russian history. What they found most reactionary of all was Nechvolodov's conviction that for Russia the monarchy was not a set of shackles but a clamp: that it did not fetter the country but preserved it from disaster by binding it together. Because of his loyalty to the dynasty, he was powerless to argue with his critics; whatever might happen in Russia, he would never presume to condemn either the Tsar or those around him; he could only defend them and point out the good in what educated society found bad.\n\nObliged to be silent and forbearing, he was once more thrown back on his rock-like devotion to the monarchy. It was because of this, for instance, that he had a special affection for the Ladoga regiment: it had proved to be loyal to the throne during the Moscow uprising of 1905. Although Nechvolodov himself had never served in it and almost the whole complement of the regiment had changed since then, he still knew a few of the long-servicemen and singled them out for his regard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silence and forbearance had also been Nechvolodov's lot during the lull which VI Corps had been experiencing in the last few days. The resolution with which he had conducted his rear-guard actions had inspired no one else. He found inactivity painful at a time when the all-important battle was being fought fifteen miles away and when, by all accounts, it was going none too well. He rode to a hilltop a mile or so away, listened to the sound of the guns, and gazed helplessly through his binoculars.\n\nAfter wasting two whole days, corps headquarters had ordered Nechvolodov to move'with speed.\" He\n\ndid not move with speed but simply set off at once without fuss, having made all the necessary preparations two days ago. He would not makeup for the negligence of the staff by over-exerting his troops, and in any case it would take the main body sometime to catch up. Only his cavalry-consisting of no more than a half troop commanded by Comet Zhukovsky-did he send on ahead.\n\nDuring the two days in which he was not allowed to go into action, Nechvolodov was sick, listless, and morose; but no sooner did he get the order to move than his health recovered in a matter of minutes. He smiled at his men of the Ladoga regiment-^ the only men in the corps permitted to fight-and shouted encouragingly to the gunners that 5iey were off to help their comrades out of a tight comer.\n\nThe morale-raising awareness that they were going on a rescue operation of this kind gave one regiment the strength of two and made two batteries worth four. Unfortunately, they were given no extra ammunition; but there was compensation in being spared the irritating attentions of the higher-ups. Nechvolodov had a freehand, and his head was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mounted as always on his powerful stallion, his stirmp leathers fully extended, the lanky, taciturn Nechvolodov rode ahead of his composite detachment, now the advance guard, while a horse's length behind him and to one side rode his keen, dumpling-fed aide-de-camp from the Ukraine, Roshko, his round face glowmg like a bumished copper kettle.\n\nAs they neared Willenberg, their route passed through a dense, well-kept pine forest. All the dead branches had been lopped from the sleek, copper-colored tmnks, and the tops of the sixty-foot trees were gently waving in the clear, summery sky. Twilight set in early in the forest.\n\nIn the last few miles of their joumey the sound of rifles and machine guns could be heard more and more clearly, whereas gunfire was rarer. What could this mean? It meant that the Russians were attempting to breakthrough and were firing at the Germans. Willenberg was obviously the outer pivotal point\n\n588' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nof the encircling movement, and the Russian troops might be-^ indeed, were bound to be-^ located just beyond it. Nechvolodov's stallion quickened its pace, until it was moving too fast for the infantry.\n\nThe woods concealed the approach of Nechvolo-dov's detachment almost as far as Willenberg itself. In any case, there were no Germans to be seen; they were so confident that they had dispersed their forces, leaving this side of the town unprotected. At the edge of the forest Nechvolodov ordered the detachment to turn aside and rest, while he rode out through the last of the trees. There stood several troopers holding the horses of the reconnaissance detachment which the cornet had led forward on foot. The yellow sun, as it set behind the town, bhnded them with its light. Even so, they could see in front of them a low-lying meadow leading down to a small river and traversed by a solitary raised road-clear and running straight ahead to an undamaged bridge; no doubt the Germans had thought it would be a shame to blowup a good German bridge. There was no roadblock on this side of the bridge either-the Germans must take them for absolute fools! In fact, on the far side of the bridge, among the first few houses of the town, the comet and his scouts were already in position and firing. Nechvolodov decided that he had better send them a squad with two machme guns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beyond that, the houses were denser, then came the railway station and the town proper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could not outflank the town to the right-there was a swampy meadow. Nor could they go around it to the left-the route was cut by a second small river, which flowed into the other. If there were no artillery opposition, the whole regiment, moving in Hne of march, could be across the bridge in an hour, and then deploy to attack the town.\n\nNechvolodov ordered both batteries to take up positions at the edge of the forest, to right and left of the road.\n\nThere was firing on the near outskirts of Willenberg. There was also firing on the far side. No doubt about it, the Germans in this town were in a shaky position. Their situation was even worse than if they\n\nhad been caught in a pincer movement: they had posted their'guns\" facing westward, unaware that the'beaters\" were creeping upon them from the east.\n\nThe general's heartbeat faster and his calm, swarthy face lit up with expectant joy at the prospect of the brief, easy victory akeady in his grasp. He called up the battalion and battery commanders and discussed with them how to cross the bridge and which tasks should be allotted to the various units once they were over it.\n\nThat momenta dismounted dragoon came running up with a message from Comet Zhukovsky reporting that several men had joined him on this side of the town after breaking through from the far side: they included two men of his own regiment, the 6th Dragoons, who had been cutoff; four infantrymen from the Poltava regiment; and one Cossack from the army commander's escort. The last had assured him that General Samsonov had been caught in some crossfire and killed.\n\nWithout paying much attention to the news about Samsonov, which might be a mere rumor, Nechvolo-dov seized on what was most important in the message-namely, that individual soldiers were already passing through Willenberg as through a sieve. He had only to reach out for it and the place was his! The moment had come to smash into it like a battering ram going through a barrel riddled with holes. And the sooner the better, because the Russian troops on the far side must be in a state of perilous disorder if the Poltava regiment was there (its rightful place being on the farthest flank of the army) and if men from it were breaking out in this direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sent word to the Ladoga regiment that our troops were already breaking through and had arrived. Then he sat down to write a message to divisional headquarters, saying that he was starting the assault on the town and requesting support from the commander of the division's lead column, urgent delivery of more ammunition, and the addition to his force of at least another battery.\n\nThe sun had set, but it would be along time be-\n\n590' ALEXANDER SOLZHENTTSYN\n\nfore it was dark. Two houses could be seen burning at the spot where the comet and his dragoons were inaction. He ordered the first battalion to follow him across the bridge, the second to come behind them after an agreed interval.\n\nThe first battalion got across without being shelled, but it had been spotted, and the second battalion was fired on by a small battery from a clump of trees on the far side of the left-hand river. Another German battery opened up. Meanwhile, the second battalion ran across the bridge by companies.\n\nThe evening was turning grayer. The fires in the town stood out more brightly.\n\nNechvolodov reached Comet Zhukovsky and saw the Poltava men and the Cossack from Samsonov's escort, who looked like a dirty, shifty type. The first battaUon took up positions opposite the railway station, from which the Germans were firing with some determination, and waited for the rest of the Ladoga regiment. As it was now dark, the third and fourth battahons would be able to cross the bridge more easily.\n\nThe twilight thickened into night. The artillery fell silent. The burning buildings shone a lurid red. There was no fighting in the town other than a few weak flickers, as the electricity supply had been damaged. High above, the moon, waxing toward the second quarter, was beginning to cast a stronger light-^ just enough, in fact, to enable the Russians to see each other as they attacked, but not enough to allow the Germans to see them at a distance. Everything was combining in their favor. In an hour the battahons would be in position, would make ready-and at a crouching run the first two would assault the town without firing, the third would make a flanking attack on the sawmill, while the fourth stayed in reserve. Meanwhile, Nechvolodov, Roshko, and several other officers, bending double as they ran, reconnoitered leftward to the river and then up the slope of a firm, dry stretch of pasture to the right. Nechvolodov showed them whereto take the battalions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The firing on the far side of the town had still not\n\ndied down, but it was getting sparser. A mile or two divided them from the other Russians; here they felt strong and united, while over there the others were dispersed, surrounded, abandoned, and about to perish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moving freely now at his full, magnificent height, Nechvolodov strode back and forth in the milky, moonlit night, waving his long arms as he gave directionSc\n\nHe was certain of success. He had adequate forces fora night attack on a town, the main body of troops was coming to back him up, and by mommg the German ring would be broken. They had only to hold the breach fora day and the encirclement would collapse, allowing the Russians to pour out through the gap.\n\nNechvolodov was shaken by a surge of expectant] oy; he could not remember feeling such elation in all the weeks of war, in all the years of peace.\n\nThere were fifteen minutes to go before the attack was due to start.\n\nHe turned back to the road.\n\nAt that momenta messenger from divisional headquarters arrived looking for him. Taking from his greatcoat pocket his reliable, oblong German torch, Nechvolodov shone it on the piece of paper, screening himself from the town behind a telegraph pole.\n\nHe read:\n\nTo Advance Guard Commander General Nechvolodov.\n\nIn view of absence of significant enemy forces the main body has been recalled. Do not engage enemy at Willen-berg. We shall not give support, since we are expecting orders to send the whole corps back into Russian territory. Await further orders.\n\nColonel Serbinovich\n\nRoshko gave a shriek; his general groaned as though he had been stabbed between the ribs, staggered back, and sank his teeth into the dry, sphntery wood of the telegraph pole.\n\nOn the RrocE where they had buried the commanding officer of the Dorogobuzh regiment, a moment came when they almost changed their plans. A burst of firing came from the direction of the hitherto dormant Neidenburg, and it was obvious from the sound that someone was firing into the town from outside it-^ that Russian artillery, in fact, was bombarding Neidenburg and the Germans were not replying. Vorotyntsev was already prepared to turnaround and head in that direction when the gunfire stopped, followed only by a desultory exchange of rifle shots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although his plan was fully worked out, throughout the rest of the day, every quarter of an hour or so, Vorotyntsev had constantly to listen, look, study the map, check the terrain, watch his men for signs of fatigue, make decisions, and give orders. He was so preoccupied with military matters that one might have thou^ t there could be no room in his mind for anythmg else.\n\nYet there seemed to be two parallel corridors in his head, divided as though by a glass partition, each visible though inaudible to the other. Down one corridor, practical thoughts streamed uninterruptedly-about how this party of fourteen and one wounded man would breakout; down the other, unprompted, unhurried, disconnected, there drifted a series of quite different, independent musings. They were largely about the past, unexpected memories, mistakes he had made in his time. The first kind was straining toward life; the other looked ahead to the possibility of death.\n\nHe could not get rid of the thought of those Est-landers. They had not left their posts, had not runaway or demanded their right to escape. (Or so it had been the first day; had the pressures on them increased later?) It had happened such a short while ago, and now everything had irrevocably changed: those who preferred capture were probably prisoners of war by now, the ones who wanted to try to breakout would have had to do soon their own initiative, while the men who were fated to be killed would already be dead. Thinking about it did no good. Voro-tyntsev, after all, had not deceived them in anyway; yet it was with reproach on their faces that they dragged themselves along the second, silent corridor-starting with the black-bearded peasant with the scarred cheek who had been the right marker. No, he had not deceived them-^ but would he ever be rid of that reproach? He had not deceived them: he had explained everything to them frankly, and for twenty hours they had held a vital sector of the line; if others had done their job properly, it might have been of help to the entire army, but the others had failed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Therefore, he had deceived them.\n\nWhat was the right thmg to do? Surely it was right to push oneself, to exert one's faculties to the utmost, to drive oneself to exhaustion? If not, there was no point in being a regular officer-^ no point in living, even. Yet, whenever one used one's brain or did anything constructive, it was inevitably ruined by some stupid, blundering fool in the high command.\n\nWhen everything was crumbling around one, which was right-^ to act, or not to act?\n\nWhat went on in the second corridor did not interfere with the first in anyway; moving at their own pace, the thoughts in it were no disturbance to the others. Then: pace allowed room, too, for memories and regrets. Alina; unexpectedly, incoherently, he thought of Alina.\n\nHe suddenly remembered how in Petersburg she had cleaned every speck of dust from his desk without moving a single pencil; how she had been silent\n\nfor hours, moving past his room without a sound, when there was a special need for quiet; how, though she loved having company at home and visiting friends, she had refused invitations and had never begged to go out, so as not to let him see how disappointed she was. Suddenly he remembered everything good about her: although she made demands on him, she was above all capable of great sacrifice.\n\nHow could he have been glad to leave her? How could he have felt relief at not having to see her? It had all been some strange misunderstanding; somehow he had grown stale. When he came home from this war, everything would fall into place and their life would be as full of happiness as it had been after his return from the Japanese war.\n\nThe thoughts faded away; no doubt they had been summoned by the imminent possibility of death. But I..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm quite safe, you see, I'm bound to come out of this alive,\" Vorotyntsev said with a smile at Kharitonov as they lay side by side on their stomachs, sharing a greatcoat.\n\n\"Really? Why?\" the freckled boy said deli^ tedly, taking him quite seriously.\n\n\"An old Chinaman told my fortune in Manchuria.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\" Yaroslav inquired eagerly, gazing at the colonel with hero worship.\n\n\"He predicted that I wouldn't be killed in the Japanese war and that I wouldn't be killed in any other war in which I might fight, but that I should die a soldier's death all the same at the age of sixty-nine. As a professional officer, could one ask fora better prophecy?\"\n\n\"Magnificent! But wait-^ when will that be?\"\n\n\"One hardly even dares to say it aloud: it will be in 1945.\"\n\nHe was right; mentioning a date so far ahead was uncanny, like something from H. G. Wells.\n\nThey were lying in a dense thicket of green-tipped young firs, the kind of place where hares Hke to play in the sunshine in winter. Vorotyntsev had chosen the spot because somebody could have passed five\n\npaces away without noticing them there. It was only a kilometer and a half to the main road; they could already hear the unmistakable hum of cars and motorcycles moving in both directions. If the Germans had been herein strength, they would have sent patrols into the wood to comb it. Obviously, they lacked the forces to do so, but even so, the party dared not move out prematurely: ahead of them there was only a narrow promontory of woodland in which other groups of Russians might have collected, and the Germans could easily send out search parties in dayhght from the nearby village of Moldtken. Placing the bulk of his party in the middle of the thicket, Vorotyntsev had posted three pairs of men to lie farther forward as lookouts. They had arrived herein the heat of the afternoon; the place was heavy with scorching-hot, stagnant air which drained their strength and made them thirsty-and not every man had a water bottle. But no one wanted to pullback to a cooler spot now. It had been hard enough getting here; they had had to come into the open to cross a railway track which the Germans could easily have kept under fire from hand trolleys. However, they had apparently been too short of troops to do this; something had been afoot all day around Neidenburg; there had been frequent bursts of firing, although they came no nearer. Today was the right day to breakout; tomorrow would be too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The catastrophe that had overtaken the army obsessed Vorotyntsev. He was much more concerned about the outcome of the fighting around Neidenburg, about what was going on at I Corps and where Kry-mov was than about the breakout of his detachment. However, during all the hours that he had been holding the map open in front of him, he had forced himself not to look at the wider scene of battle but to imprint on his memory while it was still daylight every twist and turn of the nearby forest's edge, so that wherever they might emerge in the dark he would have a precise idea of distances; otherwise, he would be bound to miss some feature, and then, if he became unsure of\n\nhimself, he would have to study the map under his greatcoat by the light of matches.\n\nVorotyntsev did not explain his carefully devised plan to a gathering of the officers as was normal, but in view of the semi-guerrilla nature of their operation he gave out the details to the men who would have to carry it out: Blagodaryov, Kachkin, the two best shots among the Dorogobuzh men, whom they themselves had selected-a tough, slow-moving hunter from Vyatka and a young man called Yevgrafov from Ryazan, who had been a salesman in a dry-goods shop-and Lieutenant Kharitonov, who turned out to have been one of the best marksmen at cadet school and who asked to be given the most distant targets to cover. Vorotyntsev had these five stretch out around hun on the sandy ground under the low branches of the pine saplings, six heads huddled together, six pairs of legs fanning out in a circle. The spot was chosen so that Lieutenant Ofrosimov, too, was within earshot on his stretcher. He had a fever, his wound was starting to give him pain, and there was nothing they could do for him; but there was one thing that he alone could say to ease their lot-and Vorotyntsev had put him in a position to say it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were to start moving after dark, when the moon was up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would begin by running at a crouch, and at the first sign of danger they would have to restrict their movements to crawling. The lead group would be made up of Blagodaryov and Kachkin, armed with knives. They were to edge forward very slowly without breaking a single twig. They had half the night for this first phase; the main party would cross the road nearer dawn, because during the early part of the night the Germans would be more alert. Having covered two hundred yards in safety, one of them was to comeback and call the second group, the marksmen, forward. When the latter had also covered two hundred yards, they were to send back a runner to fetch the third group, consisting of the remainder and the stretcher. If the first group meta German sentry or a sniper, they were to dispatch him silently with their knives.\n\n\"Understood?\" he queried, staring closely at the broad-lipped Biagodaryov and the close-cropped, bullet-headed Kachkin.\n\n\"Oh Lord,\" Arsenii signed like a blacksmith's bellows. \"They'll never let us get home!\"\n\nKachkin gave a twitch of his stubbly black cheek. \"I can kill enough cattle for half a village.\"\n\nThere were to be four marksmen, including Voro-tyntsev. Lieutenant Kharitonov was to take Blago-daryov's well-tested rifle. The ammunition amounted to three pouchfuls. They were unlikely to have to open fire in the wood, it would probably be from the edge of the forest toward the road; then, from the far side of the road, they would give covering fire to the others as they crossed over.\n\nHe explained what type of fire to direct toward different targets-^ when to fire in volleys and when each man in his own time. At that moment he heard Lieutenant Ofrosimov say the words which showed that he knew his duty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unshaven, dirty, limp, eyes swiveling, he raised himself on one elbow from his detested stretcher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May I say something, Colonel? Please... don't think you have to take me. It might not be... convenient. Let's unwind the colors now, and I'll hand them over to someone else. Just put me in a comfortable position and give me a few rounds of ammunition.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" Vorotyntsev responded at once. \"Thank you, Lieutenant. Yevgrafov, take the standard.\"\n\nThe quick-witted Yevgrafov, who like Kachkin recovered from a shock quicker than any of the other Dorogobuzh men, jumped into action. \"Very good, your honor! Will you wind it around me?\"\n\n\"Lie down.\"\n\nIt had worked out so that Lenartovich had been the only officer not summoned to the council of war. It was not quite clear whether he was offended or not, but he was sitting close to Ofrosimov and listening. He now asked: \"Colonel, please explain tome: suppose it proves to be quite impossible to cross the road?\"\n\n\"What do you mean-impossible?\" Vorotyntsev\n\nlooked at him sternly and sadly; the boy had good potential, but there was no time to make an officer of him now. \"They won't be standing shoulder to shoulder, you know. You can imagine a fox running across the road, can't you? Well, that's how we shaU cross it. Have you thought of what it must be like for the Germans along the road? They are strung out in a very thin line, so it's more frightening for them. They don't know when they maybe attacked from the forest.\"\n\n\"There's no such thing as'impossible'in the army,\" Ofrosimov said didactically. \"Everything's possible in the army.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lenartovich did not reply; he was thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the worst thing about these people: they had grown used to thinking that they could do anything. Another reason for disbanding all the armies in the world.\n\nThe council was over, the colors had been handed over, the ammunition issued. Vorotyntsev insisted on Lenartovich taking his hatchet.\n\n\"You're empty-handed, what will you use fora weapon?\" Seeing the young man hesitate because he thought the others might laugh at him, he went on: \"Goon, take it. Man's first weapon was the ax!\"\n\nThe colonel spent along time instructing the men with the knives and the marksmen what their route would be hke and how many paces they would have to take. Then he made them giveback the instructions by drawing diagrams in the sand to show that they had understood.\n\nAfter that, the only thing to do was lie down, head on one's arms, face down in the sand, to wait anxiously. Everyone longed for the night to come quickly: they could not relax fora moment during the next few hours. No one talked of the war or the fighting. The older men discussed cattle feed and the differences between the black and white cows in Prussia and their own breeds at home. Then conversation died away and ceased altogether.\n\nAs the sun began to go down, its heat lessened, though it still penetrated the short growth in their\n\nthicket, and the purple-red glow reached them in fitful gleams through the trunks of the mature forest around them. Clouds spread out from the setting sun, pink at first, then darkening to mauve-blue; did this herald a change in the two weeks of unremitting fine weather which had witnessed both the arrival and the destruction of the Russian army?\n\nNever before had Sasha faced so many grim questions. Would he be alive by the morning? Was this his last sunset? Where would he find himself tomorrow? Lying face down in the sand, arms outstretched? Under escort as a prisoner of war? Or would he be writing ecstatically on a scrap of paper: \"Dearest ones! I got out! I'm alive!\" * And:\" Veronika, kiss Yolya for me!\" Here, these thoughts did not seem like incoherent babblings or bad taste; they were deeply felt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned over the hatchet in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was small and light and honed to such sharpness that it was easy to imagine it crunching into a skull. But could he strike down a man with it? Sasha had never known himself to show the kind of determination needed for that. No, it was disgusting-it was murder. In principle, an ax was no worse than a bullet, he reasoned. Yesterday the enemy had done their best to kill him and had almost succeeded; and if tonight there was no alternative and Kachkin and Blagodaryov had to knife some Germans in silence or that calf-faced young lieutenant had to shoot a few of them, there was no point in regretting it. But to do it hunself, with an ax, looking at the man's face-no, he couldn't bring himself to it.\n\nEvents were taking their inexorable course. The Germans were noisily moving up and down the road. Among them were social democrats, forcibly enlisted to take part in the slaughter. Indifferent circumstances, Sasha would have been glad to shake them by the hand, to greet them at apolitical meeting. Yet today, as a child depends on his father, he depended for his survival on this colonel, this servant of the Crown.\n\nTwilight drew in. The whole forest was dark, though\n\nthe moon, slightly fuller than half, shone more brightly in their copse of young trees. Across the western sky, dark bands of cloud were stretching toward the moon, threatening to blot it out.\n\nVorotyntsev gave the order: \"Move off, without making the treetops sway as you go.\"\n\nThey passed into the forest. Here it was much darker, though the moon occasionally shone through. The men with knives set off. The riflemen assembled. Suddenly a terrifying light flared, brilliant, phosphorescent. Alarmed, they glanced back at the thicket: it was a searchlight positioned somewhere close to the main road, near the village. It was not shining in then: direction but to right and left in front of them, along the road; from the narrow source of light, only a vague, diffused gleam penetrated to where they were. So much for their chances of getting across! It just showed how little one could rely on bemg able to calculate all the factors in war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's done it!\" Sasha gasped. \"If only it wasn't shining just where we want to cross, but farther on.\"\n\n\"It's a good thing it's close,\" Vorotyntsev reasoned. \"What you should say is, let's hope there isn't another searchlight as well. Since it's close, we can shoot it out of action; it's well within range.\"\n\nThe marksmen set off.\n\nClouds covered the moon. The beam did not move, its diffused light revealing only black silhouettes. Now everything that happened was expressed in sound. A few bursts of machine-gunfire could be heard along the road, either intended as a threat or because some Russians had akeady emerged from the forest. Then a rustling approached. Every sound might bean enemy, but it was one of the sharpshooters returning-the next stage of the journey was clear. They carried Ofrosimov with their arms lowered, stepping slowly and carefully as though not to awaken a sleeper. This meant carrying the stretcher fora longer time, which was a strain on the arms. The forest floor had looked smooth, but it was full of obstacles such as piles of fir cones (the Germans had tidied them up as though they were indoors), ditches and potholes. After two halts, they waited along time for\n\nthe call from the advance party, and were beginninf to think the attempt might fail. It turned out that the men in front had dropped their compass and had been looking for it in the dark. Instead of groaning, Ofrosimov swore in a vicious whisper, and Sasha told him to stop it. This was very careless of him, as just then voices were heard close by. It was probably not their group-but who was it? It was impossible to tell what language they were speaking. The men froze and drew their bayonets. The sound faded. Then came a faint noise as though a dog were growling not faraway, but it was not a dog and it, too, faded. They had come about half a mile like this, if not more; whenever the noise of trafiBc or a machine-gun burst was heard from the road, it sounded right beside them. And it was growing brighter, because they were closer to the light diffused sideways from the searchlight beam; fortunately, it remained motionless. About three hours passed like tills. Nothing had changed in their favor, and it might be that they had walked into a trap from which there was no escape either forward or backward. The Germans had only to swing the searchlight and send a skirmishing party to flush them out. Sasha was not exactly frightened; what he felt was more like hopelessness, despair. Clutching the ax handle, he realized that if he had to, he would bring it crashing down on a skull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly, from nearby on the right, the marksmen opened fire-^ four rifles firing rapid, as though competing with each other in speed-and after a dozen or so shots, the searchlight went out. As it did so, the entire world was extinguished, plunged into total darkness. The four men stopped firing.\n\nWhat of the main party? Where were they to go now?\n\nA machine gun, followed by another, opened fire along the road, but they were shooting wildly, at random.\n\nThen, snorting and crashing through the wood like a wild boar, something loomed up ahead of them-what, who was it? It was Kachkin, who said: \"Where's the lieutenant? Forget the stretcher-^ I'll carry him over my shoulder. Come on, you lazy sods-diet's gol\"\n\nOn the morning of the seventeenth, a sudden burst of gunfire came down on Neidenburg from the south. In the hospital, the Russian wounded perked up and with arms akimbo looked out the windows from their beds, while the nurses ran outside, delighted at the puffs of Russian shrapnel and the fountains of earth thrown up by Russian high explosives, as if their own men might not be killed by them too. The German doctor and his assistants smiled, convmced that their side would not withdraw. The firing went on around them all day, but there was no fightmg, and although the town contained practically no German troops, the Russians did not enter it. Not until that evening did the German sentries abandon the hospital, leaving their wounded in the wards. The new Russian occupying forces seemed in no hurry to put in an appearance, to inquire about the hospital or evacuate their wounded to the rear.\n\nIn the dark, Russian horse transport, foot soldiers, and horsemen moved about the town. Several buildings, set on fire during the day, became by night the sole and menacing illumination in Neidenburg that night. In Tanya's ward, one window opened onto a view of the town and the fires; she threw open the shutters and stood gazing out, occasionally replying to questions from the wounded men. Against the ruddy background of the fire, the architectural pecuHarities of the German houses stood out clearly-statues mounted above fa9ades, patterned and crenelated ornamental brickwork, wrought-iron balconies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tanya was in a state of mind in which the shelling, the fires, the departure and arrival of troops did not\n\nfrighten her but rather gave her a feeling of relief. In the stuffy wards, amid the glare of fires and explosions, she felt completely cool; she did not know ordinary human fear. On the contrary, she actually felt better and the pain in her heart was eased. Although she realized that something terrible was happening, she saw it all through a veil of private suffering; but her heartfelt lightened, and from this she drew great strength, so that she hardly needed to sleep or eat and gave herself enturely to her duties.\n\nNo reliable information was available at the hospital, but there was an abundance of rumors. Even while the Germans had been there, more Russian wounded had come in from various units and had reported that all the senior commanders had been killed, the Russian forces were incomplete disarray, and the Germans were firing at them from all sides, cutting them to pieces and taking prisoners. One of the new admissions to Tanya's ward was a Cossack sergeant, a man with a curled forelock, from General Martos's escort (he was in the comer bed previously occupied by the lieutenant from Rostov, who had left on foot in the last hour before the Germans arrived). Though not severely wounded, he was in a highly excitable state and disturbed everyone with his loud, confused stories about the destruction of XV Corps and the death of their general. Unstoppable, he described his adventures with great gusto, as though talking about the disastrous situation and the ruinous casualties gave him pleasure. News of the sergeant spread allover the hospital, and even the doctors came to listen to him.\n\nAs night fell, wagons were expected to arrive to evacuate the patients. A visit from a senior officer was also expected. Sure enough, at midnight, by the murky red glare of a distant fire a car drove into the square in front of the hospital and out of it stepped the medical director, a general, and his aide-de-camp. Two minutes later they were in Tanya's ward and went to seethe Cossack sergeant. Tanya brought a kerosene lamp from her table over to them in the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "604' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nThe shock-headed, disheveled sergeant was seething with expectation as the general approached his bed, as though he had been waiting for him and his whole story was being kept for the general's ears alone. His face very pale and sleek, with well-groomed moustaches and a disdainful Petersburg air, the general likewise seemed to have been looking for the sergeant. His questions were by no means hurried or ofiQiand; he sat down on the man's unwholesome bed, gave him an imposing stare, and ordered his aide-de-camp to note everytMng down, begiiming with his name, rank, and unit.\n\nWith an unfaltering hand, Tanya held the tall yel-. low and green lamp above the aide-de-camp's notebook, between the heads of the sergeant and the general, and watched them with a searching, penetrating gaze.\n\nFor what must have been at least the twenty-fifth time, the sergeant repeated his story, which everyone else knew by now, embelUshing it with fresh details, some of which did not actuaUy contradict his previous versions. He described how the whole corps, though badly shattered, had remained in its positions when General Samsonov had sent General Martos to occupy Neidenburg; how they had ridden to Neiden-burg only yesterday morning but had learned from some dragoons that it was already in German hands. On their way to select a position, they had come under artillery fire from a range of six hundred yards; the corps chief of staff and a divisional commander. General Torklus, had been killed, as had numerous Cossacks. The remaining Cossacks had loyally stayed with Martos and retreated with him into a wood. Martos's aide-de-camp had disappeared with the knapsack containing his food, cigarettes, compass, and maps, so the general was left hungry and disoriented. Their horses having been shot from under them, they had wandered about in the wood on foot, but whichever way they went, they found Germans aheady there. Martos had ordered this same sergeant to breakthrough to the town and report the disaster; he had embraced him in farewell and then and there, in" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "front of the man's eyes, had shot himself, unable to bear the shame.\n\nWith ahead whose white, tightly stretched skin made it look like a huge chicken's egg, the general nodded and asked: \"In fact, you confirm that General Martos shot himself in your presence?\"\n\n\"That's God's truth, your excellency!\"\n\nThe aide-de-camp made a note.\n\nStem and grieved, but with no sign of surprise, the Guards general nodded: he had expected, indeed had foreseen this. He was, however, surprised and irritated by the look on the nurse's face, with its disagreeably suspicious, burning, piercing gaze directed past the lamp and fastened on him. Because of it he twitched his neck several times and tried not to look at her again.\n\nIt was as if Tanya had awakened. For the first time since her fiance had jilted her, she had forgotten about herself and given her complete attention to an incident in the outside world, in this case taking place two feet away from the clean, bright, soot-free glass chimney of the lamp which she was holding. She had no evidence, she could not prove it, but with her remorseless gaze she had uncovered the reason why the sergeant felt this urgent, passionate compulsion to tell his story to everyone at such length: he had to conceal the sinful fact that in reality he had deserted General Martos when he was in danger and had runaway. And this smooth, pompous general was all too wiUing to believe the man; he had not tried to catch him out or confuse him, because for some reason he wanted to hear this version of events, it suited his book.\n\nLike the Maiden of Light, she had carried the lamp over to that dark triangle of three heads and fearlessly cast her light upon it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Until then she had regarded war as an inevitable, ungovernable, natural disaster in which soldiers are doomed to be wounded and to die and whose malign force no human power can control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even as she watched and eased the sufferings of the wounded around her, it had not once occurred to her to regard her own heartache as of less account than their\n\nwounds: their sufferings were all the result of an elemental force which it was useless to blame, whereas hers sprang from injustice, meanness, betrayal.\n\nNow, however, from that dark triangle of men-questioning, answering, and taking notes-Tanya felt the undeniable breath of an evil will upon her, and felt it so strongly that she knew that on that evil will depended the fate of their hospital, of all the men already wounded and especially of aU those who might be wounded tomorrow. For the first time the pain of others burst in, pushed aside and trampled her own sense of humiliation and betrayal, which suddenly no longer seemed the worst form of suffering in the world-seemed, indeed, quite a minor affliction.\n\nWith an obstinate, challengiQg look she kept the light of truth burning, aware how it hurt the general's eyes and how unpleasant he found it.\n\nPushing his boldness to the limit, the garrulous sergeant said persuasively to the general: \"Your excellency, the Germans had a reason for letting you take this town. It's a trap. There were lots of them here, and now they're out of it, they're making a circle around the town. See that they don't close it on you!\"\n\nYes, that was just what General Sirelius was afraid of. He, too, had been amazed that the Germans had given this key town away to him so easily. They were stronger than us-why should they give it up? His division's isolated stand here was becoming more and more dangerous. There was no knowing when the reinforcements being brought up from Mlawa would arrive, and the trap mi^ t be sprung at any moment, particularly at dawn. Although the encircled center corps might not be faraway, perhaps six miles or so, it was impossible to try to join them at night when he had no idea where they were and would have to move through the thick of the German lines. In any case, what sort of a state were those corps in now if eyewitnesses like this man reported that generals had been killed and units dispersed? They were ruined anyway, and there was no point in adding to the dimensions of the defeat by offering" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "up afresh crop of victims-Sirelius's Guardsmen. Furthermore, the orders under which his detachment had been sent here were not wholly binding on him: Sirelius belonged to XXIII Corps and was a distinguished Guards officer; he was not obliged to take orders from I Corps, which was commanded by mere officers of the line. The eyewitness testimony of this sergeant gave him a good excuse to remterpret his orders.\n\nCraning his neck forward like a goose to avoid the probing, hate-filled^ ance of the tall, dark-eyed nurse, keeping his eyes away from her bright lamp, Sirelius stood up and went outwith his aide-de-camp.\n\nSoon afterward, the car started up with a snort and drove out of the square.\n\nNo one knows what the general thought or what he decided. But everyone in that ward had been awake and listening, and they understood what the conversation meant. It meant that they were never going to be evacuated, that they would stay and be captured.\n\nTanya ran to look for the doctor. Valerian Aki-mich; he had not believed the sergeant's story from the first, but what could he do? Go to the medical director? The latter carried no weight outside the hospital; compared with a general, he was very small beer. And what evidence had she, apart from her intuition?\n\nAs never before, she wanted to be useful, but she had no idea what to do. She felt ashamed for having so long put her own unhappiness before the misfortunes of others.\n\nThe rest of the night passed without artillery fire. Unattended, the fires burned themselves out. Gun teams galloped through the town, but in the opposite direction of those of yesterday evening. The infantry turned about and marched away down another street. At dawn everything was quiet and deserted. Earlier than usual, before sunrise, the civilian inhabitants began to come out of doors-they had not been asleep behind their windows either. Soon there was a joyful hubbub of shouting and congratulation as they waved" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "their hats to greet the first German troops marching into the town.\n\nThe wounded lay there, clutching their heads, and the nurses wept as they went on their rounds.\n\nGerman sentries came and stood in every corridor.\n\nIt was after the Germans'arrival that an elderly, fussy, snub-nosed nurse came running in from the abdominal ward and whispered, panting: \"Tanya! Anew patient has just come in... He's in my ward... He was hardly able to get here, he'll die any minute. He has the regimental colors of the Libau regiment wrapped around his chest. What are we to do?\"\n\nWithout a moment's hesitation, her eyes sparkling, delighted even, Tanya replied: \"Come on-I'll wrap them around myself!\"\n\n\"But there are Germans in the corridor,\" clucked the snub-nosed nurse. \"You'll have to do it in the ward-and quickly.\"\n\n\"Well, let's go to the ward then.\" Confidently, Tanya strode off ahead of her.\n\n\"But how can you-^ m front of all those men? You'll have to put it under your shift, it means taking off all your clothes!\"\n\n\"All right, then I'll take them off.\" Tanya had already reached the other ward.\n\nShe had always avoided undressing even in front of other women, because she was ashamed of her breasts, which were big and over-generous even fora woman of her build. When she was younger, she had cried about it, thinking it was a deformity.\n\n\"Shall we fasten it with pins?\"\n\n\"No, we'll sew it. One of you wind it around me and sew it up and the other keep watch on the door to make sure the Germans don't come in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is true, of course, that even if Sirelius had not lost his nerve that night he would have been unable to hold the town. Quick off the mark as ever, by the very early morning von Fran9ois had three divisions surrounding the town and two on the way to it. Although von Frangois himself, like a tightrope walker on a wire, was sitting on the narrow strip of road at the village of Moldtken with no\n\nsupporting troops, while groups of Russians were breaking through from the north around the village itself (some of whom put his searchlight out of action with rifle fire) and might even have reached his headquarters, he spent his time drafting the orders instructing his five divisions to take Neiden-burg by concentric attack. And with its usual malleable compliance the Russian high command obliged: on the very evening of August 17, at the high point of Nechvolodov's and Sirelius's success in counterattacking, when many large groups of Russians (e. g., fifteen thousand men at Willenberg) were preparing to breakout of the ring that night and the next morning-Zhilinsky and Oranovsky ordered the flank corps not to attempt to rescue the encircled men in the center but to retreat.\n\nAnd what a retreat it was! Blagoveshchensky was told to withdraw twelve miles if the enemy did not press him, and to move back as far as Ostrolenka (another twenty miles) \"if the enemy presses.\" Dushkevich received orders to retire eighteen miles and, if necessary, to Novo-Georgievsk (another thirty-six miles). How wise Kondratovich had been to retire the same distance in good time!\n\nNext morning, fear was even more rampant. When on August 18 Postovsky, on his own initiative, withdrew Army Headquarters (having been rescued by some dragoons) and set it up twenty-five miles behind its previous site at Ostrolenka, Army Group Headquarters sent him a message stating: \"Agree to your change of location.\" After all, it was so convenient: with telephone and telegraph communications reestablished with Army Headquarters, they could start a normal exchange of messages. It was then that Second Army Headquarters received written permission from Army Group Headquarters to'move General Artamonov's I Corps beyond Soldau if necessary\"!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meanwhile, what of Rennenkampf?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Sam-sonov has suffered a complete reverse, and the enemy is now free to operate against you.\" After all the delays, his cavalry had just begun to penetrate deep into German territory: General Khan Nakhichevan-sky's cavalry corps was already poised above Allen-stein, while General Gurko's cavalry division was advancing to cut the weakest-the eastern-arc of the encircling ring! But this move was thought to be too\n\nrisky, too dangerous. \"Forward cavalry formations are to concentrate with the main body of the army... ' * (a wording devised to avoid using the word\" backward\"). WTiereupon, the whole of First Army began to retreat.\n\n(Rennenkampf was dilatory even about this, perhaps out of pride-and a week later, having escaped from an encircling movement similar to that which had engulfed Second Army, his army was to be caught up in a marathon rout-Rennen ohne kampf.)\n\nOh, yes, one more thing: as a worthy replacement for the deceased Samsonov, a corps commander was promoted to command Second Army-General Scheidemann.\n\nA future Bolshevik.\n\nDocument No. 3\n\nAUGUST 18. REFUTATION ISSUED BY THE CHIEF DIRECTORATE OF THE GENERAL STAFF\n\nIn their communiques on the situation in the theater of military operations, the German and Austrian General Staffs continue to maintain the system they have adopted: according to messages from Wolff^ s Telegraph Agency, \"the German army has won a complete victory over the Russian forces in East Prussia and has thrown them back across the frontier...\"\n\nNo comment on the accuracy and value of this statement is needed.\n\nYou won't getaway from fire by hiding it under your coat!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "♦ Literally, \"running without a fight,\" a pun on the general's name.\n\ngurgling\n\nSCREEN\n\nA horse's muzzle;\n\nno thoroughbred, just an ordinary Russian bay horse. A gentle, helpless-looking muzzle. No less than a human face, it can express despair: What's happened? Where am 1? I've seen so many others die-and I'm nearly dead myself.\n\nThe horse's collar has not been removed or loosened. Exhausted, its legs can hardly support it. It has not been fed or unharnessed, but only whipped and whipped: \"Giddup! Pull! Save us!\" The traces are broken, the horse has dragged itself free. Ears pricked up, it wanders hopelessly until a leg gets caught in a\n\npatch of swamp.\n\nThe horse jerks violently to pull itself out of danger, then roams off again, treading on the traces which are dragging along the ground;\n\nits head is hanging down, although it is not looking for grass because there is none here... It nervously skirts\n\nthe corpses of other horses lying with all four legs pointing stiffly into the air and bellies distended. They are terribly swollen-how hugely horses expand when they are dead!\n\nWhereas a man shrinks. He lies face down, shriveled, so small that it seems incredible that all this thunder and gunfire, the movement of all these masses stemmed from him,\n\nmasses that are now abandoned, shattered, A wagon lies on its side in a ditch, its back wheel sticking up like a rudder... Another, lying on its back as though in horror, its draft bar upward... a cart that seems to have gone mad, rearing upon its end... tangled, torn, discarded harness... a whip..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "rifles, loose bayonets^ and smashed rifle stocks... first-aid bags... officers'suitcases... caps... belts... boots... swords... officers\" knapsacks... soldiers' packs... some of them still on corpses...\n\nBarrels-some whole, some smashed, some empty... sacks-full, half empty, tied, untied...\n\na German bicycle that did not get taken back to Russia... newspapers... Russkoye Slovo... orderly-room documents fluttering in the breeze...\n\ncorpses of those two-legged creatures who harness us, drive us, whip us... and more of our kind-dead horses. If a dead horse has been disemboweled, then-Close-up:\n\nflies, gadflies, and mosquitoes buzz greedily\n\nover the rotting entrails.\n\nHigher in the sky\n\nbirds are circling, swooping down on the carrion and crying excitedly in a dozen different voices. = Our horse will never forget this. And it is\n\nNORMAL SCREEN EXPANDS TO WIDESCREEN\n\n= not alone! Countless more are roving about the battlefield in this low-lying, accursed, marshy place\n\nwhere all these things have been thrown away, abandoned, among so many corpses.\n\n= Scores, hundreds of horses are wandering around,\n\ngathering into herds and into twos and threes, lost, exhausted, bony, but still alive where they have been able to wrench themselves free from a team whose other horses have been killed;\n\nsome, like our horse, are still in harness, or dragging a shaft with them, or there is a pair with a broken draft bar between them... and there are wounded, horses..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the undecorated, unnamed heroes of the battle, who fora hundred, two hundred miles have hauled\n\nthis artillery, now dead and drowning in the swamp... and all that ammunition, ammunition limbers with their chains...= The fate of those who failed to drag themselves clear: two complete teams, all dead, lying across one another, three limbers and three teams...\n\nhaving trampled and crushed each other to death, they lie where they fell...\n\nthough perliaps some of them are not dead and maybe pulled out and saved.\n\n= Or else like those dead teams over there^ hit by shellfire as they rode up to haul a battery away from its position. The battery kept firing to the last round: smashed guns, surrounded by dead crews and a colonel, six-foot body flung to one side, who was obviously in command in place of a troop leader... But the field in front of the battery is also scattered with the corpses of Ger-mans who died in the attack.\n\n= The horses are being rounded up. They are chasing us, catching us, and we horses shy and bolt... but they grab us and tie us up... It is being done by German soldiers. Not an enviable fob, chasing horses. Thousands of captured horses slip through their hands.\n\n= They are not only chasing horses. Over there, on the edge of the wood, they are lining up a column of Russian prisoners and men with unbandaged wounds. Deeper\n\nand deeper in the forest, many more are lying on the ground, exhausted, asleep, or wounded. The Germans have formed a line to comb the forest and are flushing them out like animals. They pick them up and if they are badly wounded they shoot them\n\nto put them out of their misery.\n\n= Here comes a column of prisoners, virtually unescorted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prisoners' faces. Terrible fate-only those who have experienced it know what it means.\n\nPrisoners' faces... Capture does not\n\nmean being saved from death; it means\n\nthe beginning of suffering.\n\nThey are already swaying and stumbling;\n\nit is worst of all for those with leg wounds.\n\nYou are lucky if you have a faithful comrade so you can put an arm around his\n\nneck and he\n\ncan half lead, half carry you. = For other prisoners, it is even worse: they\n\nare not allowed to march away but are\n\nharnessed instead of horses\n\nto their own Russian guns, which are now\n\ntrophies\n\nof war, and have to drag them,\n\npull them, and push them up to where the\n\nvictors are patrolling the main road in\n\narmored cars,\n\nwith armed cyclists and\n\nmachine gunners ready to open fire. = Large numbers of Russian guns, howitzers,\n\nand machine guns are lined up. = Along the road a team of powerful cart\n\nhorses is pulling a large civilian cart with\n\nextra sides made of staves-\n\na tumbril, used for carting hay. Its load\n\nconsists of-Close-up:\n\nRussian generals!\n\nNothing but generals-nine of them.\n\nThey are sitting quietly on a bench, legs\n\ncrossed,\n\nall of them facing one way, all of them\n\nlooking dejectedly toward the prisoners,\n\nresigned to their fate. Some look grim,\n\nsome actually look relieved: their fighting" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "days are over, and with them their worries, = The cart is stopped by\n\na German general standing beside his car;\n\nhe is short,\n\n616' ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nkeen-eyed, slightly tense, perhaps with\n\ntriumph. It is\n\nGeneral von Frangois, with the frown of a\n\nvictor.\n\nHe does not feel sorry for these generals,\n\nbut he finds their wretchedness intolerable.\n\nWith a gesture\n\nhe invites them to get down\n\n-why are they riding in a cart? He has\n\nenough cars for\n\nthe generals: there are four standing over\n\nthere.\n\n= Stretching their stiff legs, the Russian generals get down from the cart, mostly shamefaced, though some are gratified at the honor done to them, and they take their seats in the Geinnan cars.\n\n= The column of men on foot is led into a cage for people, fenced in with barbed wire, so makeshift as to belittle more than symbolic, on temporary poles stuck into the ground. Here the prisoners are strewn about on the bare earth,\n\nlying, sitting, clasping their heads, standing, walking,\n\nexhausted, some with their arms in slings, some bandaged, some unbandaged, some bruised, some with open wounds, and others, for some reason, in nothing but their underwear; some are barefoot and none of them, of course, has been fed. Mournful, forsaken, they look at us through the barbed wire.\n\n= A novel problem-how to hold so many people in an open field and prevent them from running away? Where are they to be put?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "= The novel solution-a concentration camp!\n\n= The fate of men for decades to come.\n\n= The herald of the twentieth century.\n\nDocument No, 4\n\nFROM THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. AUGUST 19,1914\n\nHaving been strengthened by reinforcements drawn from the entire front by means of the highly de-veloped rail network, the Germans, with superior numbers, attacked our forces of approximately two army corps after subjecting them to an intense bombardment by heavy artillery from which we suf' fered heavy losses. According to the available in-formation, the troops fought heroically; Genercds Samsonov, Martos, Pestich, and a number of staff officers perished. The necessary steps to counter this unfortunate reverse are being taken with the utmost vigor and firmness. The commander-in-chief continues to believe firmly that God will help us carry them to a successful conclusion^\n\nSome children take after their parents, others grow to be quite different from them. Some assume our views and habits as though they could wish for none better. Others, thougji apparently given all the right guidance at every step and though outwardly obedient, evolve, with the unswerving persistence of a tree trunk, in a direction which is wholly theirs and not ours.\n\nBoth were experienced by Agnessa Martynovna Len-artovich after being widowed, when together with her sister Adalia she brought up a son and a daughter.\n\nSasha grew up the typical son of a family which held sacred the portrait of Uncle Alexander, who had been executed as a revolutionary. Social and political problems absorbed him completely, and he could not imagine a life, still less a career, that was not concerned with them. Sasha measured people, events, books by one yardstick: did they contribute to the emancipation of the people or to the consolidation of the state?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naturally, a woman cannot always be expected to be so consistent; nevertheless, in their day, when Agnessa and Adalia had been young, it was not unusual to find girls who regarded service to the social cause-and if necessary, self-sacrifice in the interests of the people-as of incomparably greater importance than their personal happiness as women. Veronika, however, did not grow up like that.\n\nYear by year the child questions the values of his elders by which he comes to maturity; year by year the future adult emerges within him. ( How long it takes to bring him up; how little time to kill him in\n\nwar!) When Veronika was nine-^ fair hair parted down the middle in two plaits; fair eyebrows over two bright, clear eyes; placid mouth with two rather thick little lips-no one could have foreseen how much she would change in four years, and change even moreover the following four: how her hair would darken, her eyes darken and take on a sly look; how those lips would set mto quite anew shape, how much new meaning would be found in her smile; how, in fact, the triumphant progress of beauty-or rather the incursion of beauty, because its power is complete and long-lived-^ would capture her features.\n\nStriking beauty can be as dangerous fora woman as keen intellect fora man: neither, more often than not, has a favorable effect on the development of a person's character. The dangers of beauty\" are well-known: narcissism, irresponsibility, selfishness. When they detect that perilous flame burning in a girl's face, her mentors should beware. Agnessa and Adalia Martynovna did their best to belittle the significance of beauty in Veronika's eyes and to stress the importance of character; they surrounded the girl with examples of heroic womanhood of the narodnik movement-serious-minded women who looked you straight in the eye, whose lives were dedicated to achievement and sacrifice, and whose distracting beauty, if they possessed it, was hidden beneath clumsy dark-brown dresses and headscarves worn peasant-fashion." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naturally, a woman cannot always be expected to be so consistent; nevertheless, in their day, when Agnessa and Adalia had been young, it was not unusual to find girls who regarded service to the social cause-and if necessary, self-sacrifice in the interests of the people-as of incomparably greater importance than their personal happiness as women. Veronika, however, did not grow up like that.\n\nYear by year the child questions the values of his elders by which he comes to maturity; year by year the future adult emerges within him. ( How long it takes to bring him up; how little time to kill him in\n\nwar!) When Veronika was nine-^ fair hair parted down the middle in two plaits; fair eyebrows over two bright, clear eyes; placid mouth with two rather thick little lips-no one could have foreseen how much she would change in four years, and change even moreover the following four: how her hair would darken, her eyes darken and take on a sly look; how those lips would set mto quite anew shape, how much new meaning would be found in her smile; how, in fact, the triumphant progress of beauty-or rather the incursion of beauty, because its power is complete and long-lived-^ would capture her features.\n\nStriking beauty can be as dangerous fora woman as keen intellect fora man: neither, more often than not, has a favorable effect on the development of a person's character. The dangers of beauty\" are well-known: narcissism, irresponsibility, selfishness. When they detect that perilous flame burning in a girl's face, her mentors should beware. Agnessa and Adalia Martynovna did their best to belittle the significance of beauty in Veronika's eyes and to stress the importance of character; they surrounded the girl with examples of heroic womanhood of the narodnik movement-serious-minded women who looked you straight in the eye, whose lives were dedicated to achievement and sacrifice, and whose distracting beauty, if they possessed it, was hidden beneath clumsy dark-brown dresses and headscarves worn peasant-fashion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All this was fibrmly impressed on Veronika and to some degree it washer salvation. At the age of greatest frivolity, when nature asserted itself in an instinctive display of flirtatiousness, and in strong contrast to those exemplary traditions, ad-mir-ers began to hover around the girl, she reacted to them wi3i such innocent purity that neither by touch, word, nor look were they able to gain their ends; everything was transmuted into friendship and earnest discussion, even on summer excursions to admire the famous Petersburg dawn. It was instilled into Veronika that one must see and awaken the good in people-and that she did.\n\nIn this, as her mother and aunt saw it, another innate element played its part: her temperament. With\n\nj( 20 ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN\n\nher melting glance and beautiful hair pfled above a majestic forehead, Verordka would have succumbed at an early stage were it not for the solid ballast of imperturbability and the calm, relaxed attitude to the outer world which marked her character.\n\nHer temperament kept her away from the dangerous patt^ that beckoned to a beautiful girl and it seemed to abet the educational efforts of her elders, although that temperament of hers also hindered their success. Veronika was sincerely moved by the miseries of others-^ but her feelings never grew into an urge to become involved in the struggle or into hatred of the oppressors. Her immense but nebulous compassion was innocent of the categorical bounds which divide the victims of social oppression from those who suffer from inborn defects, from failings of character, from emotional disasters-even from toothache.\n\nRecently, for example, there had been a discussion at home about the behavior of the socialist deputies in the State Duma and the tragi-comedy of the one-day session at the outbreak of war. The sociahst deputies had not behaved in a cowardly fashion and* had not let themselves betaken in by the wave of patriotic hysteria. Khaustov had predicted that the forces of socialism in every country would turn the present war into the last flare-up of capitalism. And Kerensky, in a bold and extremely adroit speech, had managed to hurl a series of accusations at the govern-\"ment: it was gagging the voice of democracy, even now it had not accorded areal amnest^^ to poHtical prisoners, it had no intention of seeking reconciliation with the oppressed national minorities of the empire, and the burden of military expenditure was being placed on the workers. He had bravely said all this, unaffected by the patriotic uproar about him, not omitting the charge of\" inescapable responsibility'for the war, and in a briUiant peroration he had hinted at the advent of revolution: the peasants and workers, he had declared, would defend their country-and then Uberate it! The newspapers, however, had scandalously misreported him by quoting him as having urged the peasants and workers\" to defend" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "their country and liberate it,\" thereby implying that he had called upon them to liberate it from the Germans. Only in Russia could newspapers getaway with such barefaced distortion!\n\nAnd what of Veronika? While this conversation had been going on, she had been sitting beside them, calmly looking through the current issue of Apollon.\n\n\"Veronya!\" Adalia had exclaimed in a pained voice. \"Don't you think it's outrageous?\"\n\nVeronika had put on a sympathetic look. \"It's most vexing, Aunt Adalia. But what am I supposed to do about it?\"\n\n\"Vexing?\" One should not merely be vexed by such things; they should arouse such indignation that one's feelings are converted into positive action.\n\nIt was around that time that the Council of St. Petersburg University had sent a'loyal telegram\" to the Tsar, which had begun: \"Be assured, great Sovereign... that your university is afire with the urge to devote its powers to your service and the service of the Fatherland.\" Surely they could have been spared that sort of bootlicking.\n\n\"Veronya! What do you thmk of that? Why haven't you reacted to it?\"\n\n\"Mama, it wasn't the students who sent it; after all, it was the professors. In any case, the professors in our college didn't sign it.\"\n\n\"But suppose they had-^ would you have protested? Would your friends have protested?\"\n\nNor did Veronika share their satisfaction over the slight political consolation they were able to extract from the little news which filtered through when the Russian forces were defeated (a delight clouded by the fact that Sasha and many other worthy young men were at the front too): she could only seethe obvious, superficial fact that people were being killed and reported missing, leaving widows and orphans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the past, Sasha had been a very strong influence on her, had in fact influenced her more strongly than her mother or her aunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was five years older than his sister, a time span equal to half a high-school course and a whole university course, and was a\n\nperson of decisive opinions who never allowed an objection to his arguments to remain unrefuted; the effect of his intellectual and moral influence on Ve-ronika was to make her feel ashamed of the waywardness of her ideas, so that she tried to throw them off, or at least conceal them, and to be worthy of her brother. But a year ago the voracious machine of the army had swallowed Sasha, and for his sister that year had been the most important one-^ her first year at the university. While she had been at home and alone, Veronika had been more receptive to the inculcation of civic ideals than she was when she was with her student friends.\n\nQuite probably the atmosphere which had dominated student circles tenor twenty years ago would have guided Veronika's sympathies and antipathies into the proper channels. But-and this could only happen in submissive, long-suffering Russia!-^< iuring the repressive period after the 1905 revolution the students had not been fired to greater efforts, had not steeled themselves for the struggle, but had given way to the general trend of lassitude, doubt, the doctrines of dubious prophets, and many of them were now of quite anew breed-^ politically apathetic and inclined to mysticism, in fact the complete reverse of the accepted image of a Russian student. If it went on hke this fora few more years, the great tradition of half a century would breakdown and collapse ingloriously, to the ruin of all those hbertarian ideals by which the previous generations of students had been inspired!\n\nAmong Veronika's first-year friendships was one, with a girl called Yolya, which was most unfortunate. It was very painful that the first student friend Veronika brought home should turnout to be from a completely different world-a creature with a frail, thin figure, always playing with her shawl, whose head was stuffed full of Symbolist rubbish. Now and again, at moments suitable and unsuitable, she would recite the obscure gibberish of her modish poets:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The builder of the tower shall take wing, Dreadful his urgent flight,\n\nFrom the depths of the well of the world He shall curse his madman's plight.\n\nFrom the inflection of her voice, but much more from the play of her glance and her eyelashes, from the remote look in her beautiful eyes, expressive of some esoteric significance, one was immediately aware that her apprehension of the world around her differed from that of everyone else. Yolya had a habit of turning her head with slow perplexity, and her hair fell loosely down to her shoulders in the manner of a beautiful courtesan's. Sometimes she had a ribbon in her hair, always she had a shawl on her shoulders and was constantly pulling it around her slim, almost hipless figure, very fashionable at the time, which she emphasized by wearing straight, smooth, tight dresses without a belt.\n\n* \"Yolya\" washer way of disguising her obscure name of Yelikonida, which betrayed her merchant-class origins. Veronika, though, called her Likonya to rhyme with Veronya. The two were alike in more than the sound of their names: they had the same thick, dark hair-^ Likonya's being quite black-the same placidity, and the same piercing stare, except that everything about Veronya was more robust, more solid, steadier.\n\nWhat could be lurking inside the head of this girl whose mannerisms were so charged with enigmatic significance? She was obviously not guided by the bright light of reason. At the tea table, and casually on every possible occasion, by question and argument the two aging sisters tried to discover just what there was inside that little head beneath its cascade of hair.\n\nBut Likonya did not reveal herself under questioning, and when her friend was there, Veronya became dull and taciturn and there was noway of making them talk. They simply listened, Veronya with gentle patience, Likonya with distracted perplexity, stirring the jam in the jam dish, glancing up at the clock. They never objected or argued; instead, they were always in a hurry to go somewhere, not to teach workers at evening classes, not to spread enlighten-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ment, but simply for their own passive enjoyment and pleasure: to an art exhibition, or a lecture on the values of life (as if they needed explanation!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "), or a discussion on the'problems of sex,\" or another novelty-^ the cinema.\n\nIf they stayed home, the result was sometimes even more shocking. In the very dining room where Uncle Alexander's portrait hung in its dark frame, the features so expressive of a presentiment of his doom, Veronya would sit down on the divan, tucking up her legs beneath her, and little Yolya, wrapping the tips of her fingers in her shawl and pressing against the wall behind her, would sway her body and head, a look of wonder on her face, her small, questioning, childish mouth giving voice to her feeUngs in the borrowed words of the sacrilegious verses:\n\nThe breaker of the tower shall be crushed, Cast down 'midst shattered stones, Forsaken by all-seeing God, To mourn his death with moans.\n\n\\ W\n\nThe notion may have been copied from the English, or it may have arisen spontaneously in the capital, that in times like these it was shameful to be idle, that everybody should do something. But nobody knew what. On August 19, long before the start of the term, when usually there was no one about in the college corridors, already the girl students were standing around in groups or walking up and down wearing only summer dresses in the warm sunny weather.\n\nNothing specific had come up; the administration had issued no call or notice to summon the students. But the girls themselves were discussing the flag day that, it had been announced everywhere, would beheld tomorrow, and many of them had already enlisted as flag sellers; others were hesitating, wondering whether it was a good thing to do; a third opinion held that to hand around a collection box for one day was absurdly insignificant when so many young women had given up everything to volunteer as sisters of mercy. Of course it would have been stupid to leave the university to go and be a nurse, but the war was so hugely, blunderingly implacable, thrusting itself into everyday life, that some students did seriously discuss the possibility of becoming nurses and no one openly scoffed at them. Things which had been unmentionable or would have sounded false a month ago were no longer laughed at now: in one group a tall, resolute student, waving her arms in mannish fashion, was saying at the top of her voice, as though making an announcement to all near her or passing by:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, we needed it! We needed the war! Not for the Serbs' sake, but for our own salvation! Be-\n\ncause we have lost confidence in ourselves, we've become decrepit, we've sunk so low that we can't go any lower-^ we've sunk to the Blue Journal and the tango! We need some great exploit, so that we can renew ourselves! We need victory, to freshen the atmosphere-^ we're stifling!\"\n\nNo one hushed her or cried'Shame!\" Only one bright little girl in gray protested in a shrill, sharp voice: \"Stifling? Yes, we are being stifled-^ by rotten government. We don't need a war-^ we need along peace!\"\n\nEveryone around her, however, seemed to be on the side of the tall girl, who went on insistently, her heavy, striking features animated with lively expressiveness. \"Along peace breeds cowardice and egotism!\"\n\nOthers protested, though their remarks represented differences of attitude rather than objections: \"It's not a question of patriotism, it's a chance to become one with the people, to march alongside them as equals-the very opportunity we've been dreaming of for decades...\"\n\nThe girls who would be entering their second year in the coming term, still feeling themselves to be the most junior, were not talking so loudly. Nevertheless, Veronika joined the group and said very coolly, as though thinking aloud: \"What is the point of this war, after all? Suppose we hadn't gone into it?\"\n\nThe people standing near heard her, and a student with straight hair and a drawn face, who was considerably older than all the others, turned on her almost scoldingly: \"You have to think in terms of our national existence. A clash was inevitable. If we hadn't supported France, Germany would have defeated her by now and would have turned onus-and we should have had to face Germany alone!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This made Veronika think.\n\nThey also argued about the change of the city's name from Petersburg to Petrograd, which had been effected the day before. No one called this ridiculous either, or apiece of cheap chauvinism, but they objected to having lost the'Saint\" in St. Petersburg, and\n\nAugust 1914( ill\n\nto the fact that the patronal name had been changed from the apostle's to the emperor's without anyone's seeing that the new name should have been St. Petro-grad. Others recalled that the city had originally been given the Dutch name of Piterburgh, that Petersburg had been imposed on them by the Germans, which was as> Tnbol of their eternal subjection, and that it was therefore a good thing that it had been discarded.\n\nSomeone said that the lecture list had already been posted. So long before the beginning of term? Yes, the challenging mood of the times had apparently made itself felt in the faculty offices too. The second-year girls went to look, among them Veronya and Likonya, the hawk-nosed Varya from Pyatigorsk, another Vary a, a blond girl from Velikie Luki, and some others. They discussed the list.\n\nIts most notable feature was that the lectures on medieval history would be given by Professor Ando-zerskaya-a woman and a professor! It was true, of course, that she had obtained her doctorate in France and not in Russia, but things were changing even in Russia, where she had recently been granted her master's degree. In the lecture list she was still referred to as'lecturer,\" but in university circles her new status was already accepted and it was known to the students that she was a'prof.\" Apart from teaching medieval history to second-year classes, she would also hold seminars with the seniors on the'Use of Sources.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was most interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The little flock of second-year girls drifted over to the window and started telling each other what they had heard about Ando-zerskaya. This undoubted victory for women's emancipation was an achievement, a step forward for all the oppressed. Andozerskaya had helped raise funds fora dining hall, a hostel, and scholarships. Yet at her seminar, begun last spring, she had proposed to the students that they should pore over eleventh-century papal bulls written in Latin. It was the same with her published works, which were about ecclesiastical society in the Middle Ages, pilgrimages to the Holy Land... This caused some perplexity. The\n\ngirls felt they would like to have a look at their professor today and form an opinion about her. This they were able to do. They found out in the faculty office that Andozerskaya was with the dean at the moment. They waited for her.\n\nShe soon came out. She was quite short, and if she seemed taller than Likonya it was because she wore her hair piled on her head. She was far from negligently attired, though her dress, apart from being an attractive gray with something of a shot-silk effect, was devoid of any adornment and was designed not to showoff her figure too much.\n\nShe walked past with a modest air, holding a small book rather like a prayer book with a very old binding but with a gay pink bookmarker in it. She was young, not only fora woman professor but for any professor; perhaps a little over thirty.\n\nThis made it all the easier for them to gather around her and question her all at once:\n\n\"Excuse me, please...\"\n\n\"Will that be one of your texts...?\"\n\n\"What are we to call you?\"\n\n\"Olda Orestovna.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Olga?\"\n\n\"No, Olda.\"\n\n\"Is tiiat a Scandinavian name?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. It was a fancy of my father's.\"\n\nGlad to stop and talk, Andozerskaya gave a charmingly natural smile.\n\n(It was, of course, true that even the most distinguished professors talked willingly to both men and women students. It was an unwritten law of Russian higher education that the fame and standing of a professor were determined by student opinion and not by the goodwill or lack of it of the university authorities. A professor who was disliked by the governing body had gone on teaching fora longtime and had been the students' favorite; even after being dismissed, he did not lose his halo in their eyes. But woe to a professor that the students regarded as reactionary: contempt, boycott of his lectures and books, and inevitable, inglorious departure were his fate.)\n\n\"Is that why you specialized in medieval Western Europe?\"\n\nAnother, more intelligent girl said: \"Don't be silly. Where else but in Western Europe can a woman get a higher degree? And they don't study Russian history there.\"\n\nBut some said dubiously: \"Of course it's a good thing that a woman should get a professorship, but...\"\n\nVarya from Velikie Luki put in: \"But isn't it too high a price to pay? I mean, burying yourself in the useless old Middle Ages?\"\n\nVeronika answered her: \"Why? What about Kar-eyev? What about Grews?\"\n\nAfter the Hght, even pace with which she had just glided past them, Olda Orestovna readily planted her high heels where she stood on the parquet floor; the pseudo-prayer book did not keep her left hand from backing her right as she gestured, and the expression on her face showed readiness to conduct a seminar or an argument there and then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It isn't\"paying a price' at all. If you reject the Middle Ages, the history of the West collapses, and the rest of modern history becomes incomprehensible.\"\n\nShe gave a special glance at Veronika's calm, dark-eyed face.\n\nVarya from Velikie Luki: \"But, practically speaking, the history of the West, and everything we need to know about it, begins with the French Revolution...\"\n\nVarya from Pyatigorsk: \"With the Age of Enlightenment.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, with the Enlightenment. What on earth have pilgrimages to Jerusalem got to do with it? What use is paleography?\"\n\nHer Ups slightly pursed, Olda Orestovna listened to all these objections as though they were familiar. \" That's an error of overhasty thinking-^ to point to a branch and claim that it's the whole tree. The Enlightenment is only one branch of Western culture, and\n\nperhaps by no means the most fruitful. It grows out of the trunk, not from the root.\"\n\n\"Which branch is more important, then?\"\n\n\"Well, if you like, the spiritual life of the Middle Ages is more important. Mankind has never known a time, before or since, when there was such an intense spiritual life predominant over material existence.\"\n\n(Could she mean it? What about obscurantism, Roman Catholicism, the Inquisition?)\n\nBoth Varyas: \"But really! How can we in the present day spend our time on the Western Middle Ages? How is it going to help to emancipate our people? How will it help progress in general? Do you expect us in Russia today to study papal bulls? And in Latin, too!\"\n\nOlda Orestovna flicked the edges of the pages of her pseudo-prayer book in a gentle glissando. It was a rare Latin edition. She smiled, unabashed. \"History, my dears, is not politics, where one chatterbox repeats or contests what some other chatterbox has said. The stuff of history is not opinions but sources. And your conclusions are determined by the source materials, even if they contradict your preconceived views. Independent scholarship should rise above...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was really getting nowhere! This was too much! Here the two Varyas were not the only ones to exclaim:\n\n\"But what if your conclusions conflict with the needs of present-day society?\"\n\n\"Surely for practical purposes all we need today is an analysis of the contemporary social environment and material conditions? What can the Middle Ages add to that?\"\n\nInvisible among her group of questioners due to her small stature, Andozerskaya tilted her head slightly to one side and gave a very confident, meaningful smile. \" That would be so if the life of the individual reaUy were determined by his material environment. It would be much easier then: the environment is always at fault, so all you have to do is change it. But apart from the environment there is also a spiri-\n\ntual tradition, hundreds of spiritual traditions! There is, too, the spiritual life of the individual, and therefore each individual has, perhaps in spite of his environment, a personal responsibility-^ for what he does and for what other people around him do.\"\n\nVeronika emerged from her pensive mood as though she were a fresco coming alive. \"For other people too?\"\n\nAgain Olda Orestovna's glance singled her out. \"Yes, for other people too. After all, you can choose to help, you can hinder, or you can wash your hands of it all.\"\n\nFinding no further sympathy, she smiled, gave a slight bow as a dignified way of dismissing them-or herself-and set off, a small, slim, unbending figure, looking from the back almost like a student except fora certain added elegance which was rather unusual even fora member of the intelligentsia.\n\nThe students began to buzz with talk, both Varyas reacting indignantly. Did she mean that the spiritual life of the Middle Ages wasn't an outcome of the socio-economic conditions of the time? If she dared say anything of the kind in her lectures...! Others protested: all that old stuff about deriving everythmg from economics was so boring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a catch in her voice, Varya from Pyatigorsk said: \"Oh, how things are changing! I have a friend, I've told you about him... Well, a week ago I met him at the station...\"\n\nStimulated, pressing her point, Veronika went on defending the professor: \"Surely the personal responsibility of the individual is an admirable idea? If nothing matters at any given time but the environment, then what are we all? Just a lot of zeros?\"\n\n\"We are molecules of the environment,\" Varya from Velikie Luki said aggressively. \"And that's that!\"\n\nLikonya, meanwhile, had wandered away and was looking out the window. No one asked her opinion. She raised her eyebrows, turned her neck, shrugged her shoulders one at a time. \" I liked her very much.\n\nEspecially her voice. As though she was singing an aria. But such a complicated one that you couldn't make out the tune.\"\n\nHer friends laughed.\n\n\"And what was the meaning?\"\n\nLikonya's little forehead wrinkled into a frown, but there was a smile on her plump lips as she said: \"The meaning? I didn't notice.\"\n\nYou shouldn't have searched in the village hut in yourself.\n\nAglaida Fedoseyevna Kharitonova was a hard woman who was used to being in a position of power, and power suited her. The concession she had made to Tomchak over his daughter was one of the rare concessions of her life. Her late husband, a good man, was afraid of her from the start of his courtship to his dying breath. In his work as an inspector of higt schools he constantly asked her advice, and outside his professional life he submitted to her completely; the cMldren knew that in all serious matters only Mama could permit or forbid. The municipal authorities took great account of Kharitonova, and no one dared put pressure on her or warn her about the'left-wing liberal\" views which predominated in her school. (This bemg the Don Cossack capital, the whole of educated society in Rostov was in duty bound to assume a left-wing liberal stance.) At Kharitonova's school, history was taught by the wife of a revolutionary who had been imprisoned and was said to have escaped and to be active in the political underground in Rostov itself, and the school's entire history course had an overt revolutionary bias. The teaching of Russian literature was informed by similar sympathies. Naturally she could not avoid giving the obUgatory lessons in Scripture, but the priest who came to teach was not an obscurantist or a fanatic, and in any case more than half the pupils were excused as being of the Jewish faith. On special occasions, too, the girls had to sing'God Save the Tsar\" m the assembly hall, but it was done with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. However, Aglaida Fedoseyevna did not allow this ironic lack of respect for" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the powers that be to extend to her own authority within the school walls, which she exerted inflexibly without allowing it to be undermined in anyway. Not only did all the students tremble before her, but the high-schoolboys and cadets from the navy college invited for social occasions would mount the staircase with trepidation, knowing that the stony headmistress was standing at the top to give each of them a piercing stare and that she would instantly turn anyone away for the most trivial incorrectness of attu* e. The morals of Kharitonova's high school were beyond praise. In view of the high fees (without which no school can keep up high standards), the pupils all came from well-to-do families and only two girls in each class were maintained free.\n\nRuling the school with an iron hand, Aglaida Fedo-seyevna would hardly have expected to encounter rebellion in her own small, docile family. It was not her husband but, after his death, her elder son-christened Vyacheslav but called Yaroslav on his mother's whim-^ who had shown recalcitrance. Apparently imbued with the spirit of enlightenment from his earliest years, at the age of twelve he had suddenly conceived an urge to enroll in the cadet corps. A mother so domineering and self-assured could not lightly tolerate any straymg on the part of her son, but she found this deviation particularly insulting: behind the irrational, boyish impulse lurked the gray outline of betrayal. Her elder son wanted to enter the obtuse, reactionary officer caste, which was untouched by the spirit of critical thinking. The healthy love for the people instilled in Yaroslav had become unexpectedly distorted: instead of trying to help the emancipated peasants, he wanted to identify himself directly with their earthy strength, which he regarded with an almost religious awe. Yaroslav was a pliable boy, but this aberration of his proved stubborn. For three years his mother fought him and put pressure on him, but after high school her maternal authority, her logic, her anger were all insufficient; Yaroslav went to Moscow and entered the Alexandrovsky Military Academy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She might have continued the struggle over her\n\nson, for liberal thought had been known to penetrate even the officer class-after all. Prince Kropotkin, the anarchist, had graduated from the Imperial Corps of Pages and the revolutionary writer Chemyshevsky had taught at a cadet school-^ had she not been struck a second blow by her daughter Zhenya, and in the same year.\n\nFor all her great devotion to freedom in social relations, to equal rights for women (even to the primacy of women), Aglaida Fedoseyevna persisted in adhering to the rule that a gu* l ought to marry more than nine months before having a baby. Zhenya had broken that rule and, being obliged to get married, had not waited for her mother's blessing. Her studies at a teachers\" training college had been brought to an end by the birth of the child. To crown it all, Zhenya's husband, Dmitry Filomatinsky, the son of a deacon and only a final-year student, was far from being the powerful, virile man Aglaida Fedoseyevna would have expected for her lively, vigorous, well-bred daughter. She implacably refused to recognize the marriage, regarding it as not having taken place and her granddaughter as never having been bom, and placed all three of them under her ban, refusing to allow them to come to Rostov. So, in an attic somewhere in Moscow's Kozikhinsky Street, Zhenya rocked littie Lyalka in her cradle while her husband studied for his final examinations and his diploma thesis.\n\nFor the past year Xenya Tomchak had visited them frequently; she felt very sorry for the banished Zhenya and became her staunch defender, by letter and during her visits to Rostov. She actually succeeded in getting Aglaida Fedoseyevna to change her mind, and the headmistress allowed the outcasts to come home that spring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although she had been very angry, she was also just. She had to admit that Zhenya's errors, if errors they were, had been redeemed. Although her son-in-law had proved to be puny and ugly, little Lyalka was a splendid, healthy baby, just like her mother. Having almost broken up the family with her birth, Lyalka now became its shining, gurgling focus, usurping\n\nthis place from her uncle, eleven-year-old Yurik. After taking one look at her, her grandmother never wanted to be parted from her again. What's more, her son-in-law turned out to be both intelligent and efi& cient. He was not just an ordinary engineer but had kept up with the times by specializing in calorific engineering, and there happened to be plenty of work fora young graduate, both in high-temperature and in refrigeration technology, in Rostov and in Alexandro-Grushevsk; he was also offered laboratory work at the Don Polytechnic. He was not dazzled by false glamour-so much more sensible than poor, silly Yaroslav! The engmeer's crossed hammer and spanner were becoming the badge of the new age in place of crossed swords or flags. Realizing this, her son-in-law behaved with modesty backed by a strength of mind that was not obvious on the surface. At table he was occasionally overwhelmed by the presence of his mother-in-law, but not by her caustic jibes, which he turned aside, it had to be admitted, with a wit that was devoid of malice. His professional success, his wife, and his baby kept him in a state of brimming happiness. Zhenya was borne along on a floodtide of even greater happiness. Happiness, like a rosy mist, enveloped the whole Kharitonov apartment, and no one who breathed it could fail to be infected by it. And Aglaida Fedoseyevna, as she passed through the school corridor into her apartment three times a day, could not for all her obstinacy avoid giving way to the magic of that rosy mist. Lyalka's crying, her daughter's singing, Dmitry's quiet laugh, Yurik's increasingly grownup talk at table-all this began to heal the old wound of her husband's death and the new wound of her elder son's self-willed behavior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was how Xenya had seen the Kharitonov family in July, before the outbreak of war, when she had gone south from Moscow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She always hked being with these people, but never before had shebeen moved to tears by such happiness. Zhenya's letters sent to Xenya at the Tomchaks\" family estate were full of the same bubbling, incredulous joy, and the war had cast practically no shadow on their lives.\n\nReturning to Rostov with anticipatory delight at the prospect of plunging into the rosy mist of their happiness, Xenya got out at the station and took a cab, having counted her six pieces of luggage.\n\nIt was true that although she had flown to Moscow as joyfully as a bird, she was returning with a burden of anguish. Where else but to the Kharitonovs should she go to seek help, protection, and advice? Her father's grim command had come crashing down like a slab of black stone: it was not his refusal to let her be a dancer which so distressed her-^ there was no point in regretting that-^ but he had now ordered her to give up her studies and get married! With Orya's help she had postponed her return until Christmas, because of the war. At home, apparently, there would be no getting out of it: how could she argue with her father? But no sooner did she wake up in the morning in the sleeping carat Bataisk station and seethe terraced streets of Rostov on the long ridge above the river-^ the huge, carefree, gay city where she had first known freedom and joy, where her interests had developed-than the crushing weight of the threat began to roll away and her big-nosed, loud-mouthed father ceased to be the sole, terrible, incontestable arbiter of her life.\n\nHer heart always beat faster whenever she returned to Rostov, especially, as now, in the early morning, when Sadovaya Street was fresh and clean in the deep shade of trees as it climbed the hill toward Dolo-manovsky, and the cabdriver furiously put on speed so as not to be overtaken by the troUey. The trolleys were not at all like the ones in Moscow; they were slower at picking up speed, they had long arms with runners instead of hoop-shaped pickups, there were special cars for summertime with airy, open sides, and on the coupling hook at the back, called a'sausage,\" all the small boys, in true Rostov fashion, would sneak a free ride as far as the policeman at the next crossroads. Typical, too, were the special mobile latticework bridges, arc-shaped and with handrails, which were put across flooded streets in rainstorms and were kept on the pavements in dry weather. From Nikolsky Street onward, the Bolshaya" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sadovaya straightened out and ran like a mile-long arrow to the city limits at the suburb of Nakhiche-vani. There were the first-floor windows of the Ark-hangorodsl^ s'apartment, the comer balcony of their drawing room shaded by a linen awning, and that might even be Zoya Lvovna herself arranging flowers, but Xenya could not see properly through the thick foliage and in any case she would certainly be caUing on the Arkhangorodskys tomorrow. Over there, on the sunny side of Sadovaya, was the fashionable Chyorny's, a two-story shop with a rough-cast fagade, and a striped, fringed awning above each shining glass show window. The driver wanted to turn along the Taganrogsky Prospekt-^ no, go straight on, up to Sobomy Pros-pekt. (If they had gone along Tagamogsky, they would have passed the Old Bazaar and the fish stalls with their eternal reek from the huge bream, carp, and suly which were abundantly displayed right on the pavement, and it was at this time, in the morning, that the whole of the night's catch, as yet unsold, lay still ahve, silvery, twitching, and splashing across the counters.) On the corner of the Taganrogsky was a modem building of a kind that was rare even in Moscow-the walls of its upper floors almost entirely of glass. The Grand Hotel... the Merchants\" Garden... the San Remo... There was so much of Rostov, yet it was such a friendly place. Advertisements... What's on? Someone's benefit night at the Makoshinsky Theater... Truzzi's Circus... The French Theatre des Miniatures... at the Soleil Cinema, a heavy drama and one of Max Linder's very funny pictures... she really must go and see them while she was here. From the Municipal Gardens they turned into the Sobomy Prospekt with its rather uneven cobbles. There was the Modem Secondary School where Yurik was a pupil. The post office. Ghmpsed down aside street, the Old Cathedral, a heavy, ugly carcass of a building, and nearer, in a neat little square, the memorial to Alexander II, surrounded by an octagonal railing. There was the gay, seductive Moskovskya Street, one long row of shops, with more shades over the shop windows; in Rostov's Moskovskaya Street you could dress yourself quite as well as in Moscow! Then a di-\n\nAugust 1914 639" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "agonal turn, past the side of the market delivery yard, and there was the Kharitonov school... No, this is the main entrance, take me around to the other side, please, to the headmistress's apartments.\n\nThat dear staircase, and every door a familiar old friend! As soon as she crossed the threshold, she sensed the intellectual freedom and the ease in personal relationships which were always to be found in this family. And Zhenya, darhng Zhenya, who flew into their embrace like a whirlwind, as though she were younger than Xenya. Her mobile, determined features were ahght. \"How lovely! We weren't expecting you so soon. Why have you come so early? Trouble?... You must break with your father! Do as I did! They'll change their minds afterward!... But listen: Lyalka-she's a marvel! She's musical-I swear it! She burbles a sort of improvised recitative the whole time! She almost sings! Come on, come and hear her! No, right now she's just talking. She talks endlessly, though I'm the only one who understands it all... and she hides under the blanket and says from underneath: \"Come and find me!\" And she has such tender skin, feel it and see-it's absolutely lovely!\"\n\nGay, lissome Zhenya, with her happy, full-throated laugh, was so brimming with happiness that she had more than enough for herself and scattered the surplus around her. The two girls had never lived together here: Zhenya had been away at the university when Xenya had occupied her room. There was a difference of five years in age between the girl student in Moscow and the little tomboy from the steppes. Zhenya had snorted at first, wondering whether this rich little girl would put on haughty airs; she would not have tolerated that and was quite prepared to take her down a peg or two. But Xenya had no such airs; she was a receptive, hard-working student. Later she had served as the emissary from Moscow and their difference in years had been ironed out. Now there was another difference between them: the one a mother, the other still a giri...( Will I have children? I shall! I shall! Otherwise, what is it all for?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fulfillment is good, but expectation can be good too. After all, I can go one better-^ I can have a son. Dmitry Ivanych is a splendid man, but I-I shall find myself such a, husband...!)\n\nIf she could forget her father's threat, or rather if she disobeyed it (though that would be terrible, quite terrible!), she could have such a happy life and everything would be wonderful!\n\nThey had anew hobby now-^ photography. They had a Kodak, Mitya often took snaps, and by the red hght of the darkroom lamp they would develop them and Zhenya herself would frame them. The walls were covered with photographs-square, round, oval, diamond-shaped, some against natural backgrounds, some with an artificial white backdrop: Lyalka in a little bonnet, Lyalka naked, Lyalka in the bath, Lyalka with a doll. Mama with Lyalka, Papa with Lyalka, Granny with Lyalka, Zhenya and Mitya at the seaside. \"That was on the Sea of Azov, lovely bathing, so near and so cheap, we're going to go there every summer!\"\n\nBut it was not all so happy. She must go and say how do you do to Aglaida Fedoseyevna. \"All is not well, you see-^ Yaroslav...\" \"Wha-a-at?\" \"No, he's all right, but two army corps have been smashed and in the very sector where... go in and see Mama.\"\n\nFor Xenya, Aglaida Fedoseyevna was not'Mama\" but the'headmistress.\" To the end of her days she would be the headmistress. Feeling timid, she smoothed down her hair-^ meeting her was always sUghtly awe-inspiring and one could never argue with her or contradict anything she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aglaida Fedoseyevna was sitting motionless in a twin-backed chair draped in a loose cover, at a Uttle round table with a cloth, laying out a game of solitaire called'Cross beats Crescent.\" As Xenya entered, she gave a sKght turn of her majestic head and held out her cheek, by now remarkably wrinkled and even shghtly pendulous. (Only after Xenya had left the school had she granted her a daughter's right to kiss her.) As she bent close to her, Xenya noticed\n\nhow gray the headmistress had grown at the temples and in the circlet of hair above the forehead-which had never been noticeable before.\n\nIn the past, too, she had played solitaire only in her blessed hours of evening leisure, never in the morning: Aglaida Fedoseyevna had always been up and about early every morning to cope with the affairs of her busy life. Now she was seated heavily in an armchair, her elbows on the table, disinclined to move.\n\nAttentive, as always, to a visitor, as though she could have no news of her own, her usual cool reserve hiding any hint of gentleness or simplicity in her voice, Aglaida Fedoseyevna asked Xenya the usual questions across the table. How had she spent the summer? Were they all well at home? Why had she come so soon? When was she going back to Moscow? Yet she was looking not at Xenya but at the cards laid out in nine piles for the crescent and four piles for the cross, slowly and reflectively moving them from pile to pile.\n\nIt was a suitable moment for Xenya to talk about her troubles and beg for protection from her obstinate father. She began telling her story. What a stupid, nightmarish business it was! After all, it was difficult enough to get a place at the Golitsyn Academy of Agricultural Science, they accepted practically no one but gold medalists-and now she was supposed to leave and give it aU up..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The headmistress frowned with strain. Yes, she understood; yes, Xenya was right; yes, she would have to write to Zakhar Ferapontyvich...\n\nBut behind the pince-nez there were dark rings under her eyes. The set of her lips showed strong displeasure, as when she gave the whole class a dressing down. Pressed under a vase lay an envelope with a bit of Yaroslav's handwriting visible.\n\nXenya blushed with shame and exclaimed sympathetically: \"Aglaida Fedoseyevna! What is the date of your letter from Yarik? I've had one too! Such a joyful letter, I'll read you some of it later....\"\n\nThe headmistress sharply raised her head, and one eyebrow. \"When was it sent?\"\n\n\"August 5. It's franked from Ostrolenka and marked XIII Corps...\"\n\nThat accursed thirteen again.\n\nAglaida Fedoseyevna returned to her solitaire.\n\nHer letter, too, was dated August 5. Today was the nineteenth. And today a letter might come from'General Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief.\"\n\nShe turned over a card. She looked at Xenya. The girl was sunburned, her hair almost blond. Cheerful a moment ago, her face was now not far from tears.\n\nShe and Yarik had been like brother and sister. She had been even closer to Yarik than Zhenya had.\n\n\"Bring it here!\" Aglaida Fedoseyevna pointed to a photograph on the other table, mounted, held upright by a glued-on support-^ Yaroslav in his ensign's uniform after being commissioned.\n\nXenya took it. Together they looked at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My God-under that enormous peaked cap, above that high collar, he looked more of a boy than in a shirt at home! And how straight he stood in those vertical leather straps, and what a look of content! And that great heavy revolver at his wide belt...\n\nRelaxing her habitually straight back and firm shoulders, Aglaida Fedoseyevna said to Xenya as though to a daughter: \"You can see for yourself, he has carried obstinacy beyond its limit... He would have been in his third year as a student now, and he wouldn't have been touched by the call-up... The newspaper reports are purposely written so that no one can understand anything... Where is that corps of his? Where is the Narva regiment? And the Ostrolenka postmark means he's in the southern detachment, Samsonov's army... He's out there...\"\n\nOn the seven of hearts was a single teardrop.\n\nSuddenly-^ for the first time-^ Xenya embraced the frail, aging neck with her warm, young arms-^ Aglaida Fedoseyevna was a mother to her, even more than a mother!\n\n\"Dear Aglaida Fedoseyevna, he must be alive! I'm certain he's alive, my heart tells me so! And I can\n\nguess from the tone of his letter that he's happy! People like that don't die early! He has a happy fate in store for him! You'll see! We'll get another letter soon!\"\n\nThe headmistress wiped the tear from the seven.\n\nFate? All she wanted to know about his fate, his life, his letter was-would there be that one final letter? But Aglaida Fedoseyevna knew noway of communicating with the mysterious forces which governed these things-^ fate, life, letters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except by playing solitaire...\n\nShe pulled herself back into her habitual pose and frowned, re-erecting the barrier of reserve with a movement of her eyebrows. But her voice choked as she burst out: \"Have you seen Yuk yet? Go have a word with him. When the army volunteers marched along the Sadovaya, he was thereon the street the whole time. Then some Cossacks came in from the villages, it was some kind of patriotic demonstration with religious banners-and he was there again. Some schoolchildren were sent therewith flags to sing* Save, O Lord'-^ but he went of his own accord.\"\n\nHe was called Yuk at home because as a young child, when he had tried to say'Yurik,\" he could not pronounce the'r.\"\n\nWhat had once been the boys'room had been given to Dmitry Ivanovich as a study, but a comer of the big room had been screened off with cupboards for Yurik. He was not there but was lying on his stomach on the balcony over a quiet side street and, with great deliberation, drawing crooked lines with black crayons on the smooth, green-colored paper of a big Marx's atlas.\n\n\"Well?\" Xenya called out to him cheerfully and crouched down beside him on the ground, her skirt raising a little breeze. \"Hello, Yuk!\"\n\nShe poked the crown of his head and scratched it with her fingers. His hair was not cut short, and bristly tufts, snipped off at various lengths, stuck up here and there. Out of politeness Yurik rolled over on his side to look at her, but he did not put down his pencils and the expression on his face remained absorbed.\n\n\"What are you doing? Why are you scribblmg allover that beautiful atlas?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's mine. And I'll rub it out afterward.\" Yurik made no effort to distract himself from his occupation.\n\n\"What do those lines mean?\" Xenya asked in a gay, wheedling tone, still crouching down, her skirt spread over half the balcony.\n\nYurik looked gravely at her with his greenish eyes. She had never given away any of Yarik's or his secrets and they trusted her.\n\n\"But don't tell any of the family.\" He wrinkled his nose, again with a serious look on his long, fine-drawnj sunburned face. \"That's the front line. When somebody wuis a battle, I rub it out and move it forward.\"\n\nHe had been erasing when she had found him: one flag had given way, but the center was holding out well.\n\n\"But that's southern Russia-^ why are you marking it there? You've made the Germans capture Kharkov-and Lugansk!\" She did not want to hurt the boy's feelings, but could not help laughing. \"You ought to use another map; the war will never come as far as this, Yurik.\"\n\nYuk gave a superior, sideways glance. \"Don't worry. We'll never surrender Rostov.\"\n\nHe turned over on his stomach again and began moving the front line north from Taganrog.\n\nm\n\n(A random selection from the newspapers)\n\nMUST WIN!\n\nDisorders in the German army... After Gumbinnen,\n\na battered Germany... transfer of a significant force\n\nof cavalry from Belgium...\n\nGerman subsidies to the Turks... a quarter of the war\n\nindemnity\n\nGERMANS DESECRATE ORTHODOX ICONS..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Brussels the Germans have been killing wounded men..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the Austrians are murdering peaceful Serbs without regard to age or sex...\n\nThe Emperor Wilhelm's sleepless nights. In the grip of his bloodstained fantasy...\n\n... the prophetic words of Knut Hamsun: \"The Slavs area turbulent people and will be the conquerors of the world after the Germans.\"\n\nTHE WAR HASN'T STOPPED US FROM WORKING!\n\nAs before, we are selling Viktoria rapid-knitting machines...\n\nDOUBLE YOUR INCOME!\n\nBuy a Mandel's photographic camera\n\nRACING today.\n\nThe news of the glorious feat of Kozma Kryuchkov has\n\nspread allover Russia... We, a group of schoolchildren... modest mite, all we can afford... enclose five rubles...\n\nBe sober, be wide awake! Everywhere, mobilization... inspired by tremendous national enthusiasm. Apart from the profound motives concealed deep within the secret places of the glorious Russian spirit... the closing of\n\nLIQUOR SHOPS...\n\nThe German schools in Petersburg. * . Harsh treatment of the pupils...\n\nThe crime rate in Petersburg has been reduced by 70%.\n\nThe Nizhni-Novgorod fair... the dealers in Siberian squirrel fur are in a state of dejection...\n\n... one of the wounded described how for days the Russian troops did not meet a single German. Often an accordionist marches in front of a detachment and plays while the soldiers sing... You forget you are at war...\n\nWe who have not been called to the Tsar's colors must do the work both for ourselves and for those who have gone... The whole commune should plow and sow the fields of the men who have been called up, carry away the wheat of those without horses. In case of doubt, refer to your Land Captains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A well-know Russian socialist in Paris, Burtsev, has issued a call to all political parties in Russia: forget your quarrels, rally around the government, stand up for your Russian nationality...\n\n... from words to deeds. The strength of the Germans lies in their astounding cohesion, efficient organization, and capacity for hard work... The time has come when everyone of us must work...\n\nThe Russian army has occupied the towns of Soldau, Neidenburg, Willenberg, Ortelsburg, and is marching to cutoff the retreat of the shattered German forces... The German corps are running the risk of finding themselves captured. . \n\nRACING today\n\nEXCHANGE WAGE SLAVERY\n\nfor the chance to run\n\nyour own business with\n\nan income of between two and\n\nsix thousand rubles a year.\n\nBuy the translation of the famous\n\nbook by Prince Kropotkinl\n\nSpecial braces which lend the wearer a magnificent military bearing...\n\nMUST WIN!\n\nWILL GERMANY PERI^^ H FROM HUNGER OR ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE?\n\nAn article by an economist\n\nGERMAN ATROCITIES\n\nThe crudest tortures and horrors of the Inquisition pale before... One of the wounded officers, who took part\n\nin the battle of, informed the correspondent of the\n\nStock Exchange Gazette of the following practice, widely used by the Germans. Lightly wounded Russian soldiers who are taken prisoner are subjected to an operation to sever the tendons in their arms. After this the Germans are assured that the wounded man will never again handle a rifle...\n\nATTEMPTED ADVANCE BY THE\n\nGERMANS IN EAST PRUSSIA" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Transfer of German troops from the French frontier...\n\nTurkey hardly conceals her hostility to Russia; let us hope that Turkey will not escape the consequences. The Greeks cannot resist the temptation to settle accounts. the Arabs, who are obedient to the orders of England, the Armenians of the Caucasus, who want more than has been granted them. . It is hard to say what will be left of the Ottoman Empire if it risks...\n\nCHOLERA AMONG TURKISH TROOPS\n\nRefugees from Adrianople describe. . the unheard-of atrocities of the Germans of the homeland. . profound indignation among the German colonists in Russia\n\n... With the aim of dissociating themselves from German barbarity, many colonists, especially in Kherson province, have decided to petition to be allowed to change their surnames and even their Christian names to Russian ones...\n\nLatvian soldiers! Together with the heroic Russian army you are approaching the ancient capital of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, Marienburg. From there the rapacious horde of the Teutonic Knights kept our motherland in their iron grip... Latvian girls taken hostage... Latvian brides will welcome home none but heroes. \"\n\nWHEELCHAIRS\n\nfor the war wounded\n\nFOR LOVERS OF MUSIC\n\nA selection of difficult pieces in easy arrangements. * \n\nDEBILITY\n\nin all its forms gives way\n\nto the successful treatment\n\nprovided by the stimulant. . \n\nBULLETPROOF VESTS\n\nMUST WIN!!\n\nTHE WAR AND VODKA\n\nIn the times we are living through, the population experiences so much personal grief and so much national joy that there is no serious psychological need for vodka. . \">" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "DRAYMEN'S PETITION\n\nWithout liquor, the customary rudeness has been mitigated... work has been done faster, more efficiently... prolong this happy time at least until the end of the war... The police, relieved of the need to pickup drunks on the street, have begun to be more vigilant in their pursuit of thieves...\n\nISSUE OF RATIONS to the families of reservists, for each member of the family of a man called to the colors: oer month, 68 pounds of flour, 10 pounds of barley, 1 pound of sunflower seeds...\n\nThe need for strict observation of military secrecy obliges the commander-in-chief to be extremely sparing of information on the progress of military operations. Whereas the German military authorities in their communiques may describe victories which did not take place, our General Staff sometimes remains silent over victories that have been won... Only on the front line of our south-em detachment have the Germans been able temporarily to check the encircling movement of General Samsonov's columns, in the course of which the army commander himself and Generals Pestich and Martos have been killed, the staff has suffered fearfully under artillery fire, and heavy losses have been inflicted on the Russian regiments.\n\nHowever, our strategic position has in noway been affected by this unfortunate occurrence... The uninterrupted flow of reinforcements from Russia has changed the balance of forces in our favor... In order to halt Samsonov, the Germans were obliged to transfer two corps from Belgium.\n\nThus, General Samsonov's vigorous action was, as it were, a blood sacrifice offered upon the altar of brotherhood-in-arms...\n\nIN MEMORIAM A. V. SAMSONOV\n\nYour watch you kept with eagle eye. O'er storming men, o'er victory's gain; Far, far above you in the sky. All but unseen, an airplane. . " }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to persons who knew the deceased well, he was held in a rare degree of affection by his subordinates. A calm, exceptionally competent officer, he was always quick to grasp and evaluate the circumstances...\n\nHis Majesty has 'been graciously pleased to award General of-Cavalry P. K. Rennenkampf the Order of St. Vladimir, second class with swords, for distinguished service...\n\nNo one expected a triumphant march on Berlin or Vienna, because the maddened enemies of the peaceful nations have staked everything on a single card and war against them will inevitably be a fierce struggle. Recently our forces smashed three German corps at Gumbinnen, and now we learn that, having hurled himself on our two corps with overwhelming strength, the enemy has struck us a great blow. Among the dead is General Samsonov. Naturally, no one will be downhearted at this news and\n\nno one will respond with despair at the death of these brave men. Their blood will temper our courage even further...\n\nWe have been stricken by misfortune and this news will indisputably have a depressing effect on everyone. At the same time, however, it is quite natural that together with this sense of grief there should be another feeling, a feeling of joy. We rejoice in the frankness of the official announcement... He who fears not to speak the truth, however bitter it maybe, is strong. It is the weak who lie!\n\nOnce more, as of old, millions of voices Shall answer for Russia as one. Once more, we shall stand, shoulder to shoulder. To face and repel the Hun.\n\nUntil the arrogant Swabian devil\n\nHas laid down his arms again.\n\nLet each of us fight, every man with his weapon-^\n\nThe bayonet or the pen!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chief directorate of the General Staff is being inundated by a flood of reply-paid telegrams containing petitions and requests for the release from service of mobilized persons, for their deferment and other exemptions.\n\nThe C. D. G. S. announces through the press that for those called up to active service there exists a statutory definition of their rights; requests on their behalf by relatives, therefore, will not be considered.\n\nMANIFESTO BY THE PRESIDENT AND\n\nGOVERNMENT OF THE\n\nFRENCH REPUBLIC\n\nFrenchmen! By the brave efforts of our gallant soldiers... under the pressure of superior enemy forces... Out of concern for the national welfare, governmental and political institutions will temporarily be removed from Paris...\n\nTHE SITUATION IN EAST PRUSSIA\n\nWe are informed by highly reliable sources that the situation in East Prussia is not causing any alarm. The extent of the losses in the two corps is explained by the use of long-range heavy artillery and the wide blast area of the shells. This event cannot have a significant effect on the general course of military operations in East Prussia.\n\nFRENCH SUCCESSES!\n\nThe French army, having reached Paris, has gone into the attack... Tlie French government has moved to Bordeaux...\n\nOUR GREAT VICTORY OVER THE AUSTRIANS\n\nAdvance along 100-mile front!\n\nAugust 21y the first Flag Day. Hardly had the gray autumn day dawned than through the streets of Moscow there poured an army of volunteers selling the flags of the Allies'in aid of the victims of war\"... In restaur rants... in clubs...\n\nNOW IS THE TIME TO BETHINKING" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "OF A MUSEUM DEVOTED TO THE\n\nSECOND WAR FOR THE\n\nFATHERLAND!\n\nOur advance deep into East Prussia continues. The constant flow of fresh forces from Russia enables us to continue the penetration... It is also further weakening Germany's Western Front...\n\nWAR TO THE END\n\nA treaty by which the parties agree not to make a separate peace with Germany is an act of mutual insurance against a desire for peace. History knows of many examples of unexpected outbursts of magnanimity which have destroyed what has been achieved at great price... The universal moral significance... diplomatic oath, sworn on bloodstained swords... noble fidelity of the three Powers. * \n\nFor several weeks Hya Isakovich had been warned by his engineer friends from Kharkov, Petersburg, and the Kolomna Engineering Works, one of the many firms which he represented in southeast Russia, that he must be sure to meet and get to know a brilliant engineer named Obodovsky who was coming to Rostov. So far, the man was known in Russian engineering circles only for his books written in German: on general economics, on the layout of ports, on methods of industrial concentration, on the prospects of trade between Russia and Western Europe, on price fluctuation-quite apart from his specialized works on the mining industry, which were of interest only to mining engineers. There were anecdotes about him, such as the story of how, when he had been wandering penniless through the streets of Milan, he had worked out a plan fora more efficient system of trolley traffic, and he had sketched it out and sold it fora good price to the city council. Yesterday Obodovsky had been an emigre; before that, he had been a poUtical criminal wanted for revolutionary activities, but he had been pardoned under the 1912 poHtical amnesty declared in honor of the three-hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. For another pohtical offense he had then been'freed of the charge and subject to no further investigation.\" For the past three months he had been making an imofficial but triumphal tour of all the centers of engineering in Russia, during which he had been greeted with particular warmth both on account of his outstanding talents and because of his political past. The war had broken out while Obodovslcy was visiting the Donets Basin, the main object of his tour, but he had spent a whole month there" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as planned; now he had arrived in Rostov-on-Don, and one of his introductions was to Arkhangorodsky. They arranged by telephone to spend the first half of August 20 together and to have lunch at Ilya Isakovich's home. They met in the morning at his ofifice (which was also the southeastern branch of Erlanger& Co., a company which made milling machinery), where they looked through drawings and catalogues, then went to inspect Arkhangorodsky's two favorite achievements in Rostov-the new municipal grain elevator and the Paramonov mill, which had an annual turnover of a million.\n\nDespite the many differences between them, they took to each other from the first. Ilya Isakovich was about ten years older, short, on the fat side, laconic and not given to gestures, extremely fastidious both in dress (all his clothes were made by the best tailor in Rostov, an Armenian) and in the sleekness of his dark moustache, eyebrows, and hair. The thirty-six-year-old Obodovsky was tall and fan. Dressed rather untidily, indeed carelessly, he would occasionally wave his arms with such violence as he walked along that he staggered; he had a permanently dazed air, as though he had been overtaken by some important thought while in the midst of dealing with another. He was bursting with surplus energy.\n\nSoon after they met, he announced: \"You know, during this trip I have felt like a samovar with several taps. And Fm always grateful to someone who can turn on one or two of the taps and let out a httle of the boiling water. If I had stayed abroad, I should have exploded with the amount of material that was accumulating inside me. I've made this journey in order to discharge it all-and I'm hurrying, as Gorky puts it, to stir up the sediment of life. Abroad, I made the mistake of writing all sorts of instructive books that Russia can't read. How I pined for home v/hen I was abroad! I want to shape the life of Russia with my own two hands! I can do with four hours\" sleep in twenty-four. I shan't sleep anymore than that on this journey...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His smile was frank, the smile of a man with noth-\n\ning to hide. In conversation his features were ceaselessly mobile and his forehead was alive with frequent ripples of thought His soft hair, which was cut evenly en brosse, covered his head lightly and loosely.\n\nHis answers to questions were interesting and given readily. Ashe was speaking, he was likely to be fascinated by some urgent, elusive thought which he would hasten to pursue in all its ramifications, even if irrelevant, following each one up, as people did in the West but not in Russia.\n\nTo an outsider their day would have seemed boring, but for them it passed in an exciting cascade of ideas, information, and suggestions. They kept up their conversation wherever they went, by cab and walking across yards, up and down staircases and through workshops, the talk sandwiched in between discussions of the machinery and processes they had come to look at. To show one's work to someone who understands it is always satisfying and disposes one well toward him. Obodovsky missed nothing important-the use of Swiss-made rolling presses, the technique for washing grain-and everytMng he saw he praised in terms that reflected its precise value, no more. Apart from this, though, he had a remarkable breadth of outlook: he would assign each process, each solution of a problem, its correct place in the Russian economy as a whole and in future trade (without the war, it would have been current trade) with the West.\n\nAlthough there was no similarity or even contact between the lives, experience, and specialized interests of the two men, they shared a common engineer's spirit which like some powerful, invisible wing lifted them, bore them onward, and made them kin.\n\nThey also found time to talk of more general matters. Drawn out by his guest's questioning, Arkhang-orodsky described how he had been in the first class to graduate in milling engineering from the Kharkov Technological Institute; there had been only five of them, and a wide choice of highly placed, well-paid jobs had been available to each graduate. Arkhang-orodsky, however, had not gone straight into a senior" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward in your role as narrative aide.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His smile was frank, the smile of a man with noth-\n\ning to hide. In conversation his features were ceaselessly mobile and his forehead was alive with frequent ripples of thought His soft hair, which was cut evenly en brosse, covered his head lightly and loosely.\n\nHis answers to questions were interesting and given readily. Ashe was speaking, he was likely to be fascinated by some urgent, elusive thought which he would hasten to pursue in all its ramifications, even if irrelevant, following each one up, as people did in the West but not in Russia.\n\nTo an outsider their day would have seemed boring, but for them it passed in an exciting cascade of ideas, information, and suggestions. They kept up their conversation wherever they went, by cab and walking across yards, up and down staircases and through workshops, the talk sandwiched in between discussions of the machinery and processes they had come to look at. To show one's work to someone who understands it is always satisfying and disposes one well toward him. Obodovsky missed nothing important-the use of Swiss-made rolling presses, the technique for washing grain-and everytMng he saw he praised in terms that reflected its precise value, no more. Apart from this, though, he had a remarkable breadth of outlook: he would assign each process, each solution of a problem, its correct place in the Russian economy as a whole and in future trade (without the war, it would have been current trade) with the West.\n\nAlthough there was no similarity or even contact between the lives, experience, and specialized interests of the two men, they shared a common engineer's spirit which like some powerful, invisible wing lifted them, bore them onward, and made them kin.\n\nThey also found time to talk of more general matters. Drawn out by his guest's questioning, Arkhang-orodsky described how he had been in the first class to graduate in milling engineering from the Kharkov Technological Institute; there had been only five of them, and a wide choice of highly placed, well-paid jobs had been available to each graduate. Arkhang-orodsky, however, had not gone straight into a senior" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "post; to the indignation of his father, a small-time broker, he had signed on as a laborer in a mill, where he worked fora year before becoming the miller's assistant, and only after two years in that job did he become a miller himself, considering that this was the only way to find out how mills really worked and what their needs were.\n\nThey went out and looked at the town-or rather, the guest asked to seethe steep place where Taganrog Hill sloped down to the Don and where the Rostov City Council was thinking of installing an escalator to carry people up from the embankment. In Moscow, according to Obodovsky, the war had helped to complete the plans for an underground railway-a metro: a generating station to provide the power for the trams was already being built, and in 1915 the first line was to be run from tiie Bolshoi Theater to Khodin-skoye Field. In general, construction in Moscow was going ahead at an insane rate and countless new buildings were being put up.\n\nWith his cool, appraising gaze, Ilya Isakovich studied the nervous Obodovsky. Just as Hya Isakovich's life was serious, steady, and consistent, Obodovsky's had been made up of twists, starts, and stops; he actually breathed unevenly, as though wanting to take in enough air for ten lungs, and although he cursed the war he seemed to find peacetime life insufi& ciently rich in incidents, which was why he had always done his best to stir things up.\n\nHe made no reference to his distant, anarchist past, during which he had twice been convicted, had been imprisoned and exiled, and had fled the country. He spoke rather of his recent impressions gained abroad: he had been to America, had studied the mining industry in Germany, had been involved in workmen's insurance in Austria and written a book about it (a book meant for Russia, although its publication in Kharkov was still held up after months of delay-atone moment, apparently, they had lacked the right typeface, then the publishers had mislaid the preface). The most fascinating experience, however, was his present journey: the Russian coal and ore mines had" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "been wide open to a graduate of the Institute of Mines, but in those days his chief aim had been revolution and he had ahnost ended up m the Siberian mines as a convict in chains. Afterward, during his emigration, he had longed to get back to the Donets Basin and turn his hand to practical work. Now he was describing enthusiastically just how much could be achieved herein ten years, and how much in twenty, by the application of a single, integrated plan in which each step was related to future developments. Take the underground gasification of coal...\n\n\"The great thing is-^ we're out of the doldrums! The doldrums are over for Russia! And when the wind blows, we can even makeup our leeway!\" Obodovsky exclaimed enthusiastically.\n\nEverywhere he had met his contemporaries, mining engineers who had graduated in the same year, 1902, or thereabouts, who had welcomed him with a warmth that had brought a lump to his throat, had offered him engineering jobs, consultant posts, lectureships, even the directorship of the entire Department of Mines!\n\n\"The fact is, we haven't enough people to fill the jobs!\" Obodovsky said in mock horror, laughing. \"No sooner do they spot someone who's even mildly competent than they grab him and offer him every kind of inducement. What a country this is! Full of stuffed shirts, full of civil servants, full of idlers-and yet there's no one who can do a job of work!\"\n\n\"And which offers have you accepted?\"\n\n\"I turned down all the best ones. For the time being, I shall give some lectures at the Institute of Mines and do various other things in Petersburg. Really, I can't decide which is the most important-teaching, insurance, labor bureaus, ports, trade, banking, technical associations-Russia needs them all and it's impossible to be everywhere at once. Speaking in general, we have two main tasks of equal importance and both of them need to be given maximum priority: the development of productive forces and the development of voluntary social institutions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, if it weren't for the war.\"\n\n\"If they could even run a war properly! The machine's like an old, rusty spring, and all the wrong people are in charge-a bunch of doddering iooAsl Everything they touch withers and dies, and they touch everything. They don't understand a smgle thing they're doing, they don't understand this century! They look upon this amazing country as though it were their personal fief: if they feel like it, they'll make peace; if they feel like it, they'll make war-^ just as they behaved toward Turkey in the last century. And they imagine they'll always be able to getaway with it. Why, not one of title grand-dukes even knows what the words* produc-tive forces\" mean! The people at court are supplied with whatever they need, and tiiat's as far as their interests extend. They're much more concerned with things like anniversaries: at the moment they're celebrating what Ivan Susanin did three hundred years ago, or holding some festival in Kostroma, or striking a medal...\"\n\n\"Still,\" Arkhangorodsky said with a sly dig at his companion, \"if it hadn't been for the political amnesty in honor of the tercentenary, you wouldn't have been able to come home and your samovar would have exploded somewhere in the Ruhr.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's true enough!\" Obodovsky laughed.\" * No, seriously, give us ten years of peaceful development and you won't recognize Russian industry-or Russian agriculture, for that matter. And what a trade treaty we could have made with Germany! We stood to gain so much from it. It's astounding, I'll tell you all about it in detail later...\"\n\nThey had arrived home, and Ilya Isakovich rang the bell. They were seen from the first floor and the door opened automatically; their house was designed not to need a porter. Their apartment had many rooms, all opening off a dark passage. Ilya Isakovich had brought his guest home ten minutes before the time arranged for lunch, and he was embarrassed and nervous lest his wife, Zoya Lvovna, not be ready and thus put him in an awkward position. They had a cook who, if she was not disturbed, normally had lunch ready on time. But her cooking was not subtle enough-^ it would have been all too obvious what" }, { "from": "human", "value": "each dish had been made from, what ingredients had gone into it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, for the distinguished guest, Madamf^ Volcano (as Zoya Lvovna was known) had insisted on taking a hand. On occasions like this, her somewhat erratic culinary enthusiasm rose to the challenge and she produced a meal with the aid of Malak-hov's cookbook.\n\nFrom the corridor leading to the kitchen, hot from the stove and in a breathless whisper, Zoya Lvovna announced that lunch would behalf an hour late. So the compliant Hya Isakovich had to fetch a decanter on a tray from the dining room, together with some cold salmon and sUces of bread and butter, and take them into the study.\n\n\"Ah, yes-and there's the Union of Engineers,\" Obodovsky greeted him indefatigably. \"How is it down here?\"\n\n\"Rather feeble, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"In many places the branches are big and lively. I beheve the Union of Engineers could easily become one of the leading forces in Russia. It's more important and more constructive than any pohtical party.\"\n\n\"You mean-^ take part in government administration?\"\n\n\"Not in govenmient, we don't need power; in that respect I'm still faithful to Peter Alexeyevich...\"\n\n\"Who's that?\"\n\n\"Kropotkm.\"\n\n\"Do you know hkn?\"\n\n\"Yes, well. When I was abroad. Intelligent, practical men don't govern-^ they create and transform; governmental power is a dead horse. But if the government hinders the development of the country, then we might have to take power.\"\n\nThe first glass warmed them, the second even more, and their talk grew more and more expansive. From the depths of the blue plush divan, Obodovsky flung out a thin arm and, going off as usual on a tangent, protested: \" What I'd like to know is why are all your agencies referred to as the southeastern branch? Do you think you're in the southeast of Russia? You're in the southwestr" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The southwest is the Ukraine. Even our railway is called the Southeastern.\"\n\n\"It all depends on your point of view. Where are you looking from? From what you say, I can tell you can't see Russia as it really is. Russia, my dear man, needs to be looked at from far, faraway-almost from the moon! Then you would seethe northern Caucasus lying at the extreme southwest of this great mass. Everything in Russia that's vast and rich, our entire hope for the future, lies in the northeast! All this fuss about the Straits, a gateway to the Mediterranean, and soon, is just so much rubbish-we must look to the northeast! I mean from the Pechora to Kamchatka, the whole of northern Siberia. God, what potential! Lay a radial and diagonal network of railways and roads, heat the tundra and drain it-then see what minerals we could dig out, what we could plant, cultivate, build, how many people we could settle there!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Didn't you almost setup a Siberian republic? Didn't you want to secede?\"\n\n\"Not secede.\" Obodovsky waved the idea away cheerfully. \"But we did want to use it as abase from which to liberate Russia.\"\n\nArkhangorodsky sighed. \"All the same, it's chilly out there. I wouldn't much Uke to go. It's better here.\"\n\n\"People ought to want to go, Ilya Isakovich! Well, maybe not at your age, but young people should. The way the world is going, very soon it will be impossible to leave those regions uninhabited. Mankind won't allow us to-^ we shall be in the position of the dog in the manger. Either make use of them or give them up. The real conquest of Siberia was not Er-mak's expedition-^ the real conquest is yet to come. Russia's center of gravity will shift to the northeast: that's a prophecy that's bound to come true. Incidentally, Dostoevsky came to the same conclusion toward the end of his life; he gave up his ideas about Constantinople-^ read his last essay in Diary of a Writer. It's no good frowning-^ we have no alternative. Do you know what Mendeleyev calculated? He worked it out that by the middle of the twentieth" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "century the population of Russia would be well over three hundred million, and a Frenchman has predicted that by 1950 we will be three hundred and fifty million!\"\n\nSmall, neat, and cautious, Arkhangorodsky satin his round, revolving, leather armchair, his short arms folded over his protruding stomach.\n\n\"Always provided, Svyatoslav lakinfovich, that we don't decide to rip each other's guts out in the meantime.\"\n\nIlya Isakovich knew, and reasonable people had often told him the same, that marrying a beautiful woman is not the best way to wedded bliss, that beautiful women, especially if they are temperamental, are very uncomfortable to hve with; even so, he had not been able to resist the temptation to marry the golden-haired Zoya, with her volatile moods, her'all or nothing\" attitude-she wore either a dress whose collar came right up to her ears or one with the most revealing decollete; if she did not hke her face on a photograph, she would blot it out. Then there washer abortive attempt to goon the stage (her parents would not let her) and her unfinished course at the Warsaw Conservatoire; at home it was either dramatized readings from Schiller or musical evenings. She had a passion for vases, rings, brooches, and she despised the needle and the duster. Jewelry, it is true, greatly suited her-entwined in her hair or worn on her neck, her breast, or her fingers, but when they were married, Hya Isakovich had warned her, and had subsequently repeated his warning several times: \"I'm an engineer, not a businessman.\" (While still constructing mills, he could have switched the direction of his work and purchased buildings and land, but that would have meant giving up the pure engineering part.) On the other hand, his wife's way of life provided him with a complete change and relaxation from his daytime occupation, although amid the many draperies, curtains, and satin frills that filled the apartment an outsider felt that something was lacking: light, perhaps, from the windows and lamps, or heat from the radiators, or the fact that the comers had not been properly" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "swept and not all the crumbs quite brushed from the sideboard.\n\nAlthough late, lunch was eventually served. The table was covered with a whiter and grander tablecloth than usual in the dark but spacious dining room, which could have seated forty people, and at this moment the tall, good-looking housemaid was setting down the last pieces of cutlery, taken from the huge, old-fashioned sideboard, for seven places at the table. (Devoted to beauty in all things, Zoya Lvovna kept only pretty housemaids, even though they made her jealous.)\n\nHaving taken off her apron, Zoya Lvovna went around the rooms and called everyone. Apart from the guest of honor, the others were all members of the family, or almost: her son was not at home, but there washer daughter, Sonya; her school friend Xenya; and a young man called Naum Galperin, the son of a weU-known Rostov social democrat whom the Arkhangorodskys had hidden in their home in 1905 and who had been a close friend ever since; finally there was Mademoiselle, Sonya's governess since early childhood, who counted as one of the family.\n\nNaum and Sonya could scarcely have been wholly alike, but in someways they were: both had masses of black hair (Naum's was not very well combed) and shining, dark eyes, and both were aggressively argumentative. They had already agreed to have an earnest and edifying talk with her father on the subject of his participation in the shameful, so-called patriotic demonstration that had been held by the Rostov Jews. The demonstration had taken place at the end of July and had begun in the choral synagogue, where Ilya Isakovich put in an appearance only on festivals and whereby tradition he had a place of honor on the east side; however, he was not a believer, and could easily have avoided going to the demonstration-^ yet he had gone aU the same. The synagogue had been decorated with Russian national flags and a portrait of the Tsar. It had begun with a service of intercession for the victory of Russian" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "arms, in the presence of army officers. The rabbi had read a speech, followed by the chief of police, and they had sung'God Save the Tsar.\" Then about twenty thousand Jews with flags and with placards inscribed'Long live one great, united Russia,\" together with a separate detachment of men who had volunteered for the army, had paraded around the streets, held a meeting at the Alexander 11 memorial, called on the city governor, and sent a telegram of loyalty to the Tsar-^ to mention only some of the disgusting things they had done. However, soon afterward Hya Isakovich had gone away, and so had Sonya. Now the family was assembled again, and her fury had been increased only yesterday because in two cinemas they had shown a newsreel of the demonstration which was so mawkish, so false, so intolerable that she had come away burmng to have it outwith her father.\n\nIt was just before lunch that Sonya and Naum learned that there would be a guest-a man who had once been a famous leading anarchist but who had renounced the cause. At first they were undecided whether to postpone attacking her father, but then they agreed that it would be better to go for him straightaway: if this anarchist had preserved a scrap of his revolutionary conscience, he would support them; if he proved to be a thoroughgoing renegade, then the battle would be all the more furious and interesting. So they sat down at the table on the lookout for the first excuse to get their claws out, preferably no later than the soup.\n\nThe hors d'oeuvres had been standing too long because of the delay, so by telephone (there was a telephone from the dining room to the kitchen, separated only by the length of 5ie corridor) Zoya Lvovna called for the rather strange soup-^ it was supposed to have been borsch, but there was practically no beetroot in it, though it was served with some delicious puff-pastry curd csies. The hostess was seated at the head of the table, the guest beside her. Heat once complimented heron her cooking, then told her where he had come from and where he was going, and announced that he was" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "taking on a number of professional commitments in industry... Here, surely, was an opening to launch the attack? Yes, a perfect opening! Turning a threatening stare on the erstwhile anarchist, the shaggy-haired Naum asked tensely: \"But what industry are you going to develop? Capitalist industry?\"\n\nIlya Isakovich glowered, guessing that the youngsters were preparing to make a scene. He would have liked to put a stop to their insolence at once.\n\nObodovsky guessed it too. He had a dozen more business calls to make after lunch and had hoped to be able to eat his meal in peace. The samovar taps of his loquacity were for use with like-thinkers and to get through his business as quickly as possible; to indulge in arguments with hostile, half-baked youths struck him as vieux jeu and boring. However, being a guest, he made an effort (not a very big one, given the unfettered ease with which he spoke) and gave a detailed and amiable reply. \"I've been hearing that question for twenty years! At student meetings in the late nineties, that was exactly what we asked each other. Even in those days, the students were split between the revolutionaries and the engineers-the destroyers and the builders. In those days I, too, thought that to build was impossible. But one only had to spend sometime in the West to be amazed at how peacefully the anarchists lived there and how hard they worked. As for industry, anyone who has created something with his own hands knows that production is neither capitalist nor socialist but one thing only: it is what creates national wealth, the common material basis without which no country can exist.\"\n\nNaum's burning black eyes were not to bedazzled by such charming eloquence. \"Under capitalism the people never see any of that'national wealth' and never will see it. It just floats past them-and all goes to the exploiters!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obodovsky smiled gently. \"What is an exploiter?\"\n\nNaum shrugged his shoulders. \"To my mind, it's only too obvious. You ought to be ashamed to ask a question like that.\"\n\n\"No one who earns his living in industry is ashamed to ask such a question, young man. The person who sits with his arms folded and pronounces judgment from afar is the one who ought to be ashamed. Today, for instance, we were looking at a grain elevator where not long ago there was nothing but long grass growing, and then we looked at a modem mill. I can't begin to convey to you how much intelligence, education, foresight, experience, and organization have gone into that mill. Do you know what it all costs? It costs ninety percent of the future earnings! The labor of the workers who laid the bricks and hauled the machines costs ten percent-and even that could have been largely replaced by cranes. And they got their ten percent. But then along come some young men, art students... you are reading the arts, aren't you?\"\n\n\"What dijfference does it make? Well, yes.\"\n\n\"Along come a bunch of art students and they explain to the workers that they are earning too httle, and that that little engineer over therein spectacles is earning God knows how much, and that it's sheer bribery. And these simple, uneducated people believe it and they are indignant: they can understand the value of their own work, but they're incapable of understanding or putting a price on somebody else's.\"\n\n\"But why should Paramonov, the mill owner, make all that profit?\" Sonya shouted.\n\n\"He doesn't get it all for nothing, believe me. Remember, I said'organization. \"He works for his share too. And if anybody does get something for doing nothing, then we must gradually see to it that that money is channeled elsewhere, by rational political measures. We mustn't try to take it away by throwing bombs, as we did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not have expressed his backsliding and apostasy more openly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naum gave a scornful sneer and exchanged glances with Sonya. \"Does that mean you have rejected revolutionary methods forever?\"\n\nContempt and nervous tension had made Naum and Sonya forget their food. Meanwhile, the tall maid had brought in the second course and the hostess forced the guest to admit that he had no idea what the dish\n\nwas or what it was made of. She was the same age as Obodovsky and was attractive even when paid no compliments, but when praised she positively glowed. He obviously preferred talking to her, but two pairs of fiery black eyes were still searing the renegade across the table.\n\nHe gave his concluding reply: \"I would put it rather differently. Before, I was most concerned with how to distribute everything that other people had created without my help. Now my main preoccupation is how to create. The best brains and hands in the country should concentrate on doing that; we can safely leave distribution to the second-raters. When enough has been built and made, then even if distribution is less than perfect, no one will be left completely without his share.\"\n\nNaum and Sonya were sitting next to each other on the long side of the table, immediately opposite the engineers. They looked at each other and snorted. \"Create! Tsarism is preventing you from doing even that!\" With this, they decided to change the subject to their main topic, which they had been keeping in reserve.\n\nBut at this point Obodovsky wanted to know something. \"Tell me, please, which party do you belong to?\"\n\nNaum had to reply, and did so modestly and quietly; it was not the sort of thing one shouted from the rooftops.\n\n\"I am asocial revolutionary.\"\n\nHe had not followed in the footsteps of his Men-shevik father, because he regarded the Menshevik brand of social democracy as too milk-and-water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even when he was deUvering his opinion emphatically on the most important matters, Ilya Isakovich never raised his voice. His reprimands to his children were accompanied by no more than a faint tap of his fingernail on the table, which was always completely audible. Now, from under his thick black eyebrows, he gave Naum a look that was almost affectionate. \"May one ask where your party gets its funds? After all, it has to pay for things like false passports, rented apartments, disguises, bombs, travel, escapes, pamphlets. Where does the money come from?\"\n\nNaum gave a short, dismissive twist of his head. \"I thought questions like that just weren't asked... In any case, I beUeve the public in general knows perfectly well.\"\n\n\"That's just what I mean.\" Hya Isakovich polished his nail on the tablecloth. \"There are thousands of you, none of you has done any work fora longtime, it's not done to ask where your money comes from, and you are not exploiters. But you goon consuming the national product, claiming that the revolution will redeem all that.\"\n\n\"Papa!\" his daughter exclaimed in a voice ringing with indignation. \"You may not have done anything for the revolution\" (she, of course, had not done anything for it either) \"but to talk about it like that is an outrage! It's disgusting!\"\n\nShe was sitting diagonally across the table from her father, as was Naum from Obodovsky. The furious glances of the two young people crossed like arrows in mid-air over the table.\n\nMeanwhile, a telephone call had summoned the fish, chopped and served in large scallop shells. Once more the guest expressed his complimentary astonishment and Zoya Lvovna prattled on in reply, making play with a finger adorned with a large platinum-set diamond. ITiis talk of politics bored her; if there was one thing she really hated, it was politics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the far end of the table, facing the hostess and equally bored by politics, sat Mademoiselle; she found it even more tedious, as there was simply no one for her to talk to; all she could do was thank the maid. Fifteen years ago, when the chief magistrate of Rostov had made her acquaintance ma gay Parisian cafe and brought her back to Russia, she had not known a word of Russian, and on the assumption that her first Russian charges were too small to know French she had lulled them to sleep with little songs about who had crept into whose bed. Since then she had learned enough of the language and customs to understand and detest these eternal conversations about politics. Since then, too, her collection of admirers had aged; she had taken to good works, and in the past year she had been going out to\n\nvisit a lonely street vender to give him French lessons-Zoya Lvovna had known that Mademoiselle would marry him soon, but then he had been taken off to the war.\n\nNear Mademoiselle and beside the infuriated Sonya sat Xenya, modest and well behaved, her eyes glittering. At high school, she and Sonya had been the star pupils of their class: invariably side by side on the frontbench, they had always put their hands up simultaneously and matched each other in getting top marks. But at school the correct answers had always been obvious: everything one needed to know, then and forever, had either been told one beforehand or could be found in textbooks, incontrovertibly stated. Now, however, Xenya found that she had nothing to contribute to the conversation and that she was terrified of saying something stupid or tactless. All these clever people around the table had different points of view, and it was impossible to say who was right. But living with the Kharitonov family had long since taught the unsophisticated country girl that on such occasions she should not reveal how boring and incomprehensible she found the table talk by staring blankly or yawning, but instead, by means of a few little tricks, put on a convincing show of being interested and understanding the arguments: turning to face the person who was talking, occasionally nodding approval, giving an attentive smile or an astonished lift of the eyebrows. Without actually listening to what was being said, Xenya was now assiduously going through the whole performance, at the same time trying hard to use the right knives, forks, and spoons from the varied selection. But she was thinking about her own affairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was contemplating her life, intoxicated by something too great to be expressed in words. Everyday, every step she took, was bringing her, imperceptibly and inevitably, nearer to that supreme happiness which is the only reason for which we enter this world. And that longed-for happiness of hers would depend neither on wars and revolutions nor\n\non revolutionaries and engineers: it was simply bound to come.\n\nHya Isakovich gave the appearance not so much of arguing as of thinking aloud over his plate. \"How impatient you are for this revolution! Of course, it's easier to shout and it's more fun to make a revolution than to build Russia up. That's too much like hard work. If you were older and could remember 1905 and how it all looked at the time...\"\n\nNo, Father was not going to getaway with it so easily today; they had a showdown in store for him.\n\n\"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Papa! All the intelligentsia are for the revolution!\"\n\nIn the same calm, reflective tone, her father went on: \"Don't we belong to the intelligentsia? We, the engineers, who make and build everything that's really important-aren't we the intelligentsia too? A reasonable man cannot be in favor of revolution, because revolution is along and insane process of destruction. Above all, no revolution ever strengthens a country: it tears it apart, and fora long, longtime. What's more, the bloodier and more long-drawn-out it is and the dearer the country pays for it-the more likely the revolution is to be dubbed \"great.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But we can't goon living as we are at present either!\" cried Sonya in an agonized voice. \"Life is impossible with this stinking monarchy, and it won't just bow out of its own accord. Just you try telling the monarchy that it's ruining the country and that it's time for it to abdicate voluntarily!\"\n\nIna firm voice, the pot-bellied Ilya Isakovich continued to polish his fingernail on the same piece of tablecloth. \"Don't runaway with the idea that everything would suddenly improve if you abolished the monarchy. Something different, and no better, would take its place. Don't imagine that a republic automatically means bread and circuses for all. What would happen? A hundred ambitious lawyers would assemble-and who talks more hot air than lawyers do?-and shout each other down. The people will never be able to govern themselves, in any case.\"\n\nThe maid, who was treated by the Arkhangorod-\n\nskys with more politeness than most people showed to their servants, was handing around the dessert, made up in the shape of little baskets. Zoya Lvovna was telling Obodovsky how last summer she and Mademoiselle had taken a trip with the children around Southern Europe.\n\n\"They will! They will!\" Two voices shouted in unison, two confident young fists banged the table. And with a last, black glance of fierce hope they looked again at the former anarchist: surely no one could fall so low so irretrievably?\n\nNo, he was not wholly ruined: he appeared to be in agreement with them, but although he looked as if he would like to contradict the host, he was listening to his hostess.\n\nDya Isakovich began talking with greater insistence; he was starting to get excited, which he betrayed by a sUght twitching of his eyebrows and moustache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"* Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers, ' eh? That is pure irresponsibihty. I have built two hundred mills, steam and electric, in southern Russia, and if those starvelings really do rise and start lashing out, how many of those mUls will be left to grind the com? And what will we have to eat-even at this table?\"\n\nHe had laid himself open, he had offered them the ideal moment to strike! Scarcely able to hold back her tears of outrage and shame, Sonya almost exploded as she shouted: \"And that's why you and the rabbi demonstrated your loyalty to the monarchy and the city governor, is it? How could you? What came over you?\"\n\nIlya Isakovich smoothed down the table napkin on his chest. He did not allow his voice to rise or to crack as he said: \" The process of history is much more complex than you, with your crude plans to lay violent hands on it, can imagine. The country one Hves in is in trouble. So which is right: to say, * Go to hell, I'll have none of you,\" or to say, T want to help you, I belong here\"? Living in this country, one must makeup one's mind once and for aU and stick to one's decision. Do I really belong to it heart and soul? Or don't I? If I don't, then I can smash it or\n\nleave it, it makes no difference which I do... But if I do belong to it, then I must adapt myself to the slow process of history, by work, by persuasion and gradual change...\"\n\nZoya Lvovna was listening too. She had resolved this problem in her own way. At Passover they ate matzos, and then, at the Orthodox Easter, they baked Easter cakes and painted eggs. Broad-minded people should be able to accept and understand all viewpoints." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naum wanted to cut him off sharply, but out of respect and gratitude for what the Arkhangorodskys had done for his father, he thought better of it. Sonya, however, screamed out everything that had been building up inside her. \"Living in this country? You call it living? You live in Rostov by grace of the fact that you're an honorary citizen-but anybody who hasn't managed to get an education can rot in the Pale of Settlement! Because you've called your daughter Sophia and your son Vladimir, do you really think they take you fora Russian? It's an absurd, humiliating, slavish position-but at least you don't have to emphasize your loyalty to the slave master! You're a city councilor! What kind of Russia do you think you're supporting'in trouble\"? What kind of Russia are you proposing to build? Have you seen the notices advertising training courses for nurses?\"Only those of the Christian faith will be accepted\"! I suppose Jewish girls are going to put poison in the wounded men's food, are they? And in the Rostov hospital there's a plaque over abed which reads:\"In honor of P. A. Stolypin\"! And another'In honor of the governor of the city, Major General Zworykin\"! What lunacy! Is there any limit to such absurdity? The colossal city of Rostov, so full of educated people and with all your mills and your city council-yet by a stroke of the pen it's put under the jurisdiction of the Ataman of those same Cossacks who ride us down with whips! Do you really have to go and sing \"God Save the Tsar\" at a tsarist monument?\"\n\nIlya Isakovich bit his lips and his table napkin fell out of his tight collar. \" All the same... all the\n\nsame... one must rise above it, and one must be able to see that there is more to Russia than the Union of the Russian People, that there is also...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was either out of breath or deeply hurt, and Obodovsky gently filled in the pause by remarking: \"There is also the Union of Russian Engineers, for example.\"\n\nAnd he turned his keen eyes on the young people.\n\n\"Yes!\" Arkhangorodsky pulled himself together and leaned his arm on the table. \"The Union of Russian Engineers-does that count for less?\"\n\n\"The Black Hundreds,\" Sonya shouted, attacking her dessert, \"that's what counts! You went to pay your respects to the Black Hundreds, not to your country! I'm ashamed of you!\"\n\nNow she really had gone too far. Ina shaking voice, both hands on his chest, Ilya Isakovich mimed his feelings. \"On one side-the Black Hundreds; on the other-the Red Hundreds! And in the middle-\" he formed his hands into the shape of a ship's keel-\"a dozen people who want to pass through to get on with a job of work! Impossible!\" He opened his hands and clapped them together. \"They are crushed-^ flattened!\"\n\nDuring the reign of Alexander III, Grand-Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich was in disfavor and was not included in the Tsar's entourage. Under Nicholas II he was given preferment over the swarm of other grand-dukes, among whom he stood out head and shoulders, both physically and intellectually. Yet his position was not secure. At times he exerted a strong influence on the Tsar and bent him to his will. It was said, for instance, that it was Grand-Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich who, by threatening to shoot himself in the Tsar's study, had forced Nicholas II to issue the constitutional manifesto of October 17,1905, and to convoke the Duma. The grand-duke was in touch with public opmion; he did not turn away in fear from the demands of the various political parties, but Ustened to them. There were occasions, in his hopeless behind-the-scenes struggle against the Empress, when he lost appointments, influence, and support and lapsed into the shadows. Thus the dissolution of the Council of State Defense in 1908 was motivated by sheer jealousy, the aim being to deprive the Grand-Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich of his chairmanship of the Council, a move which also had the effect of putting a stop to aU the work of reforming the Russian army which he and General Palitsyn had inaugurated after the Russo-Japanese War. Smce then Nikolai Nikolaevich had been excluded from all participation in strategic planning and the general formulation of army poUcy, merely retaining the rank of general and the post of Commander of the St. Petersburg Military District." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the Ukelihood of war grew, the Emperor was persuaded that only he himself had the right and\n\nthe ability to command the Russian army; consequently, in his own peculiar, arbitrary, and to a trained military mind incomprehensible fashion, he set about choosing his close advisers and subordinates. As chief of staff to the commander-in-chief he appointed Yanushkevich, well known as an ofificer-bound pen-pusher. He was, in fact, a professor at the General Staff Academy, but he was only professor of mihtary administration; although well versed in the organization, logistics, and accounting procedures of the army, he had not the faintest conception of the command of troops in the field. This lack might have been made up by the appointment of a strong, competent quartermaster general, but instead the Tsar selected for the post the plodding, slow-witted, narrow-minded General Daniiov.\n\nWhen war came, however, the Emperor, either through failure of nerve or on constitutional grounds or from awareness of the pubHc mood, changed his mind. Despite his previous decision, and against court opposition, he appointed the Grand-Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich commander-in-chief. And in his usual charming, unbusinesslike manner, he asked the grand-duke, as a personal favor, not to change the staff of General Headquarters but to leave his appointees in their posts.\n\nNikolai Nikolaevich had always regarded the will of the Lord's Anointed as sacred. He had been brought up to regard his nephew as his ruler; otherwise, the monarchical principle was meaningless. Previously, in anticipation of his appointment as commander-in-chief, Nikolai Nikolaevich had intended to make a clean sweep of headquarters and staff it with efficient and deserving men; he had enjoyed the thought of how he would astonish Russia and shock the court by appointing General Palitsyn as chief of staff, and as quartermaster general the modest, unassuming General Alexeyev, a man with an amazingly clear military mind, whose talents the grand-duke had been the first to discover at a conference held to discuss the annual maneuvers. Obliged to accede to the Tsar's request, he had to start work with a headquarters staff made up of incompetent men who had been wished upon him and" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "who were more of a hindrance than a help; he also had to accept a war plan which he had not drawn up, which was at odds with his own thinking, and which, indeed, he knew nothing of when he took over the appointment.\n\nHe was, however, surprised, delighted, and encouraged by a divine omen. On arrival at General Headquarters at Baranovichi, the grand-duke had had a sudden premonition that his tenure of the supreme command would be a fortunate one and that Russia would therefore be victorious. This was vouchsafed to him through an extraordinary, almost impossible and hence mystic coincidence. In the small town of Baranovichi (which was little more than a railway junction, and to which General Headquarters had been transferred from St. Petersburg), the church turned out to be dedicated to St. Nicholas. Not St. Nicholas of Myra, whose shrines were to be found allover Holy Russia-that would have been quite unremarkable-^ but the Blessed Nikolai Kochan, a fool-in-Christ and miracle-worker from Novgorod, whose feast day was July 27 (almost the day of their arrival at Baranovichi). This was the commander-in-chief's own name day and the Blessed Nicholas was his patron saint. There-were practically no other churches dedicated to him in the whole of Russia. This coincidence could not be mere chance; it was a mystic sign. In order to have time to meditate upon the full, true significance of this heavenly portent, the grand-duke clearly ought not to absent himself long from this place of good omen. Rather than spend his time among the regiments and divisions in the front line, he should remain at Baranovichi, where all the railway hnes intersected; it was here that fate intended him to bring about a Russian victory!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The decision to keep General Headquarters permanently atone site resulted in a steady, comfortable routine in which duty and leisure alternated in measured sequence. The two trains comprising General Headquarters were drawn up at the edge of a forest; the commander-in-chiefs personal train was stationed almost in the middle of it. The quartermaster general's department, where all operational and strategic matters were dealt v^ th, was billeted in a litde\n\nhouse chosen because it was a mere twenty paces from the coach that had the grand-duke's sleepmg quarters. If any messages or other news arrived at night, the commander-in-chief was not disturbed; only after he had risen at nine o'clock in the morning, had washed and said his prayers, were messages brought for him to study over his morning tea. After tea the chief of staff came to make his report. Two hours were spent in discussing operational matters, followed by lunch at noon. The grand-duke then lay down to rest, and afterward went fora drive in his car (never faster than fifteen miles an hour, for fear of accidents). It was by then time for afternoon tea, after which there were no further serious duties, the rest of the day being taken up with minor matters such as the affairs of his personal suite, or with private talks. Before dinner the grand-duke would sit down in his coach to write his daily letter to his wife in Kiev, in which he gave a minute account of the events of the day. He found life impossible without mental communion with his beloved wife: this was one thing which he would have to forgo if he were to spend time visiting the front-line units; as it was, the permanence of his location at General Headquarters enabled the commander-in-chief to receive his wife's letters with absolute regularity. At half past seven in the evening, as in Petersburg, dinner for all officers of the staff was served in the dining car, always with vodka and wine; later there was tea again, although attendance at this was not obligatory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daily at Vespers and at the liturgy on feast days, the commander-in-chief attended his own church, the choir of which consisted of especially chosen singers from the court chapel in St. Petersburg and the Kazan Cathedral. When alone, the grand-duke always felt himself to be in the presence of God; he never sat down to a meal without saying grace, and every night he would pray fora longtime on his knees, bowing his forehead to the ground, completely absorbed in his devotions, convinced that they were of the greatest practical help.\n\nHowever, no victories came. Even on the Austrian\n\nfront, things were not going well, while in East Prussia the battle of Gumbinnen was not followed by a second, culminating success: the Russian armies were not pushing the enemy either into the sea or across the Vistula. Samsonov began by capturing several towns, then communications were broken off. The next news was of Artamonov's dismissal; in the grand-duke's opinion, this had been done much too hastily-removing one's corps commanders in that fashion was noway to fight a war. Then came general silence. On the sixteenth, Zhilinsky arrived in Baranovichi, complaining that Samsonov had arbitrarily broken off communications and was now completely out of touch. Colonel Vorotyntsev, who had been sent to Second Army, had for some reason not yet returned. This prolonged lack of information was most unsettling. All daylong on the seventeenth, there was still no news. On the night of the eighteenth, the grand-duke was awakened on receipt of a strange, dubious, and alarming telegram: although ciphered incorrect military code, it had been sent by the normal civilian telegraph service, bypassing Army Group Headquarters, and read: \"After five-day battle region Neidenburg-Hohenstein-Bischofsburg greater part Second Army destroyed. Army commander shot himself. Remnants of army fleeing across Russian frontier.\" It was signed only by the chief of signals of Second Army. Why had it not been signed by a more senior officer? Why not by the chief of staff? What was the answer to this mystery? Was it a mistake made under stress by some nervous officer? Why had nothing been heard from Zhilinsky and Oranovsky at Northwestern Army Group Headquarters, who should be able to provide more information?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet the only communication received from Zhilinsky and Oranovsky throughout August 18 was a statement attributing all blame to Samsonov and an account, which read like a boys' adventure story, of how the headquarters staff of Second Army had escaped encirclement. The report ended: \" No information to hand concerning situation of corps of Second Army. Can be assumed that I Corps still en-\n\ngaged around Neidenburg... Large numbers of stragglers from XV Corps arriving in Ostrolenka.\"\n\nThis was too little to clarify the situation, but enough to cause disquiet.\n\nNevertheless, Danilov and Yanushkevich were still trying to persuade the grand-duke that the situation did not amount to an irretrievable disaster and that it might yet turnout favorably. All the same, the commander-in-chief felt a twinge of unease: if nothing more precise than Zhilinsky's vague assumption was known about I Corps, which was relatively close and accessible, then what of those corps which were farther away? He sensed the onset of a catastrophe in which human forces were powerless to intervene and only heaven itself could save them. He went to Vespers as usual and later, in his private compartment on the train, he remained alone fora longtime, praying on his narrow, bony knees in front of the lighted icon lamps, a tall figure even in this posture.\n\nSo far, there was still no formal, written report from Zhilinsky on the rout of Second Army, and consequently the grand-duke was not justified in submitting a similar report to the Tsar. However, for the next few days he went through his daily routine dully and mechanically: tall and stately as a poplar, stiflBy erect, shoulders squared, he strode about the site of General Headquarters or walked up and down the little garden that had been laid out alongside the railway track. The keen, soldierly expression which made him look so much younger than his age had vanished from his face; he was now patently almost an old man. With his usual reserved courtesy he chatted with members of his personal suite and with oflScers of the staff, although, according to the tacit rules of security observed at headquarters, operational matters were never discussed anywhere except in the building occupied by the quartermaster general's staff. It was particularly important to conceal the news from the representatives of the AUies-the Frenchman, the Englishman, the Belgian, the Serb, and the Montenegrin-who were Uving in the same train and always dined with the Russian officers; there" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "was no need for them to know the bad news until it had to be publicly admitted. And although the disquieting rumors passed to and fro in whispers and faces began to look grim, they all followed the grand-duke's example, and life at General Headquarters outwardly maintained its unbroken routine. Apparently nonchalant, Count Mengden of the Chevalier Guards, the grand-duke's aide-de-camp, still walked up and down between the grand-duke's coach and the quartermaster general's house giving his piercing whistle to summon and dispatch his carrier pigeons, and continued to train his pet badger.\n\nBy the nineteenth, however, the time had come not only to report the catastrophe to the Tsar but to release a statement to the newspapers, for rumors were filtering through to the press.\n\nThe grand-duke took refuge in uncommunicative gloom; he could not predict how the Tsar, who was notoriously fickle toward his favorites, would react to the news. His reply to reports never came quickly, so they would have to wait two or three days. Of course, the Empress, together with the Rasputin party at court and Sukhomlinov, would inevitably try to use the defeat in East Prussia as a weapon against the grand-duke and might even succeed in having him dismissed without being given a chance to justify himself. Seen from Petersburg, the vast distances which separated Neidenburg or Bialystok from Baranovichi shrank to nothing; they would have little diflBculty in convincing the Tsar that the whole affair was the fault of the commander-in-chief.\n\nBut even more oppressive than waiting for the monarch's reply was the grand-duke's nagging awareness of his own ignorance of the events for which he expected to be punished. What had happened? How had it happened? What was the extent of the disaster? It was all still confused or unknown. Zhilinsky had powerful connections at court, and the grand-duke was not in a position simply to order him to give a rapid and complete account of what had happened as he would have done with any other subordinate. It" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "might be that he knew the answers but was concealing them, while the commander-in-chief bore the ultimate responsibility.\n\nOn the night of the twentieth, General Headquarters again demanded a detailed report from Northwestern Army Group Headquarters, but Oranovsky replied that he too was still unable to obtain enough information fora comprehensive statement.\n\nUntil then, although the nights had been cold, the days had been regularly and oppressively hot. On the morning of the twentieth, however, the sun had not shone in its full splendor, the weather had been overcast since dawn, and the sky had grown imperceptibly hazier hour by hour. There were no clouds and only a very light wind, but it was chilly. Then a mist had arisen in the west and by noon the whole sky was lowering and gray.\n\nAlthough heavyhearted, the grand-duke did his best to keep to the usual routine. At the appointed time he came out of his coach dressed for his daily airing, which today was to be on horseback. Then he saw the chief of army communications, a ponderous, slow-moving, but kindhearted man who collected cigar labels. The commander-in-chief remembered that he had some labels from anew brand of cigars, told his colleague to wait, and went back into the coach to get them.\n\nAshe came out of the coach, he saw coming toward him, striding out of the forest, none other than Colonel Vorotyntsev. Could he be dreaming? Was this Vorotyntsev, alive and well? Here was the man he needed more than anyone else.\n\nVorotjmtsev was walking swiftly, glancing around as thou^ trying to overtake someone so as to be the first to arrive. But there was no one else apart from the chief of communications (delighted with his cigar labels), an aide-de-camp, and the general-in-waiting, who was standing a little distance away. Vorotyntsev was wearing no greatcoat, only his tunic, as though he had been at headquarters all the time. Although his was the unmistakable stride of a regimental officer, it betrayed a slight stiffness which almost amounted" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "to a limp. One of his shoulders was noticeably higher than the other, there was a scab of clotted blood on his jaw, and his cheeks were unevenly shaven.\n\n\"Vorotyntsev!\" the grand-duke was the first to exclaim with pleasure before the colonel had time to approach and make his report. \"You're back! Why hasn't anyone told me?\"\n\nVorotyntsev saluted with rather less smartness than was normal at General Headquarters and with a trace of the same stiffness that was in his gait, as though his arm was heavier than usual.\n\n\"Your Highness! I've only just arrived-about ten minutes ago.\"\n\n(He had not'only just\" arrived but had been lurking in the forest for several hours, where he had left Blagodaryov with his greatcoat and knapsack. Knowing how things worked at headquarters, he had deliberately arranged this direct meeting with the grand-duke, so as to avoid seeing Yanushkevich and Damlov.)\n\n\"Are you wounded?\" With a rapid, expressive movement of his eyebrows, the commander-in-chief indicated that he had guessed at Vorotyntsev's bandaged shoulder under his tunic.\n\n\"Oh, it's nothing.\"\n\nWith urgent entreaty in his eyes he stared at the grand-duke. The latter's strong, angular features had at once taken on a more youthful look, although the change was provoked by a sense of alarm.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"what's been happening out there? TeU me!\"\n\nVorotyntsev was standing stiffly to attention in the regulation manner required when reporting to a senior officer, but his eyes were watching the aide-de-camp and the general who was approaching from the opposite direction. If only he could gain the grand-duke's attention before all these others bore down on him!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your Highness, I request your permission to be heard in confidence.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course.\" The grand-duke gave a decisive nod and with a characteristically abrupt movement turned sharply on his heel. His long, thin, booted legs were already moimting the steps of his railway coach\n\nas he ordered his aide-de-camp not to admit anyone.\n\nThe interior of the coach had been converted into a study. Carpeted from wall to wall, it contained a desk, a large icon of Christ, and a portrait of the Tsar; a presentation sword, crossed with its scabbard, hung on the wall.\n\nThe supreme commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of mighty Russia-serious, inteUigent, and accessible to rational argument-was now facing the colonel across the desk, undisturbed by advisers, eager to hear the news which Vorotyntsev alone could give him.\n\nIn all Vorotyntsev's military career he had never been in such a situation before-and never would be again. It was a unique, unrepeatable encounter: a chance fora clear-thinking combatant officer to exert a direct influence on the functioning of the entire military machine. All his previous service had been a prelude to this culminating moment: his thoughts were ordered and purposeful, his mind keyed to full pitch. He had slept like a log for almost two nights and a day, and although his body still ached and throbbed, his head was clear. The fortunate start to the interview increased his mental alertness.\n\nHe began his account, talking with ease and fluency; never overawed in any company, he was unaffected by the august presence of the grand-duke. In crisp, summary terms he described the inadequacy of the preparations for Second Army's advance: how it had been forced ahead too hard and too fast; how Sam-sonov had intended the operation to go, and how it had actually gone; how the Germans had reacted; how many major opportunities had been lost and what had occurred as a result. Throughout the period of Second Army's encirclement by the Germans, and afterward among the survivors, Vorotyntsev had asked questions and collected data whenever possible, and all this information now helped him to reinterpret the clear mental picture of the battlefront with which he had so boldly stridden into Samsonov's headquarters only nine days ago. But more than that, he brought with him into the commander-in-chief's private quar-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ters the scorching breath of battle which he had inhaled during the ebb and flow of the fighting around Usdau and the hopeless attempt to defend Neidenburg with a few companies of the Estland regiment. He brought with him, too, that passionate sense of conviction which inspires belief less by its veracity than by its origin in personal suffering. He spoke with the special insight of one who had witnessed Yaroslav Kharito-nov's boyish delight when, on discovering that the troops ahead of them were Russian, he had said: \"You mean... you haven't been surrounded? And the people behind you are Russians too, not Germans?\"\n\nGraven equally on his memory were the words of Arsenii Blagodaryov as he gave a sigh of relief like a blast from a blacksmith's bellows: \"Is that Russia ahead of us? Whew, thank God-^ we thought we'd never drag ourselves that far...\"\n\nThen, collapsing like an empty sack, he had rammed his now unnecessary butcher's knife into the ground.\n\nEverything which the commander-in-chief, unable to see or imagine the reality, had summoned into motion from a great distance was now being brought back by Vorotyntsev and dumped in the middle of his desk.\n\nAs far as he knew it, the colonel undertook to describe the fate of each battalion of almost every regiment-^ which ones had been destroyed while fighting rear-guard actions, which ones had escaped. The artillery had been completely wiped out and no less than seventy thousand men had been caught in the ring of encirclement, though there remained the consolation that the remarkable number of between ten and fifteen thousand had managed to getaway, without the benefit of leadership from their generals.\n\nDidn't the commander-in-chief know any of this already? Had Northwestern Army Group Headquarters told him nothing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The commander-in-chief's long, thin, well-bred features had taken on the intent look of a hunter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hardly interrupted or asked questions (Vorotyntsev's account was in any case fluent and articulate), only occasionally picking up his fountain pen with a me-\n\nchanical gesture, but not taking notes. He chewed on his cigar and smoked it furiously, as though its very length was keeping him from reaching the truth. To say that he sympathized with the men of Samsonov's army was an understatement: he was absorbed in the story, was himself transformed into one of the wretched participants in that disastrous battle.\n\nThe hope grew in Vorotyntsev that he had not plunged in vain iato that hell-fire, had not wasted his time there as a mere onlooker, and that he would soon justify himself by causing the heavy hand of the grand-duke to be raised in retribution against all those blockheaded fools. Vorotyntsev had never been gmlty of overmuch respect for his superiors in rank, and now less so than ever. He discussed corps commanders as though they were inefficient platoon leaders whom he himself could dismiss.\n\nSuddenly, while talking about Artamonov, who more than any other commander had aroused his anger, he sensed a cooling of the commander-in-chiefs attitude and a hostility in his glance. For all the dissimilarity between the two men, he could not help being reminded of the look of blank impenetrability which he had seen in the eyes of Artamonov.\n\nThe grand-duke agreed that the story about the fatal order was incomprehensible; but it might, of course, have been a mistake made by a junior officer.\n\nIt was a weakness of the grand-duke's tiiat he tended to accept and overlook the failings of his subordinates. Unlike the Tsar, who, while sroiling his habitual shy smile, was quite capable of casting his favorite of yesterday into outer darkness, the grand-duke was proud of his positively quixotic loyalty: he would always defend anyone whom he had once liked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even if the man was an incompetent clown.\n\nAs away of testing the grand-duke's reactions, Vorotyntsev listed the names of the brave regiments that had been annihilated at Usdau by Artamonov's act of criminal foolishness, taking care to mention the Yenisei regiment at whose head the grand-duke himself had so recently led the ceremonial parade at Peterhof.\n\nAt this, the commander-in-chief said: \"Of course, there will be the most rigorous inquiry. But he is a brave general and a deeply religious man.\"\n\nAt this moment his interest in Vorotyntsev's story, all his sympathetic attention, seemed to undergo an eclipse by a vaporous cloud of grand-ducal solemnity.\n\nVorotyntsev fell silent. If the order to retreat from Usdau was not absolute folly, if it was not a crime to pullback troops who after hours of bombardment had spontaneously gone over to the attack, if the decision to cause a thoroughly battle-worthy corps to withdraw twenty-five miles, thereby destroying an army, was not treachery; if all this was not good reason to call Artamonov to account and tear the general's epaulettes from his shoulders-^ what was the point of mobilizing an army at all? What, indeed, was the point of declaring war?\n\nWhy, the grand-duke's very coach should have reared up in horror at Vorotyntsev's account! The whole train ought to have shuddered and jumped the rails! But it stayed unshaken and the remains of some tea, cooling in a glass, did not so much as tremble. The commander-in-chief's strong right hand was not going to be raised in punishment and redress, and Vorotyntsev's superhuman efforts had been made in vain. He had accumulated all the initial impetus needed to move avast mass, he had been utterly convinced that he was about to jolt it into motion-^ yet, after all, the mass had proved smoothly resistant, and his outstretched arms had sUthered ineffectually off its rounded surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had attempted to move the immovable.\n\nHis strength had not failed him while he was giving his report, although he had talked long and hard. Now he was spent; he needed to rest and draw breath.\n\nThe commander-in-chief, too, sat there like a beaten man, shoulders slumped, his martial bearing gone.\n\n\"I thank you, Colonel. What you have said will not be forgotten. General Zhilinsky arrives here tomorrow, and we will arrange a conference in the Operations Section. You will attend and make your report.\"\n\nHope revived in Vorotyntsev as he stared across\n\nthe desk at the sad, thin old man with the long, horselike face. Perhaps tomorrow the whole affair might be brought into the open; perhaps the right steps would betaken after all. In fact, Artamonov was not important; what was important was that the appropriate lessons should be learned.\n\nThe grand-duke made a gesture indicating that the audience was over. Vorotyntsev stood up and requested permission to go. Only now did he realize that he had been sitting therefor two hours.\n\nNikolai Nikolaevich's strong mouth was twisted into a deep grimace of pain: Vorotyntsev beheved his report had not been entirely useless.\n\nThere was a knock at the door, and Derfelden, an aide-de-camp, hurried in with a sealed telegram. Leaning forward respectfully, the tall Horse Guard announced as he handed it over: \"From His Majesty!\"\n\nHe turned on his heel and started to leave.\n\nThe commander-in-chief rose and read the telegram standing.\n\nVorotyntsev's mind was still in such a whirl that he failed to realize that he had no right to be present during the reading of a telegram from the Tsar. He had a confused impression that something still remained to be said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the fading daylight (outside, it was becoming more and more dull and overcast) he saw the noble features of the grand-duke lighten, grow calmer and younger. The crooked line of grief which Vorotyntsev's story had just chiseled around his mouth smoothed out and vanished.\n\nThe commander-in-chief stretched out his long arm after the retiring Derfelden. \"Captain! Ask the arch-priest to come and see me-I saw him go by a moment ago.\"\n\nAll his erect dignity of bearing had returned to the resilient, wiry old man. He took up a majestic stance in front of the portrait of the man who was the ruler of all Russia by the mandate of heaven: his sovereign.\n\nVorotyntsev stood half ahead shorter than the grand-duke. Once again he saluted and asked leave to go, but the conmiander-in-chief rephed solemnly: \" No,\n\nColonel. Since you are here, and since you have not shirked your duty in telling me your unhappy story, you have earned the right to be the first to hear our consolation for it. Listen to the comfort His Majesty offers us, hear how graciously he has responded to the report of the catastrophe!\"\n\nAnd he readout the telegram in a clear voice, savoring every word of the text more than if he had composed it himself: \" \"Dear Uncle Nick, I grieve deeply with you over the loss of our gallant Russian soldiers. But we must submit to the will of God. He who endures to the end shall be saved. Yours, Nicky.\"\n\n\"\"He who endures to the end... shall be saved!\"\" Entranced, the handsome, erect old campaigner repeated the phrase in a reverent tone as though reporting to some invisible senior officer. Relishing the old-fashioned, Biblical words, he seemed to find new meaning in their repetition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a knock and the archpriest entered, a man with a thin, gentle, intelligent face.\n\n\"Listen, Father Georgii. Hear how kind His Majesty has been to us, what joy he sends us! \"Dear Uncle Nick, I grieve deeply with you over the loss of our gallant Russian soldiers. But we must submit to the will of God. He who endures to the end shall be saved. Yours, Nicky.\"\"\n\nComposing his features into a suitable expression, the archpriest crossed himself toward the icon.\n\n\"And there is another message as well,\" the grand-duke went on. \"The Tsar informs us that he has ordered the icon \"The Blessed Virgin Appearing in a Vision to the Holy Father Sergius\" to be dispatched immediately to General Headquarters from the Monastery of the Trinity and St. Gergius. What joy this is!\"\n\n\"That is splendid news. Your Highness!\" said the archpriest, stressing his remark with a dignified bow. \" This exceptional icon was painted on apiece of wood from the coffin of the Holy Father Sergius himself. For three centuries it has accompanied our armies into battle. It was with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on his Lithuanian campaign; it was with Peter the Great\n\nat the Battle of Poltava, and with Tsar Alexander the Blessed on his European campaign. It was also... at the commander-in-chiefs headquarters in the war against Japan.\"\n\n\"This is wonderful! It is a sign of God's grace!\" The grand-duke strode excitedly across the floor, covering the distance in two of his long strides. \"This icon will bring us the aid of the Mother of God!\"\n\nPraying kneads no dough.\n\nDocument No. 5" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In partnership with the author, move the story forward.\nTags: historical fiction, World War I, Russian literature, epic, military\nAuthor: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn\nTitle: August 1914\nChapter: 10" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a knock and the archpriest entered, a man with a thin, gentle, intelligent face.\n\n\"Listen, Father Georgii. Hear how kind His Majesty has been to us, what joy he sends us! \"Dear Uncle Nick, I grieve deeply with you over the loss of our gallant Russian soldiers. But we must submit to the will of God. He who endures to the end shall be saved. Yours, Nicky.\"\"\n\nComposing his features into a suitable expression, the archpriest crossed himself toward the icon.\n\n\"And there is another message as well,\" the grand-duke went on. \"The Tsar informs us that he has ordered the icon \"The Blessed Virgin Appearing in a Vision to the Holy Father Sergius\" to be dispatched immediately to General Headquarters from the Monastery of the Trinity and St. Gergius. What joy this is!\"\n\n\"That is splendid news. Your Highness!\" said the archpriest, stressing his remark with a dignified bow. \" This exceptional icon was painted on apiece of wood from the coffin of the Holy Father Sergius himself. For three centuries it has accompanied our armies into battle. It was with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich on his Lithuanian campaign; it was with Peter the Great\n\nat the Battle of Poltava, and with Tsar Alexander the Blessed on his European campaign. It was also... at the commander-in-chiefs headquarters in the war against Japan.\"\n\n\"This is wonderful! It is a sign of God's grace!\" The grand-duke strode excitedly across the floor, covering the distance in two of his long strides. \"This icon will bring us the aid of the Mother of God!\"\n\nPraying kneads no dough.\n\nDocument No. 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "AUGUST 20,1914. TO THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS II\n\nHappy inform Your Majesty good news. Victory won by General Russkys army at Lvov after week^ s uninterrupted fighting. Austrians retreating incomplete disorder^ some in headlong flighty aban-doning light cmd heavy weapons, artillery and transport. Enemy suffered huge losses, large numbers of prisoners taken...\n\n(Signed) Nikolai\n\nAdjutant General Commander-in-Chief\n\nDocument No. 6 (German leaflet dropped from aircraft)\n\nRUSSIAN soldiers!\n\nTHE TRUTH IS BEING KEPT FROM YOU.\n\nTHE RUSSIAN SECOND ARMY IS DESTROYED!\n\n300 GUNS, ALL TRANSPORT, 93,000 MEN\n\nTAKEN PRISONER... THE RUSSIAN PRISONERS OF WAR ARE MOST SATISFIED WITH THEIR TREATMENT AND DO NOT WANT TO RETURN TO RUSSIA, AS THEIR LIVING CONDITIONS IN GERMANY ARE GOOD. BELGIUM IS BEATEN. OUR TROOPS ARE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PARIS...\n\nThe season had turned to autumn so quickly, it seemed incredible that only two days ago it had been hot summer weather and a greatcoat had been a burden to one's shoulders. Today, though, a coat was just right. An autumn wind was blowing gustily through the sparse pine forest and now and again a shower would fall from the cloudy, changeable sky. In weather like this, it was good not to have to crawl about in the swamps.\n\nThe two men, Vorotyntsev and Svechin, had turned up the collars of their greatcoats, thrust their hands into their pockets, and were walking, without swords, almost as if strolling about off-duty. Around them stood the tall, bare pine trees, only their tops moving slightly in the wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No!\" Vorotyntsev shook his head. The two days he had spent at General Headquarters had not succeeded in calming his feelings. \"To speak out once and for all and say what one really thinks-it's more than a pleasure, it's a sacred duty! One ought to get it all off one's chest and then die afterward if necessary.\"\n\nAll Svechin's features-ears, nose, mouth, flashing eyes-were built on the generous scale which denotes a man of passion, yet he was grimly imperturbable and unconvinced by Vorotyntsev's outburst. \" Have you ever sfeen a junior officer in the Russian army induce his seniors to change their minds by making passionate speeches at them? On a minor issue a well-argued case or a well-written document can sometimes be effective, but never in a big thiag like this. You don't really believe that you're going to shake them up and make them see reason all at once, do you? I warn you: you're\n\nstanding on the edge of a bottomless pool-and not a pool of water either, but pitch. There won't even be a ripple to show where you fell in. You'll only destroy yourself.\"\n\n\"What if I do? He who endures to the end shall be saved\"! They can't do anymore than send me to command a regiment. And I wasn't a bad regimental commander in my time.\"\n\nSvechin was two years younger than Vorotyntsev, but it was impossible to tell this from his maimer of speaking, \"Fine-except that there will be a bunch of thickheaded fools above you, hindering you at every step. They'll give you idiotic orders, you'U have to carry them out and you'll pay for it in soldiers\" lives. You'll end by sending me a telegram at General Headquarters begging me to save you from these imbeciles and get you out of an impossible position! No, my dear fellow, the people who get things done around here are not the rebels but the doers. They go about it discreetly and they don't make a lot of fuss, but they get things done. For instance, if in one day I manage to alter a couple of stupid orders so that they make sense, and by doing so justify a decision made by a brave regimental commander or save a battalion of sappers from being needlessly sent to their deaths, then I reckon my day hasn't been wasted. And with you working alongside me, we could probably see to it that two more orders were redrafted on the right lines-^ perhaps even four! It's senseless to try to fight the authorities; the way to deal with them is to steer them discreetly in the right direction. You can be more use to Russia here than anywhere else. If you get yourself kicked out of headquarters they'll simply send in someone else worse. Why let that happen?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of all the ofiBcers in the Operations Section, indeed in the whole quartermaster general's department and, for that matter, in the entire General Headquarters, Svechin was the only man Vorotyntsev trusted, and Svechin felt the same about Vorotyntsev." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But partial trust is not enough; if there is to be trust, it should not be kept in compartments. The previous evening, after his interview with the commander-in-chief, Voro-\n\ntyntsev had made his report to Yanushkevich and Danilov, but it had been an extremely superficial affair: they had made no attempt to go into detail and would have preferred no report at all. With Svechin, however, he had discussed the subject at length into the night, and the latter had supplied him with certain extra details only available to someone at General Headquarters. Today, from early morning right up to the last minutes before the conference, they had continued to thrash out the matter.\n\n\"No doubt you're right,\" Vorotyntsev replied wih an obstinate grin on his emaciated but still keen and lively face. \"But if you had only been through what I've just been through. Even your commonsense and mine put together wouldn't... No, Tm sure this is a state of mind which comes to us only once or twice in a lifetime. I'm determined to see to it that, come what may, the truth and nothing but the truth gets hammered out today. If only the grand-duke had reacted differently yesterday...\"\n\n\"You must realize that the grand-duke is simply waiting for the arrival of the telegram announcing the capture of Lvov. They're all waiting for that telegram,\" Svechin went on insistently, unsmUingly, with irrefutable logic, his eyes glaring ferociously as he pressed the point home.\" \"And that telegram will simply be used to obliterate the whole Samsonov affair. They'll set the beUs ringing allover Russia to celebrate our own incompetence-^ because the truth is we had the Austrian army in the grip of a pincer movement and let it go, so that when we captured Lvov it was empty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Vorotyntsev was incapable of grasping the significance of the Austrian front; his mind was obsessed by the German encircling movement at Neidenburg.\n\nHe replied heatedly: \" You might have convinced me and I might have kept my mouth shut if this were purely a military matter. I agree that a defeat in one sector can be counterbalanced by success somewhere else. But this isn't a military problem any longer, don't you see? It's amoral issue. To drive one's people unprepared to slaughter is somethmg far beyond the\n\nconsiderations of mere strategy. \"He who endures to the end...!\" Thanks to them, we are the ones who have to suffer and endure-to the bitter end! And none of them even go to the front line to see for themselves! They're quite ready to endure four or five more massive defeats on this scale-but by then only the Lord above will be able to help them!\"\n\n\"Even so, you won't do any good,\" Svechin insisted firmly, hissing the words through clenched teeth. \"Nothing would be changed and you'd simply get a bloody nose. Russia is doomed to be governed by fools; she knows no other way. I know what I'm talking about. The only thing to do is keep your head down and get on with the job.\"\n\n\"But I can't sit quietly and keep my head down! I won't be able to sit through this conference without getting up to say what I think. Look-don't you see? It's like an arrow in my chest, burning and throbbing, and I've got to pull it out. How can I settle dovm to work again until I've done that?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid you'll do something stupid. Keep an eye open in my direction during the conference.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had comeback to the cluster of buildings beside the headquarters train at the edge of the forest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was five minutes to ten, and other officers were starting to converge on the cottage that housed the quartermaster general's department.\n\nJust then, on a path at the edge of the wood skirting the senior officers'quarters, waddling like a duck in his haste, a fussy little army clerk came toward them. He was followed by Arsenii Blagodaryov striding along atone pace to the other man's two, with his naturally straight-backed carriage which owed nothing to military training. Chest out, arms swinging freely as though he had cast all his burdens from his shoulders, Blagodaryov looked around him with an uninhibited curiosity that was quite unaffected by the exalted atmosphere of the headquarters and the proximity of any number of grand-dukes.\n\nImmediately Vorotyntsev's tension and irritation seemed to vanish. He held out his hand to stop the clerk.\n\nPreoccupied but quick-witted, the man saluted, not\n\ntouching his temple and not holding his elbow fully extended (like all the rankers at headquarters, he was well aware of the exact pecking order among all these senior officers), and spoke first, without waiting to be questioned. \"Yes, we're going to take a complete record of the conference, your honor; every word will be noted down.\"\n\n\"H'mm.\" Vorotyntsev let him go and turned affectionately toward Arsenii.\n\nBlagodaryov saluted the two officers, \"his\" colonel and the other, his elbow well out and his head held straight, but without any hint of servility and ahnost as if the gesture were part of a game.\n\n\"Well, Arsenii, are you bemg posted to the artillery?\"\n\n\"Seems so, ' * said Arsemi with a condescending smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Built like a grenadier, isn't he?\" said Vorotyntsev to Svechin, as he clenched his fist and gave Arsenii a friendly, admiring punch in the chest. \"I've arranged for you to be posted to an artillery brigade.\"\n\n\"Well, that's fine...\" said Blagodaryov, grinning and putting his tongue La his cheek. Tlien he pulled himself up with a jerk, remembering that this was not the way to behave here; they weren't in the front line now. \"Thank you very much indeed!\" He saluted again, his large underlip jutting out in what was almost a smile.\n\nHis attitude was not an acquisition from the terrible days of the encirclement and retreat; he had been just the same when Vorotyntsev had found him at Usdau. Even then he had had the ability to strike the right note, not only with'his\" colonel but with every officer. He unfailingly used the correct military expressions, one felt certam that he would never overstep the bounds of the prescribed relationship, and yet there were times when his tone implied that it was all a game. Although quite unschooled, Arsenii gave the impression of knowing all there was to know about military science and a great deal more.\n\n\"SupposiQg I'm sent to command a regiment-would you like to come and join me there?\"\n\n\"Infantry?\" Arsenii pushed out his lower lip.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nBlagodaryov put on an expression as though he were thinking. \"No-o-o,\" he drawled. \"I'd still prefer the artillery.\" But then he pretended to check himself. \"But of course-anything you say!\"\n\nVorotyntsev laughed the way one laughs at children. He put both hands on Blagodaryov's shoulders, which meant raising them well above the height of his own; the shoulder tabs were no longer crumpled but had been smoothed out and stiffened with cardboard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not going to give you anymore orders, Arsenii. You're not angry with me for having taken you away from the Vyborg regiment, are you? And for having dragged you into the trap set by the Germans?\"\n\n\"'Course not,\" Arsenii replied quietly and naturally, as though to a friend from his own village. His nose twitched.\n\nWhile they had been fighting their way out of the German encirclement, there had been no time to talk, and after that, they had both needed a good long sleep to recuperate. Now each had to go his separate way in the service, and in any case, there was too much difference in their ranks fora real talk. Somehow the opportunity had passed.\n\nVorotyntsev felt a lump in his throat and had to swallow. His squashed-potato nose still twitching slightly, Arsenii ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth; his tongue felt as if it were a little too big.\n\n\"Well, who knows... perhaps one of these days... we can... Do your duty, Arsenii... I expect you'll be a colonel too one day.\"\n\nThey both laughed.\n\n\"And make sure you go home in one piece.\"\n\n\"You too!\"\n\nVorotyntsev took off his cap, and Arsenii snatched off his own. A cold wind blew around them, and there was a slight drizzle.\n\nThey kissed on the lips. Arsenii had a hug like a bear.\n\nVorotyntsev turned and ran to catch up with\n\nSvechin. Blagodaryov strode on after the fussy, ill-tempered clerk.\n\nIn the cottage occupied by the quartermaster general's department there were no large rooms; the biggest could just take twenty people sitting closely packed. There were not, on paper, as many as twenty key senior oflBcers in the whole of General Headquarters, but twenty were now assembled, all of them obviously men whose opinions were important." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two small tables were placed at right angles to each other. Atone end was the commander-in-chief, the tallest man in the room even when sitting down. Beside him, inseparable as ever, was his brother the Grand-Duke Peter Nikolaevich, wearing an expression of dihgent attention (although everyone knew that for years he had been engaged not in military affairs but in ecclesiastical architecture). Next to him was their cousin, Prince Peter Oldenburg (a charming man). Then came His Serene Highness Adjutant General Prince Dmitry Gohtsyn (who in recent years had been in charge of the imperial hunting estates). The rest included the general-in-waiting. General Petrovo-Solovovo (a most dehghtful person, the Marshal of Nobility of Ryazan Province), the commander-in-chiefs chief of staff. Lieutenant General Yanushkevich, the quartermaster general, Lieutenant General Danilov, and the general duty oflScer of the headquarters. Immediately opposite the commander-in-chief, with his back to the wall at the angle of the tables, sat the general officer commanding the Northwestern Army Group, General-of-Cavalry Zhilinsky. Next came the representative at headquarters of the Foreign Office, the representative of the Admiralty, and the chief of army communications.\n\nThose for whom there was not room around the tables included several senior officers from the Operations Section, the commander-in-chief's duty aide-decamp, a Kalmuck prince who was Yanushkevich's ADC, and Zhilinsky's ADC; these had to sit where they could, on chairs by the window or by the stove, and, when necessary, wrote in notepads held on their knees.\n\nThe stove had been lit since early morning and its\n\nheat was needed. More and more often, the wmdow-panes were spattered with showers of chilly rain. Outside, it was so dull that it was almost dark enough to switch on the electric light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As there was so httle room for standing, it was agreed that officers would speak sitting down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This gave the meeting the less formal and more businesslike air of an exchange of opinions rather than an affair of set speeches.\n\nAt the invitation of the grand-duke, the conference was opened by Zhilinsky. Feeling it unnecessary to look at more than a few of those present, he only half raised his gray eyebrows and either looked down at his papers or up at the grand-duke, occasionally extending his field of vision by moving his head. As usual, he spoke with no attempt to color his words with emotion. He did not accept that anyone present might regard him as the accused. He spoke in a harsh, didactic tone, as the equal of the commander-in-chief who had been summoned on terms of parity to discuss an event that was unpleasant but not of major significance.\n\nThe dire catastrophe which had befallen Second Army was whoUy the fault of the late General Sam-sonov. It had begun with Samsonov's failure to carryout the Army Group's initial durective concerning the main axis of advance. (This was then described in detail.) Arbitrarily deviatmg from the prescribed axis, he had inadmissibly allowed the frontage of his army to become overstretched, had had his army corps march too far, and had thereby over-extended the lines of coromunication and supply. What was worse, he had allowed a gap to open between Fkst Army and Second Army which had hindered their mutu2d cooperation. Unlike the punctilious General Rennen-kampf, Samsonov had furthermore taken an excessively independent attitude toward many other orders issued to hun, (There followed a detailed list of what these were.) Particularly incomprehensible to a normal miod was Samsonov's order of August 14/15 to his center corps to continue advancing, when he already knew that both his flanking corps had veered" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "outward from their given axes. This crass error was compounded by Samsonov's impetuous decision to cutoff telegraph communication from Neidenburg, thus depriving Army Group Headquarters of any chance of preventmg the defeat of Second Army. When, after some delay, Army Group Headquarters discovered this state of affairs, it immediately telegraphed to all the corps of Second Army to retire to their starting lines, and it was entirely the fault of General Sam-sonov that the center corps did not receive these communications.\n\nThe army group commander did not raise his grating voice in the passages where he accused Samsonov; this served to reinforce the impression of events that he was attempting to convey to the conference-namely, that everything was, quite simply, Samsonov's fault-a view which naturally lessened tie feelings of guUt and unease of all present.\n\nNo one interrupted, no one whispered or even coughed. Only the flies, brought to life by the heat of the stove, buzzed about the room and settled in black clusters on the whitewashed stove chimney and the ceiling.\n\nInwardly, Vorotyntsev writhed in agony. At that moment, there was no one in Russia, indeed in all of war-torn Europe, whom he hated more than this man who was nicknamed the'living corpse.\" He hated his voice, his mud-colored face, his long, dyed moustaches with their ends turned up in an attempt to look impressive. But it was not merely for his performance today that he hated this gravedigger: forged link by link ever since his appointment as chief of the General Staff, the chain of his incompetence had been hung around the neck of the Russian army and was dragging it down to destruction. Now he was deliberately exculpating himself without fear of being contradicted or that there might be any other interpretation of events, least of all that he might be caUed to account or dismissed from his post, though even if this should happen there would always be another, eminently suitable job waitmg for him somewhere else. He had, after all, fulfilled his chief duty, which was to assist Gen-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "eral Joffre and Russia's ally France. At the very least he would be invited to Paris to accept bouquets of flowers from grateful French ladies and to lunch with the President of the Republic.\n\nHowever, notwithstanding the legacy of the cowardly Samsonov, General Zhilinsky was not going to leave his listeners without hope. He suggested some bold plans for retrieving the situation, namely to stage an immediate repeat performance of the combined maneuver of First Army and Second Army around the Masurian Lakes! Rennenkampf was already excellently placed to carryout this operation, having pushed deep into East Prussia, and it only remained to bring Second Army up to strength again with reinforcements, to reform some of its army corps and send its new commander, General Scheidemann, into the advance on the same axis that had been chosen before the outbreak of hostilities.\n\nAlthough Zhilinsky's report had covered everything of importance, it was now the turn of General Danilov to speak. The occasion would not be complete without a word from the man whom everyone present regarded as the leading strategist of the Russian army. As such, it was incumbent upon him not only to speak but to utter some profound thoughts, to make it clear that behind that domed forehead his great mind was ceaselessly at work on a host of brilliant strategic concepts. The truth was that his forehead was solid bone, his mind moved at a snail's pace, and the thoughts which passed through it were worthless. This being the case, the quartermaster general launched on his speech with all the smug self-confidence of a limited, second-class intellect.\n\nHe fully agreed, he declared, with all the points that the army group commander had just made. (There followed a detailed recapitulation of what they were.) But certain important observations should be added to that account. If Samsonov had not been so far behind schedule but had crossed the German frontier on August 6 according to plan, and if he had struck a blow at the enemy's flank in the area of the Masurian Lakes as he had been instructed, instead of waiting until the Germans had had tune to wheel and make a" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "frontal attack, then the enemy would undoubtedly have been caught off balance and we should today be celebrating a major victory. Furthermore, the disaster had been in no small part due to the fact that the men of Second Army were exhausted, for which General Samsonov was to blame because of his failure to give troops their proper rest days as laid down in the manual of infantry regulations. He was also guilty of many other errors of lesser significance.\n\nEven worse than what he said was the stupefying air of self-importance which the quartermaster general assumed when he finished spealdng. His very face, with its timid eyes, flat, shapeless little ears, and thin, spindly moustaches so incongruous that they seemed glued on, was stamped with ie blinkered dullness and inertia of some minor provincial official. Yet the airs the man gave himself! When he stopped talking, it was as though he dared not go further because it would mean touching on some profound secret that he could not divulge because the present assembly was not select enough. Deliberately he was creating the impression of martyrdom: he, Danilov, must guard the secret and carry on his narrow shoulders the full weight of military responsibility in all its complexity; onerous though the burden was, he, the expert, would solve all their problems for them. He alone, he im-phed, was the key figure in Russian strategy: officers junior to him could not hope to be so well informed or so capable, while above him were only the active but inexperienced Yanushkevich and the grand-duke, who, though brave and keen, was quite untrained as a strategist.\n\nNow the floor passed to the commander-in-chiefs chief of staff. How he wished he could skip his turn! Dark-eyed and bushy-moustached, Yanushkevich was a small man with a puffy face, an insinuating manner, and a deep affection for paper and files. Appointed in a fortunate moment by the good-natured Tsar, the affable Yanushkevich when faced with strategic operational matters had felt as frightened and lost as Little Red Ridmg Hood m the dark forest. But it was flattering to occupy such an exalted post, and his delight" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "in being offered it overcame his fears; in any case, how could he disappoint the charming, blue-eyed Emperor, who was as shy as Yanushkevich himself, and admit that he knew nothing at all about the job? Whenever he went driving in a carriage or walked across the parquet-floored expanses of the palaces of St. Petersburg, he could not help watching himself from the wings and repeating with fearful delight: \"Lieutenant General Yanushkevich, Chief of the Russian Imperial Staff!\" Ashe owed his promotion to the War Minister, he did express certain doubts to him, but Sukhomlinov brushed them aside in his usual hearty, optimistic manner: \"You'll soon learn the ropes, my dear fellow!\" From the first day of his appointment, Yanushkevich foimd himself the prisoner of Danilov, who was the only man who knew anything about operational matters and whose tone of voice never failed to convey reproach that Yanushkevich rather than he had been made chief of staff. Yanushkevich, on the other hand, did at least know one thing: that there were several ojB& cers in the Russian army who were much greater strategists than Danilov. But the latter was Sukhomlinov's nominee, and Yanushkevich, having privately admitted to Danilov that he regarded him as his superior in military thinking, and having promised to make sure that the latter was given exactly the same decorations and promotions as himself, had come to the conclusion that it was after all better to leave Danilov in the job. The only way these two men could survive the war was to remain lashed together like a pair of boats: Yanushkevich would look after the administrative side; Danilov, after the strategy.\n\nYanushkevich went through agonies every morning during the inevitable conferences on operational matters, but he was obliged to look as if he knew what he was talking about. But now the effort required was far greater: he had to maintain sufficient dignity so that no one should suspect how terrified he was of tripping up and how desperately inadequate he felt. How could he possibly criticize Zhilinsky, when the latter was a full general and, although formally his subordinate, in fact senior to him in the General Staff" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "list, and when he himself had been promoted to heu-tenant general ahead of proper seniority?\n\nIn carefully rounded phrases deUvered in a respectful tone of voice, Yanushkevich repeated everything that the others had said before him, adding nothing and missing nothing, simply altering the sequence of their remarks.\n\nAnd so it became increasingly clear to the conference just how deeply General Samsonov was to blame for the destruction of Second Army. What a relief that he had removed himself by committing suicide! The other generals, of course, would never have made the same mistakes. Consequently, the meeting had lost much of its tenseness; everything had been exhaustively discussed, every point covered.\n\nMeanwhile, Vorotyntsev, his pencil racing nervously across a sheet of paper on his map board, had been noting down their excuses and evasions, together with a shattering series of counter-arguments. Higher upon the same sheet of paper, in a steadier and more even hand, written the night before in black ink with a Japanese fountain pen, he had listed the main points of his case. When Yanushkevich spoke, he did not even bother to make notes; scarcely fistening, he half closed his eyes to avoid the sight of them all and in their place summoned up a mental picture of Samsonov's frank, guileless features-not as they must be now, lying in some unknown forest thicket, or as they were at Orlau when he had said farewell to his men, but as they had been at Ostrolenka, when he was still fully in charge, still capable of saving the battle (though even then there had been something helpless about his expression). And Vorotyntsev remembered how they had crashed their way through the undergrowth like wild boars as they escaped, remembered Kachkin's boarish snarl as he carried Ofrosimov on his shoulders, and how Blagodaryov had collapsed when they reached the Russian lines as though he had just plowed two or three hundred acres, and how as a final gesture he had thrust the point of his knife into the ground with his remaining strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev started up from his chair as though\n\nabout to stand and speak without permission, but Svechin, who was beside him, squeezed his elbow to advise caution. The grand-duke did not look in his direction.\n\nWith one thin cavalryman's leg crossed over the other, unbending, unapproachable, the ends of his moustaches turned slightly downward, the grand-duke stared ahead, and if he did look at anyone in particular, he glared straight down the table into the grayish-yellow face of Zhilinsky with its idiotically raised eyebrows. Only recently, in response to complaints, he had personally empowered Zhilinsky to dismiss Samsonov if it proved necessary, but since yesterday it had become more and more obvious to him that it was Zhilinsky who was chiefly to blame for the catastrophe; his immediate dismissal would be a most suitable demonstration of the commander-in-chiefs powers and the best possible lesson to the other generals. It would, however, be a pointless move: Zhilinsky's post as commander of Northwestern Army Group was too low fora man of his seniority, and he would be glad to be rid of it. He would immediately rush to Petersburg to complain to the Empress Dowager and the Tsarina, to whisper incomers with Sukhomlinov, and to smile at Rasputin. In the overheated atmosphere of court politics, anything was likely to be seized upon and turned against Nikolai Nikolaevich: if the war was going badly, it was because he lacked the quaUties of supreme commander; if things were going well, it was because he was ambitious, because he was a threat to the imperial family and was acting the part of'Nicholas III.\"\n\nThe Lord above knew how deeply the grand-duke grieved over the loss of the flower of his officer corps and the desperate sufferings of his troops caught in the German encirclement. But even the loss of seventy thousand men as casualties and prisoners of war was not the loss of Russia; Russia was a hundred and seventy million people. And to save them all, one must win not merely a battle or two at the front but first and foremost the much more serious battle going on at court to gain the heart of his beloved Emperor. To do this, he would have liked to get rid of the odious" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sukhomlinov, banish the filthy Rasputin (or, better still, hang him), and finally and most important of all, have the Empress shut up in a nunnery. (This was, of course, impossible; the Tsar would never agree to it and the grand-duke was incapable of acting against the Tsar's wishes, and yet... for Russia's sake... he could still dream of it.) In order not to spoU the chances of carrying out this plan, it was important for the time being not to strengthen the hand of the court party by provoking the ill wiW of Zhilin-sky. Out of love for Greater Russia the grand-duke had to stifle his feelings of pity and affection for that microcosm of Russia represented by Samsonov's army, which by now was in any case annihilated.\n\nNevertheless, it was necessary to shock Zhilinsky, to give him a thorough fright by letting Vorotyntsev loose on him. The grand-duke had not forgotten Vorotyntsev all this time; he had been watching the man's unease and suppressed fury out of the comer of his eye.\n\nOutside, the weather was as gloomy as ever, the rain still pattered on the panes, and it was by now so dark that they turned on the electric light. The whitewashed walls made the room appear very bright and everything stood out in the sharpest detail.\n\nIt was now the turn of the diplomat who represented the Foreign Office at General Headquarters. He asked the generals not to forget Russia's relations with foreign states, her obligations, and other factors of external policy. France was convinced that Russia was capable of making an enormous contribution to the common cause. The French government had been making representations to the Russian government suggesting that Russia had so far failed to put her full miUtary potential into the field; that the advance into East Prussia was a half-hearted measure; that according to French intelligence-^ which admittedly contradicted the information available to the Russians-far from having transferred two army corps from the Western to the Eastern front, the Germans had transferred them from the Russian front to the West, and that as anally France had the right to remind Rus-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "sia of her promise to launch an energetic advance on... Berlin.\n\nJust as etiquette demands that one take no notice of a tactless or improper word spoken in polite society, so all the grand-dukes and generals now ignored that last embarrassing word, some by gazing out the window, some by looking at the waU opposite them, others by staring down at their papers.\n\nIn actual fact, the word'Berlin\" had not been uttered. But the diplomat's impUcation had been uncomfortably accurate: everyone knew that it was the Tsar's wish that they should come to the aid of their French ally at all costs and with all possible speed. Naturally, the Russian losses were painful to bear, but the important thing was not to let the Allies down.\n\nThe chief of army communications then reported that the German front was being reinforced at full pressure, for which purpose a steady stream of troops was being transferred from the rrdhtary districts of Asiatic Russia. At this moment three Caucasian army corps-one from Turkestan and two from Siberia-were on their way or were already detraining in the west, and three more Siberian corps would arrive soon. Thus the material preparations for an immediate Russian counter-attack, so essential from a morale point of view, were already well underway.\n\nThis, said Zhilinsky, was the reason why he was asking those present at the conference to give him permission to repeat the operation arouild the Masurian Lakes.\n\nVorotyntsev knew that if he jumped to his feet now he would not only lose everything-^ his rank, his seniority, his whole army career-but the top of his own head was likely to explode with the sheer pent-up pressure of frustration. Lies, lies, lies! Were there no limits to this man's falsehood? Wrenching his elbow out of Svechin's grip and forgetting that speakers were not supposed to stand up at this conference, he rose in fury. His wrath was so great that he had forgotten how he had intended to start his speech. Then he heard the firm voice of the grand-duke: \"I shall now ask Colonel Vorotyntsev to give a report on his personal impressions. He has been with Second Army.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vorotyntsev's headlong, passionate, overmastering anger was only too visible; then discretion gained the upper hand and he took a grip on his pounding heart as he remembered the proverb'Master of your own anger-^ master of aU.\"\n\n\"This conference is all the more necessary. Your Imperial Highness, since Rennenkampf's army is at this very moment under threat and may suffer an even worse fate than Samsonov's.\"\n\n(Too loud; keep it quieter, don't show your feelings so openly.)\n\nEveryone present, including the grand-duke, shuddered and stirred uneasily as though someone had smashed a windowpane and the cold, wet wind was raging in from outside. His self-control increasing from sentence to sentence, Vorotyntsev gave what appeared to be a carefully prepared speech in which all viewpoints were judiciously weighed.\n\n\"Gentlemen! No one from Second Army has been invited to this conference; indeed, there is practically no one left to invite. But I was there during the last few days and I hope I maybe allowed to put forward the views which would have been expressed by men who are now dead or have been taken prisoner. I shall speak with the frankness which soldiers are taught to use and for which the dead maybe forgiven...\"\n\n(He must keep his voice from breaking, must not gulp for breath.)\n\n\"... I shall not speak of the gallantry shown by the men and their ofi& cers-^ no one at this meeting has cast any doubt on that. The names of certain regimental commanders-Pervushin, Alexeyev, Kabanov, Kakhovskoy-deserve to be recorded in the annals of bravery. The fact that upward of fifteen thousand men escaped from encirclement is due to the efforts of a few men at the level of colonel and staff captain, and to no one seated here. Whenever the Germans had less than a two-fold superiority in artillery, and sometimes even when they did, our units won the tactical battle. Under the heaviest possible bombardment they held their defensive lines for hours, as did the Vyborg regiment at Usdau. Yet in spite of this the battle as" }, { "from": "human", "value": "it was fought at army level resulted not merely in failure, as has been suggested here, but in total destruction!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stressed the word so violently that the whole room almost exploded. The blast of it lashed across the generals' faces.\n\nThe word'destruction\" was a challenge even to the commander-in-chief. He could not admit that much to the Tsar, despite his intention to hang his head in shame before His Majesty. He could not admit it, but he did not interrupt Vorotyntsev. Dignified, stem, aristocratic, he sat proud and stiff, so close by birth yet still so far from the seat of monarchy.\n\n\"... I have heard today how all the blame lies with General Samsonov. How convenient; the dead, after all, cannot answer back. It is particularly convenient since it absolves all of us here from any need to make amends. Convenient it maybe, but if no changes are made-if you will forgive me for assuming the self-imposed role of prophet-then catastrophes hke this will be repeated and we shall lose the whole war!\"\n\nThere was a rustle of indignation. Zhilinsky raised his dull eyes to the commander-in-chief with a look which said it was high time to make this impertinent colonel stop talking and sit down.\n\nBut the grand-duke, who could act sharply enough when he wanted to, did not move his stiffly upright head. He showed only that he was master of the situation.\n\n\"... Furthermore, on behalf of the late Alexander Vasilich Samsonov, I feel obliged to object to those who have already spoken. When he arrived at Bialy-stok from Turkestan, it was his opinion that the plan prepared in advance ordering him to move his army forward into the depths of the Masurian Lakes region, into an obvious geographical vacuum, was absurd. He wrote his alternative operational proposals in a detailed report to the commander-in-chief, and on July 29 he handed it to Lieutenant General Oranovsky, chief of staff of the Army Group.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Your voice is getting shriller-keep it down, keep it down.)\n\n\"... Days passed and he grew uneasy. No reply to his report was forthcoming. He asked me specifically to clarify the matter at General Headquarters, and only yesterday I discovered that the grand-duke had never been given the report!\"\n\nZhilinsky, the'living corpse,\" gave Vorotyntsev a deathly stare. As the commander-in-chief himself said nothing, he felt the moment had come to intervene. \"I know nothing of this report.\"\n\n\"So much the worse for you, your excellency!\" Vorotyntsev seemed positively pleased at this interruption, which gave him the opportunity to turn on Zhilinsky. \"That means that the truth cannot be discovered without a court of inquiry! And if one is held, I shall request the court to find that paper!\"\n\nOnce again a shiver of horror crossed the generals' faces. It was already clear what kind of a court of inquiry this impudent colonel... Everyone stared at the commander-in-chief: this lunatic must be stopped!\n\nBut the grand-duke kept his unwavering gaze riveted at a point above Zhilinsky's head.\n\nHis voice for once losing its characteristic dryness, ZhiHnsky strongly protested: \"Most probably. General Samsonov withdrew his report and took it back.\"\n\nVorotyntsev, as if he had been waiting for this objection, retahated hotly: \"No, he did not take it back, that has been verified!\" And he stared unwaveringly back at Zhilinsky, the Zhilinsky who at Ostrolenka, at Neidenburg, at Orlau had been an invisible presence but was now sitting an arm's length away-a deathly gray, bony old man with a stiff back who suffered from a continual need to go to the lavatory. \"The variation in the axis of advance which General Samsonov proposed and which he partially put into effect was a correct one, because it meant outflanking the enemy far more deeply than was proposed by Army Group Headquarters; its only defect was that it did not go deep enough. And the over-extension of the army's front was due in no less a degree to the army group commander's incomprehensible obstinacy in refusing to send troops to fill the gap beyond the Masurian Lakes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was not a gap-that terrain was the Unk be-\n\ntween the two armies!\" Zhilinsky interrupted in a firmer and sharper voice than before.\n\nBy now Vorotyntsev was aware of a tacit agreement between himself and the commander-in-chief: the latter was not going to interrupt him. And none of the other generals, singly or together, was in a position to contradict him. He had made the breakthrough. His mission had not been in vain. Cooler now, his tone more judicious and his lips twisted in sarcasm, he mercilessly thrashed Zhilinsky with sentence after sentence, each one curling like a whiplash.\n\n\"How could the two armies linkup, when one of them was being made to advance by forced marches and the other had practically been sent on leave? How could they linkup, when after the Battle of Gumbin-nen five of General Rennenkampf's cavalry divisions failed to set off in pursuit of the enemy and were not sent to the rescue of Second Army at the time when it was in crucial trouble? It almost seems as if Army Group Headquarters purposely made it impossible to coordinate the actions of the two armies by ordering First Army to advance a week earlier than Second Army. Why was this so? Or was it intended to linkup the two armies by transferring General Scheide-mann's corps to Rennenkampf on August 10 and then on the fourteenth ordering it to go to Warsaw? Apparently it was not needed in East Prussia on the very day that the decisive battle was being fought that was to seal the fate of Second Army.\"\n\nHow on earth did Vorotyntsev know about that particular episode? Here was an error of which General Headquarters itself was guilty. Danilov glanced suspiciously at Svechin and said uneasily: \"That was done for strategic considerations. Ninth Army was being prepared to advance on Berlin...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meanwhile, Second Army could be thrown to the wolves, I suppose?\" Vorotyntsev rudely cut him off. \" All the same, Scheidemann's corps was sent to help Second Army on August 15, and yet Army Group Headquarters ordered it to march in the wrong direction! But on the sixteenth that corps was ordered back to Warsaw, and on the seventeenth General Ren-\n\nnenkampf redirected it northward-^ was that the linkup of the two armies? And yet Northwestern Army Group was created solely to coordinate the actions of First and Second Armies. General Samsonov has been accused of showing alack of decisiveness, but what more crass example of indecision could there be than the army group commander's when, on the grounds of'security, \"\"guarding the lines of communication, \"\"covering the rear, ' etc., he refused to aUow half the army to move farther forward than Bischofsburg and Soldau?\"\n\nVorotyntsev had pressed home his point with such vehemence that ZhiUnsky's moustaches, which were already trembling with fury, looked as if they might go up in smoke at any moment.\n\n** HaLf the army? What do you mean-^ half the army?\"There was abuzz of objection, not only from Danilov but from his stupid protege, a colonel who went by the nickname of\" Brother Cain.\"\n\n\"Just count, gentlemen. Two army corps, one on the right flank and one on the left, and three cavalry divisions-that makes up exactly half the army. And with the other half Samsonov was ordered to advance and win a victory. And if Army Group had to keep control of the flanking corps, then the very least it should have done was to move them into help out the center corps when they were in trouble. Yes, I agree that General Samsonov made mistakes, but they were tactical mistakes. The strategic mistakes must be laid at the door of Army Group Headquarters. Samsonov on his own did not have numerical superiority over the enemy, but Army Group did, and in spite of that, the battle was lost. We must draw our conclusions, gentlemen-otherwise what is the point of this conference? What, in the end, is the point of having a staff and General Headquarters at all? We are incapable of deploying units bigger than a regiment-that is the conclusion!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your Highness, I request you to put an end to this colonel's idiotic remarks!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zhilinsky demanded, thumping the table to show that he was not yet quite a'corpse.\"\n\nThe grand-duke stared coldly at ZhiUnsky with his\n\nlarge, expressive, oval eyes. Then he said firmly and quietly: \"Colonel Vorotyntsev is talking sense. I myself have learned much from what he has said. In my opinion, General Headquarters\"-^ here he looked at Danilov, who lowered his bovine forehead, a movement politely imitated by Yanushkevich-\"exerted practically no direction over this operation at all, entrusting it entirely to Northwestern Army Group.\"\n\nHe knew quite well how worthless Danilov was. Often, when reading reports that Danilov had prepared, the grand-duke was far quicker at grasping the gist than the slow-witted general.\n\n\"And if the colonel commits an error, you are always at liberty to correct him.\"\n\nGroaning, Zhilinsky rose and went out to answer the call of nature.\n\nThe commander-in-chief felt greatly tempted. The facts of the case had all been given. They should be studied further, and a court of inquiry setup. Zhilinsky should be dismissed with ignominy, and General Headquarters would be in the clear.\n\nHowever, by his gracious telegram of the day before, the Tsar had shown the grand-duke away out: the way of forgiveness, of letting bygones be bygones. Also, another imperial edict, as yet unannounced, had just arrived, authorizing Oranovsky's promotion to the rank of full general; matters concerning promotion took their course independently of the progress of war, and there was no holding them lip.\n\nJust as the cavalry, having broken through a defensive position with some losses, has a freehand to ravage the enemy's rear, so Vorotyntsev now had a chance to gallop around and deal out a few more saber blows. The real conference, in fact, was only just beginning!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... However, I had intended to deal with broader issues. What was it that sapped the strength of Second Army? It was having to march on foot across our own deserted, trackless Russian territory. Even before reaching the frontier, even before making contact with the enemy, the troops had to spend five, six days slogging their way through sand! And then we\n\nhad to transport ammunition, guns, food, supplies, across that same expanse-and what with? With inadequate transport. Why were no supplies built up in readiness along the frontier before the war began?\"\n\nYanushkevich frowned. It was positively painful to have to listen to this unrepentant'Young Turk\" from Golovin's class at the General Staff Academy. Why was the grand-duke subjecting them to this torture?\n\n\"If we had done so, the enemy might have seized those supphes,\" he explained cuttingly from under his bushy moustache.\n\n\"But surely,\" Vorotyntsev remonstrated, his jaw mottled purple with anger, \"you don't think it's preferable to lose twenty thousand men killed and seventy thousand prisoners rather than a few dozen military storage depots?\"\n\n\"The storage depots were not built near the frontier, ' * Danilov confidently insisted,\" because we had not planned to conduct an offensive on that front, but to defend it.\"\n\nThis was true. In mentioning it, however, he had touched on the fact that the whole war plan had been hastily altered-altered, indeed, by none other than ZhiUnsky himself during his time as chief of the General Staff, an action which had been approved not only by the War Minister but by the Tsar himself. This was the new plan which the grand-duke had been forced to accept a month ago. Here Vorotyntsev was on thin ice and could venture no further. He was just about to make another pointed remark when the door opened and Zhilinsky waddled back to his seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... But the chief reason why Samsonov's army was destroyed was that, like the rest of the Russian army, it was not ready to advance so soon. Everyone here is aware that full readiness was calculated as attainable two months after mobilization. A month at the very least was needed for any sort of advance to take place.\"\n\nZhilinsky had reached his seat, but he did not sit down. The discussion was getting too near the bone, so he remained standing, facing Vorotyntsev, his fists resting on the table. Throwing out his chest Uke a\n\nboxer, purple in the face with tension, Vorotyntsev aimed his remarks at Zhilinsky alone. \"The fatal decision was taken when, out of a desire to please the French, we gave that lighthearted promise to begin war operations on the fifteenth day of mobilization, a date on which the Russian army would beat one-third readiness! What incompetence-to promise to send our forces into battle only pardy mobilized and wholly unprepared!\"\n\n\"Your Highness!\" Zhilinsky exclaimed to the grand-duke. \"This is an insult to Russia's national honor! The decision was approved by the Tsar. By the convention signed with our ally France...\"\n\nTaking the last second of the commander-in-chiefs patience with him, Vorotyntsev hurled back an answer vivid with hatred: \"According to that convention, Russia promised \"decisive help,\" not suicide! It was your signature which committed Russia to suicide, your excellency!\"\n\n(Yanushkevich, his head lowered cravenly, was forgotten. It was he who had demanded of Northwestern Army Group that the advance should start four days earlier than planned.)\n\n\"It was signed by the War Minister too!\" shouted Zhilinsky, but in a voice that was beginning to crack and had lost its force. \"And approved by His Majesty. An officer like you has no business to beat General Headquarters! And no business to be in the Russian army either! Your Imperial Highness... I\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Handsome and dignified as ever, the grand-duke sat as though carved in stone, half turned from the table, one leg crossed over the other. To Vorotyntsev he said sadly but with stony insistence: \"Yes, Colonel. You have overstepped the bounds of what is permissible. It was not for this that I allowed you to speak.\"\n\nHis speech was over-the last words, perhaps, of his whole military career. Yet it pained him not to be able to say one final thing: not to speak what he knew to be true was unbearable. Knowing that all was lost, having nothing more to fear, free of all inhibitions, seeing with his mind's eye the men of the Dorogobuzh regiment bearing their dead colonel on their shoul-\n\nders, carrying the wounded lieutenant, seeing Staff Captain Semechkin, that bold, cheerful, httle turkey cock of a man, breaking his way through the German lines with two companies of the Zvenigorod regiment, Vorotyntsev turned and gave a ringing reply to the commander-in-chief: \"Your Imperial Highness! Like you and like General Zhilinsky, I too am an officer of this army, and all we Russian ofi& cers bear a responsibility for the history of Russia. We simply cannot be allowed to goon losing campaign after campaign. Tomorrow it will be the turn of the French to despise us!\"\n\nSuddenly the grand-duke flared up in one of his rare bursts of anger and cut him short: \"Colonel! Leave this conference!\"\n\nVorotyntsev felt a great sense of relief and freedom: the burning arrow had been wrenched out of his chest. Yet it had taken some flesh with it too. He said no more. He sprang to attention, his hands down the seams of his trousers. He turned about with a click of the heels and marched toward the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the door, toward him, came an aide-decamp, beaming with dehght. \"Your Imperial Highness! A telegram from the Southwestern Front!\"\n\nThis was it. This was what they had been waiting for. Turning, the grand-duke stood up. All the others rose.\n\n\"Gentlemen! The Mother of God has not abandoned our Russia! The city of Lvov has been captured. A colossal victory. We must give the news to the press.\"\n\nUntruth did not begin with us; nor will it end with us.\n\n1969-70" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Serve as the author's scribe, continue the tale.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The will to truth, which is still going to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise; that celebrated veracity of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with reverence: what questions this will to truth has already set before us! What strange, wicked, questionable questions! It is already along story– yet does it not seem as if it has only just begun? Is it any wonder we should at last grow distrustful, lose our patience, turn impatiently away? That this sphinx should teach us too to ask questions? Who really is it that here questions us? What really is it in us that wants \"the truth\"? – We did indeed pause fora longtime before the question of the origin of this will– until finally we came to a complete halt before an even more fundamental question. We asked after the value of this will. Granted we want truth: why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? – The problem of the value of truth stepped before us– or was it we who stepped before this problem? Which of us is Oedipus here? Which of us sphinx? It is, it seems, a rendezvous of questions and question-marks. – And, would you believe it, it has finally almost come to seem to us that this problem has never before been posed– that we have been the first to see it, to fix our eye on it, to hazard it? For there is a hazard in it and perhaps there exists no greater hazard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How could something originate in its antithesis? Truth in error, for example? Or will to truth in will to deception? Or the unselfish act in self-interest? Or the pure radiant gaze of the sage in covetousness? Such origination is impossible; he who dreams of it is a fool, indeed worse than a fool; the things of the highest value must have another origin of their own– they cannot be derivable from this transitory, seductive, deceptive, mean little world, from this confusion of desire and illusion! In the womb of being, rather, in the intransitory, in the hidden god, in the'thing in itself\" – that is where their cause must lie and nowhere else!\" – This mode of judgement constitutes the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all ages can be recognized; this mode of evaluation stands in the background of all their logical procedures; it is on account of this their \"faith\" that they concern themselves with their \"knowledge\", with something that is at last solemnly baptized \"the truth\". The fundamental faith of the metaphysicians is the faith in antithetical values. It has not occurred to even the most cautious of them to pause and doubt hereon the threshold, where however it was most needful they should: even if they had vowed to themselves'de omnibus dubitandum\" . For it maybe doubted, firstly whether there exist any antitheses at all, and secondly whether these popular evaluations and value-antitheses, on which the metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely foreground valuations, merely provisional perspectives, perhaps moreover the perspectives of a hole-and-corner, perhaps from below, as it were frog-perspectives, to borrow an expression employed by painters. With all the value that may adhere to the true, the genuine, the selfless, it could be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for all life might have to be ascribed to appearance, to the will to deception, to selfishness and to appetite. It might even be possible that what constitutes the value of those good and honoured things resides precisely in their being artfully related, knotted and crocheted to these wicked, apparently antithetical things, perhaps even in their being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! – But who is willing to concern himself with such dangerous perhapses! For that we have to await the arrival of anew species of philosopher, one which possesses tastes and inclinations opposite to and different from those of its predecessors– philosophers of the dangerous \"perhaps\" in every sense. – And to speak in all seriousness: I see such new philosophers arising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having kept a close eye on philosophers and read between their lines fora sufficient length of time, I tell myself: the greater part of conscious thinking must still be counted among the instinctive activities, and this is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; we have to learn differently here as we have learned differently in regard to heredity and the \"innate\". Just as the act of being born plays no part in the procedure and progress of heredity, so \"being conscious\" is in no decisive sense the opposite of the instinctive– most of a philosopher's conscious thinking is secretly directed and compelled into definite channels by his instincts. Behind all logic too and its apparent autonomy there stand evaluations, in plainer terms physiological demands for the preservation of a certain species of life. For example, that the definite shall be of greater value than the indefinite, appearance of less value than'truth\": but such valuations as these could, their regulatory importance for us notwithstanding, be no more than foreground valuations, a certain species of niaiserie which maybe necessary precisely for the preservation of beings such as us. Assuming, that is to say, that it is not precisely man who is the'measure of things'..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The falseness of a judgement is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgement: it is here that our new language perhaps sounds strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding; and our fundamental tendency is to assert that the falsest judgements (to which synthetic judgements a priori belong) are the most indispensable to us, that without granting as true the fictions of logic, without measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical, without a continual falsification of the world by means of numbers, mankind could not live– that to renounce false judgements would be to renounce life, would be to deny life. To recognize untruth as a condition of life: that, to be sure, means to resist customary value-sentiments in a dangerous fashion; and a philosophy which ventures to do so places itself, by that act alone, beyond good and evil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What makes one regard philosophers half mistrustfully and half mockingly is not that one again and again detects how innocent they are– how often and how easily they fall into error and go astray, in short their childishness and childlikeness– but that they display altogether insufficient honesty, while making a mighty and virtuous noise as soon as the problem of truthfulness is even remotely touched on. They pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic (in contrast to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and more stupid than they– these speak of \"inspiration\"): while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an \"inspiration\", generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event– they are one and all advocates who do not want to be regarded as such, and for the most part no better than cunning pleaders for their prejudices, which they baptize \"truths\"– and very far from possessing the courage of the conscience which admits this fact to itself, very far from possessing the good taste of the courage which publishes this fact, whether to warn a foe or a friend or out of high spirits and in order to mock itself. The tartuffery, as stiff as it is virtuous, of old Kant as he lures us along the dialectical bypaths which lead, more correctly, mislead, to his \"categorical imperative\"– this spectacle makes us smile, we who are fastidious and find no little amusement in observing the subtle tricks of old moralists and moral-preachers. Not to speak of that hocus-pocus of mathematical form in which, as if in iron, Spinoza encased and masked his philosophy– \"the love of his wisdom\", to render that word fairly and squarely– so as to strike terror into the heart of any assailant who should dare to glance at that invincible maiden and Pallas Athene– how much personal timidity and vulnerability this masquerade of a sick recluse betrays!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It has gradually become clear tome what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir; moreover, that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy have every time constituted the real germ of life out of which the entire plant has grown. To explain how a philosopher's most remote metaphysical assertions have actually been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to ask oneself first: what morality does this (does he–) aim at? I accordingly do not believe a'drive to knowledge'to be the father of philosophy, but that another drive has, here as elsewhere, only employed knowledge (and false knowledge!) as a tool. But anyone who looks at the basic drives of mankind to see to what extent they may in precisely this connection have come into play as inspirational spirits (or demons and kobolds–) will discover that they have all at sometime or other practised philosophy– and that each one of them would be only too glad to present itself as the ultimate goal of existence and as the legitimate master of all the other drives. For every drive is tyrannical: and it is as such that it tries to philosophize.-In the case of scholars, to be sure, in the case of really scientific men, things maybe different–\"better\", if you will– there may really exist something like a drive to knowledge there, some little independent clockwork which, when wound up, works bravely on without any of the scholar's other drives playing any essential part. The scholar's real'interests'therefore generally lie in quite another direction, perhaps in his family or in making money or in politics; it is, indeed, almost a matter of indifference whether his little machine is setup in this region of science or that, whether the'promising' young worker makes himself into a good philologist or a specialist in fungus or a chemist– he is not characterized by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is nothing whatever impersonal; and, above all, his morality bears decided and decisive testimony to who he is– that is to say, to the order of rank the innermost drives of his nature stand in relative to one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more venomous than the joke Epicurus allowed himself to make against Plato and the Platonists: he called them Dionysiokolakes. The literal and foreground meaning of this word is \"flatterers of Dionysus\", that is to say, tyrants'hangers-on and lickspittles; in addition, however, it is as much as to say'they are all actors, there is nothing genuine about them'(for Dionysiokolax was a popular term for an actor). And the latter meaning is really the piece of malice that Epicurus discharged at Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scène of which Plato and his pupils were masters– of which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old schoolteacher from Samos who sat hidden in his little garden at Athens and wrote three hundred books– who knows, perhaps out of rage at Plato and ambitious envy of him? – It took a century for Greece to find out who this garden god Epicurus had been. – Did it find out? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In every philosophy there is a point at which the philosopher's\"conviction' appears on the scene: or, to put it in the words of an ancient Mystery:\n\nadventavit asinus,\n\npulcher et fortissimus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You want to live \"according to nature\"? O you noble Stoics, what fraudulent words! Think of a being such as nature is, prodigal beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without aims or intentions, without mercy or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain; think of indifference itself as a power– how could you live according to such indifference? To live– is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is living not valuating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And even if your imperative \"live according to nature\" meant at bottom the same thing as \"live according to life\"– how could you not do that? Why make a principle of what you yourselves are and must be? – The truth of it is, however, quite different: while you rapturously pose as deriving the canon of your law from nature, you want something quite the reverse of that, you strange actors and self-deceivers! Your pride wants to prescribe your morality, your ideal, to nature, yes to nature itself, and incorporate them in it; you demand that nature should be nature \"according to the Stoa\" and would like to make all existence exist only after your own image– as a tremendous eternal glorification and universalization of Stoicism! All your love of truth notwithstanding, you have compelled yourselves for so long and with such persistence and hypnotic rigidity to view nature falsely, namely Stoically, you are no longer capable of viewing it in any other way– and some abysmal arrogance infects you at last with the Bedlamite hope that, because you know how to tyrannize over yourselves– Stoicism is self-tyranny– nature too can be tyrannized over: for is the Stoic not apiece of nature?... But this is an old and never-ending story: what formerly happened with the Stoics still happens today as soon as a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image, it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power, to \"creation of the world\", to causa prima." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The zeal and subtlety, I might even say slyness, with which the problem \"of the real and apparent world\" is set upon allover Europe today makes one think hard and prick up one's ears; and anyone who hears in the background only a'will to truth'and nothing more, certainly does not enjoy the best of hearing. In rare and isolated cases such a will to truth, some extravagant and adventurous courage, a metaphysician's ambition to maintain a forlorn position, may actually play apart and finally prefer a handful of \"certainty\" to a whole cartful of beautiful possibilities; there may even exist puritanical fanatics of conscience who would rather lie down and die on a sure nothing than on an uncertain something. But this is nihilism and the sign of a despairing, mortally weary soul, however brave the bearing of such a virtue may appear. In the case of stronger, livelier thinkers who are still thirsty for life, however, it seems to be different: when they take sides against appearance and speak even of \"perspective\" with an arrogant disdain, when they rank the credibility of their own body about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence which says \"the earth stands still\", and thus with apparent good humour let slip their firmest possession (for what is believed in more firmly today than the body?) – who knows whether they are not at bottom trying to win back something that was formerly an even firmer possession, some part or other of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps \"the immortal soul\", perhaps \"the old God\", in short ideas by which one could live better, that is to say more vigorously and joyfully, than by \"modern ideas\"? There is distrust of these modern ideas in this outlook, there is disbelief in all that has been constructed yesterday and today; there is perhaps in addition a little boredom and mockery which can no longer endure the bric-à-brac of concepts of the most various origin such as so-called positivism brings to the market today; the disgust of a more fastidious taste at the village-fair motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters in whom there is nothing new or genuine except this motleyness. In this, it seems tome, we ought to acknowledge that these sceptical anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of today are in the right: the instinct which makes them recoil from modern reality stands unrefuted– what do we care about the retrograde bypaths they choose! The essential thing about them is not that they want to go \"back\", but that they want to– getaway. A little strength, soaring, courage, artistic power more, and they would want to go up and away– and not back! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seems tome that there is today an effort going on everywhere to distract attention from the actual influence exercised on German philosophy by Kant and, in particular, prudently to gloss over the value he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his table of categories; with this table in his hand he said: \"This is the hardest thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics.\" – But let us understand this \"could be\"! He was proud of having discovered anew faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgements a priori. Granted he deceived himself in this: the evolution and rapid burgeoning of German philosophy none the less depended on this pride of his and on the eager rivalry of the whole younger generation to discover, if possible, something of which to be still prouder– and in any event \"new faculties\"! – But let us stop and reflect: it is time we did so. Kant asked himself: how are synthetic judgements a priori possible? – and what, really, did he answer? By means of a faculty: but unfortunately not in a few words, but so circumspectly, venerably, and with such an expenditure of German profundity and flourishes that the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer was overlooked. People even lost their heads altogether on account of this new faculty, and the rejoicing reached its climax when Kant went on further to discover amoral faculty in man– for at that time the Germans were still moral and by no means practitioners of Realpolitik. – The honeymoon time of German philosophy arrived; and the young theologians of the College of Tübingen went straightway off into the bushes– all in search of \"faculties\". And what did they not find– in that innocent, rich, still youthful era of the German spirit, to which the malicious fairy, romanticism, piped and sang, in those days when one was not yet able to distinguish between \"finding\" and \"inventing\"! They found above all a faculty for the \"suprasensible\": Schelling baptized it intellectual intuition, and therewith satisfied the most heartfelt longings of his Germans, which longings were fundamentally pious. One can do no greater wrong to this whole high-spirited and enthusiastic movement, which was really youthfulness however boldly it disguised itself in hoary and senile concepts, than to take it seriously and, an even worse injustice, to treat it with moral indignation; it is enough to say that one grew older– and the dream disappeared. A time came when one rubbed one's eyes: one is still rubbing them today. One had been dreaming: and the first and foremost of the dreamers was– old Kant.\"By means of a faculty\"– he had said, or at least meant. But is that– an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep?\"By means of a faculty', namely the virtus dormitiva– replies the doctor in Molière,\n\nquia est in eo virtus dormitiva," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cujus est natura sensus assoupire.\n\nBut answers like that belong in comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question \"how are synthetic judgements a priori possible?\" with another question: \"why is belief in such judgements necessary?\" – that is to say, it is time to grasp that, for the purpose of preserving beings such as ourselves, such judgements must be believed to be true; although they might of course still be false judgements! Or more clearly, crudely and basically: synthetic judgements a priori should not \"be possible\" at all: we have no right to them, in our mouths they are nothing but false judgements. But belief in their truth is, of course, necessary as foreground belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective optics of life. – Finally, in considering the enormous influence \"German philosophy\"– I hope you understand its right to inverted commas? – has exercised throughout Europe, one cannot doubt that a certain virtus dormitiva has played apart in it: the noble idlers, the virtuous, the mystics, the artists, the three-quarter Christians and the political obscurantists of all nations were delighted to possess, thanks to German philosophy, an antidote to the still overwhelming sensualism which had overflowed out of the previous century into this, in short– \"sensus assoupire\" ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted things there are; and perhaps no scholar in Europe is still so unscholarly today as to accord it serious significance except for handy everyday use (as an abbreviated means of expression) – thanks above all to the Pole Boscovich who, together with the Pole Copernicus, has been the greatest and most triumphant opponent of ocular evidence hitherto. For while Copernicus persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does not stand firm, Boscovich taught us to abjure belief in the last thing of earth that \"stood firm\", belief in \"substance\", in \"matter\", in the earth-residuum and particle atom: it was the greatest triumph over the senses hitherto achieved on earth. – One must, however, go still further and also declare war, a remorseless war of the knife, on the \"atomistic need\" which, like that more famous \"metaphysical need\", still goes on living a dangerous after-life in regions where no one suspects it– one must also first of all finish off that other and more fateful atomism which Christianity has taught best and longest, the soul atomism. Let this expression be allowed to designate that belief which regards the soul as being something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon: this belief ought to be ejected from science! Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary by that same act to get rid of \"the soul\" itself and thus forgo one of the oldest and most venerable of hypotheses: as is often the way with clumsy naturalists, who can hardly touch \"the soul\" without losing it. But the road to new forms and refinements of the soul-hypothesis stands open: and such conceptions as \"mortal soul\" and \"soul as multiplicity of the subject\" and \"soul as social structure of the drives and emotions\" want henceforth to possess civic rights in science. To be sure, when the new psychologist puts an end to the superstition which has hitherto flourished around the soul-idea with almost tropical luxuriance, he has as it were thrust himself out into anew wilderness and anew mistrust– it maybe that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it– : ultimately, however, he sees that, by precisely that act, he has also condemned himself to inventing the new– and, who knows? perhaps to finding it. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Physiologists should think again before postulating the drive to self-preservation as the cardinal drive in an organic being. A living thing desires above all to vent its strength– life as such is will to power– : self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent consequences of it. – In short, here as everywhere, beware of superfluous teleological principles! – such as is the drive to self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's inconsistency). For this is a requirement of method, which has essentially to be economy of principles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that physics too is only an interpretation and arrangement of the world (according to our own requirements, if I may say so!) and not an explanation of the world: but in so far as it is founded on belief in the senses it passes for more than that and must continue to do so fora longtime to come. It has the eyes and the hands on its side, it has ocular evidence and palpability on its side: and this has the effect of fascinating, persuading, convincing an age with fundamentally plebeian tastes– for it instinctively follows the canon of eternal, popular sensualism. What is obvious, what has been \"explained\"? Only that which can be seen and felt– thus far has every problem to be scrutinized. Obversely: it was precisely in opposition to palpa bility that the charm of the Platonic mode of thinking, which was a noble mode of thinking, consisted– on the part of men who perhaps rejoiced in even stronger and more exacting senses than our contemporaries possess, but who knew how to experience a greater triumph in mastering them: which they did by means of pale, cold, grey conceptual nets thrown over the motley whirl of the senses– the mob of the senses, as Plato called them. This overcoming and interpretation of the world in the manner of Plato involved a kind of enjoyment different from that which the physicists of today offer us, or from that offered us by the Darwinists and anti-teleologists among the labourers in physiology, with their principle of the \"smallest possible effort\" and the greatest possible stupidity. \"Where man has nothing more to see or grasp he has nothing more to do\"– that is certainly a different imperative from the Platonic, but for an uncouth industrious race of machinists and bridge-builders of the future, which has nothing but coursework to get through, it may well be the right one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If one is to pursue physiology with a good conscience one is compelled to insist that the organs of sense are not phenomena in the sense of idealist philosophy: for if they were they could not be causes! Sensualism therefore is at least a regulative hypothesis, certainly a heuristic principle. – What? and others even go so far as to say that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as apiece of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be– the work of our organs! This, it seems tome, is a complete reductio ad absurdum, supposing that the concept causa sui is something altogether absurd. Consequently the external world is not the work of our organs– ?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are still harmless self-observers who believe \"immediate certainties\" exist, for example \"I think\" or, as was Schopenhauer's superstition,\"I will\": as though knowledge here got hold of its object pure and naked, as'thing in itself\", and no falsification occurred either on the side of the subject or on that of the object. But I shall reiterate a hundred times that'immediate certainty\", like'absolute knowledge'and'thing in itself\", contains a contradictio in adjecto: we really ought to get free from the seduction of words! Let the people believe that knowledge is total knowledge, but the philosopher must say to himself: when I analyse the event expressed in the sentence'I think\", I acquire a series of rash assertions which are difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove– for example, that it is I who think, that it has to be something at all which thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of an entity thought of as a cause, that an'I\"exists, finally that what is designated by'thinking'has already been determined– that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided that matter within myself, by what standard could I determine that what is happening is not perhaps'willing'or'feeling\"? Enough: this'I think'presupposes that I compare my present state with other known states of myself in order to determine what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with other'knowledge'at any rate it possesses no immediate certainty for me. – In place of that'immediate certainty'in which the people may believe in the present case, the philosopher acquires in this way a series of metaphysical questions, true questions of conscience for the intellect, namely:\"Whence do I take the concept thinking? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an'I\", and even of an'I\" as cause, and finally of an'I\" as cause of thought? \"Whoever feels able to answer these metaphysical questions straightaway with an appeal to a sort of intuitive knowledge, as he does who says:\"I think, and know that this at least is true, actual and certain\"– will find a philosopher today ready with a smile and two question-marks.\"My dear sir, \"the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand,\"it is improbable you are not mistaken: but why do you want the truth at all? ' –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for the superstitions of the logicians, I shall never tire of underlining a concise little fact which these superstitious people are loath to admit– namely, that a thought comes when \"it\" wants, not when \"I\" want; so that it is a falsification of the facts to say: the subject \"I\" is the condition of the predicate \"think\". It thinks: but that this \"it\" is precisely that famous old \"I\" is, to put it mildly, only an assumption, an assertion, above all not an \"immediate certainty\". For even with this \"it thinks\" one has already gone too far: this \"it\" already contains an interpretation of the event and does not belong to the event itself. The inference here is in accordance with the habit of grammar: \"thinking is an activity, to every activity pertains one who acts, consequently–\" . It was more or less in accordance with the same scheme that the older atomism sought, in addition to the \"force\" which acts, that little lump of matter in which it resides, out of which it acts, the atom; more rigorous minds at last learned to get along without this \"residuum of earth\", and perhaps we and the logicians as well will one day accustom ourselves to getting along without that little \"it\"(which is what the honest old \"I\" has evaporated into)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable: it is with precisely this charm that it entices subtler minds. It seems that the hundred times refuted theory of \"free will\" owes its continued existence to this charm alone– : again and again there comes along someone who feels he is strong enough to refute it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Philosophers are given to speaking of the will as if it were the best-known thing in the world; Schopenhauer, indeed, would have us understand that the will alone is truly known to us, known completely, known without deduction or addition. But it seems tome that in this case too Schopenhauer has done only what philosophers in general are given to doing: that he has taken up a popular prejudice and exaggerated it. Willing seems tome to be above all something complicated, something that is a unity only as a word– and it is precisely in this one word that the popular prejudice resides which has overborne the always inadequate caution of the philosophers. Let us therefore be more cautious for once, let us be \"unphilosophical\"– let us say: in all willing there is, first of all, a plurality of sensations, namely the sensation of the condition we leave, the sensation of the condition towards which we go, the sensation of this \"leaving\" and \"going\" itself, and then also an accompanying muscular sensation which, even without our putting \"arms and legs\" in motion, comes into play through a kind of habit as soon as we \"will\". As feelings, and indeed many varieties of feeling, can therefore be recognized as an ingredient of will, so, in the second place, can thinking: in every act of will there is a commanding thought– and do not imagine that this thought can be separated from the \"willing\", as though will would then remain over! Thirdly, will is not only a complex of feeling and thinking, but above all an affect: and in fact the affect of command. What is called \"freedom of will\" is essentially the affect of superiority over him who must obey: \"I am free, \"he\" must obey\"– this consciousness adheres to every will, as does that tense attention, that straight look which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, that unconditional evaluation \"this and nothing else is necessary now\", that inner certainty that one will be obeyed, and whatever else pertains to the state of him who gives commands. A man who wills– commands something in himself which obeys or which he believes obeys. But now observe the strangest thing of all about the will– about this so complex thing for which people have only one word: inasmuch as in the given circumstances we at the same time command and obey, and as the side which obeys know the sensations of constraint, compulsion, pressure, resistance, motion which usually begin immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as, on the other hand, we are in the habit of disregarding and deceiving ourselves over this duality by means of the synthetic concept \"I\"; so a whole chain of erroneous conclusions and consequently of false evaluations of the will itself has become attached to the will as such– so that he who wills believes wholeheartedly that willing suffices for action. Because in the great majority of cases willing takes place only where the effect of the command, that is to say obedience, that is to say the action, was to be expected, the appearance has translated itself into the sensation, as if there were here a necessity of effect. Enough: he who wills believes with a tolerable degree of certainty that will and action are somehow one– he attributes the success, the carrying out of the willing, to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of that sensation of power which all success brings with it. \"Freedom of will\"– is the expression for that complex condition of pleasure of the person who wills, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor of the command– who as such also enjoys the triumph over resistances involved but who thinks it was his will itself which overcame these resistances. He who wills adds in this way the sensations of pleasure of the successful executive agents, the serviceable \"under-wills\" or under-souls– for our body is only asocial structure composed of many souls– to his sensations of pleasure as commander. L'effet, c'est moi: what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed and happy commonwealth: the ruling class identifies itself with the successes of the commonwealth. In all willing it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as I have said already, of asocial structure composed of many \"souls\": on which account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing as such within the field of morality: that is, of morality understood as the theory of the relations of dominance under which the phenomenon \"life\" arises. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That individual philosophical concepts are not something arbitrary, something growing up autonomously, but on the contrary grow up connected and related to one another; that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they appear to emerge in the history of thought, they none the less belong just as much to a system as do the members of the fauna of a continent: that fact is in the end also shown in the fact that the most diverse philosophers unfailingly fill out again and again a certain basic scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell they always trace once more the identical orbit: however independent of one another they may feel, with their will to criticism or systematism, something in them leads them, something drives them in a definite order one after another: it is precisely that innate systematism and relationship of concepts. Their thinking is in fact not so much a discovering as a recognizing, a remembering, a return and home-coming to afar-off, primordial total household of the soul out of which those concepts once emerged– philosophizing is to that extent a species of atavism of the first rank. The singular family resemblance between all Indian, Greek and German philosophizing is easy enough to explain. Where there exists a language affinity it is quite impossible, thanks to the common philosophy of grammar– I mean thanks to unconscious domination and directing by similar grammatical functions– to avoid everything being prepared in advance fora similar evolution and succession of philosophical systems: just as the road seems to be barred to certain other possibilities of world interpretation. Philosophers within the domain of the Ural-Altaic languages (in which the concept of the subject is least developed) will in all probability look \"into the world\" differently and be found on different paths from the Indo-Germans and Moslems: the spell of definite grammatical functions is in the last resort the spell of physiological value judgements and racial conditions. – So much byway of retort to Locke's superficiality with regard to the origin of ideas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The causa sui is the best self-contradiction hitherto imagined, a kind of logical rape and unnaturalness: but mankind's extravagant pride has managed to get itself deeply and frightfully entangled with precisely this piece of nonsense. For the desire for'freedom of will'in that metaphysical superlative sense which is unfortunately still dominant in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the whole and sole responsibility for one's actions and to absolve God, world, ancestors, chance, society from responsibility for them, is nothing less than the desire to be precisely that causa sui and, with more than Münchhausen temerity, to pull oneself into existence out of the swamp of nothingness by one's own hair. Assuming it is possible in this way to get beyond the peasant simplicity of this celebrated concept'free will'and banish it from one's mind, I would then ask whoever does that to carry his \"enlightenment\" a step further and also banish from his mind the contrary of that unnatural concept \"free will\": I mean \"unfree will\", which amounts to an abuse of cause and effect. One ought not to make \"cause\" and \"effect\" into material things, as natural scientists do (and those who, like them, naturalize in their thinking–), in accordance with the prevailing mechanistic stupidity which has the cause press and push until it \"produces an effect\"; one ought to employ \"cause\" and \"effect\" only as pure concepts, that is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation, mutual understanding, not explanation. In the \"in itself\" there is nothing of \"causal connection\", of \"necessity\", of \"psychological unfreedom\"; there \"the effect\" does not \"follow the cause\", there no \"law\" rules. It is we alone who have fabricated causes, succession, reciprocity, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, motive, purpose; and when we falsely introduce this world of symbols into things and mingle it with them as though this symbol-world were an \"in itself\", we once more behave as we have always behaved, namely mythologically. \"Unfree will\" is mythology: in real life it is only a question of strong and weak wills. – It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in himself when a thinker detects in every \"causal connection\" and \"psychological necessity\" something of compulsion, exigency, constraint, pressure, unfreedom: such feelings are traitors, the person who has them gives himself away. And, if I have observed correctly, \"unfreedom of will\" is in general conceived as a problem from two completely antithetical standpoints but always in a profoundly personal manner: one will at no price give up his \"responsibility\", his belief in himself, the personal right to his deserts (the vain races belong here–), the other, on the contrary, will not be responsible for anything, to blame for anything, and out of an inner self-contempt wants to be able to shift off his responsibility for himself somewhere else. This latter, when he writes books, tends today to espouse the cause of the criminal; his most pleasing disguise is a kind of socialist sympathy. And the fatalism of the weak-willed is indeed beautified to an astonishing degree when it can present itself as'la religion de la souffrance humaine\" : that is its \"good taste\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You must pardon meas an old philologist who cannot refrain from the maliciousness of putting his finger on bad arts of interpretation: but \"nature's conformity to law'of which you physicists speak so proudly, as though– it exists only thanks to your interpretation and bad'philology\"– it is not a fact, not a'text\", but rather only a naïve humanitarian adjustment and distortion of meaning with which you go more than halfway to meet the democratic instincts of the modern soul!\"Everywhere equality before the law– nature is in this matter no different from us and no better off than we\": a nice piece of mental reservation in which vulgar hostility towards everything privileged and autocratic, as well as a second and more subtle atheism, lie once more disguised.\" Ni dieu, ni maître\"– that is your motto too: and therefore'long live the law of nature! \"– isn't that so? But, as aforesaid, that is interpretation, not text; and someone could come along who, with an opposite intention and art of interpretation, knew how to readout of the same nature and with regard to the same phenomena the tyrannically ruthless and inexorable enforcement of power-demands– an interpreter who could bring before your eyes the universality and unconditionality of all \"will to power\" in such away that almost any word and even the word \"tyranny\" would finally seem unsuitable or as a weakening and moderating metaphor– as too human– and who none the less ended by asserting of this world the same as you assert of it, namely that it has a \"necessary\" and \"calculable\" course, but not because laws prevail in it but because laws are absolutely lacking, and every power draws its ultimate consequences every moment. Granted this too is only interpretation– and you will be eager enough to raise this objection? – well, so much the better. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All psychology has hitherto remained anchored to moral prejudices and timidities: it has not ventured into the depths. To conceive it as morphology and the development-theory of the will to power, as I conceive it– has never yet so much as entered the mind of anyone else: in so far as it is permissible to see in what has hitherto been written a symptom of what has hitherto been kept silent. The power of moral prejudices has penetrated deep into the most spiritual world, which is apparently the coldest and most free of presuppositions– and, as goes without saying, has there acted in a harmful, inhibiting, blinding, distorting fashion. A genuine physio-psychology has to struggle with unconscious resistances in the heart of the investigator, it has \"the heart\" against it: even a theory of the mutual dependence of the \"good\" and the \"wicked\" impulses causes, as a more refined immorality, revulsion to a conscience still strong and hearty– and even more a theory of the derivation of all good impulses from wicked ones. Supposing, however, that someone goes so far as to regard the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and lust for domination as life-conditioning emotions, as something which must fundamentally and essentially be present in the total economy of life, consequently must be heightened further if life is to be heightened further– he suffers from such a judgement as from seasickness. And yet even this hypothesis is far from being the strangest and most painful in this tremendous, still almost unexplored realm of dangerous knowledge– and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why everyone should keep away from it who– can! On the other hand: if your ship has been driven into these seas, very well! Now clench your teeth! Keep your eyes open! Keep a firm hand on the helm! – We sail straight over morality and past it, we flatten, we crush perhaps what is left of our own morality by venturing to voyage thither– but what do we matter! Never yet has a deeper world of insight revealed itself to daring travellers and adventurers: and the psychologist who in this fashion \"brings a sacrifice\"– it is not the sacrifizio dell'intelletto, on the contrary! – will at least be entitled to demand in return that psychology shall again be recognized as the queen of the sciences, to serve and prepare for which the other sciences exist. For psychology is now once again the road to the fundamental problems." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Osancta simplicitas! What strange simplification and falsification mankind lives in! One can never cease to marvel once one has acquired eyes for this marvel! How we have made everything around us bright and free and easy and simple! How we have known how to bestow on our senses a passport to everything superficial, on our thoughts a divine desire for wanton gambolling and false conclusions! – how we have from the very beginning understood how to retain our ignorance so as to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, frivolity, impetuosity, bravery, cheerfulness of life, so as to enjoy life! And only on this now firm and granite basis of ignorance has knowledge hitherto been able to rise up, the will to knowledge on the basis of afar more powerful will, the will to non-knowledge, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its antithesis but– as its refinement! For even if, here as elsewhere, language cannot get over its coarseness and continues to speak of antitheses where there are only degrees and many subtleties of gradation; even if likewise the incarnate tartuffery of morals which is now part of our invincible \"flesh and blood\" twists the words in the mouths even of us men of knowledge: here and there we grasp that fact and laugh at how it is precisely the best knowledge that wants most to hold us in this simplified, altogether artificial, fabricated, falsified world, how it is willy-nilly in love with error because, as a living being, it is– in love with life!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After so cheerful an exordium a serious word would like to be heard: it addresses itself to the most serious. Take care, philosophers and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering \"for the sake of truth\"! Even of defending yourselves! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience, it makes you obstinate against rebuffs and red rags, it makes you stupid, brutal and bullish if in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, casting out and even grosser consequences of hostility you finally even have to act as defenders of truth on earth– as if \"truth\" were so innocuous and inept a person she stood in need of defending! And precisely by you, you knights of most sorrowful countenance, you idlers and cobweb-spinners of the spirit! After all, you know well enough that it cannot matter in the least whether precisely you are in the right, just as no philosopher hitherto has been in the right, and that a more praiseworthy veracity may lie in every little question-mark placed after your favourite words and favourite theories (and occasionally after yourselves) than in all your solemn gesticulations and smart answers before courts and accusers! Better to step aside! Flee away and conceal yourselves! And have your masks and subtlety, so that you maybe misunderstood! Or feared a little! And do not forget the garden, the garden with golden trellis-work. And have about you people who are like a garden– or like music on the waters in the evening, when the day is already becoming a memory; – choose the good solitude, the free, wanton, easy solitude which gives you too aright to remain in some sense good! How poisonous, how cunning, how bad every protracted war makes one when it cannot be waged with open force! How personal a protracted fear makes one, a protracted keeping watch for enemies, for possible enemies! These outcasts of society, long persecuted and sorely hunted– also the enforced recluses, the Spinozas and Giordano Brunos– in the end always become refined vengeance-seekers and brewers of poison, even if they do sounder the most spiritual masquerade and perhaps without being themselves aware of it (just dig up the foundation of Spinoza's ethics and theology!) – not to speak of the stupidity of moral indignation, which is in the philosopher an unfailing sign that he has lost his philosophical sense of humour. The martyrdom of the philosopher, his'sacrifice for truth\", brings to light what there has been in him of agitator and actor; and if one has hitherto regarded him only with artistic curiosity, in the case of many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous desire to see him for once in his degeneration (degenerated into'martyr', into stage-and platform-ranter). But if one does harbour such a desire, one has to be clear what it is one will get to see– merely a satyr play, merely a farcical after-piece, merely a continuing proof that the long tragedy has come to an end: supposing that every philosophy was in its inception along tragedy. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every superior human being will instinctively aspire after a secret citadel where he is set free from the crowd, the many, the majority, where, as its exception, he may forget the rule \"man\"– except in the one casein which, as a man of knowledge in the great and exceptional sense, he will be impelled by an even stronger instinct to make straight for this rule. He who, when trafficking with men, does not occasionally glisten with all the shades of distress, green and grey with disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloom and loneliness, is certainly not a man of an elevated taste; but if he does not voluntarily assume this burden and displeasure, if he continually avoids it and, as aforesaid, remains hidden quietly and proudly away in his citadel, then one thing is sure: he is not made, not predestined for knowledge. For if he were, he would one day have to say to himself: \"The devil can take my good taste! the rule is more interesting than the exception– than I, the exception!\" – and would go down, would above all \"go in\". The study of the average human being, protracted, serious, and with much dissembling, self-overcoming, intimacy, bad company– all company is bad company except the company of one's equals– : this constitutes a necessary part of the life story of every philosopher, perhaps the most unpleasant and malodorous part and the part most full of disappointments. If he is lucky, however, as a favourite child of knowledge ought to be, he will encounter means of facilitating and cutting short his task– I mean so-called cynics, that is to say people who recognize the animal, the commonness, the'rule'in themselves and yet still possess a degree of spirituality and appetite which constrains them to speak of themselves and their kind before witnesses– sometimes they even wallow in books as in their own dung. Cynicism is the only form in which common souls come close to honesty; and the higher man must prick up his ears at every cynicism, whether coarse or refined, and congratulate himself whenever a buffoon without shame or a scientific satyr speaks out in his presence. There are even cases in which fascination mingles with the disgust: namely where, by a caprice of nature, such an indiscreet goat and monkey is touched with genius, as in the case of the Abbé Galiani, the profoundest, most sharp-sighted and perhaps also dirtiest man of his century– he was far more profound than Voltaire and consequently also a good deal more silent. It is more often the case that, as already indicated, a scientific head is set on a monkey's body, a refined exceptional understanding on a common soul– no rare occurrence, for instance, among physicians and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks, without bitterness, rather innocuously, of man as a belly with two needs and ahead with one; wherever anyone sees, seeks and wants to see only hunger, sexual desire, and vanity, as though these were the actual and sole motives of human actions; in brief, whenever anyone speaks \"badly\" of man– but does not speak ill of him– the lover of knowledge should listen carefully and with diligence, and he should in general lend an ear whenever anyone speaks without indignation. For the indignant man, and whoever is continually tearing and rending himself with his teeth (or, instead of himself, the world, or God, or society) may indeed morally speaking stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more commonplace, less interesting, less instructive case. And no one lies so much as the indignant man. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is hard to be understood: especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati among men who think and live otherwise, namely kurmagati or at best \"as the frog goes\", mandeikagati– I am certainly doing everything I canto be hard to understand myself! – and one ought to be heartily grateful even for the will to some subtlety in interpretation. As regards one's\"good friends\", however, who are always too indolent and think that because they are one's friends they have aright to indolence: one does well to allow them from the first some room and latitude for misunderstanding– thus one can laugh at their expense; – or get rid of them altogether, these good friends– and still laugh!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which translates worst from one language into another is the tempo of its style, which has its origin in the character of the race, or, expressed more physiologically, in the average tempo of its \"metabolism\". There are honestly meant translations which, as involuntary vulgarizations of the original, are almost falsifications simply because it was not possible to translate also its brave and happy tempo, which leaps over and puts behind it all that is perilous in things and words. The German is virtually incapable of presto in his language: thus, it maybe fairly concluded, also of many of the most daring and delightful nuances of free, free-spirited thought. Just as the buffo and the satyr is strange to him, in his body and in his conscience, so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything staid, sluggish, ponderously solemn, all long-winded and boring species of style have been developed in profuse multiplicity among the Germans– pardon me for the fact that even Goethe's prose is, in its blend of elegance and stiffness, no exception: it is a reflection of the'good old days\", to which it belongs, and an expression of the German taste of a time when there still was a'German taste\": it was rococo in moribus et artibus. Lessing constitutes an exception, thanks to his histrionic nature, which was versed in and understood much: he, who was not for nothing the translator of Bayle and liked to flee to the neighbourhood of Diderot and Voltaire and even more to that of the Roman writers of comedy– in tempo too Lessing loved free-spiritedness, escape from Germany. But how could the German language, even in the prose of a Lessing, imitate the tempo of Machiavelli, who in his Principe lets us breathe the subtle dry air of Florence and cannot help presenting the most serious affairs in a boisterous allegrissimo: not perhaps without a malicious artist's sense of the contrast he is risking– thoughts protracted, difficult, hard, dangerous and the tempo of the gallop and the most wanton good humour. Who, finally, would venture a German translation of Petronius, who was, to a greater degree than any great musician has hitherto been, a master of presto in invention, ideas, words– what do all the swamps of the sick wicked world, even of the \"antique world\", matter when one has, like him, the feet of a wind, the blast and breath, the liberating scorn of a wind that makes everything healthy by making everything run! And as for Aristophanes, that transfiguring, complementary spirit for whose sake one excuses all Greece for having existed, assuming one has grasped in all its profundity what there is to be excused and transfigured here– I know of nothing that has led me to reflect more on Plato's concealment and sphinx nature than that happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was discovered no'Bible', nothing Egyptian, Pythagorean, Platonic– but Aristophanes. How could even a Plato have endured life-a Greek life which he had denied– without an Aristophanes! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Few are made for independence-it is a privilege of the strong. And he who attempts it, having the completest right to it but without being compelled to, thereby proves that he is probably not only strong but also daring to the point of recklessness. He ventures into a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers which life as such already brings with it, not the smallest of which is that no one can behold how and where he goes astray, is cutoff from others, and is torn to pieces limb from limb by some cave-minotaur of conscience. If such a one is destroyed, it takes place so far from the understanding of men that they neither feel it nor sympathize– and he can no longer go back! He can no longer go back even to the pity of men! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our supreme insights must– and should! – sound like follies, in certain cases like crimes, when they come impermissibly to the ears of those who are not predisposed and predestined for them. The exoteric and the esoteric as philosophers formerly distinguished them, among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians and Moslems, in short wherever one believed in an order of rank and not inequality and equal rights– differ one from another not so much in that the exoteric stands outside and sees, evaluates, measures, judges from the outside, not from the inside: what is more essential is that this class sees things from below– but the esoteric sees them from above! There are heights of the soul seen from which even tragedy ceases to be tragic; and, taking all the woe of the world together, who could venture to assert that the sight of it would have to seduce and compel us to pity and thus to a doubling of that woe?... What serves the higher type of man as food or refreshment must to a very different and inferior type be almost poison. The virtues of the common man would perhaps indicate vice and weakness in a philosopher; it maybe possible that if a lofty type of man degenerated and perished, he would only thus acquire qualities on whose account it would prove necessary in the lower world into which he had sunk henceforth to venerate him as a saint. There are books which possess an opposite value for soul and health depending on whether the lower soul, the lower vitality, or the higher and more powerful avails itself of them: in the former case they are dangerous, disintegrative books, which produces dissolution, in the latter they are herald calls challenging the most courageous to their courage. Books for everybody are always malodorous books: the smell of petty people clings to them. Where the people eats and drinks, even where it worships, there is usually a stink. One should not go into churches if one wants to breathe pure air. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In our youthful years we respect and despise without that art of nuance which constitutes the best thing we gain from life, and, as is only fair, we have to pay dearly for having assailed men and things with Yes and No in such a fashion. Everything is so regulated that the worst of all tastes, the taste for the unconditional, is cruelly misused and made a fool of until a man learns to introduce a little art into his feelings and even to venture trying the artificial: as genuine artists of life do. The anger and reverence characteristic of youth seem to allow themselves no peace until they have falsified men and things in such away that they can vent themselves on them– youth as such is something that falsifies and deceives. Later, when the youthful soul, tormented by disappointments, finally turns suspiciously on itself, still hot and savage even in its suspicion and pangs of conscience: how angry it is with itself now, how it impatiently rends itself, how it takes revenge for its long self-delusion, as if it had blinded itself deliberately! During this transition one punishes oneself by distrusting one's feelings; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubts, indeed one feels that even a good conscience is a danger, as though a good conscience were a screening of oneself and a sign that one's subtler honesty had grown weary; and above all one takes sides, takes sides on principle, against'youth'. – A decade later: and one grasps that all this too– was still youth!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Throughout the longest part of human history– it is called prehistoric times– the value or non-value of an action was derived from its consequences: the action itself came as little into consideration as did its origin, but, in much the same way as today in China a distinction or disgrace reflects back from the child onto its parents, so it was the retroactive force of successor failure which led men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period the pre-moral period of mankind: the imperative \"know thyself!\" was then still unknown. Over the past ten thousand years, on the other hand, one has in a few large tracts of the earth come step by step to the point at which it is no longer the consequences but the origin of the action which determines its value: a great event, taken as a whole, a considerable refinement of vision and standard, the unconscious after-effect of the sovereignty of aristocratic values and of belief in \"origins\", the sign of a period which maybe called the moral in the narrower sense: the first attempt at self-knowledge has been made. Instead of the consequences, the origin: what an inversion of perspectives! And certainly one achieved only after protracted struggles and vacillations! To be sure, a fateful new superstition, a peculiar narrowness of interpretation therewith became dominant: men interpreted the origin of an action in the most definite sense as origin in an intention; men became unanimous in the belief that the value of an action resided in the value of the intention behind it. The intention as the whole origin and prehistory of an action: it is under the sway of this prejudice that one has morally praised, blamed, judged and philosophized on earth almost to the present day. – But ought we not today to have arrived at the necessity of once again determining upon an inversion and shift of values, thanks to another self-examination and deepening on the part of man– ought we not to stand on the threshold of a period which should be called, negatively at first, the extra-moral: today, when among us immoralists at least the suspicion has arisen that the decisive value of an action resides in precisely that which is not intentional in it, and that all that in it which is intentional, all of it that can be seen, known, \"conscious\", still belongs to its surface and skin– which, like every skin, betrays something but conceals still more? In brief, we believe that the intention is only a sign and symptom that needs interpreting, and a sign, moreover, that signifies too many things and which thus taken by itself signifies practically nothing– that morality in the sense in which it has been understood hitherto, that is to say the morality of intentions, has been a prejudice, a pre-cipitancy, perhaps something provisional and precursory, perhaps something of the order of astronomy and alchemy, but in any event something that must be overcome. The overcoming of morality, in a certain sense even the self-overcoming of morality: let this be the name for that protracted secret labour which has been reserved for the subtlest, most honest and also most malicious consciences as living touchstones of the soul.-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is nothing for it: the feelings of devotion, self-sacrifice for one's neighbour, the entire morality of self-renunciation must betaken mercilessly to task and brought to court: likewise the aesthetics of'disinterested contemplation'through which the emasculation of art today tries, seductively enough, to give itself a good conscience. There is much too much sugar and sorcery in those feelings of'for others\", of\" not for me\", for one not to have to become doubly distrustful here and to ask:\"are they not perhaps– seductions? ' That they give pleasure– to him who has them and to him who enjoys their fruits, also to the mere spectator– does not yet furnish an argument in their favour, but urges us rather to caution. So let us be cautious!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever standpoint of philosophy we may adopt today: from every point of view the erroneousness of the world in which we believe we live is the surest and firmest thing we can get our eyes on– we find endless grounds for it which would like to lure us to suppose a deceptive principle in the \"nature of things\". But he who makes our thinking itself, that is to say \"the mind\", responsible for the falsity of the world– an honourable way out taken by every conscious or unconscious advocatus dei– : he who takes this world, together with space, time, form, motion, to be the result of a false conclusion: such a one would have good cause, to say the least, to learn finally to mistrust thinking itself: would it not have played onus the biggest hoax ever? and what guarantee would there be that it would not goon doing what it has always done? In all seriousness: the innocence of thinkers has something touching and inspiring of reverence in it which permits them even today to go up to consciousness and ask it to give them honest answers: whether it is \"real\", for example, and why it really keeps the external world so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the sort. The belief in \"immediate certainties\" is apiece of moral naïvety which does honour to us philosophers: but– we ought not to be'merely moral\" men! Apart from the moral aspect, that belief is apiece of stupidity which does us little honour! In civil life an ever-ready mistrustfulness may count as a sign of \"bad character\" and thus bean imprudent thing to have: here among us, beyond the civil world and its Yes and No– what is thereto stop us from being imprudent and saying: the philosopher, as the creature which has hitherto always been most fooled on earth, has by now aright to \"bad character\"– he has today the duty to be distrustful, to squint wickedly up out of every abyss of suspicion. – You must forgive me this humorous expression and grimace: for I have long since learned to think differently, to judge differently on the subject of deceiving and being deceived, and I keep in readiness at least a couple of jabs in the ribs for the blind rage with which philosophers resist being deceived. Why not? It is no more than amoral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance; it is even the worst-proved assumption that exists. Let us concede at least this much: there would be no life at all if not on the basis of perspective evaluations and appearances; and if, with the virtuous enthusiasm and awkwardness exhibited by some philosophers, one wanted to abolish the \"apparent world\" altogether, well, assuming you could do that– at any rate nothing would remain of your \"truth\" either! Indeed, what compels us to assume there exists any essential antithesis between \"true\" and \"false\"? Is it not enough to suppose grades of apparentness and as it were lighter and darker shades and tones of appearance– different valeurs, to speak in the language of painters? Why could the world which is of any concern to us– not be a fiction? And he who then objects: \"but to the fiction there belongs an author?\" – could he not be met with the round retort: why? Does this \"belongs\" perhaps not also belong to the fiction? Are we not permitted to be a little ironical now about the subject as we are about the predicate and object? Ought the philosopher not to rise above the belief in grammar? All due respect to governesses: but is it not time that philosophy renounced the beliefs of governesses?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh Voltaire! Oh humanity! Oh imbecility! There is some point to \"truth\", to the search for truth; and if a human being goes about it too humanely– \"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le hien\" – I wager he finds nothing!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Granted that nothing is \"given\" as real except our world of desires and passions, that we can rise or sink to no other \"reality\" than the reality of our drives– for thinking is only the relationship of these drives to one another-: is it not permitted to make the experiment and ask the question whether this which is given does not suffice for an understanding even of the so-called mechanical (or \"material\") world? I do not mean as a deception, an \"appearance\", an \"idea\"(in the Berkeleyan and Schopenhaueran sense), but as possessing the same degree of reality as our emotions themselves– as a more primitive form of the world of emotions in which everything still lies locked in mighty unity and then branches out and develops in the organic process (also, as is only fair, is made weaker and more sensitive), as a kind of instinctual life in which all organic functions, together with self-regulation, assimilation, nourishment, excretion, metabolism, are still synthetically bound together– as an antecedent form of life? – In the end, it is not merely permitted to make this experiment: it is commanded by the conscience of method. Not to assume several kinds of causality so long as the experiment of getting along with one has not been taken to its ultimate limits (– to the point of nonsense, if I may say so): that is amorality of method which one may not repudiate nowadays– it follows \"from its definition\", as a mathematician would say. In the end, the question is whether we really recognize will as efficient, whether we believe in the causality of will: if we do so– and fundamentally belief in this is precisely our belief in causality itself– then we have to make the experiment of positing causality of will hypothetically as the only one. \"Will\" can of course operate only on \"will\"– and not on \"matter\"(not on \"nerves\", for example–): enough, one must venture the hypothesis that wherever \"effects\" are recognized, will is operating upon will– and that all mechanical occurrences, in so far as a force is active in them, are force of will, effects of will. – Granted finally that one succeeded in explaining our entire instinctual life as the development and ramification of one basic form of will– as will to power, as is my theory– ; granted that one could trace all organic functions back to this will to power and could also find in it the solution to the problem of procreation and nourishment– they are one problem– one would have acquired the right to define all efficient force unequivocally as: will to power. The world seen from within, the world described and defined according to its \"intelligible character\"– it would be \"will to power\" and nothing else. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What? Does that, to speak vulgarly, not mean: God is refuted but the devil is not– ?\" On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who the devil compels you to speak vulgarly! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As happened lately, in all the clarity of modern times, with the French Revolution, that gruesome and, closely considered, superfluous farce, into which, however, noble and enthusiastic spectators allover Europe interpeted from a distance their own indignations and raptures so long and so passionately that the text disappeared beneath the interpretation: so a noble posterity could once again misunderstand the entire past and only thus perhaps make the sight of it endurable. – Or rather: has this not already happened? have we ourselves not been this \"noble posterity\"? And, in so far as we comprehend this, is it not at this moment– done with?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborate on the narrative and advance it.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 46" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As happened lately, in all the clarity of modern times, with the French Revolution, that gruesome and, closely considered, superfluous farce, into which, however, noble and enthusiastic spectators allover Europe interpeted from a distance their own indignations and raptures so long and so passionately that the text disappeared beneath the interpretation: so a noble posterity could once again misunderstand the entire past and only thus perhaps make the sight of it endurable. – Or rather: has this not already happened? have we ourselves not been this \"noble posterity\"? And, in so far as we comprehend this, is it not at this moment– done with?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one is likely to consider a doctrine true merely because it makes happy or makes virtuous: excepting perhaps the dear \"idealists\", who rapturize over the good, the true and the beautiful and let all kinds of colourful, clumsy and good-natured desiderata swim about together in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments. But even thoughtful spirits like to forget that making unhappy and making evil are just as little counter-arguments. Something might be true although at the same time harmful and dangerous in the highest degree; indeed, it could pertain to the fundamental nature of existence that a complete knowledge of it would destroy one– so that the strength of a spirit could be measured by how much \"truth\" it could take, more clearly, to what degree it needed it attenuated, veiled, sweetened, blunted, and falsified. But there can be no doubt that for the discovery of certain parts of truth the wicked and unhappy are in a more favourable position and are more likely to succeed; not to speak of the wicked who are happy– a species about whom the moralists are silent. Perhaps severity and cunning provide more favourable conditions for the formation of the strong, independent spirit and philosopher than does that gentle, sweet, yielding good-naturedness and art of taking things lightly which is prized in a scholar and rightly prized. Supposing in advance that the concept \"philosopher\" is not limited to the philosopher who writes books– or, worse, writes books of his philosophy! – A final trait in the image of the free-spirited philosopher is provided by Stendhal, and in view of what German taste is I do not want to fail to emphasize it– for it goes against German taste. \"Pour être bon philosophe\" , said this last great psychologist, \"il faut être sec, clair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du caractère requis pour faire des découvertes en philosophie, c'est-à-dire pour voir clair dans ce qui est. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything profound loves the mask; the profoundest things of all hate even image and parable. Should not nothing less than the opposite be the proper disguise under which the shame of a god goes abroad? A questionable question: it would be strange if some mystic or other had not already ventured to meditate some such thing. There are occurrences of so delicate a description that one does well to bury them and make them unrecognizable with apiece of coarseness; there are acts of love and extravagant magnanimity after which nothing is more advisable than to take a stick and give the eyewitness a thrashing and so confuse his memory. Some know how to confuse and mistreat their own memory, so as to take revenge at least on this sole confidant– shame is inventive. It is not the worst things of which one is most ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a mask– there is so much goodness in cunning. I could believe that a man who had something fragile and valuable to conceal might roll through life thick and round as an old, green, thick-hooped wine barrel: the refinement of his shame would have it so. A man whose shame has depth enounters his destinies and delicate decisions too on paths which very few ever reach and of whose existence his intimates and neighbours may not know: his mortal danger is concealed from their eyes, as is the fact that he has regained his sureness of life. Such a hidden man, who instinctively uses speech for silence and concealment and is inexhaustible in evading communication, wants a mask of him to roam the heads and hearts of his friends in his stead, and he makes sure that it does so; and supposing he does not want it, he will one day come to see that a mask is therein spite of that– and that that is a good thing. Every profound spirit needs a mask: more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing, thanks to the constantly false, that is to say shallow interpretation of every word he speaks, every step he takes, every sign of life he gives. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One must test oneself to see whether one is destined for independence and command; and one must do so at the proper time. One should not avoid one's tests, although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge. Not to cleave to another person, though he be the one you love most– every person is a prison, also a nook and corner. Not to cleave to a fatherland, though it be the most suffering and in need of help– it is already easier to sever your heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to cleave to a feeling of pity, though it be for higher men into whose rare torment and helplessness chance allowed us to look. Not to cleave to a science, though it lures one with the most precious discoveries seemingly reserved precisely for us. Not to cleave to one's own detachment, to that voluptuous remoteness and strangeness of the bird which flies higher and higher so as to see more and more beneath it– the danger which threatens the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some part of us, of our \"hospitality\" for example, which is the danger of dangers for rich and noble souls who expend themselves prodigally, almost indifferently, and take the virtue of liberality to the point where it becomes a vice. One must know how to conserve oneself: the sternest test of independence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anew species of philosopher is appearing: I venture to baptize these philosophers with a name not without danger in it. As I divine them, as they let themselves be divined– for it pertains to their nature to want to remain a riddle in some respects– these philosophers of the future might rightly, but perhaps also wrongly, be described as attempters. This name itself is in the end only an attempt and, if you will, a temptation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Are they new friends of \"truth\", these coming philosophers? In all probability: for all philosophers have hitherto loved their truths. But certainly they will not be dogmatists. It must offend their pride, and also their taste, if their truth is supposed to be a truth for everyman, which has hitherto been the secret desire and hidden sense of all dogmatic endeavours. \"My judgement is my judgement: another cannot easily acquire aright to it\"– such a philosopher of the future may perhaps say. One has to get rid of the bad taste of wanting to be in agreement with many. \"Good\" is no longer good when your neighbour takes it into his mouth. And how could there exist a \"common good\"! The expression is a self-contradiction: what can be common has ever but little value. In the end it must be as it is and has always been: great things are for the great, abysses for the profound, shudders and delicacies for the refined, and, in sum, all rare things for the rare. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After all this do I still need to say that they too will be free, very free spirits, these philosophers of the future– just as surely as they will not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, greater and thoroughly different that does not want to be misunderstood or taken for what it is not. But in saying this I feel I have a duty, almost as much towards them as towards us, their heralds and precursors, us free spirits! – to blow away from all of us an ancient and stupid prejudice and misunderstanding which has all too long obscured the concept \"free spirit\" like a fog. In all the countries of Europe and likewise in America there exists at present something that misuses this name, a very narrow, enclosed, chained up species of spirits who desire practically the opposite of that which informs our aims and instincts– not to mention the fact that in regard to those new philosophers appearing they must certainly be closed windows and bolted doors. They belong, in short and regrettably, among the levellers, these falsely named \"free spirits\"– eloquent and tirelessly scribbling slaves of the democratic taste and its \"modern ideas\", men without solitude one and all, without their own solitude, good clumsy fellows who, while they cannot be denied courage and moral respectability, are unfree and ludicrously superficial, above all in their fundamental inclination to see in the forms of existing society the cause of practically all human failure and misery: which is to stand the truth happily on its head! What with all their might they would like to strive after is the universal green pasture happiness of the herd, with security, safety, comfort and an easier life for all; their two most oft-recited doctrines and ditties are \"equality of rights\" and \"sympathy for all that suffers\"– and suffering itself they take for something that has to be abolished. We, who are the opposite of this, and have opened our eyes and our conscience to the question where and how the plant \"man\" has hitherto grownup most vigorously, we think that this has always happened under the opposite conditions, that the perilousness of his situation had first to become tremendous, his powers of invention and dissimulation (his \"spirit\"–) had, under protracted pressure and constraint, to evolve into subtlety and daring, his will to life had to be intensified into unconditional will to power– we think that severity, force, slavery, peril in the street and in the heart, concealment, stoicism, the art of experiment and devilry of every kind, that everything evil, dreadful, tyrannical, beast of prey and serpent in man serves to enhance the species \"man\" just as much as does its opposite– we do not say enough when we say even that much, and at any rate we are, in what we say and do not say on this point, at the other end from all modern ideology and herd desiderata: at its antipodes perhaps? Is it any wonder we \"free spirits\" are not precisely the most communicative of spirits? that we do not want to betray in every respect from what a spirit can free itself and to what it is then perhaps driven? And as for the dangerous formula \"beyond good and evil\" with which we at any rate guard against being taken for what we are not: we are something different from'libres-penseurs\" , \"liberi pensatori\" , \"Freidenker\" , or whatever else all these worthy advocates of \"modern ideas\" like to call themselves. At home in many countries of the spirit, or at least having been guests there; having again and again eluded the agreeable musty nooks and corners into which predilection and prejudice, youth, origin, the accidents of people and books, or even weariness from wandering seemed to have consigned us; full of malice towards the lures of dependence which reside in honours, or money, or offices, or raptures of the senses; grateful even to distress and changeful illness because it has always liberated us from some rule and its \"prejudice\", grateful to the god, devil, sheep and worm in us, curious to the point of vice, investigators to the point of cruelty, with rash fingers for the ungraspable, with teeth and stomach for the most indigestible, ready for every task that demands acuteness and sharp senses, ready for every venture thanks to a superfluity of \"free will\", with fore-and back-souls into whose ultimate intentions no one can easily see, with fore-and backgrounds to whose end no foot may go, hidden under mantles of light, conquerors even though we look like heirs and prodigals, collectors and arrangers from morn till night, misers of our riches and our full-crammed cupboards, thrifty in learning and forgetting, inventive in schemata, sometimes proud of tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night owls of labour even in broad daylight; yes, even scarecrows when we need to be– and today we need to be: in so far, that is, as we are born, sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of our own deepest, most midnight, most midday solitude– such a type of man are we, we free spirits! and perhaps you too are something of the same type, you coming men? you new philosophers? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The human soul and its frontiers, the compass of human inner experience in general attained hitherto, the heights, depths and distances of this experience, the entire history of the soul hitherto and its still unexhausted possibilities: this is the predestined hunting-ground fora born psychologist and lover of the \"big-game hunt\". But how often must he say despairingly to himself: \"one man! alas, but one man! and this great forest and jungle!\" And thus he wishes he had a few hundred beaters and subtle well-instructed tracker dogs whom he could send into the history of the human soul and there roundup his game. In vain: he discovers again and again, thoroughly and bitterly, how hard it is to find beaters and dogs for all the things which arouse his curiosity. The drawback in sending scholars out into new and dangerous hunting-grounds where courage, prudence, subtlety in every sense are needed is that they cease to be of any use precisely where the'big hunt\", but also the big danger, begins– precisely there do they lose their keenness of eye and keenness of nose. To divine and establish, for example, what sort of history the problem of knowledge and conscience has had in the soul of bomines religiosi one would oneself perhaps have to be as profound, as wounded, as monstrous as Pascal's intellectual conscience was– and then there would still be needed that broad heaven of bright, malicious spirituality capable of looking down on this turmoil of dangerous and painful experiences, surveying and ordering them and forcing them into formulas. – But who could dome this service! And who could have the time to wait for such servants! – they appear too rarely, they are at all times so very improbable! In the end one has to do everything oneself if one is to know a few things oneself: that is to say, one has much to do! – But a curiosity like mine is after all the most pleasurable of vices– I beg your pardon! I meant to say: the love of truth has its reward in Heaven, and already upon earth. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The faith such as primitive Christianity demanded and not infrequently obtained in the midst of a sceptical and southerly free-spirited world with a centuries-long struggle between philosophical schools behind it and in it, plus the education intolerance provided by the Imperium Romanum– this faith is not that gruff, true-hearted liegeman's faith with which a Luther, say, or a Cromwell, or some other northern barbarian of the spirit cleaved to his God and his Christianity; it is rather that faith of Pascal which resembles in a terrible fashion a protracted suicide of reason– of a tough, long-lived, wormlike reason which is not to be killed instantaneously with a single blow. The Christian faith is from the beginning sacrifice: sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit, at the same time enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation. There is cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith exacted of an over-ripe, manifold and much-indulged conscience: its presupposition is that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably painful, that the entire past and habitude of such a spirit resists the absurdissimum which'faith'appears to it to be. Modern men, with their obtuseness to all Christian nomenclature, no longer sense the gruesome superlative which lay for an antique taste in the paradoxical formula'god on the cross\". Never and nowhere has there hitherto been a comparable boldness in inversion, anything so fearsome, questioning and questionable, as this formula: it promised a revaluation of all antique values. – It is the orient, the innermost orient, it is the oriental slave who in this fashion took vengeance on Rome and its noble and frivolous tolerance, on Roman'catholicism'of faith– and it has never been faith but always freedom from faith, that half-stoical and smiling unconcern with the seriousness of faith, that has enraged slaves in their masters and against their masters.\"Enlightenment' enrages: for the slave wants the unconditional, he understands in the domain of morality too only the tyrannical, he loves as he hates, without nuance, into the depths of him, to the point of pain, to the point of sickness– the great hidden suffering he feels is enraged at the noble taste which seems to deny suffering. Scepticism towards suffering, at bottom no more than a pose of aristocratic morality, was likewise not the least contributory cause of the last great slave revolt which began with the French Revolution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wherever the religious neurosis has hitherto appeared on earth we find it tied to three dangerous dietary prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence– but without our being able to decide with certainty which is cause here and which effect, or whether any relation of cause and effect is involved here at all. The justification of the latter doubt is that one of the most frequent symptoms of the condition, in the case of savage and tame peoples, is the most sudden and most extravagant voluptuousness which is then, just as suddenly, reversed into a convulsion of penitence and a denial of world and will: both perhaps interpretable as masked epilepsy? But nowhere is it more necessary to renounce interpretations: around no other type has there grownup such an abundance of nonsense and superstition, none seems to have hitherto interested men, even philosophers, more– the time has come to cool down a little on this matter, to learn caution: better, to look away, to go away. – Still in the background of the most recent philosophy, the Schopenhaueran, there stands, almost as the problem in itself, this gruesome question-mark of the religious crisis and awakening. How is denial of the will possible? How is the saint possible? – this really seems to have been the question over which Schopenhauer became a philosopher and set to work. And thus it showed a genuinely Schopenhaueran outcome that his most convinced adherent (perhaps also his last adherent, so far as Germany is concerned–), namely Richard Wagner, brought his own life's work to an end at precisely this point and at last introduced that dreadful and eternal type onto the stage as Kundry, type vécu, just as it is; and at the very time when the psychiatrists of almost all the nations of Europe had an opportunity of studying it at close quarters wherever the religious neurosis– or, as I call it,\"the religious nature\"– staged its latest epidemic parade and outbreak as the'Salvation Army\". – But if one asks what it has really been in this whole phenomenon of the saint that has interested men of all types and ages, even philosophers, so immoderately, then the answer is, beyond doubt, the appearance of the miraculous adhering to it, namely the direct succession of opposites, of morally antithetical states of soul: here it seemed a palpable fact that a'bad man'all at once became a'saint\", a good man. Pschology has hitherto come to grief at this point: has it not been principally because it has acknowledged the dominion of morality, because it itself believed in antithetical moral values and saw, read, interpreted these antitheses into the text and the facts? – What? The'miracle' only an error of interpretation? Alack of philology? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seems that their Catholicism is much more an intrinsic part of the Latin races than the whole of Christianity in general is of us northerners; and that unbelief consequently signifies something altogether different in Catholic countries from what it does in Protestant– namely a kind of revolt against the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to the spirit (or lack of spirit–) of the race. We northerners are undoubtedly descended from barbarian races also in respect of our talent for religion: we have little talent for it. We may except the Celts, who therefore supplied the best soil for the reception of the Christian infection in the north– the Christian ideal came to blossom, so far as the pale northern sun permitted it, in France. How uncongenially pious are to our taste even these latest French sceptics when they have in them any Celtic blood! How Catholic, how un-German does Auguste Comte's sociology smell to us with its Roman logic of the instincts! How Jesuitical that clever and charming cicerone of Port-Royal, Sainte-Beuve, despite all his hostility towards the Jesuits! And even more so Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to us northerners is the language of a Renan, in whom every other minute some nothingness of religious tension topples a soul which is in a refined sense voluptuous and relaxed! Repeat these beautiful words of his– and what malice and high spirits are at once aroused in reply in our probably less beautiful and sterner, that is to say German, souls: –\"Disons donc hardiment que la religion est un produit de l'homme normal, que l'homme est le plus dans le vrai quand il est le plus religieux et le plus assuré d'une destinée infinie... C'est quand il est bon qu'il veut que la vertu corresponde à une ordre éternelle, c'est quand il contemple les choses d'une manière désintéressée qu'il trouve la mort révoltante et absurde. Comment ne pas supposer que c'est dans ces moments-là, que l'homme voit le mieux?... \"These words are so totally antipodal to my ears and habits that when I discovered them my immediate anger wrote beside them\" la niaiserie religieuse par excellence! \"– until my subsequent anger actually began to like them, these words with their upside-down-truth! It is so pleasant, so distinguishing, to possess one's own antipodes!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What astonishes one about the religiosity of the ancient Greeks is the tremendous amount of gratitude that emanates from it– the kind of man who stands thus before nature and before life is a very noble one! – Later, when the rabble came to predominate in Greece, fear also overran religion; and Christianity was preparing itself. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The passion for God: there is the peasant, true-hearted and importunate kind, like Luther's– the whole of Protestantism lacks southern delicatezza. There is an oriental ecstatic kind, like that of a slave who has been undeservedly pardoned and elevated, as for example in the case of Augustine, who lacks in an offensive manner all nobility of bearing and desire. There is the womanly tender and longing kind which presses bashfully and ignorantly fora unio mystica et physica: as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In many cases it appears strangely enough as a disguise for the puberty of a girl or a youth; now and then even as the hysteria of an old maid, also as her final ambition– the church has more than once canonized the woman in question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hitherto the mightiest men have still bowed down reverently before the saint as the enigma of self-constraint and voluntary final renunciation: why did they bow? They sensed in him– as it were behind the question-mark presented by his fragile and miserable appearance– the superior force that sought to prove itself through such a constraint, the strength of will in which they recognized and knew how to honour their own strength and joy in ruling: they honoured something in themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the sight of the saint aroused a suspicion in them: such an enormity of denial, of anti-nature, will not have been desired for nothing, they said to themselves. Is there perhaps a reason for it, a very great danger about which the ascetic, thanks to his secret visitors and informants, might possess closer knowledge? Enough, the mighty of the world learned in face of him anew fear, they sensed anew power, a strange enemy as yet unsubdued– it was the \"will to power\" which constrained them to halt before the saint. They had to question him–." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the Jewish \"Old Testament\", the book of divine justice, there are men, things and speeches of so grand a style that Greek and Indian literature have nothing to set beside it. One stands in reverence and trembling before these remnants of what man once was and has sorrowful thoughts about old Asia and its little jutting-out promontory Europe, which would like to signify as against Asia the \"progress of man\". To be sure: he who is only a measly tame domestic animal and knows only the needs of a domestic animal (like our cultured people of today, the Christians of \"cultured\" Christianity included–) has no reason to wonder, let alone to sorrow, among those ruins– the taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone in regard to \"great\" and \"small\"– : perhaps he will find the New Testament, the book of mercy, more after his own heart (there is in it a great deal of the genuine delicate, musty odour of devotee and petty soul). To have glued this New Testament, a species of rococo taste in every respect, onto the Old Testament to form a single book, as \"bible\", as \"the book of books\": that is perhaps the greatest piece of temerity and \"sin against the spirit\" that literary Europe has on its conscience." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why atheism today? – \"The father\" in God is thoroughly refuted; likewise \"the judge\", \"the rewarder\". Likewise his \"free will\": he does not hear– and if he heard he would still not know how to help. The worst thing is: he seems incapable of making himself clearly understood: is he himself vague about what he means? – These are what, in the course of many conversations, asking and listening, I found to be the causes of the decline of European theism; it seems tome that the religious instinct is indeed in vigorous growth– but that it rejects the theistic answer with profound mistrust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What, at bottom, is the whole of modern philosophy doing? Since Descartes– and indeed rather in spite of him than on the basis of his precedent– all philosophers have been making an attentat on the ancient soul concept under the cloak of a critique of the subject-and-predicate concept– that is to say, an attentat on the fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine. Modern philosophy, as an epistemological scepticism, is, covertly or openly, anti-Christian: although, to speak to more refined ears, by no means anti-religious. For in the past one believed in \"the soul\" as one believed in grammar and the grammatical subject: one said \"I\" is the condition, \"think\" is the predicate and conditioned– thinking is an activity to which a subject must bethought of as cause. Then one tried with admirable artfulness and tenacity to fathom whether one could not get out of this net– whether the reverse was not perhaps true: \"think\" the condition, \"I\" conditioned; \"I\" thus being only a synthesis produced by thinking. Kant wanted fundamentally to prove that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved– nor could the object: the possibility of an apparent existence of the subject, that is to say of \"the soul\", may not always have been remote from him, that idea which, as the philosophy of the Vedanta, has exerted immense influence on earth before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is a great ladder of religious cruelty with many rungs; but three of them are the most important. Atone time one sacrificed human beings to one's god, perhaps precisely those human beings one loved best– the sacrifice of the first-born present in all prehistoric religions belongs here, as does the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in the Mithras grotto on the isle of Capri, that most horrible of all Roman anachronisms. Then, in the moral epoch of mankind, one sacrificed to one's god the strongest instincts one possessed, one's\"nature\"; the joy of this festival glitters in the cruel glance of the ascetic, the inspired'anti-naturist'. Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? Did one not finally have to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in a concealed harmony, in a future bliss and justice? Did one not have to sacrifice God himself and out of cruelty against oneself worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness-this paradoxical mystery of the ultimate act of cruelty was reserved for the generation which is even now arising: we all know something of it already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who, prompted by some enigmatic desire, has, like me, long endeavoured to think pessimism through to the bottom and to redeem it from the half-Christian, half-German simplicity and narrowness with which it finally presented itself to this century, namely in the form of the Schopenhaueran philosophy; he who has really gazed with an Asiatic and more than Asiatic eye down into the most world-denying of all possible modes of thought– beyond good and evil and no longer, like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the spell and illusion of morality– perhaps by that very act, and without really intending to, may have had his eyes opened to the opposite ideal: to the ideal of the most exuberant, most living and most world-affirming man, who has not only learned to get on and treat with all that was and is but who wants to have it again as it was and is to all eternity, insatiably calling out da capo not only to himself but to the whole piece and play, and not only to a play but fundamentally to him who needs precisely this play– and who makes it necessary: because he needs himself again and again– and makes himself necessary– What? And would this not be– circulus vitiosus deus?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the strength of his spiritual sight and insight the distance, and as it were the space, around man continually expands: his world grows deeper, ever new stars, ever new images and enigmas come into view. Perhaps everything on which the spirit's eye has exercised its profundity and acuteness has been really but an opportunity for its exercise, a game, something for children and the childish. Perhaps the most solemn concepts which have occasioned the most strife and suffering, the concepts'God'and'sin\", will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's toy and a child's troubles seem to an old man– and perhaps'old man' will then have need of another toy and other troubles– still enough of a child, an eternal child!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Has it been observed to what extent a genuine religious life (both for its favourite labour of microscopic self-examination and that gentle composure which calls itself \"prayer\" and which is a constant readiness for the \"coming of God\"–) requires external leisure or semi-leisure, I mean leisure with a good conscience, inherited, by blood, which is not altogether unfamiliar with the aristocratic idea that work degrades– that is to say, makes soul and body common? And that consequently modern, noisy, time-consuming, proud and stupidly proud industriousness educates and prepares precisely for \"unbelief\" more than anything else does? Among those in Germany for example who nowadays live without religion, I find people whose \"free-thinking\" is of differing kinds and origins but above all a majority of those in whom industriousness from generation to generation has extinguished the religious instincts: so that they no longer have any idea what religions are supposed to be for and as it were merely register their existence in the world with a kind of dumb amazement. They feel they are already fully occupied, these worthy people, whether with their businesses or with their pleasures, not to speak of the \"fatherland\" and the newspapers and \"family duties\": it seems that they have no time at all left for religion, especially as it is not clear to them whether it involves another business or another pleasure– for they tell themselves it is not possible that one goes to church simply to make oneself miserable. They are not opposed to religious usages; if participation in such usages is demanded in certain cases, by the state for instance, they do what is demanded of them as one does so many things– with patient and modest seriousness and without much curiosity and discomfort– it is only that they live too much aside and outside even to feel the need for any for or against in such things. The great majority of German middle-class Protestants can today be numbered among these indifferent people, especially in the great industrious centres of trade and commerce; likewise the great majority of industrious scholars and the entire university equipage (excepting the theologians, whose possibility and presence there provides the psychologist with evermore and ever subtler enigmas to solve). Pious or even merely church-going people seldom realize how much goodwill, one might even say willfulness, it requires nowadays fora German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole trade (and, as said above, the tradesmanlike industriousness to which his modern conscience obliges him) disposes him to a superior, almost good-natured merriment in regard to religion, sometimes mixed with a mild contempt directed at the \"uncleanliness\" of spirit which he presupposes wherever one still belongs to the church. It is only with the aid of history (thus not from his personal experience) that the scholar succeeds in summoning up a reverent seriousness and a certain shy respect towards religion; but if he intensifies his feelings towards it even to the point of feeling grateful to it, he has still in his own person not got so much as a single step closer to that which still exists as church or piety: perhaps the reverse. The practical indifference to religious things in which he was born and raised is as a rule sublimated in him into a caution and cleanliness which avoids contact with religious people and things; and it can be precisely the depth of his tolerance and humanity that bids him evade the subtle distress which tolerance itself brings with it. – Every age has its own divine kind of naïvety for the invention of which other ages may envy it– and how much naïvety, venerable, childlike and boundlessly stupid naïvety there is in the scholar's belief in his superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the simple unsuspecting certainty with which his instinct treats the religious man as an inferior and lower type which he himself has grown beyond and above– he, the little presumptuous dwarf and man of the mob, the brisk and busy head-and handyman of'ideas\", of'modern ideas'!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who has seen deeply into the world knows what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial It is their instinct for preservation which teaches them to be fickle, light and false. Here and there, among philosophers as well as artists, one finds a passionate and exaggerated worship of \"pure forms\": let no one doubt that he who needs the cult of surfaces to that extent has at sometime or other made a calamitous attempt to get beneath them. Perhaps there might even exist an order of rank in regard to these burnt children, these born artists who can find pleasure in life only in the intention of falsifying its image (as it were in along-drawn-out revenge on life–): one could determine the degree to which life has been spoiled for them by the extent to which they want to see its image falsified, attenuated and made otherworldly and divine– one could include the homines religiosi among the artists as their highest rank. It is the profound suspicious fear of an incurable pessimism which compels whole millennia to cling with their teeth to a religious interpretation of existence: the fear born of that instinct which senses that one might get hold of the truth too soon, before mankind was sufficiently strong, sufficiently hard, sufficient of an artist... Piety, the \"life in God\", would, viewed in this light, appear as the subtlest and ultimate product of the fear of truth, as the artist's worship of an intoxication before the most consistent of all falsifications, as the will to inversion of truth, to untruth at any price. Perhaps there has up till now been no finer way of making man himself more beautiful than piety: through piety man can become to so great a degree of art, surface, play of colours, goodness, that one no longer suffers at the sight of him.-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To love men for the sake of God– that has been the noblest and most remote feeling attained to among men up till now. That love of man without some sanctifying ulterior objective is one piece of stupidity and animality more, that the inclination to this love of man has first to receive its measure, its refinement, its grain of salt and drop of amber from a higher inclination– whatever man it was who first felt and \"experienced\" this, however much his tongue may have faltered as it sought to express such a delicate thought, let him be holy and venerated to us for all time as the man who has soared the highest and gone the most beautifully astray!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The philosopher as we understand him, we free spirits– as the man of the most comprehensive responsibility who has the conscience for the collective evolution of mankind: this philosopher will make use of the religions for his work of education and breeding, just as he will make use of existing political and economic conditions. The influence on selection and breeding, that is to say the destructive as well as the creative and formative influence which can be exercised with the aid of the religions, is manifold and various depending on the kind of men placed under their spell and protection. For the strong and independent prepared and predestined for command, in whom the art and reason of a ruling race is incarnated, religion is one more means of overcoming resistance so as to be able to rule: as a bond that unites together ruler and ruled and betrays and hands over to the former the consciences of the latter, all that is hidden and most intimate in them which would like to exclude itself from obedience; and if some natures of such noble descent incline through lofty spirituality to a more withdrawn and meditative life and reserve to themselves only the most refined kind of rule (over select disciples or brothers), then religion can even be used as a means of obtaining peace from the noise and effort of cruder modes of government, and cleanliness from the necessary dirt of all politics. Thus did the Brahmins, for example, arrange things: with the aid of a religious organization they gave themselves the power of nominating their kings for the people, while keeping and feeling themselves aside and outside as men of higher and more than kingly tasks. In the meantime, religion also gives a section of the ruled guidance and opportunity for preparing itself for future rule and command; that is to say, those slowly rising orders and classes in which through fortunate marriage customs the strength and joy of the will, the will to self-mastery is always increasing– religion presents them with sufficient instigations and temptations to take the road to higher spirituality, to test the feelings of great self-overcoming, of silence and solitude– asceticism and puritanism are virtually indispensable means of education and ennobling if a race wants to become master over its origins in the rabble, and work its way up towards future rule. To ordinary men, finally, the great majority, who exist for service and general utility and who may exist only for that purpose, religion gives an invaluable contentment with their nature and station, manifold peace of heart, an ennobling of obedience, one piece of joy and sorrow more to share with their fellows, and some transfiguration of the whole everydayness, the whole lowliness, the whole half-bestial poverty of their souls. Religion and the religious significance of life sheds sunshine over these perpetual drudges and makes their own sight tolerable to them, it has the effect which an Epicurean philosophy usually has on sufferers of a higher rank, refreshing, refining, as it were making the most use of suffering, ultimately even sanctifying and justifying. Perhaps nothing in Christianity and Buddhism is so venerable as their art of teaching even the lowliest to set themselves through piety in an apparently higher order of things and thus to preserve their contentment with the real order, within which they live hard enough lives– and necessarily have to!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the end, to be sure, to present the debit side of the account to these religions and to bring into the light of day their uncanny perilousness– it costs dear and terribly when religions hold sway, not as means of education and breeding in the hands of the philosopher, but in their own right and as sovereign, when they themselves want to be final ends and not means beside other means. Among men, as among every other species, there is a surplus of failures, of the sick, the degenerate, the fragile, of those who are bound to suffer; the successful cases are, among men too, always the exception, and, considering that man is the animal whose nature has not yet been fixed, the rare exception. But worse still: the higher the type of man a man represents, the greater the improbability he will turnout well: chance, the law of absurdity in the total economy of mankind, shows itself in its most dreadful shape in its destructive effect on higher men, whose conditions of life are subtle, manifold and difficult to compute. Now what is the attitude of the above-named two chief religions towards this surplus of unsuccessful cases? They seek to preserve, to retain in life, whatever can in anyway be preserved, indeed they side with it as a matter of principle as religions for sufferers, they maintain that all those who suffer from life as from an illness are in the right, and would like every other feeling of life to be counted false and become impossible. However highly one may rate this kindly preservative solicitude, inasmuch as, together with all the other types of man, it has been and is applied to the highest type, which has hitherto almost always been the type that has suffered most: in the total accounting the hitherto sovereign religions are among the main reasons the type \"man\" has been kept on a lower level– they have preserved too much of that which ought to perish. We have inestimable benefits to thank them for; and who is sufficiently rich ingratitude not to be impoverished in face of all that the \"spiritual men\" of Christianity, for example, have hitherto done for Europe! And yet, when they gave comfort to the suffering, courage to the oppressed and despairing, a staff and stay to the irresolute, and lured those who were inwardly shattered and had become savage away from society into monasteries and houses of correction for the soul: what did they have to do in addition so as thus, with a good conscience, as a matter of principle, to work at the preservation of everything sick and suffering, which means in fact and truth at the corruption of the European race? Stand all evaluations on their head– that is what they had to do! And smash the strong, contaminate great hopes, cast suspicion on joy in beauty, breakdown everything autocratic, manly, conquering, tyrannical, all the instincts proper to the highest and most successful of the type \"man\", into uncertainty, remorse of conscience, self-destruction, indeed reverse the whole love of the earthly and of dominion over the earth into hatred of the earth and the earthly– that is the task the church set itself and had to set itself, until in its evaluation \"unworldliness\", \"unsensuality\", and \"higher man\" were finally fused together into one feeling. Supposing one were able to view the strangely painful and at the same time coarse and subtle comedy of European Christianity with the mocking and unconcerned eye of an Epicurean god, I believe there would be no end to one's laughter and amazement: for does it not seem that one will has dominated Europe for eighteen centuries, the will to make of man a sublime abortion? But he who, with an opposite desire, no longer Epicurean but with some divine hammer in his hand, approached this almost deliberate degeneration and stunting of man such as constitutes the European Christian (Pascal for instance), would he not have to cry out in rage, in pity, in horror:\"O you fools, you presumptuous, pitying fools, what have you done! Was this a work for your hands! How you have bungled and botched my beautiful stone! What a thing for you to take upon yourselves! \"– What I am saying is: Christianity has been the most fatal kind of self-presumption ever. Men not high or hard enough for the artistic refashioning of mankind; men not strong or farsighted enough for the sublime self-constraint needed to allow the foreground law of thousandfold failure and perishing to prevail; men not noble enough to seethe abysmal disparity in order of rank and abysm of rank between men and man– it is such men who, with their'equal before God', have hitherto ruled over the destiny of Europe, until at last a shrunken, almost ludicrous species, a herd animal, something full of goodwill, sickly and mediocre has been bred, the European of today..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who is a teacher from the very heart takes all things seriously only with reference to his students– even himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Knowledge for its own sake\"– this is the last snare set by morality: one therewith gets completely entangled with it once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The charm of knowledge would be small if so much shame did not have to be overcome on the road to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One is most dishonest towards one's God: he is not permitted to sin!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The inclination to disparage himself, to let himself be robbed, lied to and exploited, could be the self-effacement of a god among men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Love of one is apiece of barbarism: for it is practised at the expense of all others. Love of God likewise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have done that,\" says my memory. \"I cannot have done that\"– says my pride, and remains adamant. At last– memory yields." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One has been a bad spectator of life if one has not also seen the hand that in a considerate fashion– kills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If one has character one also has one's typical experience which recurs again and again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sage as astronomer. – As long as you still feel the stars as being something \"over you\" you still lack the eye of the man of knowledge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not the strength but the duration of exalted sensations which makes exalted men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who attains his ideal by that very fact transcends it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes– and calls it his pride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man with genius is unendurable if he does not also possess at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The degree and kind of a man's sexuality reaches up into the topmost summit of his spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With one's principles one seeks to tyrannize over one's habits or to justify or honour or scold or conceal them– two people with the same principles probably seek something fundamentally different with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who despises himself still nonetheless respects himself as one who despises." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A soul which knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its dregs– its lowest part comes up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thing explained is a thing we have no further concern with. – What did that god mean who counselled: \"know thyself!\" ? Does that perhaps mean: \"Have no further concern with thyself! become objective!\" – And Socrates? – And the \"man of science\"? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is dreadful to die of thirst in the sea. Do you have to salt your truth so much that it can no longer even– quench thirst?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pity for all\"– would be harshness and tyranny for you, my neighbour!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instinct– When the house burns down one forgets even one's dinner. – Yes: but one retrieves it from the ashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Woman learns how to hate to the extent that she unlearns how– to charm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The same emotions in man and woman are, however, different in tempo: therefore man and woman never cease to misunderstand one another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind all their personal vanity women themselves always have their impersonal contempt– for \"woman\". –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bound heart, free spirit– If one binds one's heart firmly and imprisons it one can allow one's spirit many liberties: I have said that before. But no one believes it if he does not already know it..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Terrible experiences make one wonder whether he who experiences them is not something terrible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heavy, melancholy people grow lighter through precisely that which makes others heavy, through hatred and love, and fora while they rise to their surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So cold, so icy one burns one's fingers on him! Every hand that grasps him starts back!-And for just that reason many think he is glowing hot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who has not or the sake of his reputation-sacrificed himself? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is no hatred for men in geniality, but for just that reason all too much contempt for men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marure manhood: that means to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the ladder at the end of which one is also ashamed of one's morality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One ought to depart from life as Odysseus departed from Nausicaa– blessing rather than in love with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What? A great man? I always see only the actor of his own ideal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If one trains one's conscience it will kiss us as it bites." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The disappointed man speaks. – \"I listened for an echo and I heard only praise–.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before ourselves we all pose as being simpler than we are: thus do we take a rest from our fellowmen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today a man of knowledge might easily feel as if he were God become animal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To discover he is loved in return ought really to disenchant the lover with the beloved. \"What? She is so modest as to love even you? Or so stupid? Or– or–.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The danger in happiness. – \"Now everything is turning out well for me, now I love every destiny– who would like to be my destiny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not their love for men but the impotence of their love for men which hinders the Christians of today from– burning us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The free spirit, the \"pious man of knowledge\"– finds pia fraus even more offensive to his taste (to his kind of \"piety\") than impia fraus. Hence the profound lack of understanding of the church typical of the \"free spirit\"– his kind of unfreedom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By means of music the passions enjoy themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To close your ears to even the best counter-argument once the decision has been taken: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are no moral phenomena at all, only amoral interpretation of phenomena..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he disparages and slanders it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A criminal's lawyers are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of him who did it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who feels predestined to regard and not believe finds all believers too noisy and importunate: he rebuffs them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want to make him interested in you? Then pretend to be embarrassed in his presence–\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tremendous expectation in regard to sexual love and the shame involved in this expectation distorts all a woman's perspectives from the start." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where neither love nor hate is in the game a woman is a mediocre player." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another emotion or of several others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is an innocence in admiration: he has it to whom it has not yet occurred that he too could one day be admired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Disgust with dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves– from \"justifying\" ourselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sensuality often makes love grow too quickly, so that the root remains weak and is easy to pullout." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was apiece of subtle refinement that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer– and that he did not learn it better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To enjoy praise is with some people only politeness of the heart– and precisely the opposite of vanity of the spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even concubinage has been corrupted: – by marriage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but at the fact that he feels no pain where he had expected to feel it. A parable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we have to change our opinion about someone we hold the inconvenience he has therewith caused us greatly to his discredit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A people is a detour of nature to get to six or seven great men. – Yes: and then to get round them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Science offends the modesty of all genuine women. They feel as if one were trying to look under their skin– or worse! under their clothes and finery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The more abstract the truth you want to teach the more you must seduce the senses to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The devil has the widest perspectives for God, and that is why he keeps so faraway from him– the devil being the oldest friend of knowledge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a person is begins to betray itself when his talent declines– when he ceases to show what he can do. Talent is also finery; finery is also a hiding place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sexes deceive themselves about one another: the reason being that fundamentally they love and honour only themselves (or their own ideal, to express it more pleasantly–). Thus man wants woman to be peaceful– but woman is essentially unpeaceful, like the cat, however well she may have trained herself to present an appearance of peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One is punished most for one's virtues." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who does not know how to find the road to his ideal lives more frivolously and impudently than the man without an ideal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth comes only from the senses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pharisaism is not degeneration in a good man: a good part of it is rather the condition of all being good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to whom he can be a midwife: thus originates a good conversation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When one has dealings with scholars and artists it is easy to miscalculate in opposite directions: behind a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man, and behind a mediocre artist often– a very remarkable man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What we do in dreams we also do when we are awake: we invent and fabricate the person with whom we associate– and immediately forget we have done so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Counsel as conundrum– \"If the bonds are not to burst– you must try to cut them first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The belly is the reason man does not so easily take himself fora god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chastest expression I have ever heard: \"Dans le véritable amour c'est l'âme, qui enveloppe le corps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our vanity would have just that which we do best count as that which is hardest for us. The origin of many amorality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is usually something wrong with her sexuality. Unfruitfulness itself disposes one to a certain masculinity of taste; for man is, if I maybe allowed to say so, \"the unfruitful animal\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Comparing man and woman in general one may say: woman would not have the genius for finery if she did not have the instinct for the secondary role." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From old Florentine novels, moreover– from life: \"buona femmina e mala femmina vuol bastone\". Sacchetti, Nov. 86." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To seduce one's neighbour to a good opinion and afterwards faithfully to believe in this good opinion of one's neighbour: who can do this trick as well as women?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely after-echo of that which was formerly felt to be good– the atavism of an older ideal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy, around the demi-god a satyr-play; and around God everything becomes– what? Perhaps a \"world\"? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also possess your permission to possess it– eh, my friends?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where the tree of knowledge stands is always Paradise\": thus speak the oldest and youngest serpents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Objection, evasion, happy distrust, pleasure in mockery are signs of health: everything unconditional belongs in pathology." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sense of the tragic increases and diminishes with sensuality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Madness is something rare in individuals– but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To our strongest drive, the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience submits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One has to requite good and ill: but why to precisely the person who did us good or ill?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One no longer loves one's knowledge enough when one has communicated it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poets behave impudently towards their experiences: they exploit them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our neighbour is not our neighbour but our neighbour's neighbour'– thus thinks every people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Love brings to light the exalted and concealed qualities of a lover– what is rare and exceptional in him: to that extent it can easily deceive as to what is normal in him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jesus said to his Jews: \"The law was made for servants– love God as I love him, as his son! What have we sons of God to do with morality!\" –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Concerning every party– A shepherd always has need of a bellwether– or he must himself occasionally be one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With hard men intimacy is a thing of shame– and something precious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Christianity gave Eros poison to drink– he did not die of it, to be sure, but degenerated into vice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To talk about oneself a great deal can also be a means of concealing oneself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In praise there is more importunity than in blame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pity in a man of knowledge seems almost ludicrous, like sensitive hands on a cyclops." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From love of man one sometimes embraces anyone (because one cannot embrace everyone): but one must never let this anyone know it..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One does not hate so long as one continues to rate low, but only when one has come to rate equal or higher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a vehicle of your inclinations– you too really find the noise of its wheels intolerable?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ultimately one loves one's desires and not that which is desired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps no one has ever been sufficiently truthful about what \"truthfulness\" is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clever people are not credited with their follies: what a deprivation of human rights!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The consequences of our actions take us by the scruff of the neck, altogether indifferent to the fact that we have \"improved\" in the meantime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is inhuman to bless where one is cursed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The familiarity of the superior embitters, because it may not be returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not that you lied tome but that I no longer believe you– that is what has distressed me–.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is a wild spirit of good-naturedness which looks like malice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not like it.\" – Why? – \"I am not up to it.\" – Has anyone ever answered like that?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's tale assistant, advance the plot.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 194" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not like it.\" – Why? – \"I am not up to it.\" – Has anyone ever answered like that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moral sensibility is as subtle, late, manifold, sensitive and refined in Europe today as the \"science of morals\" pertaining to it is still young, inept, clumsy and coarse-fingered– an interesting contrast which sometimes even becomes visible and incarnate in the person of a moralist. Even the expression \"science of morals\" is, considering what is designated by it, far too proud, and contrary to good taste: which is always accustomed to choose the more modest expressions. One should, in all strictness, admit what will be needful here fora longtime to come, what alone is provisionally justified here: assembly of material, conceptual comprehension and arrangement of avast domain of delicate value-feelings and value-distinctions which live, grow, beget and perish– and perhaps attempts to display the more frequent and recurring forms of these living crystallizations– as preparation of a typology of morals. To be sure: one has not been so modest hitherto. Philosophers one and all have, with a strait-laced seriousness that provokes laughter, demanded something much higher, more pretentious, more solemn of themselves as soon as they have concerned themselves with morality as a science: they wanted to furnish the rational ground of morality– and every philosopher hitherto has believed he has furnished this rational ground; morality itself, however, was taken as \"given\". How far from their clumsy pride was that apparently insignificant task left in dust and mildew, the task of description, although the most delicate hands and senses could hardly be delicate enough for it! It was precisely because moral philosophers knew the facts of morality only somewhat vaguely in an arbitrary extractor as a chance abridgement, as morality of their environment, their class, their church, the spirit of their times, their climate and zone of the earth, for instance– it was precisely because they were ill informed and not even very inquisitive about other peoples, ages and former times, that they did not so much as catch sight of the real problems of morality– for these come into view only if we compare many moralities. Strange though it may sound, in all \"science of morals\" hitherto the problem of morality itself has been lacking: the suspicion was lacking that there was anything problematic here. What philosophers called \"the rational ground of morality\" and sought to furnish was, viewed in the proper light, only a scholarly form of faith in the prevailing morality, anew way of expressing it, and thus itself a fact within a certain morality, indeed even in the last resort a kind of denial that this morality ought to be conceived of as a problem– and in any event the opposite of a testing, analysis, doubting and vivisection of this faith. Hear, for example, with what almost venerable innocence Schopenhauer still presented his task, and draw your own conclusions as to how scientific a \"science\" is whose greatest masters still talk like children and old women: – \"The principle\", he says (Fundamental Problems of Ethics),\n\nthe fundamental proposition on whose content all philosophers of ethics are actually atone: neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva– is actually the proposition of which all the teachers of morals endeavour to furnish the rational ground... the actual foundation of ethics which has been sought for centuries like the philosopher's stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– The difficulty of furnishing the rational ground for the above-quoted proposition may indeed be great– as is well known, Schopenhauer too failed to do it– ; and he who has ever been certain how insipidly false and sentimental this proposition is in a world whose essence is will to power– may like to recall that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, actually– played the flute... Everyday, after dinner: read his biographers on this subject. And by the way: a pessimist, a world-denier and God-denier, who comes to a halt before morality– who affirms morality and plays the flute, affirms laede neminem morality: what? is that actually– a pessimist?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quite apart from the value of such assertions as \"there exists in us a categorical imperative\" one can still ask: what does such an assertion say of the man who asserts it? There are moralities which are intended to justify their authors before others; other moralities are intended to calm him and make him content with himself; with others he wants to crucify and humiliate himself; with others he wants to wreak vengeance, with others hide himself, with others transfigure himself and set himself on high; this morality serves to make its author forget, that to make him or something about him forgotten; many moralists would like to exercise power and their creative moods on mankind; others, Kant perhaps among them, give to understand with their morality: \"what is worthy of respect in me is that I know how to obey– and things ought to be no different with you!\" – in short, moralities too are only a sign-language of the emotions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every morality is, as opposed to laisser aller, apiece of tyranny against \"nature\", likewise against \"reason\": but that can be no objection to it unless one is in possession of some other morality which decrees that any kind of tyranny and unreason is impermissible. The essential and invaluable element in every morality is that it is a protracted constraint: to understand Stoicism or Port-Royal or Puritanism one should recall the constraint under which every language has hitherto attained strength and freedom– the metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble the poets and orators of every nation have given themselves! – not excluding a few present-day prose writers in whose ear there dwells an inexorable conscience– \"for the sake of foolishness\", as the utilitarian fools say, thinking they are clever– \"from subjection to arbitrary laws\", as the anarchists say, feeling themselves \"free\", even free-spirited. But the strange fact is that all there is or has been on earth of freedom, subtlety, boldness, dance and masterly certainty, whether in thinking itself, or in ruling, or in speaking and persuasion, in the arts as in morals, has evolved only by virtue of the \"tyranny of such arbitrary laws\"; and, in all seriousness, there is no small probability that precisely this is \"nature\" and \"natural\"– and not that laisser aller! Every artist knows how far from the feeling of letting himself go his \"natural\" condition is, the free ordering, placing, disposing, forming in the moment of \"inspiration\"– and how strictly and subtly he then obeys thousandfold laws which precisely on account of their severity and definiteness mock all formulation in concepts (even the firmest concept is by comparison something fluctuating, manifold, ambiguous–). The essential thing \"in heaven and upon earth\" seems, to say it again, to be a protracted obedience in one direction: from out of that there always emerges and has always emerged in the long run something for the sake of which it is worthwhile to live on earth, for example virtue, art, music, dance, reason, spirituality– something transfiguring, refined, mad and divine. Protracted unfreedom of spirit, mistrustful constraint in the communicability of ideas, the discipline thinkers imposed on themselves to think within an ecclesiastical or courtly rule or under Aristotelian presuppositions, the protracted spiritual will to interpret all events according to a Christian scheme and to rediscover and justify the Christian God in every chance occurrence– all these violent, arbitrary, severe, gruesome and antirational things have shown themselves to be the means by which the European spirit was disciplined in its strength, ruthless curiosity and subtle flexibility: though admittedly an irreplaceable quantity of force and spirit had at the same time to be suppressed, stifled and spoiled (for here as everywhere \"nature\" shows itself as it is, in all its prodigal and indifferent magnificence, which is noble though it outrage our feelings). That for thousands of years European thinkers thought only so as to prove something– today, on the contrary, we suspect any thinker who \"wants to prove something\"– that they always knew in advance that which was supposed to result from the most rigorous cogitation, as used to be the case with Asiatic astrology and is still the case with the innocuous Christian-moral interpretation of the most intimate personal experiences \"to the glory of God\" and \"for the salvation of the soul\"– this tyranny, this arbitrariness, this rigorous and grandiose stupidity has educated the spirit; it seems that slavery, in the cruder and in the more refined sense, is the indispensable means also for spiritual discipline and breeding. Regard any morality from this point of view: it is \"nature\" in it which teaches hatred of laisser aller, of too great freedom, and which implants the need for limited horizons and immediate tasks– which teaches the narrowing of perspective, and thus in a certain sense stupidity, as a condition of life and growth. \"Thou shalt obey someone and fora longtime: otherwise thou shalt perish and lose all respect for thyself\"– this seems tome to be nature's imperative, which is, to be sure, neither'categorical'as old Kant demanded it should be (hence the'otherwise\"–), nor addressed to the individual (what do individuals matter to nature!), but to peoples, races, ages, classes, and above all to the entire animal'man', to mankind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The industrious races find leisure very hard to endure: it was a masterpiece of English instinct to make Sunday so extremely holy and boring that the English unconsciously long again for their week-and working-days-as a kind of cleverly devised and cleverly intercalated fast, such as is also to be seen very frequently in the ancient world (although, as one might expect in the case of southern peoples, not precisely in regard to work–). There have to be fasts of many kinds; and wherever powerful drives and habits prevail legislators have to see to it that there are intercalary days on which such a drive is put in chains and learns to hunger again. Seen from a higher viewpoint, entire generations and ages, if they are infected with some moral fanaticism or other, appear to be such intercalated periods of constraint and fasting, during which a drive learns to stoop and submit, but also to purify and intensify itself; certain philosophical sects (for example the Stoa in the midst of the Hellenistic culture, with its air grown rank and overcharged with aphrodisiac vapours) likewise permit of a similar interpretation. – This also provides a hint towards the elucidation of that paradox why it was precisely during Europe's Christian period and only under the impress of Christian value judgements that the sexual drive sublimated itself into love (amour-passion)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is something in Plato's morality which does not really belong to Plato but is only to be met within his philosophy, one might say in spite of Plato: namely Socratism, for which he was really too noble.\"No one wants to do injury to himself, therefore all badness is involuntary. For the badman does injury to himself: this he would not do if he knew that badness is bad. Thus the badman is bad only in consequence of an error; if one cures him of his error, one necessarily makes him– good. \"– This way of reasoning smells of the mob, which sees in bad behaviour only its disagreeable consequences and actually judges'it is stupid to act badly\"; while it takes'good'without further ado to be identical with'useful and pleasant\". In the case of every utilitarian morality one may conjecture in advance a similar origin and follow one's nose: one will seldom go astray. – Plato did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into his teacher's proposition, above all himself– he, the most intrepid of interpreters, who picked up the whole of Socrates only in the manner of a popular tune from the streets, so as to subject it to infinite and impossible variations: that is, to make it into all his own masks and multiplicities. One might ask in jest, and in Homeric jest at that: what is the Platonic Socrates if not prosthe Platō n opithen te Platō n mess ē te chimaira?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old theological problem of \"faith\" and \"knowledge\"– or, more clearly, of instinct and reason– that is to say, the question whether in regard to the evaluation of things instinct deserves to have more authority than rationality, which wants to evaluate and act according to reasons, according to a \"why?\" , that is to say according to utility and fitness fora purpose– this is still that old moral problem which first appeared in the person of Socrates and was already dividing the minds of men long before Christianity. Socrates himself, to be sure, had, with the taste appropriate to his talent– that of a superior dialectician– initially taken the side of reason; and what indeed did he do all his lifelong but laugh at the clumsy incapacity of his noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noblemen, and were never able to supply adequate information about the reasons for their actions? Ultimately, however, in silence and secrecy, he laughed at himself too: he found in himself, before his more refined conscience and self-interrogation, the same difficulty and incapacity. But why, he exhorted himself, should one therefore abandon the instincts! One must help both them and reason to receive their due– one must follow the instincts, but persuade reason to aid them with good arguments. This was the actual falsity of that great ironist, who had so many secrets; he induced his conscience to acquiesce in a sort of self-outwitting: fundamentally he had seen through the irrational aspect of moral judgement. – Plato, more innocent in such things and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wanted at the expenditure of all his strength– the greatest strength any philosopher has hitherto had to expend! – to prove to himself that reason and instinct move of themselves towards one goal, towards the good, towards \"God\"; and since Plato all theologians and philosophers have followed the same path– that is to say, in moral matters instinct, or as the Christians call it \"faith\", or as I call it \"the herd\", has hitherto triumphed. One might have to exclude Descartes, the father of rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only an instrument, and Descartes was superficial." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who has followed the history of an individual science will find in its evolution a clue to the comprehension of the oldest and most common processes of all \"knowledge and understanding\": in both cases it is the premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to \"believe\", the lack of mistrust and patience which are evolved first– it is only late, and then imperfectly, that our senses learn to be subtle, faithful, cautious organs of understanding. It is more comfortable for our eye to react to a particular object by producing again an image it has often produced before than by retaining what is new and different in an impression: the latter requires more strength, more \"morality\". To hear something new is hard and painful for the ear; we hear the music of foreigners badly. When we hear a foreign language we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds we hear into words which have a more familiar and homely ring: thus the Germans, for example, once heard arcubalista and adapted it into Armbrust. The novel finds our senses, too, hostile and reluctant; and even in the case of the \"simplest\" processes of the senses, the emotions, such as fear, love, hatred, and the passive emotions of laziness, dominate. – As little as a reader today reads all the individual words (not to speak of the syllables) of a page– he rather takes about five words in twenty haphazardly and \"conjectures\" their probable meaning– just as little do we see a tree exactly and entire with regard to its leaves, branches, colour, shape; it is so much easier for us to put together an approximation of a tree. Even when we are involved in the most uncommon experiences we still do the same thing: we fabricate the greater part of the experience and can hardly be compelled not to contemplate some event as its \"inventor\". All this means: we are from the very heart and from the very first– accustomed to lying. Or, to express it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one realizes. – Ina lively conversation I often see before me the face of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and subtly determined by the thought he is expressing or which I believe has been called up in him that this degree of clarity far surpasses the power of my eyesight– so that the play of the muscles and the expression of the eyes must have been invented by me. Probably the person was making a quite different face or none whatever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also the other way round. That which we experience in dreams, if we experience it often, is in the end just as much apart of the total economy of our soul as is anything we \"really\" experience: we are by virtue of it richer or poorer, feel one need more or one need fewer, and finally are led along a little in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments of our waking spirit by the habits of our dreams. Suppose someone has often flown in his dreams and finally as soon as he starts dreaming becomes conscious of a power and art of flying as if it were a privilege he possessed, likewise as his personal and enviable form of happiness: such a man as believes he can realize any arc and angle with the slightest impulse, as knows the feeling of a certain divine frivolity, a \"going up\" without tension or constraint, a \"going down\" without condescension or abasement– without gravity! – how should the man who knew such dream-experiences and dream-habits not find at last that the word \"happiness\" had a different colour and definition in his waking hours too! How should he not have a different kind of– desire for happiness? \"Soaring rapture\" as the poets describe it must seem to him, in comparison with this \"flying\", too earthy, muscular, violent, too \"grave\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The diversity of men is revealed not only in the diversity of their tables of what they find good, that is to say in the fact that they regard diverse goods worth striving for and also differ as to what is more or less valuable, as to the order of rank of the goods they all recognize– it is revealed even more in what they regard as actually having and possessing what they find good. In regard to a woman, for example, the more modest man counts the simple disposal of her body and sexual gratification as a sufficient and satisfactory sign of having, of possession; another, with a more jealous and demanding thirst for possession, sees the \"question-mark\", the merely apparent quality of such a having and requires subtler tests, above all in order to know whether the woman not only gives herself to him but also gives up for his sake what she has or would like to have– : only thus does she count to him as \"possessed\". A third, however, is not done with jealousy and desire for having even then; he asks himself whether, when the woman gives up everything for him, she does not perhaps do so fora phantom of him: he demands that she know him to the very heart before she is able to love him at all, he dares to let himself be unravelled– . He feels that his beloved is fully in his possession only when she no longer deceives herself about him but loves him as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as she does for his goodness, patience and spirituality. One would like to possess a people: and all the higher arts of a Cagliostro and Catiline seem to him right for that end. Another, with a more refined thirst for possession, says to himself: \"one may not deceive where one wants to possess\"– he is irritated and dissatisfied at the idea that it is a mask of him which rules the hearts of the people: \"so I must let myself be known and, first of all, know myself!\" Among helpful and charitable people one almost always finds that clumsy deceitfulness which first adjusts and adapts him who is to be helped: as if, for example, he \"deserved\" help, desired precisely their help, and would prove profoundly grateful, faithful and submissive to them in return for all the help he had received– with these imaginings they dispose of those in need as if they were possessions, and are charitable and helpful at all only from a desire for possessions. They are jealous if one frustrates or anticipates them when they want to help. Parents involuntarily make of their child something similar to themselves– they call it \"education\"– and at the bottom of her heart no mother doubts that in her child she has borne apiece of property, no father disputes his right to subject it to his concepts and values. Indeed, informer times (among the ancient Germans, for instance) it seemed proper for fathers to possess power of life or death over the newborn and to use it as they thought fit. And as formerly the father, so still today the teacher, the class, the priest, the prince unhesitatingly see in every new human being an opportunity fora new possession. From which it follows..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Jews– a people \"born for slavery\" as Tacitus and the whole ancient world says, \"the chosen people\" as they themselves say and believe– the Jews achieved that miracle of inversion of values thanks to which life on earth has fora couple of millennia acquired anew and dangerous fascination– their prophets fused \"rich\", \"godless\", \"evil\", \"violent\", \"sensual\" into one and were the first to coin the word \"world\" as a term of infamy. It is in this inversion of values (with which is involved the employment of the word for \"poor\" as a synonym of \"holy\" and \"friend\") that the significance of the Jewish people resides: with them there begins the slave revolt in morals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is to be inferred that there exist countless dark bodies close to the sun– such as we shall never see. This is, between ourselves, a parable; and amoral psychologist reads the whole starry script only as a parable and sign-language by means of which many things can be kept secret." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One altogether misunderstands the beast of prey and man of prey (Cesare Borgia for example), one misunderstands \"nature\", so long as one looks for something \"sick\" at the bottom of these healthiest of all tropical monsters and growths, or even for an inborn \"hell\" in them– : as virtually all moralists have done hitherto. It seems, does it not, that there exists in moralists a hatred for the jungle and the tropics? And that the \"tropical man\" has to be discredited at any cost, whether as the sickness and degeneration of manor as his own hell and self-torment? But why? For the benefit of \"temperate zones\"? The benefit of temperate men? Of the \"moral\"? Of the mediocre? – This for the chapter \"Morality as Timidity\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All these moralities which address themselves to the individual person, for the promotion of his \"happiness\" as they say– what are they but prescriptions for behaviour in relation to the degree of perilousness in which the individual person lives with himself; recipes to counter his passions, his good and bad inclinations in so far as they have will to power in them and would like to play the tyrant; great and little artifices and acts of prudence to which there clings the nook-and-cranny odour of ancient household remedies and old-woman wisdom; one and all baroque and unreasonable inform– because they address themselves to \"all\", because they generalize where generalization is impermissible– speaking unconditionally one and all, taking themselves for unconditional, flavoured with more than one grain of salt, indeed tolerable only, and occasionally even tempting, when they learn to smell over-spiced and dangerous, to smell above all of \"the other world\": all this is, from an intellectual point of view, of little value and far from constituting \"science\", not to speak of \"wisdom\", but rather, to say it again and to say it thrice, prudence, prudence, prudence, mingled with stupidity, stupidity, stupidity– whether it be that indifference and statuesque coldness towards the passionate folly of the emotions which the Stoics advised and applied; or that no-more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, that destruction of the emotions through analysis and vivisection which he advocated so naïvely; or that depression of the emotions to a harmless mean at which they maybe satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals; even morality as enjoyment of the emotions in a deliberate thinning down and spiritualization through the symbolism of art, as music for instance, or as love of God or love of man for the sake of God– for in religion the passions again acquire civic rights, assuming that...; finally, even that easygoing and roguish surrender to the emotions such as Hafiz and Goethe taught, that bold letting fall of the reins, that spiritual-physical licentia morum in the exceptional case of wise old owls and drunkards for whom there is \"no longer much risk in it\". This too for the chapter \"Morality as Timidity\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inasmuch as ever since there have been human beings there have also been human herds (family groups, communities, tribes, nations, states, churches), and always very many who obey compared with the very small number of those who command– considering, that is to say, that hitherto nothing has been practised and cultivated among men better or longer than obedience, it is fair to suppose that as a rule a need for it is by now innate as a kind of formal conscience which commands: \"thou shalt unconditionally do this, unconditionally not do that\", in short \"thou shalt\". This need seeks to be satisfied and to fill out its form with a content; in doing so it grasps about wildly, according to the degree of its strength, impatience and tension, with little discrimination, as a crude appetite, and accepts whatever any commander– parent, teacher, law, class prejudice, public opinion– shouts in its ears. The strange narrowness of human evolution, its hesitations, its delays, its frequent retrogressions and rotations, are due to the fact that the herd instinct of obedience has been inherited best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we think of this instinct taken to its ultimate extravagance there would be no commanders or independent men at all; or, if they existed, they would suffer from a bad conscience and in order to be able to command would have to practise a deceit upon themselves: the deceit, that is, that they too were only obeying. This state of things actually exists in Europe today: I call it the moral hypocrisy of the commanders. They know noway of defending themselves against their bad conscience other than to pose as executors of more ancient or higher commands (commands of ancestors, of the constitution, of justice, of the law or even of God), or even to borrow herd maxims from the herd's way of thinking and appear as'the first servant of the people'for example, or as'instruments of the common good'. On the other hand, the herd-man in Europe today makes himself out to be the only permissible kind of man and glorifies the qualities through which he is tame, peaceable and useful to the herd as the real human virtues: namely public spirit, benevolence, consideration, industriousness, moderation, modesty, forbearance, pity. In those cases, however, in which leaders and bell-wethers are thought to be indispensable, there is attempt after attempt to substitute for them an adding-together of clever herd-men: this, for example, is the origin of all parliamentary constitutions. All this notwithstanding, what a blessing, what a release from a burden becoming intolerable, the appearance of an unconditional commander is for this herd-animal European, the effect produced by the appearance of Napoleon is the latest great witness– the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness this entire century has attained in its most valuable men and moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man of an era of dissolution which mixes the races together and who therefore contains within him the inheritance of a diversified descent, that is to say contrary and often not merely contrary drives and values which struggle with one another and rarely leave one another in peace– such a man of late cultures and broken lights will, on average, be a rather weak man: his fundamental desire is that the war which he is should come to an end; happiness appears to him, in accord with a sedative (for example Epicurean or Christian) medicine and mode of thought, pre-eminently as the happiness of repose, of tranquillity, of satiety, of unity at last attained, as a \"Sabbath of Sabbaths\", to quote the holy rhetorician Augustine, who was himself such a man. – If, however, the contrariety and war in such a nature should act as one more stimulus and enticement to life– and if, on the other hand, in addition to powerful and irreconcilable drives, there has also been inherited and cultivated a proper mastery and subtlety in conducting a war against oneself, that is to say self-control, self-outwitting: then there arise those marvellously in-comprehensible and unfathomable men, those enigmatic men predestined for victory and the seduction of others, the fairest examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar (– to whom I should like to add that first European agreeable to my taste, the Hohenstaufen Friedrich II), and among artists perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear in precisely the same ages as those in which that rather weak type with his desire for rest comes to the fore: the two types belong together and originate in the same causes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So long as the utility which dominates moral value-judgements is solely that which is useful to the herd, so long as the object is solely the preservation of the community and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in that which seems to imperil the existence of the community: so long as that is the case there can be no \"morality of love of one's neighbour\". Supposing that even there a constant little exercise of consideration, pity, fairness, mildness, mutual aid was practised, supposing that even at that stage of society all those drives are active which are later honourably designated'virtues'and are finally practically equated with the concept'morality\": in that era they do not yet by any means belong to the domain of moral valuations– they are still extra-moral. An act of pity, for example, was during the finest age of Rome considered neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral; and even if it was commended, this commendation was entirely compatible with a kind of involuntary disdain, as soon, that is, as it was set beside any action which served the welfare of the whole, of the res publica. Ultimately'love of one's neighbour\" is always something secondary, in part conventional and arbitrarily illusory, when compared with fear of one's neighbour. Once the structure of society seems to have been in general fixed and made safe from external dangers, it is this fear of one's neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral valuation. There are certain strong and dangerous drives, such as enterprisingness, foolhardiness, revengefulness, craft, rapacity, ambition, which hitherto had not only to be honoured from the point of view of their social utility– under different names, naturally, from those chosen here– but also mightily developed and cultivated (because they were constantly needed to protect the community as a whole against the enemies of the community as a whole); these drives are now felt to be doubly dangerous– now that the diversionary outlets for them are lacking– and are gradually branded as immoral and given over to calumny. The antithetical drives and inclinations now come into moral honour; step by step the herd instinct draws its conclusions. How much or how little that is dangerous to the community, dangerous to equality, resides in an opinion, in a condition or emotion, in a will, in a talent, that is now the moral perspective: here again fear is the mother of morality. When the highest and strongest drives, breaking passionately out, carry the individual far above and beyond the average and lowlands of the herd conscience, the self-confidence of the community goes to pieces, its faith in itself, its spine as it were, is broken: consequently it is precisely these drives which are most branded and calumniated. Lofty spiritual independence, the will to standalone, great intelligence even, are felt to be dangerous; everything that raises the individual above the herd and makes his neighbour quail is henceforth called evil; the fair, modest, obedient, self-effacing disposition, the mean and average in desires, acquires moral names and honours. Eventually, under very peaceful conditions, there is less and less occasion or need to educate one's feelings in severity and sternness; and now every kind of severity, even severity injustice, begins to trouble the conscience; astern and lofty nobility and self-responsibility is received almost as an offence and awakens mistrust,\"the lamb\", even more'the sheep\", is held in higher and higher respect. There comes a point of morbid mellowing and over-tenderness in the history of society at which it takes the side even of him who harms it, the criminal, and does so honestly and wholeheartedly. Punishment: that seems to it somehow unfair– certainly the idea of'being punished'and'having to punish'is unpleasant to it, makes it afraid.\"Is it not enough to render him harmless? why punish him as well? To administer punishment is itself dreadful! \"– with this question herd morality, the morality of timidity, draws its ultimate conclusion. Supposing all danger, the cause of fear, could be abolished, this morality would therewith also be abolished: it would no longer be necessary, it would no longer regard itself as necessary! – He who examines the conscience of the present-day European will have to extract from a thousand moral recesses and hiding-places always the same imperative, the imperative of herd timidity:\"we wish that there will one day no longer be anything to fear! \"One day– everywhere in Europe the will and way to that day is now called'progress'." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let us straightaway say once more what we have already said a hundred times: for ears today offer such truths– our truths– no ready welcome. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when someone says plainly and without metaphor that man is an animal; but it will be reckoned almost a crime in us that precisely in regard to men of \"modern ideas\" we constantly employ the terms \"herd\", \"herd instinct\", and the like. But what of that! we can do no other: for it is precisely here that our new insight lies. We have found that in all principal moral judgements Europe has become unanimous, including the lands where Europe's influence predominates: one manifestly knows in Europe what Socrates thought he did not know, and what that celebrated old serpent once promised to teach– one'knows'today what is good and evil. Now it is bound to make a harsh sound and one not easy for ears to hear when we insist again and again: that which here believes it knows, that which here glorifies itself with its praising and blaming and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herd-animal man: the instinct which has broken through and come to predominate and prevail over the other instincts and is coming to do so more and more in proportion to the increasing physiological approximation and assimilation of which it is the symptom. Morality is in Europe today herd-animal morality– that is to say, as we understand the thing, only one kind of human morality beside which, before which, after which many other, above all higher, moralities are possible or ought to be possible. But against such a'possibility\", against such an'ought\", this morality defends itself with all its might: it says, obstinately and stubbornly,\"I am morality itself, and nothing is morality besides me! \"– indeed, with the aid of a religion which has gratified and flattered the sublimest herd-animal desires, it has got to the point where we discover even in political and social institutions an increasingly evident expression of this morality: the democratic movement inherits the Christian. But that the tempo of this movement is much too slow and somnolent for the more impatient, for the sick and suffering of the said instinct, is attested by the evermore frantic baying, the evermore undisguised fang-baring of the anarchist dogs which now rove the streets of European culture: apparently the reverse of the placidly industrious democrats and revolutionary ideologists, and even more so of the stupid philosophasters and brotherhood fanatics who call themselves socialists and want a'free society\", they are in fact atone with them all in their total and instinctive hostility towards every form of society other than that of the autonomous herd (to the point of repudiating even the concepts'master'and'servant\"– ni dieu ni maître says a socialist formula–); atone in their tenacious opposition to every special claim, every special right and privilege (that is to say, in the last resort to every right: for when everyone is equal no one will need any'rights\"–); atone in their mistrust of punitive justice (as if it were an assault on the weaker, an injustice against the necessary consequence of all previous society–); but equally atone in the religion of pity, in sympathy with whatever feels, lives, suffers (down as far as the animals, up as far as'God\"– the extravagance of'pity for God'belongs in a democratic era–); atone, one and all, in the cry and impatience of pity, in mortal hatred for suffering in general, in their almost feminine incapacity to remain spectators of suffering, to let suffer; atone in their involuntary gloom and sensitivity, under whose spell Europe seems threatened with anew Buddhism; atone in their faith in the morality of mutual pity, as if it were morality in itself and the pinnacle, the attained pinnacle of man, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present and the great redemption from all the guilt of the past– atone, one and all, in their faith in the community as the saviour, that is to say in the herd, in'themselves'..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We, who have a different faith– we, to whom the democratic movement is not merely a form assumed by political organization in decay but also a form assumed by man in decay, that is to say in diminishment, in process of becoming mediocre and losing his value: whither must we direct our hopes? – Towards new philosophers, we have no other choice; towards spirits strong and original enough to make a start on antithetical evaluations and to revalue and reverse \"eternal values\"; towards heralds and forerunners, towards men of the future who in the present knot together the constraint which compels the will of millennia onto new paths. To teach man the future of man as his will, as dependent on a human will, and to prepare for great enterprises and collective experiments indiscipline and breeding so as to make an end of that gruesome dominion of chance and nonsense that has hitherto been called \"history\"– the nonsense of the \"greatest number\" is only its latest form– : for that anew kind of philosopher and commander will sometime be needed, in face of whom whatever has existed on earth of hidden, dreadful and benevolent spirits may well look pale and dwarfed. It is the image of such leaders which hovers before our eyes– may I say that aloud, you free spirits? The circumstances one would have in part to create, in part to employ, to bring them into existence; the conjectural paths and tests by virtue of which a soul could grow to such height and power it would feel compelled to these tasks; a revaluation of values under whose novel pressure and hammer a conscience would be steeled, a heart transformed to brass, so that it might endure the weight of such a responsibility; on the other hand, the need for such leaders, the terrible danger they might not appear or might fail or might degenerate– these are our proper cares and concerns, do you know that, you free spirits? These are the heavy, remote thoughts and thunderclouds that pass across our life's sky. There are few more grievous pains than once to have beheld, divined, sensed, how an extraordinary man missed his way and degenerated: but he who has the rare eye for the collective danger that'man'himself may degenerate, he who, like us, has recognized the tremendous fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game with the future of man– a game in which no hand, not even a'finger of God'took any part! – he who has divined the fatality that lies concealed in the idiotic guilelessness and blind confidence of'modern ideas\", even more in the whole of Christian-European morality: he suffers from a feeling of anxiety with which no other can be compared– for he comprehends in a single glance all that which, given a favourable accumulation and intensification of forces and tasks, could be cultivated out of man, he knows with all the knowledge of his conscience how the greatest possibilities in man are still unexhausted and how often before the type man has been faced with strange decisions and new paths– he knows even better from his most painful memories against what wretched things an evolving being of the highest rank has hitherto usually been shattered and has broken off, sunk and has itself become wretched. The collective degeneration of man down to that which the socialist dolts and blockheads today see as their'man of the future\"– as their ideal! – this degeneration and diminution of man to the perfect herd animal (or, as they say, to the man of the'free society'), this animalization of man to the pygmy animal of equal rights and equal pretensions is possible, there is no doubt about that! He who has once thought this possibility through to the end knows one more kind of disgust than other men do– and perhaps also anew task!..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the risk that moralizing will here too prove to be what it has always been– namely an undismayed montrer ses plaies, as Balzac says– I should like to venture to combat a harmful and improper displacement of the order of rank between science and philosophy which is today, quite unnoticed and as if with a perfect good conscience, threatening to become established. In my view it is only from one's experience– experience always means bad experience, does it not? – that one can acquire the right to speak on such a higher question of rank: otherwise one will talk like a blind man about colours or like women and artists against science (\"oh this wicked science\", their modesty and instinct sighs,\"it always exposes the facts! \"–). The Declaration of Independence of the man of science, his emancipation from philosophy, is one of the more subtle after-effects of the democratic form and formlessness of life: the self-glorification and presumption of the scholar now stands everywhere in full bloom and in its finest springtime– which does not mean to say that in this case self-praise smells sweetly.\"Away with all masters! \"– that is what the plebeian instinct desires here too; and now that science has most successfully resisted theology, whose'hand-maid'it was for too long, it is now, with great high spirits and a plentiful lack of understanding, taking it upon itself to lay down laws for philosophy and for once to play the'master\"– what am I saying? to play the philosopher itself. My memory– the memory of a man of science, if I may say so! – is full of arrogant naïveties I have heard about philosophy and philosophers from young scientists and old physicians (not to speak of the most cultured and conceited of all scholars, the philologists and schoolmen, who are both by profession–). Now it was the specialist and jobbing workman who instinctively opposed synthetic undertakings and capacities in general; now the industrious labourer who had got ascent of the otium and noble luxury in the philosopher's physical economy and felt wronged and diminished by it. Now it was that colour blindness of the utility man who sees in philosophy nothing but a series of refuted systems and a wasteful expenditure which \"benefits\" nobody. Now a fear of disguised mysticism and a rectification of the frontiers of knowledge leaped out; now a disrespect for an individual philosopher which had involuntarily generalized itself into a disrespect for philosophy. Finally, what I found most frequently among young scholars was that behind the arrogant disdain for philosophy there lay the evil after-effect of a philosopher himself, from whom they had, to be sure, withdrawn their allegiance, without, however, having got free from the spell of his disparaging evaluation of other philosophers– the result being a feeling of ill humour towards philosophy in general. (This is the sort of after-effect which, it seems tome, Schopenhauer, for example, has had on Germany in recent years– with his unintelligent rage against Hegel he succeeded in disconnecting the entire last generation of Germans from German culture, which culture was, all things considered, a high point and divinatory refinement of the historical sense: but Schopenhauer himself was in precisely this respect poor, unreceptive and un-German to the point of genius.) In general and broadly speaking, it may have been above all the human, all too human element, in short the poverty of the most recent philosophy itself, which has been most thoroughly prejudicial to respect for philosophy and has opened the gates to the instinct of the plebeian. For one must admit how completely the whole species of a Heraclitus, a Plato, an Empedocles, and whatever else these royal and splendid hermits of the spirit were called, is lacking in our modern world; and to what degree, in face of such representatives of philosophy as are, thanks to fashion, at present as completely on top as they are completely abysmal (in Germany, for example, the two lions of Berlin, the anarchist Eugen Dühring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann) – a worthy man of science is justified in feeling he is of a better species and descent. It is, in particular, the sight of those hotchpotch-philosophers who call themselves \"philosophers of reality\" or \"positivists\" which is capable of implanting a perilous mistrust in the soul of an ambitious young scholar: these gentlemen are at best scholars and specialists themselves, that fact is palpable! – they are one and all defeated men brought back under the sway of science, who at sometime or other demanded more of themselves without having the right to this \"more\" and the responsibility that goes with it– and who now honourably, wrathfully, revengefully represent byword and deed the unbelief in the lordly task and lordliness of philosophy. Finally: how could things be otherwise! Science is flourishing today and its good conscience shines in its face, while that to which the whole of modern philosophy has gradually sunk, this remnant of philosophy, arouses distrust and displeasure when it does not arouse mockery and pity. Philosophy reduced to \"theory of knowledge\", actually no more than a timid epochism and abstinence doctrine: a philosophy that does not even get over the threshold and painfully denies itself the right of entry– that is philosophy at its last gasp, an end, an agony, something that arouses pity. How could such a philosophy– rule!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The perils in the way of the evolution of the philosopher are in truth so manifold today one may well doubt whether this fruit can still ripen at all. The compass and tower-building of the sciences has grown enormous, and therewith the probability has also grown enormous that the philosopher will become weary while still no more than a learner, or that he will let himself be stopped somewhere and \"specialize\": so that he will never reach his proper height, the height from which he can survey, look around and look down. Or that he will reach this height too late, when his best time is past and his best strength spent; or damaged, coarsened, degenerate, so that his view, his total value judgement, no longer means much. Perhaps it is the very refinement of his intellectual conscience which makes him linger on the way and arrive late; he fears he maybe seduced into dilettantism, into becoming an insect with a thousand feet and a thousand antennae, he knows too well that one who has lost respect for himself can no longer command, can no longer lead as a man of knowledge either, unless he wants to become a great actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and pied piper of the spirit, in short a mis-leader. This is ultimately a question of taste even if it were not a question of conscience. In addition to this, so as to redouble his difficulties, there is the fact that the philosopher demands of himself a judgement, a Yes or No, not in regard to the sciences but in regard to life and the value of life– that he is reluctant to believe he has aright, to say nothing of a duty, to come to such a judgement, and has to find his way to this right and this faith only through the widest– perhaps most disturbing and shattering– experiences, and often hesitating, doubting, and being struck dumb. Indeed, the mob has long confounded and confused the philosopher with someone else, whether with the man of science or with the religiously exalted, dead to the senses, \"dead to the world\" fanatic and drunkard of God; and today if one hears anyone commended for living \"wisely\" or \"like a philosopher\", it means hardly more than \"prudently and apart\". Wisdom: that seems to the rabble to be a kind of flight, an artifice and means forgetting oneself out of a dangerous game; but the genuine philosopher– as he seems to us, my friends? – lives \"unphilosophically\" and \"unwisely\", above all imprudently, and bears the burden and duty of a hundred attempts and temptations of life– he risks himself constantly, he plays the dangerous game..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In comparison with a genius, that is to say with a being which either begets or bears, both words taken in their most comprehensive sense– the scholar, the average man of science, always has something of the old maid about him: for, like her, he has no acquaintanceship with the two most valuable functions of mankind. To both of them, indeed, to the scholar and to the old maid, one concedes respectability, byway of compensation as it were– one emphasizes the respectability in these cases– and experiences the same feeling of annoyance at having been constrained to this concession. Let us look more closely: what is the man of science? An ignoble species of man fora start, with the virtues of an ignoble, that is to say subservient, unauthoritative and un-self-sufficient species of man: he possesses industriousness, patient acknowledgement of his proper place in the rank and file, uniformity and moderation inabilities and requirements, he possesses the instinct for his own kind and for that which his own kind have need of, for example that little bit of independence and green pasture without which there is no quiet work, that claim to honour and recognition (which first and foremost presupposes recognizability–), that sunshine of a good name, that constant affirmation of his value and his utility with which his inner distrust, the dregs at the heart of all dependent men and herd animals, have again and again to be overcome. The scholar also possesses, as is only to be expected, the diseases and ill breeding of an ignoble species: he is full of petty envy and has very keen eyes for what is base in those natures to whose heights he is unable to rise. He is trusting, but only like one who sometimes lets himself go but never lets himself flow out; and it is precisely in the presence of men who do flow out that he becomes the more frosty and reserved– his eye is then like a reluctant smooth lake whose surface is disturbed by no ripple of delight or sympathy. The worst and most dangerous thing of which a scholar is capable comes from the instinct of mediocrity which characterizes his species: from that Jesuitism of mediocrity which instinctively works for the destruction of the uncommon man and tries to break or– better still! – relax every bent bow. For relaxing– with consideration, with indulgent hand, naturally, relaxing with importunate pity: that is the true art of Jesuitism, which has always understood how to introduce itself as the religion of pity. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However gratefully one may go to welcome an objective spirit– and who has not been sick to death of everything subjective and its accursed ipsissimosity! – in the end one has to learn to be cautious with one's gratitude too and put a stop to the exaggerated way in which the depersonalization of the spirit is today celebrated as redemption and transfiguration, as if it were the end in itself: as is usually the case within the pessimist school, which also has good reason to accord the highest honours to'disinterested knowledge\". The objective man who no longer scolds or curses as the pessimist does, the ideal scholar in whom the scientific instinct, after thousandfold total and partial failure, for once comes to full bloom, is certainly one of the most precious instruments there are: but he belongs in the hand of one who is mightier. He is only an instrument, let us say a mirror– he is not an'end in himself\". And the objective man is in fact a mirror: accustomed to submitting to whatever wants to be known, lacking any other pleasure than that provided by knowledge, by'mirroring\"– he waits until something comes along and then gently spreads himself out, so that not even the lightest footsteps and the fluttering of ghostly beings shall be lost on his surface and skin. Whatever still remains to him of his'own person'seems to him accidental, often capricious, more often disturbing: so completely has he become a passage and reflection of forms and events not his own. He finds it an effort to think about'himself\", and not infrequently he thinks about himself mistakenly; he can easily confuse himself with another, he fails to understand his own needs and is in this respect alone unsubtle and negligent. Perhaps he is troubled by his health or by the pettiness and stuffiness of his wife and friends, or by alack of companions and company– yes, he forces himself to reflect on his troubles: but in vain! Already his thoughts are roaming, off to a more general case, and tomorrow he will know as little how to help himself as he did yesterday. He no longer knows how to take himself seriously, nor does he have the time for it: he is cheerful, not because he has no troubles but because he has no fingers and facility for dealing with his troubles. His habitual going out to welcome everything and every experience, the sunny and ingenuous hospitality with which he accepts all he encounters, his inconsiderate benevolence, his perilous unconcernedness over Yes and No: alas, how often he has to suffer for these his virtues! – and as a human being in general he can all too easily become the caput mortuum of these virtues. If love and hatred are demanded of him, I mean love and hatred as God, woman and animal understand them–: he will do what he can and give what he can. But one ought not to be surprised if it is not very much– if he proves spurious, brittle, questionable and soft. His love and his hatred are artificial and more of a tour de force, apiece of vanity and exaggeration. For he is genuine only when he can be objective: only in his cheerful totalism can he remain'nature'and'natural\". His mirroring soul, forever polishing itself, no longer knows how to affirm or how to deny; he does not command, neither does he destroy.\" Je ne méprise presque rien\"– he says with Leibniz: one should not overlook or underestimate the presque! Nor is he an exemplar; he neither leads nor follows; he sets himself altogether too far off to have any reason to take sides between good and evil. When he was for so long confused with the philosopher, with the Caesarian cultivator and Gewaltmensch of culture, he was done much too great honour and what is essential in him was overlooked– he is an instrument, something of a slave, if certainly the sublimest kind of slave, but in himself he is nothing– presque rien! The objective man is an instrument, a precious, easily damaged and tarnished measuring instrument and reflecting apparatus which ought to be respected and taken good care of; but he is not an end, a termination and ascent, a complementary man in whom the rest of existence is justified, a conclusion– and even less a beginning, a begetting and first cause, something solid, powerful and based firmly on itself that wants to be master: but rather only a delicate, empty, elegant, flexible mould which has first to wait for some content so as'to form'itself by it– as a rule a man without content, a'selfless' man. Consequently nothing for women either, in parenthesis. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a philosopher today gives us to understand that he is not a sceptic– I hope the foregoing account of the objective spirit has brought this out? – all the world is offended to hear it; thereafter he is regarded with a certain dread, there is so much one would like to ask him... indeed, among timid listeners, of whom there are nowadays a very great number, he is henceforth considered dangerous. It is as if, in his rejection of scepticism, they seemed to hear some evil, menacing sound from afar, as if some new explosive were being tested somewhere, a dynamite of the spirit, perhaps a newly discovered Russian nihiline, a pessimism bonae voluntatis which does not merely say No, will No, but– dreadful thought! does No. Against this kind of \"good will\"– a will to the actual active denial of life– there is today confessedly no better sedative and soporific than scepticism, the gentle, gracious, lulling poppy scepticism; and even Hamlet is prescribed by the doctors of our time against the \"spirit\" and its noises under the ground. \"Are our ears not already filled with nasty sounds?\" says the sceptic as a friend of sleep and almost as a kind of security police: \"this subterranean No is terrible! Be quiet, you pessimistic moles!\" For the sceptic, that delicate creature, is all too easily frightened; his conscience is schooled to wince at every No, indeed even at a hard decisive Yes, and to sense something like a sting. Yes! and No! – that is to him contrary to morality; on the other hand, he likes his virtue to enjoy a noble continence, perhaps by saying after Montaigne \"What do I know?\" Or after Socrates: \"I know that I know nothing.\" Or: \"Here I do not trust myself, here no door stands open tome.\" Or: \"If it did stand open, why go straight in?\" Or: \"What is the point of hasty hypotheses? To make no hypothesis at all could well be apart of good taste. Do you absolutely have to go straightening out what is crooked? Absolutely have to stop up every hole with oakum? Is there not plenty of time? Does time not have time? Oh you rogues, are you unable to wait? Uncertainty too has its charms, the sphinx too is a Circe, Circe too was a philosopher.\" – Thus does a sceptic console himself; and it is true he stands in need of some consolation. For scepticism is the most spiritual expression of a certain complex physiological condition called in ordinary language nervous debility and sickliness; it arises whenever races or classes long separated from one another are decisively and suddenly crossed. In the new generation, which has as it were inherited varying standards and values in its blood, all is unrest, disorder, doubt, experiment; the most vital forces have a retarding effect, the virtues themselves will not let one another grow and become strong, equilibrium, centre of balance, upright certainty are lacking in body and soul. But that which becomes most profoundly sick and degenerates in such hybrids is the will: they no longer have any conception of independence of decision, of the valiant feeling of pleasure in willing– even in their dreams they doubt the \"freedom of the will\". Our Europe of today, the scene of a senselessly sudden attempt at radical class– and consequently race– mixture, is as a result sceptical from top to bottom, now with that agile scepticism which springs impatiently and greedily from branch to branch, now gloomily like a cloud overcharged with question-marks– and often sick to death of its will! Paralysis of will: where does one not find this cripple sitting today! And frequently so dressed up! How seductively dressed up! There is the loveliest false finery available for this disease; and that most of that which appears in the shop windows today as \"objectivity\", \"scientificality\", \"l'art pour l'art\", \"pure will-less knowledge\" is merely scepticism and will-paralysis dressed up– for this diagnosis of the European sickness I am willing to go bail. – Sickness of will is distributed over Europe unequally: it appears most virulently and abundantly where culture has been longest, indigenous it declines according to the extent to which \"the barbarian\" still– or again– asserts his rights under the loose-fitting garment of Western culture. In present-day France, consequently, as one can as easily deduce as actually see, the will is sickest; and France, which has always possessed a masterly adroitness in transforming even the most fateful crises of its spirit into something charming and seductive, today really demonstrates its cultural ascendency over Europe as the school and showcase for all the fascinations of scepticism. The strength to will, and to will one thing fora longtime, is somewhat stronger already in Germany, and stronger again in the north of Germany than in the centre of Germany; considerably stronger in England, Spain and Corsica, therein association with dullness, herewith hardness of head– not to speak of Italy, which is too young to know what it wants and first has to prove whether it is capable of willing– but strongest of all and most astonishing in that huge empire-in-between, where Europe as it were flows back into Asia, in Russia. There the strength to will has for long been stored up and kept in reserve, there the will is waiting menacingly– uncertain whether it is a will to deny or a will to affirm– in readiness to discharge itself, to borrow one of the physicists' favourite words. It may need not only wars in India and Asian involvements to relieve Europe of the greatest danger facing it, but also internal eruptions, the explosion of the empire into small fragments, and above all the introduction of the parliamentary imbecility, including the obligation upon everyone to read his newspaper at breakfast. I do not say this because I desire it: the reverse would be more after my heart– I mean such an increase in the Russian threat that Europe would have to resolve to become equally threatening, namely to acquire a single will by means of anew caste dominating all Europe, a protracted terrible will of its own which could set its objectives thousands of years ahead– so that the long-drawn-out comedy of its petty states and the divided will of its dynasties and democracies should finally come to an end. The time for petty politics is past: the very next century will bring with it the struggle for mastery over the whole earth– the compulsion to grand politics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To what extent the new warlike age upon which we Europeans have obviously entered may perhaps also be favourable to the evolution of anew and stronger species of scepticism: on that question I should like for the moment to speak only in a parable which amateurs of German history will easily understand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for tall handsome grenadiers who, asking of Prussia, brought into existence a military and sceptical genius– and therewith at bottom that new type of German which has just triumphantly emerged– the questionable mad father of Frederick the Great, himself had on one point the grasp and lucky clutch of genius: he knew what was then lacking in Germany and which deficiency was a hundred times more alarming and pressing than any deficiency in culture or social polish– his antipathy for the youthful Frederick was the product of a deep instinctual fear. Men were lacking; and he suspected, with the bitterest vexation, that his own son was not enough of a man. In that he was deceived: but who would not have been deceived in his place? He saw his son lapse into the atheism, the esprit, the pleasure-seeking frivolity of ingenious Frenchmen– he saw in the background the great blood-sucker, the spider scepticism, he suspected the incurable wretchedness of a heart which is no longer hard enough for evil or for good, of a broken will which no longer commands, can no longer command. But in the meantime there grew up in his son that more dangerous and harder new species of scepticism– who knows to what extent favoured by precisely the father's hatred and the icy melancholy of a will sent into solitude? – the scepticism of audacious manliness, which is related most closely to genius for war and conquest and which first entered Germany in the person of the great Frederick. This scepticism despises and yet grasps to itself; it undermines and takes into possession; it does not believe but retains itself; it gives perilous liberty to the spirit but it keeps firm hold on the heart; it is the German form of scepticism which, as a continuation of Frederick-ism intensified into the most spiritual domain, fora longtime brought Europe under the dominion of the German spirit and its critical and historical mistrust. Thanks to the indomitably strong and tough masculinity of the great German philologists and critical historians (who, seen aright, were also one and all artists in destruction and disintegration), there became established, gradually and in spite of all the romanticism in music and philosophy, anew conception of the German spirit in which the trait of manly scepticism decisively predominated: whether as intrepidity of eye, as bravery and sternness of dissecting hand, or as tenacious will for perilous voyages of discovery, for North Pole expeditions of the spirit beneath desolate and dangerous skies. There maybe good reason for warm-blooded and superficial humanitarians to cross themselves before precisely this spirit: cet esprit fataliste, ironique, mephistophelique Michelet calls it, not without a shudder. But if one wishes to appreciate what a mark of distinction is this fear of the'man'in the German spirit through which Europe was awoken from its'dogmatic slumber\", one might like to recall the earlier conception which it had to overcome– and how it is not very long since a masculinized woman could, with unbridled presumption, venture to commend the Germans to Europe's sympathy as gentle, good-hearted, weak-willed and poetic dolts. One should at last have a sufficiently profound comprehension of Napoleon's astonishment when he caught sight of Goethe: it betrays what had for centuries been thought was meant by the'German spirit\".\" Voilà un homme! \"– which is to say:\"but that is a man! And I had expected only a German! ' –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Supposing, then, that in the image of the philosophers of the future some trait provokes the question whether they will not have to be sceptics in the sense last suggested, this would still designate only something about them– and not them themselves. They might with equal justification let themselves be called critics; and they will certainly be experimenters. Through the name with which I have ventured to baptize them I have already expressly emphasized experiment and the delight in experiment: was this because, as critics body and soul, they like to employ experiment in anew, perhaps wider, perhaps more dangerous sense? Will they, in their passion for knowledge, have to go further with audacious and painful experiments than the tender and pampered taste of a democratic century can approve of? – There can be no doubt that these coming men will want to dispense least with those serious and not indubious qualities which distinguish the critic from the sceptic: I mean certainty in standards of value, conscious employment of a unity of method, instructed courage, independence and ability to justify oneself; indeed, they confess to taking a pleasure in negating and dissecting and to a certain self-possessed cruelty which knows how to wield the knife with certainty and deftness even when the heart bleeds. They will be harder (and perhaps not always only against themselves) than humane men might wish, they will not consort with \"truth\" so as to be \"pleased\" by it or \"elevated\" and \"inspired\"– they will rather belittle disposed to believe that truth of all things should be attended by such pleasures. They will smile, these stern spirits, if someone should say in their presence: \"This thought elevates me: how should it not be true?\" Or: \"This work delights me: how should it not be beautiful?\" Or: \"This artist enlarges me: how should he not be great?\" – perhaps they will have not only a smile but a feeling of genuine disgust for all such fawning enthusiasm, idealism, feminism, hermaphroditism, and he who could penetrate into the secret chambers of their hearts would hardly discover there the intention of reconciling \"Christian feelings\" with \"classical taste\" and perhaps even with \"modern parliamentarianism\"(as such a conciliatory spirit is said to exist even among philosophers in our very uncertain and consequently conciliatory century). Critical discipline and every habit conducive to cleanliness and severity in things of the spirit will be demanded by these philosophers not only of themselves: they could even display them as their kind of decoration– none the less they still do not want to be called critics on that account. It seems to them no small insult to philosophy when it is decreed, as is so happily done today: \"Philosophy itself is criticism and critical science– and nothing whatever besides!\" This evaluation of philosophy may enjoy the applause of every positivist in France and Germany (– and it might possibly have flattered the heart and taste of Kant: one should recall the titles of his principal works): our new philosophers will still say: critics are the philosophers' instruments and for that reason very far from being philosophers themselves! Even the great Chinaman of Königsberg was only a great critic. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I insist that philosophical labourers and men of science in general should once and for all cease to be confused with philosophers– that on precisely this point \"to each his own\" should be strictly applied, and not much too much given to the former, much too little to the latter. It maybe required for the education of a philosopher that he himself has also once stood on all those stepson which his servants, the scientific labourers of philosophy, remain standing– have to remain standing; he himself must perhaps have been critic and sceptic and dogmatist and historian and, in addition, poet and collector and traveller and reader of riddles and moralist and seer and \"free spirit\" and practically everything, so as to traverse the whole range of human values and value-feelings and be able to gaze from the heights into every distance, from the depths into every height, from the nook-and-corner into every broad expanse with manifold eyes and a manifold conscience. But all these are only preconditions of his task: this task itself demands something different– it demands that he create values. Those philosophical labourers after the noble exemplar of Kant and Hegel have to take some great fact of evaluation– that is to say, former assessments of value, creations of value which have become dominant and are fora while called \"truths\"– and identify them and reduce them to formulas, whether in the realm of logic or of politics (morals) or of art. It is the duty of these scholars to take everything that has hitherto happened and been valued, and make it clear, distinct, intelligible and manageable, to abbreviate everything long, even \"time\" itself, and to subdue the entire past: a tremendous and wonderful task in the service of which every subtle pride, every tenacious will can certainly find satisfaction. Actual philosophers, however, are commanders and law-givers: they say \"thus it shall be!\" , it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical labourers, of all those who have subdued the past– they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their \"knowing\" is creating, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is– will to power. – Are there such philosophers today? Have there been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help keep the tale going for the author.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 221" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I insist that philosophical labourers and men of science in general should once and for all cease to be confused with philosophers– that on precisely this point \"to each his own\" should be strictly applied, and not much too much given to the former, much too little to the latter. It maybe required for the education of a philosopher that he himself has also once stood on all those stepson which his servants, the scientific labourers of philosophy, remain standing– have to remain standing; he himself must perhaps have been critic and sceptic and dogmatist and historian and, in addition, poet and collector and traveller and reader of riddles and moralist and seer and \"free spirit\" and practically everything, so as to traverse the whole range of human values and value-feelings and be able to gaze from the heights into every distance, from the depths into every height, from the nook-and-corner into every broad expanse with manifold eyes and a manifold conscience. But all these are only preconditions of his task: this task itself demands something different– it demands that he create values. Those philosophical labourers after the noble exemplar of Kant and Hegel have to take some great fact of evaluation– that is to say, former assessments of value, creations of value which have become dominant and are fora while called \"truths\"– and identify them and reduce them to formulas, whether in the realm of logic or of politics (morals) or of art. It is the duty of these scholars to take everything that has hitherto happened and been valued, and make it clear, distinct, intelligible and manageable, to abbreviate everything long, even \"time\" itself, and to subdue the entire past: a tremendous and wonderful task in the service of which every subtle pride, every tenacious will can certainly find satisfaction. Actual philosophers, however, are commanders and law-givers: they say \"thus it shall be!\" , it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical labourers, of all those who have subdued the past– they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their \"knowing\" is creating, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is– will to power. – Are there such philosophers today? Have there been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seems tome more and more that the philosopher, being necessarily a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself and had to find himself in contradiction to his today: his enemy has always been the ideal of today. Hitherto these extraordinary promoters of mankind who have been called philosophers and have seldom felt themselves to befriends of knowledge but, rather, disagreeable fools and dangerous question-marks– have found their task, their hard, unwanted, unavoidable task, but finally the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their age. By laying the knife vivisectionally to the bosom of the very virtues of the age they betrayed what was their own secret: to know anew greatness of man, anew untrodden path to his enlargement. Each time they revealed how much hypocrisy, indolence, letting oneself go and letting oneself fall, how much falsehood was concealed under the most honoured type of their contemporary morality, how much virtue was outlived; each time they said: \"We have to go thither, out yonder, where you today are least at home.\" In face of a world of \"modern ideas\" which would like to banish everyone into a corner and \"speciality\", a philosopher, assuming there could be philosophers today, would be compelled to seethe greatness of man, the concept \"greatness\", precisely in his spaciousness and multiplicity, in his wholeness in diversity: he would even determine value and rank according to how much and how many things one could endure and take upon oneself, how far one could extend one's responsibility. Today the taste of the age and the virtue of the age weakens and attenuates the will, nothing is so completely timely as weakness of will: consequently, in the philosopher's ideal precisely strength of will, the hardness and capacity for protracted decisions, must constitute part of the concept \"greatness\"; with just as much justification as the opposite doctrine and the ideal of ashy, renunciatory, humble, selfless humanity was appropriate to an opposite age, to one such as, like the sixteenth century, suffered from its accumulation of will and the stormiest waters and flood-tides of selfishness. In the age of Socrates, among men of nothing but wearied instincts, among conservative ancient Athenians who let themselves go– \"towards happiness\", as they said, towards pleasure, as they behaved– and who at the same time had in their mouth the old pretentious words to which their lives had long ceased to give them any right, irony was perhaps required for greatness of soul, that Socratic malicious certitude of the old physician and plebeian who cut remorselessly into his own flesh as he did into the flesh and heart of the \"noble\", with a look which said distinctly enough: \"do not dissemble before me! Here– we are equal!\" Today, conversely, when the herd animal alone obtains and bestows honours in Europe, when \"equality of rights\" could all too easily change into equality in wrongdoing: I mean into a general war on everything rare, strange, privileged, the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, creative fullness of power and mastery– today, being noble, wanting to be by oneself, the ability to be different, independence and the need for self-responsibility pertains to the concept \"greatness\"; and the philosopher will betray something of his ideal when he asserts: \"He shall be the greatest who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, the superabundant of will; this shall be called greatness: the ability to be as manifold as whole, as vast as full.\" And, to ask it again: is greatness– possible today?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a philosopher is, is hard to learn, because it cannot be taught: one has to \"know\" it from experience– or one ought to be sufficiently proud not to know it. But that nowadays all the world talks of things of which it cannot have experience is most and worst evident in respect of philosophers and the philosophical states of mind– very few know them or are permitted to know them, and all popular conceptions of them are false. Thus, for example, that genuinely philosophical combination of a bold exuberant spirituality which runs presto and a dialectical severity and necessity which never takes a false step is to most thinkers and scholars unknown from experience and consequently, if someone should speak of it in their presence, incredible. They imagine every necessity as a state of distress, as a painful compelled conformity and constraint; and thought itself they regard as something slow, hesitant, almost as toil and often as \"worthy of the sweat of the noble\"– and not at all as something easy, divine, and a closest relation of high spirits and the dance! \"Thinking\" and \"taking something seriously\", giving it \"weighty consideration\"– to them these things go together: that is the only way they have \"experienced\" it. Artists may here have a more subtle scent: they know only too well that it is precisely when they cease to act \"voluntarily\" and do everything of necessity that their feeling of freedom, subtlety, fullness of power, creative placing, disposing, shaping reaches its height– in short, that necessity and \"freedom of will\" are then one in them. In the last resort there exists an order of rank of states of soul with which the order of rank of problems accords; and the supreme problems repel without mercy everyone who ventures near them without being, through the elevation and power of his spirituality, predestined to their solution. Of what avail is it if nimble commonplace minds or worthy clumsy mechanicals and empiricists crowd up to them, as they so often do today, and with their plebeian ambition approach as it were this \"court of courts\"! But coarse feet may never tread such carpets: that has been seen to in the primal law of things; the doors remain shut against such importunates, though they may batter and shatter their heads against them! For every elevated world one has to be born or, expressed more clearly, bred for it: one has aright to philosophy– taking the word in the grand sense– only by virtue of one's origin; one's ancestors, one's\"blood' are the decisive thing here too. Many generations must have worked to prepare for the philosopher; each of his virtues must have been individually acquired, tended, inherited, incorporated, and not only the bold, easy, delicate course and cadence of his thoughts but above all the readiness for great responsibilities, the lofty glance that rules and looks down, the feeling of being segregated from the mob and its duties and virtues, the genial protection and defence of that which is misunderstood and calumniated, be it god or devil, the pleasure in and exercise of grand justice, the art of commanding, the breadth of will, the slow eye which seldom admires, seldom looks upward, seldom loves..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our virtues? – it is probable that we too still have our virtues, although naturally they will not be those square and simple virtues on whose account we hold our grandfathers in high esteem but also hold them off a little. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we first-born of the twentieth century– with all our dangerous curiosity, our multiplicity and art of disguise, our mellow and as it were sugared cruelty inspirit and senses– if we are to have virtues we shall presumably have only such virtues as have learned to get along with our most secret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most fervent needs: very well, let us look for them within our labyrinths! – where, as is well known, such a variety of things lose themselves, such a variety of things get lost forever. And is there anything nicer than to look for one's own virtues? Does this not almost mean: to believe in one's own virtue? But this \"believing in one's virtue\"– is this not at bottom the same thing as that which one formerly called one's \"good conscience\", that venerable long conceptual pigtail which our grandfathers used to attach to the back of their heads and often enough to the back of their minds as well? It seems that, however little we may think ourselves old-fashioned and grandfatherly-respectable in other respects, in one thing we are none the less worthy grandsons of these grandfathers, we last Europeans with a good conscience: we too still wear their pigtail. – Alas! if only you knew how soon, how very soon, things will be– different!..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As in the realm of the stars it is sometimes two suns which determine the course of a planet, as in certain cases suns of differing colour shine on a single planet now with a red light, now with a green light, and sometimes striking it at the same time and flooding it with many colours: so we modern men are, thanks to the complicated mechanism of our \"starry firmament\", determined by differing moralities; our actions shine alternately in differing colours, they are seldom unequivocal– and there are cases enough in which we perform many-coloured actions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Love of one's enemies? I think that has been well learned: it happens thousandfold today, on a large and small scale; indeed, occasionally something higher and more sublime happens– we learn to despise when we love, and precisely when we love best– but all this unconsciously, without noise, without ostentation, with that modesty and concealment of goodness which forbids the mouth solemn words and the formulas of virtue. Morality as a posture– goes against our taste today. This too is progress: just as it was progress when religion as a posture finally went against the taste of our fathers, including hostility and Voltarian bitterness towards religion (and whatever else formerly belonged to the gesture-language of free-thinkers). It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, with which puritan litanies, moral preaching and philistinism will not chime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beware of those who set great store on being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discrimination! If once they blunder in our presence (not to speak of in respect of us) they never forgive us– they unavoidably take to slandering and derogating us, even if they still remain our \"friends\". – Blessed are the forgetful: for they shall \"have done\" with their stupidities too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The psychologists of France– and where else today are there psychologists? – have still not yet exhausted the bitter and manifold pleasure they take in the bétise bourgeoise, just as if... enough, they thereby betray something. Flaubert, for example, the worthy citizen of Rouen, in the end no longer saw, heard or tasted anything else– it was his mode of self-torment and more refined cruelty. I now suggest, byway of a change– for this is getting boring– anew object of enjoyment: the unconscious cunning of the attitude adopted by all good, fat, worthy spirits of mediocrity towards more exalted spirits and their tasks, that subtle, barbed, Jesuitical cunning which is a thousand times subtler than the taste and understanding of this middle class in its best moments– subtler even than the understanding of its victims– : another demonstration that, of all forms of intelligence discovered hitherto, \"instinct\" is the most intelligent. In brief: study, psychologists, the philosophy of the \"rule\" in its struggle with the \"exception\": there you have a spectacle fit for the gods and for divine maliciousness! Or, still more clearly: carryout vivisection on the \"good man\", on the \"homo bonae voluntatis\"... on yourselves!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moral judgement and condemnation is the favourite form of revenge of the spiritually limited on those who are less so, likewise a form of compensation for their having been neglected by nature, finally an occasion for acquiring spirit and becoming refined– malice spiritualizes. Deep in their hearts they are glad there exists a standard according to which those overloaded with the goods and privileges of the spirit are their equals– they struggle for the \"equality of all before God\" and it is virtually for that purpose that they need the belief in God. It is among them that the most vigorous opponents of atheism are to be found. Anyone who told them \"a lofty spirituality is incompatible with any kind of worthiness and respectability of the merely moral man\" would enrage them– I shall take care not to do so. I should, rather, like to flatter them with my proposition that a lofty spirituality itself exists only as the final product of moral qualities; that it is a synthesis of all those states attributed to the \"merely moral\" man after they have been acquired one by one through protracted discipline and practice, perhaps in the course of whole chains of generations; that lofty spirituality is the spiritualization of justice and of that benevolent severity which knows itself empowered to maintain order of rank in the world among things themselves– and not only among men" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that the \"disinterested\" are praised so widely one has, perhaps not without some danger, to become conscious of what it is the people are really interested in, and what in general the things are about which the common man is profoundly and deeply concerned: including the educated, even the scholars and, unless all appearance deceives, perhaps the philosophers as well. The fact then emerges that the great majority of those things which interest and stimulate every higher nature and more refined and fastidious taste appear altogether \"uninteresting\" to the average man– if he none the less notices a devotion to these things, he calls it'désintéressé\" and wonders how it is possible to act \"disinterestedly\". There have been philosophers who have known how to lend this popular wonderment a seductive and mystical-otherwordly expression (– perhaps because they did not know the higher nature from experience?) – instead of stating the naked and obvious truth that the \"disinterested\" act is a very interesting and interested act, provided that... \"And love?\" – what! Even an act performed out of love is supposed to be \"unegoistic\"? But you blockheads– ! \"And commendation of him who sacrifices?\" – But he who has really made sacrifices knows that he wanted and received something in return– perhaps something of himself in exchange for something of himself– that he gave away herein order to have more there, perhaps in general to be more or to feel himself \"more\". But this is a domain of questions and answers in which a more fastidious taste prefers not to linger: truth has so much to stifle her yawns here when answers are demanded of her. She is, after all, a woman: one ought not to violate her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It can happen, said a pettyfogging moral pedant, that I honour and respect an unselfish man: but not because he is unselfish but because he seems tome to have the right to be useful to another man at his own expense. Enough: the question is always who he is and who the other is. In one made and destined for command, for example, self-abnegation and modest retirement would be not a virtue but the waste of a virtue: so it seems tome. Every unegoistic morality which takes itself as unconditional and addresses itself to everybody is not merely a sin against taste: it is an instigation to sins of omission, one seduction more under the mask of philanthropy– and a seduction and injury for precisely the higher, rarer, privileged. Moralities must first of all be forced to bow before order of rank, their presumption must be brought home to them– until they at last come to understand that it is immoral to say: \"What is good for one is good for another.\" – Thus my moralistic pedant and bonhomme: does he deserve to be laughed at for thus exhorting moralities to morality? But one should not be too much in the right if one wants to have the laughers on one's own side; a grain of wrong is even an element of good taste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where pity and fellow-suffering is preached today– and, heard aright, no other religion is any longer preached now– the psychologist should prick up his ears: through all the vanity, all the noise characteristic of these preachers (as it is of all preachers) he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of self-contempt. It is part of that darkening and uglification of Europe which has now been going on fora hundred years (the earliest symptoms of which were first recorded in a thoughtful letter of Galiani's to Madame d'Epinay): if it is not the cause of it! The man of \"modern ideas\", that proud ape, is immoderately dissatisfied with himself: that is certain. He suffers: and his vanity would have him only \"suffer with his fellows\"..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hybrid European– a tolerably ugly plebeian, all in all– definitely requires a costume: he needs history as his storeroom for costumes. He realizes, to be sure, that none of them fits him properly– he changes and changes. Consider the nineteenth century with regard to these rapid predilections and changes in the style-masquerade; notice too the moments of despair because \"nothing suits\" us–. It is in vain we parade ourselves as romantic or classical or Christian or Florentine or baroque or \"national\", in moribus et artibus: the \"cap doesn't fit\"! But the'spirit\", especially the'historical spirit\", perceives an advantage even in this despair: again and again another piece of the past and of foreignness is tried out, tried on, taken off, packed away, above all studied– we are the first studious age in puncto of'costumes\", I mean those of morality, articles of faith, artistic tastes and religions, prepared as no other age has been for the carnival in the grand style, for the most spiritual Shrovetide laughter and wild spirits, for the transcendental heights of the most absolute nonsense and Aristophanic universal mockery. Perhaps it is precisely here that we are discovering the realm of our invention, that realm where we too can still be original, perhaps as parodists of world history and God's buffoons– perhaps, even if nothing else of today has a future, precisely our laughter may still have a future!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly the order of rank of the evaluations according to which a people, a society, a human being has lived, the \"divinatory instinct\" for the relationships of these evaluations, for the relation of the authority of values to the authority of effective forces): this historical sense, to which we Europeans lay claim as our speciality, has come to us in the wake of the mad and fascinating semi-barbarism into which Europe has been plunged through the democratic mingling of classes and races– only the nineteenth century knows this sense, as its sixth sense. The past of every form and mode of life, of cultures that formerly lay close beside or on top of one another, streams into us \"modern souls\" thanks to this mingling, our instincts now run back in all directions, we ourselves area kind of chaos– : in the end, as I said before, \"the spirit\" perceives its advantage in all this. Through our semi-barbarism in body and desires we have secret access everywhere such as a noble age never had, above all the access to the labyrinth of unfinished cultures and to every semi-barbarism which has ever existed on earth; and, in so far as the most considerable part of human culture hitherto has been semi-barbarism, \"historical sense\" means virtually the sense and instinct for everything, the taste and tongue for everything: which at once proves it to bean ignoble sense. We enjoy Homer again, for instance: perhaps it is our happiest advance that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom the men of a noble culture (the French of the seventeenth century, for example, such as Saint-Evremond, who reproached him for his esprit vaste, and even their dying echo, Voltaire) cannot and could not assimilate so easily– whom they hardly permitted themselves to enjoy. The very definite Yes and No of their palate, their easily aroused disgust, their hesitant reserve with regard to everything strange, their horror of the tastelessness even of a lively curiosity, and in general that unwillingness of a noble and self-sufficient culture to admit to anew desire, a dissatisfaction with one's own culture, an admiration for what is foreign: all this disposes them unfavourably towards even the best things in the world which are not their property and could not become their prey– and no sense is so unintelligible to such men as the historical sense and its obsequious plebeian curiosity. It is no different with Shakespeare, that astonishing Spanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of tastes over which an ancient Athenian of the circle of Aeschylus would have half-killed himself with laughter or annoyance: but we– we accept precisely this confusion of colours, this medley of the most delicate, the coarsest and the most artificial, with a secret confidence and cordiality, we enjoy him as an artistic refinement reserved precisely for us and allow ourselves to be as little disturbed by the repellent fumes and the proximity of the English rabble in which Shakespeare's art and taste live as we do on the Chiaja of Naples, where we go our way enchanted and willing with all our senses alert, however much the sewers of the plebeian quarters may fill the air. That as men of the \"historical sense\" we have our virtues is not to be denied– we are unpretentious, selfless, modest, brave, full of self-restraint, full of devotion, very grateful, very patient, very accommodating– with all that, we are perhaps not very \"tasteful\". Let us finally confess it to ourselves: that which we men of the \"historical sense\" find hardest to grasp, to feel, taste, love, that which at bottom finds us prejudiced and almost hostile, is just what is complete and wholly mature in every art and culture, that which constitutes actual nobility in works and in men, their moment of smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldness and coldness displayed by all things which have become perfect. Perhaps our great virtue of the historical sense necessarily stands opposed to good taste, or to the very best taste at any rate, and it is precisely the brief little pieces of good luck and transfiguration of human life that here and there come flashing up which we find most difficult and laboursome to evoke in ourselves: those miraculous moments when a great power voluntarily halted before the boundless and immeasurable– when a superfluity of subtle delight in sudden restraint and petrifaction, in standing firm and fixing oneself, was enjoyed on aground still trembling. Measure is alien to us, let us admit it to ourselves; what we itch for is the infinite, the unmeasured. Like a rider on a charging steed we let fall the reins before the infinite, we modern men, like semi-barbarians– and attain our state of bliss only when we are most– in danger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether it be hedonism or pessimism or utilitarianism or eudaemonism: all these modes of thought which assess the value of things according to pleasure and pain, that is to say according to attendant and secondary phenomena, are foreground modes of thought and naïveties which anyone conscious of creative powers and an artist's conscience will look down on with derision, though not without pity. Pity for you! That, to be sure, is not pity for social'distress\", for'society'and its sick and unfortunate, for the vicious and broken from the start who lie all around us; even less is it pity for the grumbling, oppressed, rebellious slave classes who aspire after domination– they call it'freedom\". Our pity is a more elevated, more farsighted pity– we see how man is diminishing himself, how you are diminishing him! – and there are times when we behold your pity with an indescribable anxiety, when we defend ourselves against this pity– when we find your seriousness more dangerous than any kind of frivolity. You want if possible– and there is no madder'if possible\"– to abolish suffering; and we? – it really does seem that we would rather increase it and make it worse than it has ever been! Wellbeing as you understand it– that is no goal, that seems to us an end! A state which soon renders man ludicrous and contemptible– which makes it desirable that he should perish! The discipline of suffering, of great suffering– do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto? That tension of the soul in misfortune which cultivates its strength, its terror at the sight of great destruction, its inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, exploiting misfortune, and whatever of depth, mystery, mask, spirit, cunning and greatness has been bestowed upon it– has it not been bestowed through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? In man, creature and creator are united: in man there is matter, fragment, excess, clay, mud, madness, chaos; but in man there is also creator, sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divine spectator and the seventh day– do you understand this antithesis? And that your pity is for the'creature in man', for that which has to be formed, broken, forged, torn, burned, annealed, refined– that which has to suffer and should suffer? And our pity– do you not grasp whom our opposite pity is for when it defends itself against your pity as the worst of all pampering and weakening? – Pity against pity, then! – But, to repeat, there are higher problems than the problems of pleasure and pain and pity; and every philosophy that treats only of them is apiece of naïvety.-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We immoralists! – This world which concerns us, in which we have to love and fear, this almost invisible, inaudible world of subtle commanding, subtle obeying, a world of \"almost\" in every respect, sophistical, insidious, sharp, tender: it is well defended, indeed, against clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity! We are entwined in an austere shirt of duty and cannot get out of it– and in this we are \"men of duty\", we too! Sometimes, it is true, we may dance in our \"chains\" and between our \"swords\"; often, it is no less true, we gnash our teeth at it and frown impatiently at the unseen hardship of our lot. But do what we will, fools and appearances speak against us and say \"these are men without duty\"– we always have fools and appearances against us!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Honesty– granted that this is our virtue, from which we cannot get free, we free spirits– well, let us labour at it with all love and malice and not weary of \"perfecting\" ourselves in our virtue, the only one we have: may its brightness one day overspread this ageing culture and its dull, gloomy seriousness like a gilded azure mocking evening glow! And if our honesty should one day none the less grow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and like to have things better, easier, gentler, like an agreeable vice: let us remain hard, we last of the Stoics! And let us send to the aid of our honesty whatever we have of devilry in us– our disgust at the clumsy and casual, our'nitimur in vetitum\" , our adventurer's courage, our sharp and fastidious curiosity, our subtlest, most disguised, most spiritual will to power and world-overcoming which wanders avidly through all the realms of the future– let us go to the aid of our'god'with all our'devils\"! It is probable that we shall be misunderstood and taken for what we are not: but what of that! People will say:\"Their'honesty\" – is their devilry and nothing more! \"But what of that! And even if they were right! Have all gods hitherto not been such devils grown holy and been rebaptized? And what do we know of ourselves, when all's said and done? And what the spirit which leads us on would like to be called (it is a question of names)? And how many spirits we harbour? Our honesty, we free spirits– let us see to it that our honesty does not become our vanity, our pomp and finery, our limitation, our stupidity! Every virtue tends towards stupidity, every stupidity towards virtue; \"stupid to the point of saintliness\" they say in Russia– let us see to it that through honesty we do not finally become saints and bores! Is life not a hundred times too short to be– bored in it? One would have to believe in eternal life to..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "May I be forgiven the discovery that all moral philosophy hitherto has been boring and a soporific– and that \"virtue\" has in my eyes been harmed by nothing more than it has been by this boringness of its advocates; in saying which, however, I should not want to overlook their general utility. It is important that as few people as possible should think about morality– consequently it is very important that morality should not one day become interesting! But do not worry! It is still now as it has always been: I see no one in Europe who has (or propagates) any idea that thinking about morality could be dangerous, insidious, seductive– that fatality could be involved! Consider, for example, the indefatigable, inevitable English utilitarians and with what clumsy and worthy feet they walk, stalk (a Homeric metaphor says it more plainly) along in the footsteps of Bentham, just as he himself had walked in the footsteps of the worthy Helvétius (no, he was not a dangerous man, this Helvétius, ce senateur Pococurante as Galiani called him–). No new idea, no subtle expression or turn of an old idea, not even areal history of what had been thought before: an impossible literature altogether, unless one knows how to leaven it with a little malice. For into these moralists too (whom one has to read with mental reservations if one has to read them at all–) there has crept that old English vice called cant, which is moral tartuffery, this time concealed in the new form of scientificality; there are also signs of a secret struggle with pangs of conscience, from which a race of former Puritans will naturally suffer. (Is a moralist not the opposite of a Puritan? That is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as something questionable, as worthy of question-marks, in short as a problem? Is moralizing not– immoral?) Ultimately they all want English morality to prevail: inasmuch as mankind, or the \"general utility\", or \"the happiness of the greatest number\", no! the happiness of England would best be served; they would like with all their might to prove to themselves that to strive after English happiness, I mean after comfort and fashion (and, as the supreme goal, a seat in Parliament), is at the same time the true path of virtue, indeed that all virtue there has ever been on earth has consisted in just such a striving. Not one of all these ponderous herd animals with their uneasy conscience (who undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as the cause of the general welfare–) wants to know or scent that the \"general welfare\" is not an ideal, or a goal, or a concept that can be grasped at all, but only an emetic– that what is right for one cannot by any means therefore be right for another, that the demand for one morality for all is detrimental to precisely the higher men, in short that there exists an order of rank between man and man, consequently also between morality and morality. They area modest and thoroughly mediocre species of man, these English utilitarians, and, as aforesaid, in so far as they are boring one cannot think sufficiently highly of their utility. One ought even to encourage them: which is in part the objective of the following rhymes.\n\nHail, continual plodders, hail!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lengthen out the tedious tale\",\n\nPedant still in head and knee,\n\nDull, of humour not a trace,\n\nPermanently commonplace,\n\nSans génie et sans esprit!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In late ages which maybe proud of their humaneness there remains so much fear, so much superstitious fear of the \"savage cruel beast\", to have mastered which constitutes the very pride of those more humane ages, that even palpable truths as if by general agreement, remain unspoken for centuries, because they seem as though they might help to bring back to life that savage beast which has been finally laid to rest. Perhaps I am risking something when I let one of these truths escape: let others capture it again and give it sufficient of the \"milk of pious thoughts\" for it to lie still and forgotten in its old corner. – One should open one's eyes and take anew look at cruelty; one should at last grow impatient, so that the kind of immodest fat errors which have, for example, been fostered about tragedy by ancient and modern philosophers should no longer go stalking virtuously and confidently about. Almost everything we call'higher culture'is based on the spiritualization and intensification of cruelty– this is my proposition; the'wild beast'has not been laid to rest at all, it lives, it flourishes, it has merely become– deified. That which constitutes the painful voluptuousness of tragedy is cruelty; that which produces a pleasing effect in so-called tragic pity, indeed fundamentally in everything sublime up to the highest and most refined thrills of metaphysics, derives its sweetness solely from the ingredient of cruelty mixed in with it. What the Roman in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the Cross, the Spaniard watching burnings or bullfights, the Japanese of today crowding into the tragedy, the Parisian suburban workman who has a nostalgia for bloody revolutions, the Wagnerienne who, with will suspended,\"experiences'Tristan und Isolde– what all of these enjoy and look with secret ardour to imbibe is the spicy potion of the great Circe'cruelty\". Here, to be sure, we must put aside the thick-witted psychology of former times which had to teach of cruelty only that it had its origin in the sight of the sufferings of others: there is also an abundant, over-abundant enjoyment of one's own suffering, of making oneself suffer– and wherever man allows himself to be persuaded to self-denial in the religious sense, or to self-mutilation, as among Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general to desensualization, decarnalization, contrition, to Puritanical spasms of repentance, to conscience-vivisection and to a Pascalian sacrifizio dell' intelletto, he is secretly lured and urged onward by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrills of cruelty directed against himself. Consider, finally, how even the man of knowledge, when he compels his spirit to knowledge which is counter to the inclination of his spirit and frequently also to the desires of his heart– by saying No, that is, when he would like to affirm, love, worship– disposes as an artist in and transfigurer of cruelty; in all taking things seriously and thoroughly, indeed, there is already a violation, a desire to hurt the fundamental will of the spirit, which ceaselessly strives for appearance and the superficial– in all desire to know there is already a drop of cruelty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps what I have said hereof a \"fundamental will of the spirit\" may not be immediately comprehensible: allow me to explain. – That commanding something which the people calls \"spirit\" wants to be master within itself and around itself and to feel itself master: out of multiplicity it has the will to simplicity, a will which binds together and tames, which is imperious and domineering. In this its needs and capacities are the same as those which physiologists posit for everything that lives, grows and multiplies. The power of the spirit to appropriate what is foreign to it is revealed in a strong inclination to assimilate the new to the old, to simplify the complex, to overlook or repel what is wholly contradictory: just as it arbitrarily emphasizes, extracts and falsifies to suit itself certain traits and lines in what is foreign to it, in every piece of \"external world\". Its intention in all this is the incorporation of new \"experiences\", the arrangement of new things within old divisions– growth, that is to say; more precisely, the feeling of growth, the feeling of increased power. This same will is served by an apparently antithetical drive of the spirit, a sudden decision for ignorance, for arbitrary shutting-out, a closing of the windows, an inner denial of this or that thing, a refusal to let it approach, a kind of defensive posture against much that can be known, a contentment with the dark, with the closed horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance: all this being necessary according to the degree of its power to appropriate, its \"digestive power\", to speak in a metaphor– and indeed \"the spirit\" is more like a stomach than anything else. It is here that there also belongs the occasional will of the spirit to let itself be deceived, perhaps with a mischievous notion that such and such is not the case, that it is only being allowed to pass for the case, a joy in uncertainty and ambiguity, an exultant enjoyment of the capricious narrowness and secrecy of a nook-and-corner, of the all too close, of the foreground, of the exaggerated, diminished, displaced, beautified, an enjoyment of the capriciousness of all these expressions of power. Finally there also belongs here that not altogether innocent readiness of the spirit to deceive other spirits and to dissemble before them, that continual pressing and pushing of a creative, formative, changeable force: in this the spirit enjoys the multiplicity and cunning of its masks, it enjoys too the sense of being safe that this brings– for it is precisely through its protean arts that it is best concealed and protected! This will to appearance, to simplification, to the mask, to the cloak, in short to the superficial– for every surface is a cloak– is counteracted by that sublime inclination in the man of knowledge which takes a profound, many-sided and thorough view of things and will take such a view: as a kind of cruelty of the intellectual conscience and taste which every brave thinker will recognize in himself, provided he has hardened and sharpened for long enough his own view of himself, as he should have, and is accustomed to stern discipline and stern language. He will say \"there is something cruel in the inclination of my spirit\"– let the amiable and virtuous try to talk him out of that! In fact, it would be nicer if, instead of with cruelty, we were perhaps credited with an \"extravagant honesty\"– we free, very free spirits– and perhaps that will actually one day be our posthumous fame? In the meantime– for it will be along time before that happens– we ourselves are likely to be least inclined to dress up in moralistic verbal tinsel and valences of this sort: all our labour hitherto has spoiled us for this taste and its buoyant luxuriousness. They are beautiful, glittering, jingling, festive words: honesty, love of truth, love of wisdom, sacrifice for the sake of knowledge, heroism of the truthful– there is something about them that makes one's pride swell. But we hermits and marmots long ago became convinced that this worthy verbal pomp too belongs among the ancient false finery, lumber and gold-dust of unconscious human vanity, and that under such flattering colours and varnish too the terrible basic text homo natura must again be discerned. For to translate man back into nature; to master the many vain and fanciful interpretations and secondary meanings which have been hitherto scribbled and daubed over that eternal basic text homo natura; to confront man henceforth with man in the way in which, hardened by the discipline of science, man today confronts the rest of nature, with dauntless Oedipus eyes and stopped-up Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird-catchers who have all too long been piping to him'you are more! you are higher! you are of a different origin! \"– that maybe a strange and extravagant task but it is a task– who would deny that? Why did we choose it, this extravagant task? Or, to ask the question differently:\"why knowledge at all? ' – Everyone will ask us about that. And we, thus pressed, we who have asked ourselves the same question a hundred times, we have found and can find no better answer..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Learning transforms us, it does that which all nourishment does which does not merely \"preserve\"–: as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of us, \"right down deep\", there is, to be sure, something unteachable, a granite stratum of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined selected questions. In the case of every cardinal problem there speaks an unchangeable \"this is I\"; about man and woman, for example, a thinker cannot relearn but only learn fully– only discover all that is \"firm and settled\" within him on this subject. One sometimes comes upon certain solutions to problems which inspire strong belief in us; perhaps one thenceforth calls them one's\"convictions\". Later– one sees them only as footsteps to self-knowledge, signposts to the problem which we are– more correctly, to the great stupidity which we are, to our spiritual fate, to the unteachable'right down deep\". – Having just paid myself such a deal of pretty compliments I may perhaps be more readily permitted to utter a few truths about'woman as such': assuming it is now understood from the outset to how great an extent these are only– my truths. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Woman wants to be independent: and to that end she is beginning to enlighten men about \"woman as such\"– this is one of the worst developments in the general uglification of Europe. For what must these clumsy attempts on the part of female scientificality and self-exposure not bring to light! Woman has so much reason for shame; in woman there is concealed so much pedanticism, superficiality, schoolmarmishness, petty presumption, petty unbridledness and petty immodesty– one needs only to study her behaviour with children! – which has fundamentally been most effectively controlled and repressed hitherto by fear of man. Woe when the \"eternal-boring in woman\"– she has plenty of that! – is allowed to venture forth! When she begins radically and on principle to forget her arts and best policy: those of charm, play, the banishing of care, the assuaging of grief and taking lightly, together with her subtle aptitude for agreeable desires! Already female voices are raised which, by holy Aristophanes! make one tremble; there are threatening and medically explicit statements of what woman wants of man. Is it not in the worst of taste when woman sets about becoming scientific in that fashion? Enlightenment in this field has hitherto been the affair and endowment of men– we remained \"among ourselves\" in this; and whatever women write about \"woman\", we may in the end reserve a good suspicion as to whether woman really wants or can want enlightenment about herself... Unless a woman is looking fora new adornment for herself in this way– self-adornment pertains to the eternal-womanly, does it not? – she is trying to inspire fear of herself– perhaps she is seeking dominion. But she does not want truth: what is truth to a woman! From the very first nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to woman than truth– her great art is the lie, her supreme concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess it, we men: it is precisely this art and this instinct in woman which we love and honour: we who have a hard time and for our refreshment like to associate with creatures under whose hands, glances and tender follies our seriousness, our gravity and profundity appear to us almost as folly. Finally I pose the question: has any woman ever conceded profundity to a woman's mind or justice to a woman's heart? And is it not true that on the whole \"woman\" has hitherto been slighted most by woman herself– and not at all by us? – We men want woman to cease compromising herself through enlightenment: just as it was man's care and consideration for woman which led the Church to decree: mulier taceat in ecclesia! It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon gave the all too eloquent Madame de Staël to understand: mulier taceat in politicis! – and I think it is a true friend of women who calls on them today: mulier taceat de muliere!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It betrays corruption of the instincts– quite apart from the fact that it betrays bad taste– when a woman appeals precisely to Madame Roland or Madame de Staël or Monsieur George Sand as if something in favour of \"woman as such\" were thereby demonstrated. Among men the above-named are the three comic women as such– nothing more! – and precisely the best involuntary counter-arguments against emancipation and female autocracy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the dreadful thoughtlessness with which the nourishment of the family and the master of the house is provided for! Woman does not understand what food means: and she wants to be the cook! If woman were a thinking creature she would, having been the cook for thousands of years, surely have had to discover the major facts of physiology, and likewise gained possession of the art of healing. It is through bad female cooks– through the complete absence of reason in the kitchen, that the evolution of man has been longest retarded and most harmed: even today things are hardly any better. A lecture for high-schoolgirls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are fortunate turns of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which an entire culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized. Among these is Madame de Lambert's remark to her son:\" mon ami, ne vous permettez jamais que de folies, qui vous feront grand plaisir' – the most motherly and prudent remark, incidentally, that was ever addressed to a son." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which Dante and Goethe believed of woman– the former when he sang'ella guardava suso, ed io in lei\" , the latter when he translated it \"the eternal-womanly draws us upward\" – : I do not doubt that every nobler woman will resist this belief, for that is precisely what she believes of the eternal-manly..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seven Proverbs for Women\n\nHow the slowest tedium flees when a man comes on his knees!\n\nAge and scientific thought give even virtue some support.\n\nSober garb and total muteness dress a woman with– astuteness.\n\nWho has brought me luck today? God! – and my couturier.\n\nYoung: a cavern decked about. Old: a dragon sallies out.\n\nNoble name, a leg that's fine, man as well: oh were he mine!\n\nFew words, much meaning– slippery ground, many a poor she-ass has found!\n\nMen have hitherto treated women like birds which have strayed down to them from the heights: as something more delicate, more fragile, more savage, stranger, sweeter, soulful– but as something which has to be caged up so that it shall not flyaway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To blunder over the fundamental problem of \"man and woman\", to deny here the most abysmal antagonism and the necessity of an eternally hostile tension, perhaps to dream hereof equal rights, equal education, equal claims and duties: this is atypical sign of shallow-mindedness, and a thinker who has proved himself to be shallow on this dangerous point– shallow of instinct! – maybe regarded as suspect in general, more, as betrayed, as found out: he will probably be too \"short\" for all the fundamental questions of life, those of life in the future too, incapable of any depth. On the other hand, a man who has depth, in his spirit as well as in his desires, and also that depth of benevolence which is capable of hardness and severity and is easily confused with them, can think of woman only in an oriental way– he must conceive of woman as a possession, as property with lock and key, as something predestined for service and attaining her fulfilment in service– in this matter he must take his stand on the tremendous intelligence of Asia, on Asia's superiority of instinct, as the Greeks formerly did: they were Asia's best heirs and pupils and, as is well known, from Homer to the age of Pericles, with the increase of their culture and the amplitude of their powers, also became step by step more strict with women, in short more oriental. How necessary, how logical, how humanly desirable even, this was: let each ponder for himself!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weak sex has in no age been treated by men with such respect as it is in ours– that pertains to the democratic inclination and fundamental taste, as does disrespectfulness to old age–: is it any wonder if this respect is immediately abused? She wants more, she learns to demand, in the end she finds this tribute of respect almost offensive, she would prefer competition for rights, indeed areal stand-up fight: enough, woman loses in modesty. Let us add at once that she also loses in taste. She unlearns fear of man: but the woman who \"unlearns fear\" sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture out when the fear-inspiring in man, let us put it more precisely and say the man in man, is no longer desired and developed, is fair enough, also comprehensible enough; what is harder to comprehend is that, through precisely this fact– woman degenerates. This is what is happening today: let us not deceive ourselves! Wherever the spirit of industry has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit woman now aspires to the economic and legal independence of a clerk: \"woman as clerk\" stands inscribed on the portal of the modern society now taking shape. As she thus seizes new rights, looks to become \"master\", and inscribes the \"progress\" of woman on her flags and banners, the reverse is happening with dreadful clarity: woman is retrogressing. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has grown less in the same proportion as her rights and claims have grown greater; and the \"emancipation of woman\", in so far as it has been demanded and advanced by women themselves (and not only by male shallow-pates), is thus revealed as a noteworthy symptom of the growing enfeeblement and blunting of the most feminine instincts. There is stupidity in this movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which areal woman– who is always a clever woman– would have to be ashamed from the very heart. To lose her sense for the ground on which she is most sure of victory; to neglect to practise the use of her own proper weapons; to let herself go before the man, perhaps even \"to the extent of producing a book\", where formerly she kept herself in check and in subtle cunning humility; to seek with virtuous assurance to destroy man's belief that a fundamentally different ideal is wrapped up in woman, that there is something eternally, necessarily feminine; emphatically and loquaciously to talk man out of the idea that woman has to be maintained, cared for, protected, indulged like a delicate, strangely wild and often agreeable domestic animal; the clumsy and indignant parade of all of slavery and bondage that woman's position in the order of society has hitherto entailed and still entails (as if slavery were a counter-argument and not rather a condition of every higher culture, of every enhancement of culture) – what does all this mean if not a crumbling of the feminine instinct, a defeminizing? To be sure, there are sufficient idiotic friends and corrupters of woman among the learned asses of the male sex who advise woman to defeminize herself in this fashion and to imitate all the stupidities with which \"man\" in Europe, European \"manliness\", is sick– who would like to reduce woman to the level of \"general education\", if not to that of newspaper reading and playing at politics. Here and there they even want to turn women into free-spirits and literati: as if a woman without piety would not be something utterly repellent or ludicrous to a profound and godless man–; almost everywhere her nerves are being shattered by the most morbid and dangerous of all the varieties of music (our latest German music), and she is being rendered more and more hysterical with everyday that passes and more and more incapable of her first and last profession, which is to bear strong children. There is a desire to make her in general more \"cultivated\" and, as they say, to make the \"weak sex\" strong through culture: as if history did not teach in the most emphatic manner possible that making human beings \"cultivated\" and making them weaker– that is to say, enfeebling, fragmenting, contaminating, the force of the will, have always gone hand in hand, and that the world's most powerful and influential women (most recently the mother of Napoleon) owed their power and ascendancy over men precisely to the force of their will– and not to schoolmasters! That in woman which inspires respect and fundamentally fear is her nature, which is more'natural'than that of the man, her genuine, cunning, beast-of-prey suppleness, the tiger's claws beneath the glove, the naïvety of her egoism, her ineducability and inner savagery, and how incomprehensible, capacious and prowling her desires and virtues are... That which, all fear notwithstanding, evokes pity for this dangerous and beautiful cat \"woman\" is that she appears to be more afflicted, more vulnerable, more in need of love and more condemned to disappointment than any other animal. Fear and pity: it is with these feelings that man has hitherto stood before woman, always with one foot in tragedy, which lacerates as it delights. – What? And is this now over with? And is woman now being deprived of her enchantment? Is woman slowly being made boring? O Europe! Europe! We know the horned beast which always attracted you most, which again and again threatens you with danger! Your ancient fable could once again become \"history\"– once again a monstrous stupidity could master you and carry you off! And no god concealed within it, no! merely an \"idea\", a \"modern idea\"!..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have heard, once again for the first time– Richard Wagner's overture to the Meistersinger: it is a magnificent, overladen, heavy and late art which has the pride to presuppose for its understanding that two centuries of music are still living– it is to the credit of the Germans that such a pride was not misplaced! What forces and juices, what seasons and zones are not mixed together here! Now it seems archaic, now strange, acid and too young, it is as arbitrary as it is pompous-traditional, it is not infrequently puckish, still more often rough and uncouth– it has fire and spirit and at the same time the loose yellow skin of fruits which ripen too late. It flows broad and full: and suddenly a moment of inexplicable hesitation, as it were a gap between cause and effect, an oppression producing dreams, almost a nightmare– but already the old stream of wellbeing broadens and widens again, the stream of the most manifold wellbeing, of happiness old and new, very much including the happiness of the artist in himself, which he has no desire to conceal, his happy, astonished knowledge of the masterliness of the means he is here employing, new, newly acquired, untried artistic means, as his art seems to betray to us. All in all, no beauty, nothing of the south or of subtle southerly brightness of sky, nothing of gracefulness, no dance, hardly any will to logic; a certain clumsiness, even, which is actually emphasized, as if the artist wanted to say:\"it is intentional'; a cumbersome drapery, something capriciously barbarous and solemn, a fluttering of venerable learned lace and conceits; something German in the best and worst sense of the word, something manifold, formless and inexhaustible in the German fashion; a certain German powerfulness and overfullness of soul which is not afraid to hide itself among the refinements of decay– which perhaps feels itself most at ease there; a true, genuine token of the German soul, which is at once young and aged, over-mellow and still too rich in future. This kind of music best expresses what I consider true of the Germans: they are of the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow– they have as yet no today." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We \"good Europeans\": we too have our hours when we permit ourselves a warm-hearted patriotism, a lapse and regression into old loves and narrownesses– I have just given an example of it– hours of national ebullition, of patriotic palpitations and floods of various outmoded feelings. More ponderous spirits than we may have done with what in our case is confined to a few hours and is then over only after a longer period: one takes half a year, another half a life, according to the speed and power with which he digests it and of his \"metabolism\". Indeed, I can imagine dull, sluggish races which, even in our fast-moving Europe, would need half a century to overcome such atavistic attacks of patriotism and cleaving to one's native soil and to be restored to reason, I mean to'good Europeanism\". And, while digressing on this possibility, I chanced to become the ear-witness of a conversation between two old'patriots\"– it is clear they were both hard of hearing and thus spoke all the louder.\" He has and knows as much philosophy as a peasant or a fraternity student\", said one of them:\"he is still innocent. But what does that matter nowadays! It is the age of the masses: they fall on their faces before anything massive. And in politics likewise. A statesman who builds for them another Tower of Babel, some monstrosity of empire and power, they call'great\" – what does it matter if we, more cautious and reserved than they, persist in the old belief that it is the great idea alone which can bestow greatness on a deed or a cause. Suppose a statesman were to put his nation in the position of having henceforth to pursue'grand politics\", for which it was ill equipped and badly prepared by nature, so that it had to sacrifice its old and sure virtues for the sake of anew and doubtful mediocrity– suppose a statesman were to condemn his nation to'politicizing\" at all, while that nation had hitherto had something better to do and think about and in the depths of its soul still retained a cautious disgust for the restlessness, emptiness and noisy wrangling of those nations which actually do practise politics– suppose such a statesman were to goad the slumbering passions and desires of his nation, turn its former diffidence and desire to stand aside into a stigma and its predilection for foreign things and its secret infiniteness into a fault, devalue its most heartfelt inclinations in its own eyes, reverse its conscience, make its mind narrow and its taste'national\" – what! a statesman who did all this, a statesman for whom his nation would have to atone for all future time, assuming it had a future– would such a statesman be great? \"\"Undoubtedly! \"the other patriot replied vehemently:\"otherwise he would not have been able to do it! Perhaps you may say it was mad to want to do such a thing? But perhaps everything great has been merely mad to begin with! \"–\"Misuse of words! \"cried the other: –\"strong! strong! strong and mad! Not great! \"– The old men had obviously grown heated as they thus shouted their'truths'in one another's faces; I, however, in my happiness and beyond, considered how soon a stronger will become master of the strong; and also that when one nation becomes spiritually shallower there is a compensation for it: another nation becomes deeper. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether that which now distinguishes the European be called \"civilization\" or \"humanization\" or \"progress\"; whether one calls it simply, without implying any praise or blame, the democratic movement in Europe: behind all the moral and political foregrounds indicated by such formulas a great physiological process is taking place and gathering greater and ever greater impetus– the process of the assimilation of all Europeans, their growing detachment from the conditions under which races dependent on climate and class originate, their increasing independence of any definite milieu which, through making the same demands for centuries, would like to inscribe itself on soul and body– that is to say, the slow emergence of an essentially supra-national and nomadic type of man which, physiologically speaking, possesses as its typical distinction a maximum of the art and power of adaptation. This process of the becoming European, the tempo of which can be retarded by great relapses but which will perhaps precisely through them gain in vehemence and depth– the still-raging storm and stress of \"national feeling\" belongs here, likewise the anarchism now emerging–: this process will probably lead to results which its naïve propagators and panegyrists, the apostles of \"modern ideas\", would be least inclined to anticipate. The same novel conditions which will on average create a levelling and mediocritizing of man– a useful, industrious, highly serviceable and able herd-animal man– are adapted in the highest degree to giving rise to exceptional men of the most dangerous and enticing quality. For while that power of adaptation which continually tries out changing conditions and begins anew labour with every new generation, almost with every new decade, cannot make possible the powerfulness of the type; while the total impression produced by such future Europeans will probably be that of multifarious, garrulous, weak-willed and highly employable workers who need a master, a commander, as they need their daily bread; while, therefore, the democratization of Europe will lead to the production of a type prepared for slavery in the subtlest sense: in individual and exceptional cases the strongman will be found to turnout stronger and richer than has perhaps ever happened before– thanks to the unprejudiced nature of his schooling, thanks to the tremendous multiplicity of practice, art and mask. What I mean to say is that the democratization of Europe is at the same time an involuntary arrangement for the breeding of tyrants– in every sense of that word, including the most spiritual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly in the direction of the constellation of Hercules: and I hope that men on the earth will in this matter emulate the sun. And we at their head, we good Europeans! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a time when it was usual to call the Germans \"profound\", and this was meant as a term of distinction: now, when the most successful type of the new Germanism thirsts after quite different honours and perhaps feels that anything profound lacks \"dash\", it is almost timely and patriotic to doubt whether that commendation of former days was not founded on self-deception: whether German profundity is not at bottom something different and worse– and something which, thanks be to God, one is on the verge of successfully getting rid of. Let us therefore try to learn anew about German profundity: all that is required is a little vivisection of the German soul. – The German soul is above all manifold, of diverse origins, put together and superimposed rather than actually constructed: the reason for that is its source. A German who would make bold to say \"two souls, alas, within my bosom dwell\" would err very widely from the truth, more correctly he would fall short of the truth by a large number of souls. As a people of the most tremendous mixture and mingling of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the pre-Aryan element, as the \"people of the middle\" in every sense, the Germans are more incomprehensible, more comprehensive, more full of contradictions, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, even more frightening to themselves than other peoples are– they elude definition and are for that reason alone the despair of the French. It is characteristic of the Germans that the question \"what is German?\" never dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well enough: \"we are known\" they cried to him jubilantly– but Sand too thought she knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared himself incensed by Fichte's mendacious but patriotic flatteries and exaggerations– but it is likely that Goethe thought otherwise of the Germans than Jean Paul did, even though he agreed with him about Fichte. What Goethe really thought of the Germans? – But there were many things round him about which he never expressed himself clearly and his whole lifelong he knew how to maintain a subtle silence– he had no doubt good reason. What is certain is that it was not'the Wars of Liberation'which made him lookup more cheerfully, anymore than it was the French Revolution– the event on account of which he rethought his Faust, indeed the whole problem of'man\", was the appearance of Napoleon. There exist statements by Goethe in which, as if he was from another country, he condemns with impatient severity that which the Germans take pride in: the celebrated German Gemüt he once defined as'indulgence of others'weaknesses, and one's own\". Was he wrong? – it is characteristic of the Germans that one is seldom wholly wrong about them. The German soul has corridors and interconnecting corridors in it, there are caves, hiding-places, dungeons in it; its disorder possesses much of the fascination of the mysterious; the German is acquainted with the hidden paths to chaos. And as everything loves its symbol, the German loves clouds and all that is obscure, becoming, crepuscular, damp and dismal: the uncertain, unformed, shifting, growing of every kind he feels to be'profound\". The German himself is not, he is becoming, he is'developing\".\"Development'is thus the truly German discovery and lucky shot in the great domain of philosophical formulas– a ruling concept which, in concert with German beer and German music, is at work at the Germanization of all Europe. Foreigners are astonished and drawn by the enigmas which the contradictory nature at the bottom of the German soul propounds to them (which Hegel reduced to a system and Richard Wagner finally set to music).\"Good-natured and malicious\"– such a juxtaposition, nonsensical in respect of any other people, is unfortunately too often justified in Germany: you have only to live among Swabians fora while! The ponderousness of the German scholar, his social insipidity, gets on frightfully well with an inner rope-walking and easy boldness before which all the gods have learned fear. If you want the'German soul'demonstrated ad oculos, you have only to look into German taste, into German arts and customs: what boorish indifference to'taste\"! How the noblest and the commonest here stand side by side! How disorderly and wealthy this whole psychical household is! The German drags his soul, he drags everything he experiences. He digests his events badly, he is never'done'with them; German profundity is often only a sluggish'digestion\". And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics, have an inclination for comfort, so the German loves'openness'and'uprightness\": how comfortable it is to be open and upright! – Perhaps it is the most dangerous and successful disguise the German knows how to use today, this confiding, accommodating, cards-on-the-table German honesty: it is his real Mephistophelean art, with its aid he can'still go far\"! The German lets himself go, and as he does so he gazes outwith true blue empty German eyes– and other countries at once confound him with his dressing-gown! – I meant to say: whatever'German profundity'maybe– and when we are quite by ourselves we shall perhaps permit ourselves to laugh at it? – we would do well to hold its appearance and good name in respect henceforth too and not to sell former old reputation as the profound nation too cheaply for Prussian'dash'and Berlin wit and sand. It is clever fora people to be considered, to get itself considered, profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, not clever: it might even be– profound! Finally: one ought not to be ashamed of one's own name– it is not for nothing one is called das \"tiusche\" Volk, das Täusche-Volk..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the story as the writer's narrative assistant.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 254" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a time when it was usual to call the Germans \"profound\", and this was meant as a term of distinction: now, when the most successful type of the new Germanism thirsts after quite different honours and perhaps feels that anything profound lacks \"dash\", it is almost timely and patriotic to doubt whether that commendation of former days was not founded on self-deception: whether German profundity is not at bottom something different and worse– and something which, thanks be to God, one is on the verge of successfully getting rid of. Let us therefore try to learn anew about German profundity: all that is required is a little vivisection of the German soul. – The German soul is above all manifold, of diverse origins, put together and superimposed rather than actually constructed: the reason for that is its source. A German who would make bold to say \"two souls, alas, within my bosom dwell\" would err very widely from the truth, more correctly he would fall short of the truth by a large number of souls. As a people of the most tremendous mixture and mingling of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the pre-Aryan element, as the \"people of the middle\" in every sense, the Germans are more incomprehensible, more comprehensive, more full of contradictions, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, even more frightening to themselves than other peoples are– they elude definition and are for that reason alone the despair of the French. It is characteristic of the Germans that the question \"what is German?\" never dies out among them. Kotzebue certainly knew his Germans well enough: \"we are known\" they cried to him jubilantly– but Sand too thought she knew them. Jean Paul knew what he was doing when he declared himself incensed by Fichte's mendacious but patriotic flatteries and exaggerations– but it is likely that Goethe thought otherwise of the Germans than Jean Paul did, even though he agreed with him about Fichte. What Goethe really thought of the Germans? – But there were many things round him about which he never expressed himself clearly and his whole lifelong he knew how to maintain a subtle silence– he had no doubt good reason. What is certain is that it was not'the Wars of Liberation'which made him lookup more cheerfully, anymore than it was the French Revolution– the event on account of which he rethought his Faust, indeed the whole problem of'man\", was the appearance of Napoleon. There exist statements by Goethe in which, as if he was from another country, he condemns with impatient severity that which the Germans take pride in: the celebrated German Gemüt he once defined as'indulgence of others'weaknesses, and one's own\". Was he wrong? – it is characteristic of the Germans that one is seldom wholly wrong about them. The German soul has corridors and interconnecting corridors in it, there are caves, hiding-places, dungeons in it; its disorder possesses much of the fascination of the mysterious; the German is acquainted with the hidden paths to chaos. And as everything loves its symbol, the German loves clouds and all that is obscure, becoming, crepuscular, damp and dismal: the uncertain, unformed, shifting, growing of every kind he feels to be'profound\". The German himself is not, he is becoming, he is'developing\".\"Development'is thus the truly German discovery and lucky shot in the great domain of philosophical formulas– a ruling concept which, in concert with German beer and German music, is at work at the Germanization of all Europe. Foreigners are astonished and drawn by the enigmas which the contradictory nature at the bottom of the German soul propounds to them (which Hegel reduced to a system and Richard Wagner finally set to music).\"Good-natured and malicious\"– such a juxtaposition, nonsensical in respect of any other people, is unfortunately too often justified in Germany: you have only to live among Swabians fora while! The ponderousness of the German scholar, his social insipidity, gets on frightfully well with an inner rope-walking and easy boldness before which all the gods have learned fear. If you want the'German soul'demonstrated ad oculos, you have only to look into German taste, into German arts and customs: what boorish indifference to'taste\"! How the noblest and the commonest here stand side by side! How disorderly and wealthy this whole psychical household is! The German drags his soul, he drags everything he experiences. He digests his events badly, he is never'done'with them; German profundity is often only a sluggish'digestion\". And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics, have an inclination for comfort, so the German loves'openness'and'uprightness\": how comfortable it is to be open and upright! – Perhaps it is the most dangerous and successful disguise the German knows how to use today, this confiding, accommodating, cards-on-the-table German honesty: it is his real Mephistophelean art, with its aid he can'still go far\"! The German lets himself go, and as he does so he gazes outwith true blue empty German eyes– and other countries at once confound him with his dressing-gown! – I meant to say: whatever'German profundity'maybe– and when we are quite by ourselves we shall perhaps permit ourselves to laugh at it? – we would do well to hold its appearance and good name in respect henceforth too and not to sell former old reputation as the profound nation too cheaply for Prussian'dash'and Berlin wit and sand. It is clever fora people to be considered, to get itself considered, profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, not clever: it might even be– profound! Finally: one ought not to be ashamed of one's own name– it is not for nothing one is called das \"tiusche\" Volk, das Täusche-Volk..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The \"good old days\" are gone, in Mozart they sang themselves out– how fortunate are we that his rococo still speaks to us, that his \"good company\", his tender enthusiasm, his child-like delight in chinoiserie and ornament, his politeness of the heart, his longing for the graceful, the enamoured, the dancing, the tearful, his faith in the south may still appeal to some residue in us! Alas, someday it will all begone– but who can doubt that understanding and taste for Beethoven will begone first! – for Beethoven was only the closing cadence of a transition of style and stylistic breach and not, as Mozart was, the closing cadence of a great centuries-old European taste. Beethoven is the intermediary between an old mellow soul that is constantly crumbling and a future over-young soul that is constantly arriving; upon his music there lies that twilight of eternal loss and eternal extravagant hope– the same light in which Europe lay bathed when it dreamed with Rousseau, when it danced around the Revolution's Tree of Liberty and finally almost worshipped before Napoleon. But how quickly this feeling is now fading away, how hard it is today even to know of this feeling– how strange to our ears sounds the language of Rousseau, Schiller, Shelley, Byron, in whom together the same European destiny that in Beethoven knew how to sing found its way into words! – Whatever German music came afterwards belongs to romanticism, that is to say to a movement which was, historically speaking, even brieter, even more fleeting, even more superficial than that great interlude, that transition of Europe from Rousseau to Napoleon and to the rise of democracy. Weber: but what are Freischütz and Oberon to us today! Or Marschner's Hans Heiling and Vampyr! Or even Wagner's Tannhäuser! It is dead, if not yet forgotten, music. All this music of romanticism was, moreover, insufficiently noble, insufficiently musical, to maintain itself anywhere but in the theatre and before the mob; it was from the very first second-rate music to which genuine musicians paid little regard. It was otherwise with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master who was, on account of his lighter, purer, happier soul, speedily honoured and just as speedily forgotten: as the beautiful intermezzo of German music. But as for Schumann, who took things seriously and was also taken seriously from the first– he was the last to found a school–: do we not now think it apiece of good fortune, a relief, a liberation that this Schumann-romanticism has been overcome? Schumann, fleeing into the'Saxon Switzerland' of his soul, his nature half Werther, half Jean Paul, not at all like Beethoven, not at all Byronic! – his music for Manfred is a mistake and misunderstanding to the point of injustice– Schumann, with his taste which was fundamentally a petty taste (that is to say a dangerous inclination, doubly dangerous among Germans, for quiet lyricism and drunkenness of feeling), continually going aside, shyly withdrawing and retiring, a noble effeminate delighting in nothing but anonymous weal and woe, a kind of girl and noli me tangere from the first: this Schumann was already a merely German event in music, no longer a European event, as Beethoven was, as to an even greater extent Mozart had been– in him German music was threatened with its greatest danger, that of losing the voice for the soul of Europe and sinking into a merely national affair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– What a torment books written in German are for him who has a third ear! How disgustedly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp of sounds without resonance, of rhythms that do not dance, which the Germans calla \"book\"! Not to mention the German who reads books! How lazily, how reluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, or think they ought to know, that there is art in every good sentence– art that must be grasped if the sentence is to be understood! A misunderstanding of its tempo, for example: and the sentence itself is misunderstood! That one must be in no doubt about the syllables that determine the rhythm, that one should feel the disruption of a too-severe symmetry as intentional and as something attractive, that one should lend a refined and patient ear to every staccato, every rubato, that one should divine the meaning in the sequence of vowels and diphthongs and how delicately and richly they can colour and recolour one another through the order in which they come: who among book-reading Germans has sufficient goodwill to acknowledge such demands and duties and to listen to so much art and intention in language? In the end one simply \"has no ear for it\": and so the greatest contrasts in style go unheard and the subtlest artistry is squandered as if on the deaf. – These were my thoughts when I noticed how two masters of the art of prose were clumsily and unsuspectingly confused with one another: one from whom words fall cold and hesitantly as from the roof of a damp cavern– he calculates on the heavy dullness of their sound and echo– and another who handles his language like a supple blade and feels from his arm down to his toes the perilous delight of the quivering, over-sharp steel that wants to bite, hiss, cut. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How little German style has to do with sound and the ears is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians write badly. The German does not read aloud, does not read for the ear, but merely with his eyes: he has put his ears away in the drawer. In antiquity, when a man read– which he did very seldom– he read to himself aloud, and indeed in aloud voice; it was a matter for surprise if someone read quietly, and people secretly asked themselves why he did so. Ina loud voice: that is to say, with all the crescendos, inflections, variations of tone and changes of tempo in which the ancient public world took pleasure. In those days the rules of written style were the same as those of spoken style; and these rules depended in part on the astonishing development, the refined requirements of ear and larynx, in part on the strength, endurance and power of ancient lungs. A period is, in the sense in which the ancients understood it, above all a physiological whole, inasmuch as it is composed by a single breath. Periods such as appear with Demosthenes or Cicero, rising twice and sinking twice and all within a single breath: these are delights for men of antiquity, who knew from their own schooling how to value the virtue in them, the rarity and difficulty of the delivery of such a period– we have really no right to the grand period, we moderns, we who are short of breath in every sense! For these ancients were one and all themselves dilettantes in rhetoric, consequently connoisseurs, consequently critics– and so they drove their orators to extremes; in the same way as, in the last century, when all Italians and Italiennes knew how to sing, virtuosity in singing (and therewith also the art of melody–) attained its height with them. In Germany, however, there was (until very recently, when a kind of platform eloquence began shyly and heavily to flap its young wings) really but one species of public and fairly artistic oratory: that from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one in Germany who knew what a syllable, what a word weighs, how a sentence strikes, rises, falls, runs, runs to an end, he alone had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for there is no lack of reasons why it is precisely the German who rarely achieves proficiency in oratory, or almost always achieves it too late. The masterpiece of German prose is therefore, as is to be expected, the masterpiece of its great preacher: the Bible has been the best German book hitherto. Compared with Luther's Bible almost everything else is merely'literature'– a thing that has not grownup in Germany and therefore has not taken and does not take root in German hearts: as the Bible has done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are two kinds of genius: the kind which above all begets and wants to beget, and the kind which likes to be fructified and to give birth. And likewise there are among peoples of genius those upon whom has fallen the woman's problem of pregnancy and the secret task of forming, maturing, perfecting– the Greeks, for example, were a people of this kind, and so were the French–; and others who have to fructify and become the cause of new orders of life– like the Jews, the Romans and, to ask it in all modesty, the Germans?– peoples tormented and enraptured by unknown fevers and irresistibly driven outside themselves, enamoured of and lusting after foreign races (after those which'want to be fructified\") and at the same time hungry for dominion, like everything which knows itself full of generative power and consequently'by the grace of God'. These two kinds of genius seek one another, as man and woman do; but they also misunderstand one another– as man and woman do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every people has its own tartuffery and calls it its virtues. – The best that one is one does not know– one cannot know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Europe owes to the Jews? – Many things, good and bad, and above all one thing that is at once of the best and the worst: the grand style in morality, the dreadfulness and majesty of infinite demands, infinite significances, the whole romanticism and sublimity of moral questionabilities– and consequently precisely the most attractive, insidious and choicest part of those iridescences and seductions to life with whose afterglow the sky of our European culture, its evening sky, is now aflame– and perhaps burning itself up. We artists among the spectators and philosophers are– grateful to the Jews for this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If a people is suffering and wants to suffer from nationalistic nervous fever and political ambition, it must be expected that all sorts of clouds and disturbances– in short, little attacks of stupidity– will pass over its spirit into the bargain: among present-day Germans, for example, now the anti-French stupidity, now the anti-Jewish, now the anti-Polish, now the Christian-romantic, now the Wagnerian, now the Teutonic, now the Prussian (just look at those miserable historians, those Sybels and Treitschkes, with their thickly bandaged heads–), and whatever else these little obfuscations of the German spirit and conscience maybe called. May it be forgiven me that I too, during a daring brief sojourn in a highly infected area, did not remain wholly free of the disease and began, like the rest of the world, to entertain ideas about things that were none of my business: first symptom of the political infection. About the Jews, for example: listen. – I have never meta German who was favourably inclined towards the Jews; and however unconditionally all cautious and politic men may have repudiated real anti-Jewism, even this caution and policy is not directed against this class of feeling itself but only against its dangerous immoderation, and especially against the distasteful and shameful way in which this immoderate feeling is expressed– one must not deceive oneself about that. That Germany has an ample sufficiency of Jews, that the German stomach, German blood has difficulty (and will continue to have difficulty fora longtime to come) in absorbing even this quantum of \"Jew\"– as the Italians, the French, the English have absorbed them through possessing a stronger digestion–: this is the clear declaration and language of a universal instinct to which one must pay heed, in accordance with which one must act. \"Let in no more Jews! And close especially the doors to the East (also to Austria)!\" – thus commands the instinct of a people whose type is still weak and undetermined, so that it could easily be effaced, easily extinguished by a stronger race. The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest and purest race at present living in Europe; they know how to prevail even under the worst conditions (better even than under favourable ones), by means of virtues which one would like to stamp as vices– thanks above all to a resolute faith which does not need to be ashamed before \"modern ideas\"; they change, when they change, only in the way in which the Russian Empire makes its conquests– an empire that has time and is not of yesterday–: namely, according to the principle \"as slowly as possible\"! A thinker who has the future of Europe on his conscience will, in all the designs he makes for this future, take the Jews into account as he will take the Russians, as the immediately surest and most probable factors in the great game and struggle of forces. That which is called a \"nation\" in Europe today and is actually more of ares facta than nata (indeed sometimes positively resembles ares ficta et picta–) is in any case something growing, young, easily disruptable, not yet a race, let alone such an aere perennius as the Jewish type is: these \"nations\" should certainly avoid all hot-headed rivalry and hostility very carefully! That the Jews could, if they wanted– or if they were compelled, as the anti-Semites seem to want– even now predominate, indeed quite literally rule over Europe, is certain; that they are not planning and working towards that is equally certain. In the meantime they are, rather, wanting and wishing, even with some importunity, to be absorbed and assimilated by and into Europe, they are longing to be finally settled, permitted, respected somewhere and to put an end to the nomadic life, to the \"Wandering Jew\"–; one ought to pay heed to this inclination and impulse (which is perhaps even a sign that the Jewish instincts are becoming milder) and go out to meet it: for which it would perhaps be a good idea to eject the anti-Semitic ranters from the country. Go out to meet it with all caution, with selectivity; much as the English nobility do. It is plain that the stronger and already more firmly formed types of the new Germanism could enter into relations with them with the least hesitation; the aristocratic officer of the March, for example: it would be interesting in many ways to see whether the genius of money and patience (and above all a little mind and spirituality, of which there is a plentiful lack in the persons above mentioned–) could not be added and bred into the hereditary art of commanding and obeying, in both of which the abovementioned land is today classic. But here it is fitting that I should break off my cheerful Germanomaniac address: for already I am touching on what is tome serious, on the \"European problem\" as I understand it, on the breeding of anew ruling caste for Europe. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are no philosophical race– these English: Bacon signifies an attack on the philosophical spirit in general, Hobbes, Hume and Locke a debasement and devaluation of the concept \"philosopher\" for more than a century. It was against Hume that Kant rose up; it was Locke of whom Schelling had aright to say: \"je méprise Locke\" ; in their struggle against the English-mechanistic stultification of the world, Hegel and Schopenhauer were (with Goethe) of one accord: those two hostile brother geniuses who strove apart towards the antithetical poles of the German spirit and in doing so wronged one another as only brothers wrong one another. – What is lacking in England and always has been lacking was realized well enough by that semi-actor and rhetorician, the tasteless muddlehead Carlyle, who tried to conceal behind passionate grimaces what he knew about himself: namely what was lacking in Carlyle– real power of spirituality, real depth of spiritual insight, in short philosophy. – It is characteristic of such an unphilosophical race that they should cling firmly to Christianity: they need its discipline if they are to become \"moral\" and humane. The Englishman, gloomier, more sensual, stronger of will and more brutal than the German– is for just that reason, as the more vulgar of the two, also more pious than the German: he is in greater need of Christianity. To finer nostrils even this English Christianity possesses a true English by-scent of the spleen and alcoholic excess against which it is with good reason employed as an antidote– the subtler poison against the coarser: and indeed a subtle poisoning is in the case of coarse peoples already a certain progress, a step towards spiritualization. English coarseness and peasant seriousness still finds its most tolerable disguise in Christian gestures and in praying and psalm-singing: more correctly, it is best interpreted and given anew meaning by those things; and as for those drunken and dissolute cattle who formerly learned to grunt morally under the constraint of Methodism and more recently as the \"Salvation Army\", a spasm of penitence may really be the highest achievement of \"humanity\" to which they can be raised: that much may fairly be conceded. But what offends in even the most humane Englishman is, to speak metaphorically (and not metaphorically), his lack of music: he has in the movements of his soul and body no rhythm and dance, indeed not even the desire for rhythm and dance, for \"music\". Listen to him speak; watch the most beautiful Englishwomen walk– in no land on earth are there more beautiful doves and swans– finally: listen to them sing! But I ask too much..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are truths which are recognized best by mediocre minds because they are most suited to them, there are truths which possess charm and seductive powers only for mediocre spirits– one is brought up against this perhaps disagreeable proposition just at the moment because the spirit of respectable but mediocre Englishmen– I name Darwin, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer– is starting to gain ascendancy in the midregion of European taste. Who indeed would doubt that it is useful for such spirits to dominate fora while? It would be a mistake to regard exalted spirits who fly off on their own as especially well adapted to identifying, assembling and making deductions from a host of little common facts– as exceptions they are, rather, from the first in no very favourable position with respect to the \"rules\". After all, they have more to do than merely know something new– namely to be something new, to signify something new, to represent new values! The gulf between knowing and being able is perhaps wider, also more uncanny, than one thinks: the man who is able in the grand style, the creator, might possibly have to be ignorant– while, on the other hand, for scientific discoveries such as Darwin's a certain narrowness, aridity and industrious conscientiousness, something English in short, may not bean unfavourable disposition. – Finally, let us not forget that the English, with their profound averageness, have once before brought about a collective depression of the European spirit: that which is called'modern ideas'or'the ideas of the eighteenth century'or even'French ideas\"– that is to say, that which the German spirit has risen against in profound disgust– was of English origin, there can be no doubt about that. The French have been only the apes and actors of these ideas, also their finest soldiers, also unhappily their first and most thorough victims: for through the damnable Anglomania of'modern ideas'the âme française has finally grown so thin and emaciated that today one recalls her sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, her profound passionate strength, her noble inventiveness, almost with disbelief. But one must hang on with one's teeth to this proposition of historical equity and defend it against the prejudice of the day: European noblesse– of feeling, of taste, of custom, in short noblesse in every exalted sense of the word– is the work and invention of France, European vulgarity, the plebeianism of modern ideas, that of– England.–" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even now France is still the seat of Europe's most spiritual and refined culture and the leading school of taste: but one has to know how to find this'France of taste\". He who belongs to it keeps himself well hidden– it maybe only a small number in whom it lives and moves, and they, perhaps, men whose legs are not of the strongest, some of them fatalists, gloomy, sick, some of them spoilt and artificial, such men as have an ambition to hide themselves. One thing they all have in common: they shut their ears to the raving stupidity and the noisy yapping of the democratic bourgeois. Indeed, it is a coarse and stupid France that trundles in the foreground today– it recently celebrated, at Victor Hugo's funeral, a veritable orgy of tastelessness and at the same time self-admiration. Something else too they have in common: a great will to resist spiritual Germanization– and an even greater inability to do so! Perhaps Schopenhauer has now become more at home and indigenous in this France of the spirit, which is also a France of pessimism, than he ever was in Germany; not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has long since entered into the flesh and blood of the more refined and demanding lyric poets of Paris, or of Hegel, who today, in the shape of Taine– that is to say, in that of the first of living historians– exercises an almost tyrannical influence. As for Richard Wagner, however: the more French music learns to shape itself according to the actual needs of the âme moderne, the more will it \"Wagnerize\", that one can safely predict– it is doing so sufficiently already! There are nevertheless three things which, despite all voluntary and involuntary Germanization and vulgarization of taste, the French can still today exhibit with pride as their inheritance and possession and as an indelible mark of their ancient cultural superiority in Europe. Firstly, the capacity for artistic passions, for devotion to \"form\", for which, together with a thousand others, the term l'art pour l'art has been devised– it has been present in France for three hundred years and, thanks to their respect for the \"small number\", has again and again made possible a kind of literary chamber music not to be found anywhere else in Europe–. The second thing by which the French can argue their superiority to the rest of Europe is their ancient, manifold, moralistic culture, by virtue of which one finds on average even in little romanciers of the newspapers and chance boulevardiers de Paris a psychological sensitivity and curiosity of which in Germany, for example, they have no conception (not to speak of having the thing itself!). The Germans lack the couple of centuries of moralistic labour needed for this, a labour which, as aforesaid, France did not spare itself; he who calls the Germans \"naïve\" on that account commends them fora fault. (As antithesis to German inexperience and innocence in voluptate psychologica, which is not too distantly related to the boringness of German company-and as the most successful expression of a genuine French curiosity and inventiveness in this domain of delicate thrills, one should observe Henri Beyle, that remarkable anticipator and forerunner who ran with a Napoleonic tempo through his Europe, through several centuries of the European soul, as a detector and discoverer of his soul– it needed two generations to overtake him, to divine once more some of the riddles which tormented and delighted him, this strange Epicurean and question-mark who was France's last great psychologist–.) There is yet a third claim to superiority: in the French nature there exists a half-achieved synthesis of north and south which makes them understand many things and urges them to do many things which an Englishman will never understand. Their temperament, periodically turning towards the south and away from the south, in which the Provençal and Ligurian blood from time to time foams over, preserves them from dreary northern grey-on-grey and sunless concept-ghoulishness and anaemia– the disease of our German taste against whose excess one has at just this moment very resolutely prescribed blood andiron, that is to say'grand politics\"(in accordance with a dangerous therapeutic which has certainly taught me how to wait but has not yet taught me how to hope–). Even now there exists in France an understanding in advance and welcome for those rarer and rarely contented men who are too comprehensive to find their satisfaction in any kind of patriotism and know how to love the south in the north and the north in the south– for the born Midlanders, the'good Europeans'. – It was for them that Bizet made music, that last genius to perceive anew beauty and anew seduction– who has discovered a region of the south in music." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Against German music I feel all sorts of precautions should betaken. Suppose one loves the south as I love it, as a great school of convalescence, for all the diseases of senses and spirit, as a tremendous abundance of sun and transfiguration by sun, spreading itself over an autonomous existence which believes in itself: well, such a person will learn to be somewhat on guard against German music because, by spoiling his taste again, it will also spoil his health again. Such a southerner, not by descent but by faith, must, if he dreams of the future of music, also dream of the redemption of music from the north and have in his ears the prelude to a deeper, mightier, perhaps wickeder and more mysterious music, a supra-German music which does not fade, turn yellow, turn pale at the sight of the blue voluptuous sea and the luminous sky of the Mediterranean, as all German music does; a supra-European music which holds its own even before the brown sunsets of the desert, whose soul is kindred to the palm-tree and knows how to roam and beat home among great beautiful solitary beasts of prey.... I could imagine a music whose rarest magic would consist in this, that it no longer knew anything of good and evil, except that perhaps some sailor's homesickness, some golden shadow and delicate weakness would now and then flit across it: an art that would see fleeing towards it from a great distance the colours of a declining, now almost incomprehensible moral world, and would be hospitable and deep enough to receive such late fugitives. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thanks to the morbid estrangement which the lunacy of nationality has produced and continues to produce between the peoples of Europe, thanks likewise to the shortsighted and hasty-handed politicians who are with its aid on top today and have not the slightest notion to what extent the politics of disintegration they pursue must necessarily be only an interlude– thanks to all this, and to much else that is altogether unmentionable today, the most unambiguous signs are now being overlooked, or arbitrarily and lyingly misinterpreted, which declare that Europe wants to become one. In all the more profound and comprehensive men of this century the general tendency of the mysterious workings of their souls has really been to prepare the way to this new synthesis and to anticipate experimentally the European of the future: only in their foregrounds, or in hours of weakness, in old age perhaps, were they among the \"men of the fatherland\"– they were only taking a rest from themselves when they became \"patriots\". I think of men such as Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer; I must not be blamed if I also include Richard Wagner among them: one should not let oneself be misled about him by his own misunderstandings– geniuses of his sort seldom have the right to understand themselves– and even less, to be sure, by the unseemly noise with which he is opposed and resisted today in France: the fact none the less remains that French late romanticism of the forties and Richard Wagner belong most closely and intimately together. They are related, fundamentally related, in all the heights and depths of their needs: it is Europe, the one Europe, whose soul forces its way longingly up and out through their manifold and impetuous art– whither? into anew light? towards anew sun? But who could express precisely what all these masters of new means of speech themselves did not know how to express clearly? What is certain is that they were tormented by the same storm and stress, that they sought in the same way, these last great seekers! One and all dominated by literature up to their eyes and ears– the first artists formed and cultivated by world literature– most of them even writers and poets themselves and mediators and minglers of the arts and senses (as a musician Wagner belongs among painters, as a poet among musicians, as an artist as such among actors); one and all fanatics for expression \"at any cost\"– I call particular attention to Delacroix, Wagner's closest relation– one and all great discoverers in the realm of the sublime, also of the ugly and horrible, even greater discoverers in effects, in display, in the art of the shop window, one and all talents far beyond their genius– virtuosos through and through, with uncanny access to everything that seduces, lures, constrains, overwhelms, born enemies of logic and straight lines, constantly hankering after the strange, the exotic, the monstrous, the crooked, the self-contradictory; as human beings Tantaluses of the will, plebeians risen in the world who knew themselves incapable, in their lives and in their works, of a noble tempo, a lento– think of Balzac, for instance– unbridled workers, almost destroying themselves through work; antinomians, fomenters of moral disorder, ambitious, insatiable men without balance or enjoyment; one and all collapsing and sinking at last before the Christian Cross (and with every right: for who among them would have been profound or primary enough fora philosophy of anti-Christ?) – on the whole an audacious-daring, splendidly violent, high-flying type of higher men who bore others up with them and whose lot it was to teach their century– and it is the century of the mob! – the concept'higher man\".... Let the German friends of Richard Wagner deliberate whether there is in Wagnerian art anything simply German, or whether it is not precisely its distinction that it derives from supra-German sources and impulses: in considering which it should not be underestimated how indispensable Paris was for the cultivation of his type, how the depth of his instinct drew him precisely thither at the most decisive time, and how his whole manner of appearance and self-apostolate could perfect itself only by his seeing its French socialist model. Perhaps a subtler comparison will reveal that, to the credit of Richard Wagner's German nature, he fashioned stronger, more daring, more severe and more elevated things than a nineteenth-century Frenchman could have done– thanks to the circumstance that we Germans are still closer to barbarism than the French–; perhaps the most remarkable thing Wagner created is even inaccessible, inimitable to the entire, so late Latin race forever and not only for the present: the figure of Siegfried, that very free human being who may indeed be much too free, too hard, too cheerful, too healthy, too anti-Catholic for the taste of peoples of an ancient, mellow culture. He may even have been a sin against romanticism, this anti-Romantic Siegfried: well, Wagner amply atoned for this sin in his old, melancholy days when– anticipating a taste which has since become political– he began, with the religious vehemence characteristic of him, if not to walk at any rate to preach the road to Rome. – That these last words shall not be misunderstood I shall call to my aid a few powerful rhymes which will reveal what I mean to less refined ears too– what I object to in \"late Wagner\" and his Parsifal music:\n\n– Is this still German? –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From German heart this sultry ululating?\n\nOf German body this self-lacerating?\n\nGerman, this altar-priest prostration,\n\nThis incense-perfumed stimulation?\n\nGerman this reeling, stumbling, tumbling,\n\nThis muddy booming bim-bam-bumbling,\n\nThis nunnish ogling, Ave-hour-bell chiming,\n\nThis false-ecstatic higher-than-heaven climbing?\n\n– Is this still German? –\n\nReflect! And then your answer frame: –\n\nFor what you hear is Rome-Rome's faith in all but name!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every elevation of the type \"man\" has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society– and so it will always be: a society which believes in along scale of orders of rank and differences of worth between man and man and needs slavery in some sense or other. Without the pathos of distance such as develops from the incarnate differences of classes, from the ruling caste's constant looking out and looking down on subjects and instruments and from its equally constant exercise of obedience and command, its holding down and holding at a distance, that other, more mysterious pathos could not have developed either, that longing for an ever-increasing widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, more remote, tenser, more comprehensive states, in short precisely the elevation of the type'man\", the continual'self-overcoming of man\", to take amoral formula in a supra-moral sense. As to how an aristocratic society (that is to say, the precondition for this elevation of the type'man\") originates, one ought not to yield to any humanitarian illusions: truth is hard. Let us admit to ourselves unflinchingly how every higher culture on earth has hitherto begun! Men of a still natural nature, barbarians in every fearful sense of the word, men of prey still in possession of an unbroken strength of will and lust for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or cattle-raising races, or upon old mellow cultures, the last vital forces in which were even then flickering out in a glittering firework display of spirit and corruption. The noble caste was in the beginning always the barbarian caste: their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, but primarily in their psychical– they were more complete human beings (which, on every level, also means as much as'more complete beasts'–)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corruption as the indication that anarchy threatens within the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions which is called \"life\" has been shaken: corruption is something fundamentally different according to which life-form it appears in. When, for example, an aristocracy such as that of France at the start of the Revolution throws away its privileges with a sublime disgust and sacrifices itself to an excess of moral feeling, then that is corruption– it was really only the closing act of that corruption which had been going on for centuries by virtue of which it had step by step abdicated its prerogatives of government and demoted itself to a function of the monarchy (in the end to no more than its decoration and show-piece). The essential thing in a good and healthy aristocracy is, however, that it does not feel itself to be a function (of the monarchy or of the commonwealth) but as their meaning and supreme justification– that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of innumerable men who for its sake have to be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental faith must be that society should not exist for the sake of society but only as foundation and scaffolding upon which a select species of being is able to raise itself to its higher task and in general to a higher existence: like those sun-seeking climbing plants of Java– they are named sipo matador– which clasp an oak-tree with their tendrils so long and often that at last, high above it but supported by it, they can unfold their crowns in the open light and display their happiness. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To refrain from mutual injury, mutual violence, mutual exploitation, to equate one's own will with that of another: this may in a certain rough sense become good manners between individuals if the conditions for it are present (namely if their strength and value standards are in fact similar and they both belong to one body). As soon as there is a desire to take this principle further, however, and if possible even as the fundamental principle of society, it at once reveals itself for what it is: as the will to the denial of life, as the principle of dissolution and decay. One has to think this matter thoroughly through to the bottom and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one's own forms, incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation– but why should one always have to employ precisely those words which have from of old been stamped with a slanderous intention? Even that body within which, as was previously assumed, individuals treat one another as equals– this happens in every healthy aristocracy– must, if it is a living and not a decaying body, itself do all that to other bodies which the individuals within it refrain from doing to one another: it will have to be the will to power incarnate, it will want to grow, expand, draw to itself, gain ascendancy– not out of any morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is will to power. On no point, however, is the common European consciousness more reluctant to learn than it is here; everywhere one enthuses, even under scientific disguises, about coming states of society in which there will be \"no more exploitation\"– that sounds to my ears like promising a life in which there will be no organic functions. \"Exploitation\" does not pertain to a corrupt or imperfect or primitive society: it pertains to the essence of the living thing as a fundamental organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic will to power which is precisely the will of life. – Granted this is a novelty as a theory– as a reality it is the primordial fact of all history: let us beat least that honest with ourselves! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ina tour of the many finer and coarser moralities which have ruled or still rule on earth I found certain traits regularly recurring together and bound up with one another: until at length two basic types were revealed and a basic distinction emerged. There is master morality and slave morality– I add at once that in all higher and mixed cultures attempts at mediation between the two are apparent and more frequently confusion and mutual misunderstanding between them, indeed sometimes their harsh juxtaposition– even within the same man, within one soul. The moral value-distinctions have arisen either among a ruling order which was pleasurably conscious of its distinction from the ruled– or among the ruled, the slaves and dependants of every degree. In the former case, when it is the rulers who determine the concept \"good\", it is the exalted, proud states of soul which are considered distinguishing and determine the order of rank. The noble human being separates from himself those natures in which the opposite of such exalted proud states find expression: he despises them. It should be noted at once that in this first type of morality the antithesis \"good\" and \"bad\" means the same thing as \"noble\" and \"despicable\"– the antithesis \"good\" and'evil\" originates elsewhere. The cowardly, the timid, the petty, and those who think only of narrow utility are despised; as are the mistrustful with their constricted glance, those who abase themselves, the dog-like type of man who lets himself be mistreated, the fawning flatterer, above all the liar– it is a fundamental belief of all aristocrats that the common people are liars. \"We who are truthful\"– thus did the nobility of ancient Greece designate themselves. It is immediately obvious that designations of moral value were everywhere first applied to human beings, and only later and derivatively to actions: which is why it is a grave error when moral historians start from such questions as \"why has the compassionate action been praised?\" The noble type of man feels himself to be the determiner of values, he does not need to be approved of, he judges \"what harms me is harmful in itself\", he knows himself to be that which in general first accords honour to things, he creates values. Everything he knows to be part of himself, he honours: such amorality is self-glorification. In the foreground stands the feeling of plenitude, of power which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which would like to giveaway and bestow– the noble human being too aids the unfortunate but not, or almost not, from pity, but more from an urge begotten by superfluity of power. The noble human being honours in himself the man of power, also the man who has power over himself, who understands how to speak and how to keep silent, who enjoys practising severity and harshness upon himself and feels reverence for all that is severe and harsh. \"A hard heart has Wotan set in my breast\", it says in an old Scandinavian saga: a just expression coming from the soul of a proud Viking. A man of this type is actually proud that he is not made for pity: which is why the hero of the saga adds as a warning: \"he whose heart is not hard in youth will never have a hard heart\". Brave and noblemen who think that are at the farthest remove from that morality which sees the mark of the moral precisely in pity or in acting for others or in désintéressement; belief in oneself, pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony for \"selflessness\" belong just as definitely to noble morality as does a mild contempt for and caution against sympathy and the \"warm heart\". – It is the powerful who understand how to honour, that is their art, their realm of invention. Deep reverence forage and the traditional– all law rests on this twofold reverence– belief in and prejudice in favour of ancestors and against descendants, is typical of the morality of the powerful; and when, conversely, men of \"modern ideas\" believe almost instinctively in \"progress\" and \"the future\" and show an increasing lack of respect forage, this reveals clearly enough the ignoble origin of these \"ideas\". Amorality of the rulers is, however, most alien and painful to contemporary taste in the severity of its principle that one has duties only towards one's equals; that towards beings of a lower rank, towards everything alien, one may act as one wishes or'as the heart dictates'and in any case'beyond good and evil\"– : it is here that pity and the like can have a place. The capacity for and the duty of protracted gratitude and protracted revenge– both only among one's equals– subtlety in requittal, a refined conception of friendship, a certain need to have enemies (as conduit systems, as it were, for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance– fundamentally so as to be able to be a good friend): all these are typical marks of noble morality which, as previously indicated, is not the morality of \"modern ideas\" and is therefore hard to enter into today, also hard to unearth and uncover. – It is otherwise with the second type of morality, slave morality. Suppose the abused, oppressed, suffering, unfree, those uncertain of themselves and weary should moralize: what would their moral evaluations have in common? Probably a pessimistic mistrust of the entire situation of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man together with his situation. The slave is suspicious of the virtues of the powerful: he is sceptical and mistrustful, keenly mistrustful, of everything \"good\" that is honoured among them– he would like to convince himself that happiness itself is not genuine among them. On the other hand, those qualities which serve to make easier the existence of the suffering will be brought into prominence and flooded with light: here it is that pity, the kind and helping hand, the warm heart, patience, industriousness, humility, friendliness come into honour– for here these are the most useful qualities and virtually the only means of enduring the burden of existence. Slave morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the source of the famous antithesis \"good\" and'evil\" – power and danger were felt to exist in evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety and strength which could not admit of contempt. Thus, according to slave morality the \"evil\" inspire fear; according to master morality it is precisely the \"good\" who inspire fear and want to inspire it, while the \"bad\" man is judged contemptible. The antithesis reaches its height when, consistently with slave morality, a breath of disdain finally also comes to be attached to the \"good\" of this morality– it maybe a slight and benevolent disdain– because within the slaves'way of thinking the good man has in any event to be a harmless man: he is good-natured, easy to deceive, perhaps a bit stupid, un bonhomme. Wherever slave morality comes to predominate, language exhibits a tendency to bring the words'good'and'stupid'closer to each other. – A final fundamental distinction: the longing for freedom, the instinct for the happiness and the refinements of the feeling of freedom, belong just as necessarily to slave morality and morals as the art of reverence and devotion and the enthusiasm for them are the regular symptom of an aristocratic mode of thinking and valuating. – This makes it clear without further ado why love as passion– it is our European speciality– absolutely must be of aristocratic origin: it was, as is well known, invented by the poet-knights of Provence, those splendid, inventive men of the\" gai saber' to whom Europe owes so much and, indeed, almost itself. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among the things which a noble human being perhaps finds hardest to understand is vanity: he will be tempted to deny its existence where a different type of human being will think it palpably evident. For him the problem is to imagine creatures who try to awaken a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not hold– and thus do not \"deserve\" either– and yet subsequently come to believe this good opinion themselves. This seems to him in part so tasteless and lacking in self-respect and in part so baroquely irrational that he would prefer to consider vanity exceptional and inmost cases where it is spoken of he doubts its existence. He will say, for example: \"I can rate my value incorrectly and yet demand that others too should recognize my value exactly as Irate it– but that is not vanity (but self-conceit, or, more usually, what is called'humility\" or'modesty\").\" Or he will say: \"I can, for many reasons, take pleasure in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them and take pleasure in all their pleasures, perhaps because their good opinion sustains me in my faith in my own good opinion, perhaps because the good opinion of others, even when I do not share it, is still useful tome or promises to be useful– but none of this is vanity.\" The noble human being requires the assistance of history if he is to see that, from time immemorial, in all strata which were in anyway dependent the common man was only that which he counted as– in noway accustomed to positing values himself, he also accorded himself no other value than that which his master accorded him (it is the intrinsic right of masters to create values). It can be conceived as the consequence of a tremendous atavism that even now the ordinary man still always waits for an opinion about himself and then instinctively submits to it: but this happens not merely in the case of a \"good\" opinion, but also in that of a bad and unfair one (consider, for instance, the greater part of the self-estimates and self-underestimates which believing women acquire from their father-confessors and the believing Christian acquires from his Church). Now it is a fact that, in accordance with the slow rise of the democratic order of things (and its cause, the mixing of the blood of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse to ascribe a value to oneself on one's own account and to'think well'of oneself will be increasingly encouraged and spread wider and wider: but it has at all times an older, more widespread and more thoroughly ingrained inclination against it– and in the phenomenon of'vanity'this older inclination masters the younger. The vain man takes pleasure in every good opinion he hears about himself (quite apart from any point of view of utility and likewise regardless of truth or falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he submits to both, he feels subject to them from that oldest instinct of subjection which breaks out in him. – It is'the slave'in the vain man's blood, a remnant of the craftiness of the slave– and how much \"slave\" still remains in woman, for example! – which seeks to seduce him to good opinions about himself; it is likewise the slave who immediately afterwards falls down before these opinions as if he himself had not called them forth. – And to say it again: vanity is an atavism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A species arises, a type becomes fixed and strong, through protracted struggle against essentially constant unfavourable conditions. Conversely, one knows from the experience of breeders that species which receive plentiful nourishment and an excess of care and protection soon tend very strongly to produce variations of their type and are rich in marvels and monstrosities (also in monstrous vices). Now look for once at an aristocratic community, Venice, say, or an ancient Greek polis, as a voluntary or involuntary contrivance for the purpose of breeding: there there are human beings living together and thrown on their own resources who want their species to prevail usually because they have to prevail or run the terrible risk of being exterminated. Here those favourable conditions, that excess, that protection which favours variations, is lacking; the species needs itself as species, as something that can prevail and purchase durability in its continual struggle against its neighbours or against the oppressed in revolt or threatening revolt, precisely by virtue of its hardness, uniformity, simplicity of form. The most manifold experience teaches it which qualities it has principally to thank that, in spite of all gods and men, it still exists and has always been victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, these virtues alone does it breed and cultivate. It does so with severity, indeed it wants severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant, in the education of the young, in the measures it takes with respect to women, in marriage customs, in the relations between young and old, in the penal laws (which are directed only at variants) – it counts intolerance itself among the virtues under the name \"justice\". A type with few but very marked traits, a species of stern, warlike, prudently silent, determined and taciturn men (and, as such, men of the finest feeling for the charm and nuances of society), is in this way firmly fixed beyond the changes of generations; continual struggle against ever-constant unfavourable conditions is, as aforesaid, that which fixes and hardens a type. In the end, however, there arises one day an easier state of affairs and the tremendous tension relaxes; perhaps there are no longer any enemies among their neighbours, and the means of life, even for the enjoyment of life, are therein plenty. With one stroke the bond and constraint of the ancient discipline is broken: it is no longer felt to be a necessity, a condition of existence– if it were to persist it could be only as a form of luxury, as an archaizing taste. Variation, whether as deviation (into the higher, rarer, more refined) or as degeneration and monstrosity, is suddenly on the scene in the greatest splendour and abundance, the individual dares to be individual and standout. At these turning-points of history there appear side by side and often entangled and entwined together a glorious, manifold, junglelike growth and up-stirring, a kind of tropical tempo in competition ingrowing, and a tremendous perishing and self-destruction, thanks to the savage egoisms which, turning on one another and as it were exploding, wrestle together \"for sun and light\" and no longer know how to draw any limitation, any restraint, any forbearance from the morality reigning hitherto. It was this morality which stored up such enormous energy, which bent the bow in such a threatening manner– now it is \"spent\", now it is becoming \"outlived\". The dangerous and uncanny point is reached where the grander, more manifold, more comprehensive life lives beyond the old morality; the \"individual\" stands there, reduced to his own law-giving, to his own arts and stratagems for self-preservation, self-enhancement, self-redemption. Nothing but new whys and wherewithalls, no longer any common formulas, misunderstanding in alliance with disrespect, decay, corruption and the highest desires horribly tangled together, the genius of the race overflowing out of every cornucopia of good and bad, spring and autumn falling fatally together, full of novel charms and veils such as pertain to youthful, still unexhausted, still unwearied corruption. Danger is again present, the mother of morality, great danger, only this time it comes from the individual, from neighbour and friend, from the street, from one's own child, from one's own heart, from the most personal and secret recesses of wish and will: what will the moral philosophers who come up in this age now have to preach? They discover, these acute observers and idlers, that the end is fast approaching, that everything around them is corrupt and corrupting, that nothing can last beyond the day after tomorrow, one species of man excepted, the incurably mediocre. The mediocre alone have the prospect of continuing on and propagating themselves– they are the men of the future, the sole survivors; \"be like them! become mediocre!\" is henceforth the only morality that has any meaning left, that still finds ears to hear it. – But it is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! – for it can never admit what it is and what it wants! it has to speak of moderation and dignity and duty and love of one's neighbour– it will scarcely be able to conceal its irony! –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is an instinct for rank which is more than anything else already the sign of a high rank; there is a delight in the nuances of reverence, which reveals a noble origin and noble habits. The refinement, goodness and loftiness of a soul is put to a perilous test whenever something passes before it that is of the first rank but not yet protected from importunate clumsiness and claws by the awe of authority: something that goes its way unsignalized, undiscovered, tempting, perhaps arbitrarily obscured and disguised, like a living touchstone. He whose task and practice it is to explore the soul will avail himself of precisely this art in many forms in order to determine the ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable innate order of rank to which it belongs: he will test it for its instinct of reverence. Différence engendre haine: the commonness of some natures suddenly spurts up like dirty water whenever some sacred vessel, some precious object from a closed shrine, some book with the marks of a great destiny is carried by; and on the other hand there is an involuntary falling silent, a hesitation of the eye, a cessation of all gestures, which reveal that a soul feels the proximity of something most worthy of respect. The way in which reverence for the Bible has hitherto been generally maintained in Europe is perhaps the best piece of discipline and refinement of manners that Europe owes to Christianity: such books of profundity and ultimate significance require for their protection an external tyranny of authority, in order that they may achieve those millennia of continued existence which are needed if they are to be exhausted and unriddled. Much has been gained when the feeling has at last been instilled into the masses (into the shallow-pates and greedy-guts of every sort) that there are things they must not touch; that there are holy experiences before which they have to takeoff their shoes and keep their unclean hands away– it is almost their highest advance towards humanity. Conversely, there is perhaps nothing about the so-called cultured, the believers in \"modern ideas\", that arouses so much disgust as their lack of shame, the self-satisfied insolence of eye and hand with which they touch, lick and fumble with everything; and it is possible that more relative nobility of taste and reverential tact is to be discovered today among the people, among the lower orders and especially among peasants, than among the newspaper-reading demi-monde of the spirit, the cultured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which his ancestors most liked to do and most constantly did cannot be erased from a man's soul: whether, for instance, they were diligent savers and the accessories of a desk and cash-box, modest and bourgeois in their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they lived accustomed to commanding from morn tonight, fond of rough amusements and perhaps of even rougher duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, they at sometime or other sacrificed ancient privileges of birth and possessions in order to live entirely for their faith– for their'god\"– as men of an inexorable and tender conscience which blushes at all half-measures. It is quite impossible that a man should not have in his body the qualities and preferences of his parents and forefathers: whatever appearances may say to the contrary. This constitutes the problem of race. If one knows something about the parents, it is permissible to draw a conclusion about the child: any sort of untoward intemperance, any sort of narrow enviousness, a clumsy obstinate self-assertiveness– these three things together have at all times constituted the characteristics of the plebeian type– qualities of this sort must be transferred to the child as surely as bad blood; and the best education and culture will succeed only in deceiving with regard to such an inheritance. – And what else is the objective of education and culture today? In our very democratic, that is to say plebeian age,\"education'and'culture'have to be in essence the art of deceiving– of deceiving with regard to origins, to the inherited plebeian in soul and body. An educator who today preached truthfulness above all and continually cried to his pupils'Be true! Be natural! Give yourselves out for what you are! \"– even such a virtuous and simple ass would after a time learn to reach for that furca of Horace to naturam expellere: with what success?\"The plebeian' usque recurret. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the risk of annoying innocent ears I set it down that egoism pertains to the essence of the noble soul, I mean the immovable faith that to a being such as \"we are\" other beings have to be subordinate by their nature, and sacrifice themselves to us. The noble soul accepts this fact of its egoism without any question-mark, also without feeling any severity, constraint, caprice in it, but rather as something that maybe grounded in the primal law of things: – if it sought a name for it, it would say \"it is justice itself\". Under certain circumstances which make it hesitate at first, it will admit that there are others with rights equal to its own; as soon as it is clear as to this question of rank, it moves among these its equals and equal-in-rights with the same sure modesty and tender reverence as it applies to itself– in accordance with an innate celestial mechanism which all stars understand. This refinement and self-limitation in traffic with its equals is one more aspect of its egoism– every star is such an egoist– : it honours itself in them and in the rights it concedes them, it is in no doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the essence of social intercourse, is likewise part of the natural condition of things. The noble soul gives as it takes, out of the passionate and sensitive instinct of requital which lies in its depths. The concept \"favour\" has no meaning or good odour inter pares; there maybe a sublime way of letting gifts from above as it were befall one and drinking them up thirstily like drops: but for this sort of behaviour the noble soul has no aptitude. Its egoism hinders it here: it does not like to look \"up\" at all– it prefers to look either in front, horizontally and slowly, or down– it knows it is at a height. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One can truly respect only him who does not lookout for himself.\" – Goethe to Rat Schlosser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children: siao-sin: \"Make your heart small!\" This is the characteristic basic tendency in late civilizations: I do not doubt that the first thing an ancient Greek would remark in us Europeans of today would also be self-diminution– through that alone we should be \"contrary to his taste\". –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What ultimately is commonness? – Words are sounds designating concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite images designating frequently recurring and associated sensations, groups of sensations. To understand one another it is not sufficient to employ the same words; we have also to employ the same words to designate the same species of inner experiences, we must ultimately have our experience in common. That is why the members of one people understand one another better than do members of differing peoples even when they use the same language; or rather, when human beings have lived together fora longtime under similar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, needs, work), there arises from this a group who \"understand one another\", a people. In every soul in this group an equivalent number of frequently recurring experiences has gained the upper handover those which come more rarely: it is on the basis of these that people understand one another, quickly and evermore quickly– the history of language is the history of a process of abbreviation–; it is on the basis of this quick understanding that they unite together, closely and evermore closely. The greater the danger, the greater is the need to reach agreement quickly and easily as to what has to be done; not to misunderstand one another in situations of danger is an absolute necessity inhuman relations. One makes this same test even in the case of friendships or love-affairs: nothing of that sort can last once it is discovered that when one party uses words he connects them with feelings, intentions, perceptions, desires, fears different from those the other party connects them with. (Fear of the \"eternal misunderstanding\": that is the benevolent genius whoso often keeps persons of differing sex from over-hasty attachments to which senses and heart prompt them– and not some Schopenhaueran \"genius of the species\"– !) Exactly which groups of sensations are awakened, begin to speak, issue commands most quickly within a soul, is decisive for the whole order of rank of its values and ultimately determines its table of desiderata. A human being's evaluations betray something of the structure of his soul and where it sees its conditions of life, its real needs. Now supposing that need has at all times brought together only such human beings as could indicate similar requirements, similar experiences by means of similar signs, it follows that on the whole the easy communicability of need, that is to say ultimately the experiencing of only average and common experiences, must have been the most powerful of all the powerful forces which have disposed of mankind hitherto. The more similar, more ordinary human beings have had and still have the advantage, the more select, subtle, rare and harder to understand are liable to remain alone, succumb to accidents in their isolation and seldom propagate themselves. Tremendous counter-forces have to be called upon to cross this natural, all too natural progressus in simile, the continuing development of mankind into the similar, ordinary, average, herdlike– into the common!" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: philosophy, ethics, morality, aphorisms, existentialism\nAuthor: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche\nTitle: Beyond Good and Evil\nChapter: 278" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What ultimately is commonness? – Words are sounds designating concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite images designating frequently recurring and associated sensations, groups of sensations. To understand one another it is not sufficient to employ the same words; we have also to employ the same words to designate the same species of inner experiences, we must ultimately have our experience in common. That is why the members of one people understand one another better than do members of differing peoples even when they use the same language; or rather, when human beings have lived together fora longtime under similar conditions (of climate, soil, danger, needs, work), there arises from this a group who \"understand one another\", a people. In every soul in this group an equivalent number of frequently recurring experiences has gained the upper handover those which come more rarely: it is on the basis of these that people understand one another, quickly and evermore quickly– the history of language is the history of a process of abbreviation–; it is on the basis of this quick understanding that they unite together, closely and evermore closely. The greater the danger, the greater is the need to reach agreement quickly and easily as to what has to be done; not to misunderstand one another in situations of danger is an absolute necessity inhuman relations. One makes this same test even in the case of friendships or love-affairs: nothing of that sort can last once it is discovered that when one party uses words he connects them with feelings, intentions, perceptions, desires, fears different from those the other party connects them with. (Fear of the \"eternal misunderstanding\": that is the benevolent genius whoso often keeps persons of differing sex from over-hasty attachments to which senses and heart prompt them– and not some Schopenhaueran \"genius of the species\"– !) Exactly which groups of sensations are awakened, begin to speak, issue commands most quickly within a soul, is decisive for the whole order of rank of its values and ultimately determines its table of desiderata. A human being's evaluations betray something of the structure of his soul and where it sees its conditions of life, its real needs. Now supposing that need has at all times brought together only such human beings as could indicate similar requirements, similar experiences by means of similar signs, it follows that on the whole the easy communicability of need, that is to say ultimately the experiencing of only average and common experiences, must have been the most powerful of all the powerful forces which have disposed of mankind hitherto. The more similar, more ordinary human beings have had and still have the advantage, the more select, subtle, rare and harder to understand are liable to remain alone, succumb to accidents in their isolation and seldom propagate themselves. Tremendous counter-forces have to be called upon to cross this natural, all too natural progressus in simile, the continuing development of mankind into the similar, ordinary, average, herdlike– into the common!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The more a psychologist– a born, an unavoidable psychologist and reader of souls– turns his attention to the more select cases and human beings, the greater grows the danger of his suffocating from pity: he needs hardness and cheerfulness more than other men. For the corruption, the ruination of higher human beings, of more strangely constituted souls, is the rule: it is dreadful to have such a rule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist who has discovered this ruination, who discovers this whole inner'wretchedness'of the higher human being, this eternal'too late! \"in every sense, first once and then almost always throughout the whole of history– may perhaps one day make him turn against his whole lot and drive him to attempt selfdestruction– to his own'ruination\". One will perceive in almost every psychologist a telltale preference for and pleasure in associating with everyday and well-ordered people: this betrays that he is inconstant need of a cure, that he requires a kind of flight and forgetting, away from that which his insights and incisions, his'trade\", has laid upon his conscience. It is characteristic of him that he is afraid of his memory. He is easily silenced by the judgement of others: he listens with a straight face when people venerate, admire, love, transfigure where he has seen– or he conceals even his silence by expressly agreeing with some superficial opinion. Perhaps the paradox of his situation is so ghastly that precisely where he has learned great pity together with great contempt the mob, the cultured, the enthusiasts learn great veneration– veneration for'great men'and prodigies on whose account they bless the fatherland, the earth, the dignity of mankind and themselves, in whose direction they point the young and on whose model they educate them.... And who knows whether what has happened hitherto in all great cases has not always been the same thing: that the mob worshipped a god– and that the'god'was only a poor sacrificial beast! Success has always been the biggest liar– and the'work'itself a kind of success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer is disguised by his creations to the point of unrecognizability: the'work\", that of the artist or the philosopher, invents him who created it, is supposed to have created it;\"great men\", as they are venerated, are bad little fictions invented afterwards; in the world of historical values false coinage is the rule. Great poets, for example, such as Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not dare to name greater names, but I mean them) – as they are and perhaps have to be: men of moments, enthusiastic, sensual, childish, sudden and frivolous in trust and mistrust; with souls in which some fracture is usually trying to hide; often taking revenge with their works for an inner defilement, often seeking with their exaggerations forgetfulness of an all too faithful memory, often lost in the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like will-o\"-the-wisps around swamps and pretend to be stars– the people may then call them idealists– often struggling against a protracted disgust, a recurring spectre of unbelief which freezes them and compels them to languish for gloria and to devour \"belief in themselves\" out of the hands of intoxicated adulators– what a torment these great artists and higher human beings in general are for him who has once divined what they are! It is so very understandable that they should so easily receive precisely from woman– who is clairvoyante in the world of suffering and unfortunately also eager to help and save far beyond her power to do so– those outbursts of boundless, most devoted pity which the mob, above all the venerating mob, fails to understand and loads with inquisitive and self-satisfied interpretations. This pity habitually deceives itself about its strength; woman would like to believe that love can do everything– it is her characteristic faith. Alas, he who knows the heart divines how poor, stupid, helpless, arrogant, blundering, more prone to destroy than save is even the best and deepest love! – It is possible that within the holy disguise and fable of Jesus' life there lies concealed one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of knowledge about love: the martyrdom of the most innocent and longing heart which never had sufficient of human love, which demanded love, to beloved and nothing else, demanded it with hardness, with madness, with fearful outbursts against those who denied it love; the story of a poor soul unsated and insatiable in love who had to invent hell so as to send there those who did not want to love him– and who, having become knowledgeable about human love, finally had to invent a god who is wholly love, wholly ability to love– who has mercy on human love because it is so very paltry and ignorant! He whose feelings are like this, he who knows about love to this extent– seeks death. – But why reflect on such painful things? As long as one does not have to. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The spiritual haughtiness and disgust of every human being who has suffered deeply– how deeply human beings can suffer almost determines their order of rank– the harrowing certainty, with which he is wholly permeated and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he knows more than even the cleverest and wisest can know, that he is familiar with, and was once \"at home\" in, many distant, terrible worlds of which'you know nothing!\" ... this spiritual, silent haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the \"initiated\", of the almost sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself against contact with importunate and pitying hands and in general against everything which is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering ennobles; it separates. One of the most subtle forms of disguise is Epicureanism and a certain ostentatious bravery of taste which takes suffering frivolously and arms itself against everything sorrowful and profound. There are \"cheerful people\" who employ cheerfulness because they are misunderstood on account of it– they want to be misunderstood. There are \"men of science\" who employ science because it produces a cheerful appearance and because scientificality gives the impression a person is superficial– they want to give a false impression. There are free insolent spirits who would like to conceal and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of Hamlet– the case of Galiani); and sometimes folly itself is the mask for an unhappy, all too certain knowledge. – From which it follows that it is part of a more refined humanity to have reverence \"for the mask\" and not to practise psychology and inquisitiveness in the wrong place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That which divides two people most profoundly is a differing sense and degree of cleanliness. Of what good is all uprightness and mutual usefulness, of what good is mutual goodwill: the fact still remains– they \"cannot bear each other's odour! \"The highest instinct of cleanliness places him who is affected with it in the strangest and most perilous isolation, as a saint: for precisely this is saintliness– the highest spiritualization of the said instinct. To know an indescribable pleasure in bathing, to feel an ardour and thirst which constantly drives the soul out of night into morning, and out of gloom and'gloominess'into brightness, into the glittering, profound, refined– : such an inclination is distinguishing– it is a noble inclination– but it also separates. – The saint's pity is pity for the dirt of the human, all too human. And there are degrees and heights at which he feels pity itself as defilement, as dirt..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Signs of nobility: never to think of degrading our duties into duties for everybody; not to want to relinquish or share our own responsibilities; to count our privileges and the exercising of them among our duties." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A human being who strives for something great regards everybody he meets on his way either as a means or as a delay and hindrance– or as a temporary resting-place. The lofty goodness towards his fellowmen which is proper to him becomes possible only when he has reached his height and he rules. Impatience and his consciousness that until that time he is condemned to comedy– for even war is a comedy and a concealment, just as every means conceals the end– spoil all his association with others: this kind of man knows solitude and what is most poisonous in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem of those who wait– It requires luck and much that is incalculable if a higher human being in whom there slumbers the solution of a problem is to act– \"break out\" one might say– at the right time. Usually it does not happen, and in every corner of the earth there are people waiting who hardly know to what extent they are waiting but even less that they are waiting in vain. Sometimes the awakening call, that chance event which gives \"permission\" to act, comes but too late– when the best part of youth and the strength to act has already been used up in sitting still; and how many a man has discovered to his horror when he \"rose up\" that his limbs had gone to sleep and his spirit was already too heavy! \"It is too late\"– he has said to himself, having lost faith in himself and henceforth forever useless. Could it be that, in the realm of genius, \"Raphael without hands\" is, taking the phrase in its widest sense, not the exception but the rule? – Perhaps genius is not so very rare: perhaps what is rare is the five hundred hands needed to tyrannize over the kairos, \"the right time\"– to take chance by the forelock!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He who does not want to see what is elevated in a man looks all the more keenly for what is low and foreground in him– and thereby gives himself away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In every kind of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler: the dangers facing the latter are bound to be greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its life, enormous. – When a lizard loses a finger that finger grows again: not so in the case of man. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– Annoying! The same old story! When one has finished one's house one realizes that while doing so one has learnt unawares something one absolutely had to know before one– began to build. The everlasting pitiful'too late! ' – The melancholy of everything finished!..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– Wanderer, who are you? I see you go your way without scorn, without love, with unfathomable eyes; moist and sad as a sounding-lead that has returned to the light unsated from every deep– what was it looking for down there? – with abreast that does not sigh, with a lip that hides its disgust, with a hand which now reaches out but slowly: who are you? what have you done? Repose here: this place is hospitable to everyone– refresh yourself! And whoever you maybe: what would you like now? What will refresh you? You have only to name it: whatever I have I offer you! – \"Refreshment? Refreshment? O inquisitive man, what are you saying! But please give me–\" What? What? Say it– \"One more mask! A second mask!\" ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men of profound sorrow give themselves away when they are happy: they have away of grasping happiness as if they wanted to crush and smother it, from jealousy– alas, they know too well that it will flee away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bad! Bad! What? Is he not going– backwards?\" – Yes! But you ill understand him if you complain about it. He goes backwards as everyone goes backwards who wants to take a big jump. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will they believe me? but I insist they believe me: I have always thought little of and about myself, only in very rare instances have I done so, only when compelled, always without wanting'to go in for it\", liable to digress from'myself\", never with any faith in the outcome, thanks to an unconquerable mistrust of the possibility of self-knowledge which has led me so far as to sense a contradictio in adjecto even in the concept'immediate knowledge\" which theoreticians permit themselves– this whole fact is almost the most certain thing I know about myself. There must be a kind of aversion in me to believing anything definite about myself. – Is there perhaps a riddle concealed here? Probably; but fortunately one not for my own teeth. – Does it perhaps betray the species to which I belong? – But not tome: which suits me well enough. –\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But whatever has happened to you?\" – \"I don't know, \"he said, hesitating;\"perhaps the Harpies flew over my table. \"– It sometimes happens today that a mild, moderate, reserved man suddenly breaks out into a rage, smashes the plates, throws the table over, screams, raves, insults everybody– and ends by going off ashamed, furious with himself– where? why? To starve all alone? To choke on his recollections? – He who has the desires of an elevated, fastidious soul, and rarely finds his table laid and his food ready, will be in great danger at all times: but today the danger he is in has become extraordinary. Thrown into a noisy and plebeian age with which he has no wish to eat out of the same dish, he can easily perish of hunger and thirst, or, if he does eventually'set to'– of a sudden nausea. – We have all no doubt eaten at tables where we did not belong; and precisely the most spiritual of us who are most difficult to feed know that dangerous dyspepsia which comes from a sudden insight and disappointment about our food and table-companions– the after-dinner nausea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Supposing one wants to praise at all, it is a refined and at the same time noble piece of self-control to praise only where one does not agree– for in the other case one would be praising oneself, which is contrary to good taste– but it is a sort of self-control which offers a nice instigation and occasion for constantly being misunderstood. If one is to be able to afford this real luxury of taste and morality one has to live, not among blockheads of the spirit, but rather among people in whom misunderstandings and blunders are still amusing because of their subtlety– or one will have to pay dearly for it! – \"He praises me: therefore he thinks I am right\"– this asinine conclusion spoils half the life of us hermits, for it makes asses come along to be our friends and neighbours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To live with a tremendous and proud self-possession; always beyond–. To have and not have one's emotions, one's for and against, at will, to condescend to have them fora few hours; to seat oneself on them as on horses, often as on asses– for one has to know how to employ their stupidity as well as their fire. To keep one's three hundred foregrounds; also one's dark glasses: for there are instances where no one may look into our eyes, still less into our \"grounds\". And to choose for company that cheerful and roguish vice, politeness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage, insight, sympathy, solitude. For solitude is with us a virtue: it is a sublime urge and inclination for cleanliness which divines that all contact between man and man–\"in society\"– must inevitably be unclean. All community makes somehow, somewhere, sometime–\"common'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The greatest events and thoughts– but the greatest thoughts are the greatest events– are comprehended last: the generations which are their contemporaries do not experience such events– they live past them. What happens here is similar to what happens in the realm of the stars. The light of the furthest stars comes to men last; and before it has arrived man denies that there are– stars there. \"How many centuries does a spirit need to be comprehended?\" – that too is a standard, with that too there is created an order of rank and etiquette such as is needed: for spirit and star. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here is the prospect free, the spirit exalted.\" – But there is an opposite kind of man who is also on the heights and for whom the prospect is also free– but who looks down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– What is noble? What does the word \"noble\" mean to us today? What, beneath this heavy, overcast sky of the beginning rule of the rabble which makes everything leaden and opaque, betrays and makes evident the noble human being? – It is not his actions which reveal him– actions are always ambiguous, always unfathomable–; neither is it his \"works\". One finds today among artists and scholars sufficient who reveal by their works that they are driven on by a profound desire for the noble: but precisely this need for the noble is fundamentally different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and in fact an eloquent and dangerous sign of its lack. It is not the works, it is the faith which is decisive here, which determines the order of rank here, to employ an old religious formula in anew and deeper sense: some fundamental certainty which a noble soul possesses in regard to itself, something which may not besought or found and perhaps may not be lost either. – The noble soul has reverence for itself. –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are people unavoidably possessed of spirit, let them twist and turn how they may and hold their hands before their treacherous eyes (– as if the hand were not also a traitor! –): in the end it always comes out that they have something they are hiding, namely spirit. One of the subtlest ways of deceiving, for as long as possible at any rate, and of successfully posing as more stupid than one is– which in everyday life is often as desirable as an umbrella– is called enthusiasm: plus what belongs with it, for example virtue. For, as Galiani, who ought to know, said– : vertu est enthousiasme." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One always hears in the writings of a hermit something of the echo of the desert, something of the whisper and shy vigilance of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry, there still resounds anew and more dangerous kind of silence and concealment. He who has sat alone with his soul day and night, year in year out, in confidential discord and discourse, and in his cave– it maybe a labyrinth, but it maybe a goldmine– become a cave-bear or treasure-hunter or a treasure-guardian and dragon, finds that his concepts themselves at last acquire a characteristic twilight colour, a smell of the depths and of must, something incommunicable and reluctant which blows cold on every passer-by. The hermit does not believe that a philosopher– supposing that a philosopher has always been first of all a hermit– has ever expressed his real and final opinions in books: does one not write books precisely to conceal what lies within us? – indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher could have \"final and real\" opinions at all, whether behind each of his caves there does not and must not lie another, deeper cave– a stranger, more comprehensive world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every ground, beneath every \"foundation\". Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy– that is a hermit's judgement:\"there is something arbitrary in the fact that he stopped, looked back, looked around here, that he stopped digging and laid his spade aside here– there is also something suspicious about it. ' Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding-place, every word also a mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every profound thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter may perhaps wound his vanity; but the former will wound his heart, his sympathy, which says always: \"alas, why do you want to have as hard a time of it as I had?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Man, a manifold, mendacious, artificial and untransparent animal, uncanny to the other animals lesson account of his strength than on account of his cunning and cleverness, invented the good conscience so as to enjoy his soul for once as simple; and the whole of morality is a protracted audacious forgery by virtue of which alone it becomes possible to feel pleasure at the sight of the soul. From this point of view there is perhaps much more in the concept \"art\" than is generally believed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A philosopher: a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if from without, as if from above and below, as by his kind of events and thunder-claps; who is himself perhaps a storm and pregnant with new lightnings; a fateful man around whom snarling, quarrelling, discord and uncanniness is always going on. A philosopher: alas, a creature which often runs away from itself, is often afraid of itself– but which is too inquisitive not to keep \"coming to itself\" again..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man who says: \"I like this, I take it for my own and mean to protect it and defend it against everyone\"; a man who can do something, carryout a decision, remain true to an idea, hold onto a woman, punish and put down insolence; a man who has his anger and his sword and to whom the weak, suffering, oppressed, and the animals too are glad to submit and belong by nature, in short a man who is by nature a master– when such a man has pity, well! that pity has value! But of what account is the pity of those who suffer! Or, worse, of those who preach pity! There exists almost everywhere in Europe today a morbid sensitivity and susceptibility to pain, likewise a repellent intemperance in lamentation, a tenderization which, with the aid of religion and odds and ends of philosophy, would like to deck itself out as something higher– there exists a downright cult of suffering. The unmanliness of that which is in such fanatic circles baptized \"pity\" is, I think, the first thing which leaps to the eye. – This latest species of bad taste must be resolutely and radically excommunicated; and I would like to seethe good amulet'gai saber\" worn around neck and hearts so as toward it off– \"gay science\", to make the matter plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Olympian vice– In spite of that philosopher who, being areal Englishman, sought to bring laughter into disrepute among all thinking minds– \"laughter is a bad infirmity of human nature which every thinking man will endeavour to overcome\"(Hobbes) – I would go so far as to venture an order of rank among philosophers according to the rank of their laughter– rising to those capable of golden laughter. And if gods too philosophize, as many an inference has driven me to suppose– I do not doubt that while doing so they also know how to laugh in anew and superhuman way– and at the expense of all serious things! Gods are fond of mockery: it seems they cannot refrain from laughter even when sacraments are in progress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The genius of the heart as it is possessed by that great hidden one, the tempter god and born pied piper of consciences whose voice knows how to descend into the underworld of every soul, who says no word and gives no glance in which there lies no touch of enticement, to whose mastery belongs knowing how to seem– not what he is but what to those who follow him is one constraint more to press ever closer to him, to follow him evermore inwardly and thoroughly– the genius of the heart who makes everything loud and self-satisfied fall silent and teaches it to listen, who smooths rough souls and gives them anew desire to savour– the desire to lie still as a mirror, that the deep sky may mirror itself in them– ; the genius of the heart who teaches the stupid and hasty hand to hesitate and grasp more delicately; who divines the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick and opaque ice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold which has lain long in the prison of much mud and sand; the genius of the heart from whose touch everyone goes away richer, not favoured and surprised, not as if blessed and oppressed with the goods of others, but richer in himself, newer to himself than before, broken open, blown upon and sounded out by a thawing wind, more uncertain perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more broken, but full of hopes that as yet have no names, full of new will and current, full of new ill will and counter-current... but what am I doing, my friends? Of whom am I speaking to you? Have I so far forgot myself that I have not even told you his name? Unless you have already yourselves divined who this questionable god and spirit is who wants to be praised in such a fashion. For as happens to everyone who has always been on the move and in foreign lands from his childhood up, so many a strange and not undangerous spirit has crossed my path too, but above all he of whom I was just speaking, and he again and again, no less a personage in fact than the god Dionysus, that great ambiguous and tempter god to whom, as you know, once I brought in all secrecy and reverence my first-born– being, as it seems tome, the last to have brought him a sacrifice: for I have found no one who could have understood what I was then doing. Meanwhile, I have learned much, all too much more about the philosophy of this god and, as I have said, from mouth to mouth– I, the last disciple and initiate of the god Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last begin to give you, my friends, a little taste of this philosophy, in so far as I am permitted to? Ina hushed voice, as is only proper: for it involves much that is secret, new, unfamiliar, strange, uncanny. The very fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that gods too therefore philosophize, seems a by no means harmless novelty and one calculated to excite suspicion precisely among philosophers– among you, my friends, it will meet with a friendlier reception, unless it comes too late and not at the right time: for, as I have discovered, you no longer like to believe in God and gods now. Perhaps I shall also have to go further in the frankness of my story than may always be agreeable to the strict habits of your ears? Certainly the above-named god went further, very much further, in conversations of this sort, and was always many steps ahead of me.... Indeed, if it were permitted to follow the human custom of applying to him beautiful, solemn titles of pomp and virtue, I would have to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his daring honesty, truthfulness and love of wisdom. But such a god has nothing to do with all this venerable lumber and pomp. \"Keep that,\" he would say, \"for yourself and your like and for anyone else who needs it! I– have no reason to cover my nakedness!\" – One will see that this species of divinity and philosopher is perhaps lacking in shame? – Thus he once said: \"Under certain circumstances I love mankind\"– alluding to Ariadne, who was present– : \"Man is tome an agreeable, brave, ingenious animal without equal on earth, he knows how to make his way through every labyrinth. I like him: I often ponder how I might advance him and make him stronger, more evil and more profound than he is.\" – \"Stronger, more evil and more profound?\" I asked in alarm. \"Yes,\" he repeated, \"stronger, more evil and more profound; also more beautiful\"– and as he said that the tempter god smiled his halcyon smile, as though he had just paid a charming compliment. Here one will also see that this divinity is lacking not only in shame– ; and there is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We human beings are– more humane..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alas, and yet what are you, my written and painted thoughts! It is not long ago that you were still so many-coloured, young and malicious, so full of thorns and hidden spices you made me sneeze and laugh– and now? You have already taken off your novelty and some of you, I fear, are on the point of becoming truths: they already look so immortal, so pathetically righteous, so boring! And has it ever been otherwise? For what things do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brushes, we immortalizers of things which let themselves be written, what alone are we capable of painting? Alas, only that which is about to wither and is beginning to lose its fragrance! Alas, only storms departing exhausted and feelings grown old and yellow! Alas, only birds strayed and grown weary in flight who now let themselves be caught in the hand– in our hand! We immortalize that which cannot live and fly much longer, weary and mellow things alone! And it is only your afternoon, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have the colours, many colours perhaps, many many-coloured tendernesses and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds: – but no one will divine from these how you looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and wonders of my solitude, you my old beloved– wicked thoughts!" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's co-author, extend the plot.\nTags: science fiction, military science fiction, space opera, BattleTech, mecha\nAuthor: Michael A Stackpole\nTitle: Blood Legacy\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prologue\n\nDropShip Charles Martel\n\nTerra Approach Vector 23917\n\n31 January 3051\n\nThe instant he touched the cold stone, Anastasius Focht knew he was seated on the Archon's throne. In the darkness of his dream, the massive doors at the far end of the throne room remained deep in shadow. Yet Focht knew that two mute, enormous Griffin BattleMechs stood guard behind him, warding the Lyran Commonwealth rulers and their throne as they had for more than five centuries.\n\nAt first, he thought the great, silent room empty but for him, then saw the shadows begin to stir as a form slowly emerged. The silhouette limped toward him, and Focht gradually made out a face he had not seen for twenty years. \"This is madness,\" he said, as though the words could awaken him from this dream fast becoming a nightmare.\n\nThe shadowman stopped a dozen meters from the throne and smiled with the smugness of a well-schooled courtier. \"Of course, it is, my friend. But when did that ever matter?\"\n\nFocht's right fist smashed down on the arm of the throne. \"This will end, and end now!\" He thrust a finger at the man standing before him. \"I know you, Aldo Lestrade, but you have been dead for the past twenty years.\"\n\nThe phantom shrugged as though to say it mattered little. \"Physically, yes. I died years ago, poisoned by a whelp I never knew I had sired.\" He cackled horribly. \"But I have lived on within your mind and thrived there. Yes, yes, I know all about the training those Buddhist monks and ComStar Adepts put you through to free your spirit of worldly attachments and concerns. But now you see, Precentor Martial, that I have been there all along, the receptacle for all the ambition you tried to leave behind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shade raised its hands to take in the entire room. \"And now you have done it. Finally. There you sit on the throne of the Lyran Commonwealth, fulfilling the desire you have long held most dear.\"\n\nFocht lifted his snow-maned head proudly and stared hard at the shade with his single good eye. \"You are wrong, Lestrade. The man I once was desired the throne, but that man is no more.\" He plucked at the left breast of his long white robe, indicating the golden star insignia embroidered there.\n\n\"I now serve ComStar and the Word of Blake. This throne is the rightful place of Archon Melissa Steiner Davion of the Federated Commonwealth, and I recognize her joint ruler-ship with her husband, Prince Hanse Davion of the Federated Commonwealth.\"\n\nLestrade laughed softly, but the sound was sinister. \"Deny it if you will, old friend, but I am hereto prove you wrong. I know the truth of your heart, and it is your desire for power. By giving you this vision of yourself on the throne, I permit you to glimpse the possible future. Use the means in your power and take the throne!\"\n\nBanishing his unease, Focht gave a laugh of his own. \"It is pure foolishness to believe I either desire the throne or that I would move to take it. It is true that as Precentor Martial of ComStar's forces, I command fifty crack regiments. And yes, that is a force sufficient to depose Melissa if I so desired, but I cannot and I will not.\"\n\n\"Bah!\" snarled Lestrade as the healthy glow of his complexion began to fade to a grayish pallor. \"You always had to be pushed to see what must be done...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop!\" Focht shot to his feet, towering over the ghost. \"You've never been a MechWarrior! You've never understood the code of duty and honor that rules those who pilot these engines of destruction. Placing such an awesome weapon in the hands of an individual implies a similar gesture of trust.\" Focht's single gray eye flashed with anger. \"You betrayed my trust when you were alive. Why would I trust you now?\"\n\nFocht turned and waved a hand at the twin Griffins standing behind the throne. \"For more than six hundred years, the BattleMech has occupied a central place in the mythology we spin around ourselves like a cocoon then call reality. Since the fall of the Star League, it is BattleMechs that have decided the outcome of our endless wars. It is those very wars that have destroyed most of the means to produce these magnificent war machines. Worse, we have lost so much technology in this long Dark Age that our \"Mechs haven't half the capabilities of those their great-great grandfathers took into battle. In these centuries of Succession Wars, the leaders of the Great Houses lost the vision of a unified humanity. They only saw their greed for another's land or power, and that was how they put the BattleMech to use.\"\n\nLestrade opened his mouth to speak, but Focht cut him off. \"For centuries, we have told ourselves that the BattleMech is invincible. New models like the Hatchetman or Wolfhound have shown that improvements are possible, but these designs were still based on technology we understand. They present no new threat.\"\n\n\"The same cannot be said of the Clans. Though they, too, fight with \"Mechs, theirs surpass even those our ancestors knew at the pinnacle of man's technological development. Clan \"Mechs move faster, shoot more accurately, and can hit targets at ranges much greater than our machines. What's more, the Clans, as a people, devote their whole existence to firing the engine of war. The defeats they suffered last year were little more than accidents. The Federated Commonwealth attacked them on the poorly garrisoned backwater world of Twycross. And, yes, the Li ans forces were crack troops, but Kai Allard-Liao's single-handed destruction of a whole Cluster of front-line Clan'Mechs can only be attributed to luck.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lestrade's mechanical left hand worked his jaw around to make it work. \"And what of the battle on Wolcott? Theodore Kurita defeated a planetary assault.\"\n\n\"True,\" Focht conceded with a nod. \"He managed to use the Clans' own military conventions against them, but the greater significance of how the Clans function has escaped notice. Some military thinkers of the Inner Sphere believe it only some quirk that makes the Clans bid away troops in order to attack a planet with the minimum number of troops. In fact, it is a sinister omen of things to come. When the Clans stop bidding so boldly, their technological edge will overwhelm our forces. All will be lost.\"\n\nLestrade smiled broadly, tearing the desiccated flesh off his lips. \"And all the more reason for you to seize control of Tharkad and the throne.\"\n\n\"Have you heard nothing I've just said?\" In his anger, Focht grasped the fabric of his nightmare, making the towering Griffins waver, then shift to become the hulking forms of the Clan'Mech known as the Madcat. Mounted on birdlike legs bent backward at the knee, the blocky body thrust the cockpit forward. Above the hip joints rode two boxy long-range missile launchers, and each arm ended in slender, rectangular weapons pods. The slate gray 'Mechs looked like deadly, predators ready to devour any opposition.\n\n\"These are the kinds of 'Mech we face now. They have more than double the effectiveness of our machines.\" This time, Focht took the shadows and formed them into a man-sized suit of armor. The right arm ended in a laser muzzle while the left hand had only three thick fingers. A rocket-launcher rode on the back of the armor suit, and the individual wearing the suit had only a V-shaped black glass slit fora viewport." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Clans call these powered suits and the people who pilot them Elementals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This armored infantry can withstand direct hits by \"Mech weaponry. Working in concert, Elementals can take down and destroy a'Mech.\" Focht ran the slender fingers of his left hand through his white hair. \"The only way mankind can hope to hold back the Clans is by uniting their full resources to defeating the invaders.\"\n\nLestrade stared at the armor suit, but seemed unimpressed. \"It took no such union to drive the Clans off this time, did it?\"\n\nFocht snarled inarticulately, then warped the stuff of dreams again. Against the darkness of the throne room, pinpoints of light began to burn. Above, a system's sun rotated and shot out a massive solar flare. Below, just beyond the whiplash of solar plasma, dozens of waspy JumpShips materialized in the system in two distinct groups. The thick hulls of the smaller group, composed of one massive and four small ships, bristled with weaponry. The larger group, looking skeletal compared to its foes, detached DropShip after DropShip and launched furious flights of fighters in a space-borne assault.\n\nThe Precentor Martial gritted his teeth and focused the dream on one fighter. Shaped like a boomerang, the craft made one strafing run from the bow to the stern of the enemy flagship, then turned and came back again. Both the fighter and its wingman were hit in the second run. The wingman's ship drifted away from the battle, but the primary ship boosted forward. Dropping into along, sweeping dive, it ran its engines higher than they were meant to go. Glowing like a nova, the Shilone fighter smashed into the bridge of the Clan JumpShip.\n\nFocht pointed to the gaping hole torn in the JumpShip's hull. \"There. That's the reason the Clans have stopped their assaults. That suicide ship killed their ilKhan, the man in charge of the whole invasion of the Inner Sphere. The Clan leaders have withdrawn to elect anew overlord, but the garrison they have left is more than ample toward the worlds they have taken. Having chosen anew warlord, they will return. This I have from Ulric, Khan of the Wolf Clan, who has never given me reason to doubt him or his words. Once again, it was sheer luck that aided us in our war against the Clans, but to depend on such luck would be suicidal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corpse applauded heartily. As his metal hand impacted the other of flesh, the decaying hand lost bits and pieces of skin and fingers. \"Spoken like a warrior, Precentor. As such, your analysis of the situation is flawless. You are correct that only the unification of the warring states of the Inner Sphere could defeat the Clans. You speak as a soldier, but I, as a politician, seethe impossibility of it all.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" Focht smiled calmly. \"Jaime Wolf has gathered the leaders of all the Great Houses to his world of Outreach to discuss the situation. He could forge the ties that will bind everything together.\"\n\nThe sound of Lestrade's teeth rattling loosely in his jaw made an irritating counterpoint to his words. \"For that, Wolf would have to be a magician, not a mercenary leader. Hanse Davion and Theodore Kurita can no more get along than light and darkness can abide each other. Twice in the last twenty-five years the Federated Suns had launched an invasion of the Draconis Combine, and twice Theodore Kurita has turned them back. Davion and Kurita are like a snake and a mongoose, each one knowing a single false step could be his death.\"\n\nLestrade tried to gesture broadly with his metal arm, but a grinding click in the joint left it hanging useless at his side. \"And let us not forget the sisters Liao. The St. Ives Compact ruled by Candace is little more than a protectorate of the Federated Commonwealth. If not for Davion troops stationed there, Romano would have long since have attempted to retake the Compact worlds for the Capellan Confederation. As it is, Romano has made at least a dozen assassination attempts on her sister's life, and she has a bounty out on the heads of Candace's friends and the kin of her husband, Justin Allard. The idea of anyone cooperating with Romano, no matter what the threat to the Successor States, is ludicrous.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dead Duke's head came up and his lifeless eyes locked on Focht. \" As for the Free Worlds League, I'd not expect much from them. Wolf clearly does not trust ComStar, hence the barring of any ComStar personnel from his world and this conference, in particular. As Thomas Marik was a ComStar Acolyte before he took his father's place on the throne, I cannot believe Wolf will be inclined to put much faith in anything Thomas does or says.\n\n\"There is also the problem of Thomas' four-year-old son, who has leukemia. It is a cruel blow, but you already know that he had signed the decree legitimizing Isis, his sixteen-year-old daughter by a mistress. Aside from his domestic troubles, Thomas is in a good position to bargain hard for his support because the Clans will have to come through the Lyran Commonwealth before they can hit him. Hanse and Theodore will have to make concessions to Marik for his help. But with the Primus backing him, Thomas still might not give in.\"\n\nFocht stiffened at the mention of ComStar's leader, and the revenant pounced at this show of anxiety. \"Don't try to hide from me, Precentor Martial. Am I not inside your brain and knowing your very thoughts? You style yourself a warrior, and you are good at it, but politics is a minefield. Your Primus, Myndo Waterly, is an excellent player, isn't she? She's convinced that ComStar can work with the Clans until the invaders have bled themselves white in battle, and then ComStar can step in, destroy them, and reform all society into Blake's dream of a Utopia. Has there ever been a greater foolishness?\"\n\nAs they spoke, the shade of what had once been Aldo Lestrade slowly disintegrated. His flesh was all but gone and the white of his bones showed through the worm-gnawed rents in his clothing. His death's-head watched Focht with shadow-filled eye sockets, but the bony jaw worked up and down uselessly, no words coming from its throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Focht leaned back in the throne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you are the container for whatever trace of ambition still claims me, I am pleased to seethe state it is in. I am a warrior who commands other warriors. I know better than to dabble in politics.\" He raised his hand to adjust the patch over his right eye. \"I paid a dear price for that realization, but I survived the lesson. You, Aldo Lestrade, did not.\"\n\nThe ghoul laughed one last time. \"But what you did not learn, Anastasius Focht, is that you can never escape politics. It is everywhere and, someday, it will lay you in the ground, just as it has me...\"\n\nLestrade's skeleton collapsed into a pile of dust, but his laughter continued to echo in Focht's brain until the sound gradually transformed into the incessant beeping of the Drop-Ship's visiphone intercom system. Pulling himself up into a sitting position, Focht reached out to punch the glowing button on the console beside his bed.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nThe ComStar acolyte on the screen bowed his head. \"Forgive me for waking you, Precentor, but you asked to be alerted two hours prior to atmospheric entry. We have just passed that mark and should be on the ground in just under three hours.\"\n\nFocht nodded. \"Call Sandhurst and have them arrange a full staff meeting for ETA plus 30 minutes. No excuses accepted for absence.\"\n\nThe Acolyte paled visibly. \"I cannot do that, Precentor.\"\n\nFocht's voice deepened with a rumble of anger. \"Explain.\"\n\n'The Primus sent us a priority directive while you slept. We are to land at Hilton Head, and you are to brief her immediately on the Clan situation. You will then address the First Circuit. \"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Send my message nonetheless. I will leave for Sandhurst as soon as possible.\"\n\nThe Acolyte regained some of his color. \"It shall be done as though it were the Will of Blake, Precentor Martial.\"\n\nFocht broke the connection with the flick of a finger. \"Perhaps you were right, Aldo. Perhaps none of us can escape politics, but that does not mean I must succumb to them. One man losing an eye to politics is enough. I cannot allow Mankind to be sacrificed on that same altar. The most elegant speeches may sway the hearts and minds of men, but not one ever stopped a bullet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach\n\nSarna March, Federated Commonwealth\n\n15 January 3051\n\n\"You're who?\"\n\nVictor Ian Steiner Davion sat stunned in his chair as Romano Liao's shout filled the Dragoons\" Grand Council Chamber. In front of him, his father stiffened while his mother reached instinctively for her husband's hand. Romano's voice rang out again. \"By all the gods of heaven and earth, I can't believe it.\"\n\n\"I thought, Madam Chancellor, that my statement was clear enough.\" Jaime Wolf leaned heavily on the raised podium at the front of the chamber. Though the mercenary was not a big man, Victor could seethe inner strength that had made Wolf a legendary leader and warrior. His black uniform and short cape only added to the grim expression his face now wore, particularly with the cloak thrown back from the left shoulder to reveal the ruby-eyed wolf's-head epaulet.\n\n\"Let me try again.\" Wolf looked around at the assembled leaders of the Inner Sphere, who gazed back at him with rapt attention. \"More than forty-five years ago, Wolf's Dragoons were sent by the Clans to determine the level of military preparedness of your states, those fragments of what had once been the Star League. Since that time, we have worked both for and against everyone of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere.\"\n\nPrince Haakon Magnusson of the Free Rasalhague Republic angrily raised a clenched fist. \"Then I have you to blame for the Clans half-devouring my nation!\" Magnusson, a silver-haired man who was neither tall nor particularly strong, put all his strength into the emotion that accented his words. \"Was the Rasalhague Republic the choice target for the assault because we area young nation or was it our reputation for disliking mercenaries?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wolf held up his hands to forestall other shouted questions. \"Stop! You misinterpret my words.\" The diminutive mercenary turned to face Magnusson. \"The Dragoons had nothing to do with the Clans' choice of targets. They are merely following the same route back into the Inner Sphere by which they left it. The Free Rasalhague Republic just happens to inhabit that slice of known space.\"\n\nMagnusson returned to his seat at the table set between that assigned to the Draconis Combine representatives and the aisle that split the room in half. Varldherre Tor Miraborg, a sour-looking man with along, deep scar down the left side of his face, leaned forward in his wheelchair to whisper something to Ragnar, Magnusson's son and the Crown Prince of Rasalhague. It looked to Victor as though Magnu ss on's heir was listening intently to Miraborg, but it was equally obvious that something in the words had taken him aback.\n\nHanse Davion rose from his seat with the ease of a much younger man. Though the years had slowed the elder Davion slightly and leeched the auburn from his hair, Victor knew his father took pains to remain physically fit. The Prince of the Federated Suns flashed his son a warm smile as he pushed his chair slightly back and out of the way. As always, the vitality flashing through Hanse's electric blue eyes made Victor confident his father would successfully gauge the problem and find a solution.\n\n\"Colonel Wolf, I gather by your answer to Prince Magnusson that you are no longer associated with the Clans?\"\n\nWolf nodded, apparently relieved at an opening to explain. \"Our last communication with the Clans occurred just after the Marik civil war in 3014. At that time, our leader believed that a Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere was a distinct, if distant, possibility. Even so, we were ordered to cease communicating information back to the Clans. Since then, we have had no contact with them until their recent broadcast informing us of the death of the ilKhan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Romano Liao, recovered from her earlier shock, laughed derisively. \"And we are to believe this, Colonel Wolf? What proof do you offer?\"\n\nCandace Liao, Duchess of the St. Ives Compact, rose from her place at the table to the right of the Federated Commonwealth contingent. Unlike her flame-haired sister, Candace kept a tight rein on her emotions and easily maintained an air of regal dignity. \"I would point out, sister mine, that were Colonel Wolf still working for the Clans, we would all have probably died either en route to this meeting, if not before.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" Romano waved away her sister's words with contempt. \"You have so long clasped a viper to your breast that you cannot see Wolf for what he is.\"\n\nThe Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation would likely have continued to rant, but the savage expression on her face died the momenta slender young man seated behind her rested his hands on her shoulders. The youth threw her a wink when she turned to give his cheek an affectionate pat. As Romano turned back, now composed and in control, Candace slowly seated herself, still glaring at her sister.\n\nVictor's blue-gray eyes narrowed as he studied Romano's son, Sun-Tzu. Clean-limbed and handsome, he did not have the wild look around the eyes that marked both his mother and his sister as seriously disturbed. The tales of paranoid purges and other lunacy from the court in Sian were so rife that Victor took Sun-Tzu's very survival to mean that he was both intelligent and politically astute. From Sun-Tzu's dossier, Victor knew he had undergone only rudimentary MechWarrior training, but the Capellan gave the distinct impression he could fight his own battles.\n\nVictor glanced over to where the St. Ives Compact delegation was seated. Despite Romano's protests, Wolf had accorded the Compact full rights of a sovereign nation. The Dragoon leader had stated that Candace Liao was the ruler of an independent state of the Inner Sphere, even though the Capellans still claimed the realm as'occupied territory.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind Candace sat Kai, her eldest son, and her twin daughters, Cassandra and Kuan Yin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In comparison with his cousin Sun-Tzu, Kai fared well. Equally as good-looking and somewhat more athletic, Kai held himself ramrod-straight, as though the whole honor of St. Ives and his family rested on his shoulders. To Victor, the biggest difference between Kai and Sun-Tzu was that Kai's eyes lacked the hungry gleam that flashed from Sun-Tzu's. Perhaps it was because Kai, older than Sun-Tzu as his mother was older than Romano, could press a more convincing claim to the throne Sun-Tzu so coveted.\n\nWhen Victor looked over his shoulder at his aide, he found the big blond man also staring at the pair, apparently making similar comparisons. \"There will be trouble between them,\" said the Prince.\n\nHauptmann Galen Cox nodded, a predatory grin stealing across his face. \"My money's on Kai. After what he did on Twycross, who'd want to bet against him?\"\n\nHanse Davion, still on his feet, cleared his throat. \"I must agree with Duchess Liao's assessment of the situation.\" Hanse gestured to the man seated beside Candace. \"As my Intelligence Secretary can confirm, there has been no overt or covert contact between the Clans and Wolf's Dragoons since they took up residence hereon Outreach twenty years ago.\"\n\nJustin Allard, a slender Eurasian whose left forearm and hand were a black metal prosthesis, nodded in silent agreement with Hanse Davion. Given Romano's legendary hatred for her sister and her sister's husband, she might have risen up again in agitation, but a voice from the Draconis Combine steered the debate into less dangerous waters.\n\n\"I would agree that the Dragoons had ample opportunity for treachery in this situation, but I would more have expected some of us to try to kill one another than for Colonel Wolf to do the job.\" Theodore Kurita, Warlord of the Draconis Combine, steepled his fingers as he spoke. \"If someone was trying to entrap us, he has succeeded, for here we are, all together, in a most, extraordinary gathering. As nothing untoward has yet occurred, perhaps it would be more productive to assume we have not been betrayed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Theodore spoke, Victor studied the delegation from the Draconis Combine. Theodore Kurita, the tall, lean Gunji-no-Kanrei of the Combine, sat between his wife and his eldest son, Hohiro. Hohiro had the fierce, noble features of his father, and Victor felt a jolt when their stares met.\n\nThe younger Davion could not suppress a grin. He's just like me. Our fathers have hated each other for as long as they've been alive. Now that legacy falls to us.\n\nBehind Hohiro, Victor saw a man he recognized as Narimasa Asano, the head of the Genyosha, one of the most feared military units in the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery. Then he noticed a beautiful young woman, made up and dressed in ceremonial Japanese fashion, standing between Hohiro and Theodore. A council of war seemed no place for such exquisite and serene loveliness, and it set Victor's mind to all manner of questions about her.\n\nJaime Wolf looked up from his podium at another contingent of royals from the Inner Sphere. \"You are the last to speak, Captain-General. What are your thoughts? Are you in a trap, or can the Dragoons be trusted?\"\n\n\"I do not think, Colonel, that your questions are necessarily two sides of the same coin.\" Though Thomas Marik did not rise to speak, he was an imposing figure. Tall and slender, he was severely scarred on the right side of the face and on his right hand, reminders of the burns suffered in the same explosion that assassinated his father. Despite the disfigurement, Marik's strong features and bearing hinted at an inner strength that may have been forged during his internship with ComStar. He wore a purple uniform, but without any rank insignia. Over his graying hair, he wore a short-billed service cap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wondering at the addition of the cap, Victor noticed that Sophina, Thomas's wife, also wore one. As did Joshua Simon, all of five years old, who sat holding his mother's hand. The boy's uniform imitated his father's, while the cap hid his baldness. Against the dark-colored uniform, Joshua's skin seemed even more pallid, His eyes sunk deeply in the shadows around them. The boy moved with a languor suggesting utter fatigue, yet was obviously trying to hold himself as tall as possible.\n\nGalen sucked in a sharp breath. \"It is true, then. The child is very ill.\"\n\n\"Justin's sources report leukemia.\" Victor shook his head in pity. \"Marik hopes the boy will survive, but the prognosis is not good. Joshua is sensitive to the chemicals they're using to treat him, and they really knock his system out. Look how blue his lips are. It's anemia from the last bout of chemotherapy.\"\n\nSeated next to the boy, Isis Marik preened herself like a debutante. She, too, wore a paramilitary uniform and had even donned a cap in solidarity with her half-brother. The cap, though, was set at a jaunty angle, flaunting the long, thick braid of abundant chestnut hair that Isis had drawn forward around one shoulder and down onto her breast.\n\nVictor frowned. \"It's almost as though she mocks how sick the boy is.\"\n\n\"If he dies, she'll become Captain-General, my Prince.\" A hint of distaste flashed through Galen's eyes. \"You're first inline to the throne, so you may not think much about succession. But being a newly legitimized royal bastard could definitely give someone ideas about power and how to achieve it permanently.\"\n\n\"Well said, Galen. Though she's pretty, I'll do my best to stay away from her.\" Saying that, Victor stole another glance at the young woman in the Kurita contingent. As a thousand questions about her continued to fill his mind, he shook himself. This is a council of war, Victor, not some court picnic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thomas leaned forward, resting his hands on the table assigned to the Free Worlds League. \" I share the Gunji-no-Kanrei's view that worrying about a trap is immaterial at this point. The Dragoons have brought us hereto discuss the Clan invasion and what we should do since they have called a halt to their advance. I think such a discussion would be a most valuable pursuit.\n\n\"For my own part, I am not one hundred percent inclined to trust any military force that admits it was once allied with an enemy. Forgive me, Colonel, but the people of the Free Worlds League well remember the Dragoons for their role in the war between my father and his brother Anton.\"\n\n\"Your caution is understandable, Captain-General,\" Wolf said. \"By the way, we have setup your medical team in our infirmary and have provided them all the equipment you asked be made ready for their use.\"\n\nThomas acknowledged Wolf's kindness with a nod. Joshua, meanwhile, sat unaware that he might be the subject of discussion as he dangled his feet idly back and forth above the floor. Victor smiled at the display of innocence, another note as odd as the presence of the beautiful young woman. He knew Jaime Wolf's brother Joshua had been slain in the Free Worlds League Civil War. He wondered if Thomas had chose the same name for his son by mere coincidence, or if it were a kind of peace offering to Wolf's Dragoons.\n\nVictor looked around the massive room the Dragoons called their Grand Council Chamber. An amphitheater carved out of Outreach's bedrock, it had been paneled with slender strips of oak. Two dozen stepped terraces provided seating for spectators, and a golden oak railing separated the main floor from the spectator galleries. Down on the floor, a semicircle of wooden tables faced the speaker's podium. Victor suspected the Dragoons had removed the connecting pieces that normally bound the tables together so that the Great House leaders would be on equal footing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Up in the galleries, Victor saw a number of Dragoon uniforms scattered among the small crowd of military advisors and state ministers. The courtiers who had accompanied the various royal parties were hardly necessary for planning a campaign to destroy the Clans, but they were vital to keeping the states of the Inner Sphere functioning. Never before had all these rulers of all the Successor States been gathered in one place atone time, and the stress of maintaining business as usual told on the faces of the civil servants gathered to watch the debate.\n\nVictor noticed Jaime's son MacKenzie Wolf standing toward the back. Tall and slender and with a dark moustache, he cut almost a rakish figure in his black and scarlet uniform, but his bearing suggested he did not find the proceedings amusing.\n\nStanding beside MacKenzie were Morgan and Christian Kell of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit. Their scarlet uniforms and waist-cut jackets were distinctive for the way the jacket's double-breast took the form of a black wolf's-head with triangular red eyes. The muzzle fastened at the waist and the two ears fastened at the shoulders. Breaking up the black, campaign ribbons slashed across the left ear of Morgan's jacket, proclaiming the elder mercenary's long career.\n\nThe trio's grim expressions reminded Victor of the gravity of the situation. A cold chill ran down his spine as he thought of Morgan's son Phelan-his own cousin-who had been one of the first fatalities in the Clan invasion.\n\nJaime Wolf sighed heavily. \"We are wasting precious time. The Inner Sphere faces the greatest military threat the Successor States have ever encountered, either individually or collectively.\"\n\nWolf hit a button on his podium. The room lights dimmed as a holographic map of the Inner Sphere burned to life in the center of the semi-circle. It slowly rotated so everyone could get a good look, then it split into smaller representations of itself, with one hovering before each delegation's table. As Victor leaned forward to study the map, fear writhed like a snake through his belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Normally the Successor States and the worlds they claimed formed a rough circle of star systems approximately 370 light years in diameter, with the circle centered on Terra. On this map, however, a huge chunk had been bitten out of the circle, making it a fat crescent with both horns pointing up and away from the chamber floor. Though the ravaged Free Rasalhague Republic lay at the center of the conquered area, bites had also been taken out of both the Lyran sector of the Federated Commonwealth and from the Draconis Combine.\n\nVictor leaned forward toward his father. \"I didn't realize the Combine had been hit so hard. They've lost as many worlds as have we.\"\n\nHanse pressed his lips together into a thin line. \"I daresay, from the expression on Theodore's face, he was not aware that we'd been hard-hit either. Wolf's intelligence network is very good. Things are much worse than any of us dared imagine.\"\n\nWolf waved a hand to include all the maps. \" As you can see, the situation is most grave. The Free Rasalhague Republic has lost its capital and over half its worlds. The invaders have also made substantial gains in the Lyran Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine. In less than a year, they have managed to take more worlds than changed hands in the Fourth Succession War, and the efforts to stop them have been less than effective.\n\n\"My purpose in calling all of you here is to propose that we unite to oppose these invaders. Only a concerted and joint effort can turn back the Clans. Otherwise, we face domination by an implacable foe. Just like the old saying, if the Successor States do not hang together, they will all hang separately.\"\n\nRomano Liao glanced at her sister as though measuring her neck fora rope, then stood. \"I am not certain I share the sense of urgency you seem to advocate, Colonel Wolf. Acting independently, my Lord Kurita and even Hanse Davion have fought off these invaders. And I have no evidence that these Clans are different from any other murdering, butchering, bloody-handed conquerors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As you will, Lady Romano,\" Wolf replied mechanically, but Victor heard the undertone of cold rage in Wolf's voice. \"I assure you, however, that the Clans are vastly different than any army that has marched before or will ever march again. Yes, it is true that the Clans stopped advancing after Federated Commonwealth and Combine troops dealt them defeats on two different worlds, but it was not because the Inner Sphere forces had proved themselves superior. The Clans halted their invasion because their war leader was slain at Radstadt, and now they must choose anew one before they can continue to fight. Until then, their line troops will remain in place while the Clan leadership decides on who will spearhead the invasion. When the leaders return again, rest assured that they will come with yet more Clan armies, and if we do notwork together, their victory is certain.\"\n\nThomas Marik rose and leaned forward with his hands on the table. \"I am most impressed by what you have accomplished hereon Outreach, Colonel Wolf, and your ability to gather data on the current status of the various states represented here.\"\n\nThe Captain-General pointed to the map glowing in front of him. \"This map, for example, is far more complete than the one my intelligence people have been able to assemble, and more complete than any we have stolen from either the Federated Commonwealth or the Draconis Combine.\" He hesitated briefly as both Hanse Davion and Theodore Kurita nodded a salute to him. \"In light of that, and reflecting upon the Dragoons' remarkable career, there is a question I must ask. Do you, Colonel Wolf, believe that it is even possible to stop the invaders?\"\n\nVictor read no shock on Wolf's face. Rather, the mercenary reacted as though he'd been waiting all along for someone finally to pose the question. \"I can only answer on the basis of my experiences within the Clans, and those days were long ago. My men and I were trained in the Clan school of war and it made us very successful when fighting the forces of the Inner Sphere, but we could never claim to be invincible. The Clans fight according to their concept of warfare, but I believe that the tactics of the Ryuken or Federated Commonwealth Regimental Combat Teams could counteract and defeat those tactics.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wolf looked again at Marik." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To answer your question more specifically, Captain-General, I do believe we can defeat the Clans. The Combine and the Federated Commonwealth paid a high price for their respective victories, but the fact of victory remains. With training and by devoting our full resources to opposing the Clans, I say we can slow and even stop them.\"\n\nHaakon Magnusson shook his head. \"The Clans make our weapons look like toys compared to what they bring to battle.\"\n\nWolf's eyes narrowed. \"If you surrender to despair now, Prince Magnusson, what chance have you to win back your realm? I have the blueprints and technical diagrams for the new BattleMech technology. Right hereon Outreach, the Dragoons have produced, in very limited numbers, Battle-Mechs based on that technology. It maybe dated by Clan standards, but it is still eons ahead of what the Inner Sphere currently has available.\"\n\nA sudden weariness seemed to settle over Wolf like a lead cloak. \"I had hoped for more time to prepare for this invasion, but so be it. My Dragoons have restored Outreach to the training facility it was in the days of the Star League. We have not yet begun mass production of OmniMechs-which is what the Clans call their line 'Mechs-but with the help of Colonel Kell, Dr. Banzai, and Clovis Holstein, we do have working prototypes of many of the new weapons the Clans use. I also have five full regiments of Dragoons ready to take the field against the Clans.\"\n\nWolf pushed up the sleeves of his jacket to mid-forearm. \"There it is. My cards are on the table. I'll be fighting the Clans, no matter who does or does not join with me. But I say again that if we pull together, we can field an army that will stop the Clans.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wolf's words sent a shiver down Victor's spine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's right. If we don't band together, the Clans will take us apart.\n\nRomano barked a sharp laugh. \"Why should we believe you, Wolf? You've admitted having deceived us before. Why should it be any different now?\" She shrugged eloqu entl y, brushing her auburn hair away from the shoulders of her black gown. \"I am not worried. The Clans will be stopped.\"\n\nWolf watched her carefully, shaking his head as though not believing what he'd heard. \"I think you mistake the gravity of the situation, Lady Romano. If we don't stop the Clans, who will?\"\n\nRomano smiled broadly, then let her gaze sweep the assembly as though to share her enlightenment with all. \"You forget, Colonel Wolf, that when the Star League collapsed, General Aleksandr Kerensky led away nearly the whole Star League army beyond the Periphery. They're out there. They have been waiting all this time, waiting for the day mankind would again need their help. They will come and they will save us from the Clans.\"\n\nWolf's shoulders sagged. \"Lady Romano, have you heard nothing I've said?\" He stared around the room in disbelief, once more shaking his head. Though his voice dropped almost to a whisper, no one missed a word in the utter silence that had fallen over the gathering.\n\n\"Don't you see?\" He leaned forward, grasping the podium so hard his knuckles went white. \"Kerensky's people have returned. They are the Clans.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "DropShip Dire Wolf\n\nBeyond the Periphery\n\n2 February 3051\n\nSweat-soaked black hair stinging his eyes, Phelan Kell Wolf flew through the air. He twisted into a shoulder roll, bleeding off the energy of the throw that had propelled him across the small room. His left hand slapped the floor mat hard, further breaking his fall and helping to bring his body under control. He knew he could have used the remaining momentum to roll to his feet. Instead, he feigned exhaustion and let himself sprawl out flat on his back.\n\nHis opponent, red braid whipping back and forth like a snake, shot after him across the room. Though she stood a third of a meter taller, and outweighed him by seventy kilos, Evantha Fetladral moved quickly and sensuously. A grim smile locked her face into a battle-mask, but wariness burned in her brown eyes. She slowed slightly as she closed, preparing for whatever trap Phelan had laid.\n\nPhelan scythed his left leg through the space occupied by hers. As she leaped above the sweep, Phelan let the momentum of his kick twist him over onto his stomach, then started a second sweep with his right leg. The kick caught Evantha at the ankles and smashed them together as she came down. She landed heavily on the mat, but before Phelan could turn and lunge forward to pin her, she was on her feet again.\n\nShe dropped into a crouch and waved him forward. Her sleeveless gray bodysuit ended at the knees and matched the one Phelan wore. The bands of red at shoulders and thighs were linked by a red flank stripe. Sweat glistened from her nearly bald pate and rippling muscles. \"Come on, Phelan. You are good, but you are no Elemental.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Inner Sphere expatriate wiped his left forearm across his brow. \"I didn't think I was supposed to be one. I'm a MechWarrior.\"\n\nEvantha frowned. \"Perhaps that is what you will become, Phelan Wolf, but only if you train well and learn to speak properly.\"\n\nPhelan winced. Dammit, I keep forgetting. Bowing his head slightly, he apologized. \"Forgive me. When I get excited, I contract my...\"\n\nEvantha's lunge forward made him break off. He spun to the left, just eluding her outstretched right hand, then darted forward. He hooked his right leg behind her right knee, then grabbed her shoulder and threw her down. Fingers stiffened into a spearpoint, he slashed his right hand across her throat.\n\nEvantha slapped the mat three times with her left hand, signaling an end to the fight. \"Well done,\" she said.\n\nDripping sweat made his eyes burn as Phelan dropped unceremoniously to the mat. \"'Bout time. You have been tossing me around the room for the past two hours. Returning the favor was the least I could do.\"\n\nThe giant woman curled up into a sitting position. She used her huge hands to wipe the sweat from her almost completely shaved head, then she dried them on the legs of her bodysuit. \"Indeed, it was the least you could do.\" When Phelan sighed, she smiled. \"I am pleased, however, that you let me take no advantage while you were offering your apology. There was once a time when you might have believed that such a formality meant a time-out in training.\"\n\n\"Yeah, time once was...\" Phelan crawled toward the edge of the mat and grabbed a white towel from a pile. He tossed it to Evantha, then appropriated another for himself. \"Since then, you've been kind enough to beat that misconception out of me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evantha played idly with the tail of her long braid. \"So much the better. You must remember that you will constantly be watched and tested. Even when an exercise is over, you must be prepared for another challenge. That has always been the way of the Clans, for it is only constant testing and preparedness that has ensured our survival. It has made us what we are. Now that you are one of us, you would do well to understand that.\"\n\nPhelan nodded acknowledgement, but his thoughts were faraway. I've known that ever since the Clans captured me. Even when I was a bondsman, they were constantly testing me. Khan Ulric pushed me, wanting to see how far I would go in compromising my homeland, and Vlad tried his best to break my spirit. Now that I have been accepted into the Warrior caste, I am being tested as an equal, not an inferior. If anything, the testing has become more difficult.\n\nEvantha hung her towel around her neck. \"Do you want to get a shower?\" When Phelan hesitated, Evantha laughed.\n\n\"Sorry, Evantha, I still have not gotten used to the familiarity between members of a sibko. Back where I come from, men and women might share duties in the field, but seldom do they share shower facilities.\"\n\n\"You do not seem to mind sharing showers with me.\"\n\nPhelan turned toward the door and smiled as Ranna slipped into the room. A tall and slender woman who wore her white haircut very short, she knelt down to give him a kiss. \"In fact,\" she added with a devilish glint in her blue eyes, \"I would say you have had vast experience showering with women.\"\n\nPhelan blushed as both Ranna and Evantha laughed aloud. He reached out to cup Ranna's chin in his left hand, kissed her lightly, then composed his face into a look of innocence. \"Actually, my love, I am merely a quick learner under the tutelage of a masterful teacher.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt a slight tremor run through Ranna at his use of the word'love,\" but he was used to that. He knew that the Clans-people so disassociated love, sex, and reproduction that they no longer saw these things in what Phelan might consider their'normal\" relationship. The way he equated love and sexual fidelity was incomprehensible to the Clansfolk, just as their deep fear of interpersonal love was to him.\n\nEvantha heaved herself to her feet. \"I remand you to the custody of your most able teacher, Phelan. I expect to see you back herein twenty-two hours for another workout.\"\n\nPhelan flopped wearily onto his back. \"Ja, Star Commander. I will be here, right after Carew paces me through antiaircraft tactics.\"\n\nEvantha threw Ranna aw ink. \"Be good to him. He did well today.\"\n\nAs Evantha vanished through the door, Phelan reached up to give Ranna's shoulder a squeeze. Touching the gray cotton of her jumpsuit, he felt the large, eight-pointed red star that matched the earring in her left ear. The southernmost point of the star extended down more than twice the length of the other points and turned the insignia into what Phelan had dubbed a'daggerstar.\" It marked her as a Clan Mech-Warrior and Phelan envied her that designation.\n\n\"So, what shall we do for the rest of the day?\"\n\n\"We have a problem.\" Ranna frowned and her fists knotted with frustration. \"The whole duty schedule has been shifted around because of the JumpShip that entered the system six hours ago. They sent over a number of DropShips that the Dire Wolf has taken aboard, and those ships are carrying many important people. As a result, there has been amass revision of the duty roster so people can meet with their House leaders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Phelan pulled himself up into a sitting position and rested both hands on hers until her fists loosened. \"How much time until you have to goon duty?\"\n\n\"About an hour and a half.\" A sound almost like a low growl rumbled from her throat. \"I'd managed to get clearance for us to take one of the'Mechs out onto the ship's hull so you could get a good look at this triple star system, and then I'd planned for us to have sometime together, alone...\"\n\nPhelan tipped her head up with his left hand. \"Hey, an hour and a half is plenty of time fora shower, Quiaff? You would not want to go to your duty station dirty, would you?\"\n\nShe gave him awry grin. \"No, I suppose that would be disorderly of me, Quiaff?\"\n\n\"Aff.\" Phelan stood and pulled Ranna to her feet. \"Most disorderly. I think we should do something about that situation.\"\n\nThe figure of an older woman appearing in the doorway stopped them from embracing. Slightly shorter than Ranna and more full-figured, the woman possessed a sensual grace that belied her age. She wore her hair long enough that the red curls hid the shoulders of her jumpsuit. Her blue eyes flashed with amusement as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the doorjamb.\n\n\"Excuse me, children, I do not meant to interrupt.\"\n\nPhelan turned to face her, slipping one arm around Ranna's waist. \"Afternoon, Major... er Colonel Kerensky.\" When she frowned at that, Phelan quickly corrected his blunder. \"I mean Natasha. Forgive me. I still have the habit of addressing you as I did in my time on Outreach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Natasha Kerensky shrugged eloquently. \"No blood, no report. I have two things to tell you. First, after some haggling, Khan Ulric has managed to convince some of the knotheads in the Clan Council that I should be allowed to instruct you in BattleMech tactics.\" Her eyes became slits. \"I don't know if I like him citing my'advanced age'as the reason I'm suitable for tutor work, but I ain't going to argue with what works.\"\n\nAs Natasha spoke and freely used contractions, he felt Ranna stiffen slightly. Natasha apparently noticed her reaction, too. \"Sorry, Ranna, but I spent the better part of five decades in the Inner Sphere. Forgive me if my use of the language offends you.\"\n\nRanna smiled coyly. \"As you will, grandmother.\"\n\nPhelan saw Natasha's instant of shock despite her quick recovery. She bowed her head briefly. \"Touche\" , Ranna. You are certainly a Kerensky. \"\n\n\"Blood of thy blood. Could I be any less than my forebears?\"\n\nPhelan suddenly felt in over his head in a conversation that was traveling well beyond his ken of Clan matters. \"Excuse me, but I am catching very little of what you are saying.\"\n\nNatasha blinked twice, as though waking from a trance. \"Right. This is not the place for this talk, nor do we have time for it right now.\" She turned her attention from Ranna to Phelan. \"I am afraid you have to come with me.\"\n\nPhelan let his disappointment ride openly on his face.\n\n\"Right now? I have been training for four hours straight, with the last two spent being tossed around by Evantha.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Builds character.\" Natasha looked at Ranna. \"Cyrilla Ward came over on the Timber Wolf. She wants to see Phelan.\"\n\nRanna gave Phelan a smile and a nod. \"Go. This is important. I will see if I can trade off another duty with someone so I can be free when you are finished.\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\nRanna kissed Phelan quickly. \"Just go, and be on your best behavior.\" She shot a sharp glance at Natasha. \"And try to avoid letting her influence cause you to backslide.\"\n\nNatasha shook her head but did nothing to wipe the proud smile from her face. \"Ungrateful child,\" she muttered as Ranna passed out the door. \"Goon, Phelan. Get cleaned up and changed. It's time for you to learn what belonging to the Wolf Clan and the House of Ward truly means.\"\n\n---\n\nWhen he emerged from the shower, Phelan found Natasha sitting on the bench next to his locker. He started at the sight of her, but Natasha just chuckled. \"Don't mind me. It's nothing I've not seen before. Don't forget that I was thereat your birthing.\"\n\nPhelan, keeping the towel wrapped around him in kilt fashion, smiled sheepishly. \"I've grownup a bit since then.\"\n\n\"True enough, but we're not exactly a sibko and you're not exactly my type.\" She gave him a more appraising glance. \"Well-muscled but lean and ruggedly handsome. You're the type they put on the recruiting posters for the army back in the Lyran Commonwealth.\" As she spoke, Natasha swung her body around on the bench to face partially away from him.\n\nPhelan dropped the towel and pulled on clothes from his locker. \"I'm afraid the LCAF wouldn't consider me recruiter material. Remember, I'm the one who got punted from the Nagelring.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Natasha laughed heartily. \"And no one was prouder than me when I heard the news.\" She turned to face him again as he stepped into the legs of his gray jumpsuit. \" I was ready to clear you a spot as a lance commander in the Black Widow Cluster, but Jaime pulled the plug on that little idea.\n\nIt's the mark of a good MechWarrior-being able to sort duty from orders and knowing when to act on each. \"\n\nPhelan zipped up the front of the jumpsuit. \"Thanks for the vote of confidence.\" He closed the locker with a bang, then pointed his right fist against it. \"Dammit, Ranna was right. I spend five minutes talking with you, and I start to slip back into my old patterns of speech.\"\n\n\"Try to resist the temptation, boy. It builds character.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you?\"\n\nNatasha stood up with a sigh. \"When you've built as much character as I have, you can let such things slide.\" She hooked her left handover Phelan's right shoulder as she led him from the gymnasium and into the Life Services corridor. \"Besides, slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about.\"\n\nPhelan nodded. \"So, am I allowed to ask questions, or do I have to walk in silence?\"\n\nNatasha shrugged as they reached the elevator shaft running the length of the Dire Wolf. \"Questions about the House of Ward should wait for Cyrilla.\"\n\nPhelan slapped the elevator call button. \"What about you and Ranna?\"\n\nNatasha raised an eyebrow, but offered no other reply.\n\nPhelan took that as an invitation to test the waters. \"She called you \"grandmother\" earlier, and I gathered the use of the term was more than ceremonial. I've not memorized a history of Wolf's Dragoons, but I have never heard of your being pregnant, much less giving birth. Is she your granddaughter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, what the scandalvids back in the States would have paid for this story.\" Natasha waved Phelan into the elevator, then stepped in and punched a button, sending the cage to one of the upper decks. \"You are aware, I believe, that both you and your sister were fertilized in vitro. Dragoon doctors pulled ova from your mother, fertilized them with sperm from your father, then reimplanted them in your mother about a year apart.\"\n\nPhelan nodded. \"A wound she took back in 3021 caused some problems.\"\n\n\"Correct.\" Natasha's face closed slightly. \"Suffice it to say, for now, that ova were taken from me before I left the Clans with Wolf's Dragoons.\"\n\nBefore Phelan could ask another question, the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened onto a narrow corridor. Wordlessly, Natasha led him down the hall until they came to a door emblazoned with a wolf's-head device on a shield. Phelan recognized it as the crest of the Wolf Clan and knew it was standard on all the living quarter doors aboard the Dire Wolf. What surprised him were the five red daggerstars below the crest. He could see they had been placed there very recently.\n\nFive stars! That's the number of stars that mark Khan Ulric's door. That means whoever this Cyrilla Ward is, she is a very important person within the Clans! And she must be very important within the House of Ward as well.\n\nBefore Natasha could knock, the door slid up into the ceiling with a soft whoosh of air. Revealed was a white-haired woman who flung her arms open wide to take Natasha into a hearty embrace. \"My God, Tasha, you haven't changed in all these years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Natasha returned the embrace, lifting Cyrilla Ward off the deck. \"Neither have you, Ril.\"\n\nCyrilla shook her head, letting her long white hair spread out over her shoulders as she broke the embrace. \"It is a good thing you fight better than you lie, or you would have died long ago.\"\n\n\"If only you knew the truth. If not for doctors and reconstructive surgery, I'd long since have ceased fighting and lying all together.\"\n\nCyrilla invited both Natasha and Phelan into her temporary suite with a wave of the hand, but Phelan had the feeling she barely noticed him. Wary because of the way Khan Ulric always seemed to be testing him, the young warrior followed Natasha from the antechamber to the main room. Phelan tried to prepare himself for whatever might be waiting, but he grew more anxious with every step. When he saw the trap, he was glad that his caution had allowed him to kill the surprise he might otherwise have revealed.\n\nAs they entered the room, another Wolf Clansman rose from his seat and fixed Phelan with an incendiary stare. The man's black hair, combed back to accentuate his widow's peak, gleamed with the oil he used to slick it down. A scar ran from above his left eye to his jawline and was still fresh enough to show the red of wounding.\n\nVlad managed to keep his voice even. \"How good to see you again, Natasha.\" Contempt curled the corners of his mouth as he addressed Phelan. \"I trust your leg wound has healed well?\"\n\nYou mean the place where you slashed me during the adoption ceremony? \"Yes, it has.\" Phelan returned Vlad's stare with his own glower. \"I am told there will not even be much of a scar.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyrilla placed a bony hand on Vlad's shoulder. \"You may go now, Vladimir. I have found our conversation most enlightening.\" She steered the Clansman toward the door, but he did not break immediately to the pressure of her urging. Making a subtle show of hooking his thumbs in his belt, he framed the buckle with his hands and continued to return Phelan's unrelenting green gaze.\n\nPhelan could not keep his eyes from the buckle. Cast of silver and set with onyx, it showed the hound's-head crest of the Kell Hounds, the well-known mercenary unit of which Phelan was a member before his capture. Tyra Miraborg, the woman who had given it to him, had substituted the green of malachite for the red eyes used in the actual Kell Hound crest, matching them to Phelan's. When he was captured by Vlad and the Clans, Vlad had taken the belt buckle and continued to flaunt it as a reminder of Phelan's inferiority.\n\nNatasha appropriated the low-backed chair Vlad had vacated, but Phelan remained standing. Cyrilla returned to the small sitting room and drew her chair beside the one Natasha had taken. Patting Natasha's left hand, Cyrilla smiled broadly. \"After all these years without word, I feared you had been killed.\"\n\nNatasha turned her hand up to give Cyrilla's a squeeze. \"How could I let that happen?\" she laughed. \"I never forgot our childhood pact that we would finish out our days fighting against the Smoke Jaguars together. Did you think I would renege?\"\n\n\"No, no, I did not. We will speak more of his later,\" Cyrilla said gently. She looked up at Phelan, her brown eyes seeming to take measure in ways even more than physical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So this is Phelan Wolf. Are you worthy of the commotion you have caused?\"\n\n\"I do not know how to answer that question.\" Phelan lifted his head and clasped his hands at the small of his back. \"I do not know how to judge my worth to the Clan.\"\n\nCyrilla watched him like a wolf eyeing a tasty rabbit. \"You saved Khan Ulric's life on the bridge of the Dire Wolf, Quiaff?\"\n\nPhelan looked down at the floor. \"I did what was necessary to help those trapped on the bridge after the ship was rammed. My actions were not heroic. It was simply what had to be done.\"\n\n\"He is modest, Quiaff, Tasha?\"\n\nNatasha smiled proudly at Phelan. \"I think he'd probably say he is just being honest. He comes from good stock, Ril. He was even entrusted to the Wolves for some of his upbringing. Still, this one can be a bit rash and argumentative at times.\"\n\n\"No doubt because you did some of the raising, Tasha.\" Cyrilla turned back to Phelan. \"Many people want to know more about the bondsman who saved the Khan and claims Ward blood. You area curiosity that has brought honor to our House, and I thank you.\"\n\nThe former Kell Hound let a grin light his face. \"May you and Khan Ulric continue to take pride in my actions.\"\n\n\"Very good, very good, indeed.\" Cyrilla tilted her head as she studied Phelan fora moment. \"But you made a great mistake in pulling Vlad from the wreckage of the bridge of the Dire Wolf, young man.\"\n\nThe statement startled Phelan, and he rubbed without thinking at the cut Vlad had given him during his adoption ceremony into the Clan. On one hand, he was praised for saving the Khan, but rebuked for saving another Wolf warrior. \"I am confused. Vlad is a warrior of the Wolf Clan. How could I not save him and still serve the Clan?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyrilla considered his reply with a smile. \"A valid point. Would you always put duty to the Clan above what might be your best interest?\"\n\n\"Hypothetical questions are always the ones that get me into trouble when I try to answer them.\"\n\n\"A deft parry. Good.\" Cyrilla smiled again, folding her hands in her lap. \"Do you understand why I think you should have let Vlad die?\"\n\n\"Not really, but having been with the Clans fora while, I think I can guess.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Cyrilla leaned back into her chair. \"Please explain.\"\n\n\"Bottom line is that the fewer enemies you have, the longer you live.\" Phelan sighed heavily. \" Ever since Vlad captured me in a battle on The Rock a year and a half ago, he has looked for every opportunity to prove that he is superior tome and anyone else from the Successor States. He is not alone in this attitude, but he is perhaps rather more enthusiastic in expressing it.\n\n\"Though I beat Vlad in a fistfight on Rasalhague, he could say that I jumped him unexpectedly when he was still exhausted from the recent battle for the world. He lost no face, but Vlad's not one to allow himself so easy an out. Even giving me a severe beating aboard the Dire Wolf has not bled off his hatred because I never let him break me.\"\n\nThe elder MechWarrior watched him carefully. \"And this leads you to believe...\"\n\nPhelan shrugged. \"One way or another, Vlad will do anything to get me. He took my adoption into the Clans as a personal affront. He was forced to welcome me into the House of Ward, a duty he seemed particularly loathe to perform.\"\n\nCyrilla rested her chin on steepled fingers. \"You must have known all this before you found him on the bridge.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young man nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, but I did not know the body lying there was his until I got to where he was. By then, I really had no choice.\"\n\n\"Even knowing that he hates you with his whole heart and soul, quiaff?\"\n\nPhelan smiled in spite of himself. \"I never said I wouldn't regret save him. I only said I had no choice in the matter.\" He shrugged. \"I am not the sort of MechWarrior who shoots up fleeing'Mech pilots, and I am not the sort who could abandon someone wounded, be it enemy or friend, if I could do something to save them.\"\n\nPhelan looked from Cyrilla to Natasha with a rueful smile. \"I will say one thing for Vlad. He can carry a grudge further than anyone I have ever met. It's hard to believe he can hate me so much because I shot some armor off his'Mech. Especially since he blew the hell out of my Wolfhound at the same time.\"\n\n\"There is more to it than that, Phelan Wolf.\" Cyrilla pointed to a cream-colored chair near Phelan. \"Please be seated. I think, in short order, I can help to clear up that mystery. Do you know what it means to have a Bloodname, quineg?\"\n\n\"Neg.\"\n\n\"Three centuries ago, General Aleksandr Kerensky led ninety percent of the Star League's army from the space you call the Inner Sphere. He detested the civil wars and nationalistic pressures that had wracked the Star League from the time Stefan the Usurper proclaimed himself First Lord. After smashing the Usurper, Kerensky took his people away, hoping to keep them from the path of self-destruction toward which the rest of humanity seemed hell-bent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She leaned back in her chair, seeming to warm to the task of telling the tale of history. \" Kerensky feared that his troops would begin to fight among themselves if they had no common cause to unite them. He reorganized the armies and mothballed seventy-five percent of the BattleMechs and materiel they had brought with them. He told his troops that bringing industry online to replace parts would take time, so they had to limit the number of machines in use. He setup a system by which pilots were grouped into quartets tested yearly to see which would be the Primary or Secondary pilot fora 'Mech. The other two members of the team would perform support and tactical duties.\n\n\"Unfortunately, General Kerensky's death shattered the last bond holding the former Star League troops together. Within a generation, the Star League troops who had left with Kerensky had battered themselves worse than all the damage the Successor States have done An one another since then. Colonies survived by the barest of margins, and cobbled-together BattleMechs stalked the landscape scavenging for spare parts, ammo, and food.\"\n\nThe white-haired woman leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. \" The only exception was Strana Mechty, the depot world. The name is Russian and means Land of Dreams, so named to encourage people to work together. From there, Nicholas Kerensky and Jennifer Winson led some six hundred Kerensky loyalists on a crusade to destroy the bandits wandering the colony worlds, intending to unite them all under the control of Strana Mechty.\n\n\"To these loyalists Nicholas Kerensky gave the highest honor he could imagine within the new society he formed. From that time forward, the surnames of these people would be designated as Bloodnames. Within any Clan, only twenty-five individuals are allowed to claim one of these Bloodnames. And such a claim is acknowledged only after that individual has defeated anyone else who makes a claim on the name.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyrilla touched a button on the arm of her chair. A wall panel slid up to reveal a holovid viewing screen. With the touch of another button, the image of a nursery filled with row upon row of babies appeared on the screen. A half-dozen older people wandered among the children, attending to their needs with the gentle care of loving grandparents.\n\n\"Nicholas Kerensky launched the Clans on an ambitious plan for rebuilding. Using the most advanced techniques available to our scientists, he began to match warriors and their bloodlines. Children were bred specifically to cultivate those traits that would make them the ultimate in warriors. As you have seen with Evantha, children intended as Elem entals are bred for size and strength. Our pilots, like Carew, are bred physically small, but quick of mind and reflex to handle the difficulties of air combat.\"\n\n\"And others, like Vlad and Ranna, are bred to be Mech-Warriors?\"\n\nCyrilla nodded. \"What you see here is a sibko. One hundred children are produced from artificial wombs at the same time and then raised together. Natasha and I were raised in the same sibko, though we do not share any recent ancestors. As the children grow, they are trained and tested to determine if the desired traits have bred true. Yet before the first sibko is five years old, another from similar pairings will be started, and the first sibko will have lost twenty percent of its children to accidents or rejection because of poor test scores.\"\n\nPhelan frowned, not wanting to accept what he was hearing. \"You mean children are allowed to die if their bloodline is not pure? That isn't natural selection. It's monstrous!\"\n\nNatasha shook her head. \"No, Phelan. You lived fora time as part of a Dragoons sibko on Outreach. From that experience, you know that we do not mistreat children while raising them. Every precaution is taken, but if a child dies, so be it. If a child fails a test, he enters another caste, where he can develop as a useful member of society. Furthermore, only the warrior caste raises its children in the sibko environment. The rest of Clan society functions much as does any in the Inner Sphere.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer, move the story forward.\nTags: science fiction, military science fiction, space opera, BattleTech, mecha\nAuthor: Michael A Stackpole\nTitle: Blood Legacy\nChapter: 42" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Natasha gave him one of those grins that said she'd managed yet another coup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"While you were down there enjoying real gravity, I've been working. I taught Marcos another lesson in bidding and won the right to take Satalice.\"\n\nPhelan blinked. \"Another assault?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"We've just been waiting for you before we jump. The New Black Widows will get their first battle inside a week.\" She chuckled slyly. \"You didn't think we'd let you have all the fun, did you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forward Observation Post, Tairakana Plains, Luthien\n\nPesht Military District, Draconis Combine\n\n5 January 3052\n\nThe total lack of activity on the Skulker car's sensors made Shin Yodama uneasy. The Clans had grounded their forces fifty klicks east of Luthien, right where the Tairakana Plains began their gentle slope down to Basin Lake. The negotiation between the ground forces and the incoming Clans had not revealed much about the attacker's numbers, so recon vehicles like Shin's had gone out undercover of darkness to learn whatever possible about the enemy.\n\nShin glanced at the digital time display in the aft section of the boxy armored car. Dawn stood yet an hour away, and it was then that everyone expected the attack to come. Stooping down to duck into the driving compartment, he tapped the driver's shoulder. \"Head out another klick. We have to find something.\"\n\nThe driver looked back at Shin with fear on his face. \"Begging your pardon, sir, but I really don't think we need to seethe whites of their eyes.\"\n\nShin gave the man a shrug. \"I don't like this anymore than you do, but if we can give our air support some fixes, it'll mean less for our \"Mechs to shoot.\" He turned back to the two Techs at the van's scanners. \"We're pulling forward another kilometer. Stay sharp. I have a feeling we'll get our contact.\"\n\nHe slapped the dangling legs of the vehicle's turret gunner. \"That goes double for you. If you see it, shoot it.\"\n\n\"Hai!\"\n\nThe driver eased the vehicle forward and kept the pace at a leisurely 10 kph. At that speed, the triple-axle scout tank handled the relatively smooth terrain like a luxury car, and Shin knew that was important. No only did it make data interp easier, but it prevented shaking up the vehicle's electronics. Without them, the Skulker would belittle more than a blind fish in a shark tank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Contact. I have a set of blips, intermittent, dead ahead.\"\n\nShin hunched over the Tech's shoulder. \"Gunner, bring the turret to oh-ninety degrees at five hundred meters. Patch your periscope through to the monitor and magnify one hundred percent.\"\n\nAn image flickered onto the monitor near Shin's head, and he fiddled with the controls to sharpen the contrast. The starlight picture revealed a number of oversized humanoids stalking forward. Standing 2.3 meters high, they wore metallic suits with a laser muzzle where the right hand should have been. On the other arm, a laser was married to the hand. The back of the armored suit carried a boxy missile launcher that, from practical experience, Shin knew would detach after firing its complement of two SRMs.\n\nBeyond these, he saw more similar shadowy forms moving through the night. \"Six, seven, eight, nine. I mark nine Elementals.\"\n\nThe Tech at the radarscope cursed softly. 'They have to be jamming us somehow because I only get five or six on the screen. \"\n\nAn explosion rocked the Skulker, bouncing it onto the passenger-side wheels. Shin flew back against the other Tech, cracking the man's head against his magscan monitor. As the Tech flopped limp to the deck, Shin leaped past his overturned chair and dashed to the driving compartment. \"Move it! Get us out of here. Gunner, hit anything and everything!\"\n\nAs the driver cranked the wheel around, the Skulker swung north, its headlights slicing the night. A ruby beam shot from the dome at the tank's center. In the distance, it illuminated the black form of a man and started a small brushfire. Another bolt coursed through the darkness and burned a scar into the landscape, but die tank's quick turn swept the target out of the windscreen's visual arc." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The driver stomped down on the accelerator, launching the Skulker in a sprint across the landscape. Shin glanced back at the conscious Tech, relieved the man had had the presence of mind to radio in their position and the readings for the Elementals. As the Skulker bounced up over one little hill, Shin braced for impact as the tank flew through the air. The landing shivered the whole vehicle like a hammer-struck anvil, driving Shinto his knees.\n\nThe driver cursed as the headlights pinpointed an Elemental standing in the middle of the unpaved track along which they raced. He started to shift his foot to the brake, but Shin jammed his own right foot down, crushing the driver's foot to the gas pedal.\n\n\"Full speed! Just keep it going! Don't stop for anything!\"\n\nThe Elemental loosed a rocket from the launcher pod on his back. Shooting straight at the Skulker's nose, it exploded with a hellacious flash and the acrid scent of explosives, but failed to breach the vehicle's armor. The Scout's driver instinctively shied from the flash, but kept his hands locked onto the wheel, keeping it steady. The Skulker burst through the fire and smoke without slowing at all, then bucked and bounced as it rolled the Elemental beneath its entire length.\n\nThrough the rearview display, Shin saw the Elemental's body half-buried in the scrubby grasses and a number of his very alive comrades appearing. As those Elementals began to lineup, he grabbed the wheel and jerked it to the right. As the tank swerved, heavy SRM fire shot through the air where the recon car should have been.\n\n\"Gunner, directly aft. Fire at will.\" Shin looked back at the radar Tech. \"Raise HQ?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help's on the way. We're to make for map coordinate A2536.\"\n\n\"Got it. Gunner, some fire! The Elementals are fast.\"\n\nA scream and the rushing howl of the wind answered his request. Looking up, Shin saw the gunner's twitching legs disappear up into the turret. The wind gained in volume as the scream dopplered away to nothing. Replacing it was the shriek of metal being bent out of shape and the crackling of ceramic armor breaking.\n\nShin popped the driver's safety belts and steadied the wheel. \"To the back! Blow the aft hatch and go! We've got one on top of us!\"\n\nThe driver dragged himself out of his seat, and the Skulker slowed precipitously. Shin slipped into the man's seat, tugged the safety straps into place and snapped them together with the buckle over his chest. He heard a muffled whump as the explosive bolts on the aft hatch blew, then watched scraps of debris whirl up through the cab as they were sucked out the back.\n\nThe rearview monitor showed that all three men had gotten clear, with at least one up and moving. Alone except for the Elemental burrowing into the Skulker from above, Shin smiled with grim determination. In his first run-in with an Elemental, the damned Clansman had refused to die. \"Let's just see if you're as hearty as your ally was!\"\n\nThe speedometer reported a velocity of 112 kph when the Skulker hit a meter-tall hump in the plains. Shin wrenched the wheel left while the machine was still airborne and clung to it like a drowning man. Fora second or two, the only sounds he heard were the wind and the racing of the engine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Skulker's nose hit the ground first with a bone-crunching jolt that flicked Shin forward against the safety straps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instantly, sparks and smoke streaked through the cab and the headlights shorted, blinding Shinto the world outside. The aft end of the car whipped forward from the right, then the rear wheels caught broadside and the Skulker slammed into the ground on its right side.\n\nThe equipment explosions from the back were drowned out by the din as the recon tank rolled up into its own roof. The great weight crushed the domed turret, shattering the ring assembly binding it to the Skulker. As the vehicle bounced up into the air, the turret sailed off like a wobbling saucer, then the Skulker pounded down into the ground and continued to tumble.\n\nShin couldn't count the number of times the Skulker somersaulted. His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel snapped it off and warped it utterly out of shape. Tooth chips ground between his molars and blood was dripping from his nose. Even so, when the Skulker finally stopped on its right side, Shin knew he'd sustained no serious injuries, and he sent a silent prayer of thanks to his ancestors for keeping death at bay.\n\nPopping the belts loose, he crawled back and got out through the escape hatch in the tank's bottom. Still dizzy and disoriented, he ran away from the Skulker, then sank to his knees on a hilltop twenty-five meters to the west. Behind him, the Skulker exploded as the ruptured gas tank poured fuel onto the sparking equipment in the back.\n\nIn the fire's backlight, he thought he saw the tank's other crewmen, but he could not be certain. Armed only with a heavy pistol, he couldn't afford to take the chance that it was an Elemental instead, though the body parts scattered around the turret's flattened disk told him it was not the Elemental." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daubing at the blood from his nose with his sleeve, Shin estimated his position and figured out where rendezvous point A2536 had to be. Before he could begin to head toward it, however, amounting roar echoed over the plains. Fearing the sound more by instinct and training than sense, he dropped to one knee and looked toward the sky.\n\nAfterburners lit up with gold cylinders of fire, the First Sword of Light's aerospace wing shot toward the east barely fifty meters above the ground. Pulsed rain of scarlet laserfire strobed through the blackness. Brilliant clouds of yellow and red fire wreathed and defined wing-mounted rocket pods. The LRMs streaked off until they became pinpoints of light that erupted into boiling balls of angry red flame.\n\nEven as the Combine's aerospace forces pounded the Clans, Shin felt the brief taste of victory sour in his mouth. The explosions lit by inferno rockets and cluster bombs silhouetted rank upon rank of enemy'Mechs, then the night jealously hid them again. Even without trying to guess their number, Shin knew one thing for certain: The Clans meant to take Luthien, no matter what the cost, and they had brought with them more than enough 'Mechs to do the job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mar Negro, Alyina\n\nTrellshire, Lyran Commonwealth, Federated\n\nCommonwealth 5 January 3052\n\nI'm going to die if we don't get some support.\n\nThat realization came to Victor as his \"Mech's autocannon whined out a metal typhoon. The storm of projectiles sliced like a surgeon's scalpel through the knee of the enemy OmniMech. Armor shards sprayed back over the battlefield, ricocheting off the smoking hulk of Don Gilmore's Archer. The joint gave way and the falling \"Mech's stump impaled the dark earth, but still the machine did not go down.\n\nVictor pulled his Daishi back to cover behind a granite outcropping. Because of its titanic size and dependence on lasers for primary weaponry, he'd named it Prometheus in honor of the mythic light-bringer. Glancing down at the auxiliary monitor's report on his armor status, he realized that the vulturelike Clan \"Mechs would like nothing better than to pick apart and eat his'Mech. Next time I name my 'Mech after something that had a peaceful life-like Bambi!\n\nVictor keyed his radio. \"Zephyr One, bring the rest of your lance back toward me.\"\n\n\"Bill Davis is gone, Kommandant. Dave Jewell and I are it.\"\n\nVictor knew the voice on the radio had to be Dennis Pesuti's. \"Zephyr Two, work back to the north and east. You and Zephyr Three cover each other.\"\n\n\"Wilco, Tornado One.\"\n\nGalen Cox's voice cut in on the frequency. \"Victor, that'll leave your left flank open.\"\n\n\"No it won't. You and I are going to hit the Clanners from the flank as those two draw diem up. Our field of combat narrows as we get near the bluffs. We can hold them, at least long enough to get some help. Relay those orders to the rest of our company.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Caution echoed through Galen's reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Victor, you know as well as I do that the Clans are herding us in that direction. We can't fall for whatever they're planning.\"\n\n\"Dammit, Galen, don't do this tome.\" Victor ground his teeth in anger. \"It'll buy us sometime. I'm going to see if Regimental has any support they can give us.\"\n\n\"Roger, Tornado One. I just want to be sure you understand the risks. As long as you do, I know you'll find away out of it.\"\n\n\"Got it, Squall One. And thanks.\" Victor punched up the Regimental Support frequency, but all he got was dead air. Switching over to the secondary frequency, he got an earful of Babel. It sounded like hundreds of voices all pleading for the very things he wanted to request. Suddenly eerie static blasted through the speakers and one less voice demanded help.\n\n\"This is Tornado One in Sector 2660.1 need fire support.\"\n\n\"Request logged, Tornado One.\" The operator sounded fatigued and hopeless.\n\n\"Regimental, what can you give me?\"\n\n\"Be advised, Tornado One, that we have no resources for you at this time.\"\n\nVictor worked his Omni back, then melted armor from a Clan MadCat with two well-placed laser bolts from his \"Mech's arm-mounted large lasers. 'The situation here is a bit desperate, Regimental. I need support in 2660, now! \"\n\n\"Things are desperate allover, Tornado One! The enemy has 2750 and 2650. If they push through to 2550, you're cutoff-the whole peninsula is gone. We're holding the line, but we need everything we have.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We're coming in through 2560.\" Victor knew mat the loss of sector 2550 would cut him off from the Drop-Ships meant to evacuate his people should the tide of battle continue in its current disastrous direction. \"Give me some cover and we can help out.\"\n\n\"Request logged, Tornado One.\"\n\nVictor saw Dennis Pesuti's Victor reel backward, armor steaming off its left flank.\"That's not a request, Regimental. That's an order! \"\n\n\"Who in hell do you mink you are?\" The comtech's voice came back hot. \"Clear the frequency, you idiot!\"\n\nVictor pounded his fist into the padded arm of the command couch. \"I am Prince Victor Ian Davion, dammit! I own this goddamned army and my men are dying out here. Unless you want to explain to my father why I went the same way, you'll lay down a diamond pattern of artillery-deployed mines. Alternate with cluster rounds. Do it now! These coordinates. We'll begone by the time they get here.\"\n\nFear rocketed through the comtech's voice. \"Wilco immediately, Tornado One. Downloading coordinates now to Longbomb. Longbomb, mix ADMs with clusters. We've got to save the Prince's ass.\"\n\nVictor reopened the link to his men. \"Storm Company, hurry back on a heading of oh-four-five degrees, repeat oh-four-five degrees. Squall One, you can play rearguard. We're making for sector 2550.\"\n\nHe never heard the various acknowledgements of his order, and refused to look as the secondary monitor toted up the identities of the warriors calling in. At the start of the battle, his battalion had filled three full columns on the screen. Now he could see out the corner of his eye that the list had dropped to less than one column. He didn't know if those left behind were alive or dead, and he'd just called down an artillery strike to obliterate anything left in his sector." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Clansmen seemed happy to let him and his men flee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Victor fought to present his enemies as poor a target as possible as he retreated, but none took the opportunity to make any potshots. He knew the Clans preferred one on one battling, which Victor admired, but he had no desire to play their game.\n\nPressed against his flesh, he felt Omi's gift where he'd sewn it inside his cooling vest. He thought of all the samurai tales he'd ever heard, most telling of the hero dying gallantly in defense of a pass or bridge while his lord escaped. God help me, Omi, I don't want to play the Kurita game, either.\n\nHe shook his head. That was exactly the way Prince Ian Davion, the uncle for whom he was named, had died more than a third of a century before. Victor hoped that sharing the man's name did not mean he would share his fate. Great heroic traditions I've got all around.\n\nHe fingered the jade amulet Kai had given him. This marks a legend I'd much rather relive.\n\nWithout warning, the first of the artillery barrages hit home. What had been a mottled green and gray landscape with spindly trees and majestic palms vanished in a sheet of flame. The cluster munitions sowed the area with countless little bomblets that battered and blasted the Clan warriors. Ashe shut his eyes against the intensity of the explosion, Victor saw one 'Mech reduced to a silhouetted skeleton that immediately collapsed in on itself.\n\nThe fire evaporated like an illusion, leaving the killing ground a blackened field pitted with smoking holes. Tattered \"Mechs began to move in the thick mist like zombies rising from their graves. One stumbled forward, and in a bright flash, lost a leg to amine. The'Mech toppled onto its side, but its companions kept coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Victor worked Prometheus east toward the coastline. Once there, he knew they would have a chance to linkup with the rest of the Tenth Lyran Guards. The thought that the Jade Falcons were herding them toward that area niggled at the back of his mind. It meant the possibility of a trap or that the regiment had stopped the rest of the Falcons before they could trap the first battalion in a pocket.\n\nAs his ragged company reached the wooded plateau, Victor began to feel a bit safer. Directly east, only thirty meters from where he stood, the plateau broke off as though a big knife had sliced it away. Twenty meters below, the Mar Negro's dark waters pounded against the shore that marked the edge of the continental shelf.\n\nThe palm tree to his left burst into flames as a Jade Falcon's pulse laser laced it with, kilojoules of energy. Victor whipped the crosshairs for both his large lasers onto the blocky outline of the Clan'Mech. The dot in the center of each pulsed once and he stabbed his thumbs down on the firing button. The coruscating red beams converged on the MadCafs right weapons pod, shearing it off at the wrist.\n\n\"Move them back, Galen. We're still being pressed.\" He used his trio of pulse lasers to lay down hazing fire. The lasers ignited the foliage they hit, creating a screen of fire between Victor and the advancing Clansmen, but that didn't slow the enemy at all. They kept coming and Victor sensed a change in the way they attacked.\n\nTwo of the vulture-like Hagetaka 'Mechs broke through the blazing barrier and thrust their arms at his Omni. Autocannons with pulse lasers riding sidecar made up their arm-mounted weaponry and it was all concentrated on Victor. The autocannons nibbled tiny chips of armor from the Daishfs chest, then the pulse lasers cauterized the wounds by dripping molten armor over them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prometheus stumbled backward as Victor fought against the impact of the autocannon shots and the loss of balance caused by losing more than a ton of armor. That didn't keep him from realizing that the Falcons had worked together to hurt him. If they were willing to do that at this point in the battle, Victor reasoned, they were either desperate or the Clanners had been suckering them all along. Given the panic at Regimental HQ, we must be dead!\n\nGalen's Crusader stepped forward to put itself between Victor and the Clanners. Its leg-mounted SRM launchers sent a dozen missiles corkscrewing in atone Hagetaka. They peppered the Clan'Mech's jutting torso and right arm with a double handful of detonations that knocked the war machine back into the burning foliage. Its right arm hanging limp and useless, the'Mech turned to engage them again.\n\nVictor punched up the Regimental frequency again, but this time all he got was buzzing static. Ignoring precautions, he set his radio to broadcast across all the tactical frequencies. \"This is Tornado One in sector 2560. We need any help we can get.\"\n\nHe thought he heard a reply, but the thundering detonations of along-range missile against his Daishi's headset his cars ringing and drowned out the voice. Spinning to his left,\n\nVictor cut loose with the autocannon. It caught a MadCat dead center and dumped it unceremoniously on its back.\n\nBoth he and Galen withdrew as quickly as they could. Already Victor saw on his scanner that the rest of his battalion had made it to the narrows, where they could hold off the Clanners. Heading away as quickly as possible, with Galen close on his heels, he reached a clearing where a granite fang separated a narrow trail from the plateau. The other 'Meelis had already strung themselves out along the path by the time he and Galen broke from the jungle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Home free! Turning back to lay down cover for Galen, Victor allowed himself a smile. \"We made it.\"\n\nA panicked scream from one of the Mech Warriors was Victor's only warning of the ambush. Shooting up to the level of the plateau, five OmniMechs with auxiliary jump jet packs strapped to their hulls leaped up from the Mar Negro. Water coursed off them and seaweed hung from the arms and legs of the'Mechs, making them look like monsters from the bottom of the sea.\n\nA Gauss rifle projectile smashed into Prometheus'right ankle. It crushed the joint, and when Victor tried to steady the toppling'Mech, the clawlike foot sheared off. The shock of the ankle hitting the ground jolted Victor, but he successfully fought gravity and wrestled the \"Mech upright. He fired back with his lasers, sending melted armor bleeding down his tormentor's torso, but another \"Mech's autocannon burst to his left shoulder spun him to the ground.\n\nSparks shot from his control console and the light blinked out on one of the torso-mounted pulse lasers. More fire from the 'Mechs strafed his stricken Omni. They kept him enough off-balance that he could not aim well. When he tried to regain his feet, he went down instead like a punch-drunk fighter.\n\nAs much as Victor wanted to demand help from the other warriors, he saw they were in the same deep trouble. With all the holes in its armor, Galen's Crusader looked like a worm-gnawed corpse. Out on the bluff, the other members of Storm Company were sitting ducks for the newly arrived Clan'Mechs. Though they fought back, their battered condition and lack of ammunition made their defense a piteous mockery of the power the enemy 'Mechs displayed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Victor keyed his radio. \"Storm Company, disengage. Just run for it. Galen, go.\" He pulled Prometheus into a low crouch. \"Goon. I'll cover you.\"\n\n\"No! I won't do it, Victor.\"\n\n\"Go, Hauptmann Cox. That's an order.\"\n\n\"Then discipline me in hell, because I'm not leaving.\"\n\nThe Crusader got the granite fang between it and the ocean-going \"Mechs. Galen blasted away at the'Mechs coming in from the mainland. Steam rose from fractured heat sinks as he launched volley after volley of missiles. The barrels of the Crusader's arm-mounted machine guns glowed red as they relentlessly sprayed the enemy.\n\nIn his crouch, Victor presented a more difficult target for the Clanners. His large lasers punched through armor and started internal explosions on one of the five flying \"Mechs. It started to descend, but its loss did not help him at all. Instead of chasing the remnants of Storm company, the other four'Mechs turned their attention to Victor. As they jetted toward the ground, Victor thought of his uncle Ian who had also died trying to buy escape for his men.\n\n\"Thanks, Galen. I never wanted to die alone.\"\n\n\"Me neither, Highness. Me neither.\"\n\n\"Here they come.\"\n\nEven as Victor dropped his sights on the lead Clanner and tightened down on all his triggers, he saw a flash of mottled green atop the fang. Coming faster than Victor had ever seen any \"Mech run, a battle-scarred Centurion burst into the fray. Without slowing at all, it thrust its right-arm Gauss rifle at a Clan'Mech. In an electrical flash, a silver ball coursed from the muzzle, hitting dead-on target." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It nailed an enemy \"Mech in what would have been its right ear and crushed the cockpit. The'Mech spun, its arms pummeling the \"Mech hovering next to it. Both war machines tipped in mid-air and started to somersault backward over the ocean. The dead'Mech did a swan dive and rocketed down into the dark waters. Fighting to retain control, its companion completed the somersault, but had fallen too far 10 land on the plateau. Its jets carried it forward and smashed it into the bluffs.\n\nStunned, Victor breathed, \"My God, that's Yen-lo-wang\\\"\n\nThe subsequent explosion of their comrade's\"Mech made landing difficult for the other two Clansmen. One flew through the fireball and touched down, but by that time the Centurion had leaped down from the fang and sprinted toward the landing site. Coming in low and fast, Yen-lo-wang held the fingers of its left hand hooked like claws. Ina passing strike, it raked its fingers across the Clan \"Mech's belly, then filled the wound with laserfire from the forearm-mounted pulse lasers.\n\nIts speed unabated, the Centurion continued its dash along the edge of the bluff. The last Clan \"Mech landed in a cloud of smoke left by its ill-fated companion. The Clan pilot had just started to turn toward the other Clan'Mech, which was collapsing around its ruined middle, when Yen-lo-wang hit it at full speed. Victor saw armor buckle as the Centurion's shoulder slammed square into the enemy'Mech's chest.\n\nBeneath the combined weight of the two war engines, the edge of the bluff crumbled. Victor reached out as though the arms of his Prometheus could somehow stop the disaster. The Clan \"Mech wrapped its arms around Yen-lo-wang, and both'Mechs stood poised on the edge of the cliff. Victor screamed for Kai to push the Clanner away and save himself, but with a singlemindedness bordering on obsession, Yen-lo-wang's legs kept pumping, pulverizing the bluff's lip into gravel, and carrying the last threat to Hanse Davion's heir away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kai, no! Kai!\"\n\nBoth \"Mechs vanished from sight. If not for the smoke in the air and the crippled'Mech slumped on the bluff, there was nothing left to suggest the Centurion had ever existed.\n\nHot tears burning his cheeks, Victor pivoted his \"Mech on its maimed leg. Pulse lasers lashed out at the Clanners coming through the jungle and Victor kept his fingers on the triggers, heedless of the waves of heat roasting him in the cockpit. Beside him, Galen's Crusader added its power to the assault. Caution thrown to the winds, it was as though their sorrow and rage translated directly into their attacks and drove the Clanners back.\n\nOne by one, the computer shutdown Victor's weapons as the heat they generated cooked circuits. He saw lights go out on his status board, but sent more missiles and laser beams to hold the Clansmen at bay. Fpr a half-second, Victor imag-\" ined he had stepped into one of those legends where a 'Mech fights of its own accord, regardless of what the machinery and instruments indicate. Then, as he heard voices buzzing in his ears, he realized others had joined them.\n\n\"Icestorm Deuce here, Tornado One. We've got your backdoor. Pullout.\"\n\nVictor glanced at his holographic display and saw the crescent-shaped bite taken out of the bluff's edge. \"Negative, Icestorm Two. We've got a man down in the water. Kai Allard went off the cliff. We have to get him.\"\n\n\"Tornado One, they've got reinforcements on the way.\" Down-loaded telemetry from a spy satellite filled Victor's auxiliary monitor. The computer showed a company's worth of Clan'Mechs on a direct line for their sector. \"They know you're here, Highness. They want you. You have to leave. Leftenant Allard ordered us to get you out of here, no matter what.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No! We have to find Kai!\"\n\n\"Victor, look at your monitor!\" Galen's voice was full of dread, yet Victor could not ignore its urgency. \"Look, Victor. There's no rescue beacon from Kai's\"Mech. There's no ID beacon. The shelf goes down a full kilometer here. He's gone. Don't let his sacrifice be a waste.\"\n\nVictor hammered his fist into the radio panel, shorting it out. Teeth clenched to trap the scream growing in his chest, he began to limp the Prometheus back. Ashe worked his way along the bluff trail, he searched for any sign at all where Kai had gone under the water, but not even a ripple marked the grave of his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tairakana Plains, Luthien\n\nPesht Military District, Draconis Combine\n\n5 January 3052\n\nSweat soaking his clothes, Shin Yodama continued to push himself as he ran toward the coordinates he'd been given before the Skulker exploded. By the time he was within sight of the small outpost that was his goal, the airstrikes had met with stiff resistance and the burning wreckage of aerospace fighters littered the dark battlefield. He had approached two of the crash sites, but the intensity of the inferno had kept him back. He knew no one or nothing could have survived, but the debris gave him no clue as to which side the craft belonged.\n\nHe had wanted to stop when the ache in his side first began, and then again when it felt like a knife had been shoved deep and twisting into his guts. Whenever he did slowdown to look back, the silhouettes of the pursuing \"Mechs grew even larger as they came on. Like demons from some childhood nightmare, the Clan'Mechs lumbered forward despite the firepower hammering them. As hard as he ran to escape them, he could never lose sight of them.\n\nThe first sign Shin had of A2536 was a nervous young trooper half-hidden behind a fallen tree. \"Halt or I'll shoot!\" The excitement in the youth's voice made Shin certain he'd carryout his threat, but the wavering of his gun barrel told the yakuza he need not fear for his life.\n\nHe raised his hands. \"I am Sho-sa Shin Yodama. Who is in charge here?\"\n\nThe trooper jerked his head toward a low hill. \"Chu-i Ashai. I'll take you to him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rounding the hill, Shin discovered that this forward observation post was nothing more than two soldiers, their leader, and a pair of scanning binoculars mounted on a tripod, radioing data back to headquarters. Ashai looked intelligent and eager. Probably a military academy recruit who'd graduated early, Shin concluded. His two young companions carried their automatic rifles awkwardly enough to convince Shin that they, too, must be very new to the warrior's life.\n\n\"Chi-i Ashai, we have to report back to headquarters.\"\n\nThe junior officer nodded curtly. \"Hai, Sho-sa. There is a Skulker due here soon to take us back. It's been forward...\"\n\nShin shook his head. \"I was in that Skulker. It isn't coming.\" Shin held out his hand. \"Give me your radio.\"\n\nColor drained from Ashai's face. \"I cannot. The microphone went out on our unit.\" He pointed up at the place on the hill where they had setup the visual scanner. \"We were directed to leave this unit in place because they're still getting visual.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Shin ran up the hill as fast as his weary legs would take him. Reaching the summit, he positioned himself before the scanning binoculars. He waited until the device's motors whirred the lenses into focus on him, then quickly made a series of hand signals. He went through the sequence twice more, praying that at least one of the yakuza comtechs would be on duty.\n\nAshe stepped back out of the line-of-sight, the binoculars autofocused out at the advancing Smoke Jaguar 'Mechs. Their paint scheme showed circlets of black dots against a gray background, mimicking the coat of the animal that gave them their name. The dust and smoke they left behind in the bloody light of dawn blotted out everything to the rear of their lines. So heavily did the smoke hang in the still morning air that Shin imagined the Clan commander had arranged it less to obscure his troops than to warn them that they must goon, for no retreat was possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shin saw aerospace fighters twist through martial acrobatics in the sky, then occasionally dive at their ground-bound enemies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than one aircraft made it through the hail of ground fire to destroy a 'Mech, but Shin did not see that the attacks made the least difference.\n\nTo the west, facing the dawning sun, rank upon rank of Combine BattleMechs appeared to oppose the invaders. The crimson \"Mechs of the First Sword of Light occupied the center of the Combine line. The Otomo, their royal blue'Mechs arrayed in staggered ranks, made up the northern flank. The two Genyosha regiments had been deployed as the southern flank. The black and silver 'Mechs of their Second Regiment stood at a forty-five degree angle to the main body of Combine troops, giving the southern edge a hook to drive the Clan in toward the center.\n\nUsing their advantage of range, the Clan warriors engaged the Kurita units at long distance. Shin realized immediately. that the Clans had abandoned their tactic of one warrior trying to engage another warrior in single combat. They concentrated their fire on individual targets, hitting hardest the \"Mechs equipped for LRM barrages. They kept coming as they fired, ever so slowly closing to a range at which the Combine's 'Mechs could effectively return fire.\n\nThe discipline of his comrades amazed Shin. No one moved or broke formation. It was maddening for Shinto watch them from afar as they stood there, taking barrage after barrage, but it had to be a thousand times worse for those in the BattleMechs. Even though the attacks mainly peeled off armor, Shin knew he would have been hard pressed to remain in his place. Even so, rigid adherence to Theodore's plan was the key to victory, and that knowledge would have kept him doing his utmost to hold and wait.\n\nAshai joined Shin atop the hill. \"Look, Sho-sa, the Otomo are hurt.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A quick glance confirmed Ashai's observation. The long-range attacks had devastated the Otomo ranks. A dozen'Mechs were down and many others looked fit for nothing but salvage. Even before the battle had been fully joined, the Combine's northern flank had started to crumble.\n\nShin noted that he and Ashai were not alone in observing the collapse of the Otomo. Smoke Jaguar \"Mechs surged forward. The Otomo stood furthest away from Imperial City, and the charge redirected the attack off its original line. The Smoke Jaguars broke into a gallop, increasing their speed as the Otomo's return fire came spottily and poorly aimed.\n\nAshai couldn't keep the fear from his voice.\"They shoot like old women! It is a wonder they don't run! \"\n\nShin smiled. \"Watch, Chu-i. Watch and learn.\"\n\nThe swiftest of the Smoke Jaguar \"Mechs punched through the Otomo line. Their lead element had made it to the third and final rank of Otomo'Mechs when the first Clanner hit a vibrabomb. Ina flash of fire and steel that blew away the lower half of his right leg, it stumbled and went down, bowling over an Archer.\n\nThe Archer exploded. Shrapnel sprayed down in a forward arc that lifted the downed Clan \"Mech off its chest and blasted away its left arm. Like a string of firecrackers, the other Otomo'Mechs started to explode as well. From back to front, each of the blue war machines detonated. The thin armor over the chests of the 'Mechs burst outward, showering the enemy with a hail of death.\n\nAt the first explosion, Shin hit the ground and pulled Ashai down with him. \"Theodore refitted industrial 'Mechs with armor to make them look like BattleMechs, then loaded them with explosives. Anew variation on the old Trojan horse strategy. Instead of letting them take the horse into their castle, we had to lure them to our herd, but it worked nonetheless.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Into the chaos marking where the false Otomo regiment had stood, the real Otomo Mech Warriors and the Second Legion of Vega charged. Their sudden appearance from the hills beyond the Kurita line clearly shocked the Smoke Jaguars. Their whole line had to stop to regain its drive toward the Kurita center. As they sought to regroup to do this, the Combine's line let loose with all the long-range weaponry it had.\n\nWhat the attacks lacked in organization, they made up for in intensity. Individual Clan \"Mechs fell here and there, but the damage was far more widespread than that. Scant few of the mottled gray paint jobs escaped without revision. On the northern flank, where the Legion and Otomo blasted into the Jaguar's wing, the sheer force of their assault routed the Clansmen. As they began to push the Jaguar formation back in on itself, Shin could imagine the Genyosha doing the same on the other flank.\n\nThe thunderous flutter of a helicopter's rotor alerted Shin and made him rollover onto his back. A Combine copter touched down roughly a hundred meters back behind the line of hills, and he and the scout team ran gleefully to the streamlined craft. Once they had boarded it and were strapped in, the pilot got the chopper airborne again.\n\nHe kept the craft low, but when they bounced up over hills, Shin got another look at the battlefield. The Jaguar formation had been compressed into a wedge shape. The point of the wedge had engaged the First Sword, and the flanks were being hard-pressed by the other Combine units. Still, despite having given ground early and having suffered losses to the Otomo trap, the Clans had consolidated their position.\n\nJust then, Shin thought he saw something in the smoke behind the Clan lines, but a hill cutoff his view. It took him a precious ten seconds to convince the pilot to pull up his craft, and then the man did so only reluctantly. As the copter came up, the battlefield again came into view, but it no longer looked as it had only seconds before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The movement Shin had caught in the smoke had been the charge of the Nova Cats. Their \"Mechs were black as death except for the brilliant blue star pattern in their center chests. Funnelling through the middle of the Jaguar wedge, their troops had sliced straight through the point of the wedge. Their charge carried them through the First Sword's line almost as though it were not there. The Jaguars split their wedge in half, forming up in parallel lines, then began to drive the Combine troops toward the east. At the same time, Clan aerospace fighters swooped in low to strafe observation posts.\n\nShin pulled the headset and mike away from the co-pilot and put it on. The screeching static of jammed radio frequencies drilled into his head. \"Hanson,\" he said, noticing the pilot's name on his jumpsuit, \"take this chopper directly to headquarters in Imperial City, now!\"\n\n\"I have orders.\"\n\n\"To hell with your orders. The Clans are breaking through. If we don't let the Kanrei know what's going on,\n\nImperial City is lost. And the whole of Luthien with it. \"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consulate of the St. Ives Compact, New Avalon\n\nCru c is March, Federated Commonwealth\n\n5 January 3052\n\n\"No, Candace, I don't think you're silly to be worried about Kai.\" Coming up behind her, he rested his hand on her right shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. \"After all, he is a warrior stationed in a war zone.\"\n\nCandace glanced up at Justin's reflection in the mirror of her vanity table. \"We have been together too long, my dear, for me to not hear the hesitation in your voice.\"\n\nJustin smiled and bowed his head. \"You know, had you not been inclined to seek a diplomatic solution to the differences between the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Suns so long ago, I do believe you could have turned me against Hanse Davion.\"\n\nCandace reached up and pulled his hand into her own. \"Are you not worried for our son?\"\n\n\"Of course I am.\"\n\n\"See.\"\n\n\"But he's with the best forces we have. He's in a \"Mech equipped with the latest technology. And he's probably the finest Mech Warrior whoever strapped himself into a cockpit.\" Justin disengaged his hand from hers and walked across the suite to his dresser. \"To be quite frank,\" he went on, \"I worry more about Victor Davion and his apparent disregard for his own safety. Yes, we all cheered the \"Fighting Prince\" during the battle for Twycross, but poor Hanse's heart was in his throat the whole time. I'm certain Hanse watches Victor go into battle and remembers his brother Ian's death.\"\n\nCandace turned in her chair and pointed at him with a black eyeliner pencil. \"You are correct that Victor is impulsive, but Galen Cox and Kai are thereto calm him down. And to protect him, too. But who protects those who guard the Prince?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Justin scooped up two cufflinks from the top of the dresser and returned to her side. Holding them out, he smiled sheepishly. \"Could you?\"\n\n\"Getting old, my love, or does your arm need new batteries?\"\n\nThe diabolical glint in her eyes sparked a laugh from him. \"Neither old nor in need of new batteries am I, Duchess. Cufflinks never were easy for me, even when both my hands matched.\" Justin stood rigid as she dutifully fastened the cufflinks. \"And if my lady requires a show of my youthful vigor, might I boldly suggest she invent away for us to leave this reception as early as possible.\"\n\nIna melodramatic pose, Candace pressed the back of her right hand to her forehead and sighed, \"Oh my, seduced by the Champion of Solaris...\"\n\nJustin shook his head. \"I've not been Solaris\" Champion fora longtime.\"\n\n\"What is it they say-once a champion, always a champion?\"\n\n\"And for that, you will always have my heart.\" He pulled her to her feet and kissed her then held her tightly. \"Trust me, my love. Kai will be back with us soon.\"\n\nReleasing her, he glanced at his chronometer. \"Damn, we're already running late.\" Justin turned to where he had tossed his black jacket on the bed. \"I hate charity functions. Were it not for your company, I'd much prefer spending the evening in the war room reviewing reports.\"\n\nUntil the laser bolt hit Candace Liao on the left side of her chest and spun her to the floor, Justin had believed them alone in their suite. Mercifully, his wife fell on the other side of the bed, leaving only the sight of the hem of her evening gown and the black leather heels she'd chosen for the reception. The puff of white smoke curling up like a vaporous mushroom and the acrid scent of burned wool scoured away the scent of her perfume that he so loved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laser pistol in hand, the assassin stepped from the closet where he'd been hiding. He looked at Candace, then up at Justin and smiled. \"Romano wanted her to die first, to be sure you knew you'd failed to save her.\"\n\nAs the black-clad murderer swung the pistol inline with Justin, the Intelligence Secretary dodged to the right. His black metal left hand snapped back as far as it would go. Something tugged at the underside of the wrist, popping the cufflink free of the white shirt. With a fluidity born of years of practice, Justin thrust his left arm toward the assassin and willed its machinery to work.\n\nThe wrist-laser's green beam struck the assassin full in the chest. It cored a hole through him and flashed-burned a dark circle on the mirrored panel behind. The light reflected up to strike the crystal chandelier, but the forest of rainbows it unraveled were harmless. Yet fast as Justin's strike was, the assassin managed to tighten his finger on the trigger of his laser pistol before he fell.\n\nSearing agony grabbed Justin by the throat as the ruby beam burned into his neck. He staggered forward a few steps, then dropped to his knees beside his wife. His right hand clutched at his neck and found it slippery with warm fluid. He glanced down and watched blood drench his white sleeve. Despite the pain radiating out from the wound, Justin forced his right hand harder against it, fighting to stop the precious fluid from leaking out between his slicked fingers.\n\nWith the clarity of mind that only imminent death could bring, Justin knew he had to sound an alarm. Yet the visiphone on the bedside table might as well have been two light years away from where he knelt. The consulate's soundproof walls made screaming futile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wave of nausea passed over him, then spots began to form before his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knowing he had no time to spare, Justin raised his left arm and pointed it upward. He triggered the wrist laser and slashed a black scar across the ceiling. He kept it moving for the three seconds until the beam died, then he slumped over, exhausted.\n\nUntil he felt the cool water spraying down onto his face from the fire sprinklers, Justin did not know whether his desperate attempt to summon help had succeeded. He never heard the alarm that had to be blaring, for it was not his own welfare that concerned him. He reached out to Candace to give her hand a reassuring squeeze, then the room, and the whole world with it, vanished from his sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tairakana Plains, Luthien\n\nPesht Military District, Draconis Combine\n\n5 January 3052\n\nShin's stomach lurched as the pilot jerked the helicopter up and over in a hard turn. Before Shin could demand the reason for that sudden, sharp maneuver, a pair of SRMs exploded on the ground.\n\nThe pilot yanked upon the pitch control and cranked the throttle wide open. \"Clans fighter. He figures us as a spotter.\"\n\n\"Can you evade him?\"\n\n\"If not, we'll die trying.\"\n\n\"What can I do?\"\n\nThe pilot jerked his thumb back toward the crew compartment. \"Man the twelve-five. I'll give you a shot if I can.\"\n\nShin tossed the headset back to the co-pilot and pulled on a gunnery harness. Snapping it into the restraining straps near the aircraft's left door, he slid the gun and mount from their stowed position. Locking it into place and laying the first part of the ammo chain through its chamber, he readied the gatl ing cannon for use. Ashai pulled the compartment door open, giving Shin a 170-degree arc of fire.\n\nShin pulled the gunner's helmet onto his head and adjusted the microphone. He flipped the eyeshades down and switched the gun's targeting laser to the On position. Immediately, a crosshair appeared on the eyeshade over his right eye. He knew that when he had the gun on target, a dot would pulse in the center of the cross, just as in a 'Mech. Unlike piloting his Phoenix Hawk, however, he had to aim the gun manually.\n\n\"I'm in and ready, Anjin-san.\"\n\n\"Hai, Sho-sa. Brace yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pilot stood the copter on its tail, then let it sidle over in a maneuver that pitched Shin forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite the warning, if not for his firm hold on the twin grips of the 12.5 millimeter machine gun and the restraining straps of his harness, he would have followed Ashai's capon the long drop to the battlefield below. As it was, he barely got his feet under him in time for the pilot to level off and give Shin a quick shot at an approaching Clan aerofighter.\n\nShin's thumb stabbed the firing button. The cannon's whine drowned out the flutter of the helicopter's prop. Bits and pieces of ammo chain rattled around the crew compartment as the six barrels spun their way through 100 rounds in two seconds. Shin fought the weapon's recoil, but having lost the target dot a half-second after acquiring it, he was fairly certain he'd not managed to keep the weapon on target.\n\nThen the aerospace fighter exploded.\n\nBlack on red and red on black, Kell Hound and Wolf's Dragoon aerospace fighters swept through the air like fire-hearted thunder-heads. A flight of LRMs from one of the approaching fighters blasted the Clan fighter from the sky. Trailing thick smoke, its wreckage spiraled toward the ground and the helicopter pilot brought the copter back on its express vector for Imperial City.\n\nFrom his vantage point, Shin had a stunning view of the battlefield. The Smoke Jaguars still held off their opponents, but more by happenstance, Shin thought, than by strategy. Because the Combine forces on both sides of the line outnumbered their foes, the Kurita warriors had fewer targets and fewer opportunities to shoot. Anxious warriors in the back ranks crowded their comrades, driving them in closer than they wanted to get to the Clan lines. Already it looked as though the Kurita leadership was issuing orders to combat the problem, but the damage already done had won the Clans time to deploy the Nova Cats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Nova Cats had run head-on into the Dragoons and Kell Hounds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Airborne, Shin saw how the mercenaries had arranged their lines to stop the advancing Clans. One regiment of Dragoons held the roadway toward the capital, with the two Kell Hound regiments deployed in the hills on either side. Behind that trio of regiments, three Dragoon regiments repeated the formation. The Dragoons had held their last regiment in reserve, but it, too, now started to move forward to bolster the Kell Hounds' First Battalion.\n\nFighting down on the roadway looked particularly fierce. The smoke overlaying the battlefield still allowed the brilliant fire of missile detonations to burn up through it. The hot red light of lasers and the electric blue flare of PPC beams filled the gray haze with splashes of color, but they were nothing compared to the nova-white fireball of a fusion engine burning out of control.\n\nUpon the northern flank, the battle between the Nova Cats and the Kell Hounds'first regiment looked particularly savage.\"Mechs equipped with long-range weapons laced the Clan lines with barrage after barrage of murderous fire. \"Mechs built for infighting closed with the enemy, but avoided direct physical contact. Concentrating their fire on Clan'Mechs already weakened by their distant comrades, the Hounds took them down quickly and efficiently.\n\nThe Clan reprisals came swiftly, but did not have the same degree of organization that made the mercenaries so effective. Shin was at a loss to understand this confusion until he saw a Kell Hound 'Mech standing virtually alone on a knoll near the road. Even from such a distance, he recognized the blocky body of an Archer. It launched multiple flights of missiles at its enemies as they charged and directed more fire from its supporting fire lances, then picked the enemy apart with its lasers as they closed to shorter range. Alone yet very deadly, it made itself a perfect target." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Clan warriors seemed to be doing their damnedest to make the pilot of that \"Mech pay for his arrogance, but their efforts were hardly successful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Kell Hound missile fire fell with murderous effect, blasting Nova Cats back down the hill. As Clansmen rushed forward, the Hounds\" close assault lances bored in, picking a target and savaging it until its smoking skeleton lay at the feet of the Archer. The Archer itself moved with a fluidity that told Shin a masterful warrior piloted the hulking 'Mech. As it dodged away from missile barrages, or squatted to make itself a more difficult target, Shin guessed that it could only be Morgan Kell, leader of the Kell Hounds, in the cockpit.\n\nThe chopper coursed through a narrow canyon, then popped up to give Shin another view of the battle. The Nova Cats and Dragoons had met in the roadway, and broken 'Mechs of both sides littered the ground. From the mixture of shattered hulks, it looked to Shin that the mercenaries had driven the Nova Cats back a hundred meters or so, blunting their momentum. The Dragoons had then begun an orderly withdrawal, forcing the Nova Cats to win back the ground they had taken initially.\n\nAs the slow snake of Nova Cat 'Mechs started forward, the Dragoons pounded them hard. From his vantage point, Shin saw the second Dragoon line moving forward. He assumed that just as the whole column of Nova Cats intended to continue pressing toward Imperial City, the Dragoons would charge and stop the advance. That would force the column to stop again. Not only would the stop-and-go progress be frustrating for the Clanners, but it provided more time for the mercenary airwings to hit the enemy.\n\nThe chopper pilot dropped the aircraft down behind a line of hills and shot it straight toward Imperial City. Shin directed him to land at a rear headquarters unit near a regiment of BattleMechs. The pilot radioed in for landing clearance, got it, and set the helicopter down on a spot midway between the BattleMechs and a nearby tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shin unbuckled himself and dismounted. He gave the pilot a thumbs-up, then ran clear of the metal bird. When an orderly intercepted and handed him sealed orders, Shin recognized Theodore's chop on the rice-paper packet and tore it open. His jaw dropped open as he read the contents, then he refolded the sheet and sprinted toward the assembled'Mechs.\n\nShin shivered as he mounted the ladder spilling down from the Phoenix Hawk's breast. I am not ready for this sort of responsibility, Theodore! Once inside the cockpit, he hit the switch that retracted the ladder and sealed the'Mech's faceplate in place. Stripping off his jumpsuit, Shin donned a cooling vest and helmet, then strapped himself in and went through his initiation procedure.\n\nThe second the computer made the Phoenix Hawk fully operational, Takashi Kurita's voice blasted through the helmet's speakers. \"I warn you, I will not tolerate being ordered by one of my son's hoodlums. To him you maybe special, but tome you are yakuza! I've dealt with your ilk before, and I can do it still. I demand you release my 'Mech!\"\n\nShin swallowed hard. Theodore's orders, making him the liaison with the reserve unit Takashi had cobbled together, told him that the override code would allow the Coordinator and his comrades to bring their'Mechs into full operational status. It also told him how crucial it was to keep them back until orders to commit them were issued. Being set 10 kilometers behind the initial lines put them midway between Imperial City and the front. This was not the optimum position for defense, but the valley they were assigned to defend gave them the latitude to move quickly to bolster any point that might break in the line. Theodore's message had communicated all that and more, and Shin felt like a grain of rice beneath a millstone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Iie, Kurita Takashi-sa ma. I have been given specific orders. I cannot release you yet.\"\n\n\"Damn you, Shin Yodama, and damn my son. He leaves the Combine in the hands of bandits and mercenaries. Free us!\"\n\nTakashi's imperious tone slapped at Shin's pride, but he fought back the rise of anger. \"No! Your son has placed you here fora most specific reason.\"\n\n\"Ha! He has placed me here, defenseless, for only one reason: he hopes the Clans will kill me so he can be the Coordinator of the Combine.\"\n\n\"He has you here because he trusts you to accomplish what he needs done.\"\n\n\"You have been deceived by him, yakuza.\" Takashi spat out the last word like apiece of bitter root. \"My son trusts me with nothing. For the third and final time, free us.\"\n\n\"No!\" Shin turned his Phoenix Hawk and located the Grand Dragon with Takashi's crest on its right breast. \"I have my orders and I will follow them.\"\n\n\"You will obey me now, yakuza! I am the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine!\"\n\n\"Coordinator, I know who you are and have only the highest respect for your office.\" Shin gritted his teeth to keep his temper in check. \"I understand your demands, but I cannot bow to them until I am given orders. If you wish to order me or your son to commit seppuku for this breach of honor, we will do so later. When the Kanrei tells me the time is right, I will release you.\"\n\n\"That time is now,\" gloated the Coordinator. \"I have had my technicians review the software and I know what the release code is. Three times I have asked you to release us, and thrice have you refused. Honor has been satisfied. I am now free to act.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you do that,\" Shin intoned in a low voice, \"you force me to use a second code I have been given. If I broadcast it, you will all die, and with you goes Imperial City.\"\n\n\"This is madness. My son is insane!\"\n\n\"Iie, Coordinator. He is not mad, but only a man who knows his father so well.\" Shin's hand hovered over the keypad on the right side of the cockpit. \"He knows you would be ingenious enough to find away around his security measure. He also knew that if you knew nothing about the second code, you would have no time to find it in any analysis. He is serious about your remaining in position to deploy when needed. He could not risk your leaving this place.\"\n\n\"He was afraid I would steal his victory from him.\"\n\nShin shook his head. \"No, Coordinator, not at all. He was afraid to trust anyone else with what must be done here.\"\n\nTakashi's exasperation sliced through his words. \"How can you continue to tell me my son trusts me when I know he does not?\"\n\n\"I say this, Takashi Kurita, because it is the truth.\" Shin felt the packet of orders pressed against his flesh. \"I say this because he told me your granddaughter refused to evacuate Imperial City. You and your men are all that stand between Omi and the Clans, and your son wants you hereto stop them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Satatice\n\nFree Rasalhague Republic\n\n5 January 3051\n\n\"I copy that, Firebird One. You have no visual on the Ostsol.\" Phelan Wolf cursed under his breath. \"Make another sweep. It has to be around here somewhere.\"\n\n\"Roger, Dire Alpha.\" Carew did not sound too hopeful.\n\n\"Dire Alpha to Dire Star. Anything?\" Phelan glanced at his auxiliary monitor and its map of the local area. The computer updated him with the locations of the rest of his command, with Dire Gamma limping along in the rear. The terrain, as broken and uneven as one might expect from a lava plain, was glossy with a treacherous layer of ice. Live steam vents pulsed out mist like ethereal whales surfacing from the rock to spout. The mist instantly crystallized in the cold air, and Phelan had to keep his Wolfhound running hot just to keep the ice from blinding his sensors.\n\nAll reports came back negative, but Phelan had the distinct feeling that the others in his Star were deliberately holding back. Though Natasha had harangued her Wolf Spiders into working cooperatively, the others in Dire Star were veterans who refrained from interfering in what they saw as Phelan's rightful kill. The Ostsol had attacked him first, which meant, under the old ways, that the target was his.\n\nThe others were willing to course it, but they'd not take it down until Phelan had died trying.\n\nPhelan shook his head in disgust. He knew why they deferred to him, but he would have preferred a team effort. Because he was their Star Commander, was younger than any of them, and because he had singlehandedly taken Gunzburg, they offered him yet another chance at honor. Well, change is bound to come slowly. The Star League wasn't builtin a day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The secondary monitor gave Phelan an inventory of the damage he'd taken. Most of the armor had been blown off the Wolfhound's right arm, but the extended-range large laser was undamaged. Grinner had lost a little armor from his chest and right leg, too, but other than that, the BattleMech was running at the top of form. The Ostsol might outmass his Wolfhound by twenty-five tons, but the two were closely matched in sheer firepower.\n\nThe humanoid Ostsol had toothpick-thin arms, one of which had been burned clean off by a snapshot with the large laser. That did little to hurt it because the 'Mech carried all its weapons in the torso. The pilot had recovered quickly and escaped, but not before Phelan savaged the armor on its chest. From what he could tell, though, both large lasers and the twin forward-pointing medium lasers were still operational. The Ostsol also boasted two rear-arc medium lasers in its barrel-shaped torso, but Phelan had not followed closely enough to give the pilot a chance to use them.\n\nPhelan took another look at the map and switched his visual display over to infrared. The landscape instantly took on a cool blue tint. Steam jets shot tendrils of yellow fire into the air, and heat rose in red curls from the Wolfhound's heat sinks. The jumble of colors, with streaks of red and gold marking ground warmth, was not so confusing that a'Mech couldn't be spotted by the heat it generated, but the steam vents made sorting viable targets from spurious ones annoyingly difficult.\n\nStill marching the Wolfhound forward, Phelan slowly worked toward a canyon that closely resembled a jagged scar ripped through the planet's crust by a dull knife. The legion of side canyons were large enough to hide a'Mech or two. The cold wind twisting down through it could easily mix the hot air generated by a \"Mech with fresher air, hiding all traces of an ambush. As smart as the other'Mech pilot had already proved himself, Phelan had no doubt that his enemy was, indeed, waiting therein." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Firebird One to Dire Alpha.\"\n\n\"Go ahead, Firebird.\"\n\n\"Negative for heat. Magres is useless because of the ferrous content of the ground. Sorry.\"\n\n\"Roger, Firebird. Give me CAP if you can. Dire Star, I am going into the canyon. Beta and Delta, cutoff the north end, if you please. Gamma, maintain your position. Epsilon, back me.\n\nPhelan wiped a sweaty palm against the outside of his cooling vest. He started to work his way down into the canyon, but hesitated before he reached the floor. He hated the idea of offering the Ostsol the first shot, especially when all the enemy had to do was wait fora thermal signature to target and kill. There has to be away to decoy him, give him bait.\n\nA chunk of stone gave way beneath the Wolfhound's left foot, but Phelan successfully kept the'Mech on its feet by reaching outwith its left hand to steady the \"Mech against the canyon wall. Ashe watched the stone rolling down to the canyon floor, it gave him an idea. Stooping the'Mech, he picked up a hunk of volcanic stone. Holding it carefully by the thumb and forefinger of his \"Mech's left hand, he trained all three pulse lasers on it, dialed their power down fora three-second burst and triggered them.\n\nThe trio of beams filled the rock with fire. It glowed white hot on Phelan's holographic infrared display. He pulled the Wolfhound's left arm back, then brought it forward in an easy underhand motion. Lofted forward, the rock bounded down through the canyon. It caromed around like a bowling ball in a surreal alley, then popped up and hung seven meters above the floor about halfway down the canyon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four laser beams flashed out at the rock. The two large lasers struck it full-on and smashed it back against the far canyon wall. The two medium lasers passed below it, but had it been the Wolfhound, they would have slashed through the armor on its belly. The rock, performing as would the Wolfhound had it caught that fire, dropped to the canyon floor.\n\nThe Ostsol stepped from the break where it had hidden, then halted only two steps clear of cover. Phelan, realizing the pilot had switched over to visual and discovered his mistake, brought the large laser up and punched the firing button on the right joystick. The hurried shot hit the Ostol's back leg, vaporizing armor from mid-thigh down to the ankle.\n\nThe Ostsol's pilot pivoted his'Mech to the left, bringing all its weaponry to bear on the Wolfhound. One large laser and one medium laser combined to make the armor on the Wolfhound's right leg run like water. The air refroze much of it, and warning lights on Phelan's control console told him the knee and ankle had been fused. The other medium laser sliced armor from the right side of the Wolfhound's chest. The remaining large laser did the most damage as it cored through the armor on the Wolfhound's center chest. A wave of heat passed up through the cockpit, informing Phelan that part of the fusion engine's shielding had been damaged.\n\nPhelan concentrated, despite feeling broiled alive in his cockpit. He dropped both crosshairs onto the Ostsol's conical outline and triggered every weapon he had available. The large laser again blasted the Ostsol's right leg. The spear of coherent light sheared away the last of the armor and boiled off the myomer muscles controlling the leg's movement. The'Mech buckled instantly, and flailing impotently against the air, the Ostsol crashed to the ground. The trio of pulse lasers picked armor off other parts of the Rasalhagian 'Mech, but as the machine settied onto its chest, Phelan knew its fighting days were permanently over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Phelan keyed his radio." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dire Gamma, please relay to Black Widow Alpha that we have downed our bogey. Ask fora new assignment.\"\n\nSwitching the frequency control, he tightbeamed a message to the Ostsol across the frequencies he knew the Free Republic's troops used. \"Whoever you are, you have my sincere respect. If not fora moment of inspiration, our positions would be reversed. You are now my prisoner.\"\n\nThe youth of the MechWarrior's voice surprised Phelan. \"I maybe your prisoner, but I will never surrender to you.\"\n\n\"Don't do anything foolish. Don't overload your engine. It won't serve anyone or anything for you to be that sort of hero.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't worry. That would make it too easy on you.\" A fiery stubbornness entered the voice. \"If I'm dead, I can't lead my people to freedom, can I?\"\n\nBefore Phelan could think of a suitable reply, Dire Gamma's report buzzed into his ear. \"The Colonel sends her congratulations. Satalice has been pacified. We are to regroup at the Den and prep for an inspection.\"\n\nPhelan frowned. \"Inspection?\"\n\n\"Roger. She said the ilKhan will be reviewing us in two days, and he's bringing a very special visitor with him. The visitor is the one we're supposed to impress.\"\n\n\"This visitor have a name?\" Phelan wanted to know.\n\n\"Not one of us, so who cares?\"\n\n\"I care.\"\n\n\"No name, Star Commander, just a title.\" Dire Gamma hesitated, then sighed. \"Does \"the Primus of ComStar\" mean anything to you?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the tale as the plot helper for the writer.\nTags: spy fiction, thriller, action, mystery, James Bond\nAuthor: Ian Fleming\nTitle: Casino Royale\nChapter: 19" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go away now,\" she said. \"I must have time to think. We've got to do something. '\n\nShe took his handkerchief and dried her eyes.\n\nShe led him to the door and there they held tightly to each other. Then he kissed her again and she shut the door behind him.\n\nThat evening most of the gayness and intimacy of their first night came back. She was excited and some of her laughter sounded brittle, but Bond was determined to fall in with her new mood and it was only at the end of dinner that he made a passing remark which made her pause.\n\nShe put her handover his.\n\n\"Don't talk about it now, \"she said.\"Forget it now. It's all past. I'll tell you about it in the morning. '\n\nShe looked at him and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. She found a handkerchief in her bag and dabbed at them.\n\n\"Give me some more champagne,\" she said. She gave a queer little laugh. \"I want a lot more. You drink much more than me. It's not fair. '\n\nThey sat and drank together until the bottle was finished. Then she got to her feet. She knocked against her chair and giggled.\n\n\"I do believe I'm tight, \"she said,\"how disgraceful. Please, James, don't be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay.\"\n\nShe stood behind him and ran her fingers through his black hair.\n\n\"Come up quickly,\" she said. \"I want you badly tonight.\"\n\nShe blew a kiss at him and was gone.\n\nFor two hours they made slow, sweet love in a mood of happy passion which the day before Bond would never have thought they could regain. The barriers of self-consciousness and mistrust seemed to have vanished and the words they spoke to each other were innocent and true again and there was no shadow between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must go now,\" said Vesper when Bond had slept fora while in her arms. As if to take back her words she held him more closely to her, murmuring endearments and pressing her body down the whole length of his.\n\nWhen he finally rose and bent to smooth back her hair and finally kiss her eyes and her mouth goodnight, she reached out and turned on the light.\n\n\"Look at me,\" she said, \"and let me look at you.\"\n\nHe knelt beside her.\n\nShe examined every line on his face as if she was seeing him for the first time. Then she reached up and put an arm round his neck. Her deep blue eyes were swimming with tears as she drew his head slowly towards her and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she let him go and turned off the light.\n\n\"Good night, my dearest love,\" she said.\n\nBond bent and kissed her. He tasted the tears on her heck.\n\nHe went to the door and looked back.\n\n\"Sleep well, my darling,\" he said. \"Don't worry, everything's all right now.\"\n\nHe closed the door softly and walked to his room with a full heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The patron brought him the letter in the morning.\n\nHe burst into Bond's room holding the envelope in front of him as if it was on fire.\n\n\"There has been a terrible accident. Madame...\"\n\nBond hurled himself out of bed and through the bathroom, but the communicating door was locked. He dashed back and through his room and down the corridor pasta shrinking, terrified maid.\n\nVesper's door was open. The sunlight through the shutters lit up the room. Only her black hair showed above the sheet and her body under the bedclothes was straight and moulded like a stone effigy on a tomb.\n\nBond fell on his knees beside her and drew back the sheet.\n\nShe was asleep. She must be. Her eyes were closed. There was no change in the dear face. She was just as she would look and yet, and yet she was so still, no movement, no pulse, no breath. That was it. There was no breath.\n\nLater the patron came and touched him on the shoulder. He pointed at the empty glass on the table beside her. There were white dregs in the bottom of it. It stood beside her book and her cigarettes and matches and the small pathetic litter of her mirror and lipstick and handkerchief. And on the floor the empty bottle of sleeping-pills, the pills Bond had seen in the bathroom that first evening.\n\nBond rose to his feet and shook himself. The patron was holding out the letter towards him. He took it.\n\n\"Please notify the Commissaire,\" said Bond. \"I will be in my room when he wants me.\"\n\nHe walked blindly away without a backward glance.\n\nHe sat on the edge of his bed and gazed out of the window at the peaceful sea. Then he stared dully at the envelope. It was addressed simply in a large round hand \"Pour Lui\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought passed through Bond's mind that she must have left orders to be called early, so that it would not be he who found her.\n\nHe turned the envelope over. Not long ago it washer warm tongue which had sealed the flap.\n\nHe gave a sudden shrug and opened it.\n\nIt was not long. After the first few words he read it quickly, the breath coming harshly through his nostrils.\n\nThen he threw it down on the bed as if it had been a scorpion.\n\nMY DARLING JAMES[the letter opened],\n\nI love you with all my heart and while you read these words I hope you still love me because, now, with these words, this is the last moment that your love will last. So good-bye, my sweet love, while we still love each other. Good-bye, my darling.\n\nI am an agent of the MWD. Yes, I am a double agent for the Russians. I was taken on a year after the war and I have worked for them ever since. I was in love with a Pole in the RAF. Until you, I still was. You can find out who he was. He had two DSOs and after the war he was trained by M and dropped back into Poland. They caught him and by torturing him they found out a lot and also about me. They came after me and told me he could live if I would work for them. He knew nothing of this, but he was allowed to write tome. The letter arrived on the fifteenth of each month. I found I couldn't stop. I couldn't bear the idea of a fifteenth coming round without his letter. It would mean that I had killed him. I tried to give them as little possible. You must believe me about this. Then it came to you. I told them you had been given this job at Royale, what your cover was and soon. That was why they knew about you before you arrived and why they had time to put the microphones in. They suspected Le Chiffre, but they didn't know what your assignment was except that it was something to do with him. That was all I told them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I was told not to stand behind you in the Casino and to see that neither Mathis nor Leiter did. That was why the gunman was nearly able to shoot you. Then I had to stage that kidnapping. You may have wondered why I was so quiet in the night-club. They didn't hurt me because I was working for MWD.\n\nBut when I found out what had been done to you, even though it was Le Chiffre who did it and he turned out to be a traitor, I decided I couldn't goon. By that time I had begun to fall in love with you. They wanted me to find out things from you while you were recovering, but I refused. I was controlled from Paris. I had to ring up an Invalides number twice a day. They threatened me, and finally they withdrew my control and I knew my lover in Poland would have to die. But they were afraid I would talk, I suppose, and I got a final warning that SMERSH would come for me if I didn't obey them. I took no notice. I was in love with you. Then I saw the man with the black patch in the Splendide and I found he had been making inquiries about my movements. This was the day before we came down here. I hoped I could shake him off. I decided that we would have an affair and I would escape to South America from Le Havre. I hoped I would have a baby of yours and be able to start again somewhere. But they followed us. You can't getaway from them.\n\nI knew it would be the end of our love if I told you. I realized that I could either wait to be killed by SMERSH, would perhaps get you killed too, or I could kill myself.\n\nThere it is, my darling love. You can't stop me calling you that or saying that I love you. I am taking that with me and the memories of you. I can't tell you much to help you. The Paris number was Invalides 55200. I never met any of them in London. Everything was done through an accommodation address, a newsagent's at 450 Charing Cross Place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At our first dinner together you talked about that man in Yugoslavia who was found guilty of treason." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said: \"I was carried away by the gale of the world.\" That's my only excuse. That, and for love of the man whose life I tried to save.\n\nIt's late now and I'm tired, and you're just through two doors. But I've got to be brave. You might save my life, but I couldn't bear the look in your dear eyes.\n\nMy love, my love. V.\n\nBond threw the letter down. Mechanically he brushed his fingers together.\n\nSuddenly he banged his temples with his fists and stood up. Fora moment he looked out towards the quiet sea, then he cursed aloud, one harsh obscenity. His eyes were wet and he dried them.\n\nHe pulled on a shirt and trousers and with a set cold face he walked down and shut himself in the telephone booth.\n\nWhile he was getting through to London, he calmly reviewed the facts of Vesper's letter. They all fitted. The little shadows and question-marks of the past four weeks, which his instinct had noted but his mind rejected, all stood out now like signposts.\n\nHe saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. Later, perhaps they would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would rather forget. Now he could only think of her treachery to the Service and to her country and of the damage it had done. His professional mind was completely absorbed with the consequences-the covers which must have been blown over the years, the codes which the enemy must have broken, the secrets which must have leaked from the centre of the very section devoted to penetrating the Soviet Union.\n\nIt was ghastly. God knew how the mess would be cleared up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ground his teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly Mathis's words came back to him:\"There are plenty of really black targets around, \"and, earlier,\"What about SMERSH? I don't like the idea of these chaps running around France killing anyone they feel has been a traitor to their precious political system.\"\n\nHow soon Mathis had been proved right and how soon his own little sophistries had been exploded in his face!\n\nWhile he, Bond, had been playing Red Indians through the years (yes, Le Chiffre's description was perfectly accurate), the real enemy had been working quietly, coldly, without heroics, right thereat his elbow.\n\nHe suddenly had a vision of Vesper walking down a corridor with documents in her hand. On a tray. They just got it on a tray while the cool secret agent with a Double 0 number was gallivanting round the world-playing Red Indians. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands and his body sweated with shame.\n\nWell, it was not too late. Here was a target for him, right to hand. He would take on SMERSH and hunt it down. Without SMERSH, without this cold weapon of death and revenge, the MWD would be just another bunch of civil servant spies, no better and no worse than any of the western services.\n\nSMERSH was the spur. Be faithful, spy well, or you die. Inevitably and without any question, you will be hunted down and killed.\n\nIt was the same with the whole Russian machine. Fear was the impulse. For them it was always safer to advance than to retreat. Advance against the enemy and the bullet might miss you. Retreat, evade, betray, and the bullet would never miss.\n\nBut now he would attack the arm that held the whip and the gun. The business of espionage could be left to the white-collar boys. They could spy, and catch the spies. He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The telephone rang and Bond snatched up the receiver.\n\nHe was onto \"the Link\", the outside liaison officer who was the only man in London he might telephone from abroad. Then only in dire necessity.\n\n\"This is 007 speaking. This is an open line. It's an emergency. Can you hear me? Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double, working for Redland.\n\n\"Yes, dammit, I said'was\". The bitch is dead now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Head of S (the section of the Secret Service concerned with the Soviet Union) was so keen on his plan for the destruction of Le Chiffre, and it was basically his own plan, that he took the memorandum himself and went up to the top floor of the gloomy building overlooking Regent's Park and through the green baize door and along the corridor to the end room.\n\nHe walked belligerently up to M's Chief of Staff, a young sapper who had earned his spurs as one of the secretariat to the Chiefs of Staff committee after having been wounded during a sabotage operation in 1944, and had kept his sense of humour in spite of both experiences.\n\n\"Now look here, Bill. I want to sell something to the Chief. Is this a good moment?\"\n\n\"What do you think, Penny?\" The Chief of Staff turned to M's private secretary who shared the room with him.\n\nMiss Moneypenny would have been desirable but for eyes which were cool and direct and quizzical.\n\n\"Should be all right. He won a bit of a victory at the FO this morning and he's not got anyone for the next half an hour. ' She smiled encouragingly at Head of S whom she liked for himself and for the importance of his section.\n\n\"Well, here's the dope, Bill. \"He handed over the black folder with the red star which stood for Top Secret.\"And for God's sake look enthusiastic when you give it him. And tell him I'll wait here and read a good code-book while he's considering it. He may want some more details, and anyway I want to see you two don't pester him with anything else until he's finished.\"\n\n\"All right, sir.\" The Chief of Staff pressed a switch leant towards the intercom on his desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\" asked a quiet, flat voice.\n\n\"Head of S has an urgent docket for you, sir.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"Bring it in,\" said a voice.\n\nThe Chief of Staff released the switch and stood up.\n\n\"Thanks, Bill. I'll be next door, ' said Head of S.\n\nThe Chief of Staff crossed his office and went through the double doors leading into M's room. Ina moment he came out and over the entrance a small blue light burned the warning that M was not to be disturbed.\n\nLater, a triumphant Head of S said to his Number Two: \"We nearly cooked ourselves with that last paragraph. He said it was subversion and blackmail. He got pretty sharp about it. Anyway, he approves. Says the idea's crazy, but worth trying if the Treasury will play and he thinks they will. He's going to tell them it's a better gamble than the money we're putting into deserting Russian colonels who turn double after a few months\"\"asylum\" here. And he's longing to get at Le Chiffre, and anyway he's got the right man and wants to try him out on the job. '\n\n\"Who is it?\" asked Number Two.\n\n\"One of the Double O's-I guess 007. He's tough and M thinks there maybe trouble with those gunmen of Le Chiffre's. He must be pretty good with the cards or he wouldn't have satin the Casino in Monte Carlo for two months before the war watching that Roumanian teamwork their stuff with the invisible ink and the dark glasses. He and the Deuxieme bowled them out in the end and 007 turned in a million francs he had won at shemmy. Good money in those days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "James Bond's interview with M had been short.\n\n\"What about it, Bond?\" asked M when Bond came back into his room after reading Head of S's memorandum and after gazing for ten minutes out of the waiting-room window at the distant trees in the park.\n\nBond looked across the desk into the shrewd, clear eyes.\n\n\"It's very kind of you, sir, I'd like to do it. But I can't promise to win. The odds at baccarat are the best after trente-et-quarante-evens except for the tiny cagnotte-but I might get a bad run against me and get cleaned out. Play's going to he pretty high-opening'll go up to half a million, I should think. '\n\nBond was stopped by the cold eyes. M knew all this already, knew the odds at baccarat as well as Bond. That was his job-knowing the odds at everything, and knowing men, his own and the opposition's. Bond wished he had kept quiet about his misgivings.\n\n\"He can have a bad run too,\" said M. \"You'll have plenty of capital. Up to twenty-five million, the same as him. We'll start you on ten and send you another ten when you've had a look round. You can make the extra five yourself. \"He smiled.\"Go over a few days before the big game starts and get your hand in. Have a talk to Q about rooms and trains, and any equipment you want. The Paymaster will fix the funds. I'm going to ask the Deuxieme to standby. It's their territory and as it is we shall be lucky if they don't kick up rough. I'll try and persuade them to send Mathis. You seemed to get on well with him in Monte Carlo on that other Casino job. And I'm going to tell Washington because of the NATO angle. CIA have got one or two good men at Fontainebleau with the joint intelligence chaps there. Anything else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond shook his head. \"I'd certainly like to have Mathis, sir. '\n\n\"Well, we'll see. Try and bring it off. We're going to look pretty foolish if you don't. And watch out. This sounds an amusing job, but I don't think it's going to be. Le Chiffre is a good man. Well, best of luck. '\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said Bond and went to the door.\n\n\"Just a minute.\"\n\nBond turned.\n\n\"I think I'll keep you covered, Bond. Two heads are better than one and you'll need someone to run your communications. I'll think it over. They'll get in touch with you at Royale. You needn't worry. It'll be someone good.\"\n\nBond would have preferred to work alone, but one didn't argue with M. He left the room hoping that the man they sent would be loyal to him and neither stupid, nor, worse still, ambitious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As two weeks later, James Bond awoke in his room at the Hotel Splendide, some of this history passed through his mind.\n\nHe had arrived at Royale-les-Eaux in time for luncheon two days before. There had been no attempt to contact him and there had been no flicker of curiosity when he had signed the register \"James Bond, Port Maria, Jamaica\".\n\nMhad expressed no interest in his cover.\n\n\"Once you start to make a set at Le Chiffre at the tables, you'll have had it, \"he said.\"But wear a cover that will stick with the general public. '\n\nBond knew Jamaica well, so he asked to be controlled from there and to pass as a Jamaican plantocrat whose father had made his pile in tobacco and sugar and whose son chose to play it away on the stock markets and in casinos. If inquiries were made, he would quote Charles DaSilva of Chaffery's, Kingston, as his attorney. Charles would make the story stick.\n\nBond had spent the last two afternoons and most of the nights at the Casino, playing complicated progression systems on the even chances at roulette. He made a high banco at chemin-de-fer whenever he heard one offered. If he lost, he would suivi once and not chase it further if he lost the second time.\n\nIn this way he had made some three million francs and had given his nerves and card-sense a thorough work-out. He had got the geography of the Casino clear in his mind. Above all, he had been able to observe Le Chiffre at the tables and to note ruefully that he was a faultless and lucky gambler.\n\nBond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing-fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by a paper-chase of herring-gulls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was lost in his thoughts when the telephone rang. It was the concierge announcing that a Director of Radio Stentor was waiting below with the wireless set he had ordered from Paris.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Bond. \"Send him up.\"\n\nThis was the cover fixed by the Deuxieme Bureau for their liaison man with Bond. Bond watched the door, hoping that it would be Mathis.\n\nWhen Mathis came in, a respectable business-man carrying a large square parcel by its leather handle, Bond smiled broadly and would have greeted him with warmth if Mathis had not frowned and held up his freehand after carefully closing the door.\n\n\"I have just arrived from Paris, monsieur, and here is the set you asked to have on approval-five valves, superhet, I think you call it in England, and you should be able to get most of the capitals of Europe from Royale. There are no mountains for forty miles in any direction.\"\n\n\"It sounds all right,\" said Bond, lifting his eyebrows at this mystery-making. Mathis paid no attention. He placed the set, which he had unwrapped, on the floor beside the unlit panel electric fire below the mantelpiece.\n\n\"It is just past eleven,\" he said, \"and I see that the Compagnons de la Chanson should now be on the medium wave from Rome. They are touring Europe. Let us see what the reception is like. It should be a fair test.\"\n\nHe winked. Bond noticed that he had turned the volume onto full and that the red light indicating the long waveband was illuminated, though the set was still silent.\n\nMathis fiddled at the back of the set. Suddenly an appalling roar of static filled the small room. Mathis gazed at the set fora few seconds with benevolence and then turned it off and his voice was full of dismay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My dear monsieur-forgive me please-badly tuned,\" and he again bent to the dials. After a few adjustments the close harmony of the French came over the air and Mathis walked up and clapped Bond very hard on the back and wrang his hand until Bond's fingers ached.\n\nBond smiled back at him. \"Now, what the hell?\" he asked.\n\n\"My dear friend,\" Mathis was delighted, \"you are blown, blown, blown. Up there,\" he pointed at the ceiling, \"at this moment, either Monsieur Muntz or his alleged wife, allegedly bedridden with the grippe, is deafened, absolutely deafened, and I hope in agony.\" He grinned with pleasure at Bond's frown of disbelief.\n\nMathis sat down on the bed and ripped open a packet of Caporal with his thumbnail. Bond waited.\n\nMathis was satisfied with the sensation his words had caused. He became serious.\n\n\"How it has happened I don't know. They must have been onto you for several days before you arrived. The opposition is herein real strength. Above you is the Muntz family. He is German. She is from somewhere in Central Europe, perhaps a Czech. This is an old-fashioned hotel. There are disused chimneys behind these electric fires. Just here, \"he pointed a few inches above the panel fire,\"is suspended a very powerful radio pick-up. The wires run up the chimney to behind the Muntzes' electric fire where there is an amplifier. In their room is a wire-recorder and a pair of earphones on which the Muntzes listen in turn. That is why Madame Muntz has the grippe and takes all her meals in bed and why Monsieur Muntz has to be constantly at her side instead of enjoying the sunshine and the gambling of this delightful resort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some of this we knew because in France we are very clever. The rest we confirmed by unscrewing your electric fire a few hours before you got here.\"\n\nSuspiciously Bond walked over and examined the screws which secured the panel to the wall. Their grooves showed minute scratches.\n\n\"Now it is time fora little more play-acting,\" said Mathis. He walked over to the radio, which was still transmitting close harmony to its audience of three, and switched it off.\n\n\"Are you satisfied, monsieur?\" he asked. \"You notice how clearly they came over. Are they not a wonderful team?\" He made a winding motion with his right hand and raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"They are so good,\" said Bond, \"that I would like to hear the rest of the programme.\" He grinned at the thought of the angry glances which the Muntzes must be exchanging overhead. \"The machine itself seems splendid. Just what I was looking for to take back to Jamaica.\"\n\nMathis made a sarcastic grimace and switched back to the Rome programme.\n\n\"You and your Jamaica,\" he said, and sat down again on the bed.\n\nBond frowned at him. \"Well, it's no good crying over spilt milk, \"he said.\"We didn't expect the cover to stick for long, but it's worrying that they bowled it out so soon. ' He searched his mind in vain fora clue. Could the Russians have broken one of our ciphers? If so, he might just as well pack up and go home. He and his job would have been stripped naked.\n\nMathis seemed to read his mind. \"It can't have been a cipher, \"he said.\"Anyway, we told London at once and they will have changed them. A pretty flap we caused, I can tell you. \"He smiled with the satisfaction of a friendly rival.\"And now to business, before our good'Compagnons\" run out of breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First of all,\" and he inhaled a thick lungful of Caporal, \"you will be pleased with your Number Two. She is very beautiful\"-Bond frowned-\"very beautiful indeed.\" Satisfied with Bond's reaction, Mathis continued:\"She has black hair, blue eyes, and splendid... er... protuberances. Back and front, \"he added.\"And she is a wireless expert which, though sexually less interesting, makes her a perfect employee of Radio Stentor and assistant to myself in my capacity as wireless salesman for this rich summer season down here. \"He grinned.\"We are both staying in the hotel and my assistant will thus be on hand in case your new radio breaks down. All new machines, even French ones, are apt to have teething troubles in the first day or two. And occasionally at night, ' he added with an exaggerated wink.\n\nBond was not amused. \"What the hell do they want to send me a woman for?\" he said bitterly. \"Do they think this is a bloody picnic?\"\n\nMathis interrupted. \"Calm yourself, my dear James. She is as serious as you could wish and as cold as an icicle. She speaks French like a native and knows her job backwards. Her cover's perfect and I have arranged for her to team up with you quite smoothly. What is more natural than that you should pickup a pretty girl here? As a Jamaican millionaire, \"he coughed respectfully,\"what with your hot blood and all, you would look naked without one. '\n\nBond grunted dubiously.\n\n\"Any other surprises?\" he asked suspiciously.\n\n\"Nothing very much,\" answered Mathis. \"Le Chiffre is installed in his villa. It's about ten miles down the coast road. He has his two guards with him. They look pretty capable fellows. One of them has been seen visiting a little'pension\" in the town where three mysterious and rather subhuman characters checked in two days ago. They maybe part of the team. Their papers are in order-stateless Czechs apparently-but one of our men says the language they talk in their room is Bulgarian. We don't see many of those around. They're mostly used against the Turks and the Yugoslavs. They're stupid, but obedient. The Russians use them for simple killings or as fall-guys for more complicated ones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks very much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which is mine to be?\" asked Bond. \"Anything else?\"\n\n\"No. Come to the bar of the Hermitage before lunch. I'll fix the introduction. Ask her to dinner this evening. Then it will be natural for her to come into the Casino with you. I'll be there too, but in the background. I've got one or two good chaps and we'll keep an eye on you. Oh, and there's an American called Leiter here, staying in the hotel. Felix Leiter. He's the CIA chap from Fontainebleau. London told me to tell you. He looks okay. May come in useful.\"\n\nA torrent of Italian burst from the wireless set on the floor. Mathis switched it off and they exchanged some phrases about the set and about how Bond should pay for it. Then with effusive farewells and a final wink Mathis bowed himself out.\n\nBond sat at the window and gathered his thoughts. Nothing that Mathis had told him was reassuring. He was completely blown and under really professional surveillance. An attempt might be made to put him away before he had a chance to pit himself against Le Chiffre at the tables. The Russians had no stupid prejudices about murder. And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to lookout for them and take care of them.\n\n\"Bitch,\" said Bond and then remembering the Muntzes, he said \"bitch\" again more loudly and walked out of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was twelve o'clock when Bond left the Splendide and the clock on the mairie was stumbling through its midday carillon. There was a strong scent of pine and mimosa in the air and the freshly watered gardens of the Casino opposite, interspersed with neat gravel parterres and paths, lent the scene a pretty formalism more appropriate to ballet than to melodrama.\n\nThe sun shone and there was a gaiety and sparkle in the air which seemed to promise well for the new era of fashion and prosperity for which the little seaside town, after many vicissitudes, was making its gallant bid.\n\nRoyale-les-Eaux, which lies near the mouth of the Somme before the flat coast-line soars up from the beaches of southern Picardy to the Brittany cliffs which run onto Le Havre, had experienced much the same fortunes as Trouville.\n\nRoyale (without the \"Eaux\") also started as a small fishing village and its rise to fame as a fashionable watering-place during the Second Empire was as meteoric as that of Trouville. But as Deauville killed Trouville, so, after along period of decline, did Le Touquet kill Royale.\n\nAt the turn of the century, when things were going badly for the little seaside town and when the fashion was to combine pleasure with a \"cure\", a natural spring in the hills behind Royale was discovered to contain enough diluted sulphur to have a beneficent effect on the liver. Since all French people suffer from liver complaints, Royale quickly became \"Royale-les-Eaux\", and \"Eau Royale\", in a torpedo-shaped bottle, grafted itself demurely onto the tail of the mineral-water lists in hotels and restaurant cars.\n\nIt did not long withstand the powerful combines of Vichy and Perrier and Vittel. There came a series of lawsuits, a number of people lost a lot of money and very soon its sale was again entirely local. Royale fell back on the takings from the French and English families during the summer, on its fishing-fleet in winter and on the crumbs which fell to its elegantly dilapidated Casino from the table at Le Touquet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was something splendid about the Negresco baroque of the Casino Royale, a strong whiff of Victorian elegance and luxury, and in 1950 Royale caught the fancy of a syndicate in Paris which disposed of large funds belonging to a group of expatriate Vichyites.\n\nBrighton had been revived since the war, and Nice. Nostalgia for more spacious, golden times might be a source of revenue.\n\nThe Casino was repainted in its original white and gilt and the rooms decorated in the palest grey with wine-red carpets and curtains. Vast Chandeliers were suspended from the ceilings. The gardens were spruced and the fountains played again and the two main hotels, the Splendide and the Hermitage, were prinked and furbished and restaffed.\n\nEven the small town and the vieux-port managed to fix welcoming smiles across their ravaged faces, and the main street became gay with the vitrines of great Paris jewellers and couturiers, tempted down fora butterfly season by rent-free sites and lavish promises.\n\nThen the Mahomet Ali Syndicate was cajoled into starting a high game in the Casino and the Societe des Bains de Mer de Royale felt that now at last Le Touquet would have to yield up some of the treasure stolen over the years from its parent plage.\n\nAgainst the background of this luminous and sparkling stage Bond stood in the sunshine and felt his mission to be incongruous and remote and his dark profession an affront to his fellow actors.\n\nHe shrugged away the momentary feeling of unease and walked round the back of his hotel and down the ramp to the garage. Before his rendezvous at the Hermitage he decided to take his car down the coast road and have a quick look at Le Chiffre's villa and then drive back by the inland road until it crossed the route nationale to Paris." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond's car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4 1/2-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war. It was still serviced every year and, in London, a former Bentley mechanic, who worked in a garage near Bond's Chelsea flat, tended it with jealous care. Bond drove it hard and well and with an almost sensual pleasure. It was a battleship-gray convertible coupe, which really did convert, and it was capable of touring at ninety with thirty miles an hour in reserve.\n\nBond eased the car out of the garage and up the ramp and soon the loitering drum-beat of the two-inch exhaust was echoing down the tree-lined boulevard, through the crowded main street of the little town, and off through the sand dunes to the south.\n\nAn hour later, Bond walked into the Hermitage bar and chose a table near one of the broad windows.\n\nThe room was sumptuous with those over-masculine trappings which, together with briar pipes and wire-haired terriers, spell luxury in France. Everything was brass-studded leather and polished mahogany. The curtains and carpets were in royal blue. The waiters wore striped waistcoats and green baize aprons.\n\nBond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of l'heure de l'aperitif\n\nThe men were drinking inexhaustible quarter-bottles of champagne, the women dry martinis.\n\n\"Moi, j'adore le'Dry\", \"a bright-faced girl at the next table said to her companion, too neat in his unseasonable tweeds, who gazed at her with moist brown eyes over the top of an expensive shooting-stick from Hermes,\"fait avec du Gordon's, bien entendu.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"D'accord, Daisy. Mais tu sais, un zeste de citron... '\n\nBond's eye was caught by the tall figure of Mathis on the pavement outside, his face turned in animation to a darkhaired girl in grey. His arm was linked in hers, high up above the elbow, and yet there was alack of intimacy in their appearance, an ironical chill in the girl's profile, which made them seem two separate people rather than a couple. Bond waited for them to come through the street door into the bar, but for appearances' sake continued to stare out of the window at the passers-by.\n\n\"But surely it is Monsieur Bond?\" Mathis's voice behind him was full of surprised delight. Bond, appropriately flustered, rose to his feet.\"Can it be that you are alone? Are you awaiting someone? May I present my colleague, Mademoiselle Lynd? My dear, this is the gentleman from Jamaica with whom I had the pleasure of doing business this morning. '\n\nBond inclined himself with a reserved friendliness. \"It would be a great pleasure,\" he addressed himself to the girl. \"I am alone. Would you both care to join me?\" He pulled out a chair and while they sat down he beckoned to a waiter and despite Mathis's expostulations insisted on ordering the drinks-a fine... l'eau for Mathis and a bacardi for the girl.\n\nMathis and Bond exchanged cheerful talk about the fine weather and the prospects of a revival in the fortunes of Royale-les-Eaux. The girl sat silent. She accepted one of Bond's cigarettes, examined it and then smoked it appreciatively and without affectation, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs with a little sigh and then exhaling it casually through her lips and nostrils. Her movements were economical and precise with no trace of self-consciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond felt her presence strongly. While he and Mathis talked, he turned from time to time towards her, politely including her in the conversation, but adding up the impressions recorded by each glance.\n\nHer hair was very black and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw.\n\nAlthough it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly sun-tanned and bore no trace of makeup except on her mouth which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and movements was carried even to her fingernails which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links and on the fourth finger of the right hand abroad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey soie sauvage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, handstitched black belt. A handstitched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cart-wheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.\n\nBond was excited by her beauty and intrigued by her composure. The prospect of working with her stimulated him. At the same time he felt a vague disquiet. On an impulse he touched wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mathis had noticed Bond's preoccupation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a time he rose.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he said to the girl, \"while I telephone to the Dubernes. I must arrange my rendezvous for dinner tonight. Are you sure you won't mind being left to your own devices this evening? '\n\nShe shook her head.\n\nBond took the cue and, as Mathis crossed the room to the telephone booth beside the bar, he said: \"If you are going to be alone tonight, would you care to have dinner with me?\"\n\nShe smiled with the first hint of conspiracy she had shown. \"I would like to very much,\" she said, \"and then perhaps you would chaperon me to the Casino where Monsieur Mathis tells me you are very much at home. Perhaps I will bring you luck.\"\n\nWith Mathis gone, her attitude towards him showed a sudden warmth. She seemed to acknowledge that they were a team and, as they discussed the time and place of their meeting, Bond realized that it would be quite easy after all to plan the details of his project with her. He felt that after all she was interested and excited by her role and that she would work willingly with him. He had imagined many hurdles before establishing a rapport, but now he felt he could get straight down to professional details. He was quite honest to himself about the hypocrisy of his attitude towards her. As a woman, he wanted to sleep with her but only when the job had been done.\n\nWhen Mathis came back to the table Bond called for his bill. He explained that he was expected back at his hotel to have lunch with friends. When fora moment he held her hand in his he felt a warmth of affection and understanding pass between them that would have seemed impossible half an hour earlier.\n\nThe girl's eyes followed him out onto the boulevard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mathis moved his chair close to hers and said softly: \"That is a very good friend of mine. I am glad you have met each other. I can already feel the ice-floes on the two rivers breaking up.\" He smiled, \"I don't think Bond has ever been melted. It will be anew experience for him. And for you. '\n\nShe did not answer him directly.\n\n\"He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless in his...\"\n\nThe sentence was never finished. Suddenly a few feet away the entire plate-glass window shivered into confetti. The blast of a terrific explosion, very near, hit them so that they were rocked back in their chairs. There was an instant of silence. Some objects pattered down onto the pavement outside. Bottles slowly toppled off the shelves behind the bar. Then there were screams and a stampede for the door.\n\n\"Stay there,\" said Mathis.\n\nHe kicked back his chair and hurtled through the empty window-frame onto the pavement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Bond left the bar he walked purposefully along the pavement flanking the tree-lined boulevard towards his hotel a few hundred yards away. He was hungry.\n\nThe day was still beautiful, but by now the sun was very hot and the plane-trees, spaced about twenty feet apart on the grass verge between the pavement and the broad tarmac, gave a cool shade.\n\nThere were few people abroad and the two men standing quietly under a tree on the opposite side of the boulevard looked out of place.\n\nBond noticed them when he was still a hundred yards away and when the same distance separated them from the ornamental porte cochere of the Splendide. There was something rather disquieting about their appearance. They were both small and they were dressed alike in dark and, Bond reflected, rather hot-looking suits. They had the appearance of a variety turn waiting fora bus on the way to the theatre. Each wore a straw hat with a thick black ribbon as a concession, perhaps, to the holiday atmosphere of the resort, and the brims of these and the shadow from the tree under which they stood obscured their faces. Incongruously, each dark, squat little figure was illuminated by a touch of bright colour. They were both carrying; square camera-cases slung from the shoulder.\n\nAnd one case was bright red and the other case bright blue.\n\nBy the time Bond had taken in these details, he had come to within fifty yards of the two men. He was reflecting on the ranges of various types of weapon and the possibilities of cover when an extraordinary and terrible scene was enacted.\n\nRed-man seemed to give a short nod to Blue-man. With a quick movement Blue-man unslung his blue camera-case. Blue-man, and Bond could not see exactly as the trunk of a plane-tree beside him just then intervened to obscure his vision, bent forward and seemed to fiddle with the case. Then with a blinding flash of white light there was the ear-splitting crack of a monstrous explosion and Bond, despite the protection of the tree-trunk, was slammed down to the pavement by a bolt of hot air which dented his cheeks and stomach as if they had been made of paper. He lay, gazing up at the sun, while the air (or so it seemed to him) went on twanging with the explosion as if someone had hit the bass register of a piano with a sledgehammer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When, dazed and half-conscious, he raised himself on one knee, a ghastly rain of pieces of flesh and shreds of blood-soaked clothing fell on him and around him, mingled with branches and gravel. Then a shower of small twigs and leaves. From all sides came the sharp tinkle of falling glass. Above in the sky hung a mushroom of black smoke which rose and dissolved as he drunkenly watched it. There was an obscene smell of high explosive, of burning wood, and of, yes, that was it-roast mutton. For fifty yards down the boulevard the trees were leafless and charred. Opposite, two of them had snapped off near the base and lay drunkenly across the road. Between them there was a still smoking crater. Of the two men in straw hats, there remained absolutely nothing. But there were red traces on the road, and on the pavements and against the trunks of the trees, and there were glittering shreds high up in the branches.\n\nBond felt himself starting to vomit.\n\nIt was Mathis who got to him first, and by that time Bond was standing with his arm round the tree which had saved his life.\n\nStupefied, but unharmed, he allowed Mathis to lead him off towards the Splendide from which guests and servants were pouring in chattering fright. As the distant clang of bells heralded the arrival of ambulances and fire-engines, they managed to push through the throng and up the short stairs and along the corridor to Bond's room.\n\nMathis paused only to turn on the radio in front of the fireplace, then, while Bond stripped off his blood-flecked clothes, Mathis sprayed him with questions.\n\nWhen it came to the description of the two men, Mathis tore the telephone off its hook beside Bond's bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and tell the police,\" he concluded, \"tell them that the Englishman from Jamaica who was knocked over by the blast is my affair. He is unhurt and they are not to worry him. I will explain to them in half an hour. They should tell the Press that it was apparently a vendetta between two Bulgarian Communists and that one killed the other with a bomb. They need say nothing of the third Bulgar who must have been hanging about somewhere, lout they must get him at all costs. He will certainly head for Paris. Road-blocks everywhere. Understand? Alors, bonne chance.\"\n\nMathis turned back to Bond and heard him to the end.\n\n\"Merde, but you were lucky,\" he said when Bond had finished. \"Clearly the bomb was intended for you. It must have been faulty. They intended to throw it and then dodge behind their tree. But it all came out the other way round. Never mind. We will discover the facts.\" He paused. \"But certainly it is a curious affair. And these people appear to betaking you seriously.\" Mathis looked affronted. \"But how did these sacre Bulgars intend to escape capture? And what was the significance of the red and the blue cases? We must try and find some fragments of the redone.\"\n\nMathis bit his nails. He was excited and his eyes glittered. This was becoming a formidable and dramatic affair, in many aspects of which he was now involved personally. Certainly it was no longer just a case of holding Bond's coat while he had his private battle with Le Chiffre in the Casino. Mathis jumped up.\n\n\"Now get a drink and some lunch and a rest,\" he ordered Bond. \"For me, I must get my nose quickly into this affair before the police have muddied the trail with their big black boots.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mathis turned off the radio and waved an affectionate farewell. The door slammed and silence settled on the room. Bond sat fora while by the window and enjoyed being alive.\n\nLater, as Bond was finishing his first straight whisky \"on the rocks\" and was contemplating the pat de foie gras and cold langouste which the waiter had just laid out for him, the telephone rang.\n\n\"This is Mademoiselle Lynd.\"\n\nThe voice was low and anxious.\n\n\"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"Yes, quite.\"\n\n\"I'm glad. Please take care of yourself. '\n\nShe rang off.\n\nBond shook himself, then he picked up his knife and selected the thickest of the pieces of hot toast.\n\nHe suddenly thought: two of them are dead, and I have got one more on my side. It's a start.\n\nHe dipped the knife into the glass of very hot water which stood beside the pot of Strasbourg porcelain and reminded himself to tip the waiter doubly for this particular meal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond was determined to be completely fit and relaxed fora gambling session which might last most of the night. He ordered a masseur for three o'clock. After the remains of his luncheon had been removed, he sat at his window gazing out to sea until there came a knock on the door as the masseur, a Swede, presented himself.\n\nSilently he got to work on Bond from his feet to his neck, melting the tensions in his body and calming his still twanging nerves. Even the long purpling bruises down Bond's left shoulder and side ceased to throb, and when the Swede had gone Bond fell into a dreamless sleep.\n\nHe awoke in the evening completely refreshed.\n\nAfter a cold shower, Bond walked over to the Casino. Since the night before he had lost the mood of the tables. He needed tore-establish that focus which is half mathematical and half intuitive and which, with a slow pulse and a sanguine temperament, Bond knew to be the essential equipment of any gambler who was set on winning.\n\nBond had always been a gambler. He loved the dry riffle of the cards and the constant unemphatic drama of the quiet figures round the green tables. He liked the solid, studied comfort of card-rooms and casinos, the well-padded arms of the chairs, the glass of champagne or whisky at the elbow, the quiet unhurried attention of good servants. He was amused by the impartiality of the roulette ball and of the playing-cards-and their eternal bias. He liked being an actor and a spectator and from his chair to take part in other men's dramas and decisions, until it came to his own turn to say that vital'yes'or'no', generally on a fifty-fifty chance.\n\nAbove all, he liked it that everything was one's own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to beloved and not feared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One day, and he accepted the fact he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck. When that happened he knew that he too would be branded with the deadly question-mark he recognized so often in others, the promise to pay before you have lost: the acceptance of fallibility.\n\nBut on this June evening when Bond walked through the \"kitchen\" into the salle prive, it was with a sensation of confidence and cheerful anticipation that he changed a million francs into plaques of fifty mille and took a seat next to the chef de partie at Roulette Table Number 1.\n\nBond borrowed the chef's card and studied the run of the ball since the session had started at three o'clock that afternoon. He always did this although he knew that each turn of the wheel, each fall of the ball into a numbered slot has absolutely no connexion with its predecessor. He accepted that the game begins afresh each time the croupier picks up the ivory ball with his right hand, gives one of the four spokes of the wheel a controlled twist clockwise with the same hand, and with a third motion, also with the right hand, flicks the ball round the outer rim of the wheel anti-clockwise, against the spin.\n\nIt was obvious that all this ritual and all the mechanical minutiae of the wheel, of the numbered slots and the cylinder, had been devised and perfected over the years so that neither the skill of the croupier nor any bias in the wheel could affect the fall of the ball. And yet it is a convention among roulette players, and Bond rigidly adhered to it, to take careful note of the past history of each session and to be guided by any peculiarities in the run of the wheel. To note, for instance, and consider significant, sequences of more than two on a single number or of more than four at the other chances down to evens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond didn't defend the practice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.\n\nOn the record of that particular table, after about three hours' play, Bond could see little of interest except that the last dozen had been out of favour. It was his practice to play always with the wheel, and only to turn against its previous pattern and start on anew tack after a zero had turned up. So he decided to play one of his favourite gambits and back two-in this case the first two-dozens, each with the maximum-one hundred thousand francs. He thus had two-thirds of the board covered (less the zero) and, since the dozens pay odds of two to one, he stood to win a hundred thousand francs every time any number lower than twenty-five turned up.\n\nAfter seven coups he had won six times. He lost on the seventh when thirty came up. His net profit was four hundred thousand francs. He kept off the table for the eighth throw. Zero turned up. This piece of luck cheered him further and, accepting the thirty as a finger-post to the last dozen, he decided to back the first and last dozens until he had lost twice. Ten throws later the middle dozen came up twice, costing him four hundred thousand francs but he rose from the table one million francs to the good.\n\nDirectly Bond had started playing in maximums, his game had become the centre of interest at the table. Ashe seemed to be in luck, one or two pilot fish started to swim with the shark. Sitting directly opposite, one of these, whom Bond took to bean American, had shown more than the usual friendliness and pleasure at his share of the winning streak. He had smiled once or twice across the table, and there was something pointed in the way he duplicated Bond's movements, placing his two modest plaques often mille exactly opposite Bond's larger ones. When Bond rose, he too pushed back his chair and called cheerfully across the table:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks for the ride. Guess I owe you a drink. Will you join me?\"\n\nBond had a feeling that this might be the CIA man. He knew he was right as they strolled off together towards the bar, after Bond had thrown a plaque often mille to the croupier and had given amine to the huissier who drew back his chair.\n\n\"My name's Felix Leiter, \"said the American.\"Glad to meet you. '\n\n\"Mine's Bond-James Bond. '\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said his companion, \"and now let's see. What shall we have to celebrate? '\n\nBond insisted on ordering Leiter's Haig-and-Haig'on the rocks' and then he looked carefully at the barman.\n\n\"A dry martini,\" he said. \"One. Ina deep champagne goblet.\"\n\n\"Oui, monsieur.\"\n\n\"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?\"\n\n\"Certainly, monsieur.\" The barman seemed pleased with the idea.\n\n\"Gosh, that's certainly a drink, ' said Leiter.\n\nBond laughed. \"When I'm... er... concentrating, \"he explained,\"I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I can think of a good name. '\n\nHe watched carefully as the deep glass became frosted with the pale golden drink, slightly aerated by the bruising of the shaker. He reached for it and took along sip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Excellent,\" he said to the barman, \"but if you can get a vodka made with grain instead of potatoes, you will find it still better.\"\n\n\"Mais n'enculons pas des mouches, ' he added in an aside to the barman. The barman grinned.\n\n\"That's a vulgar way of saying\" we won't split hairs\", ' explained Bond.\n\nBut Leiter was still interested in Bond's drink.\"You certainly think things out, ' he said with amusement as they carried their glasses to a corner of the room. He lowered his voice.\n\n\"You'd better call it the \"Molotov Cocktail\" after the one you tasted this afternoon. '\n\nThey sat down. Bond laughed.\n\n\"I see that the spot marked'X\" has been roped off and they're making cars take a detour over the pavement. I hope it hasn't frightened away any of the big money.\"\n\n\"People are accepting the Communist story or else they think it was a burst gas-main. All the burnt trees are coming down tonight and if they work things here like they do at Monte Carlo, there won't be a trace of the mess left in the morning. '\n\nLeiter shook a Chesterfield out of his pack. \"I'm glad to be working with you on this job, \"he said, looking into his drink,\"so I'm particularly glad you didn't get blown to glory. Our people are definitely interested. They think it's just as important as your friends do and they don't think there's anything crazy about it at all. In fact, Washington's pretty sick we're not running the show, but you know what the big brass is like. I expect your fellows are much the same in London.\"\n\nBond nodded. \"Apt to be a bit jealous of their scoops,\" he admitted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyway, I'm under your orders and I'm to give you any help you ask for." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With Mathis and his boys here, there may not be much that isn't taken care of already. But, anyway, here I am. '\n\n\"I'm delighted you are, \"said Bond.\"The opposition has got me, and probably you and Mathis too, all weighed up and it seems no holds are going to be barred. I'm glad Le Chiffre seems as desperate as we thought he was. I'm afraid I haven't got anything very specific for you to do, but I'd be grateful if you'd stick around the Casino this evening. I've got an assistant, a Miss Lynd, and I'd like to hand her over to you when I start playing. You won't be ashamed of her. She's a good looking girl.\" He smiled at Leiter. \"And you might mark his two gunmen. I can't imagine he'll try a roughhouse, but you never know.\"\n\n\"I maybe able to help,\" said Leiter. \"I was a regular in our Marine Corps before I joined this racket, if that means anything to you.\" He looked at Bond with a hint of self-deprecation.\n\n\"It does,\" said Bond.\n\nIt turned out that Leiter was from Texas. While he talked on about his job with the Joint Intelligence Staff of NATO and the difficulty of maintaining security in an organization where so many nationalities were represented, Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.\n\nFelix Leiter was about thirty-five. He was tall with a thin bony frame and his lightweight, tan-coloured suit hung loosely from his shoulders like the clothes of Frank Sinatra. His movements and speech were slow, but one had the feeling that there was plenty of speed and strength in him and that he would be a tough and cruel fighter. Ashe sat hunched over the table, he seemed to have some of the jack-knife quality of a falcon. There was this impression also in his face, in the sharpness of his chin and cheekbones and the wide wry mouth. His grey eyes had a feline slant which was increased by his habit of screwing them up against the smoke of the Chesterfields which he tapped out of the pack in a chain. The permanent wrinkles which this habit had etched at the corners gave the impression that he smiled more with his eyes than with his mouth. A mop of straw-coloured hair lent his face a boyish look which closer examination contradicted. Although he seemed to talk quite openly about his duties in Paris, Bond soon noticed that he never spoke of his American colleagues in Europe or in Washington and he guessed that Leiter held the interests of his own organization far above the mutual concerns of the North Atlantic Allies. Bond sympathized with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time Leiter had swallowed another whisky and Bond had told him about the Muntzes and his short reconnaissance trip down the coast that morning, it was seven-thirty, and they decided to stroll over to their hotel together.\n\nBefore leaving the Casino, Bond deposited his total capital of twenty-four million at the caisse, keeping only a few notes often mille as pocket money. As they walked across to the Splendide, they saw that a team of workmen was already busy at the scene of the explosion. Several trees were uprooted and hoses from three municipal tank cars were washing down the boulevard and pavements. The bomb-crater had disappeared and only a few passers-by had paused to gape. Bond assumed that similar face-lifting had already been carried out at the Hermitage and to the shops and frontages which had lost their windows.\n\nIn the warm blue dusk Royale-les-Eaux was once again orderly and peaceful. \"Who's the concierge working for? ' asked Leiter as they approached the hotel. Bond was not sure, and said so.\n\nMathis had been unable to enlighten him. \"Unless you have bought him yourself,\" he had said, \"you must assume that he has been bought by the other side. All concierges are venal. It is not their fault. They are trained to regard all hotel guests except maharajahs as potential cheats and thieves. They have as much concern for your comfort or well-being as crocodiles.\"\n\nBond remembered Mathis's pronouncement when the concierge hurried up to inquire whether he had recovered from his most unfortunate experience of the afternoon. Bond thought it well to say that he still felt a little shaky. He hoped that if the intelligence were relayed, Le Chiffre would at any rate start playing that evening with a basic misinterpretation of his adversary's strength. The concierge proffered glycerine hopes for Bond's recovery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leiter's room was on one of the upper floors and they parted company at the lift after arranging to see each other at the Casino at around half past tenor eleven, the usual hour for the high tables to begin play." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond walked up to his room, which again showed no sign of trespass, threw off his clothes, took along hot bath followed by an ice-cold shower and lay down on his bed. There remained an hour in which to rest and compose his thoughts before he met the girl in the Splendide bar, an hour to examine minutely the details of his plans for the game, and for after the game, in all the various circumstances of victory or defeat. He had to plan the attendant roles of Mathis, Leiter, and the girl and visualize the reactions of the enemy in various contingencies. He closed his eyes and his thoughts pursued his imagination through a series of carefully constructed scenes as if he was watching the tumbling chips of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope.\n\nAt twenty minutes to nine he had exhausted all the permutations which might result from his duel with Le Chiffre. He rose and dressed, dismissing the future completely from his mind.\n\nAshe tied his thin, double-ended, black satin tie, he paused fora moment and examined himself levelly in the mirror. His grey-blue eyes looked calmly back with a hint of ironical inquiry and the short lock of black hair which would never stay in place slowly subsided to form a thick comma above his right eyebrow. With the thin vertical scar down his right cheek the general effect was faintly piratical. Not much of Hoagy Carmichael there, thought Bond, as he filled a flat, light gunmetal box with fifty of the Morland cigarettes with the triple gold band. Mathis had told him of the girl's comment.\n\nHe slipped the case into his hip pocket and snapped his oxidized Ronson to see if it needed fuel. After pocketing the thin sheaf often-mille notes, he opened a drawer and took out alight chamois leather holster and slipped it over his left shoulder so that it hung about three inches below his arm-pit. He then took from under his shirts in another drawer a very flat. 25 Beretta automatic with a skeleton grip, extracted the clip and the single round in the barrel and whipped the action to and fro several times, finally pulling the trigger on the empty chamber. He charged the weapon again, loaded it, put up the safety catch and dropped it into the shallow pouch of the shoulder-holster. He looked carefully round the room to see if anything had been forgotten and slipped his single-breasted dinner-jacket coat over his heavy silk evening shirt. He felt cool and comfortable. He verified in the mirror that there was absolutely no sign of the flat gun under his left arm, gave a final pull at his narrow tie and walked out of the door and locked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he turned at the foot of the short stairs towards the bar he heard the lift-door open behind him and a cool voice call \"Good evening\".\n\nIt was the girl. She stood and waited for him to come up to her.\n\nHe had remembered her beauty exactly. He was not surprised to be thrilled by it again.\n\nHer dress was of black velvet, simple and yet with the touch of splendour that only half a dozen couturiers in the world can achieve. There was a thin necklace of diamonds at her throat and a diamond clip in the low vee which just exposed the jutting swell of her breasts. She carried a plain black evening bag, a flat object which she now held, her arm akimbo, at her waist. Her jet black hair hung straight and simple to the final inward curl below the chin.\n\nShe looked quite superb and Bond's heart lifted.\n\n\"You look absolutely lovely. Business must be good in the radio world!\"\n\nShe put her arm through his. \"Do you mind if we go straight into dinner?\" she asked. \"I want to make a grand entrance and the truth is there's a horrible secret about black velvet. It marks when you sit down. And, by the way, if you hear me scream tonight, I shall have sat on a cane chair. '\n\nBond laughed. \"Of course, let's go straight in. We'll have a glass of vodka while we order our dinner.\"\n\nShe gave him an amused glance and he corrected himself: \"Or a cocktail, of course, if you prefer it. The food here's the best in Royale. '\n\nFor an instant he felt nettled at the irony, the light shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's assistant, please continue the story.\nTags: spy fiction, thriller, action, mystery, James Bond\nAuthor: Ian Fleming\nTitle: Casino Royale\nChapter: 25" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he turned at the foot of the short stairs towards the bar he heard the lift-door open behind him and a cool voice call \"Good evening\".\n\nIt was the girl. She stood and waited for him to come up to her.\n\nHe had remembered her beauty exactly. He was not surprised to be thrilled by it again.\n\nHer dress was of black velvet, simple and yet with the touch of splendour that only half a dozen couturiers in the world can achieve. There was a thin necklace of diamonds at her throat and a diamond clip in the low vee which just exposed the jutting swell of her breasts. She carried a plain black evening bag, a flat object which she now held, her arm akimbo, at her waist. Her jet black hair hung straight and simple to the final inward curl below the chin.\n\nShe looked quite superb and Bond's heart lifted.\n\n\"You look absolutely lovely. Business must be good in the radio world!\"\n\nShe put her arm through his. \"Do you mind if we go straight into dinner?\" she asked. \"I want to make a grand entrance and the truth is there's a horrible secret about black velvet. It marks when you sit down. And, by the way, if you hear me scream tonight, I shall have sat on a cane chair. '\n\nBond laughed. \"Of course, let's go straight in. We'll have a glass of vodka while we order our dinner.\"\n\nShe gave him an amused glance and he corrected himself: \"Or a cocktail, of course, if you prefer it. The food here's the best in Royale. '\n\nFor an instant he felt nettled at the irony, the light shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was only an infinitesimal clink of foils and as the bowing maetre d'hotel led them through the crowded room, it was forgotten as Bond in her wake watched the heads of the diners turn to look at her.\n\nThe fashionable part of the restaurant was beside the wide crescent of window built out like the broad stern of a ship over the hotel gardens, but Bond had chosen a table in one of the mirrored alcoves at the back of the great room. These had survived from the Edwardian days and they were secluded and gay in white and gilt, with the red silk-shaded table and wall lights of the late Empire.\n\nAs they deciphered the maze of purple ink which covered the double folio menu, Bond beckoned to the sommelier. He turned to his companion.\n\n\"Have you decided?\"\n\n\"I would love a glass of vodka,\" she said simply, and went back to her study of the menu.\n\n\"A small carafe of vodka, very cold,\" ordered Bond. He said to her abruptly:\n\n\"I can't drink the health of your new frock without knowing your Christian name. '\n\n\"Vesper,\" she said. \"Vesper Lynd.\"\n\nBond gave her a look of inquiry.\n\n\"It's rather a bore always having to explain, but I was born in the evening, on a very stormy evening according to my parents. Apparently they wanted to remember it. \"She smiled.\"Some people like it, others don't. I'm just used to it. '\n\n\"I think it's a fine name, \"said Bond. An idea struck him.\"Can I borrow it? '\n\nHe explained about the special martini he had invented and his search fora name for it. \"The Vesper,\" he said. \"It sounds perfect and it's very appropriate to the violet hour when my cocktail will now be drunk allover the world. Can I have it? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So long as I can try one first,\" she promised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It sounds a drink to be proud of.\"\n\n\"We'll have one together when all this is finished, \"said Bond.\"Win or lose. And now have you decided what you would like to have for dinner? Please be expensive, \"he added as he sensed her hesitation,\"or you'll letdown that beautiful frock.\"\n\n\"I'd made two choices, \"she laughed,\"and either would have been delicious, but behaving like a millionaire occasionally is a wonderful treat and if you're sure... well, I'd like to start with caviar and then have a plain grilled rognon de veau with pommes souffles. And then I'd like to have fraises des bois with a lot of cream. Is it very shameless to be so certain and so expensive?\" She smiled at him inquiringly.\n\n\"It's a virtue, and anyway it's only a good plain wholesome meal.\" He turned to the maitre d'hotel,\"and bring plenty of toast. '\n\n\"The trouble always is,\" he explained to Vesper, \"not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it.\"\n\n\"Now,\" he turned back to the menu, \"I myself will accompany Mademoiselle with the caviar, but then I would like a very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Bearnaise and a coeur d'artichaut. While Mademoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve? '\n\nThe maitre d'hotel bowed.\n\n\"My compliments, mademoiselle and monsieur. Monsieur George,\" he turned to the sommelier and repeated the two dinners for his benefit.\n\n\"Parfait,\" said the sommelier, proffering the leather-bound wine list." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you agree,\" said Bond, \"I would prefer to drink champagne with you tonight. It is a cheerful wine and it suits the occasion-I hope\" he added.\n\n\"Yes I would like champagne,\" she said.\n\nWith his finger on the page, Bond turned to the sommelier: \"The Taittinger 45?\"\n\n\"A fine wine, monsieur,\" said the sommelier. \"But if Monsieur will permit,\" he pointed with his pencil, \"the Blanc de Blanc Brut 1943 of The same marque is without equal.\"\n\nBond smiled. \"So be it,\" he said.\n\n\"That is not a well-known brand,\" Bond explained to his companion, \"but it is probably the finest champagne in the world.\" He grinned suddenly at the touch of pretension in his remark.\n\n\"You must forgive me,\" he said. \"I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It's very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I'm working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.\"\n\nVesper smiled at him.\n\n\"I like it,\" she said. \"I like doing everything fully, getting the most out of everything one does. I think that's the way to live. But it sounds rather schoolgirlish when one says it, ' she added apologetically.\n\nThe little carafe of vodka had arrived in its bowl of crushed ice and Bond filled their glasses.\n\n\"Well, I agree with you anyway,\" he said, \"and now, here's luck for tonight, Vesper. '\n\n\"Yes,\" said the girl quietly, as she held up her small glass and looked at him with a curious directness straight in the eyes. \"I hope all will go well tonight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed to Bond to give a quick involuntary shrug of the shoulders as she spoke, but then she leant impulsively towards him.\n\n\"I have some news for you from Mathis. He was longing to tell you himself. It's about the bomb. It's a fantastic story.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond looked round, but there was no possibility of being overheard, and the caviar would be waiting for the hot toast from the kitchens.\n\n\"Tell me.\" His eyes glittered with interest.\n\n\"They got the third Bulgar, on the road to Paris. He was in a Citroën and he had picked up two English hikers as protective colouring. At the road-block his French was so bad that they asked for his papers and he brought out a gun and shot one of the motor-cycle patrol. But the other man got him, I don't know how, and managed to stop him committing suicide. Then they took him down to Rouen and extracted the story-in the usual French fashion, I suppose.\n\n\"Apparently they were part of a pool held in France for this sort of job-saboteurs, thugs, and soon-and Mathis's friends are already trying to roundup the rest. They were to get two million francs for killing you and the agent who briefed them told them there was absolutely no chance of being caught if they followed his instructions exactly. '\n\nShe took a sip of vodka. \"But this is the interesting part.\"\n\n\"The agent gave them the two camera-cases you saw. He said the bright colours would make it easier for them. He told them that the blue case contained a very powerful smoke-bomb. The red case was the explosive. As one of them threw the red case, the other was to press a switch on the blue case and they would escape undercover of the smoke. In fact, the smoke-bomb was a pure invention to make the Bulgars think they could getaway. Both cases contained an identical high-explosive bomb. There was no difference between the blue and the red cases. The idea was to destroy you and the bomb-throwers without trace. Presumably there were other plans for dealing with the third man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on,\" said Bond, full of admiration for the ingenuity of the double-cross.\n\n'Well, apparently the Bulgars thought this sounded very fine, but cannily they decided to take no chances. It would be better, they thought, to touch off the smoke-bomb first and, from inside the cloud of smoke, hurl the explosive bomb at you. What you saw was the assistant bomb-thrower pressing down the lever on the phoney smoke-bomb and, of course, they both went up together.\n\n\"The third Bulgar was waiting behind the Splendide to pick his two friends up. When he saw what had happened, he assumed they had bungled. But the police picked up some fragments of the unexploded red bomb and he was confronted with them. When he saw that they had been tricked and that his two friends were meant to be murdered with you, he started to talk. I expect he's still talking now. But there's nothing to link all this with Le Chiffre. They were given the job by some intermediary, perhaps one of Le Chiffre's guards, and Le Chiffre's name means absolutely nothing to the one who survived.\"\n\nShe finished her story just as the waiters arrived with the caviar, a mound of hot toast, and small dishes containing finely chopped onion and grated hard-boiled egg, the white in one dish and the yoke in another.\n\nThe caviar was heaped onto their plates and they ate fora time in silence.\n\nAfter awhile Bond said: \"It's very satisfactory to be a corpse who changes places with his murderers. For them it certainly was a case of being hoist with their own petard. Mathis must be very pleased with the day's work-five of the opposition neutralized in twenty-four hours,\" and he told her how the Muntzes had been confounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Incidentally,\" he asked, \"how did you come to get mixed up in this affair? What section are you in?\"\n\n\"I'm personal assistant to Head of S. \"said Vesper.\"As it was his plan, he wanted his section to have a hand in the operation and he asked M if I could go. It seemed only to be a liaison job, so M said yes although he told my chief that you would be furious at being given a woman to work with. \"She paused and when Bond said nothing continued:\"I had to meet Mathis in Paris and comedown with him. I've got a friend who is a vendeuse with Dior and somehow she managed to borrow me this and the frock I was wearing this morning, otherwise I couldn't possibly have competed with all these people. '\n\nShe made a gesture towards the room.\n\n\"The office was very jealous although they didn't know what the job was. All they knew was that I was to work with a Double O. Of course you're our heroes. I was enchanted.\"\n\nBond frowned. \"It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,\" he said. \"That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar? '\n\n\"It's a wonderful combination, \"she said.\"I'm loving my dinner. It seems a shame...\" She stopped, warned by a cold look in Bond's eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it wasn't for the job, we wouldn't be here,\" he said.\n\nSuddenly he regretted the intimacy of their dinner and of their talk. He felt he had said too much and that what was only a working relationship had become confused.\n\n\"Let's consider what has to be done, \"he said in a matter-of-fact voice.\"I'd better explain what I'm going to try and do and how you can help. Which isn't very much I'm afraid, ' he added.\n\n\"Now these are the basic facts.\" He proceeded to sketch out the plan and enumerate the various contingencies which faced them.\n\nThe maitre d'hotel supervised the serving of the second course and then as they ate the delicious food, Bond continued.\n\nShe listened to him coldly, but with attentive obedience. She felt thoroughly deflated by his harshness, while admitting to herself that she should have paid more heed to the warning of Head of S.\n\n\"He's a dedicated man, \"her chief had said when he gave her the assignment.\"Don't imagine this is going to be any fun. He thinks of nothing but the job on hand and, while it's on, he's absolute hell to work for. But he's an expert and there aren't many about, so you won't be wasting your time. He's a good-looking chap, but don't fall for him. I don't think he's got much heart. Anyway, good luck and don't get hurt.\"\n\nAll this had been something of a challenge and she was pleased when she felt she attracted and interested him, as she knew intuitively that she did. Then at a hint that they were finding pleasure together, a hint that was only the first words of a conventional phrase, he had suddenly turned to ice and had brutally veered away as if warmth were poison to him. She felt hurt and foolish. Then she gave a mental shrug and concentrated with all her attention on what he was saying. She would not make the same mistake again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... and the main hope is to pray fora run of luck for me, or against him.\" Bond was explaining just how baccarat is played.\n\n\"It's much the same as any other gambling game. The odds against the banker and the player are more or less even. Only a run against either can be decisive and \"break the bank\", or break the players.\n\n'Tonight, Le Chiffre, we know, has bought the baccarat bank from the Egyptian syndicate which is running the high tables here. He paid a million francs for it and his capital has been reduced to twenty-four million. I have about the same. There will be ten players, I expect, and we sit round the banker at a kidney-shaped table.\n\n\"Generally, this table is divided into two tableaux. The banker plays two games, one against each of the tableaux to left and right of him. In the game that banker should be able to win by playing off one tableaux against the other and by first-class accountancy. But there aren't enough baccarat players yet at Royale and Le Chiffre is just going to pit his luck against the other players at the single tableau. It's unusual because the odds in favour of the banker aren't so good, but they're a shade in his favour and, of course, he has control of the size of the stakes.\n\n\"Well, the banker sits therein the middle with a croupier to rake in the cards and call the amount of each bank and a chef de partie to umpire the game generally. I shall be sitting as near dead opposite Le Chiffre as I can get. In front of him he has a shoe containing six packs of cards, well shuffled. There's absolutely no chance of tampering with the shoe. The cards are shuffled by the croupier and cut by one of the players and put into the shoe in full view of the table. We've checked on the staff and they're all okay. It would be useful, but almost impossible, to mark all the cards, and it would mean the connivance at least of the croupier. Anyway, we shall be watching for that too. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond drank some champagne and continued.\n\n\"Now what happens at the game is this. The banker announces an opening bank of five hundred thousand francs, of five hundred pounds as it is now. Each seat is numbered from the right of the banker and the player next to the banker, or Number 1, can accept this bet and push his money out onto the table, or pass it, if it is too much for him or he doesn't want to take it. Then Number 2 has the right to take it, and if he refuses, then Number 3, and soon round the table. If no single player takes it all, the bet is offered to the table as a whole and everyone chips in, including sometimes the spectators round the table, until the five hundred thousand is made up.\n\n\"That is a small bet which would immediately be met, but when it gets to a million or two it's often difficult to find a taker or even, if the bank seems to be in luck, a group of takers to cover the bet. At the moment I shall always try and step in and accept the bet-in fact, I shall attack Le Chiffre's bank whenever I get a chance until either I've bust his bank or he's bust me. It may take sometime, but in the end one of us is bound to break the other, irrespective of the other players at the table, although they can, of course, make him richer or poorer in the meantime.\n\n\"Being the banker, he's got a slight advantage in the play, but knowing that I'm making a dead set at him and not knowing, I hope, my capital, is bound to play on his nerves a bit, so I'm hoping that we start about equal. '\n\nHe paused while the strawberries came and the avocado pear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fora while they ate in silence, then they talked of other things while the coffee was served. They smoked. Neither of them drank brandy or a liqueur.\n\nFinally, Bond felt it was time to explain the actual mechanics of the game.\n\n\"It's a simple affair, \"he said,\"and you'll understand it at once if you've ever played vingt-et-un, where the object is to get cards from the banker which add up more closely to a count of twenty-one than his do. In this game, I get two cards and the banker gets two, and unless anyone wins outright, either or both of us can get one more card. The object of the game is to hold two, or three cards which together count nine points, or as nearly nine as possible. Court cards and tens count nothing; aces one each; any other card its face value. It is only the last figure of your count that signifies. So nine plus seven equals six-not sixteen.\n\n\"The winner is the one whose count is nearest to nine. Draws are played over again.\"\n\nVesper listened attentively, but she also watched the look of abstract passion on Bond's face.\n\n\"Now,\" Bond continued, \"when the banker deals me my two cards, if they add up to eight or nine, they're a \"natural\" and I turn them up and I win, unless he has an equal or a better natural. If I haven't got a natural, I can stand on a seven or a six, perhaps ask fora card or perhaps not, on a five, and certainly ask fora card if my count is lower than five. Five is the turning point of the game. According to the odds, the chances of bettering or worsening your hand if you hold a five are exactly even.\n\n'Only when I ask fora card or tap mine to signify that I stand on what I have, can the banker look at his. If he has a natural, he turns them up and wins. Otherwise he is faced with the same problems as I was. But he is helped in his decision to draw or not to draw a third card by my actions. If I have stood, he must assume that I have a five, six, or seven: if I have drawn, he will know that I had something less than a six and I may have improved my hand or not with the card he gave me. And this card was dealt tome face up. On its face value and a knowledge of the odds, he will know whether to take another card or to stand on his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'So he has a very slight advantage over me. He has a tiny help over his decision to draw or to stand. But there is always one problem card at this game-shall one draw or stand on a five and what will your opponent do with a five? Some players always draw or always stand. I follow my intuition.\n\n\"But in the end,\" Bond stubbed out his cigarette and called for the bill, \"it's the natural eights and nines that matter, and I must just see that I get more of them than he does. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborating with the writer, advance the narrative.\nTags: satire, black comedy, war, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Joseph Heller\nTitle: Catch 22\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess I never really believed you.\"\n\n\"Aren't you ever afraid? '\n\n\"Maybe I ought to be.\"\n\n\"Not even on the missions?\"\n\n\"I guess I just don't have brains enough. ' McWatt laughed sheepishly.\n\n\"There are so many ways for me to get killed,\" Yossarian commented, \"and you had to find one more.\" McWatt smiled again. \"Say, I bet it must really scare you when I buzz your tent, huh?\"\n\n\"It scares me to death. I've told you that. '\n\n\"I thought it was just the noise you were complaining about.\" McWatt made a resigned shrug. \"Oh, well, what the hell,\" he sang. \"I guess I'll just have to give it up. \"But McWatt was incorrigible, and, while he never buzzed Yossarian's tent again, he never missed an opportunity to buzz the beach and roar like a fierce and low-flying thunderbolt over the raft in the water and the secluded hollow in the sand where Yossarian lay feeling up Nurse Duckett or playing hearts, poker or pinochle with Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe. Yossarian met Nurse Duckett almost every afternoon that both were free and came with her to the beach on the other side of the narrow swell of shoulder-high dunes separating them from the area in which the other officers and enlisted men went swimming nude. Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe would come there, too. McWatt would occasionally join them, and often Aarfy, who always arrived pudgily in full uniform and never removed any of his clothing but his shoes and his hat; Aarfy never went swimming. The other men wore swimming trunks in deference to Nurse Duckett, and in deference also to Nurse Cramer, who accompanied Nurse Duckett and Yossarian to the beach every time and sat haughtily by herself ten yards away. No one but Aarfy ever made reference to the naked men sun-bathing in full view farther down the beach or jumping and diving from the enormous white-washed raft that bobbed on empty oil drums out beyond the silt sand. Nurse Cramer sat by herself because she was angry with Yossarian and disappointed in Nurse Duckett." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Sue Ann Duckett despised Aarfy, and that was another one of the numerous fetching traits about Nurse Duckett that Yossarian enjoyed. He enjoyed Nurse Sue Ann Duckett's long white legs and supple, callipygous ass; he often neglected to remember that she was quite slim and fragile from the waist up and hurt her unintentionally in moments of passion when he hugged her too roughly. He loved her manner of sleepy acquiescence when they lay on the beach at dusk. He drew solace and sedation from her nearness. He had a craving to touch her always, to remain always in physical communication. He liked to encircle her ankle loosely with his fingers as he played cards with Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe, to lightly and lovingly caress the downy skin of her fair, smooth thigh with the backs of his nails or, dreamily, sensuously, almost unconsciously, slide his proprietary, respectful hand up the shell-like ridge of her spine beneath the elastic strap of the top of the two-piece bathing suit she always wore to contain and cover her tiny, long-nippled breasts. He loved Nurse Duckett's serene, flattered response, the sense of attachment to him she displayed proudly. Hungry Joe had a craving to feel Nurse Duckett up, too, and was restrained more than once by Yossarian's forbidding glower. Nurse Duckett flirted with Hungry Joe just to keep him in heat, and her round light-brown eyes glimmered with mischief every time Yossarian rapped her sharply with his elbow or fist to make her stop.\n\nThe men played cards on a towel, undershirt, or blanket, and Nurse Duckett mixed the extra deck of cards, sitting with her back resting against a sand dune. When she was not shuffling the extra deck of cards, she sat squinting into a tiny pocket mirror, brushing mascara on her curling reddish eyelashes in a birdbrained effort to make them longer permanently. Occasionally she was able to stack the cards or spoil the deck in away they did not discover until they were well into the game, and she laughed and glowed with blissful gratification when they all hurled their cards down disgustedly and began punching her sharply on the arms or legs as they called her filthy names and warned her to stop fooling around. She would prattle nonsensically when they were striving hardest to think, and a pink flush of elation crept into her cheeks when they gave her more sharp raps on the arms and legs with their fists and told her to shut up. Nurse Duckett reveled in such attention and ducked her short chestnut bangs with joy when Yossarian and the others focused upon her. It gave her a peculiar feeling of warm and expectant well-being to know that so many naked boys and men were idling close by on the other side of the sand dunes. She had only to stretch her neck or rise on some pretext to see twenty or forty undressed males lounging or playing ball in the sunlight. Her own body was such a familiar and unremarkable thing to her that she was puzzled by the convulsive ecstasy men could take from it, by the intense and amusing need they had merely to touch it, to reach out urgently and press it, squeeze it, pinch it, rub it. She did not understand Yossarian's lust; but she was willing to take his word for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evenings when Yossarian felt horny he brought Nurse Duckett to the beach with two blankets and enjoyed making love to her with most of their clothes on more than he sometimes enjoyed making love to all the vigorous bare amoral girls in Rome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frequently they went to the beach at night and did not make love, but just lay shivering between the blankets against each other toward off the brisk, damp chill. The ink-black nights were turning cold, the stars frosty and fewer. The raft swayed in the ghostly trail of moonlight and seemed to be sailing away. A marked hint of cold weather penetrated the air. Other men were just starting to build stoves and came to Yossarian's tent during the day to marvel at Orr's workmanship. It thrilled Nurse Duckett rapturously that Yossarian could not keep his hands off her when they were together, although she would not let him slip them inside her bathing shorts during the day when anyone was near enough to see, not even when the only witness was Nurse Cramer, who sat on the other side of her sand dune with her reproving nose in the air and pretended not to see anything.\n\nNurse Cramer had stopped speaking to Nurse Duckett, her best friend, because of her liaison with Yossarian, but still went everywhere with Nurse Duckett since Nurse Duckett washer best friend. She did not approve of Yossarian or his friends. When they stood up and went swimming with Nurse Duckett, Nurse Cramer stood up and went swimming, too, maintaining the same ten-yard distance between them, and maintaining her silence, snubbing them even in the water. When they laughed and splashed, she laughed and splashed; when they dived, she dived; when they swam to the sandbar and rested, Nurse Cramer swam to the sandbar and rested. When they came out, she came out, dried her shoulders with her own towel and seated herself aloofly in her own spot, her back rigid and a ring of reflected sunlight burnishing her light-blond hairlike a halo. Nurse Cramer was prepared to begin talking to Nurse Duckett again if she repented and apologized. Nurse Duckett preferred things the way they were. Fora longtime she had wanted to give Nurse Cramer a rap to make her shut up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him. She loved to watch him taking short naps with his face down and his arm thrown across her, or staring bleakly at the endless tame, quiet waves breaking like pet puppy dogs against the shore, scampering lightly up the sand afoot or two and then trotting away. She was calm in his silences. She knew she did not bore him, and she buffed or painted her fingernails studiously while he dozed or brooded and the desultory warm afternoon breeze vibrated delicately on the surface of the beach. She loved to look at his wide, long, sinewy back with its bronzed, unblemished skin. She loved to bring him to flame instantly by taking his whole ear in her mouth suddenly and running her hand down his front all the way. She loved to make him burn and suffer till dark, then satisfy him. Then kiss him adoringly because she had brought him such bliss.\n\nYossarian was never lonely with Nurse Duckett, who really did know how to keep her mouth shut and was just capricious enough. He was haunted and tormented by the vast, boundless ocean. He wondered mournfully, as Nurse Duckett buffed her nails, about all the people who had died underwater. There were surely more than a million already. Where were they? What insects had eaten their flesh? He imagined the awful impotence of breathing in helplessly quarts and quarts of water. Yossarian followed the small fishing boats and military launches plying back and forth far out and found them unreal; it did not seem true that there were full-sized men aboard, going somewhere every time. He looked toward stony Elba, and his eyes automatically searched overhead for the fluffy, white, turnip-shaped cloud in which Clevinger had vanished. He peered at the vaporous Italian skyline and thought of Orr. Clevinger and Orr. Where had they gone? Yossarian had once stood on a jetty at dawn and watched a tufted round log that was drifting toward him on the tide turn unexpectedly into the bloated face of a drowned man; it was the first dead person he had ever seen. He thirsted for life and reached out ravenously to grasp and hold Nurse Duckett's flesh. He studied every floating object fearfully for some gruesome sign of Clevinger and Orr, prepared for any morbid shock but the shock McWatt gave him one day with the plane that came blasting suddenly into sight out of the distant stillness and hurtled mercilessly along the shoreline with a great growling, clattering roar over the bobbing raft on which blond, pale Kid Sampson, his naked sides scrawny even from so faraway, leaped clownishly up to touch it at the exact moment some arbitrary gust of wind or minor miscalculation of McWatt's senses dropped the speeding plane down just low enough fora propeller to slice him half away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even people who were not there remembered vividly exactly what happened next. There was the briefest, softest tsst! filtering audibly through the shattering, overwhelming howl of the plane's engines, and then there were just Kid Sampson's two pale, skinny legs, still joined by strings somehow at the bloody truncated hips, standing stock-still on the raft for what seemed a full minute or two before they toppled over backward into the water finally with a faint, echoing splash and turned completely upside down so that only the grotesque toes and the plaster-white soles of Kid Sampson's feet remained in view.\n\nOn the beach, all hell broke loose. Nurse Cramer materialized out of thin air suddenly and was weeping hysterically against Yossarian's chest while Yossarian hugged her shoulders and soothed her. His other arm bolstered Nurse Duckett, who was trembling and sobbing against him, too, her long, angular face dead white. Everyone at the beach was screaming and running, and the men sounded like women. They scampered for their things in panic, stooping hurriedly and looking askance at each gentle, knee-high wave bubbling in as though some ugly, red, grisly organ like a liver or a lung might come washing right up against them. Those in the water were struggling to get out, forgetting in their haste to swim, wailing, walking, held back in their flight by the viscous, clinging sea as though by a biting wind.\n\nKid Sampson had rained allover. Those who spied drops of him on their limbs or torsos drew back with terror and revulsion, as though trying to shrink away from their own odious skins. Everybody ran in a sluggish stampede, shooting tortured, horrified glances back, filling the deep, shadowy, rustling woods with their frail gasps and cries. Yossarian drove both stumbling, faltering women before him frantically, shoving them and prodding them to make them hurry, and raced back with a curse to help when Hungry Joe tripped on the blanket or the camera case he was carrying and fell forward on his face in the mud of the stream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back at the squadron everyone already knew. Men in uniform were screaming and running there too, or standing motionless in one spot, rooted in awe, like Sergeant Knight and Doc Daneeka as they gravely craned their heads upward and watched the guilty, banking, forlorn airplane with McWatt circle and circle slowly and climb.\n\n\"Who is it?\" Yossarian shouted anxiously at Doc Daneeka as he ran up, breathless and limp, his somber eyes burning with a misty, hectic anguish. \"Who's in the plane? '\n\n\"McWatt,\" said Sergeant Knight. \"He's got the two new pilots with him on a training flight. Doc Daneeka's up there, too.\"\n\n\"I'm right here, ' contended Doc Daneeka, in a strange and troubled voice, darting an anxious look at Sergeant Knight.\n\n\"Why doesn't he comedown? \"Yossarian exclaimed in despair.\"Why does he keep going up? '\n\n\"He's probably afraid to comedown, \"Sergeant Knight answered, without moving his solemn gaze from McWatt's solitary climbing airplane. \"He knows what kind of trouble he's in. ' And McWatt kept climbing higher and higher, nosing his droning airplane upward evenly in a slow, oval spiral that carried him far out over the water as he headed south and far in over the russet foothills when he had circled the landing field again and was flying north. He was soon up over five thousand feet. His engines were soft as whispers. A white parachute popped open suddenly in a surprising puff. A second parachute popped open a few minutes later and coasted down, like the first, directly in toward the clearing of the landing strip. There was no motion on the ground. The plane continued south for thirty seconds more, following the same pattern, familiar and predictable now, and McWatt lifted awing and banked gracefully around into his turn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Two more to go,\" said Sergeant Knight. \"McWatt and Doc Daneeka.\"\n\n\"I'm right here, Sergeant Knight, \"Doc Daneeka told him plaintively.\"I'm not in the plane.\"\n\n\"Why don't they jump? \"Sergeant Knight asked, pleading aloud to himself.\"Why don't they jump?\"\n\n\"It doesn't make sense, \"grieved Doc Daneeka, biting his lip.\"It just doesn't make sense.\" But Yossarian understood suddenly why McWatt wouldn't jump, and went running uncontrollably down the whole length of the squadron after McWatt's plane, waving his arms and shouting up at him imploringly to comedown, McWatt, comedown; but no one seemed to hear, certainly not McWatt, and a great, choking moan tore from Yossarian's throat as McWatt turned again, dipped his wings once in salute, decided oh, well, what the hell, and flew into a mountain.\n\nColonel Cathcart was so upset by the deaths of Kid Sampson and McWatt that he raised the missions to sixty-five." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Colonel Cathcart learned that Doc Daneeka too had been killed in McWatt's plane, he increased the number of missions to seventy.\n\nThe first person in the squadron to find out that Doc Daneeka was dead was Sergeant Towser, who had been informed earlier by the man in the control tower that Doc Daneeka's name was down as a passenger on the pilot's manifest McWatt had filed before taking off. Sergeant Towser brushed away a tear and struck Doc Daneeka's name from the roster of squadron personnel. With lips still quivering, he rose and trudged outside reluctantly to break the bad news to Gus and Wes, discreetly avoiding any conversation with Doc Daneeka himself as he moved by the flight surgeon's slight sepulchral figure roosting despondently on his stool in the late-afternoon sunlight between the orderly room and the medical tent. Sergeant Towser's heart was heavy; now he had two dead men on his hands-Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't even there, and Doc Daneeka, the new dead man in the squadron, who most certainly was there and gave every indication of proving a still thornier administrative problem for him.\n\nGus and Wes listened to Sergeant Towser with looks of stoic surprise and said not a word about their bereavement to anyone else until Doc Daneeka himself came in about an hour afterward to have his temperature taken for the third time that day and his blood pressure checked. The thermometer registered a half degree lower than his usual subnormal temperature of 96.8. Doc Daneeka was alarmed. The fixed, vacant, wooden stares of his two enlisted men were even more irritating than always.\n\n\"Goddammit,\" he expostulated politely in an uncommon excess of exasperation, \"what's the matter with you two men anyway? It just isn't right fora person to have a low temperature all the time and walk around with a stuffed nose.\" Doc Daneeka emitted a glum, self-pitying sniff and strolled disconsolately across the tent to help himself to some aspirin and sulphur pills and paint his own throat with Argyrol. His downcast face was fragile and forlorn as a swallow's, and he rubbed the back of his arms rhythmically.\"Just look how cold I am right now. You're sure you're not holding anything back? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're dead, sir, ' one of his two enlisted men explained.\n\nDoc Daneeka jerked his head up quickly with resentful distrust. \"What's that? '\n\n\"You're dead, sir, \"repeated the other.\"That's probably the reason you always feel so cold.\"\n\n\"That's right, sir. You've probably been dead all this time and we just didn't detect it. '\n\n\"What the hell are you both talking about?\" Doc Daneeka cried shrilly with a surging, petrifying sensation of some onrushing unavoidable disaster.\n\n\"It's true, sir, \"said one of the enlisted men.\"The records show that you went up in McWatt's plane to collect some flight time. You didn't comedown in a parachute, so you must have been killed in the crash. '\n\n\"That's right, sir, \"said the other.\"You ought to be glad you've got any temperature at all.\" Doc Daneeka's mind was reeling in confusion.\"Have you both gone crazy? \"he demanded.\"I'm going to report this whole insubordinate incident to Sergeant Towser.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Towser's the one who told us about it, \"said either Gus or Wes.\"The War Department's even going to notify your wife.\" Doc Daneeka yelped and ran out of the medical tent to remonstrate with Sergeant Towser, who edged away from him with repugnance and advised Doc Daneeka to remain out of sight as much as possible until some decision could be reached relating to the disposition of his remains.\n\n\"Gee, I guess he really is dead,\" grieved one of his enlisted men in a low, respectful voice. \"I'm going to miss him. He was a pretty wonderful guy, wasn't he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, he sure was,\" mourned the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm glad the little fuck is gone. I was getting sick and tired of taking his blood pressure all the time. \"Mrs. Daneeka, Doc Daneeka's wife, was not glad that Doc Daneeka was gone and split the peaceful Staten Island night with woeful shrieks of lamentation when she learned by War Department telegram that her husband had been killed inaction. Women came to comfort her, and their husbands paid condolence calls and hoped inwardly that she would soon move to another neighborhood and spare them the obligation of continuous sympathy. The poor woman was totally distraught for almost a full week. Slowly, heroically, she found the strength to contemplate a future filled with dire problems for herself and her children. Just as she was growing resigned to her loss, the postman rang with a bolt from the blue-a letter from overseas that was signed with her husband's signature and urged her frantically to disregard any bad news concerning him. Mrs. Daneeka was dumbfounded. The date on the letter was illegible. The handwriting throughout was shaky and hurried, but the style resembled her husband's and the melancholy, self-pitying tone was familiar, although more dreary than usual. Mrs. Daneeka was overjoyed and wept irrepressibly with relief and kissed the crinkled, grubby tissue of V-mail stationery a thousand times. She dashed a grateful note off to her husband pressing him for details and sent a wire informing the War Department of its error. The War Department replied touchily that there had been no error and that she was undoubtedly the victim of some sadistic and psychotic forger in her husband's squadron. The letter to her husband was returned unopened, stamped KILLED INACTION.\n\nMrs. Daneeka had been widowed cruelly again, but this time her grief was mitigated somewhat by a notification from Washington that she was sole beneficiary of her husband's$ 10,000 GI insurance policy, which amount was obtainable by heron demand. The realization that she and the children were not faced immediately with starvation brought a brave smile to her face and marked the turning point in her distress. The Veterans Administration informed her by mail the very next day that she would be entitled to pension benefits for the rest of her natural life because of her husband's demise, and to a burial allowance for him of$ 250. A government check for$ 250 was enclosed. Gradually, inexorably, her prospects brightened. A letter arrived that same week from the Social Security Administration stating that, under the provisions of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Act Of 1935, she would receive monthly support for herself and her dependent children until they reached the age of eighteen, and a burial allowance of$ 250. With these government letters as proof of death, she applied for payment on three life insurance policies Doc Daneeka had carried, with a value of$ 50,000 each; her claim was honored and processed swiftly. Each day brought new unexpected treasures. A key to a safe-deposit box led to a fourth life insurance policy with a face value of$ 50,000, and to$ 18,000 in cash on which income tax had never been paid and need never be paid. A fraternal lodge to which he had belonged gave her a cemetery plot. A second fraternal organization of which he had been a member sent her a burial allowance of$ 250. His county medical association gave her a burial allowance of$ 250." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The husbands of her closest friends began to flirt with her. Mrs. Daneeka was simply delighted with the way things were turning out and had her hair dyed. Her fantastic wealth just kept piling up, and she had to remind herself daily that all the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was acquiring were not worth a single penny without her husband to share this good fortune with her. It astonished her that so many separate organizations were willing to do so much to bury Doc Daneeka, who, back in Pianosa, was having a terrible time trying to keep his head above the ground and wondered with dismal apprehension why his wife did not answer the letter he had written.\n\nHe found himself ostracized in the squadron by men who cursed his memory foully for having supplied Colonel Cathcart with provocation to raise the number of combat missions. Records attesting to his death were pullulating like insect eggs and verifying each other beyond all contention. He drew no pay or PX rations and depended for life on the charity of Sergeant Towser and Milo, who both knew he was dead. Colonel Cathcart refused to see him, and Colonel Korn sent word through Major Danby that he would have Doc Daneeka cremated on the spot if he ever showed up at Group Headquarters. Major Danby confided that Group was incensed with all flight surgeons because of Dr. Stubbs, the bushy-haired, baggy-chinned, slovenly flight surgeon in Dunbar's squadron who was deliberately and defiantly brewing insidious dissension thereby grounding all men with sixty missions on proper forms that were rejected by Group indignantly with orders restoring the confused pilots, navigators, bombardiers and gunners to combat duty. Morale there was ebbing rapidly, and Dunbar was under surveillance. Group was glad Doc Daneeka had been killed and did not intend to ask fora replacement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not even the chaplain could bring Doc Daneeka back to life under the circumstances." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alarm changed to resignation, and more and more Doc Daneeka acquired the look of an ailing rodent. The sacks under his eyes turned hollow and black, and he padded through the shadows fruitlessly like a ubiquitous spook. Even Captain Flume recoiled when Doc Daneeka sought him out in the woods for help. Heartlessly, Gus and Wes turned him away from their medical tent without even a thermometer for comfort, and then, only then, did he realize that, to all intents and purposes, he really was dead, and that he had better do something damned fast if he ever hoped to save himself.\n\nThere was nowhere else to turn but to his wife, and he scribbled an impassioned letter begging her to bring his plight to the attention of the War Department and urging her to communicate at once with his group commander, Colonel Cathcart, for assurances that-no matter what else she might have heard-it was indeed he, her husband, Doc Daneeka, who was pleading with her, and not a corpse or some impostor. Mrs. Daneeka was stunned by the depth of emotion in the almost illegible appeal. She was torn with compunction and tempted to comply, but the very next letter she opened that day was from that same Colonel Cathcart, her husband's group commander, and began: Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing inaction.\n\nMrs. Daneeka moved with her children to Lansing, Michigan, and left no forwarding address." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was warm when the cold weather came and whale-shaped clouds blew low through a dingy, slate-gray sky, almost without end, like the droning, dark, iron flocks of B-17 and B-24 bombers from the long-range airbases in Italy the day of the invasion of southern France two months earlier. Everyone in the squadron knew that Kid Sampson's skinny legs had washed upon the wet sand to lie there and rot like a purple twisted wishbone. No one would go to retrieve them, not Gus or Wes or even the men in the mortuary at the hospital; everyone made believe that Kid Sampson's legs were not there, that they had bobbed away south forever on the tide like all of Clevinger and Orr. Now that bad weather had come, almost no one ever sneaked away alone anymore to peek through bushes like a pervert at the moldering stumps.\n\nThere were no more beautiful days. There were no more easy missions. There was stinging rain and dull, chilling fog, and the men flew at week-long intervals, whenever the weather cleared. At night the wind moaned. The gnarled and stunted tree trunks creaked and groaned and forced Yossarian's thoughts each morning, even before he was fully awake, back on Kid Sampson's skinny legs bloating and decaying, as systematically as a ticking clock, in the icy rain and wet sand all through the blind, cold, gusty October nights. After Kid Sampson's legs, he would think of pitiful, whimpering Snowden freezing to death in the rear section of the plane, holding his eternal, immutable secret concealed inside his quilted, armor-plate flak suit until Yossarian had finished sterilizing and bandaging the wrong wound on his leg, and then spilling it out suddenly allover the floor. At night when he was trying to sleep, Yossarian would call the roll of all the men, women and children he had ever known who were now dead. He tried to remember all the soldiers, and he resurrected images of all the elderly people he had known when a child-all the aunts, uncles, neighbors, parents and grandparents, his own and everyone else's, and all the pathetic, deluded shopkeepers who opened their small, dusty stores at dawn and worked in them foolishly until midnight. They were all dead, too. The number of dead people just seemed to increase. And the Germans were still fighting. Death was irreversible, he suspected, and he began to think he was going to lose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was warm when the cold weather came because of Orr's marvelous stove, and he might have existed in his warm tent quite comfortably if not for the memory of Orr, and if not for the gang of animated roommates that came swarming inside rapaciously one day from the two full combat crews Colonel Cathcart had requisitioned-and obtained in less than forty-eight hours-as replacements for Kid Sampson and McWatt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian emitted along, loud, croaking gasp of protest when he trudged in tiredly after a mission and found them already there.\n\nThere were four of them, and they were having a whale of a good time as they helped each other setup their cots. They were horsing around. The moment he saw them, Yossarian knew they were impossible. They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable.\n\nThey were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one. They had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose pictures were already standing on the rough cement mantelpiece of Orr's fireplace. They had ridden in speedboats and played tennis. They had been horseback riding. One had once been to bed with an older woman. They knew the same people indifferent parts of the country and had gone to school with each other's cousins. They had listened to the World Series and really cared who won football games. They were obtuse; their morale was good. They were glad that the war had lasted long enough for them to find out what combat was really like. They were halfway through unpacking when Yossarian threw them out.\n\nThey were plainly out of the question, Yossarian explained adamantly to Sergeant Towser, whose sallow equine face was despondent as he informed Yossarian that the new officers would have to be admitted. Sergeant Towser was not permitted to requisition another six-man tent from Group while Yossarian was living in one alone.\n\n\"I'm not living in this one alone, \"Yossarian said with a sulk.\"I've got a dead man inhere with me. His name is Mudd.\"\n\n\"Please, sir,\" begged Sergeant Towser, sighing wearily, with a sidelong glance at the four baffled new officers listening in mystified silence just outside the entrance. \"Mudd was killed on the mission to Orvieto. You know that. He was flying right beside you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why don't you move his things out? '\n\n\"Because he never even got here. Captain, please don't bring that up again. You can move in with Lieutenant Nately if you like. I'll even send some men from the orderly room to transfer your belongings.\" But to abandon Orr's tent would be to abandon Orr, who would have been spurned and humiliated clannishly by these four simple-minded officers waiting to move in. It did not seem just that these boisterous, immature young men should show up after all the work was done and be allowed to take possession of the most desirable tent on the island. But that was the law, Sergeant Towser explained, and all Yossarian could do was glare at them in baleful apology as he made room for them and volunteer helpful penitent hints as they moved inside his privacy and made themselves at home.\n\nThey were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits. They laughed at everything. They called him \"Yo-Yo\" jocularly and came in tipsy late at night and woke him up with their clumsy, bumping, giggling efforts to be quiet, then bombarded him with asinine shouts of hilarious good-fellowship when he sat up cursing to complain. He wanted to massacre them each time they did. They reminded him of Donald Duck's nephews. They were afraid of Yossarian and persecuted him incessantly with nagging generosity and with their exasperating insistence on doing small favors for him. They were reckless, puerile, congenial, naive, presumptuous, deferential and rambunctious. They were dumb; they had no complaints. They admired Colonel Cathcart and they found Colonel Korn witty. They were afraid of Yossarian, but they were not the least bit afraid of Colonel Cathcart's seventy missions. They were four clean-cut kids who were having lots of fun, and they were driving Yossarian nuts. He could not make them understand that he was a crotchety old fogey of twenty-eight, that he belonged to another generation, another era, another world, that having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort, and that they bored him, too. He could not make them shut up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cronies of theirs in other squadrons began dropping in unashamedly and using the tent as a hangout." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was often not room enough for him. Worst of all, he could no longer bring Nurse Duckett thereto lie down with her. And now that foul weather had come, he had no place else! This was a calamity he had not foreseen, and he wanted to bust his roommates' heads open with his fists or pick them up, each in turn, by the seats of their pants and the scruffs of their necks and pitch them out once and for all into the dank, rubbery perennial weeds growing between his rusty soupcan urinal with nail holes in the bottom and the knotty-pine squadron latrine that stood like a beach locker not faraway.\n\nInstead of busting their heads open, he tramped in his galoshes and black raincoat through the drizzling darkness to invite Chief White Halfoat to move in with him, too, and drive the fastidious, clean-living bastards outwith his threats and swinish habits. But Chief White Halfoat felt cold and was already making plans to move up into the hospital to die of pneumonia. Instinct told Chief White Halfoat it was almost time. His chest ached and he coughed chronically. Whiskey no longer warmed him. Most damning of all, Captain Flume had moved back into his trailer. Here was an omen of unmistakable meaning.\n\n\"He had to move back,\" Yossarian argued in a vain effort to cheer up the glum, barrel-chested Indian, whose well-knit sorrel-red face had degenerated rapidly into a dilapidated, calcareous gray. \"He'd die of exposure if he tried to live in the woods in this weather. '\n\n\"No, that wouldn't drive the yellowbelly back, \"Chief White Halfoat disagreed obstinately. He tapped his forehead with cryptic insight.\"No, sirree. He knows something. He knows it's time for me to die of pneumonia, that's what he knows. And that's how I know it's time. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does Doc Daneeka say?\"\n\n\"I'm not allowed to say anything, \"Doc Daneeka said sorrowfully from his seat on his stool in the shadows of a corner, his smooth, tapered, diminutive face turtle-green in the flickering candlelight. Everything smelled of mildew. The bulb in the tent had blown out several days before, and neither of the two men had been able to muster the initiative to replace it.\"I'm not allowed to practice medicine anymore,\" Doc Daneeka added.\n\n\"He's dead, \"Chief White Halfoat gloated, with a horselaugh entangled in phlegm.\"That's really funny.\"\n\n\"I don't even draw my pay anymore. '\n\n\"That's really funny, \"Chief White Halfoat repeated.\"All this time he's been insulting my liver, and look what happened to him. He's dead. Killed by his own greed. '\n\n\"That's not what killed me, \"Doc Daneeka observed in a voice that was calm and flat.\"There's nothing wrong with greed. It's all that lousy Dr. Stubbs'fault, getting Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn stirred up against flight surgeons. He's going to give the medical profession a bad name by standing up for principle. If he's not careful, he'll be black-balled by his state medical association and kept out of the hospitals. ' Yossarian watched Chief White Halfoat pour whiskey carefully into three empty shampoo bottles and store them away in the musette bag he was packing.\n\n\"Can't you stop by my tent on your way up to the hospital and punch one of them in the nose for me? \"he speculated aloud.\"I've got four of them, and they're going to crowd me out of my tent altogether. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, something like that once happened to my whole tribe,\" Chief White Halfoat remarked in jolly appreciation, sitting back on his cot to chuckle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't you get Captain Black to kick those kids out? Captain Black likes to kick people out. \"Yossarian grimaced sourly at the mere mention of Captain Black, who was already bullying the new fliers each time they stepped into his intelligence tent for maps or information. Yossarian's attitude toward his roommates turned merciful and protective at the mere recollection of Captain Black. It was not their fault that they were young and cheerful, he reminded himself as he carried the swinging beam of his flashlight back through the darkness. He wished that he could be young and cheerful, too. And it wasn't their fault that they were courageous, confident and carefree. He would just have to be patient with them until one or two were killed and the rest wounded, and then they would all turnout okay. He vowed to be more tolerant and benevolent, but when he ducked inside his tent with his friendlier attitude a great blaze was roaring in the fireplace, and he gasped in horrified amazement. Orr's beautiful birch logs were going up in smoke! His roommates had set fire to them! He gaped at the four insensitive overheated faces and wanted to shout curses at them. He wanted to bang their heads together as they greeted him with loud convivial cries and invited him generously to pull up a chair and eat their chestnuts and roasted potatoes. What could he do with them?\n\nAnd the very next morning they got rid of the dead man in his tent! Just like that, they whisked him away! They carried his cot and all his belongings right out into the bushes and simply dumped them there, and then they strode backslapping their hands briskly at a job well done. Yossarian was stunned by their overbearing vigor and zeal, by their practical, direct efficiency. Ina matter of moments they had disposed energetically of a problem with which Yossarian and Sergeant Towser had been grappling unsuccessfully for months. Yossarian was alarmed-they might get rid of him just as quickly, he feared-and ran to Hungry Joe and fled with him to Rome the day before Nately's whore finally got a good night's sleep and woke up in love." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He missed Nurse Duckett in Rome. There was not much else to do after Hungry Joe left on his mail run. Yossarian missed Nurse Duckett so much that he went searching hungrily through the streets for Luciana, whose laugh and invisible scar he had never forgotten, or the boozy, blowzy, bleary-eyed floozy in the overloaded white brassi& egrave; re and unbuttoned orange satin blouse whose naughty salmon-colored cameo ring Aarfy had thrown away so callously through the window of her car. How he yearned for both girls! He looked for them in vain. He was so deeply in love with them, and he knew he would never see either again. Despair gnawed at him. Visions beset him. He wanted Nurse Duckett with her dress up and her slim thighs bare to the hips. He banged a thin streetwalker with a wet cough who picked him up from an alley between hotels, but that was no fun at all and he hastened to the enlisted men's apartment for the fat, friendly maid in the lime-colored panties, who was overjoyed to see him but couldn't arouse him. He went to bed there early and slept alone. He woke up disappointed and banged a sassy, short, chubby girl he found in the apartment after breakfast, but that was only a little better, and he chased her away when he'd finished and went back to sleep. He napped till lunch and then went shopping for presents for Nurse Duckett and a scarf for the maid in the lime-coloured panties, who hugged him with such gargantuan gratitude that he was soon hot for Nurse Duckett and ran looking lecherously for Luciana again. Instead he found Aarfy, who had landed in Rome when Hungry Joe returned with Dunbar, Nately and Dobbs, and who would not go along on the drunken foray that night to rescue Nately's whore from the middle-aged military big shots holding her captive in a hotel because she would not say uncle.\n\n\"Why should I risk getting into trouble just to help her out?\" Aarfy demanded haughtily. \"But don't tell Nately I said that. Tell him I had to keep an appointment with some very important fraternity brothers. \"The middle-aged big shots would not let Nately's whore leave until they made her say uncle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say uncle,\" they said to her.\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"No, no. Say uncle.\"\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"She still doesn't understand. '\n\n\"You still don't understand, do you? We can't really make you say uncle unless you don't want to say uncle. Don't you see? Don't say uncle when I tell you to say uncle. Okay? Say uncle. '\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"No, don't say uncle. Say uncle. \"She didn't say uncle.\n\n\"That's good! '\n\n\"That's very good. '\n\n\"It's a start. Now say uncle. '\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"It's no good. '\n\n\"No, it's no good that way either. She just isn't impressed with us. There's just no fun making her say uncle when she doesn't care whether we make her say uncle or not.\"\n\n\"No, she really doesn't care, does she? Say'foot.\" '\n\n\"Foot.\"\n\n\"You see? She doesn't care about anything we do. She doesn't care about us. We don't mean a thing to you, do we? '\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\nShe didn't care about them a bit, and it upset them terribly. They shook her roughly each time she yawned. She did not seem to care about anything, not even when they threatened to throw her out the window. They were utterly demoralized men of distinction. She was bored and indifferent and wanted very much to sleep. She had been on the job for twenty-two hours, and she was sorry that these men had not permitted her to leave with the other two girls with whom the orgy had begun. She wondered vaguely why they wanted her to laugh when they laughed, and why they wanted her to enjoy it when they made love to her. It was all very mysterious to her, and very uninteresting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was not sure what they wanted from her. Each time she slumped over with her eyes closed they shook her awake and made her say \"uncle\" again. Each time she said \"uncle,\" they were disappointed. She wondered what \"uncle\" meant. She sat on the sofa in a passive, phlegmatic stupor, her mouth open and all her clothing crumpled in a corner on the floor, and wondered how much longer they would sit around naked with her and make her say uncle in the elegant hotel suite to which Orr's old girlfriend, giggling uncontrollably at Yossarian's and Dunbar's drunken antics, guided Nately and the other members of the motley rescue party.\n\nDunbar squeezed Orr's old girlfriend's fanny gratefully and passed her back to Yossarian, who propped her against the doorjamb with both hands on her hips and wormed himself against her lasciviously until Nately seized him by the arm and pulled him away from her into the blue sitting room, where Dunbar was already hurling everything insight out the window into the court. Dobbs was smashing furniture with an ash stand. A nude, ridiculous man with a blushing appendectomy scar appeared in the doorway suddenly and bellowed.\n\n\"What's going on here? '\n\n\"Your toes are dirty,\" Dunbar said.\n\nThe man covered his groin with both hands and shrank from view. Dunbar, Dobbs and Hungry Joe just kept dumping everything they could lift out the window with great, howling whoops of happy abandon. They soon finished with the clothing on the couches and the luggage on the floor, and they were ransacking a cedar closet when the door to the inner room opened again and a man who was very distinguished-looking from the neck up padded into view imperiously on bare feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here, you, stop that,\" he barked. \"Just what do you men think you're doing? '\n\n\"Your toes are dirty,\" Dunbar said to him.\n\nThe man covered his groin as the first one had done and disappeared. Nately charged after him, but was blocked by the first officer, who plodded back in holding a pillow in front of him, like a bubble dancer.\n\n\"Hey, you men!\" he roared angrily. \"Stop it!\"\n\n\"Stop it,\" Dunbar replied.\n\n\"That's what I said. '\n\n\"That's what I said, ' Dunbar said.\n\nThe officer stamped his foot petulantly, turning weak with frustration. \"Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?\"\n\n\"Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?\"\n\n\"I'll thrash you. ' The man raised a fist.\n\n\"I'll thrash you, \"Dunbar warned him coldly.\"You're a German spy, and I'm going to have you shot. '\n\n\"German spy? I'm an American colonel. '\n\n\"You don't look like an American colonel. You look like a fat man with a pillow in front of him. Where's your uniform, if you're an American colonel? '\n\n\"You just threw it out the window.\"\n\n\"All right, men,\" Dunbar said. \"Lock the silly bastard up. Take the silly bastard down to the station house and throwaway the key.\" The colonel blanched with alarm. \"Are you all crazy? Where's your badge? Hey, you! Comeback inhere! \"But he whirled too late to stop Nately, who had glimpsed his girl sitting on the sofa in the other room and had darted through the doorway behind his back. The others poured through after him right into the midst of the other naked big shots. Hungry Joe laughed hysterically when he saw them, pointing in disbelief atone after the other and clasping his head and sides. Two with fleshy physiques advanced truculently until they spied the look of mean dislike and hostility on Dobbs and Dunbar and noticed that Dobbs was still swinging like a two-handed club the wrought-iron ash stand he had used to smash things in the sitting room. Nately was already at his girl's side. She stared at him without recognition fora few seconds. Then she smiled faintly and let her head sink to his shoulder with her eyes closed. Nately was in ecstasy; she had never smiled at him before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Filpo,\" said a calm, slender, jaded-looking man who had not even stirred from his armchair. \"You don't obey orders. I told you to get them out, and you've gone and brought them in. Can't you seethe difference? '\n\n\"They've thrown our things out the window, General. '\n\n\"Good for them. Our uniforms too? That was clever. We'll never be able to convince anyone we're superior without our uniforms.\"\n\n\"Let's get their names, Lou, and-'\n\n\"Oh, Ned, relax,\" said the slender man with practiced weariness. \"You maybe pretty good at moving armored divisions into action, but you're almost useless in asocial situation. Sooner or later we'll get our uniforms back, and then we'll be their superiors again. Did they really throw our uniforms out? That was a splendid tactic. '\n\n\"They threw everything out.\"\n\n\"The ones in the closet, too?\"\n\n\"They threw the closet out, General. That was that crash we heard when we thought they were coming into kill us.\"\n\n\"And I'll throw you out next, ' Dunbar threatened.\n\nThe general paled slightly. \"What the devil is he so mad about?\" he asked Yossarian.\n\n\"He means it, too,\" Yossarian said. \"You'd better let the girl leave. '\n\n\"Lord, take her,\" exclaimed the general with relief. \"All she's done is make us feel insecure. At least she might have disliked or resented us for the hundred dollars we paid her. But she wouldn't even do that. Your handsome young friend there seems quite attached to her. Notice the way he lets his fingers linger on the inside of her thighs as he pretends to roll up her stockings.\" Nately, caught in the act, blushed guiltily and moved more quickly through the steps of dressing her. She was sound asleep and breathed so regularly that she seemed to be snoring softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's charge her now, Lou!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"urged another officer.\"We've got more personnel, and we can encircle-\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Bill,\" answered the general with a sigh. \"You maybe a wizard at directing a pincer movement in good weather on level terrain against an enemy that has already committed his reserves, but you don't always think so clearly anywhere else. Why should we want to keep her? '\n\n\"General, we're in a very bad strategic position. We haven't got a stitch of clothing, and it's going to be very degrading and embarrassing for the person who has to go downstairs through the lobby to get some. '\n\n\"Yes, Filpo, you're quite right, \"said the general.\"And that's exactly why you're the one to do it. Get going. '\n\n\"Naked, sir?\"\n\n\"Take your pillow with you if you want to. And get some cigarettes, too, while you're downstairs picking up my underwear and pants, will you? '\n\n\"I'll send everything up for you, ' Yossarian offered.\n\n\"There, General,\" said Filpo with relief. \"Now I won't have to go. '\n\n\"Filpo, you nitwit. Can't you see he's lying?\"\n\n\"Are you lying?\" Yossarian nodded, and Filpo's faith was shattered. Yossarian laughed and helped Nately walk his girl out into the corridor and into the elevator. Her face was smiling as though with a lovely dream as she slept with her head still resting on Nately's shoulder. Dobbs and Dunbar ran out into the street to stop a cab.\n\nNately's whore looked up when they left the car. She swallowed dryly several times during the arduous trek up the stairs to her apartment, but she was sleeping soundly again by the time Nately undressed her and put her to bed. She slept for eighteen hours, while Nately dashed about the apartment all the next morning shushing everybody insight, and when she woke up she was deeply in love with him. In the last analysis, that was all it took to win her heart-a good night's sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl smiled with contentment when she opened her eyes and saw him, and then, stretching her long legs languorously beneath the rustling sheets, beckoned him into bed beside her with that look of simpering idiocy of a woman in heat. Nately moved to her in a happy daze, so overcome with rapture that he hardly minded when her kid sister interrupted him again by flying into the room and flinging herself down onto the bed between them. Nately's whore slapped and cursed her, but this time with laughter and generous affection, and Nately settled back smugly with an arm about each, feeling strong and protective. They made a wonderful family group, he decided. The little girl would go to college when she was old enough, to Smith or Radcliffe or Bryn Mawr-he would see to that. Nately bounded out of bed after a few minutes to announce his good fortune to his friends at the top of his voice. He called to them jubilantly to come to the room and slammed the door in their startled faces as soon as they arrived. He had remembered just in time that his girl had no clothes on.\n\n\"Get dressed,\" he ordered her, congratulating himself on his alertness.\n\n\"Perch& egrave;?\" she asked curiously.\n\n\"Perch& egrave;?\" he repeated with an indulgent chuckle. \"Because I don't want them to see you without any clothes on. '\n\n\"Perch& egrave; no?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Perch& egrave; no?\" He looked at her with astonishment. \"Because it isn't right for other men to see you naked, that's why.\"\n\n\"Perch& egrave; no?\"\n\n\"Because I say no!\" Nately exploded in frustration. \"Now don't argue with me. I'm the man and you have to do whatever I say. From now on, I forbid you ever to go out of this room unless you have all your clothes on. Is that clear?\" Nately's whore looked at him as though he were insane.\"Are you crazy? Che succede? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean every word I say.\"\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo!\" she shouted at him with incredulous indignation, and sprang out of bed. Snarling unintelligibly, she snapped on panties and strode toward the door.\n\nNately drew himself up with full manly authority. \"I forbid you to leave this room that way,\" he informed her.\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo!\" she shot back at him, after he had left, shaking her head in disbelief. \"Idiota! Tu sei un pazzo imbecille!\"\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo,\" said her thin kid sister, starting out after her in the same haughty walk.\n\n\"You comeback here,\" Nately ordered her. \"I forbid you to go out that way, too!\"\n\n\"Idiota!\" the kid sister called back at him with dignity after she had flounced past. \"Tu sei un pazzo imbecille.\" Nately fumed in circles of distracted helplessness for several seconds and then sprinted out into the sitting room to forbid his friends to look at his girlfriend while she complained about him in only her panties.\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Dunbar.\n\n\"Why not?\" exclaimed Nately. \"Because she's my girl now, and it isn't right for you to see her unless she's fully dressed. '\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Dunbar.\n\n\"You see?\" said his girl with a shrug. \"Lui& egrave; pazzo!\"\n\n\"Si, & egrave; molto pazzo,\" echoed her kid sister.\n\n\"Then make her keep her clothes on if you don't want us to see her, \"argued Hungry Joe.\"What the hell do you want from us? '\n\n\"She won't listen tome, \"Nately confessed sheepishly.\"So from now on you'll all have to shut your eyes or look in the other direction when she comes in that way. Okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Madonn\"! ' cried his girl in exasperation, and stamped out of the room.\n\n\"Madonn\"! ' cried her kid sister, and stamped out behind her.\n\n\"Lui& egrave; pazzo,\" Yossarian observed good-naturedly. \"I certainly have to admit it.\"\n\n\"Hey, you crazy or something?\" Hungry Joe demanded of Nately. \"The next thing you know you'll be trying to make her give up hustling. '\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately said to his girl, \"I forbid you to go out hustling.\"\n\n\"Perch& egrave;?\" she inquired curiously.\n\n\"Perch& egrave;?\" he screamed with amazement. \"Because it's not nice, that's why!\"\n\n\"Perch& egrave; no?\"\n\n\"Because it just isn't! \"Nately insisted.\"It just isn't right fora nice girl like you to go looking for other men to sleep with. I'll give you all the money you need, so you won't have to do it anymore.\"\n\n\"And what will I do all day instead?\"\n\n\"Do?\" said Nately. \"You'll do what all your friends do. '\n\n\"My friends go looking for men to sleep with.\"\n\n\"Then get new friends! I don't even want you to associate with girls like that, anyway. Prostitution is bad! Everybody knows that, even him. \"He turned with confidence to the experienced old man.\"Am I right? '\n\n\"You're wrong, \"answered the old man.\"Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From now on,\" Nately declared sternly to his girlfriend, \"I forbid you to have anything to do with that wicked old man.\"\n\n\"Va fongul!\" his girl replied, rolling her harassed eyes up toward the ceiling. \"What does he want from me?\" she implored, shaking her fists. \"Lasciami!\" she told him in menacing entreaty. \"Stupido! If you think my friends are so bad, go tell your friends not to ficky-fick all the time with my friends!\"\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately told his friends, \"I think you fellows ought to stop running around with her friends and settle down.\"\n\n\"Madonn\"! ' cried his friends, rolling their harassed eyes up toward the ceiling.\n\nNately had gone clear out of his mind. He wanted them all to fall in love right away and get married. Dunbar could marry Orr's whore, and Yossarian could fall in love with Nurse Duckett or anyone else he liked. After the war they could all work for Nately's father and bring up their children in the same suburb. Nately saw it all very clearly. Love had transmogrified him into a romantic idiot, and they drove him away back into the bedroom to wrangle with his girl over Captain Black. She agreed not to go to bed with Captain Black again or give him anymore of Nately's money, but she would not budge an inch on her friendship with the ugly, ill-kempt, dissipated, filthy-minded old man, who witnessed Nately's flowering love affair with insulting derision and would not admit that Congress was the greatest deliberative body in the whole world.\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately ordered his girl firmly, \"I absolutely forbid you even to speak to that disgusting old man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Again the old man?\" cried the girl in wailing confusion. \"Perch& egrave; no?\"\n\n\"He doesn't like the House of Representatives. '\n\n\"Mamma mia! What's the matter with you? '\n\n\"& Egrave; pazzo,\" observed her kid sister philosophically. \"That's what's the matter with him.\"\n\n\"Si,\" the older girl agreed readily, tearing at her long brown hair with both hands. \"Lui& egrave; pazzo.\" But she missed Nately when he was away and was furious with Yossarian when he punched Nately in the face with all his might and knocked him into the hospital with a broken nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was actually all Sergeant Knight's fault that Yossarian busted Nately in the nose on Thanksgiving Day, after everyone in the squadron had given humble thanks to Milo for providing the fantastically opulent meal on which the officers and enlisted men had gorged themselves insatiably all afternoon and for dispensing like inexhaustible largess the unopened bottles of cheap whiskey he handed out unsparingly to every man who asked. Even before dark, young soldiers with pasty white faces were throwing up everywhere and passing out drunkenly on the ground. The air turned foul. Other men picked up steam as the hours passed, and the aimless, riotous celebration continued. It was a raw, violent, guzzling saturnalia that spilled obstreperously through the woods to the officers\" club and spread up into the hills toward the hospital and the antiaircraft-gun emplacements. There were fistfights in the squadron and one stabbing. Corporal Kolodny shot himself through the leg in the intelligence tent while playing with a loaded gun and had his gums and toes painted purple in the speeding ambulance as he lay on his back with the blood spurting from his wound. Men with cut fingers, bleeding heads, stomach cramps and broken ankles came limping penitently up to the medical tent to have their gums and toes painted purple by Gus and Wes and be given a laxative to throw into the bushes. The joyous celebration lasted long into the night, and the stillness was fractured often by wild, exultant shouts and by the cries of people who were merry or sick. There was the recurring sound of retching and moaning, of laughter, greetings, threats and swearing, and of bottles shattering against rock. There were dirty songs in the distance. It was worse than New Year's Eve.\n\nYossarian went to bed early for safety and soon dreamed that he was fleeing almost headlong down an endless wooden staircase, making aloud, staccato clatter with his heels. Then he woke up a little and realized someone was shooting at him with a machine gun. A tortured, terrified sob rose in his throat. His first thought was that Milo was attacking the squadron again, and he rolled of his cot to the floor and lay underneath in a trembling, praying ball, his heart thumping like a drop forge, his body bathed in a cold sweat. There was no noise of planes. A drunken, happy laugh sounded from afar. \"Happy New Year, Happy New Year!\" a triumphant familiar voice shouted hilariously from high above between the short, sharp bursts of machine gunfire, and Yossarian understood that some men had gone as a prank to one of the sandbagged machine-gun emplacements Milo had installed in the hills after his raid on the squadron and staffed with his own men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian blazed with hatred and wrath when he saw he was the victim of an irresponsible joke that had destroyed his sleep and reduced him to a whimpering hulk. He wanted to kill, he wanted to murder. He was angrier than he had ever been before, angrier even than when he had slid his hands around McWatt's neck to strangle him. The gun opened fire again. Voices cried'Happy New Year! \"and gloating laughter rolled down from the hills through the darkness like a witch's glee. In moccasins and coveralls, Yossarian charged out of his tent for revenge with his. 45, ramming a clip of cartridges up into the grip and slamming the bolt of the gun back to load it. He snapped off the safety catch and was ready to shoot. He heard Nately running after him to restrain him, calling his name. The machine gun opened fire once more from a black rise above the motor pool, and orange tracer bullets skimmed like low-gliding dashes over the tops of the shadowy tents, almost clipping the peaks. Roars of rough laughter rang out again between the short bursts. Yossarian felt resentment boil like acid inside him; they were endangering his life, the bastards! With blind, ferocious rage and determination, he raced across the squadron past the motor pool, running as fast as he could, and was already pounding up into the hills along the narrow, winding path when Nately finally caught up, still calling \"Yo-Yo! Yo-Yo!\" with pleading concern and imploring him to stop. He grasped Yossarian's shoulders and tried to hold him back. Yossarian twisted free, turning. Nately reached for him again, and Yossarian drove his fist squarely into Nately's delicate young face as hard as he could, cursing him, then drew his arm back to hit him again, but Nately had dropped out of sight with a groan and lay curled upon the ground with his head buried in both hands and blood streaming between his fingers. Yossarian whirled and plunged ahead up the path without looking back.\n\nSoon he saw the machine gun. Two figures leaped up in silhouette when they heard him and fled into the night with taunting laughter before he could get there. He was too late. Their footsteps receded, leaving the circle of sandbags empty and silent in the crisp and windless moonlight. He looked about dejectedly. Jeering laughter came to him again, from a distance. A twig snapped nearby. Yossarian dropped to his knees with a cold thrill of elation and aimed. He heard a stealthy rustle of leaves on the other side of the sandbags and fired two quick rounds. Someone fired back at him once, and he recognized the shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "' Dunbar? he called.\n\n\"Yossarian?\" The two men left their hiding places and walked forward to meet in the clearing with weary disappointment, their guns down. They were both shivering slightly from the frosty air and wheezing from the labor of their uphill rush.\n\n\"The bastards,\" said Yossarian. \"They got away.\"\n\n\"They took ten years off my life,\" Dunbar exclaimed. \"I thought that son of a bitch Milo was bombing us again. I've never been so scared. I wish I knew who the bastards were.\n\n\"One was Sergeant Knight.\"\n\n\"Let's go kill him. \"Dunbar's teeth were chattering. \"He had no right to scare us that way.\" Yossarian no longer wanted to kill anyone. \"Let's help Nately first. I think I hurt him at the bottom of the hill. \"But there was no sign of Nately along the path, even though Yossarian located the right spot by the blood on the stones. Nately was not in his tent either, and they did not catch up with him until the next morning when they checked into the hospital as patients after learning he had checked in with a broken nose the night before. Nately beamed in frightened surprise as they padded into the ward in their slippers and robes behind Nurse Cramer and were assigned to their beds. Nately's nose was in a bulky cast, and he had two black eyes. He kept blushing giddily in shy embarrassment and saying he was sorry when Yossarian came over to apologize for hitting him. Yossarian felt terrible; he could hardly bear to look at Nately's battered countenance, even though the sight was so comical he was tempted to guffaw. Dunbar was disgusted by their sentimentality, and all three were relieved when Hungry Joe came barging in unexpectedly with his intricate black camera and trumped-up symptoms of appendicitis to be near enough to Yossarian to take pictures of him feeling up Nurse Duckett. Like Yossarian, he was soon disappointed. Nurse Duckett had decided to marry a doctor-any doctor, because they all did so well in business-and would not take chances in the vicinity of the man who might someday be her husband. Hungry Joe was irate and inconsolable until-of all people-the chaplain was led in wearing a maroon corduroy bathrobe, shining like a skinny lighthouse with a radiant grin of self-satisfaction too tremendous to be concealed. The chaplain had entered the hospital with a pain in his heart that the doctors thought was gas in his stomach and with an advanced case of Wisconsin shingles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What in the world are Wisconsin shingles?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Yossarian.\n\n\"That's just what the doctors wanted to know! \"blurted out the chaplain proudly, and burst into laughter. No one had ever seen him so waggish, or so happy.\"There's no such thing as Wisconsin shingles. Don't you understand? I lied. I made a deal with the doctors. I promised that I would let them know when my Wisconsin shingles went away if they would promise not to do anything to cure them. I never told a lie before. Isn't it wonderful?\" The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Commonsense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil, and that no good could come from evil. But he did feelgood; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character. With effervescent agility the chaplain ran through the whole gamut of orthodox immoralities, while Nately sat up in bed with flushed elation, astounded by the mad gang of companions of which he found himself the nucleus. He was flattered and apprehensive, certain that some severe official would soon appear and throw the whole lot of them out like a pack of bums. No one bothered them. In the evening they all trooped exuberantly out to see a lousy Hollywood extravaganza in Technicolor, and when they trooped exuberantly back in after the lousy Hollywood extravaganza, the soldier in white was there, and Dunbar screamed and went to pieces." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: satire, black comedy, war, anti-war, classic\nAuthor: Joseph Heller\nTitle: Catch 22\nChapter: 41" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I give it away.\"\n\n\"To who?\" cried Milo, in a voice cracking with dismay.\n\n\"To anyone who wants it,\" Yossarian shouted back.\n\nMilo let out along, melancholy wail and staggered back, beads of perspiration popping out suddenly allover his ashen face. He tugged on his unfortunate mustache absently, his whole body trembling.\n\n\"I give a great deal of it to Dunbar,\" Yossarian went on.\n\n\"Dunbar?\" Milo echoed numbly.\n\n\"Yes. Dunbar can eat all the fruit he wants and it won't do him a damned bit of good. I just leave the carton right out therein the open for anyone who wants any to come and help himself. Aarfy comes hereto get prunes because he says he never gets enough prunes in the mess hall. You might look into that when you've got sometime because it's no fun having Aarfy hanging around here. Whenever the supply runs low I just have Corporal Snark fill me up again. Nately always takes a whole load of fruit along with him whenever he goes to Rome. He's in love with a whore there who hates me and isn't at all interested in him. She's got a kid sister who never leaves them alone in bed together, and they live in an apartment with an old man and woman and a bunch of other girls with nice fat thighs who are always kidding around also. Nately brings them a whole cartonful every time he goes.\"\n\n\"Does he sell it to them?\"\n\n\"No, he gives it to them.\" Milo frowned. \"Well, I suppose that's very generous of him, ' he remarked with no enthusiasm.\n\n\"Yes, very generous,\" Yossarian agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I'm sure it's perfectly legal,\" said Milo, \"since the food is yours once you get it from me. I suppose that with conditions as hard as they are, these people are very glad to get it.\"\n\n\"Yes, very glad,\" Yossarian assured him. \"The two girls sell it all on the black market and use the money to buy flashy costume jewelry and cheap perfume.\" Milo perked up. \"Costume jewelry!\" he exclaimed. \"I didn't know that. How much are they paying for cheap perfume? '\n\n\"The old man uses his share to buy raw whiskey and dirty pictures. He's a lecher. '\n\n\"A lecher?\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised. '\n\n\"Is there much of a market in Rome for dirty pictures?\" Milo asked.\n\n\"You'd be surprised. Take Aarfy, for instance. Knowing him, you'd never suspect, would you?\"\n\n\"That he's a lecher? '\n\n\"No, that he's a navigator. You know Captain Aardvaark, don't you? He's that nice guy who came up to you your first day in the squadron and said, \"Aardvaark's my name, and navigation is my game.\" He wore a pipe in his face and probably asked you what college you went to. Do you know him?\" Milo was paying no attention. \"Let me be your partner,\" he blurted out imploringly.\n\nYossarian turned him down, even though he had no doubt that the truckloads of fruit would be theirs to dispose of anyway they saw fit once Yossarian had requisitioned them from the mess hall with Doc Daneeka's letter. Milo was crestfallen, but from that moment on he trusted Yossarian with every secret but one, reasoning shrewdly that anyone who would not steal from the country he loved would not steal from anybody. Milo trusted Yossarian with every secret but the location of the holes in the hills in which he began burying his money once he returned from Smyrna with his planeload of figs and learned from Yossarian that a C. I. D. man had come to the hospital. To Milo, who had been gullible enough to volunteer for it, the position of mess officer was a sacred trust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't even realize we weren't serving enough prunes,\" he had admitted that first day. \"I suppose it's because I'm still so new. I'll raise the question with my first chef. \"Yossarian eyed him sharply.\"What first chef? \"he demanded.\"You don't have a first chef.\"\n\n\"Corporal Snark,\" Milo explained, looking away a little guiltily. \"He's the only chef I have, so he really is my first chef, although I hope to move him over to the administrative side. Corporal Snark tends to be a little too creative, I feel. He thinks being a mess sergeant is some sort of art form and is always complaining about having to prostitute his talents. Nobody is asking him to do any such thing! Incidentally, do you happen to know why he was busted to private and is only a corporal now? '\n\n\"Yes,\" said Yossarian. \"He poisoned the squadron.\" Milo went pale again. \"He did what?\"\n\n\"He mashed hundreds of cakes of GI soap into the sweet potatoes just to show that people have the taste of Philistines and don't know the difference between good and bad. Every man in the squadron was sick. Missions were canceled. '\n\n\"Well!\" Milo exclaimed, with thin-upped disapproval. \"He certainly found out how wrong he was, didn't he? '\n\n\"On the contrary,\" Yossarian corrected. \"He found out how right he was. We packed it away by the plateful and clamored for more. We all knew we were sick, but we had no idea we'd been poisoned. \"Milo sniffed in consternation twice, like a shaggy brown hare.\"In that case, I certainly do want to get him over to the administrative side. I don't want anything like that happening while I'm in charge. You see, \"he confided earnestly,\"what I hope to do is give the men in this squadron the best meals in the whole world. That's really something to shoot at, isn't it? If a mess officer aims at anything less, it seems tome, he has no right being mess officer. Don't you agree?\" Yossarian turned slowly to gaze at Milo with probing distrust. He saw a simple, sincere face that was incapable of subtlety or guile, an honest, frank face with disunited large eyes, rusty hair, black eyebrows and an unfortunate reddish-brown mustache. Milo had along, thin nose with sniffing, damp nostrils heading sharply off to the right, always pointing away from where the rest of him was looking. It was the face of a man of hardened integrity who could no more consciously violate the moral principles on which his virtue rested than he could transform himself into a despicable toad. One of these moral principles was that it was never a sin to charge as much as the traffic would bear. He was capable of mighty paroxysms of righteous indignation, and he was indignant as could be when he learned that a C. I. D. man was in the area looking for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's not looking for you, \"Yossarian said, trying to placate him.\"He's looking for someone up in the hospital who's been signing Washington Irving's name to the letters he's been censoring. '\n\n\"I never signed Washington Irving's name to any letters, ' Milo declared.\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"But that's just a trick to get me to confess I've been making money in the black market.\" Milo hauled violently at a disheveled hunk of his off-colored mustache. \"I don't like guys like that. Always snooping around people like us. Why doesn't the government get after ex-P. F. C. Wintergreen, if it wants to do some good? He's got no respect for rules and regulations and keeps cutting prices on me. \"Milo's mustache was unfortunate because the separated halves never matched. They were like Milo's disunited eyes, which never looked at the same thing at the same time. Milo could see more things than most people, but he could see none of them too distinctly. In contrast to his reaction to news of the C. I. D. man, he learned with calm courage from Yossarian that Colonel Cathcart had raised the number of missions to fifty-five.\n\n\"We're at war, \"he said.\"And there's no use complaining about the number of missions we have to fly. If the colonel says we have to fly fifty-five missions, we have to fly them.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't have to fly them, \"Yossarian vowed.\"I'll go see Major Major.\"\n\n\"How can you? Major Major never sees anybody.\"\n\n\"Then I'll go back into the hospital. '\n\n\"You just came out of the hospital ten days ago,\" Milo reminded him reprovingly. \"You can't keep running into the hospital every time something happens you don't like. No, the best thing to do is fly the missions. It's our duty. \"Milo had rigid scruples that would not even allow him to borrow a package of pitted dates from the mess hall that day of McWatt's stolen bedsheet, for the food at the mess hall was all still the property of the government." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I can borrow it from you,\" he explained to Yossarian, \"since all this fruit is yours once you get it from me with Doctor Daneeka's letter. You can do whatever you want to with it, even sell it at a high profit instead of giving it away free. Wouldn't you want to do that together?\"\n\n\"No.\" Milo gave up. \"Then lend me one package of pitted dates,\" he requested. \"I'll give it back to you. I swear I will, and there'll be a little something extra for you.\" Milo proved good as his word and handed Yossarian a quarter of McWatt's yellow bedsheet when he returned with the unopened package of dates and with the grinning thief with the sweet tooth who had stolen the bedsheet from McWatt's tent. The piece of bedsheet now belonged to Yossarian. He had earned it while napping, although he did not understand how. Neither did McWatt.\n\n\"What's this? ' cried McWatt, staring in mystification at the ripped half of his bedsheet.\n\n\"It's half of the bedsheet that was stolen from your tent this morning, \"Milo explained.\"I'll bet you didn't even know it was stolen. '\n\n\"Why should anyone want to steal half a bedsheet?\" Yossarian asked.\n\nMilo grew flustered. \"You don't understand, \"he protested.\"He stole the whole bedsheet, and I got it back with the package of pitted dates you invested. That's why the quarter of the bedsheet is yours. You made a very handsome return on your investment, particularly since you've gotten back every pitted date you gave me. \"Milo next addressed himself to McWatt.\"Half the bedsheet is yours because it was all yours to begin with, and I really don't understand what you're complaining about, since you wouldn't have any part of it if Captain Yossarian and I hadn't intervened in your behalf. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who's complaining? \"McWatt exclaimed.\"I'm just trying to figure out what I can do with half a bedsheet.\"\n\n\"There are lots of things you can do with half a bedsheet,\" Milo assured him. \"The remaining quarter of the bedsheet I've set aside for myself as a reward for my enterprise, work and initiative. It's not for myself, you understand, but for the syndicate. That's something you might do with half the bedsheet. You can leave it in the syndicate and watch it grow. '\n\n\"What syndicate?\"\n\n\"The syndicate I'd like to form someday so that I can give you men the good food you deserve. '\n\n\"You want to form a syndicate?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. No, a mart. Do you know what a mart is?\"\n\n\"It's a place where you buy things, isn't it?\"\n\n\"And sell things,\" corrected Milo.\n\n\"And sell things.\"\n\n\"All my life I've wanted a mart. You can do lots of things if you've got a mart. But you've got to have a mart. '\n\n\"You want a mart?\"\n\n\"And every man will have a share.\" Yossarian was still puzzled, for it was a business matter, and there was much about business matters that always puzzled him.\n\n\"Let me try to explain it again,\" Milo offered with growing weariness and exasperation, jerking his thumb toward the thief with the sweet tooth, still grinning beside him. \"I knew he wanted the dates more than the bedsheet. Since he doesn't understand a word of English, I made it a point to conduct the whole transaction in English. '\n\n\"Why didn't you just hit him over the head and take the bedsheet away from him? ' Yossarian asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pressing his lips together with dignity, Milo shook his head. \"That would have been most unjust,\" he scolded firmly. \"Force is wrong, and two wrongs never make aright. It was much better my way. When I held the dates out to him and reached for the bedsheet, he probably thought I was offering to trade.\"\n\n\"What were you doing?\"\n\n\"Actually, I was offering to trade, but since he doesn't understand English, I can always deny it. '\n\n\"Suppose he gets angry and wants the dates?\"\n\n\"Why, we'll just hit him over the head and take them away from him, \"Milo answered without hesitation. He looked from Yossarian to McWatt and back again.\"I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We're all much better off than before. Everybody is happy but this thief, and there's no sense worrying about him, since he doesn't even speak our language and deserves whatever he gets. Don't you understand?\" But Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward as the writer's assistant.\nTags: thriller, conspiracy, mystery, science fiction, NASA\nAuthor: Dan Brown\nTitle: Deception Point\nChapter: 1" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\n\"I will admit,\" the President continued, \"NASA has been a walking disaster area lately. Every time I turnaround, they give me yet another reason to slash their funding.\"\n\nRachel saw her opening fora foothold and took it. \"And yet, sir, didn't I just read that you bailed them outlast week with another three million in emergency funding to keep them solvent?\"\n\nThe President chuckled. \"Your father was pleased with that one, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"Nothing like sending ammunition to your executioner.\"\n\n\"Did you hear him on Nightline? \"Zach Herney is a space addict, and the taxpayers are funding his habit.\"\"\n\n\"But you keep proving him right, sir.\"\n\nHerney nodded. \"I make it no secret that I'm an enormous fan of NASA. I always have been. I was a child of the space race-Sputnik, John Glenn, Apollo 11-and I have never hesitated to express my feelings of admiration and national pride for our space program. In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then go back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.\"\n\nRachel remained silent, sensing that just below the President's calm exterior was an indignant rage over her father's endless anti-NASA rhetoric. Rachel found herself wondering what the hell NASA had found. The President was certainly taking his time coming to the point.\n\n\"Today,\" Herney said, his voice intensifying, \"I intend to change your entire opinion of NASA.\"\n\nRachel eyed him with uncertainty. \"You have my vote already, sir. You may want to concentrate on the rest of the country.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I intend to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took a sip of coffee and smiled. \"And I'm going to ask you to help me.\" Pausing, he leaned toward her. \"Ina most unusual way.\"\n\nRachel could now feel Zach Herney scrutinizing her every move, like a hunter trying to gauge if his prey intended to run or fight. Unfortunately, Rachel saw nowhere to run.\n\n\"I assume,\" the President said, pouring them both more coffee, \"that you're aware of a NASA project called EOS?\"\n\nRachel nodded. \"Earth Observation System. I believe my father has mentioned EOS once or twice.\"\n\nThe weak attempt at sarcasm drew a frown from the President. The truth was that Rachel's father mentioned the Earth Observation System every chance he got. It was one of NASA's most controversial big-ticket ventures-a constellation of five satellites designed to look down from space and analyze the planet's environment: ozone depletion, polar ice melt, global warming, rainforest defoliation. The intent was to provide environmentalists with never before seen macroscopic data so that they could plan better for earth's future.\n\nUnfortunately, the EOS project had been wrought with failure. Like so many NASA projects of late, it had been plagued with costly overruns right from the start. And Zach Herney was the one taking the heat. He had used the support of the environmental lobby to push the$ 1.4 billion EOS project through Congress. But rather than delivering the promised contributions to global earth science, EOS\n\nhad spiraled quickly into a costly nightmare of failed launches, computer malfunctions, and somber NASA press conferences. The only smiling face lately was that of Senator Sexton, who was smugly reminding voters just how much of their money the President had spent on EOS and just how lukewarm the returns had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The President dropped a sugar cube into his mug. \"As surprising as this may sound, the NASA discovery I'm referring to was made by EOS.\"\n\nNow Rachel felt lost. If EOS had enjoyed a recent success, NASA certainly would have announced it, wouldn't they? Her father had been crucifying EOS in the media, and the space agency could use any good news they could find.\n\n\"I've heard nothing,\" Rachel said, \"about any EOS discovery.\"\n\n\"I know. NASA prefers to keep the good news to themselves fora while.\"\n\nRachel doubted it. \"In my experience, sir, when it comes to NASA, no news is generally bad news.\" Restraint was not a forte of the NASA public relations department. The standing joke at the NRO was that NASA held a press conference every time one of their scientists so much as farted.\n\nThe President frowned. \" Ah, yes. I forget I'm talking to one of Pickering's NRO\n\nsecurity disciples. Is he still moaning and groaning about NASA's loose lips?\"\n\n\"Security is his business, sir. He takes it very seriously.\"\n\n\"He damn well better. I just find it hard to believe that two agencies with so much in common constantly find something to fight about.\"\n\nRachel had learned early in her tenure under William Pickering that although both NASA and the NRO were space-related agencies, they had philosophies that were polar opposites. The NRO was a defense agency and kept all of its space activities classified, while NASA was academic and excitedly publicized all of its breakthroughs around the globe-often, William Pickering argued, at the risk of national security. Some of NASA's finest technologies-high-resolution lenses for satellite telescopes, long-range communications systems, and radio imaging devices-had a nasty habit of appearing in the intelligence arsenal of hostile countries and being used to spy against us. Bill Pickering often grumbled that NASA scientists had big brains... and even bigger mouths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A more pointed issue between the agencies, however, was the fact that because NASA handled the NRO's satellite launches, many of NASA's recent failures directly affected the NRO. No failure had been more dramatic than that of August 12,1998, when a NASA/Air Force Titan 4 rocket blew up forty seconds into launch and obliterated its payload-a$ 1.2 billion NRO satellite code-named Vortex 2. Pickering seemed particularly unwilling to forget that one.\n\n\"So why hasn't NASA gone public about this recent success?\" Rachel challenged.\n\n\"They certainly could use some good news right now.\"\n\n\"NASA is being silent,\" the President declared, \"because I ordered them to be.\"\n\nRachel wondered if she had heard him correctly. If so, the President was committing some kind of political hara-kiri that she did not understand.\n\n\"This discovery,\" the President said, \"is... shall we say... nothing short of astounding in its ramifications.\"\n\nRachel felt an uneasy chill. In the world of intelligence, \"astounding ramifications\" seldom meant good news. She now wondered if all the EOS\n\nsecrecy was on account of the satellite system having spotted some impending environmental disaster. \"Is there a problem?\"\n\n\"No problem at all. What EOS discovered is quite wonderful.\"\n\nRachel fell silent.\n\n\"Suppose, Rachel, that I told you NASA has just made a discovery of such scientific importance... such earth-shattering significance... that it validated every dollar Americans have ever spent in space?\"\n\nRachel could not imagine.\n\nThe President stood up. \"Let's take a walk, shall we?\"\n\nRachel followed President Herney out onto the glistening gangway of Air Force One. As they descended the stairs, Rachel felt the bleak March air clearing her mind. Unfortunately, clarity only made the President's claims seem more outlandish than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NASA made a discovery of such scientific importance that it validates every dollar Americans have ever spent in space?\n\nRachel could only imagine that a discovery of that magnitude would only center on one thing-the holy grail of NASA-contact with extraterrestrial life. Unfortunately, Rachel knew enough about that particular holy grail to know it was utterly implausible.\n\nAs an intelligence analyst, Rachel constantly fielded questions from friends who wanted to know about the alleged government cover-ups of alien contact. She was consistently appalled by the theories her'educated\" friends bought into-crashed alien saucers hidden in secret government bunkers, extraterrestrial corpses kept on ice, even unsuspecting civilians being abducted and surgically probed. It was all absurd, of course. There were no aliens. No cover-ups. Everyone in the intelligence community understood that the vast majority of sightings and alien abductions were simply the product of active imaginations or moneymaking hoaxes. When authentic photographic UFO evidence did exist, it had a strange habit of occurring near U. S. military airbases that were testing advanced classified aircraft. When Lockheed began air-testing aradical new jet called the Stealth Bomber, UFO sightings around Edwards Air Force Base increased fifteen-fold.\n\n\"You have a skeptical look on your face,\" the President said, eyeing her askance. The sound of his voice startled Rachel. She glanced over, unsure how to respond.\n\n\"Well...\" She hesitated. \"May I assume, sir, that we are not talking about alien spacecrafts or little green men?\"\n\nThe President looked quietly amused. \"Rachel, I think you'll find this discovery far more intriguing than science fiction.\"\n\nRachel was relieved to hear NASA had not been so desperate as to try selling the President on an alien story. Nonetheless, his comment served only to deepen the mystery. \"Well,\" she said, \"whatever NASA found, I must say the timing is exceptionally convenient.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Herney paused on the gangway. \"Convenient? How so?\"\n\nHow so? Rachel stopped and stared. \"Mr. President, NASA is currently in a life or death battle to justify its very existence, and you are under attack for continuing to fund it. A major NASA breakthrough right now would be a panacea for both NASA and your campaign. Your critics will obviously find the timing highly suspect.\"\n\n\"So... are you calling me a liar or a fool?\"\n\nRachel felt a knot rise in her throat. \"I meant no disrespect, sir. I simply-\"\n\n\"Relax.\" A faint grin grew on Herney's lips, and he started to descend again.\n\n\"When the NASA administrator first told me about this discovery, I flat out rejected it as absurd. I accused him of masterminding the most transparent political sham in history.\"\n\nRachel felt the knot in her throat dissolve somewhat.\n\nAt the bottom of the ramp, Herney stopped and looked at her. \"One reason I've asked NASA to keep their discovery under wraps is to protect them. The magnitude of this find is well beyond anything NASA has ever announced. It will make landing men on the moon seem insignificant. Because everyone, myself included, has so much to gain-and lose-I thought it prudent for someone to double-check the NASA data before we step into the world spotlight with a formal announcement.\"\n\nRachel was startled. \"Certainly you can't mean me, sir?\"\n\nThe President laughed. \"No, this is not your area of expertise. Besides, I've already achieved verification through extragovernmental channels.\"\n\nRachel's relief gave way to anew mystification. \"Extragovernmental, sir? You mean you used the private sector? On something this classified?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The President nodded with conviction. \"I put together an external confirmation team-four civilian scientists-non-NASA personnel with big names and serious reputations to protect. They used their own equipment to make observations and come to their own conclusions. Over the past forty-eight hours, these civilian scientists have confirmed the NASA discovery beyond the shadow of a doubt.\"\n\nNow Rachel was impressed. The President had protected himself with typical Herney aplomb. By hiring the ultimate team of skeptics-outsiders who had nothing to gain by confirming the NASA discovery-Herney had immunized himself against suspicions that this might be a desperate NASA ploy to justify its budget, reelect their NASA-friendly President, and ward off Senator Sexton's attacks.\n\n\"Tonight at eight P. M.,\" Herney said, \"I will be calling a press conference at the White House to announce this discovery to the world.\"\n\nRachel felt frustrated. Herney had essentially told her nothing. \"And this discovery is what, precisely?\"\n\nThe President smiled. \"You will find patience a virtue today. This discovery is something you need to see for yourself. I need you to understand this situation fully before we proceed. The administrator of NASA is waiting to brief you. He will tell you everything you need to know. Afterward, you and I will further discuss your role.\"\n\nRachel sensed an impending drama in the President's eyes and recalled Pickering's hunch that the White House had something up its sleeve. Pickering, it appeared, was right, as usual.\n\nHerney motioned to a nearby airplane hangar. \"Follow me,\" he said, walking toward it.\n\nRachel followed, confused. The building before them had no windows, and its towering bay doors were sealed. The only access seemed to be a small entryway on the side. The door was ajar. The President guided Rachel to within a few feet of the door and stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"End of the line for me,\" he said, motioning to the door. \"You go through there.\"\n\nRachel hesitated. \"You're not coming?\"\n\n\"I need to return to the White House. I'll speak to you shortly. Do you have a cellphone?\"\n\n\"Of course, sir.\"\n\n\"Give it tome.\"\n\nRachel produced her phone and handed it to him, assuming he intended to program a private contact number into it. Instead, he slipped her phone into his pocket.\n\n\"You're now off-the-grid,\" the President said. \"All your responsibilities at work have been covered. You will not speak to anyone else today without express permission from myself or the NASA administrator. Do you understand?\"\n\nRachel stared. Did the President just steal my cell-phone?\n\n\"After the administrator briefs you on the discovery, he will put you in contact with me via secure channels. I'll talk to you soon. Good luck.\"\n\nRachel looked at the hangar door and felt a growing uneasiness. President Herney put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and nodded toward the door. \"I assure you, Rachel, you will not regret assisting me in this matter.\"\n\nWithout another word, the President strode toward the PaveHawk that had brought Rachel in. He climbed aboard, and took off. He never once looked back.\n\nRachel Sexton stood alone on the threshold of the isolated Wallops hangar and peered into the blackness beyond. She felt like she was on the cusp of another world. A cool and musty breeze flowed outward from the cavernous interior, as if the building were breathing.\n\n\"Hello?\" she called out, her voice wavering slightly.\n\nSilence.\n\nWith rising trepidation, she stepped over the threshold. Her vision went blank for an instant as her eyes became accustomed to the dimness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ms. Sexton, I presume?\" a man's voice said, only yards away. Rachel jumped, wheeling toward the sound. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe hazy shape of a man approached.\n\nAs Rachel's vision cleared, she found herself standing face to face with a young, stone-jawed buck in a NASA flight suit. His body was fit and muscle-bound, his chest bedecked with patches.\n\n\"Commander Wayne Loosigian,\" the man said. \"Sorry if I startled you, ma'am. It's pretty dark inhere. I haven't had a chance to open the bay doors yet.\" Before Rachel could respond, the man added, \"It will be my honor to be your pilot this morning.\"\n\n\"Pilot?\" Rachel stared at the man. I just had a pilot. \"I'm hereto seethe administrator.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. My orders are to transport you to him immediately.\"\n\nIt took a moment for the statement to sink in. When it hither, she felt a stab of deceit. Apparently, her travels were not over. \"Where is the administrator?\"\n\nRachel demanded, wary now.\n\n\"I do not have that information,\" the pilot replied. \"I will receive his coordinates after we are airborne.\"\n\nRachel sensed that the man was telling the truth. Apparently she and Director Pickering were not the only two people being kept in the dark this morning. The President was taking the issue of security very seriously, and Rachel felt embarrassed by how quickly and effortlessly the President had taken her'off-thegrid.\" Half an hour in the field, and I'm already stripped of all communication, and my director has no idea where I am.\n\nStanding now before her stiff-backed NASA pilot, Rachel had little doubt her morning plans were cast in stone. This carnival ride was leaving with Rachel onboard whether she liked it or not. The only question was where it was headed. The pilot strode over to the wall and pressed a button. The far side of the hangar began sliding loudly to one side. Light poured in from the outside, silhouetting a large object in the center of the hangar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel's mouth fell open. God help me.\n\nTherein the middle of the hangar stood a ferocious-looking black fighter jet. It was the most streamlined aircraft Rachel had ever seen.\n\n\"You are joking,\" she said.\n\n\"Common first reaction, ma'am, but the F-14 Tomcat Split-tail is a highly proven craft.\"\n\nIt's a missile with wings.\n\nThe pilot led Rachel toward his craft. He motioned to the dual cockpit. \"You'll be riding in back.\"\n\n\"Really?\" She gave him a tight smile. \"And here I thought you wanted me to drive.\"\n\nAfter donning a thermal flight suit over her clothes, Rachel found herself climbing into the cockpit. Awkwardly, she wedged her hips into the narrow seat.\n\n\"NASA obviously has no fat-assed pilots,\" she said.\n\nThe pilot gave a grin as he helped Rachel buckle herself in. Then he slid a helmet over her head.\n\n\"We'll be flying pretty high,\" he said. \"You'll want oxygen.\" He pulled an oxygen mask from the side dash and began snapping it onto her helmet.\n\n\"I can manage,\" Rachel said, reaching up and taking over.\n\n\"Of course, ma'am.\"\n\nRachel fumbled with the molded mouthpiece and then finally snapped it onto her helmet. The mask's fit was surprisingly awkward and uncomfortable. The commander stared at her fora long moment, looking vaguely amused.\n\n\"Is something wrong?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Not at all, ma'am.\" He seemed to be hiding a smirk. \"Hack sacks are under your seat. Most people get sick their first time in a split-tail.\"\n\n\"I should be fine,\" Rachel assured him, her voice muffled by the smothering fit of the mask. \"I'm not prone to motion sickness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pilot shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A lot of Navy Seals say the same thing, and I've cleaned plenty of Seal puke out of my cockpit.\"\n\nShe nodded weakly. Lovely.\n\n\"Any questions before we go?\"\n\nRachel hesitated a moment and then tapped on the mouthpiece cutting into her chin. \"It's cutting off my circulation. How do you wear these things on long flights?\"\n\nThe pilot smiled patiently. \"Well, ma'am, we don't usually wear them upside down.\"\n\nPoised at the end of the runway, engines throbbing beneath her, Rachel felt like a bulletin a gun waiting for someone to pull the trigger. When the pilot pushed the throttle forward, the Tomcat's twin Lockheed 345 engines roared to life, and the entire world shook. The brakes released, and Rachel slammed backward in her seat. The jet tore down the runway and lifted off within a matter of seconds. Outside, the earth dropped away at a dizzying rate.\n\nRachel closed her eyes as the plane rocketed skyward. She wondered where she had gone wrong this morning. She was supposed to beat a desk writing gists. Now she was straddling a testosterone-fueled torpedo and breathing through an oxygen mask.\n\nBy the time the Tomcat leveled out at forty-five thousand feet, Rachel was feeling queasy. She willed herself to focus her thoughts elsewhere. Gazing down at the ocean nine miles below, Rachel felt suddenly far from home. Upfront, the pilot was talking to someone on the radio. When the conversation ended, the pilot hung up the radio, and immediately banked the Tomcat sharply left. The plane tipped almost to the vertical, and Rachel felt her stomach do a somersault. Finally, the plane leveled out again.\n\nRachel groaned. \"Thanks for the warning, hotshot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I've just been given the classified coordinates of your meeting with the administrator.\"\n\n\"Let me guess,\" Rachel said. \"Due north?\"\n\nThe pilot seemed confused. \"How did you know that!\"\n\nRachel sighed. You gotta love these computer-trained pilots. \"It's nine A. M., sport, and the sun is on our right. We're flying north.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence from the cockpit. \"Yes, ma'am, we'll be traveling north this morning.\"\n\n\"And how far north are we going?\"\n\nThe pilot checked the coordinates. \"Approximately three thousand miles.\"\n\nRachel sat bolt upright. \"What!\" She tried to picture a map, unable even to imagine what was that far north. \"That's a four-hour flight!\"\n\n\"At our current speed, yes,\" the pilot said. \"Hold on, please.\"\n\nBefore Rachel could respond, the man retracted the F-14's wings into low-drag position. An instant later, Rachel felt herself slammed into her seat yet again as the plane shot forward as though it had been standing still. Within a minute they were cruising at almost 1,500 miles per hour.\n\nRachel was feeling dizzy now. As the sky tore by with blinding speed, she felt an uncontrollable wave of nausea hither. The President's voice echoed faintly. I assure you, Rachel, you will not regret assisting me in this matter. Groaning, Rachel reached for her hack sack. Never trust a politician.\n\nAlthough he disliked the menial filth of public taxis, Senator Sedgewick Sexton had learned to endure the occasional demeaning moment along his road to glory. The grungy Mayflower cab that had just deposited him in the lower parking garage of the Purdue Hotel afforded Sexton something his stretch limousine could not-anonymity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was pleased to find this lower level deserted, only a few dusty cars dotting a forest of cement pillars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe made his way diagonally across the garage on foot, Sexton glanced at his watch.\n\n11:15 A. M. Perfect.\n\nThe man with whom Sexton was meeting was always touchy about punctuality. Then again, Sexton reminded himself, considering who the man represented, he could be touchy about any damned thing he wanted.\n\nSexton saw the white Ford Windstar minivan parked inexactly the same spot as it had been for everyone of their meetings-in the eastern corner of the garage, behind a row of trash bins. Sexton would have preferred to meet this man in a suite upstairs, but he certainly understood the precautions. This man's friends had not gotten to where they were by being careless.\n\nAs Sexton moved toward the van, he felt the familiar edginess that he always experienced before these encounters. Forcing himself to relax his shoulders, he climbed into the passenger's seat with a cheery wave. The dark-haired gentleman in the driver's seat did not smile. The man was almost seventy years old, but his leathery complexion exuded a toughness appropriate to his post as figurehead of an army of brazen visionaries and ruthless entrepreneurs.\n\n\"Close the door,\" the man said, his voice callous.\n\nSexton obeyed, tolerating the man's gruffness graciously. After all, this man represented men who controlled enormous sums of money, much of which had been pooled recently to poise Sedgewick Sexton on the threshold of the most powerful office in the world. These meetings, Sexton had come to understand, were less strategy sessions than they were monthly reminders of just how beholden the senator had become to his benefactors. These men were expecting a serious return on their investment. The'return,\" Sexton had to admit, was a shockingly bold demand; and yet, almost more incredibly, it was something that would be within Sexton's sphere of influence once he took the Oval Office." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I assume,\" Sexton said, having learned how this man liked to get down to business, \"that another installment has been made?\"\n\n\"It has. And as usual, you are to use these funds solely for your campaign. We have been pleased to seethe polls shifting consistently in your favor, and it appears your campaign managers have been spending our money effectively.\"\n\n\"We're gaining fast.\"\n\n\"As I mentioned to you on the phone,\" the old man said, \"I have persuaded six more to meet with you tonight.\"\n\n\"Excellent.\" Sexton had blocked off the time already.\n\nThe old man handed Sexton a folder. \"Here is their information. Study it. They want to know you understand their concerns specifically. They want to know you are sympathetic. I suggest you meet them at your residence.\"\n\n\"My home? But I usually meet-\"\n\n\"Senator, these six men run companies that possess resources well in excess of the others you have met. These men are the big fish, and they are wary. They have more to gain and therefore more to lose. I've worked hard to persuade them to meet with you. They will require special handling. A personal touch.\"\n\nSexton gave a quick nod. \"Absolutely. I can arrange a meeting at my home.\"\n\n\"Of course, they will want total privacy.\"\n\n\"As will I.\"\n\n\"Good luck,\" the old man said. \"If tonight goes well, it could be your last meeting. These men alone can provide what is needed to push the Sexton campaign over the top.\"\n\nSexton liked the sound of that. He gave the old man a confident smile. \"With luck, my friend, come election time, we will all claim victory.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Victory?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man scowled, leaning toward Sexton with ominous eyes.\n\n\"Putting you in the White House is only the first step toward victory, senator. I assume you have not forgotten that.\"\n\nThe White House is one of the smallest presidential mansions in the world, measuring only 170 feet in length, 85 feet in depth, and sitting on a mere 18 acres of landscaped grounds. Architect James Hoban's plan fora box-like stone structure with a hipped roof, balustrade, and columnar entrance, though clearly unoriginal, was selected from the open design contest by judges who praised it as\n\n\"attractive, dignified, and flexible.\"\n\nPresident Zach Herney, even after three and a half years in the White House, seldom felt at home here among the maze of chandeliers, antiques, and armed Marines. At the moment, however, as he strode toward the West Wing, he felt invigorated and oddly at ease, his feet almost weightless on the plush carpeting. Several members of the White House staff looked up as the President approached. Herney waved and greeted each by name. Their responses, though polite, were subdued and accompanied by forced smiles.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. President.\"\n\n\"Nice to see you, Mr. President.\"\n\n\"Good day, sir.\"\n\nAs the President made his way toward his office, he sensed whisperings in his wake. There was an insurrection afoot inside the White House. For the past couple of weeks, the disillusionment at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had been growing to a point where Herney was starting to feel like Captain Bligh-commanding a struggling ship whose crew was preparing for mutiny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The President didn't blame them. His staff had worked grueling hours to support him in the upcoming election, and now, all of a sudden, it seemed the President was fumbling the ball.\n\nSoon they will understand, Herney told himself. Soon I'll be the hero again. He regretted having to keep his staff in the dark for so long, but secrecy was absolutely critical. And when it came to keeping secrets, the White House was known as the leakiest ship in Washington.\n\nHerney arrived in the waiting room outside the Oval Office and gave his secretary a cheery wave. \"You look nice this morning, Dolores.\"\n\n\"You too, sir,\" she said, eyeing his casual attire with unveiled disapproval. Herney lowered his voice. \"I'd like you to organize a meeting for me.\"\n\n\"With whom, sir?\"\n\n\"The entire White House staff.\"\n\nHis secretary glanced up. \"Your entire staff, sir? All 145 of them?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\nShe looked uneasy. \"Okay. Shall I set it up in... the Briefing Room?\"\n\nHerney shook his head. \"No. Let's set it up in my office.\"\n\nNow she stared. \"You want to see your entire staff inside the Oval Office?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"All at once, sir?\"\n\n\"Why not? Set it up for four P. M.\"\n\nThe secretary nodded as though humoring a mental patient. \"Very well, sir. And the meeting is regarding...?\"\n\n\"I have an important announcement to make to the American people tonight. I want my staff to hear it first.\"\n\nA sudden dejected look swept across his secretary's face, almost as if she had secretly been dreading this moment. She lowered her voice. \"Sir, are you pulling out of the race?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Herney burst out laughing. \"Hell no, Dolores! I'm gearing up to fight!\"\n\nShe looked doubtful. The media reports had all been saying President Herney was throwing the election.\n\nHe gave her a reassuring wink. \"Dolores, you've done a terrific job for me these past few years, and you'll do a terrific job for me for another four. We're keeping the White House. I swear it.\"\n\nHis secretary looked like she wanted to believe it. \"Very well, sir. I'll alert the staff. Four P. M.\"\n\nAs Zach Herney entered the Oval Office, he couldn't help but smile at the image of his entire staff crammed into the deceptively small chamber. Although this great office had enjoyed many nicknames over the years-the Loo, Dick's Den, the Clinton Bedroom-Herney's favorite was'the Lobster Trap.\" It seemed most fitting. Each time a newcomer entered the Oval Office, disorientation set in immediately. The symmetry of the room, the gently curving walls, the discreetly disguised doorways in and out, all gave visitors the dizzying sense they'd been blindfolded and spun around. Often, after a meeting in the Oval Office, a visiting dignitary would stand up, shake hands with the President, and march straight into a storage closet. Depending on how the meeting had gone, Herney would either stop the guest in time or watch in amusement as the visitor embarrassed himself.\n\nHerney had always believed the most dominating aspect of the Oval Office was the colorful American eagle emblazoned on the room's oval carpet. The eagle's left talon clutched an olive branch and his right a bundle of arrows. Few outsiders knew that during times of peace, the eagle faced left-toward the olive branch. But in times of war, the eagle mysteriously faced right-toward the arrows. The mechanism behind this little parlor trick was the source of quiet speculation among White House staff because it was traditionally known only by the President and the head of housekeeping. The truth behind the enigmatic eagle, Herney had found to be disappointingly mundane. A storage room in the basement contained the second oval carpet, and housekeeping simply swapped the carpets in the dead of night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, as Herney gazed down at the peaceful, left-gazing eagle, he smiled to think that perhaps he should swap carpets in honor of the little war he was about to launch against Senator Sedgewick Sexton.\n\nThe U. S. Delta Force is the sole fighting squad whose actions are granted complete presidential immunity from the law.\n\nPresidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25) grants Delta Force soldiers'freedom from all legal accountability,\" including exception from the 1876 Posse Comitatus Act, a statute imposing criminal penalties for anyone using the military for personal gain, domestic law enforcement, or unsanctioned covert operations. Delta Force members are handpicked from the Combat Applications Group (CAG), a classified organization within the Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Delta Force soldiers are trained killers-experts in SWAT\n\noperations, rescuing hostages, surprise raids, and elimination of covert enemy forces.\n\nBecause Delta Force missions usually involve high levels of secrecy, the traditional multitiered chain of command is often circumvented in favor of\n\n\"monocaput\" management-a single controller who holds authority to control the unit as he or she sees fit. The controller tends to be a military or government powerbroker with sufficient rank or influence to run the mission. Regardless of the identity of their controller, Delta Force missions are classified at the highest level, and once a mission is completed, Delta Force soldiers never speak of it again-not to one another, and not to their commanding officers within Special Ops. Fly. Fight. Forget.\n\nThe Delta team currently stationed above the Eighty-second Parallel was doing no flying or fighting. They were simply watching.\n\nDelta-One had to admit that this had been a most unusual mission so far, but he had learned long ago never to be surprised by what he was asked to do. In the past five years he had been involved in Middle East hostage rescues, tracking and exterminating terrorist cells working inside the United States, and even the discreet elimination of several dangerous men and women around the globe. Just last month his Delta team had used a flying microbot to induce a lethal heart attack in a particularly malicious South American drug lord. Using a microbot equipped with a hairline titanium needle containing a potent vasoconstrictor, DeltaTwo had flown the device into the man's house through an open second-story window, found the man's bedroom, and then pricked him on the shoulder while he was sleeping. The microbot was back out the window and'feet dry\" before the man woke up with chest pain. The Delta team was already flying home by the time its victim's wife was calling the paramedics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No breaking and entering.\n\nDeath by natural causes.\n\nIt had been a thing of beauty.\n\nMore recently, another microbot stationed inside a prominent senator's office to monitor his personal meetings had captured images of a lurid sexual encounter. The Delta team jokingly referred to that mission as'insertion behind enemy lines.\"\n\nNow, after being trapped on surveillance duty inside this tent for the last ten days, Delta-One was ready for this mission to be over.\n\nRemain in hiding.\n\nMonitor the structure-inside and out.\n\nReport to your controller any unexpected developments.\n\nDelta-One had been trained never to feel any emotion regarding his assignments. This mission, however, had certainly raised his heart rate when he and his team were first briefed. The briefing had been'faceless\"-every phase explained via secure electronic channels. Delta-One had never met the controller responsible for this mission.\n\nDelta-One was preparing a dehydrated protein meal when his watch beeped in unison with the others. Within seconds the CrypTalk communications device beside him blinked on alert. He stopped what he was doing and picked up the handheld communicator. The other two men watched in silence.\n\n\"Delta-One,\" he said, speaking into the transmitter.\n\nThe two words were instantly identified by the voice recognition software inside the device. Each word was then assigned a reference number, which was encrypted and sent via satellite to the caller. On the caller's end, at a similar device, the numbers were decrypted, translated back into words using a predetermined, self-randomizing dictionary. Then the words were spoken aloud by a synthetic voice. Total delay, eighty milliseconds.\n\n\"Controller, here,\" said the person overseeing the operation. The robotic tone of the CrypTalk was eerie-inorganic and androgynous. \"What is your op status?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything proceeding as planned,\" Delta-One replied.\n\n\"Excellent. I have an update on the time frame. The information goes public tonight at eight P. M. Eastern.\"\n\nDelta-One checked his chronograph. Only eight more hours. His job here would be finished soon. That was encouraging.\n\n\"There is another development,\" the controller said. \"Anew player has entered the arena.\"\n\n\"What new player?\"\n\nDelta-One listened. An interesting gamble. Someone out there was playing for keeps. \"Do you think she can be trusted?\"\n\n\"She needs to be watched very closely.\"\n\n\"And if there is trouble?\"\n\nThere was no hesitation on the line. \"Your orders stand.\"\n\nRachel Sexton had been flying due north for over an hour. Other than a fleeting glimpse of Newfoundland, she had seen nothing but water beneath the F-14 for the entire journey.\n\nWhy did it have to be water? she thought, grimacing. Rachel had plunged through the ice on a frozen pond while ice-skating when she was seven. Trapped beneath the surface, she was certain she would die. It had been her mother's powerful grasp that finally yanked Rachel's waterlogged body to safety. Ever since that harrowing ordeal, Rachel had battled a persistent case of hydrophobia-a distinct wariness of open water, especially cold water. Today, with nothing but the North Atlantic as far as Rachel could see, her old fears had come creeping back. Not until the pilot checked his bearings with Thule airbase in northern Greenland did Rachel realize how far they had traveled. I'm above the Arctic Circle? The revelation intensified her uneasiness. Where are they taking me? What has NASA found? Soon the blue-gray expanse below her became speckled with thousands of stark white dots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Icebergs.\n\nRachel had seen icebergs only once before in her life, six years ago when her mother persuaded Rachel to join heron an Alaskan mother-daughter cruise. Rachel had suggested a number of alternative land-based vacations, but her mother was insistent. \"Rachel, honey,\" her mother had said, \"two thirds of this planet is covered with water, and sooner or later, you've got to learn to deal with it.\" Mrs. Sexton was a resilient New Englander intent on raising a strong daughter. The cruise had been the last trip Rachel and her mother ever took. Katherine Wentworth Sexton. Rachel felt a distant pang of loneliness. Like the howling wind outside the plane, the memories came tearing back, pulling at her the way they always did. Their final conversation had been by phone. Thanksgiving morning.\n\n\"I'm so sorry, Mom,\" Rachel said, phoning home from a snowbound O'Hare airport. \"I know our family has never spent Thanksgiving Day apart. It looks like today will be our first.\"\n\nRachel's mom sounded crushed. \"I was so looking forward to seeing you.\"\n\n\"Me too, Mom. Think of me eating airport food while you and Dad feast on turkey.\"\n\nThere was a pause on the line. \"Rachel, I wasn't going to tell you until you got here, but your father says he has too much work to make it home this year. He'll be staying at his D. C. suite for the long weekend.\"\n\n\"What!\" Rachel's surprise gave way immediately to anger. \"But, it's Thanksgiving. The Senate isn't in session! He's less than two hours away. He should be with you!\"\n\n\"I know. He says he's exhausted-far too tired to drive. He's decided he needs to spend this weekend curled up with his backlog of work.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Work? Rachel was skeptical. A more likely guess was that Senator Sexton would be curled up with another woman. His infidelities, though discreet, had been going on for years. Mrs. Sexton was no fool, but her husband's affairs were always accompanied by persuasive alibis and pained indignity at the mere suggestion he could be unfaithful. Finally, Mrs. Sexton saw no alternative but to bury her pain by turning a blind eye. Although Rachel had urged her mother to consider divorce, Katherine Wentworth Sexton was a woman of her word. Till death do us part, she told Rachel. Your father blessed me with you-a beautiful daughter-and for that I thank him. He will have to answer for his actions to a higher power someday. Now, standing in the airport, Rachel's anger was simmering. \"But, this means you'll be alone for Thanksgiving!\" She felt sick to her stomach. The senator deserting his family on Thanksgiving Day was anew low, even for him.\n\n\"Well...,\" Mrs. Sexton said, her voice disappointed but decisive. \"I obviously can't let all this food go to waste. I'll drive it up to Aunt Ann's. She's always invited us up for Thanksgiving. I'll give her a call right now.\"\n\nRachel felt only marginally less guilty. \"Okay. I'll be home as soon as I can. I love you, Mom.\"\n\n\"Safe flight, sweetheart.\"\n\nIt was 10:30 that night when Rachel's taxi finally pulled up the winding driveway of the Sextons\" luxurious estate. Rachel immediately knew something was wrong. Three police cars satin the driveway. Several news vans too. All the houselights were on. Rachel dashed in, her heart racing.\n\nA Virginia State policeman met her at the doorway. His face was grim. He didn't have to say a word. Rachel knew. There had been an accident." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Route Twenty-five was slick with freezing rain,\" the officer said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your mother went off the road into a wooded ravine. I'm sorry. She died on impact.\"\n\nRachel's body went numb. Her father, having returned immediately when he got the news, was now in the living room holding a small press conference, stoically announcing to the world that his wife had passed away in a crash on her way back from Thanksgiving dinner with family.\n\nRachel stood in the wings, sobbing through the entire event.\n\n\"I only wish,\" her father told the media, his eyes tearful, \"that I had been home for her this weekend. This never would have happened.\"\n\nYou should have thought of that years ago, Rachel cried, her loathing for her father deepening with every passing instant.\n\nFrom that moment on, Rachel divorced herself from her father in the way Mrs. Sexton never had. The senator barely seemed to notice. He suddenly had gotten very busy using his late wife's fortunes to begin courting his party's nomination for president. The sympathy vote didn't hurt either.\n\nCruelly now, three years later, even at a distance the senator was making Rachel's life lonely. Her father's run for the White House had put Rachel's dreams of meeting a man and starting a family on indefinite hold. For Rachel it had become far easier to take herself completely out of the social game than to deal with the endless stream of power-hungry Washingtonian suitors hoping to snag a grieving, potential'first daughter\" while she was still in their league.\n\nOutside the F-14, the daylight had started to fade. It was late winter in the Arctic-a time of perpetual darkness. Rachel realized she was flying into a land of permanent night.\n\nAs the minutes passed, the sun faded entirely, dropping below the horizon. They continued north, and a brilliant three-quarter moon appeared, hanging white in the crystalline glacial air. Far below, the ocean waves shimmered, the icebergs looking like diamonds sewn into a dark sequin mesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally, Rachel spotted the hazy outline of land. But it was not what she had expected. Looming out of the ocean before the plane was an enormous snowcapped mountain range.\n\n\"Mountains?\" Rachel asked, confused. \"There are mountains north of Greenland?\"\n\n\"Apparently,\" the pilot said, sounding equally surprised. As the nose of the F-14 tipped downward, Rachel felt an eerie weightlessness. Through the ringing in her ears she could hear a repeated electronic ping in the cockpit. The pilot had apparently locked onto some kind of directional beacon and was following it in.\n\nAs they passed below three thousand feet, Rachel stared out at the dramatic moonlit terrain beneath them. At the base of the mountains, an expansive, snowy plain swept wide. The plateau spread gracefully seaward about ten miles until it ended abruptly at a sheer cliff of solid ice that dropped vertically into the ocean. It was then that Rachel saw it. A sight like nothing she had ever seen anywhere on earth. At first she thought the moonlight must be playing tricks on her. She squinted down at the snowfields, unable to comprehend what she was looking at. The lower the plane descended, the clearer the image became. What in the name of God?\n\nThe plateau beneath them was striped... as if someone had painted the snow with three huge striations of silver paint. The glistening strips ran parallel to the coastal cliff. Not until the plane dropped past five hundred feet did the optical illusion reveal itself. The three silver stripes were deep troughs, each one over thirty yards wide. The troughs had filled with water and frozen into broad, silvery channels that stretched in parallel across the plateau. The white berms between them were mounded dikes of snow.\n\nAs they dropped toward the plateau, the plane started bucking and bouncing in heavy turbulence. Rachel heard the landing gear engage with a heavy clunk, but she still saw no landing strip. As the pilot struggled to keep the plane under control, Rachel peered out and spotted two lines of blinking strobes straddling the outermost ice trough. She realized to her horror what the pilot was about to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're landing on ice?\" she demanded.\n\nThe pilot did not respond. He was concentrating on the buffeting wind. Rachel felt a drag in her gut as the craft decelerated and dropped toward the ice channel. High snow berms rose on either side of the aircraft, and Rachel held her breath, knowing the slightest miscalculation in the narrow channel would mean certain death. The wavering plane dropped lower between the berms, and the turbulence suddenly disappeared. Sheltered therefrom the wind, the plane touched down perfectly on the ice.\n\nThe Tomcat's rear thrusters roared, slowing the plane. Rachel exhaled. The jet taxied about a hundred yards farther and rolled to a stop at a red line spray-painted boldly across the ice.\n\nThe view to the right was nothing but a wall of snow in the moonlight-the side of an ice berm. The view on the left was identical. Only through the windshield ahead of them did Rachel have any visibility... an endless expanse of ice. She felt like she had landed on a dead planet. Aside from the line on the ice, there were no signs of life.\n\nThen Rachel heard it. In the distance, another engine was approaching. Higher pitched. The sound grew louder until a machine came into view. It was a large, multitreaded snow tractor churning toward them up the ice trough. Tall and spindly, it looked like a towering futuristic insect grinding toward them on voracious spinning feet. Mounted high on the chassis was an enclosed Plexiglas cabin with a rack of floodlights illuminating its way.\n\nThe machine shuddered to a halt directly beside the F-14. The door on the Plexiglas cabin opened, and a figure climbed down a ladder onto the ice. He was bundled from head to foot in a puffy white jumpsuit that gave the impression he had been inflated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mad Max meets the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Rachel thought, relieved at least to see this strange planet was inhabited.\n\nThe man signaled for the F-14 pilot to pop the hatch.\n\nThe pilot obeyed.\n\nWhen the cockpit opened, the gust of air that tore through Rachel's body chilled her instantly to the core.\n\nClose the damn lid!\n\n\"Ms. Sexton?\" the figure called up to her. His accent was American. \"On behalf of NASA, I welcome you.\"\n\nRachel was shivering. Thanks a million.\n\n\"Please unhook your flight harness, leave your helmet in the craft, and deplane by using the fuselage toe-holds. Do you have any questions?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Rachel shouted back. \"Where the hell am I?\"\n\nMarjorie Tench-senior adviser to the President-was a loping skeleton of a creature. Her gaunt six-foot frame resembled an Erector Set construction of joints and limbs. Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes. At fiftyone, she looked seventy. Tench was revered in Washington as a goddess in the political arena. She was said to possess analytical skills that bordered on the clairvoyant. Her decade running the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research had helped hone a lethally sharp, critical mind. Unfortunately, accompanying Tench's political savvy came an icy temperament that few could endure for more than a few minutes. Marjorie Tench had been blessed with all the brains of a supercomputer-and the warmth of one, too. Nonetheless, President Zach Herney had little trouble tolerating the woman's idiosyncrasies; her intellect and hard work were almost single-handedly responsible for putting Herney in office in the first place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Marjorie,\" the President said, standing to welcome her into the Oval Office.\n\n\"What can I do for you?\" He did not offer her a seat. The typical social graces did not apply to women like Marjorie Tench. If Tench wanted a seat, she would damn well take one.\n\n\"I see you set the staff briefing for four o'clock this afternoon.\" Her voice was raspy from cigarettes. \"Excellent.\"\n\nTench paced a moment, and Herney sensed the intricate cogs of her mind turning over and over. He was grateful. Marjorie Tench was one of the select few on the President's staff who was fully aware of the NASA discovery, and her political savvy was helping the President plan his strategy.\n\n\"This CNN debate today atone o'clock,\" Tench said, coughing. \"Who are we sending to spar with Sexton?\"\n\nHerney smiled. \"A junior campaign spokesperson.\" The political tactic of frustrating the'hunter\" by never sending him any big game was as old as debates themselves.\n\n\"I have a better idea,\" Tench said, her barren eyes finding his. \"Let me take the spot myself.\"\n\nZach Herney's head shot up. \"You?\" What the hell is she thinking? \"Marjorie, you don't do media spots. Besides, it's a midday cable show. If I send my senior adviser, what kind of message does that send? It makes us look like we're panicking.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\nHerney studied her. Whatever convoluted scheme Tench was hatching, there was noway in hell Herney would permit her to appear on CNN. Anyone who had ever laid eyes on Marjorie Tench knew there was a reason she worked behind the scenes. Tench was a frightful-looking woman-not the kind of face a President wanted delivering the White House message." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am taking this CNN debate,\" she repeated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time she was not asking.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" the President maneuvered, feeling uneasy now, \"Sexton's campaign will obviously claim your presence on CNN is proof the White House is running scared. Sending out our big guns early makes us look desperate.\"\n\nThe woman gave a quiet nod and lit a cigarette. \"The more desperate we look, the better.\"\n\nFor the next sixty seconds, Marjorie Tench outlined why the President would be sending her to the CNN debate instead of some lowly campaign staffer. When Tench was finished, the President could only stare in amazement. Once again, Marjorie Tench had proven herself apolitical genius.\n\nThe Milne Ice Shelf is the largest solid ice floe in the Northern Hemisphere. Located above the Eighty-second Parallel on the northernmost coast of Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic, the Milne Ice Shelf is four miles wide and reaches thicknesses of over three hundred feet.\n\nNow, as Rachel climbed into the Plexiglas enclosure atop the ice tractor, she was grateful for the extra parka and gloves waiting for heron her seat, as well as the heat pouring out of the tractor's vents. Outside, on the ice runway, the F-14's engines roared, and the plane began taxiing away.\n\nRachel looked up in alarm. \"He's leaving?\"\n\nHer new host climbed into the tractor, nodding. \"Only science personnel and immediate NASA support team members are allowed on-site.\"\n\nAs the F-14 tore off into the sunless sky, Rachel felt suddenly marooned.\n\n\"We'll betaking the IceRover from here,\" the man said. \"The administrator is waiting.\"\n\nRachel gazed out at the silvery path of ice before them and tried to imagine what the hell the administrator of NASA was doing up here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on,\" the NASA man shouted, working some levers. With a grinding growl, the machine rotated ninety degrees in place like a treaded army tank. It was now facing the high wall of a snow berm.\n\nRachel looked at the steep incline and felt a ripple of fear. Surely he doesn't intend to-\n\n\"Rock and roll!\" The driver popped the clutch, and the craft accelerated directly toward the slope. Rachel let out a muffled cry and held on. As they hit the incline, the spiked treads tore into the snow, and the contraption began to climb. Rachel was certain they would tip over backward, but the cabin remained surprisingly horizontal as the treads clawed up the slope. When the huge machine heaved up onto the crest of the berm, the driver brought it to a stop and beamed at his whiteknuckled passenger. \"Try that in an SUV! We took the shock-system design from the Mars Pathfinder and popped it on this baby! Worked like a charm.\"\n\nRachel gave a wan nod. \"Neat.\"\n\nSitting now atop the snow berm, Rachel looked out at the inconceivable view. One more large berm stood before them, and then the undulations stopped abruptly. Beyond, the ice smoothed into a glistening expanse that was inclined ever so slightly. The moonlit sheet of ice stretched out into the distance, where it eventually narrowed and snaked up into the mountains.\n\n\"That's the Milne Glacier,\" the driver said, pointing up into the mountains. \"Starts up there and flows down into this wide delta that we're sitting on now.\"\n\nThe driver gunned the engine again, and Rachel held on as the craft accelerated down the steep face. At the bottom, they clawed across another ice river and rocketed up the next berm. Mounting the crest and quickly skimming down the far side, they slid out onto a smooth sheet of ice and started crunching across the glacier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How far?\" Rachel saw nothing but ice in front of them.\n\n\"About two miles ahead.\"\n\nRachel thought it seemed far. The wind outside pounded the IceRover in relentless gusts, rattling the Plexiglas as if trying to hurl them back toward the sea.\n\n\"That's the katabatic wind,\" the driver yelled. \"Get used to it!\" He explained that this area had a permanent offshore gale called the katabatic-Greek for flowing downhill. The relentless wind was apparently the product of heavy, cold air\n\n\"flowing\" down the glacial face like a raging river downhill. \"This is the only place on earth,\" the driver added, laughing, \"where hell actually freezes over!\"\n\nSeveral minutes later, Rachel began to see a hazy shape in the distance in front of them-the silhouette of an enormous white dome emerging from the ice. Rachel rubbed her eyes. What in the world...?\n\n\"Big Eskimos up here, eh?\" the man joked.\n\nRachel tried to make sense of the structure. It looked like a scaled-down Houston Astrodome.\n\n\"NASA put it up a week and a half ago,\" he said. \"Multistage inflatable plexipolysorbate. Inflate the pieces, affix them to one another, connect the whole thing to the ice with pitons and wires. Looks like an enclosed big top tent, but it's actually the NASA prototype for the portable habitat we hope to use on Mars someday. We call it a'habisphere. '\"\n\n\"Habisphere?\"\n\n\"Yeah, get it? Because it's not a whole sphere, it's only habi-sphere.\"\n\nRachel smiled and stared out at the bizarre building now looming closer on the glacial plain. \"And because NASA hasn't gone to Mars yet, you guys decided to have a big sleepover out here instead?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man laughed. \"Actually, I would have preferred Tahiti, but fate pretty much decided the location.\"\n\nRachel gazed uncertainly up at the edifice. The off-white shell was a ghostly contour against a dark sky. As the IceRover neared the structure, it ground to a stop at a small door on the side of the dome, which was now opening. Light from inside spilled out onto the snow. A figure stepped out. He was a bulky giant wearing a black fleece pullover that amplified his size and made him look like a bear. He moved toward the IceRover.\n\nRachel had no doubt who the huge man was: Lawrence Ekstrom, administrator of NASA.\n\nThe driver gave a solacing grin. \"Don't let his size fool you. The guy's a pussycat.\"\n\nMore like a tiger, Rachel thought, well acquainted with Ekstrom's reputation for biting the heads off those who stood in the way of his dreams. When Rachel climbed down from the IceRover, the wind almost blew her over. She wrapped the coat around herself and moved toward the dome. The NASA administrator met her halfway, extending a huge gloved paw. \"Ms. Sexton. Thank you for coming.\"\n\nRachel nodded uncertainly and shouted over the howling wind. \"Frankly, sir, I'm not sure I had much choice.\"\n\n---\n\nA thousand meters farther up the glacier, Delta-One gazed through infrared binoculars and watched as the administrator of NASA ushered Rachel Sexton into the dome.\n\nNASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was a giant of a man, ruddy and gruff, like an angry Norse god. His prickly blond hair was cropped military short above a furrowed brow, and his bulbous nose was spidered with veins. At the moment, his stony eyes drooped with the weight of countless sleepless nights. An influential aerospace strategist and operations adviser at the Pentagon before his appointment to NASA, Ekstrom had a reputation for surliness matched only by his incontestable dedication to whatever mission was at hand. As Rachel Sexton followed Lawrence Ekstrom into the habisphere, she found herself walking through an eerie, translucent maze of hallways. The labyrinthine network appeared to have been fashioned by hanging sheets of opaque plastic across tautly strung wires. The floor of the maze was nonexistent-a sheet of solid ice, carpeted with strips of rubber matting for traction. They passed a rudimentary living area lined with cots and chemical toilets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thankfully, the air in the habisphere was warm, albeit heavy with the mingled potpourri of indistinguishable smells that accompany humans in tight quarters. Somewhere a generator droned, apparently the source of the electricity that powered the bare bulbs hanging from draped extension cords in the hallway.\n\n\"Ms. Sexton,\" Ekstrom grunted, guiding her briskly toward some unknown destination. \"Let me be candid with you right from the start.\" His tone conveyed anything but pleasure to have Rachel as his guest. \"You are here because the President wants you here. Zach Herney is a personal friend of mine and a faithful NASA supporter. I respect him. I owe him. And I trust him. I do not question his direct orders, even when I resent them. Just so there is no confusion, be aware that I do not share the President's enthusiasm for involving you in this matter.\"\n\nRachel could only stare. I traveled three thousand miles for this kind of hospitality? This guy was no Martha Stewart. \"With all due respect,\" she fired back, \"I am also under presidential orders. I have not been told my purpose here. I made this trip on good faith.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Ekstrom said. \"Then I will speak bluntly.\"\n\n\"You've made a damn good start.\"\n\nRachel's tough response seemed to jolt the administrator. His stride slowed a moment, his eyes clearing as he studied her. Then, like a snake uncoiling, he heaved along sigh and picked up the pace.\n\n\"Understand,\" Ekstrom began, \"that you are hereon a classified NASA project against my better judgment. Not only are you a representative of the NRO, whose director enjoys dishonoring NASA personnel as loose-lipped children, but you are the daughter of the man who has made it his personal mission to destroy my agency. This should be NASA's hour in the sun; my men and women have endured a lot of criticism lately and deserve this moment of glory. However, due to a torrent of skepticism spearheaded by your father, NASA finds itself in apolitical situation where my hardworking personnel are forced to share the spotlight with a handful of random civilian scientists and the daughter of the man who is trying to destroy us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am not my father, Rachel wanted to shout, but this was hardly the moment to debate politics with the head of NASA. \"I did not come here for the spotlight, sir.\"\n\nEkstrom glared. \"You may find you have no alternative.\"\n\nThe comment took her by surprise. Although President Herney had said nothing specific about her assisting him in any sort of'public\" way, William Pickering had certainly aired his suspicions that Rachel might become apolitical pawn. \"I'd like to know what I'm doing here,\" Rachel demanded.\n\n\"You and me both. I do not have that information.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry?\"\n\n\"The President asked me to brief you fully on our discovery the moment you arrived. Whatever role he wants you to play in this circus is between you and him.\"\n\n\"He told me your Earth Observation System had made a discovery.\"\n\nEkstrom glanced sidelong at her. \"How familiar are you with the EOS project?\"\n\n\"EOS is a constellation of five NASA satellites which scrutinize the earth indifferent ways-ocean mapping, geologic fault analyses, polar ice-melt observation, location of fossil fuel reserves-\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Ekstrom said, sounding unimpressed. \"So you're aware of the newest addition to the EOS constellation? It's called PODS.\"\n\nRachel nodded. The Polar Orbiting Density Scanner (PODS) was designed to help measure the effects of global warming. \"As I understand it, PODS measures the thickness and hardness of the polar icecap?\"\n\n\"In effect, yes. It uses spectral band technology to take composite density scans of large regions and find softness anomalies in the ice-slush spots, internal melting, large fissures-indicators of global warming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel was familiar with composite density scanning. It was like a subterranean ultrasound. NRO satellites had used similar technology to search for subsurface density variants in Eastern Europe and locate mass burial sites, which confirmed for the President that ethnic cleansing was indeed going on.\n\n\"Two weeks ago,\" Ekstrom said, \"PODS passed over this ice shelf and spotted a density anomaly that looked nothing like anything we'd expected to see. Two hundred feet beneath the surface, perfectly embedded in a matrix of solid ice, PODS saw what looked like an amorphous globule about ten feet in diameter.\"\n\n\"A water pocket?\" Rachel asked.\n\n\"No. Not liquid. Strangely, this anomaly was harder than the ice surrounding it.\"\n\nRachel paused. \"So... it's a boulder or something?\"\n\nEkstrom nodded. \"Essentially.\"\n\nRachel waited for the punchline. It never came. I'm here because NASA found a big rock in the ice?\n\n\"Not until PODS calculated the density of this rock did we get excited. We immediately flew a team up hereto analyze it. As it turns out, the rock in the ice beneath us is significantly more dense than any type of rock found hereon Ellesmere Island. More dense, in fact, than any type of rock found within a fourhundred-mile radius.\"\n\nRachel gazed down at the ice beneath her feet, picturing the huge rock down there somewhere. \"You're saying someone moved it here?\"\n\nEkstrom looked vaguely amused. \"The stone weighs more than eight tons. It is embedded under two hundred feet of solid ice, meaning it has been there untouched for over three hundred years.\"\n\nRachel felt tired as she followed the administrator into the mouth of along, narrow corridor, passing between two armed NASA workers who stood guard. Rachel glanced at Ekstrom. \"I assume there's a logical explanation for the stone's presence here... and for all this secrecy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There most certainly is,\" Ekstrom said, deadpan. \"The rock PODS found is a meteorite.\"\n\nRachel stopped dead in the passageway and stared at the administrator. \"A meteorite?\" A surge of disappointment washed over her. A meteorite seemed utterly anti-climactic after the President's big buildup. This discovery will singlehandedly justify all of NASA's past expenditures and blunders? What was Herney thinking? Meteorites were admittedly one of the rarest rocks on earth, but NASA discovered meteorites all the time.\n\n\"This meteorite is one of the largest ever found,\" Ekstrom said, standing rigid before her. \"We believe it is a fragment of a larger meteorite documented to have hit the Arctic Ocean in the seventeen hundreds. Most likely, this rock was thrown as ejecta from that ocean impact, landed on the Milne Glacier, and was slowly buried by snow over the past three hundred years.\"\n\nRachel scowled. This discovery changed nothing. She felt a growing suspicion that she was witnessing an overblown publicity stunt by a desperate NASA and White House-two struggling entities attempting to elevate a propitious find to the level of earth-shattering NASA victory.\n\n\"You don't look too impressed,\" Ekstrom said.\n\n\"I guess I was just expecting something... else.\"\n\nEkstrom's eyes narrowed. \"A meteorite of this size is a very rare find, Ms. Sexton. There are only a few larger in the world.\"\n\n\"I realize-\"\n\n\"But the size of the meteorite is not what excites us.\"\n\nRachel glanced up.\n\n\"If you would permit me to finish,\" Ekstrom said, \"you will learn that this meteorite displays some rather astonishing characteristics never before seen in any meteorite. Large or small.\" He motioned down the passageway. \"Now, if you would follow me, I'll introduce you to someone more qualified than I am to discuss this find.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel was confused. \"Someone more qualified than the administrator of NASA?\"\n\nEkstrom's Nordic eyes locked in on hers. \"More qualified, Ms. Sexton, insofar as he is a civilian. I had assumed because you area professional data analyst that you would prefer to get your data from an unbiased source.\"\n\nTouché. Rachel backed off.\n\nShe followed the administrator down the narrow corridor, where they dead-ended at a heavy, black drapery. Beyond the drape, Rachel could hear the reverberant murmur of a crowd of voices rumbling on the other side, echoing as if in a giant open space.\n\nWithout a word, the administrator reached up and pulled aside the curtain. Rachel was blinded by a dazzling brightness. Hesitant, she stepped forward, squinting into the glistening space. As her eyes adjusted, she gazed out at the massive room before her and drew an awestruck breath.\n\n\"My God,\" she whispered. What is this place?\n\nThe CNN production facility outside of Washington, D. C., is one of 212 studios worldwide that link via satellite to the global headquarters of Turner Broadcasting System in Atlanta.\n\nIt was 1:45 P. M. when Senator Sedgewick Sexton's limousine pulled into the parking lot. Sexton was feeling smug as he got out and strode toward the entrance. He and Gabrielle were greeted inside by a pot-bellied CNN producer who wore an effusive smile.\n\n\"Senator Sexton,\" the producer said. \"Welcome. Great news. We just found out who the White House sent as a sparring partner for you.\" The producer gave a foreboding grin. \"I hope you brought your game face.\" He motioned through the production glass out into the studio." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sexton looked through the glass and almost fell over. Staring back at him, through the smoky haze of her cigarette, was the ugliest face in politics.\n\n\"Marjorie Tench?\" Gabrielle blurted. \"What the hell is she doing here?\"\n\nSexton had no idea, but whatever the reason, her presence here was fantastic news-a clear sign that the President was in desperation mode. Why else would he send his senior adviser to the front lines? President Zach Herney was rolling out the big guns, and Sexton welcomed the opportunity.\n\nThe bigger the foe, the harder they fall.\n\nThe senator had no doubt that Tench would be a sly opponent, but gazing now at the woman, Sexton could not help but think that the President had made a serious error in judgment. Marjorie Tench was hideouslooking. At the moment, she sat slouched in her chair, smoking a cigarette, her right arm moving in languid rhythm back and forth to her thin lips like a giant praying mantis feeding. Jesus, Sexton thought, if there was ever a face that should stick to radio. The few times Sedgewick Sexton had seen the White House senior adviser's jaundiced mug in a magazine, he could not believe he was looking atone of the most powerful faces in Washington.\n\n\"I don't like this,\" Gabrielle whispered.\n\nSexton barely heard her. The more he considered the opportunity, the more he liked it. Even more fortuitous than Tench's media-unfriendly face was Tench's reputation on one key issue: Marjorie Tench was extremely vocal that America's leadership role in the future could only be secured through technological superiority. She was an avid supporter of high-tech government R& D programs, and, most important-NASA. Many believed it was Tench's behind-the-scenes pressure that kept the President positioned so staunchly behind the failing space agency." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: thriller, conspiracy, mystery, science fiction, NASA\nAuthor: Dan Brown\nTitle: Deception Point\nChapter: 2" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gabrielle followed the Secret Serviceman fifty feet down a tiled hallway to a second security desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here, another sentry was assembling a guest pass that was just rolling out of a lamination machine. He punched a hole in it, affixed a neck cord, and slipped it over Gabrielle's head. The plastic was still warm. The photo on the ID was the snapshot they had taken fifteen seconds earlier down the hall. Gabrielle was impressed. Who says government is inefficient?\n\nThey continued, the Secret Serviceman leading her deeper into the White House complex. Gabrielle was feeling more uneasy with every step. Whoever had extended the mysterious invitation certainly was not concerned about keeping the meeting private. Gabrielle had been issued an official pass, signed the guest log, and was now being marched in plain view through the first floor of the White House where public tours were gathered.\n\n\"And this is the China Room,\" a tour guide was saying to a group of tourists,\n\n\"home of Nancy Reagan's$ 952 per setting red-rimmed china that sparked a debate over conspicuous consumption back in 1981.\"\n\nThe Secret Serviceman led Gabrielle past the tour toward a huge marble staircase, where another tour was ascending. \"You are about to enter the thirty-two-hundredsquare-foot East Room,\" the guide was narrating, \"where Abigail Adams once hung John Adams's laundry. Then we will pass to the Red Room, where Dolley Madison liquored up visiting heads of state before James Madison negotiated with them.\"\n\nThe tourists laughed.\n\nGabrielle followed past the stairway through a series of ropes and barricades into a more private section of the building. Here they entered a room Gabrielle had only seen in books and on television. Her breath grew short.\n\nMy God, this is the Map Room!\n\nNo tour ever came inhere. The room's paneled walls could swing outward to reveal layer upon layer of world maps. This was the place where Roosevelt had charted the course of World War II. Unsettlingly, it was also the room from which Clinton had admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Gabrielle pushed that particular thought from her mind. Most important, the Map Room was a passageway into the West Wing-the area inside the White House where the true powerbrokers worked. This was the last place Gabrielle Ashe had expected to be going. She had imagined here-mail was coming from some enterprising young intern or secretary working in one of the complex's more mundane offices. Apparently not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm going into the West Wing...\n\nThe Secret Serviceman marched her to the very end of a carpeted hallway and stopped at an unmarked door. He knocked. Gabrielle's heart was pounding.\n\n\"It's open,\" someone called from inside.\n\nThe man opened the door and motioned for Gabrielle to enter. Gabrielle stepped in. The shades were down, and the room was dim. She could seethe faint outline of a person sitting at a desk in the darkness.\n\n\"Ms. Ashe?\" The voice came from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. \"Welcome.\"\n\nAs Gabrielle's eyes accustomed to the dark, she began to make out an unsettlingly familiar face, and her muscles went taut with surprise. THIS is who has been sending me e-mail?\n\n\"Thank you for coming,\" Marjorie Tench said, her voice cold.\n\n\"Ms.... Tench?\" Gabrielle stammered, suddenly unable to breathe.\n\n\"Call me Marjorie.\" The hideous woman stood up, blowing smoke out of her nose like a dragon. \"You and I are about to become best friends.\"\n\nNorah Mangor stood at the extraction shaft beside Tolland, Rachel, and Corky and stared into the pitch-black meteorite hole. \"Mike,\" she said, \"you're cute, but you're insane. There's no bioluminescence here.\"\n\nTolland now wished he'd thought to take some video; while Corky had gone to find Norah and Ming, the bioluminescence had begun fading rapidly. Within a couple of minutes, all the twinkling had simply stopped. Tolland threw another piece of ice into the water, but nothing happened. No green splash.\n\n\"Where did they go?\" Corky asked.\n\nTolland had a fairly good idea. Bioluminescence-one of nature's most ingenious defense mechanisms-was a natural response for plankton in distress. A plankton sensing it was about to be consumed by larger organisms would begin flashing in hopes of attracting much larger predators that would scare off the original attackers. In this case, the plankton, having entered the shaft through a crack, suddenly found themselves in a primarily freshwater environment and bioluminesced in panic as the freshwater slowly killed them. \"I think they died.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They were murdered,\" Norah scoffed. \"The Easter Bunny swam in and ate them.\"\n\nCorky glared at her. \"I saw the luminescence too, Norah.\"\n\n\"Was it before or after you took LSD?\"\n\n\"Why would we lie about this?\" Corky demanded.\n\n\"Men lie.\"\n\n\"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton.\"\n\nTolland sighed. \"Norah, certainly you're aware that plankton do live in the oceans beneath the ice.\"\n\n\"Mike,\" she replied with a glare, \"please don't tell me my business. For the record, there are over two hundred species of diatoms that thrive under Arctic ice shelves. Fourteen species of autotrophic nannoflagellates, twenty heterotrophic flagellates, forty heterotrophic dinoflagellates, and several metazoans, including polychaetes, amphipods, copepods, euphausids, and fish. Any questions?\"\n\nTolland frowned. \"Clearly you know more about Arctic fauna than I do, and you agree there's plenty of life underneath us. So why are you so skeptical that we saw bioluminescent plankton?\"\n\n\"Because, Mike, this shaft is sealed. It's a closed, freshwater environment. No ocean plankton could possibly get inhere!\"\n\n\"I tasted salt in the water,\" Tolland insisted. \"Very faint, but present. Saltwater is getting inhere somehow.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Norah said skeptically. \"You tasted salt. You licked the sleeve of an old sweaty parka, and now you've decided that the PODS density scans and fifteen separate core samples are inaccurate.\"\n\nTolland held out the wet sleeve of his parka as proof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mike, I'm not licking your damn jacket.\" She looked into the hole. \"Might I ask why droves of alleged plankton decided to swim into this alleged crack?\"\n\n\"Heat?\" Tolland ventured. \"A lot of sea creatures are attracted by heat. When we extracted the meteorite, we heated it. The plankton may have been drawn instinctively toward the temporarily warmer environment in the shaft.\"\n\nCorky nodded. \"Sounds logical.\"\n\n\"Logical?\" Norah rolled her eyes. \"You know, fora prize-winning physicist and a world-famous oceanographer, you're a couple of pretty dense specimens. Has it occurred to you that even if there is a crack-which I can assure you there is not-it is physically impossible for any sea-water to be flowing into this shaft.\"\n\nShe stared at both of them with pathetic disdain.\n\n\"But, Norah...,\" Corky began.\n\n\"Gentlemen! We're standing above sea level here.\" She stamped her foot on the ice. \"Hello? This ice sheet rises a hundred feet above the sea. You might recall the big cliff at the end of this shelf? We're higher than the ocean. If there were a fissure into this shaft, the water would be flowing out of this shaft, not into it. It's called gravity.\"\n\nTolland and Corky looked at each other.\n\n\"Shit,\" Corky said. \"I didn't think of that.\"\n\nNorah pointed into the water-filled shaft. \"You may also have noticed that the water level isn't changing?\"\n\nTolland felt like an idiot. Norah was absolutely right. If there had been a crack, the water would be flowing out, not in. Tolland stood in silence along moment, wondering what to do next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay.\" Tolland sighed. \"Apparently, the fissure theory makes no sense. But we saw bioluminescence in the water. The only conclusion is that this is not a closed environment after all. I realize much of your icedating data is built on the premise that the glacier is a solid block, but-\"\n\n\"Premise?\" Norah was obviously getting agitated. \"Remember, this was not just my data, Mike. NASA made the same findings. We all confirmed this glacier is solid. No cracks.\"\n\nTolland glanced across the dome toward the crowd gathered around the press conference area. \"Whatever is going on, I think, in good faith, we need to inform the administrator and-\"\n\n\"This is bullshit!\" Norah hissed. \"I'm telling you this glacial matrix is pristine. I'm not about to have my core data questioned by a salt lick and some absurd hallucinations.\" She stormed over to a nearby supply area and began collecting some tools. \"I'll take a proper water sample, and show you this water contains no saltwater plankton-living or dead!\"\n\nRachel and the others looked on as Norah used a sterile pipette on a string to harvest a water sample from the melt pool. Norah placed several drops in a tiny device that resembled a miniature telescope. Then she peered through the oculus, pointing the device toward the light emanating from the other side of the dome. Within seconds she was cursing.\n\n\"Jesus Christ!\" Norah shook the device and looked again. \"Damn it! Something's got to be wrong with this refractometer!\"\n\n\"Saltwater?\" Corky gloated.\n\nNorah frowned. \"Partial. It's registering three percent brine-which is totally impossible. This glacier is a snow pack. Pure freshwater. There should be no salt.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Norah carried the sample to a nearby microscope and examined it. She groaned.\n\n\"Plankton?\" Tolland asked.\n\n\"G. polyhedra,\" she replied, her voice now sedate. \"It's one of the planktons we glaciologists commonly see in the oceans under ice shelves.\" She glanced over at Tolland. \"They're dead now. Obviously they didn't survive long in a three percent saltwater environment.\"\n\nThe four of them stood in silence a moment beside the deep shaft. Rachel wondered what the ramifications of this paradox were for the overall discovery. The dilemma appeared minor when compared to the overall scope of the meteorite, and yet, as an intel analyst, Rachel had witnessed the collapse of entire theories based on smaller snags than this.\n\n\"What's going on over here?\" The voice was a low rumble. Everyone looked up. The bearish frame of the NASA administrator emerged from the dark.\n\n\"Minor quandary with the water in the shaft,\" Tolland said. \"We're trying to sort it out.\"\n\nCorky sounded almost gleeful. \"Norah's ice data is screwed.\"\n\n\"Bite me twice,\" Norah whispered.\n\nThe administrator approached, his furry eyebrows lowering. \"What's wrong with the ice data.\"\n\nTolland heaved an uncertain sigh. \"We're showing a three percent saltwater mix in the meteorite shaft, which contradicts the glaciology report that the meteorite was encased in a pristine freshwater glacier.\" He paused. \"There's also plankton present.\"\n\nEkstrom looked almost angry. \"Obviously that's impossible. There are no fissures in this glacier. The PODS scans confirmed that. This meteorite was sealed in a solid matrix of ice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel knew Ekstrom was correct. According to NASA's density scans, the ice sheet was rock solid. Hundreds of feet of frozen glacier on all sides of the meteorite. No cracks. And yet as Rachel imagined how density scans were taken, a strange thought occurred to her..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In addition,\" Ekstrom was saying, \"Dr. Mangor's core samples confirmed the solidity of the glacier.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" Norah said, tossing the refractometer on a desk. \"Double corroboration. No fault lines in the ice. Which leaves us no explanation whatsoever for the salt and plankton.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Rachel said, the boldness of her voice surprising even herself. \"There is another possibility.\" The brainstorm had hither from the most unlikely of memories.\n\nEveryone was looking at her now, their skepticism obvious. Rachel smiled. \"There's a perfectly sound rationale for the presence of salt and plankton.\" She gave Tolland awry look. \"And frankly, Mike, I'm surprised it didn't occur to you.\"\n\n\"Plankton frozen in the glacier?\" Corky Marlinson sounded not at all sold on Rachel's explanation. \"Not to rain on your parade, but usually when things freeze they die. These little buggers were flashing us, remember?\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Tolland said, giving Rachel an impressed look, \"she may have a point. There area number of species that enter suspended animation when their environment requires it. I did an episode on that phenomenon once.\"\n\nRachel nodded. \" You showed northern pike that got frozen in lakes and had to wait until the thaw to swim away. You also talked about micro-organisms called\n\n\"waterbears\" that became totally dehydrated in the desert, remained that way for decades, and then reinflated when rains returned.\"\n\nTolland chuckled. \"So you really do watch my show?\"\n\nRachel gave a slightly embarrassed shrug.\n\n\"What's your point, Ms. Sexton?\" Norah demanded.\n\n\"Her point,\" Tolland said, \"which should have dawned on me earlier, is that one of the species I mentioned on that program was a kind of plankton that gets frozen in the polar icecap every winter, hibernates inside the ice, and then swims away every summer when the icecap thins.\" Tolland paused. \"Granted the species I featured on the show was not the bioluminescent species we saw here, but maybe the same thing happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Frozen plankton,\" Rachel continued, excited to have Michael Tolland so enthusiastic about her idea, \"could explain everything we're seeing here. At some point in the past, fissures could have opened in this glacier, filled with planktonrich saltwater, and then refroze. What if there were frozen pockets of saltwater in this glacier? Frozen saltwater containing frozen plankton? Imagine if while you were raising the heated meteorite through the ice, it passed through a frozen saltwater pocket. The saltwater ice would have melted, releasing the plankton from hibernation, and giving us a small percentage of salt mixed in the freshwater.\"\n\n\"Oh, for the love of God!\" Norah exclaimed with a hostile groan. \"Suddenly everyone's a glaciologist!\"\n\nCorky also looked skeptical. \"But wouldn't PODS have spotted any brine ice pockets when it did its density scans? After all, brine ice and freshwater ice have different densities.\"\n\n\"Barely different,\" Rachel said.\n\n\"Four percent is a substantial difference,\" Norah challenged.\n\n\"Yes, in a lab,\" Rachel replied. \" But PODS takes its measurements from 120\n\nmiles up in space. Its computers were designed to differentiate between the obvious-ice and slush, granite and limestone.\" She turned to the administrator.\n\n\"Am I right to assume that when PODS measures densities from space, it probably lacks the resolution to distinguish brine ice from fresh ice?\"\n\nThe administrator nodded. \"Correct. A four percent differential is below PODS's tolerance threshold. The satellite would see brine ice and fresh ice as identical.\"\n\nTolland now looked intrigued. \"This would also explain the static water level in the shaft.\" He looked at Norah. \"You said the plankton species you saw in the extraction shaft was called-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"G. polyhedra, Norah declared.\" And now you're wondering if G. polyhedra is capable of hibernating inside the ice? You'll be pleased to know the answer is yes. Absolutely. G. polyhedra is found in droves around ice shelves, it bioluminesces, and it can hibernate inside the ice. Any other questions?\"\n\nEveryone exchanged looks. From Norah's tone, there was obviously some sort of\n\n\"but\"-and yet it seemed she had just confirmed Rachel's theory.\n\n\"So,\" Tolland ventured, \"you're saying it's possible, right? This theory makes sense?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Norah said, \"if you're totally retarded.\"\n\nRachel glared. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\nNorah Mangor locked stares with Rachel. \"I imagine in your business, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing? Well, trust me when I tell you that the same holds true for glaciology.\" Norah's eyes shifted now, looking at each of the four people around her. \"Let me clarify this for everyone once and for all. The frozen brine pockets that Ms. Sexton has proposed do occur. They are what glaciologists call interstices. Interstices, however, form not as pockets of saltwater but rather as highly branched networks of brine ice whose tendrils areas wide as a human hair. That meteorite would have had to pass through one hell of a dense series of interstices to release enough saltwater to create a three percent mixture in a pool that deep.\"\n\nEkstrom scowled. \"So is it possible or not?\"\n\n\"Not on your life,\" Norah said flatly. \"Totally impossible. I would have hit pockets of brine ice in my core samples.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Core samples are drilled essentially in random spots, right?\" Rachel asked. \"Is there any chance the cores' placements, simply by bad luck, could have missed a pocket of sea ice?\"\n\n\"I drilled directly down over the meteorite. Then I drilled multiple cores only a few yards on either side. You can't get any closer.\"\n\n\"Just asking.\"\n\n\"The point is moot,\" Norah said. \"Brine interstices occur only in seasonal ice-ice that forms and melts every season. The Milne Ice Shelf is fast ice-ice that forms in the mountains and holds fast until it migrates to the calving zone and falls into the sea. As convenient as frozen plankton would be for explaining this mysterious little phenomenon, I can guarantee there are no hidden networks of frozen plankton in this glacier.\"\n\nThe group fell silent again.\n\nDespite the stark rebuttal of the frozen plankton theory, Rachel's systematic analysis of the data refused to accept the rejection. Instinctively, Rachel knew that the presence of frozen plankton in the glacier beneath them was the simplest solution to the riddle. The Law of Parsimony, she thought. Her NRO instructors had driven it into her subconscious. When multiple explanations exist, the simplest is usually correct.\n\nNorah Mangor obviously had a lotto lose if her ice-core data was wrong, and Rachel wondered if maybe Norah had seen the plankton, realized she'd made a mistake in claiming the glacier was solid, and was now simply trying to cover her tracks.\n\n\"All I know,\" Rachel said, \"is that I just briefed the entire White House staff and told them this meteorite was discovered in a pristine matrix of ice and had been sealed there, untouched by outside influence since 1716, when it broke off of a famous meteorite called the Jungersol. This fact now appears to be in some question.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The NASA administrator was silent, his expression grave. Tolland cleared his throat. \"I have to agree with Rachel. There was saltwater and plankton in the pool. No matter what the explanation is, that shaft is obviously not a closed environment. We can't say it is.\"\n\nCorky was looking uncomfortable. \"Um, folks, not to sound like the astrophysicist here, but in my field when we make mistakes, we're usually off by billions of years. Is this little plankton/saltwater mix-up really all that important? I mean, the perfection of the ice surrounding the meteorite in noway affects the meteorite itself, right? We still have the fossils. Nobody is questioning their authenticity. If it turns out we've made a mistake with the ice-core data, nobody will really care. All they'll care about is that we found proof of life on another planet.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Dr. Marlinson,\" Rachel said, \"as someone who analyzes data fora living, I have to disagree. Any tiny flaw in the data NASA presents tonight has the potential to cast doubt over the credibility of the entire discovery. Including the authenticity of the fossils.\"\n\nCorky's jaw fell open. \"What are you talking about? Those fossils are irrefutable!\"\n\n\"I know that. You know that. But if the public catches wind that NASA knowingly presented ice-core data that was in question, trust me, they will immediately start wondering what else NASA lied about.\"\n\nNorah stepped forward, eyes flashing. \"My ice-core data is not in question.\" She turned to the administrator. \"I can prove to you, categorically, that there is no brine ice trapped anywhere in this ice shelf!\"\n\nThe administrator eyed her along moment. \"How?\"\n\nNorah outlined her plan. When she was done, Rachel had to admit, the idea sounded like a reasonable one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The administrator did not look so sure. \"And the results will be definitive?\"\n\n\"One hundred percent confirmation,\" Norah assured him. \"If there's one goddamn ounce of frozen saltwater anywhere near that meteorite shaft, you will see it. Even a few droplets will light upon my gear like Times Square.\"\n\nThe administrator's brow furrowed beneath his military buzz cut. \"There's not much time. The press conference is in a couple of hours.\"\n\n\"I can be back in twenty minutes.\"\n\n\"How far out on the glacier did you say you have to go?\"\n\n\"Not far. Two hundred yards should do it.\"\n\nEkstrom nodded. \"Are you certain it's safe?\"\n\n\"I'll take flares,\" Norah replied. \"And Mike will go with me.\"\n\nTolland's head shot up. \"I will?\"\n\n\"You sure as hell will, Mike! We'll be tethered. I'd appreciate a strong set of arms out there if the wind whips up.\"\n\n\"But-\"\n\n\"She's right,\" the administrator said, turning to Tolland. \"If she goes, she can't go alone. I'd send some of my men with her, but frankly, I'd rather keep this plankton issue to ourselves until we figure out if it's a problem or not.\"\n\nTolland gave a reluctant nod.\n\n\"I'd like to go too,\" Rachel said.\n\nNorah spun like a cobra. \"The hell you will.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" the administrator said, as if an idea had just occurred to him, \"I think I'd feel safer if we used the standard quad tether configuration. If you go dual, and Mike slips, you'll never hold him. Four people area lot safer than two.\" He paused glancing at Corky. \"That would mean either you or Dr. Ming.\" Ekstrom glanced around the habisphere. \"Where is Dr. Ming, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't seen him in awhile,\" Tolland said. \"He might be catching a nap.\"\n\nEkstrom turned to Corky. \"Dr. Marlinson, I cannot require that you go outwith them, and yet-\"\n\n\"What the hell?\" Corky said. \"Seeing as everyone is getting along so well.\"\n\n\"No!\" Norah exclaimed. \"Four people will slow us down. Mike and I are going alone.\"\n\n\"You are not going alone.\" The administrator's tone was final. \"There's a reason tethers are built as quads, and we're going to do this as safely as possible. The last thing I need is an accident a couple hours before the biggest press conference in NASA's history.\"\n\nGabrielle Ashe felt a precarious uncertainty as she satin the heavy air of Marjorie Tench's office. What could this woman possibly want with me? Behind the room's sole desk, Tench leaned back in her chair, her hard features seeming to radiate pleasure with Gabrielle's discomfort.\n\n\"Does the smoke bother you?\" Tench asked, tapping afresh cigarette from her pack.\n\n\"No,\" Gabrielle lied.\n\nTench was already lighting up anyway. \"You and your candidate have taken quite an interest in NASA during this campaign.\"\n\n\"True,\" Gabrielle snapped, making no effort to hide her anger, \"thanks to some creative encouragement. I'd like an explanation.\"\n\nTench gave an innocent pout. \"You want to know why I've been sending you email fodder for your attack on NASA?\"\n\n\"The information you sent me hurt your President.\"\n\n\"In the short run, yes.\"\n\nThe ominous tone in Tench's voice made Gabrielle uneasy. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Relax, Gabrielle. My e-mails didn't change things much. Senator Sexton was NASA-bashing long before I stepped in. I simply helped him clarify his message. Solidify his position.\"\n\n\"Solidify his position?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" Tench smiled, revealing stained teeth. \"Which, I must say, he did quite effectively this afternoon on CNN.\"\n\nGabrielle recalled the senator's reaction to Tench's fence-buster question. Yes, I would act to abolish NASA. Sexton had gotten himself cornered, but he'd played out of the rough with a strong drive. It was the right move. Wasn't it? From Tench's contented look, Gabrielle sensed there was information missing. Tench stood suddenly, her lanky frame dominating the cramped space. With the cigarette dangling from her lips, she walked over to a wall safe, removed a thick manila envelope, returned to the desk, and sat back down. Gabrielle eyed the burgeoning envelope.\n\nTench smiled, cradling the envelope in her lap like a poker player holding a royal flush. Her yellowed fingertips flicked at the corner, making an annoying repetitive scratch, as if savoring the anticipation.\n\nGabrielle knew it was just her own guilty conscience, but her first fears were that the envelope contained some kind of proof of her sexual indiscretion with the senator. Ridiculous, she thought. The encounter had occurred after hours in Sexton's locked senatorial office. Not to mention, if the White House actually had any evidence, they would have gone public with it already. They maybe suspicious, Gabrielle thought, but they don't have proof. Tench crushed out her cigarette. \"Ms. Ashe, whether or not you are aware, you are caught in the middle of a battle that has been raging behind the scenes in Washington since 1996.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This opening gambit was not at all what Gabrielle expected. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\nTench lit another cigarette. Her spindly lips curled around it, and the tip glowed red. \"What do you know about a bill called the Space Commercialization Promotions Act?\"\n\nGabrielle had never heard of it. She shrugged, lost.\n\n\"Really?\" Tench said. \"That surprises me. Considering your candidate's platform. The Space Commercialization Promotions Act was proposed back in 1996 by Senator Walker. The bill, in essence, cites the failure of NASA to do anything worthwhile since putting a man on the moon. It calls for the privatization of NASA by immediately selling off NASA assets to private aerospace companies and allowing the free-market system to explore space more efficiently, thus relieving the burden NASA now places on taxpayers.\"\n\nGabrielle had heard NASA critics suggest privatization as a solution to NASA's woes, but she was not aware the idea had actually taken the form of an official bill.\n\n\"This commercialization bill,\" Tench said, \"has been presented to Congress four times now. It is similar to bills that have successfully privatized government industries like uranium production. Congress has passed the space commercialization bill all four times it has seen it. Thankfully, the White House vetoed it on all occasions. Zachary Herney has had to veto it twice.\"\n\n\"Your point?\"\n\n\"My point is that this bill is one Senator Sexton will certainly support if he becomes President. I have reason to believe Sexton will have no qualms about selling off NASA assets to commercial bidders the first chance he gets. In short, your candidate would support privatization over having American tax dollars fund space exploration.\"\n\n\"To my knowledge, the senator has never commented publicly about his stance on any Space Commercialization Promotions Act.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"True." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet knowing his politics, I assume you would not be surprised if he supported it.\"\n\n\"Free-market systems tend to breed efficiency.\"\n\n\"I'll take that as a'yes. \"\" Tench stared. \"Sadly, privatizing NASA is an abominable idea, and there are countless reasons why every White House administration since the bill's inception has shot it down.\"\n\n\"I've heard the arguments against privatizing space,\" Gabrielle said, \"and I understand your concerns.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" Tench leaned toward her. \"Which arguments have you heard?\"\n\nGabrielle shifted uneasily. \"Well, the standard academic fears mostly-the most common being that if we privatize NASA, our current pursuit of scientific space knowledge would be quickly abandoned in favor of profitable ventures.\"\n\n\"True. Space science would die in a heartbeat. Instead of spending money to study our universe, private space companies would strip-mine asteroids, build tourist hotels in space, offer commercial satellite launch services. Why would private companies bother studying the origins of our universe when it would cost them billions and show no financial return?\"\n\n\"They wouldn't,\" Gabrielle countered. \"But certainly a National Endowment for Space Science could be founded to fund academic missions.\"\n\n\"We already have that system in place. It's called NASA.\"\n\nGabrielle fell silent.\n\n\"The abandonment of science in favor of profits is aside issue,\" Tench said.\n\n\"Hardly relevant compared to the utter chaos that would result by permitting the private sector to run free in space. We would have the wild west allover again. We would see pioneers staking claims on the moon and on asteroids and protecting those claims with force. I've heard petitions from companies who want to build neon billboards that blink advertisements in the nighttime sky. I've seen petitions from space hotels and tourist attractions whose proposed operations include ejecting their trash into the void of space and creating orbiting trash heaps. In fact, I just read a proposal yesterday from a company that wants to turn space into a mausoleum by launching the deceased into orbit. Can you imagine our telecommunications satellites colliding with dead bodies? Last week, I had a billionaire CEO in my office who was petitioning to launch a mission to a nearfield asteroid, drag it closer to earth, and mine it for precious minerals. I actually had to remind this guy that dragging asteroids into near earth orbit posed potential risks of global catastrophe! Ms. Ashe, I can assure you, if this bill passes, the throngs of entrepreneurs rushing into space will not be rocket scientists. They will be entrepreneurs with deep pockets and shallow minds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Persuasive arguments,\" Gabrielle said, \"and I'm sure the senator would weigh those issues carefully if he ever found himself in a position to vote on the bill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Might I ask what any of this has to do with me?\"\n\nTench's gaze narrowed over her cigarette. \"A lot of people stand to make a lot of money in space, and the political lobby is mounting to remove all restrictions and open the floodgates. The veto power of the office of the President is the only remaining barrier against privatization... against complete anarchy in space.\"\n\n\"Then I commend Zach Herney for vetoing the bill.\"\n\n\"My fear is that your candidate would not be so prudent if elected.\"\n\n\"Again, I assume the senator would carefully weigh all the issues if he were ever in a position to pass judgment on the bill.\"\n\nTench did not look entirely convinced. \"Do you know how much Senator Sexton spends on media advertising?\"\n\nThe question came out of left field. \"Those figures are public domain.\"\n\n\"More than three million a month.\"\n\nGabrielle shrugged. \"If you say so.\" The figure was close.\n\n\"That's a lot of money to spend.\"\n\n\"He's got a lot of money to spend.\"\n\n\"Yes, he planned well. Or rather, married well.\" Tench paused to blow smoke.\n\n\"It's sad about his wife, Katherine. Her death hit him hard.\" A tragic sigh followed, clearly feigned. \"Her death was not all that long ago, was it?\"\n\n\"Come to your point, or I'm leaving.\"\n\nTench let out a lung-shaking cough and reached for the burgeoning manila folder. She pulled out a small stack of stapled papers and handed them to Gabrielle.\n\n\"Sexton's financial records.\"\n\nGabrielle studied the documents in astonishment. The records went back several years. Although Gabrielle was not privy to the internal workings of Sexton's finances, she sensed this data was authentic-banking accounts, credit card accounts, loans, stock assets, real estate assets, debts, capital gains and losses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is private data. Where did you get this?\"\n\n\"My source is not your concern. But if you spend sometime studying these figures, you will clearly see that Senator Sexton does not have the kind of money he is currently spending. After Katherine died, he squandered the vast majority of her legacy on bad investments, personal comforts, and buying himself what appears to be certain victory in the primaries. As of six months ago, your candidate was broke.\"\n\nGabrielle sensed this had to be a bluff. If Sexton were broke, he sure wasn't acting it. He was buying advertising time in bigger and bigger blocks every week.\n\n\"Your candidate,\" Tench continued, \"is currently outspending the President four to one. And he has no personal money.\"\n\n\"We get a lot of donations.\"\n\n\"Yes, some of them legal.\"\n\nGabrielle's head shot up. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\nTench leaned across the desk, and Gabrielle could smell her nicotine breath.\n\n\"Gabrielle Ashe, I am going to ask you a question, and I suggest you think very carefully before you answer. It could affect whether you spend the next few years in jail or not. Are you aware that Senator Sexton is accepting enormous illegal campaign bribes from aerospace companies who have billions to gain from the privatization of NASA?\"\n\nGabrielle stared. \"That's an absurd allegation!\"\n\n\"Are you saying you are unaware of this activity?\"\n\n\"I think I would know if the senator were accepting bribes of the magnitude you are suggesting.\"\n\nTench smiled coldly. \"Gabrielle, I understand that Senator Sexton has shared a lot of himself with you, but I assure you there is plenty you do not know about the man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle stood up. \"This meeting is over.\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" Tench said, removing the remaining contents of the folder and spreading it on the desk. \"This meeting is just beginning.\"\n\nInside the habisphere's\"staging room,\" Rachel Sexton felt like an astronaut as she slid into one of NASA's Mark IX microclimate survival suits. The black, onepiece, hooded jumpsuit resembled an inflatable scuba suit. Its two-ply, memoryfoam fabric was fitted with hollow channels through which a dense gel was pumped to help the wearer regulate body temperature in both hot and cold environments.\n\nNow, as Rachel pulled the tight-fitting hood over her head, her eyes fell on the NASA administrator. He appeared as a silent sentinel at the door, clearly displeased with the necessity for this little mission.\n\nNorah Mangor was muttering obscenities as she got everyone outfitted. \"Here's an extra pudgy,\" she said, tossing Corky his suit.\n\nTolland was already half into his.\n\nOnce Rachel was fully zipped up, Norah found the stopcock on Rachel's side and connected her to an infusion tube that coiled out of a silver canister resembling a large scuba tank.\n\n\"Inhale,\" Norah said, opening the valve.\n\nRachel heard a hiss and felt gel being injected into the suit. The memory foam expanded, and the suit compressed around her, pressing down on her inner layer of clothing. The sensation reminded her of sticking her hand underwater while wearing a rubber glove. As the hood inflated around her head, it pressed in on her ears, making everything sound muffled. I'm in a cocoon.\n\n\"Best thing about the Mark IX,\" Norah said, \"is the padding. You can fall on your ass and not feel a thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel believed it. She felt like she was trapped inside a mattress. Norah handed Rachel a series of tools-an ice ax, tether snaps, and carabiners, which she affixed to the belt harnessed on Rachel's waist.\n\n\"All this?\" Rachel asked, eyeing the gear. \"Togo two hundred yards?\"\n\nNorah's eyes narrowed. \"You want to come or not?\"\n\nTolland gave Rachel a reassuring nod. \"Norah's just being careful.\"\n\nCorky connected to the infusion tank and inflated his suit, looking amused. \"I feel like I'm wearing a giant condom.\"\n\nNorah gave a disgusted groan. \"Like you'd know, virgin boy.\"\n\nTolland sat down next to Rachel. He gave her a weak smile as she donned her heavy boots and crampons. \"You sure you want to come?\" His eyes had a protective concern that drew her in.\n\nRachel hoped her confident nod belied her growing trepidation. Two hundred yards... not far at all. \"And you thought you could find excitement only on the high seas.\"\n\nTolland chuckled, talking as he attached his own crampons. \"I've decided I like liquid water much better than this frozen stuff.\"\n\n\"I've never been a big fan of either,\" Rachel said. \"I fell through the ice as a kid. Water's made me nervous ever since.\"\n\nTolland glanced over, his eyes sympathetic. \"Sorry to hear that. When this is over, you'll have to come out and visit me on the Goya. I'll change your mind about water. Promise.\"\n\nThe invitation surprised her. The Goya was Tolland's research ship-well-known both from its role in Amazing Seas as well as its reputation as one of the strangestlooking ships on the ocean. Although a visit to the Goya would be unnerving for Rachel, she knew it would be hard to pass up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's anchored twelve miles off the coast of New Jersey at the moment,\" Tolland said, struggling with his crampon latches.\n\n\"Sounds like an unlikely spot.\"\n\n\"Not at all. The Atlantic seaboard is an incredible place. We were gearing up to shoot anew documentary when I was so rudely interrupted by the President.\"\n\nRachel laughed. \"Shooting a documentary on what?\"\n\n\"Sphyrna mokarran and megaplumes.\"\n\nRachel frowned. \"Glad I asked.\"\n\nTolland finished attaching his crampons and looked up. \"Seriously, I'll be filming out therefor a couple weeks. Washington's not that far from the Jersey coast. Come out when you get back home. No reason to spend your life afraid of the water. My crew would roll out the red carpet for you.\"\n\nNorah Mangor's voice blared. \"Are we going outside, or should I get you twosome candles and champagne?\"\n\nGabrielle Ashe had no idea what to make of the documents now spread out before heron Marjorie Tench's desk. The pile included photocopied letters, faxes, transcripts of phone conversations, and they all seemed to support the allegation that Senator Sexton was in covert dialogue with private space companies. Tench pushed a couple of grainy black-and-white photographs toward Gabrielle.\n\n\"I assume this is news to you?\"\n\nGabrielle looked at the photos. The first candid shot showed Senator Sexton getting out of a taxi in some kind of underground garage. Sexton never takes taxis. Gabrielle looked at the second shot-a telephoto of Sexton climbing into a parked white minivan. An old man appeared to be in the van waiting for him.\n\n\"Who is that?\" Gabrielle said, suspicious the photos might be faked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A big shot from the SFF.\"\n\nGabrielle was doubtful. \"The Space Frontier Foundation?\"\n\nThe SFF was like a'union\" for private space companies. It represented aerospace contractors, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists-any private entity that wanted to go into space. They tended to be critical of NASA, arguing that the U. S. space program employed unfair business practices to prevent private companies from launching missions into space.\n\n\"The SFF,\" Tench said, \"now represents over a hundred major corporations, some very wealthy enterprises who are waiting eagerly for the Space Commercialization Promotions Act to be ratified.\"\n\nGabrielle considered it. For obvious reasons the SFF was a vocal supporter of Sexton's campaign, although the senator had been careful not to get too close to them because of their controversial lobbying tactics. Recently the SFF had published an explosive rant charging that NASA was in fact an'illegal monopoly\"\n\nwhose ability to operate at a loss and still stay in business represented unfair competition to private firms. According to the SFF, whenever AT& T needed a telecomm satellite launched, several private space companies offered to do the job at a reasonable$ 50 million. Unfortunately, NASA always stepped in and offered to launch AT& T's satellites fora mere twenty-five million, even though it cost NASA five times that to do the job! Operating at a loss is one way NASA keeps its grip on space, the SFF lawyers accused. And taxpayers pickup the tab.\n\n\"This photo reveals,\" Tench said, \"that your candidate is holding secret meetings with an organization that represents private space enterprises.\" Tench motioned to several other documents on the table. \"We also have internal SFF memos calling for huge sums of money to be collected from SFF member companies-in amounts commensurate with their net worth-and transferred to accounts controlled by Senator Sexton. In effect, these private space agencies are anteing up to put Sexton in office. I can only assume he has agreed to pass the commercialization bill and privatize NASA if elected.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle looked at the pile of papers, unconvinced. \"Do you expect me to believe that the White House has evidence that its opponent is engaged in profoundly illegal campaign finance-and yet, for some reason, you are keeping it secret?\"\n\n\"What would you believe?\"\n\nGabrielle glared. \"Frankly, considering your skills for manipulation, a more logical solution seems that you are plying me somehow with phony documents and photos produced by some enterprising White House staffer and his desktop publishing computer.\"\n\n\"Possible, I admit. But not true.\"\n\n\"No? Then how did you get all these internal documents from corporations? The resources required to steal all of this evidence from so many companies certainly exceeds the grasp of the White House.\"\n\n\"You're right. This information arrived here as an unsolicited gift.\"\n\nGabrielle was now lost.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Tench said, \"we get a lot of it. The President has many powerful political allies who would like to see him stay in office. Remember, your candidate is suggesting cuts allover the place-a lot of them right herein Washington. Senator Sexton certainly has no qualms about citing the FBI's bloated budget as an example of government overspending. He's taken some potshots at the IRS, too. Maybe someone at the bureau or at the service got a little annoyed.\"\n\nGabrielle got the implication. People at the FBI and IRS would have ways of getting this kind of information. They might then send it to the White House as an unsolicited favor to help the President's election. But what Gabrielle could not make herself believe was that Senator Sexton would ever be engaged in illegal campaign funding. \"If this data is accurate,\" Gabrielle challenged, \"which I strongly doubt it is, why haven't you gone public?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why do you think?\"\n\n\"Because it was gathered illegally.\"\n\n\"How we got it makes no difference.\"\n\n\"Of course it makes a difference. It's inadmissible in a hearing.\"\n\n\"What hearing? We'd simply leak this to a newspaper, and they'd run it as a\n\n\"credible-source\" story with photos and documentation. Sexton would be guilty until proven innocent. His vocal anti-NASA stance would be virtual proof that he is taking bribes.\"\n\nGabrielle knew it was true. \"Fine,\" she challenged, \"then why haven't you leaked the information?\"\n\n\"Because it's a negative. The President promised not to go negative in the campaign and he wants to stick to that promise as long as he can.\"\n\nYeah, right! \"You're telling me the President is so upstanding that he refuses to go public with this because people might consider it a negative?\"\n\n\"It's a negative for the country. It implicates dozens of private companies, many of which are made up of honest people. It besmirches the office of the U. S. Senate and is bad for the country's morale. Dishonest politicians hurt all politicians. Americans need to trust their leaders. This would bean ugly investigation and would most likely send a U. S. senator and numerous prominent aerospace executives to jail.\"\n\nAlthough Tench's logic did make sense, Gabrielle still doubted the allegations.\n\n\"What does any of this have to do with me?\"\n\n\"Simply put, Ms. Ashe, if we release these documents, your candidate will be indicted for illegal campaign financing, lose his Senate seat, and most likely do prison time.\" Tench paused. \"Unless...\"\n\nGabrielle saw a snakelike glint in the senior adviser's eyes. \"Unless what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tench took along dragon her cigarette. \"Unless you decide to help us avoid all that.\"\n\nA murky silence settled over the room.\n\nTench coughed roughly. \"Gabrielle, listen, I decided to share this unfortunate information with you for three reasons. First, to show you Zach Herney is a decent man who considers the government's well-being before his personal gain. Second, to inform you that your candidate is not as trustworthy as you might think. And third, to persuade you to accept the offer I am about to make.\"\n\n\"That offer being?\"\n\n\"I'd like to offer you a chance to do the right thing. The patriotic thing. Whether you know it or not, you're in a unique position to spare Washington all kinds of unpleasant scandal. If you can do what I am about to ask, perhaps you could even earn yourself a place on the President's team.\"\n\nA place on the President's team? Gabrielle couldn't believe what she was hearing.\n\n\"Ms. Tench, whatever you have in mind, I do not appreciate being black-mailed, coerced, or talked down to. I work for the senator's campaign because I believe in his politics. And if this is any indication of the way Zach Herney exerts political influence, I have no interest in being associated with him! If you've got something on Senator Sexton, then I suggest you leak it to the press. Frankly, I think this whole thing's a sham.\"\n\nTench gave a dreary sigh. \"Gabrielle, your candidate's illegal funding is a fact. I'm sorry. I know you trust him.\" She lowered her voice. \"Look, here's the point. The President and I will go public with the funding issue if we must, but it will get ugly on a grand scale. This scandal involves several major U. S. corporations breaking the law. A lot of innocent people will pay the price.\" She took along drag and exhaled. \"What the President and I are hoping for here... is some other way to discredit the senator's ethics. Away that is more contained... one in which no innocent parties get hurt.\" Tench set down her cigarette and folded her hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Simply put, we would like you to publicly admit that you had an affair with the senator.\"\n\nGabrielle's entire body went rigid. Tench sounded utterly certain of herself. Impossible, Gabrielle knew. There was no proof. The sex had happened only once, behind locked doors in Sexton's senatorial office. Tench has nothing. She's fishing. Gabrielle fought to retain her steady tone. \"You assume a lot, Ms. Tench.\"\n\n\"Which? That you had an affair? Or that you would abandon your candidate?\"\n\n\"Both.\"\n\nTench gave a curt smile and stood up. \"Well, let's put one of those facts to rest right now, shall we?\" She walked to her wall safe again and returned with a red manila folder. It was stamped with the White House seal. She unhooked the clasp, tipped the envelope over, and dumped the contents out on the desk in front of Gabrielle.\n\nAs dozens of color photographs spilled out onto the desk, Gabrielle saw her entire career come crashing down before her.\n\nOutside the habisphere, the katabatic wind roaring down off the glacier was nothing like the ocean winds Tolland was accustomed to. On the ocean, wind was a function of tides and pressure fronts and came in gusting ebbs and flows. The katabatic, however, was a slave to simple physics-heavy cold air rushing down a glacial incline like a tidal wave. It was the most resolute gale force Tolland had ever experienced. Had it been coming at twenty knots, the katabatic would have been a sailor's dream, but at its current eighty knots it could quickly become a nightmare even for those on solid ground. Tolland found that if he paused and leaned backward, the stalwart squall could easily prop him up. Making the raging river of air even more unnerving to Tolland was the slight downwind grade of the ice shelf. The ice was sloped ever so slightly toward the ocean, two miles away. Despite the sharp spikes on the Pitbull Rapido crampons attached to his boots, Tolland had the uneasy feeling that any misstep might leave him caught up in a gale and sliding down the endless icy slope. Norah Mangor's two-minute course in glacier safety now seemed dangerously inadequate. Piranha Ice ax, Norah had said, fastening a lightweight T-shaped tool to each of their belts as they suited up in the habisphere. Standard blade, banana blade, semitubular blade, hammer, and adze. All you need to remember is, if anyone slips or gets caught up in a gust, grab your ax with one hand on the head and one on the shaft, ram the banana blade into the ice, and fall on it, planting your crampons. With those words of assurance, Norah Mangor had affixed YAK belay harnesses to each of them. They all donned goggles, and headed out into the afternoon darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, the four figures made their way down the glacier in a straight line with ten yards of belay rope separating each of them. Norah was in the lead position, followed by Corky, then Rachel, and Tolland as anchor.\n\nAs they moved farther away from the habisphere, Tolland felt a growing uneasiness. In his inflated suit, although warm, he felt like some kind of uncoordinated space traveler trekking across a distant planet. The moon had disappeared behind thick, billowing storm clouds, plunging the ice sheet into an impenetrable blackness. The katabatic wind seemed to begetting stronger by the minute, applying a constant pressure to Tolland's back. As his eyes strained through his goggles to make out the expansive emptiness around them, he began to perceive a true danger in this place. Redundant NASA safety precautions or not, Tolland was surprised the administrator had been willing to risk four lives out here instead of two. Especially when the additional two lives were that of a senator's daughter and a famous astrophysicist. Tolland was not surprised to feel a protective concern for Rachel and Corky. As someone who had captained a ship, he was used to feeling responsible for those around him.\n\n\"Stay behind me,\" Norah shouted, her voice swallowed by the wind. \"Let the sled lead the way.\"\n\nThe aluminum sled on which Norah was transporting her testing gear resembled an oversized Flexible Flyer. The craft was prepacked with diagnostic gear and safety accessories she'd been using on the glacier over the past few days. All of her gear-including a battery pack, safety flares, and a powerful front-mounted spotlight-was bound under a secured, plastic tarp. Despite the heavy load, the sled glided effortlessly on long, straight runners. Even on the almost imperceptible incline, the sled moved downhill on its own accord, and Norah applied a gentle restraint, almost as if allowing the sled to lead the way. Sensing the distance growing between the group and the habisphere, Tolland looked over his shoulder. Only fifty yards away, the pale curvature of the dome had all but disappeared in the blustery blackness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You at all worried about finding our way back?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland yelled. \"The habisphere is almost invisi-\" His words were cut short by the loud hiss of a flare igniting in Norah's hand. The sudden red-white glow illuminated the ice shelf in a ten-yard radius all around them. Norah used her heel to dig a small impression in the surface snow, piling up a protective ridge on the upwind side of the hole. Then she rammed the flare into the indentation.\n\n\"High-tech breadcrumbs,\" Norah shouted.\n\n\"Breadcrumbs?\" Rachel asked, shielding her eyes from the sudden light.\n\n\"Hansel and Gretel,\" Norah shouted. \"These flares will last an hour-plenty of time to find our way back.\"\n\nWith that, Norah headed out again, leading them down the glacier-into the darkness once again.\n\nGabrielle Ashe stormed out of Marjorie Tench's office and practically knocked over a secretary in doing so. Mortified, all Gabrielle could see were the photographs-images-arms and legs intertwined. Faces filled with ecstasy. Gabrielle had no idea how the photos had been taken, but she knew damn well they were real. They had been taken in Senator Sexton's office and seemed to have been shot from above as if by hidden camera. God help me. One of the photos showed Gabrielle and Sexton having sex directly on top of the senator's desk, their bodies sprawled across a scatter of official-looking documents. Marjorie Tench caught up with Gabrielle outside the Map Room. Tench was carrying the red envelope of photos. \"I assume from your reaction that you believe these photos are authentic?\" The President's senior adviser actually looked like she was having a good time. \"I'm hoping they persuade you that our other data is accurate as well. They came from the same source.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gabrielle felt her entire body flushing as she marched down the hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where the hell is the exit?\n\nTench's gangly legs had no trouble keeping up. \"Senator Sexton swore to the world that you two are platonic associates. His televised statement was actually quite convincing.\" Tench motioned smugly over her shoulder. \"In fact, I have a tape in my office if you'd like to refresh your memory?\"\n\nGabrielle needed no refresher. She remembered the press conference all too well. Sexton's denial was as adamant as it was heartfelt.\n\n\"It's unfortunate,\" Tench said, sounding not at all disappointed, \"but Senator Sexton looked the American people in the eye and told a bald-faced lie. The public has aright to know. And they will know. I'll see to it personally. The only question now is how the public finds out. We believe it's best coming from you.\"\n\nGabrielle was stunned. \"You really think I'm going to help lynch my own candidate?\"\n\nTench's face hardened. \"I am trying to take the high ground here, Gabrielle. I'm giving you a chance to save everyone a lot of embarrassment by holding your head high and telling the truth. All I need is a signed statement admitting your affair.\"\n\nGabrielle stopped short. \"What!\"\n\n\"Of course. A signed statement gives us the leverage we need to deal with the senator quietly, sparing the country this ugly mess. My offer is simple: Sign a statement for me, and these photos never need to seethe light of day.\"\n\n\"You want a statement?\"\n\n\"Technically, I would need an affidavit, but we have a notary herein the building who could-\"\n\n\"You're crazy.\" Gabrielle was walking again.\n\nTench stayed at her side, sounding more angry now. \"Senator Sexton is going down one way or another, Gabrielle, and I'm offering you a chance to get out of this without seeing your own naked ass in the morning paper! The President is a decent man and doesn't want these photos publicized. If you just give mean affidavit and confess to the affair on your own terms, then all of us can retain a little dignity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not for sale.\"\n\n\"Well, your candidate certainly is. He's a dangerous man, and he's breaking the law.\"\n\n\"He's breaking the law? You're the ones breaking into offices and taking illegal surveillance pictures! Ever heard of Watergate?\"\n\n\"We had nothing to do with gathering this dirt. These photos came from the same source as the SFF campaign-funding information. Someone's been watching you two very closely.\"\n\nGabrielle tore past the security desk where she had gotten her security badge. She ripped off the badge and tossed it to the wide-eyed guard. Tench was still on her tail.\n\n\"You'll need to decide fast, Ms. Ashe,\" Tench said as they neared the exit. \"Either bring mean affidavit admitting you slept with the senator, or at eight o'clock tonight, the president will be forced to go public with everything-Sexton's financial dealings, the photos of you, the works. And believe me, when the public sees that you stood idly by and let Sexton lie about your relationship, you'll go down inflames right beside him.\"\n\nGabrielle saw the door and headed for it.\n\n\"On my desk by eight o'clock tonight, Gabrielle. Be smart.\" Tench tossed her the folder of photographs on her way out. \"Keep them, sweetie. We've got plenty more.\"\n\nRachel Sexton felt a growing chill inside as she moved down the ice sheet into a deepening night. Disquieting images swirled in her mind-the meteorite, the phosphorescent plankton, the implications if Norah Mangor had made a mistake with the ice cores.\n\nA solid matrix of freshwater ice, Norah had argued, reminding them all that she had drilled cores all around the area as well as directly over the meteorite. If the glacier contained saltwater interstices filled with plankton, she would have seen them. Wouldn't she? Nonetheless, Rachel's intuition kept returning to the simplest solution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are plankton frozen in this glacier.\n\nTen minutes and four flares later, Rachel and the others were approximately 250\n\nyards from the habisphere. Without warning, Norah stopped short. \"This is the spot,\" she said, sounding like a water-witch diviner who had mystically sensed the perfect spot to drill a well.\n\nRachel turned and glanced up the slope behind them. The habisphere had long since disappeared into the dim, moonlit night, but the line of flares was clearly visible, the farthest one twinkling reassuringly like a faint star. The flares were in a perfectly straight line, like a carefully calculated runway. Rachel was impressed with Norah's skills.\n\n\"Another reason we let the sled go first,\" Norah called out when she saw Rachel admiring the line of flares. \"The runners are straight. If we let gravity lead the sled and we don't interfere, we're guaranteed to travel in a straight line.\"\n\n\"Neat trick,\" Tolland yelled. \"Wish there were something like that for the open sea.\"\n\nThis IS the open sea, Rachel thought, picturing the ocean beneath them. Fora split second, the most distant flame caught her attention. It had disappeared, as if the light had been blotted out by a passing form. A moment later, though, the light reappeared. Rachel felt a sudden uneasiness. \"Norah,\" she yelled over the wind,\n\n\"did you say there were polar bears up here?\"\n\nThe glaciologist was preparing a final flare and either did not hear or was ignoring her.\n\n\"Polar bears,\" Tolland yelled, \"eat seals. They only attack humans when we invade their space.\"\n\n\"But this is polar bear country, right?\" Rachel could never remember which pole had bears and which had penguins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Tolland shouted back. \"Polar bears actually give the Arctic its name. Arktos is Greek forbear.\"\n\nTerrific. Rachel gazed nervously into the dark.\n\n\"Antarctica has no polar bears,\" Tolland said. \"So they call it Anti-arktos.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mike,\" Rachel yelled. \"Enough talk of polar bears.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Right. Sorry.\"\n\nNorah pressed a final flare into the snow. As before, the four of them were engulfed in a reddish glow, looking bloated in their black weather suits. Beyond the circle of light emanating from the flare, the rest of the world became totally invisible, a circular shroud of blackness engulfing them. As Rachel and the others looked on, Norah planted her feet and used careful overhand motions to reel the sled several yards backup the slope to where they were standing. Then, keeping the rope taut, she crouched and manually activated the sled's talon brakes-four angled spikes that dug into the ice to keep the sled stationary. That done, she stood up and brushed herself off, the rope around her waist falling slack.\n\n\"All right,\" Norah shouted. \"Time to go to work.\"\n\nThe glaciologist circled to the downwind end of the sled and began unfastening the butterfly eyelets holding the protective canvas over the gear. Rachel, feeling like she had been a little hard on Norah, moved to help by unfastening the rear of the flap.\n\n\"Jesus, NO!\" Norah yelled, her head snapping up. \"Don't ever do that!\"\n\nRachel recoiled, confused.\n\n\"Never unfasten the upwind side!\" Norah said. \"You'll create a windsock! This sled would have taken off like an umbrella in a wind tunnel!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel backed off. \"I'm sorry. I...\"\n\nShe glared. \"You and space boy shouldn't be out here.\"\n\nNone of us should, Rachel thought.\n\nAmateurs, Norah seethed, cursing the administrator's insistence on sending Corky and Sexton along. These clowns are going to get someone killed out here. The last thing Norah wanted right now was to play baby-sitter.\n\n\"Mike,\" she said, \"I need help lifting the GPR off the sled.\"\n\nTolland helped her unpack the Ground Penetrating Radar and position it on the ice. The instrument looked like three miniature snowplow blades that had been affixed in parallel to an aluminum frame. The entire device was no more than a yard long and was connected by cables to a current attenuator and a marine battery on the sled.\n\n\"That's radar?\" Corky asked, yelling over the wind.\n\nNorah nodded in silence. Ground Penetrating Radar was far more equipped to see brine ice than PODS was. The GPR transmitter sent pulses of electromagnetic energy through the ice, and the pulses bounced differently off substances of differing crystal structure. Pure freshwater froze in a flat, shingled lattice. However, seawater froze in more of a meshed or forked lattice on account of its sodium content, causing the GPR pulses to bounce back erratically, greatly diminishing the number of reflections.\n\nNorah powered up the machine. \"I'll betaking a kind of echo-location crosssectional image of the ice sheet around the extraction pit,\" she yelled. \"The machine's internal software will render across section of the glacier and then print it out. Any sea ice will register as a shadow.\"\n\n\"Printout?\" Tolland looked surprised. \"You can printout here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Norah pointed to a cable from the GPR leading to a device still protected under the canopy. \"No choice but to print. Computer screens use too much valuable battery power, so field glaciologists print data to heat-transfer printers. Colors aren't brilliant, but laser toner clumps below neg twenty. Learned that the hard way in Alaska.\"\n\nNorah asked everyone to stand on the downhill side of the GPR as she prepared to align the transmitter such that it would scan the area of the meteorite hole, almost three football fields away. But as Norah looked back through the night in the general direction from which they had come, she couldn't see a damn thing.\n\n\"Mike, I need to align the GPR transmitter with the meteorite site, but this flare has me blinded. I'm going backup the slope just enough to get out of the light. I'll hold my arms inline with the flares, and you adjust the alignment on the GPR.\"\n\nTolland nodded, kneeling down beside the radar device.\n\nNorah stamped her crampons into the ice and leaned forward against the wind as she moved up the incline toward the habisphere. The katabatic today was much stronger than she'd imagined, and she sensed a storm coming in. It didn't matter. They would be done herein a matter of minutes. They'll see I'm right. Norah clomped twenty yards back toward the habisphere. She reached the edge of the darkness just as the belay rope went taut.\n\nNorah looked backup the glacier. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the line of flares slowly came into view several degrees to her left. She shifted her position until she was perfectly lined up with them. Then she held her arms out like a compass, turning her body, indicating the exact vector. \"I'm inline with them now!\" she yelled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland adjusted the GPR device and waved. \"All set!\"\n\nNorah took a final lookup the incline, grateful for the illuminated pathway home. As she looked out, though, something odd occurred. For an instant, one of the nearest flares entirely disappeared from view. Before Norah could worry that it was dying out, the flare reappeared. If Norah didn't know better, she would assume something had passed between the flare and her location. Certainly nobody else was out here... unless of course the administrator had started to feel guilty and sent a NASA team out after them. Somehow Norah doubted it. Probably nothing, she decided. A gust of wind had momentarily killed the flame. Norah returned to the GPR. \"All lined up?\"\n\nTolland shrugged. \"I think so.\"\n\nNorah went over to the control device on the sled and pressed a button. A sharp buzz emanated from the GPR and then stopped. \"Okay,\" she said. \"Done.\"\n\n\"That's it?\" Corky said.\n\n\"All the work is in setup. The actual shot takes only a second.\"\n\nOnboard the sled, the heat-transfer printer had already begun to hum and click. The printer was enclosed in a clear plastic covering and was slowly ejecting a heavy, curled paper. Norah waited until the device had completed printing, and then she reached up under the plastic and removed the printout. They'll see, she thought, carrying the printout over to the flare so that everyone could see it. There won't be any saltwater.\n\nEveryone gathered around as Norah stood over the flare, clutching the printout tightly in her gloves. She took a deep breath and uncurled the paper to examine the data. The image on the paper made her recoil in horror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, God!\" Norah stared, unable to believe what she was looking at. As expected, the printout revealed a clear cross section of the water-filled meteorite shaft. But what Norah had never expected to see was the hazy grayish outline of a humanoid form floating halfway down the shaft. Her blood turned to ice. \"Oh God... there's a body in the extraction pit.\"\n\nEveryone stared in stunned silence.\n\nThe ghostlike body was floating head down in the narrow shaft. Billowing around the corpse like some sort of cape was an eerie shroudlike aura. Norah now realized what the aura was. The GPR had captured a faint trace of the victim's heavy coat, what could only be a familiar, long, dense camelhair.\n\n\"It's... Ming,\" she said in a whisper. \"He must have slipped....\"\n\nNorah Mangor never imagined that seeing Ming's body in the extraction pit would be the lesser of the two shocks the printout would reveal, but as her eyes traced downward in the shaft, she saw something else.\n\nThe ice beneath the extraction shaft...\n\nNorah stared. Her first thought was that something had gone wrong with the scan. Then, as she studied the image more closely, an unsettling realization began to grow, like the storm gathering around them. The paper's edges flapped wildly in the wind as she turned and looked more intently at the printout. But... that's impossible!\n\nSuddenly, the truth came crashing down. The realization felt like it was going to bury her. She forgot all about Ming.\n\nNorah now understood. The saltwater in the shaft! She fell to her knees in the snow beside the flare. She could barely breathe. Still clutching the paper in her hands, she began trembling." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: thriller, conspiracy, mystery, science fiction, NASA\nAuthor: Dan Brown\nTitle: Deception Point\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Centered on the foremost section of rear deck, Rachel spied a familiar, one-man Triton submersible hanging on a giant winch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Triton-named for the Greek god of the sea-looked nothing like its predecessor, the steel-encased Alvin. The Triton had a hemispherical acrylic dome in front, making it look more like a giant fishbowl than a sub. Rachel could think of few things more terrifying than submerging hundreds of feet into the ocean with nothing between her face and the ocean but a sheet of clear acrylic. Of course, according to Tolland, the only unpleasant part of riding in the Triton was the initial deployment-being slowly winched down through the trapdoor in the Goya's deck, hanging like a pendulum thirty feet above the sea.\n\n\"Xavia is probably in the hydrolab,\" Tolland said, moving across the deck. \"This way.\"\n\nRachel and Corky followed Tolland across the stern deck. The Coast Guard pilot remained in his chopper with strict instructions not to use the radio.\n\n\"Have a look at this,\" Tolland said, pausing at the stern railing of the ship. Hesitantly, Rachel neared the railing. They were very high up. The water was a good thirty feet below them, and yet Rachel could still feel the heat rising off the water.\n\n\"It's about the temperature of a warm bath,\" Tolland said over the sound of the current. He reached toward a switch-box on the railing. \"Watch this.\" He flipped a switch.\n\nA wide arc of light spread through the water behind the ship, illuminating it from within like a lit swimming pool. Rachel and Corky gasped in unison. The water around the ship was filled with dozens of ghostly shadows. Hovering only feet below the illuminated surface, armies of sleek, dark forms swam in parallel against the current, their unmistakable hammer-shaped skulls wagging back and forth as if to the beat of some prehistoric rhythm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Christ, Mike,\" Corky stammered. \"So glad you shared this with us.\"\n\nRachel's body went rigid. She wanted to step back from the railing, but she could not move. She was transfixed by the petrifying vista.\n\n\"Incredible, aren't they?\" Tolland said. His hand was on her shoulder again, comforting. \"They'll tread water in the warm spots for weeks. These guys have the best noses in the sea-enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes. They can smell blood up to a mile away.\"\n\nCorky looked skeptical. \"Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes?\"\n\n\"Don't believe me?\" Tolland began rooting around in an aluminum cabinet adjacent to where they were standing. After a moment, he pulled out a small, dead fish. \"Perfect.\" He took a knife from the cooler and cut the limp fish in several places. It started to drip blood.\n\n\"Mike, for God's sake,\" Corky said. \"That's disgusting.\"\n\nTolland tossed the bloody fish overboard and it fell thirty feet. The instant it hit the water, six or seven sharks darted in a tumbling ferocious brawl, their rows of silvery teeth gnashing wildly at the bloody fish. In an instant, the fish was gone. Aghast, Rachel turned and stared at Tolland, who was already holding another fish. Same kind. Same size.\n\n\"This time, no blood,\" Tolland said. Without cutting the fish, he threw it in the water. The fish splashed down, but nothing happened. The hammerheads seemed not to notice. The bait carried away on the current, having drawn no interest whatsoever.\n\n\"They attack only on sense of smell,\" Tolland said, leading them away from the railing. \"In fact, you could swim out herein total safety-provided you didn't have any open wounds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corky pointed to the stitches on his cheek.\n\nTolland frowned. \"Right. No swimming for you.\"\n\nGabrielle Ashe's taxi was not moving.\n\nSitting at a roadblock near the FDR Memorial, Gabrielle looked out at the emergency vehicles in the distance and felt as if a surrealistic fog bank had settled over the city. Radio reports were coming in now that the exploded car might have contained a high-level government official.\n\nPulling out her cellphone, she dialed the senator. He was no doubt starting to wonder what was taking Gabrielle so long.\n\nThe line was busy.\n\nGabrielle looked at the taxi's clicking meter and frowned. Some of the other cars stuck here were pulling up onto the curbs and turning around to find alternative routes.\n\nThe driver looked over his shoulder. \"You wanna wait? Your dime.\"\n\nGabrielle saw more official vehicles arriving now. \"No. Let's go around.\"\n\nThe driver grunted in the affirmative and began maneuvering the awkward multipoint turn. As they bounced over the curbs, Gabrielle tried Sexton again. Still busy.\n\nSeveral minutes later, having made a wide loop, the taxi was traveling up C Street. Gabrielle saw the Philip A. Hart Office Building looming. She had intended to go straight to the senator's apartment, but with her office this close...\n\n\"Pullover,\" she blurted to the driver. \"Right there. Thanks.\" She pointed. The cab stopped.\n\nGabrielle paid the amount on the meter and added ten dollars. \"Can you wait ten minutes?\"\n\nThe cabbie looked at the money and then at his watch. \"Not a minute longer.\"\n\nGabrielle hurried off. I'll be out in five." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The deserted marble corridors of the Senate office building felt almost sepulchral at this hour. Gabrielle's muscles were tense as she hurried through the gauntlet of austere statues lining the third-floor entryway. Their stony eyes seemed to follow her like silent sentinels.\n\nArriving at the main door of Senator Sexton's five-room office suite, Gabrielle used her key card to enter. The secretarial lobby was dimly lit. Crossing through the foyer, she went down a hallway to her office. She entered, flicked on the fluorescent lights, and strode directly to her file cabinets. She had an entire file on the budgeting of NASA's Earth Observing System, including plenty of information on PODS. Sexton would certainly want all the data he could possibly get on PODS as soon as she told him about Harper. NASA lied about PODS.\n\nAs Gabrielle fingered her way through her files, her cellphone rang.\n\n\"Senator?\" she answered.\n\n\"No, Gabs. It's Yolanda.\" Her friend's voice had an unusual edge to it. \"You still at NASA?\"\n\n\"No. At the office.\"\n\n\"Find anything at NASA?\"\n\nYou have no idea. Gabrielle knew she couldn't tell Yolanda anything until she'd talked to Sexton; the senator would have very specific ideas about how best to handle the information. \"I'll tell you all about it after I talk to Sexton. Heading over to his place now.\"\n\nYolanda paused. \"Gabs, you know this thing you were saying about Sexton's campaign finance and the SFF?\"\n\n\"I told you I was wrong and-\"\n\n\"I just found out two of our reporters who cover the aerospace industry have been working on a similar story.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle was surprised. \"Meaning?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But these guys are good, and they seem pretty convinced that Sexton is taking kickbacks from the Space Frontier Foundation. I just figured I should call you. I know I told you earlier that the idea was insane. Marjorie Tench as a source seemed spotty, but these guys of ours... I don't know, you might want to talk to them before you seethe senator.\"\n\n\"If they're so convinced, why haven't they gone to press?\" Gabrielle sounded more defensive than she wanted to.\n\n\"They have no solid evidence. The senator apparently is good at covering his tracks.\"\n\nMost politicians are. \"There's nothing there, Yolanda. I told you the senator admitted taking SFF donations, but the gifts are all under the cap.\"\n\n\"I know that's what he told you, Gabs, and I'm not claiming to know what's true or false here. I just felt obliged to call because I told you not to trust Marjorie Tench, and now I find out people other than Tench think the senator maybe on the dole. That's all.\"\n\n\"Who were these reporters?\" Gabrielle felt an unexpected anger simmering now.\n\n\"No names. I can setup a meeting. They're smart. They understand campaign finance law...\" Yolanda hesitated. \"You know, these guy actually believe Sexton is hurting for cash-bankrupt even.\"\n\nIn the silence of her office, Gabrielle could hear Tench's raspy accusations echoing. After Katherine died, the senator squandered the vast majority of her legacy on bad investments, personal comforts, and buying himself what appears to be certain victory in the primaries. As of six months ago, your candidate was broke.\n\n\"Our men would love to talk to you,\" Yolanda said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I bet they would, Gabrielle thought. \"I'll call you back.\"\n\n\"You sound pissed.\"\n\n\"Never at you, Yolanda. Never at you. Thanks.\"\n\nGabrielle hung up.\n\nDozing on a chair in the hallway outside Senator Sexton's Westbrooke apartment, a security guard awoke with a start at the sound of his cellular phone. Bolting up in his chair, he rubbed his eyes and pulled his phone from his blazer pocket.\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Owen, this is Gabrielle.\"\n\nSexton's guard recognized her voice. \"Oh, hi.\"\n\n\"I need to talk to the senator. Would you knock on his door for me? His line is busy.\"\n\n\"It's kind of late.\"\n\n\"He's awake. I'm sure of it.\" Gabrielle sounded anxious. \"It's an emergency.\"\n\n\"Another one?\"\n\n\"Same one. Just get him on the phone, Owen. There's something I really need to ask him.\"\n\nThe guard sighed, standing up. \"Okay, okay. I'll knock.\" He stretched and made his way toward Sexton's door. \"But I'm only doing it because he was glad I let you in earlier.\" Reluctantly, he raised his fist to knock.\n\n\"What did you just say?\" Gabrielle demanded.\n\nThe guard's fist stopped in midair. \"I said the senator was glad I let you in earlier. You were right. It was no problem at all.\"\n\n\"You and the senator talked about that?\" Gabrielle sounded surprised.\n\n\"Yeah. So what?\"\n\n\"No, I just didn't think...\"\n\n\"Actually, it was kind of weird. The senator needed a couple of seconds to even remember you'd been in there. I think the boys were tossing back a few.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When did you two talk, Owen?\"\n\n\"Right after you left. Is something wrong?\"\n\nA momentary silence. \"No... no. Nothing. Look, now that I think of it, let's not bother the senator this instant. I'll keep trying his house line, and if I don't have any luck, I'll call you back and you can knock.\"\n\nThe guard rolled his eyes. \"Whatever you say, Ms. Ashe.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Owen. Sorry to bother you.\"\n\n\"No problem.\" The guard hung up, flopped back in his chair, and went to sleep. Alone in her office, Gabrielle stood motionless for several seconds before hanging up the phone. Sexton knows I was inside his apartment... and he never mentioned it tome?\n\nTonight's ethereal strangeness was getting murkier. Gabrielle flashed on the senator's phone call to her while she was at ABC. The senator had stunned her with his unprovoked admission that he was meeting with space companies and accepting money. His honesty had brought her back to him. Shamed her even. His confession now seemed one hell of a lot less noble.\n\nSoft money, Sexton had said. Perfectly legal.\n\nSuddenly, all the vague misgivings Gabrielle had ever felt about Senator Sexton seemed to resurface all at once.\n\nOutside, the taxi was honking.\n\nThe bridge of the Goya was a Plexiglas cube situated two levels above the main deck. From here Rachel had a 360-degree view of the surrounding darkened sea, an unnerving vista she looked at only once before blocking it out and turning her attention to the matter at hand.\n\nHaving sent Tolland and Corky to find Xavia, Rachel prepared to contact Pickering. She'd promised the director she would call him when they arrived, and she was eager to know what he had learned in his meeting with Marjorie Tench. The Goya's SHINCOM 2100 digital communications system was a platform with which Rachel was familiar enough. She knew if she kept her call short, her communication should be secure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dialing Pickering's private number, she waited, clutching the SHINCOM 2100\n\nreceiver to her ear and waiting. She expected Pickering to pickup on the first ring. But the line just kept ringing.\n\nSix rings. Seven. Eight...\n\nRachel gazed out at the darkened ocean, her inability to reach the director doing nothing to quell her uneasiness about being at sea.\n\nNine rings. Ten rings. Pickup!\n\nShe paced, waiting. What was going on? Pickering carried his phone with him at all times, and he had expressly told Rachel to call him. After fifteen rings, she hung up.\n\nWith growing apprehension, she picked up the SHINCOM receiver and dialed again.\n\nFour rings. Five rings.\n\nWhere is he?\n\nFinally, the connection clicked open. Rachel felt a surge of relief, but it was shortlived. There was no one on the line. Only silence.\n\n\"Hello,\" she prompted. \"Director?\"\n\nThree quick clicks.\n\n\"Hello?\" Rachel said.\n\nA burst of electronic static shattered the line, blasting in Rachel's ear. She yanked the receiver away from her head in pain. The static abruptly stopped. Now she could hear a series of rapidly oscillating tones that pulsed in half-second intervals. Rachel's confusion quickly gave way to realization. And then fear.\n\n\"Shit!\"\n\nWheeling back to the controls on the bridge, she slammed the receiver down in its cradle, severing the connection. For several moments she stood terrified, wondering if she'd hung up in time.\n\nAmidships, two decks below, the Goya's hydrolab was an expansive workspace segmented by long counters and islands packed to the gills with electronic gear-bottom profilers, current analyzers, wet sinks, fume hoods, a walk-in specimen cooler, PCs, and a stack of organizer crates for research data and the spare electronics to keep everything running." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Tolland and Corky entered, the Goya's onboard geologist, Xavia, was reclining in front of a blaring television. She didn't even turnaround.\n\n\"Did you guys run out of beer money?\" she called over her shoulder, apparently thinking some of her crew had returned.\n\n\"Xavia,\" Tolland said. \"It's Mike.\"\n\nThe geologist spun, swallowing part of a prepackaged sandwich she was eating.\n\n\"Mike?\" she stammered, clearly stunned to see him. She stood up, turned down the television, and came over, still chewing. \"I thought some of the guys had comeback from bar-hopping. What are you doing here?\" Xavia was heavyset and darkskinned, with a sharp voice and a surly air about her. She motioned to the television, which was broadcasting replays of Tolland's on-site meteorite documentary. \"You sure didn't hang around on the ice shelf very long, did you?\"\n\nSomething came up, Tolland thought. \"Xavia, I'm sure you recognize Corky Marlinson.\"\n\nXavia nodded. \"An honor, sir.\"\n\nCorky was eyeing the sandwich in her hand. \"That looks good.\"\n\nXavia gave him an odd look.\n\n\"I got your message,\" Tolland said to Xavia. \"You said I made a mistake in my presentation? I want to talk to you about it.\"\n\nThe geologist stared at him and let out a shrill laugh. \" That's why you're back?\n\nOh, Mike, for God's sake, I told you, it was nothing. I was just pulling your chain. NASA obviously gave you some old data. Inconsequential. Seriously, only three or four marine geologists in the world might have noticed the oversight!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland held his breath. \"This oversight. Does it by any chance have anything to do with chondrules?\"\n\nXavia's face went blank with shock. \"My God. One of those geologists called you already?\"\n\nTolland slumped. The chondrules. He looked at Corky and then back to the marine geologist. \"Xavia, I need to know everything you can tell me about these chondrules. What was the mistake I made?\"\n\nXavia stared at him, apparently now sensing he was dead serious. \"Mike, it's really nothing. I read a small article in a trade journal awhile back. But I don't understand why you're so worried about this.\"\n\nTolland sighed. \"Xavia, as strange as this may sound, the less you know tonight, the better. All I'm asking is for you to tell us what you know about chondrules, and then we'll need you to examine a rock sample for us.\"\n\nXavia looked mystified and vaguely perturbed to be out of the loop. \"Fine, let me get you that article. It's in my office.\" She set her sandwich down and headed for the door.\n\nCorky called after her. \"Can I finish that?\"\n\nXavia paused, sounding incredulous. \"You want to finish my sandwich?\"\n\n\"Well, I just thought if you-\"\n\n\"Get your own damn sandwich.\" Xavia left.\n\nTolland chuckled, motioning across the lab toward a specimen cooler. \"Bottom shelf, Corky. Between the sambuca and squid sacs.\"\n\nOutside on deck, Rachel descended the steep stairway from the bridge and strode toward the chopper pad. The Coast Guard pilot was dozing but sat up when Rachel rapped on the cockpit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Done already?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked. \"That was fast.\"\n\nRachel shook her head, on edge. \"Can you run both surface and air radar?\"\n\n\"Sure. Ten-mile radius.\"\n\n\"Turn it on, please.\"\n\nLooking puzzled, the pilot threw a couple of switches and the radar screen lit up. The sweep arm spun lazy circles.\n\n\"Anything?\" Rachel asked.\n\nThe pilot let the arm make several complete rotations. He adjusted some controls and watched. It was all clear. \"Couple of small ships way out on the periphery, but they're heading away from us. We're clear. Miles and miles of open sea in all directions.\"\n\nRachel Sexton sighed, although she did not feel particularly relieved. \"Dome a favor, if you see anything approaching-boats, aircraft, anything-will you let me know immediately?\"\n\n\"Sure thing. Is everything okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'd just like to know if we're having company.\"\n\nThe pilot shrugged. \"I'll watch the radar, ma'am. If anything blips, you'll be the first to know.\"\n\nRachel's senses were tingling as she headed for the hydrolab. When she entered, Corky and Tolland were standing alone in front of a computer monitor and chewing sandwiches.\n\nCorky called out to her with his mouth full. \"What'll it be? Fishy chicken, fishy bologna, or fishy egg salad?\"\n\nRachel barely heard the question. \"Mike, how fast can we get this information and get off this ship?\"\n\nTolland paced the hydrolab, waiting with Rachel and Corky for Xavia's return. The news about the chondrules was almost as discomforting as Rachel's news about her attempted contact with Pickering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The director didn't answer.\n\nAnd someone tried to pulse-snitch the Goya's location.\n\n\"Relax,\" Tolland told everyone. \"We're safe. The Coast Guard pilot is watching the radar. He can give us plenty of warning if anyone is headed our way.\"\n\nRachel nodded in agreement, although she still looked on edge.\n\n\"Mike, what the hell is this?\" Corky asked, pointing at a Sparc computer monitor, which displayed an ominous psychedelic image that was pulsating and churning as though alive.\n\n\"Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler,\" Tolland said. \"It's across section of the currents and temperature gradients of the ocean underneath the ship.\"\n\nRachel stared. \"That's what we're anchored on top of?\"\n\nTolland had to admit, the image looked frightening. At the surface, the water appeared as a swirling bluish green, but tracing downward, the colors slowly shifted to a menacing red-orange as the temperatures heated up. Near the bottom, over a mile down, hovering above the ocean floor, a blood-red, cyclone vortex raged.\n\n\"That's the megaplume,\" Tolland said.\n\nCorky grunted. \"Looks like an underwater tornado.\"\n\n\"Same principle. Oceans are usually colder and more dense near the bottom, but here the dynamics are reversed. The deepwater is heated and lighter, so it rises toward the surface. Meanwhile, the surface water is heavier, so it races downward in a huge spiral to fill the void. You get these drainlike currents in the ocean. Enormous whirlpools.\"\n\n\"What's that big bump on the seafloor?\" Corky pointed at the flat expanse of ocean floor, where a large dome-shaped mound rose up like a bubble. Directly above it swirled the vortex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That mound is a magma dome,\" Tolland said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's where lava is pushing up beneath the ocean floor.\"\n\nCorky nodded. \"Like a huge zit.\"\n\n\"Ina manner of speaking.\"\n\n\"And if it pops?\"\n\nTolland frowned, recalling the famous 1986 megaplume event off the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where thousands of tons of twelve hundred degrees Celsius magma spewed up into the ocean all at once, magnifying the plume's intensity almost instantly. Surface currents amplified as the vortex expanded rapidly upward. What happened next was something Tolland had no intention of sharing with Corky and Rachel this evening.\n\n\"Atlantic magma domes don't pop,\" Tolland said. \"The cold water circulating over the mound continually cools and hardens the earth's crust, keeping the magma safely under a thick layer of rock. Eventually the lava underneath cools, and the spiral disappears. Megaplumes are generally not dangerous.\"\n\nCorky pointed toward a tattered magazine sitting near the computer. \"So you're saying Scientific American publishes fiction?\"\n\nTolland saw the cover, and winced. Someone had apparently pulled it from the Goya's archive of old science magazines: Scientific American, February 1999. The cover showed an artist's rendering of a supertanker swirling out of control in an enormous funnel of ocean. The heading read: MEGAPLUMES-GIANT KILLERS\n\nFROM THE DEEP?\n\nTolland laughed it off. \"Totally irrelevant. That article is talking about megaplumes in earthquake zones. It was a popular Bermuda Triangle hypothesis a few years back, explaining ship disappearances. Technically speaking, if there's some sort of cataclysmic geologic event on the ocean floor, which is unheard of around here, the dome could rupture, and the vortex could get big enough to... well, you know...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we don't know,\" Corky said.\n\nTolland shrugged. \"Rise to the surface.\"\n\n\"Terrific. So glad you had us aboard.\"\n\nXavia entered carrying some papers. \"Admiring the megaplume?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Corky said sarcastically. \"Mike was just telling us how if that little mound ruptures, we all go spiraling around in a big drain.\"\n\n\"Drain?\" Xavia gave a cold laugh. \"More like getting flushed down the world's largest toilet.\"\n\nOutside on the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter pilot vigilantly watched the EMS radar screen. As a rescue pilot he had seen his share of fear in people's eyes; Rachel Sexton had definitely been afraid when she asked him to keep an eye out for unexpected visitors to the Goya.\n\nWhat kind of visitors is she expecting? he wondered.\n\nFrom all the pilot could see, the sea and air for ten miles in all directions contained nothing that looked out of the ordinary. A fishing boat eight miles off. An occasional aircraft slicing across an edge of their radar field and then disappearing again toward some unknown destination.\n\nThe pilot sighed, gazing out now at the ocean rushing all around the ship. The sensation was a ghostly one-that of sailing full speed despite being anchored. He returned his eyes to the radar screen and watched. Vigilant.\n\nOnboard the Goya, Tolland had now introduced Xavia and Rachel. The ship's geologist was looking increasingly baffled by the distinguished entourage standing before her in the hydrolab. In addition, Rachel's eagerness to run the tests and get off the ship as fast as possible was clearly making Xavia uneasy. Take your time, Xavia, Tolland willed her. We need to know everything. Xavia was talking now, her voice stiff. \"In your documentary, Mike, you said those little metallic inclusions in the rock could form only in space.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland already felt a tremor of apprehension. Chondrules form only in space. That's what NASA told me.\n\n\"But according to these notes,\" Xavia said, holding up the pages, \"that's not entirely true.\"\n\nCorky glared. \"Of course it's true!\"\n\nXavia scowled at Corky and waved the notes. \"Last year a young geologist named Lee Pollock out of Drew University was using anew breed of marine robot to do Pacific deepwater crust sampling in the Mariana Trench and pulled up a loose rock that contained a geologic feature he had never seen before. The feature was quite similar in appearance to chondrules. He called them \"plagioclase stress inclusions\"-tiny bubbles of metal that apparently had been rehomogenized during deep ocean pressurization events. Dr. Pollock was amazed to find metallic bubbles in an ocean rock, and he formulated a unique theory to explain their presence.\"\n\nCorky grumbled. \"I suppose he would have to.\"\n\nXavia ignored him. \"Dr. Pollock asserted that the rock formed in an ultradeep oceanic environment where extreme pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock, permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse.\"\n\n\"It's an extremely obscure theory,\" Xavia said. \"In fact, it's never even been formally published. I only happened to stumble across Pollock's personal notes on the Web by chance last month when I was doing research on fluid-rock interactions for our upcoming megaplume show. Otherwise, I never would have heard of it.\"\n\n\"The theory has never been published,\" Corky said, \"because it's ridiculous. You need heat to form chondrules. There's noway water pressure could rearrange the crystalline structure of a rock.\"\n\n\"Pressure,\" Xavia fired back, \" happens to be the single biggest contributor to geologic change on our planet. A little something called a metamorphic rock?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Geology 101?\"\n\nCorky scowled.\n\nTolland realized Xavia had a point. Although heat did play a role in some of earth's metamorphic geology, most metamorphic rocks were formed by extreme pressure. Incredibly, rocks deep in the earth's crust were under so much pressure that they acted more like thick molasses than solid rock, becoming elastic and undergoing chemical changes as they did. Nonetheless, Dr. Pollock's theory still seemed like a stretch.\n\n\"Xavia,\" Tolland said. \"I've never heard of water pressure alone chemically altering a rock. You're the geologist, what's your take?\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, flipping through her notes, \"it sounds like water pressure isn't the only factor.\" Xavia found a passage and read Pollock's notes verbatim.\n\n\"\"Oceanic crust in the Mariana Trench, already under enormous hydrostatic pressurization, can find itself further compressed by tectonic forces from the region's subduction zones. '\"\n\nOf course, Tolland thought. The Mariana Trench, in addition to being crushed under seven miles of water, was a subduction zone-the compression line where the Pacific and Indian plates moved toward one another and collided. Combined pressures in the trench could be enormous, and because the area was so remote and dangerous to study, if there were chondrules down there, chances of anyone knowing about it were very slim.\n\nXavia kept reading. \"\"Combined hydrostatic and tectonic pressures could potentially force crust into an elastic or semiliquid state, allowing lighter elements to fuse into chondrulelike structures thought to occur only in space.\"\"\n\nCorky rolled his eyes. \"Impossible.\"\n\nTolland glanced at Corky. \"Is there any alternative explanation for the chondrules in the rock Dr. Pollock found?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Easy,\" Corky said. \"Pollock found an actual meteorite. Meteorites fall into the ocean all the time. Pollock would not have suspected it was a meteorite because the fusion crust would have eroded away from years under the water, making it look like a normal rock.\" Corky turned to Xavia. \"I don't suppose Pollock had the brains to measure the nickel content, did he?\"\n\n\"Actually, yes,\" Xavia fired back, flipping through the notes again. \"Pollock writes: \"I was surprised to find the nickel content of the specimen falling within a midrange value not usually associated with terrestrial rocks.\"\"\n\nTolland and Rachel exchanged startled looks.\n\nXavia continued reading. \"\"Although the quantity of nickel does not fall within the normally acceptable midrange window for meteoritic origin, it is surprisingly close.\"\"\n\nRachel looked troubled. \"How close? Is there anyway this ocean rock could be mistaken fora meteorite?\"\n\nXavia shook her head. \"I'm not a chemical petrologist, but as I understand it, there are numerous chemical differences between the rock Pollock found and actual meteorites.\"\n\n\"What are those differences?\" Tolland pressed.\n\nXavia turned her attention to a graph in her notes. \"According to this, one difference is in the chemical structure of the chondrules themselves. It looks like the titanium/zirconium ratios differ. The titanium/zirconium ratio in the chondrules of the ocean sample showed ultradepleted zirconium.\" She looked up.\n\n\"Only two parts per million.\"\n\n\"Two ppm?\" Corky blurted. \"Meteorites have thousands of times that!\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Xavia replied. \"Which is why Pollock thinks his sample's chondrules are not from space.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland leaned over and whispered to Corky, \"Did NASA happen to measure the titanium/zirconium ratio in the Milne rock?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Corky sputtered. \"Nobody would ever measure that. It's like looking at a car and measuring the tires\" rubber content to confirm you're looking at a car!\"\n\nTolland heaved a sigh and looked back at Xavia. \"If we give you a rock sample with chondrules in it, can you run a test to determine whether these inclusions are meteoric chondrules or... one of Pollock's deep ocean compression things?\"\n\nXavia shrugged. \"I suppose. The electron microprobe's accuracy should be close enough. What's this all about, anyway?\"\n\nTolland turned to Corky. \"Give it to her.\"\n\nCorky reluctantly pulled the meteorite sample from his pocket and held it out for Xavia.\n\nXavia's brow furrowed as she took the stone disk. She eyed the fusion crust and then the fossil embedded in the rock. \"My God!\" she said, her head rocketing upward. \"This isn't part of...?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Tolland said. \"Unfortunately it is.\"\n\nAlone in her office, Gabrielle Ashe stood at the window, wondering what to do next. Less than an hour ago, she had left NASA feeling full of excitement to share Chris Harper's PODS fraud with the senator.\n\nNow, she wasn't so sure.\n\nAccording to Yolanda, two independent ABC reporters suspected Sexton of taking SFF bribes. Furthermore, Gabrielle had just learned that Sexton actually knew she had snuck into his apartment during the SFF meeting, and yet he had said nothing to her about it?\n\nGabrielle sighed. Her taxi had long since departed, and although she would call another in a few minutes, she knew there was something she had to do first. Am I really going to try this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle frowned, knowing she didn't have a choice. She no longer knew whom to trust.\n\nStepping out of her office, she made her way back into the secretarial lobby and into a wide hallway on the opposite side. At the far end she could seethe massive oak doors of Sexton's office flanked by two flags-Old Glory on the right and the Delaware flagon the left. His doors, like those of most senate offices in the building, were steel reinforced and secured by conventional keys, an electronic keypad entry, and an alarm system.\n\nShe knew if she could get inside, even if for only a few minutes, all the answers would be revealed. Moving now toward the heavily secured doors, Gabrielle had no illusions of getting through them. She had other plans. Ten feet from Sexton's office, Gabrielle turned sharply to the right and entered the ladies\" room. The fluorescents came on automatically, reflecting harshly off the white tile. As her eyes adjusted, Gabrielle paused, seeing herself in the mirror. As usual, her features looked softer than she'd hoped. Delicate almost. She always felt stronger than she looked.\n\nAre you sure you are ready to do this?\n\nGabrielle knew Sexton was eagerly awaiting her arrival fora complete rundown on the PODS situation. Unfortunately, she also now realized that Sexton had deftly manipulated her tonight. Gabrielle Ashe did not like being managed. The senator had kept things from her tonight. The question was how much. The answers, she knew, lay inside his office-just on the other side of this restroom wall.\n\n\"Five minutes,\" Gabrielle said aloud, mustering her resolve. Moving toward the bathroom's supply closet, she reached up and ran a handover the door frame. A key clattered to the floor. The cleaning crews at Philip A. Hart were federal employees and seemed to evaporate every time there was a strike of any sort, leaving this bathroom without toilet paper and tampons for weeks at a time. The women of Sexton's office, tired of being caught with their pants down, had taken matters into their own hands and secured a supply room key for" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"emergencies.\"\n\nTonight qualifies, she thought.\n\nShe opened the closet.\n\nThe interior was cramped, packed with cleansers, mops, and shelves of paper supplies. A month ago, Gabrielle had been searching for paper towels when she'd made an unusual discovery. Unable to reach the paper off the top shelf, she'd used the end of a broom to coax a roll to fall. In the process, she'd knocked out a ceiling tile. When she climbed up to replace the tile, she was surprised to hear Senator Sexton's voice.\n\nCrystal clear.\n\nFrom the echo, she realized the senator was talking to himself while in his office's private bathroom, which apparently was separated from this supply closet by nothing more than removable, fiberboard ceiling tiles.\n\nNow, back in the closet tonight for far more than toilet paper, Gabrielle kicked off her shoes, climbed up the shelves, popped out the fiberboard ceiling tile, and pulled herself up. So much for national security, she thought, wondering how many state and federal laws she was about to break.\n\nLowering herself through the ceiling of Sexton's private restroom, Gabrielle placed her stockinged feet on his cold, porcelain sink and then dropped to the floor. Holding her breath, she exited into Sexton's private office. His oriental carpets felt soft and warm.\n\nThirty miles away, a black Kiowa gunship chopper tore over the scrub pine treetops of northern Delaware. Delta-One checked the coordinates locked in the auto navigation system.\n\nAlthough Rachel's shipboard transmission device and Pickering's cellphone were encrypted to protect the contents of their communication, intercepting content had not been the goal when the Delta Force pulse-snitched Rachel's call from sea. Intercepting the caller's position had been the goal. Global Positioning Systems and computerized triangulation made pinpointing transmission coordinates a significantly easier task than decrypting the actual content of the call. Delta-One was always amused to think that most cellphone users had no idea that every time they made a call, a government listening post, if so inclined, could detect their position to within ten feet anywhere on earth-a small hitch the cellphone companies failed to advertise. Tonight, once the Delta Force had gained access to the reception frequencies of William Pickering's cellular phone, they could easily trace the coordinates of his incoming calls. Flying now on a direct course toward their target, Delta-One closed to within twenty miles. \"Umbrella primed?\" he asked, turning to Delta-Two, who was manning the radar and weapons system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Affirmative." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Awaiting five-mile range.\"\n\nFive miles, Delta-One thought. He had to fly this bird well within his target's radarscopes to get within range to use the Kiowa's weapons systems. He had little doubt that someone onboard the Goya was nervously watching the skies, and because the Delta Force's current task was to eliminate the target without giving them a chance to radio for help, Delta-One now had to advance on his prey without alarming them.\n\nAt fifteen miles out, still safely out of radar range, Delta-One abruptly turned the Kiowa thirty-five degrees off course to the west. He climbed to three thousand feet-small airplane range-and adjusted his speed to 110 knots.\n\nOn the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter's radarscope beeped once as anew contact entered the ten-mile perimeter. The pilot sat up, studying the screen. The contact appeared to be a small cargo plane headed west up the coast. Probably for Newark.\n\nAlthough this plane's current trajectory would bring it within four miles of the Goya, the flight path obviously was a matter of chance. Nonetheless, being vigilant, the Coast Guard pilot watched the blinking dot trace a slow-moving 110knot line across the right side of his scope. At its closest point, the plane was about four miles west. As expected, the plane kept moving-heading away from them now.\n\n4.1 miles. 4.2 miles.\n\nThe pilot exhaled, relaxing.\n\nAnd then the strangest thing happened.\n\n\"Umbrella now engaged,\" Delta-Two called out, giving the thumbs-up from his weapons control seat on the port side of the Kiowa gunship. \"Barrage, modulated noise, and cover pulse are all activated and locked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Delta-One took his cue and banked hard to the right, putting the craft on a direct course with the Goya. This maneuver would be invisible to the ship's radar.\n\n\"Sure beats bales of tinfoil!\" Delta-Two called out.\n\nDelta-One agreed. Radar jamming had been invented in WWII when a savvy British airman began throwing bales of hay wrapped in tinfoil out of his plane while on bombing runs. The Germans' radar spotted so many reflective contacts they had no idea what to shoot. The techniques had been improved on substantially since then.\n\nThe Kiowa's onboard'umbrella\" radar-jamming system was one of the military's most deadly electronic combat weapons. By broadcasting an umbrella of background noise into the atmosphere above a given set of surface coordinates, the Kiowa could erase the eyes, ears, and voice of their target. Moments ago, all radar screens aboard the Goya had most certainly gone blank. By the time the crew realized they needed to call for help, they would be unable to transmit. On a ship, all communications were radio-or microwave-based-no solid phone lines. If the Kiowa got close enough, all of the Goya's communications systems would stop functioning, their carrier signals blotted out by the invisible cloud of thermal noise broadcast in front of the Kiowa like a blinding headlight. Perfect isolation, Delta-One thought. They have no defenses. Their targets had made a fortunate and cunning escape from the Milne Ice Shelf, but it would not be repeated. In choosing to leave shore, Rachel Sexton and Michael Tolland had chosen poorly. It would be the last bad decision they ever made.\n\nInside the White House, Zach Herney felt dazed as he sat up in bed holding the telephone receiver. \"Now? Ekstrom wants to speak tome now?\" Herney squinted again at the bedside clock. 3:17A. M." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Mr. President,\" the communications officer said. \"He says it's an emergency.\"\n\nWhile Corky and Xavia huddled over the electron microprobe measuring the zirconium content in the chondrules, Rachel followed Tolland across the lab into an adjoining room. Here Tolland turned on another computer. Apparently the oceanographer had one more thing he wanted to check.\n\nAs the computer powered up, Tolland turned to Rachel, his mouth poised as if he wanted to say something. He paused.\n\n\"What is it?\" Rachel asked, surprised how physically drawn to him she felt, even in the midst of all this chaos. She wished she could block it all out and be with him-just fora minute.\n\n\"I owe you an apology,\" Tolland said, looking remorseful.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"On the deck? The hammerheads? I was excited. Sometimes I forget how frightening the ocean can be to a lot of people.\"\n\nFace-to-face with him, Rachel felt like a teenager standing on the doorstep with anew boyfriend. \"Thanks. No problem at all. Really.\" Something inside her sensed Tolland wanted to kiss her.\n\nAfter a beat, he turned shyly away. \"I know. You want to get to shore. We should get to work.\"\n\n\"For now.\" Rachel smiled softly.\n\n\"For now,\" Tolland repeated, taking a seat at the computer. Rachel exhaled, standing close behind now, savoring the privacy of the small lab. She watched Tolland navigate a series of files. \"What are we doing?\"\n\n\"Checking the database for big ocean lice. I want to see if we can find any prehistoric marine fossils that resemble what we saw in the NASA meteorite.\" He pulled up a search page with bold letters across the top: PROJECT DIVERSITAS. Scrolling through the menus, Tolland explained, \"Diversitas is essentially a continuously updated index of oceanic biodata. When a marine biologist discovers anew ocean species or fossil, he can toot his horn and share his find by uploading data and photos to a central databank. Because there's so much new data discovered on a weekly basis, this is really the only way to keep research up-todate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel watched Tolland navigating the menus. \"So you're accessing the Web now?\"\n\n\"No. Internet access is tricky at sea. We store all this data onboard on an enormous array of optical drives in the other room. Every time we're in port, we tie into Project Diversitas and update our databank with the newest finds. This way, we can access data at sea without a Web connection, and the data is nevermore than a month or two out of date.\" Tolland chuckled as he began typing search keywords into the computer. \"You've probably heard of the controversial music file-sharing program called Napster?\"\n\nRachel nodded.\n\n\"Diversitas is considered the marine biologist's version of Napster. We call it LOBSTER-Lonely Oceanic Biologists Sharing Totally Eccentric Research.\"\n\nRachel laughed. Even in this tense situation, Michael Tolland exuded awry humor that eased her fears. She was beginning to realize she'd had entirely too little laughter in her life lately.\n\n\"Our database is enormous,\" Tolland said, completing the entry of his descriptive keywords. \"Over ten tera-bytes of descriptions and photos. There's information inhere nobody has ever seen-and nobody ever will. Ocean species are simply too numerous.\" He clicked the'search\" button. \"Okay, let's see if anyone has ever seen an oceanic fossil similar to our little space bug.\"\n\nAfter a few seconds, the screen refreshed, revealing four listings of fossilized animals. Tolland clicked on each listing one by one and examined the photos. None looked remotely like the fossils in the Milne meteorite. Tolland frowned. \"Let's try something else.\" He removed the word'fossil\" from his search string and hit'search.\" \"We'll search all living species. Maybe we can find a living descendant that has some of the physiological characteristics of the Milne fossil.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screen refreshed.\n\nAgain Tolland frowned. The computer had returned hundreds of entries. He sat a moment, stroking his now stubble-darkened chin. \"Okay, this is too much. Let's refine the search.\"\n\nRachel watched as he accessed a drop-down menu marked'habitat.\" The list of options looked endless: tide pool, marsh, lagoon, reef, mid-oceanic ridge, sulfur vents. Tolland scrolled down the list and chose an option that read: DESTRUCTIVE\n\nMARGINS/OCEANIC TRENCHES.\n\nSmart, Rachel realized. Tolland was limiting his search only to species that lived near the environment where these chondrulelike features were hypothesized to form.\n\nThe page refreshed. This time Tolland smiled. \"Great. Only three entries.\"\n\nRachel squinted at the first name on the list. Limulus poly... something. Tolland clicked the entry. A photo appeared; the creature looked like an oversized horseshoe crab without a tail.\n\n\"Nope,\" Tolland said, returning to the previous page.\n\nRachel eyed the second item on the list. Shrimpus Uglius From Hellus. She was confused. \"Is that name for real?\"\n\nTolland chuckled. \"No. It's anew species not yet classified. The guy who discovered it has a sense of humor. He's suggesting Shrimpus Uglius as the official taxonomical classification.\" Tolland clicked open the photo, revealing an exceptionally ugly shrimplike creature with whiskers and fluorescent pink antennae.\n\n\"Aptly named,\" Tolland said. \"But not our space bug.\" He returned to the index.\n\n\"The final offering is...\" He clicked on the third entry, and the page came up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bathynomous giganteus...\" Tolland read aloud as the text appeared. The photograph loaded. A full-color close-up.\n\nRachel jumped. \"My God!\" The creature staring back at her gave her chills. Tolland drew a low breath. \"Oh boy. This guy looks kind of familiar.\"\n\nRachel nodded, speechless. Bathynomous giganteus. The creature resembled a giant swimming louse. It looked very similar to the fossil species in the NASA rock.\n\n\"There are some subtle differences,\" Tolland said, scrolling down to some anatomical diagrams and sketches. \"But it's damn close. Especially considering it has had 190 million years to evolve.\"\n\nClose is right, Rachel thought. Too close.\n\nTolland read the description on the screen: \"'Thought to be one of the oldest species in the ocean, the rare and recently classified species Bathynomous giganteus is a deepwater scavenging isopod resembling a large pill bug. Up to two feet in length, this species exhibits a chitinous exoskeleton segmented into head, thorax, abdomen. It possesses paired appendages, antennae, and compound eyes like those of land-dwelling insects. This bottom-dwelling forager has no known predators and lives in barren pelagic environments previously thought to be uninhabitable.\" Tolland glanced up. \"Which could explain the lack of other fossils in the sample!\"\n\nRachel stared at the creature on-screen, excited and yet uncertain she completely understood what all of this meant.\n\n\"Imagine,\" Tolland said excitedly, \"that 190 million years ago, a brood of these Bathynomous creatures got buried in a deep ocean mudslide. As the mud turns into rock, the bugs get fossilized in stone. Simultaneously, the ocean floor, which is continuously moving like a slow conveyer belt toward the oceanic trenches, carries the fossils into a high-pressure zone where the rock forms chondrules!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tolland was talking faster now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if part of the fossilized, chondrulized crust broke off and ended upon the trench's accretionary wedge, which is not at all uncommon, it would be in a perfect position to be discovered!\"\n\n\"But if NASA...,\" Rachel stammered. \"I mean, if this is all a lie, NASA must have known that sooner or later someone would find out this fossil resembles a sea creature, right? I mean we just found out!\"\n\nTolland began printing the Bathynomous photos on a laser printer. \"I don't know. Even if someone stepped forward and pointed out the similarities between the fossils and a living sea louse, their physiologies are not identical. It almost proves NASA's case more strongly.\"\n\nRachel suddenly understood. \"Panspermia.\" Life on earth was seeded from space.\n\n\"Exactly. Similarities between space organisms and earth organisms make excellent scientific sense. This sea louse actually strengthens NASA's case.\"\n\n\"Except if the meteorite's authenticity is in question.\"\n\nTolland nodded. \"Once the meteorite comes into question, then everything collapses. Our sea louse turns from NASA friend to NASA linchpin.\"\n\nRachel stood in silence as the Bathynomous pages rolled out of the printer. She tried to tell herself this was all an honest NASA mistake, but she knew it was not. People who made honest mistakes didn't try to kill people. The nasal voice of Corky echoed suddenly across the lab. \"Impossible!\"\n\nBoth Tolland and Rachel turned.\n\n\"Measure the damn ratio again! It makes no sense!\"\n\nXavia came hurrying in with a computer printout clutched in her hand. Her face was ashen. \"Mike, I don't know how to say this...\" Her voice cracked. \"The titanium/zirconium ratios we're seeing in this sample?\" She cleared her throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's pretty obvious that NASA made a huge mistake. Their meteorite is an ocean rock.\"\n\nTolland and Rachel looked at each other but neither spoke a word. They knew. Just like that, all the suspicions and doubts had swelled up like the crest of a wave, reaching the breaking point.\n\nTolland nodded, a sadness in his eyes. \"Yeah. Thanks, Xavia.\"\n\n\"But I don't understand,\" Xavia said. \"The fusion crust... the location in the ice-\"\n\n\"We'll explain on the way to shore,\" Tolland said. \"We're leaving.\"\n\nQuickly, Rachel collected all the papers and evidence they now had. The evidence was shockingly conclusive: the GPR printout showing the insertion shaft in the Milne Ice Shelf; photos of a living sea louse resembling NASA's fossil; Dr. Pollock's article on ocean chondrules; and microprobe data showing ultradepleted zirconium in the meteorite.\n\nThe conclusion was undeniable. Fraud.\n\nTolland looked at the stack of papers in Rachel's hands and heaved a melancholy sigh. \"Well, I'd say William Pickering has his proof.\"\n\nRachel nodded, again wondering why Pickering had not answered his phone. Tolland lifted the receiver of a nearby phone, holding it out for her. \"You want to try him again from here?\"\n\n\"No, let's get moving. I'll try to contact him from the chopper.\" Rachel had already decided if she could not make contact with Pickering, she'd have the Coast Guard fly them directly to the NRO, only about 180 miles. Tolland began to hangup the phone, but he paused. Looking confused, he listened to the receiver, frowning. \"Bizarre. No dial tone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean?\" Rachel said, wary now.\n\n\"Weird,\" Tolland said. \"Direct COMSAT lines never lose carrier-\"\n\n\"Mr. Tolland?\" The Coast Guard pilot came rushing into the lab, his face white.\n\n\"What is it?\" Rachel demanded. \"Is someone coming?\"\n\n\"That's the problem,\" the pilot said. \"I don't know. All onboard radar and communications have just gone dead.\"\n\nRachel stuffed the papers deep inside her shirt. \"Get in the helicopter. We're leaving. NOW!\"\n\nGabrielle's heart was racing as she crossed the darkened office of Senator Sexton. The room was as expansive as it was elegant-ornate wood-paneled walls, oil paintings, Persian carpets, leather rivet chairs, and a gargantuan mahogany desk. The room was lit only by the eerie neon glow of Sexton's computer screen. Gabrielle moved toward his desk.\n\nSenator Sexton had embraced the'digital office\" to maniacal proportions, eschewing the overflow of file cabinets for the compact, searchable simplicity of his personal computer, into which he fed enormous amounts of information-digitized meeting notes, scanned articles, speeches, brainstorms. Sexton's computer was his sacred ground, and he kept his office locked at all times to protect it. He even refused to connect to the Internet for fear of hackers infiltrating his sacred digital vault.\n\nA year ago Gabrielle would never have believed any politician would be stupid enough to store copies of self-incriminating documents, but Washington had taught her a lot. Information is power. Gabrielle had been amazed to learn that a common practice among politicians who accepted questionable campaign contributions was to keep actual proof of those donations-letters, bank records, receipts, logs-all hidden away in a safe place. This counterblackmail tactic, euphemistically known in Washington as'Siamese insurance,\" protected candidates from donors who felt their generosity somehow authorized them to assert undue political pressure on a candidate. If a contributor got too demanding, the candidate could simply produce evidence of the illegal donation and remind the donor that both parties had broken the law. The evidence ensured that candidates and donors were joined at the hip forever-like Siamese twins. Gabrielle slipped behind the senator's desk and sat down. She took a deep breath, looking at his computer. If the senator is accepting SFF bribes, any evidence would be inhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sexton's computer screensaver was an ongoing slideshow of the White House and its grounds created for him by one of his gung-ho staffers who was big into visualization and positive thinking. Around the images crawled a ticker-tape banner that read: President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the...\n\nGabrielle jostled the mouse, and a security dialogue box came up. ENTER PASSWORD:\n\nShe expected this. It would not be a problem. Last week, Gabrielle had entered Sexton's office just as the senator was sitting down and logging onto his computer. She saw him type three short keystrokes in rapid succession.\n\n\"That's a password?\" she challenged from the doorway as she walked in. Sexton glanced up. \"What?\"\n\n\"And here I thought you were concerned about security,\" Gabrielle scolded goodnaturedly. \"Your password's only three keys? I thought the tech guys told us all to use at least six.\"\n\n\"The tech guys are teenagers. They should try remembering six random letters when they're over forty. Besides, the door has an alarm. Nobody can get in.\"\n\nGabrielle walked toward him, smiling. \"What if someone slipped in while you're in the loo?\"\n\n\"And tried every combination of passwords?\" He gave a skeptical laugh. \"I'm slow in the bathroom, but not that slow.\"\n\n\"Dinner at Davide says I can guess your password in ten seconds.\"\n\nSexton looked intrigued and amused. \"You can't afford Davide, Gabrielle.\"\n\n\"So you're saying you're chicken?\"\n\nSexton appeared almost sorry for her as he accepted the challenge. \"Ten seconds?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He logged off and motioned for Gabrielle to sit down and give it a try. \"You know I only order the saltimbocca at Davide. And that ain't cheap.\"\n\nShe shrugged as she sat down. \"It's your money.\"\n\nENTER PASSWORD:\n\n\"Ten seconds,\" Sexton reminded.\n\nGabrielle had to laugh. She would need only two. Even from the doorway she could see that Sexton had entered his three-key password in very rapid succession using only his index finger. Obviously all the same key. Not wise. She could also see that his hand had been positioned over the far left side of his keyboard-cutting the possible alphabet down to only about nine letters. Choosing the letter was simple; Sexton had always loved the triple alliteration of his title. Senator Sedgewick Sexton.\n\nNever underestimate the ego of a politician.\n\nShe typed SSS, and the screensaver evaporated.\n\nSexton's jaw hit the floor.\n\nThat had been last week. Now, as Gabrielle faced his computer again, she was certain Sexton would not have taken time yet to figure out how to setup a different password. Why would he? He trusts me implicitly. She typed in SSS.\n\nINVALID PASSWORD-ACCESS DENIED\n\nGabrielle stared in shock.\n\nApparently she had overestimated her senator's level of trust.\n\nThe attack came without warning. Low out of the southwest sky above the Goya, the lethal silhouette of a gunship helicopter bore down like a giant wasp. Rachel had no doubt what it was, or why it was here.\n\nThrough the darkness, a staccato burst from the nose of the chopper sent a torrent of bullets chewing across the Goya's fiberglass deck, slashing a line across the stern. Rachel dove for cover too late and felt the searing slash of a bullet graze her arm. She hit the ground hard, then rolled, scrambling to get behind the bulbous transparent dome of the Triton submersible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thundering of rotors exploded overhead as the chopper swooped past the ship. The noise evaporated with an eerie hiss as the chopper rocketed out over the ocean and began a wide bank fora second pass.\n\nLying trembling on the deck, Rachel held her arm and looked back at Tolland and Corky. Apparently having lunged to cover behind a storage structure, the two men were now staggering to their feet, their eyes scanning the skies in terror. Rachel pulled herself to her knees. The entire world suddenly seemed to be moving in slow motion.\n\nCrouched behind the transparent curvature of the Triton sub, Rachel looked in panic toward their only means of escape-the Coast Guard helicopter. Xavia was already climbing into the chopper's cabin, frantically waving for everyone to get aboard. Rachel could seethe pilot lunging into the cockpit, wildly throwing switches and levers. The blades began to turn... ever so slowly. Too slowly.\n\nHurry!\n\nRachel felt herself standing now, preparing to run, wondering if she could make it across the deck before the attackers made another pass. Behind her, she heard Corky and Tolland dashing toward her and the waiting helicopter. Yes! Hurry!\n\nThen she saw it.\n\nA hundred yards out, up in the sky, materializing out of empty darkness, a pencilthin beam of red light slanted across the night, searching the Goya's deck. Then, finding its mark, the beam came to a stop on the side of the waiting Coast Guard chopper.\n\nThe image took only an instant to register. In that horrific moment, Rachel felt all the action on the deck of the Goya blur into a collage of shapes and sounds. Tolland and Corky dashing toward her-Xavia motioning wildly in the helicopter-the stark red laser slicing across the night sky. It was too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rachel spun back toward Corky and Tolland, who were running full speed now toward the helicopter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lunged outward into their path, arms outstretched trying to stop them. The collision felt like a train wreck as the three of them crashed to the deck in a tangle of arms and legs.\n\nIn the distance, a flash of white light appeared. Rachel watched in disbelief and horror as a perfectly straight line of exhaust fire followed the path of the laser beam directly toward the helicopter.\n\nWhen the Hellfire missile slammed into the fuselage, the helicopter exploded apart like a toy. The concussion wave of heat and noise thundered across the deck as flaming shrapnel rained down. The helicopter's flaming skeleton lurched backward on its shattered tail, teetered a moment, and then fell off the back of the ship, crashing into the ocean in a hissing cloud of steam. Rachel closed her eyes, unable to breathe. She could hear the flaming wreckage gurgling and sputtering as it sank, being dragged away from the Goya by the heavy currents. In the chaos, Michael Tolland's voice was yelling. Rachel felt his powerful hands trying to pull her to her feet. But she could not move. The Coast Guard pilot and Xavia are dead.\n\nWe're next.\n\nThe weather on the Milne Ice Shelf had settled, and the habisphere was quiet. Even so, NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom had not even tried to sleep. He had spent the hours alone, pacing the dome, staring into the extraction pit, running his hands over the grooves in the giant charred rock.\n\nFinally, he'd made up his mind.\n\nNow he sat at the videophone in the habisphere's PSC tank and looked into the weary eyes of the President of the United States. Zach Herney was wearing a bathrobe and did not look at all amused. Ekstrom knew he would be significantly less amused when he learned what Ekstrom had to tell him. When Ekstrom finished talking, Herney had an uncomfortable look on his face-as if he thought he must still be too asleep to have understood correctly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on,\" Herney said. \"We must have a bad connection. Did you just tell me that NASA intercepted this meteorite's coordinates from an emergency radio transmission-and then pretended that PODS found the meteorite?\"\n\nEkstrom was silent, alone in the dark, willing his body to awake from this nightmare.\n\nThe silence clearly did not sit well with the President. \"For Christ's sake, Larry, tell me this isn't true!\"\n\nEkstrom's mouth went dry. \"The meteorite was found, Mr. President. That is all that's relevant here.\"\n\n\"I said tell me this is not true!\"\n\nThe hush swelled to a dull roar in Ekstrom's ears. I had to tell him, Ekstrom told himself. It's going to get worse before it gets better. \" Mr. President, the PODS\n\nfailure was killing you in the polls, sir. When we intercepted a radio transmission that mentioned a large meteorite lodged in the ice, we saw a chance to get back in the fight.\"\n\nHerney sounded stunned. \"By faking a PODS discovery?\"\n\n\"PODS was going to be up and running soon, but not soon enough for the election. The polls were slipping, and Sexton was slamming NASA, so...\"\n\n\"Are you insane! You lied tome, Larry!\"\n\n\"The opportunity was staring us in the face, sir. I decided to take it. We intercepted the radio transmission of the Canadian who made the meteorite discovery. He died in a storm. Nobody else knew the meteorite was there. PODS\n\nwas orbiting in the area. NASA needed a victory. We had the coordinates.\"\n\n\"Why are you telling me this now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you should know.\"\n\n\"Do you know what Sexton would do with this information if he found out?\"\n\nEkstrom preferred not to think about it.\n\n\"He'd tell the world that NASA and the White House lied to the American people!\n\nAnd you know what, he'd be right!\"\n\n\"You did not lie, sir, I did. And I will step down if-\"\n\n\"Larry, you're missing the point. I've tried to run this presidency on truth and decency! Goddamn it! Tonight was clean. Dignified. Now I find out I lied to the world?\"\n\n\"Only a small lie, sir.\"\n\n\"There's no such thing, Larry,\" Herney said, steaming.\n\nEkstrom felt the tiny room closing in around him. There was so much more to tell the President, but Ekstrom could see it should wait until morning. \"I'm sorry to have woken you, sir. I just thought you should know.\"\n\nAcross town, Sedgewick Sexton took another hit of cognac and paced his apartment with rising irritation.\n\nWhere the hell is Gabrielle?\n\nGabrielle Ashe satin the darkness at Senator Sexton's desk and gave his computer a despondent scowl.\n\nINVALID PASSWORD-ACCESS DENIED\n\nShe had tried several other passwords that seemed likely possibilities, but none had worked. After searching the office for any unlocked drawers or stray clues, Gabrielle had all but given up. She was about to leave when she spotted something odd, shimmering on Sexton's desk calendar. Someone had outlined the date of the election in a red, white, and blue glitter pen. Certainly not the senator. Gabrielle pulled the calendar closer. Emblazoned across the date was a frilly, glittering exclamation: POTUS!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sexton's ebullient secretary had apparently glitterpainted some more positive thinking for him for election day. The acronym POTUS was the U. S. Secret Service's code name for President of the United States. On election day, if all went well, Sexton would become the new POTUS.\n\nPreparing to leave, Gabrielle realigned the calendar on his desk and stood up. She paused suddenly, glancing back at the computer screen.\n\nENTER PASSWORD:\n\nShe looked again at the calendar.\n\nPOTUS.\n\nShe felt a sudden surge of hope. Something about POTUS struck Gabrielle as being a perfect Sexton password. Simple, positive, self-referential. She quickly typed in the letters.\n\nHolding her breath, she hit'return.\" The computer beeped. INVALID PASSWORD-ACCESS DENIED\n\nSlumping, Gabrielle gave up. She headed back toward the bathroom door to exit the way she had come. She was halfway across the room, when her cellphone rang. She was already on edge, and the sound startled her. Stopping short, she pulled out her phone and glanced up to check the time on Sexton's prized Jourdain grandfather clock. Almost 4:00A. M. At this hour, Gabrielle knew the caller could only be Sexton. He was obviously wondering where the hell she was. Do I pickup or let it ring? If she answered, Gabrielle would have to lie. But if she didn't, Sexton would get suspicious.\n\nShe took the call. \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Gabrielle?\" Sexton sounded impatient. \"What's keeping you?\"\n\n\"The FDR Memorial,\" Gabrielle said. \"The taxi got hemmed in, and now we're-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't sound like you're in a taxi.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, her blood pumping now. \"I'm not. I decided to stop by my office and pickup some NASA documents that might be relevant to PODS. I'm having some trouble finding them.\"\n\n\"Well, hurry up. I want to schedule a press conference for the morning, and we need to talk specifics.\"\n\n\"I'm coming soon,\" she said.\n\nThere was a pause on the line. \"You're in your office?\" He sounded suddenly confused.\n\n\"Yeah. Another ten minutes and I'll be on my way over.\"\n\nAnother pause. \"Okay. I'll see you soon.\"\n\nGabrielle hung up, too preoccupied to notice the loud and distinctive triple-tick of Sexton's prized Jourdain grandfather clock only a few feet away.\n\nMichael Tolland did not realize Rachel was hurt until he saw the blood on her arm as he pulled her to cover behind the Triton. He sensed from the catatonic look on her face that she was not aware of any pain. Steadying her, Tolland wheeled to find Corky. The astrophysicist scrambled across the deck to join them, his eyes blank with terror.\n\nWe've got to find cover, Tolland thought, the horror of what had just happened not yet fully registering. Instinctively, his eyes raced up the tiers of decks above them. The stairs leading up to the bridge were all in the open, and the bridge itself was a glass box-a transparent bull's-eye from the air. Going up was suicide, which left only one other direction to go.\n\nFora fleeting instant, Tolland turned a hopeful gaze to the Triton submersible, wondering perhaps if he could get everyone underwater, away from the bullets. Absurd. The Triton had room for one person, and the deployment winch took a good ten minutes to lower the sub through the trapdoor in the deck to the ocean thirty feet below. Besides, without properly charged batteries and compressors, the Triton would be dead in the water." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: thriller, conspiracy, mystery, science fiction, NASA\nAuthor: Dan Brown\nTitle: Deception Point\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't sound like you're in a taxi.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, her blood pumping now. \"I'm not. I decided to stop by my office and pickup some NASA documents that might be relevant to PODS. I'm having some trouble finding them.\"\n\n\"Well, hurry up. I want to schedule a press conference for the morning, and we need to talk specifics.\"\n\n\"I'm coming soon,\" she said.\n\nThere was a pause on the line. \"You're in your office?\" He sounded suddenly confused.\n\n\"Yeah. Another ten minutes and I'll be on my way over.\"\n\nAnother pause. \"Okay. I'll see you soon.\"\n\nGabrielle hung up, too preoccupied to notice the loud and distinctive triple-tick of Sexton's prized Jourdain grandfather clock only a few feet away.\n\nMichael Tolland did not realize Rachel was hurt until he saw the blood on her arm as he pulled her to cover behind the Triton. He sensed from the catatonic look on her face that she was not aware of any pain. Steadying her, Tolland wheeled to find Corky. The astrophysicist scrambled across the deck to join them, his eyes blank with terror.\n\nWe've got to find cover, Tolland thought, the horror of what had just happened not yet fully registering. Instinctively, his eyes raced up the tiers of decks above them. The stairs leading up to the bridge were all in the open, and the bridge itself was a glass box-a transparent bull's-eye from the air. Going up was suicide, which left only one other direction to go.\n\nFora fleeting instant, Tolland turned a hopeful gaze to the Triton submersible, wondering perhaps if he could get everyone underwater, away from the bullets. Absurd. The Triton had room for one person, and the deployment winch took a good ten minutes to lower the sub through the trapdoor in the deck to the ocean thirty feet below. Besides, without properly charged batteries and compressors, the Triton would be dead in the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here they come!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corky shouted, his voice shrill with fear as he pointed into the sky.\n\nTolland didn't even lookup. He pointed to a nearby bulkhead, where an aluminum ramp descended belowdecks. Corky apparently needed no encouragement. Keeping his head low, Corky scurried toward the opening and disappeared down the incline. Tolland put a firm arm around Rachel's waist and followed. The two of them disappeared belowdecks just as the helicopter returned, spraying bullets overhead.\n\nTolland helped Rachel down the grated ramp to the suspended platform at the bottom. As they arrived, Tolland could feel Rachel's body go suddenly rigid. He wheeled, fearing maybe she'd been hit by a ricocheting bullet. When he saw her face, he knew it was something else. Tolland followed her petrified gaze downward and immediately understood.\n\nRachel stood motionless, her legs refusing to move. She was staring down at the bizarre world beneath her.\n\nBecause of its SWATH design, the Goya had no hull but rather struts like a giant catamaran. They had just descended through the deck onto a grated catwalk that hung above an open chasm, thirty feet straight down to the raging sea. The noise was deafening here, reverberating off the underside of the deck. Adding to Rachel's terror was the fact that the ship's underwater spotlights were still illuminated, casting a greenish effulgence deep into the ocean directly beneath her. She found herself gazing down at six or seven ghostly silhouettes in the water. Enormous hammerhead sharks, their long shadows swimming in place against the current-rubbery bodies flexing back and forth.\n\nTolland's voice was in her ear. \"Rachel, you're okay. Eyes straight ahead. I'm right behind you.\" His hands were reaching around from behind, gently trying to coax her clenched fists off the banister. It was then that Rachel saw the crimson droplet of blood roll off her arm and fall through the grating. Her eyes followed the drip as it plummeted toward the sea. Although she never saw it hit the water, she knew the instant it happened because all at once the hammerheads spun in unison, thrusting with their powerful tails, crashing together in a roiling frenzy of teeth and fins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes...\n\nThey smell blood a mile away.\n\n\"Eyes straight ahead,\" Tolland repeated, his voice strong and reassuring. \"I'm right behind you.\"\n\nRachel felt his hands on her hips now, urging her forward. Blocking out the void beneath her, Rachel started down the catwalk. Somewhere above she could hear the rotors of the chopper again. Corky was already well out in front of them, reeling across the catwalk in a kind of drunken panic.\n\nTolland called out to him. \"All the way to the far strut, Corky! Down the stairs!\"\n\nRachel could now see where they were headed. Up ahead, a series of switchback ramps descended. At water level, a narrow, shelflike deck extended the length of the Goya. Jutting off this deck were several small, suspended docks, creating a kind of miniature marina stationed beneath the ship. A large sign read:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swimmers May Surface without Warning\n\n-Boats Proceed with Caution-\n\nRachel could only assume Michael did not intend for them to do any swimming. Her trepidation intensified when Tolland stopped at a bank of wire-mesh storage lockers flanking the catwalk. He pulled open the doors to reveal hanging wetsuits, snorkels, flippers, life jackets, and spearguns. Before she could protest, he reached in and grabbed a flare gun. \"Let's go.\"\n\nThey were moving again.\n\nUp ahead, Corky had reached the switchback ramps and was already halfway down. \"I see it!\" he shouted, his voice sounding almost joyous over the raging water.\n\nSee what? Rachel wondered as Corky ran along the narrow walkway. All she could see was a shark-infested ocean lapping dangerously close. Tolland urged her forward, and suddenly Rachel could see what Corky was so excited about. At the far end of the decking below, a small powerboat was moored. Corky ran toward it. Rachel stared. Outrun a helicopter in a motorboat?\n\n\"It has a radio,\" Tolland said. \"And if we can get far enough away from the helicopter's jamming...\"\n\nRachel did not hear another word he said. She had just spied something that made her blood run cold. \"Too late,\" she croaked, extending a trembling finger. We're finished...\n\nWhen Tolland turned, he knew in an instant it was over.\n\nAt the far end of the ship, like a dragon peering into the opening of a cave, the black helicopter had dropped down low and was facing them. For an instant, Tolland thought it was going to fly directly at them through the center of the boat. But the helicopter began to turn at an angle, taking aim. Tolland followed the direction of the gun barrels. No!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crouched beside the powerboat untying the moorings, Corky glanced up just as the machine guns beneath the chopper erupted in ablaze of thunder. Corky lurched as if hit. Wildly, he scrambled over the gunwale and dove into the boat, sprawled himself on the floor for cover. The guns stopped. Tolland could see Corky crawling deeper into the powerboat. The lower part of his right leg was covered with blood. Crouched below the dash, Corky reached up and fumbled across the controls until his fingers found the key. The boat's 250 hp Mercury engine roared to life.\n\nAn instant later, a red laser beam appeared, emanating from the nose of the hovering chopper, targeting the powerboat with a missile. Tolland reacted on instinct, aiming the only weapon he had. The flare gun in his hand hissed when he pulled the trigger, and a blinding streak tore away on a horizontal trajectory beneath the ship, heading directly toward the chopper. Even so, Tolland sensed he had acted too late. As the streaking flare bore down on the helicopter's windshield, the rocket launcher beneath the chopper emitted its own flash of light. At the same exact instant that the missile launched, the aircraft veered sharply and pulled up out of sight to avoid the incoming flare.\n\n\"Lookout!\" Tolland yelled, yanking Rachel down onto the catwalk. The missile sailed off course, just missing Corky, coming the length of the Goya and slamming into the base of the strut thirty feet beneath Rachel and Tolland. The sound was apocalyptic. Water and flames erupted beneath them. Bits of twisted metal flew in the air and scattered the catwalk beneath them. Metal on metal ground together as the ship shifted, finding anew balance, slightly askew. As the smoke cleared, Tolland could see that one of the Goya's four main struts had been severely damaged. Powerful currents tore past the pontoon, threatening to break it off. The spiral stairway descending to the lower deck looked to be hanging by a thread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on!\" Tolland yelled, urging Rachel toward it. We've got to get down!\n\nBut they were too late. With a surrendering crack, the stairs peeled away from the damaged strut and crashed into the sea.\n\nOver the ship, Delta-One grappled with the controls of the Kiowa helicopter and got it back under control. Momentarily blinded by the incoming flare, he had reflexively pulled up, causing the Hellfire missile to miss its mark. Cursing, he hovered now over the bow of the ship and prepared to drop back down and finish the job.\n\nEliminate all passengers. The controller's demands had been clear.\n\n\"Shit! Look!\" Delta-Two yelled from the rear seat, pointing out the window.\n\n\"Speedboat!\"\n\nDelta-One spun and saw a bullet-riddled Crestliner speedboat skimming away from the Goya into the darkness.\n\nHe had a decision to make.\n\nCorky's bloody hands gripped the wheel of the Crestliner Phantom 2100 as it pounded out across the sea. He rammed the throttle all the way forward, trying to eke out maximum speed. It was not until this moment that he felt the searing pain. He looked down and saw his right leg spurting blood. He instantly felt dizzy. Propping himself against the wheel, he turned and looked back at the Goya, willing the helicopter to follow him. With Tolland and Rachel trapped upon the catwalk, Corky had not been able to reach them. He'd been forced to make a snap decision.\n\nDivide and conquer.\n\nCorky knew if he could lure the chopper far enough away from the Goya, maybe Tolland and Rachel could radio for help. Unfortunately, as he looked over his shoulder at the illuminated ship, Corky could seethe chopper still hovering there, as if undecided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Come on, you bastards!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Follow me!\n\nBut the helicopter did not follow. Instead it banked over the stern of the Goya, aligned itself, and dropped down, landing on the deck. No! Corky watched in horror, now realizing he'd left Tolland and Rachel behind to be killed. Knowing it was now up to him to radio for help, Corky groped the dashboard and found the radio. He flicked the power switch. Nothing happened. No lights. No static. He turned the volume knob all the way up. Nothing. Come on! Letting goof the wheel, he knelt down fora look. His leg screamed in pain as he bent down. His eyes focused on the radio. He could not believe what he was looking at. The dashboard had been strafed by bullets, and the radio dial was shattered. Loose wires hung out the front. He stared, incredulous.\n\nOf all the goddamned luck...\n\nWeak-kneed, Corky stood backup, wondering how things could get any worse. Ashe looked back at the Goya, he got his answer. Two armed soldiers jumped out of the chopper onto the deck. Then the chopper lifted off again, turning in Corky's direction and coming after him at full speed.\n\nCorky slumped. Divide and conquer. Apparently he was not the only one with that bright idea tonight.\n\nAs Delta-Three made his way across the deck and approached the grated ramp leading belowdecks, he heard a woman shouting somewhere beneath him. He turned and motioned to Delta-Two that he was going belowdecks to check it out. His partner nodded, remaining behind to cover the upper level. The two men could stay in contact via CrypTalk; the Kiowa's jamming system ingeniously left an obscure bandwidth open for their own communications." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clutching his snub-nose machine gun, Delta-Three moved quietly toward the ramp that led belowdecks. With the vigilance of a trained killer, he began inching downward, gun leveled.\n\nThe incline provided limited visibility, and Delta-Three crouched low fora better view. He could hear the shouting more clearly now. He kept descending. Halfway down the stairs he could now make out the twisted maze of walkways attached to the underside of the Goya. The shouting grew louder.\n\nThen he saw her. Midway across the traversing catwalk, Rachel Sexton was peering over a railing and calling desperately toward the water for Michael Tolland.\n\nDid Tolland fall in? Perhaps in the blast?\n\nIf so, Delta-Three's job would be even easier than expected. He only needed to descend another couple of feet to have an open shot. Shooting fish in a barrel. His only vague concern was Rachel standing near an open equipment locker, which meant she might have a weapon-a speargun or a shark rifle-although neither would be any match for his machine gun. Confident he was in control of the situation, Delta-Three leveled his weapon and took another step down. Rachel Sexton was almost in perfect view now. He raised the gun. One more step.\n\nThe flurry of movement came from beneath him, under the stairs. Delta-Three was more confused than frightened as he looked down and saw Michael Tolland thrusting an aluminum pole out toward his feet. Although Delta-Three had been tricked, he almost laughed at this lame attempt to trip him up. Then he felt the tip of the stick connect with his heel. A blast of white-hot pain shot through his body as his right foot exploded out from under him from a blistering impact. His balance gone, Delta-Three flailed, tumbling down the stairs. His machine gun clattered down the ramp and went overboard as he collapsed on the catwalk. In anguish, he curled up to grip his right foot, but it was no longer there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland was standing over his attacker immediately with his hands still clenching the smoking bang-stick-a five-foot Powerhead Shark-Control Device. The aluminum pole had been tipped with a pressure-sensitive, twelve-gauge shotgun shell and was intended for self-defense in the event of shark attack. Tolland had reloaded the bang-stick with another shell, and now held the jagged, smoldering point to his attacker's Adam's apple. The man lay on his back as if paralyzed, staring up at Tolland with an expression of astonished rage and agony. Rachel came running up the catwalk. The plan was for her to take the man's machine gun, but unfortunately the weapon had gone over the edge of the catwalk into the ocean.\n\nThe communications device on the man's belt crackled. The voice coming out was robotic. \"Delta-Three? Come in. I heard a shot.\"\n\nThe man made no move to answer.\n\nThe device crackled again. \"Delta-Three? Confirm. Do you need backup?\"\n\nAlmost immediately, anew voice crackled over the line. It was also robotic but distinguishable by the sound of a helicopter noise in the background. \"This is Delta-One,\" the pilot said. \"I'm in pursuit of the departing vessel. Delta-Three, confirm. Are you down? Do you need backup?\"\n\nTolland pressed the bang-stick into the man's throat. \"Tell the helicopter to back off that speedboat. If they kill my friend, you die.\"\n\nThe soldier winced in pain as he lifted his communication device to his lips. He looked directly at Tolland as he pressed the button and spoke. \"Delta-Three, here. I'm fine. Destroy the departing vessel.\"\n\nGabrielle Ashe returned to Sexton's private bathroom, preparing to climb back out of his office. Sexton'sphone call had left her feeling anxious. He had definitely hesitated when she told him she was in her office-as if he knew somehow she was lying. Either way, she'd failed to get into Sexton's computer and now was unsure of her next move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sexton is waiting.\n\nAs she climbed up onto the sink, getting ready to pull herself up, she heard something clatter to the tile floor. She looked down, irritated to see that she'd knocked off a pair of Sexton's cuff links that had apparently been sitting on the edge of the sink.\n\nLeave things exactly as you found them.\n\nClimbing back down Gabrielle picked up the cuff links and put them back on the sink. As she began to climb backup, she paused, glancing again at the cuff links. On any other night, Gabrielle would have ignored them, but tonight their monogram caught her attention. Like most of Sexton's monogrammed items, they had two intertwining letters. SS. Gabrielle flashed on Sexton's initial computer password-SSS. She pictured his calendar... POTUS... and the White House screensaver with its optimistic ticker tape crawling around the screen ad infinitum. President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the...\n\nGabrielle stood a moment and wondered. Could he be that confident?\n\nKnowing it would take only an instant to find out, she hurried back into Sexton's office, went to his computer, and typed in a seven-letter password.\n\nThe screensaver evaporated instantly.\n\nShe stared, incredulous.\n\nNever underestimate the ego of a politician.\n\nCorky Marlinson was no longer at the helm of the Crestliner Phantom as it raced into the night. He knew the boat would travel in a straight line with or without him at the wheel. The path of least resistance...\n\nCorky was in the back of the bouncing boat, trying to assess the damage to his leg. A bullet had entered the front part of his calf, just missing his shinbone. There was no exit wound on the back of his calf, so he knew the bullet must still be lodged in his leg. Foraging around for something to stem the bleeding, he found nothing-some fins, a snorkel, and a couple of life jackets. No first-aid kit. Frantically, Corky opened a small utility chest and found some tools, rags, duct tape, oil, and other maintenance items. He looked at his bloody leg and wondered how far he had to go to be out of shark territory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hell of a lot farther than this.\n\nDelta-One kept the Kiowa chopper low over the ocean as he scanned the darkness for the departing Crestliner. Assuming the fleeing boat would head for shore and attempt to put as much distance as possible between itself and the Goya, DeltaOne had followed the Crestliner's original trajectory away from the Goya. I should have overtaken him by now.\n\nNormally, tracking the fleeing boat would be a simple matter of using radar, but with the Kiowa's jamming systems transmitting an umbrella of thermal noise for several miles, his radar was worthless. Turning off the jamming system was not an option until he got word that everyone onboard the Goya was dead. No emergency phone calls would be leaving the Goya this evening.\n\nThis meteorite secret dies. Right here. Right now.\n\nFortunately, Delta-One had other means of tracking. Even against this bizarre backdrop of heated ocean, pinpointing a powerboat's thermal imprint was simple. He turned on his thermal scanner. The ocean around him registered a warm ninetyfive degrees. Fortunately, the emissions of a racing 250 hp outboard engine were hundreds of degrees hotter.\n\nCorky Marlinson's leg and foot felt numb.\n\nNot knowing what else to do, he had wiped down his injured calf with the rag and wrapped the wound in layer after layer of duct tape. By the time the tape was gone, his entire calf, from ankle to knee, was enveloped in a tight silver sheath. The bleeding had stopped, although his clothing and hands were still covered with blood.\n\nSitting on the floor of the runaway Crestliner, Corky felt confused about why the chopper hadn't found him yet. He looked out now, scanning the horizon behind him, expecting to seethe distant Goya and incoming helicopter. Oddly, he saw neither. The lights of the Goya had disappeared. Certainly he hadn't come that far, had he?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corky suddenly felt hopeful he might escape. Maybe they had lost him in the dark. Maybe he could get to shore!\n\nIt was then he noticed that the wake behind his boat was not straight. It seemed to curve gradually away from the back of his boat, as if he were traveling in an arc rather than a straight line. Confused by this, he turned his head to follow the wake's arc, extrapolating a giant curve across the ocean. An instant later, he saw it.\n\nThe Goya was directly off his port side, less than a half mile away. In horror, Corky realized his mistake too late. With no one at the wheel, the Crestliner's bow had continuously realigned itself with the direction of the powerful current-the megaplume's circular water flow. I'm driving in a big friggin\" circle!\n\nHe had doubled back on himself.\n\nKnowing he was still inside the shark-filled megaplume, Corky recalled Tolland's grim words. Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes... hammerheads can smell a droplet of blood a mile away. Corky looked at his bloody duct-taped leg and hands.\n\nThe chopper would be on him soon.\n\nRipping off his bloody clothing, Corky scrambled naked toward the stern. Knowing no sharks could possibly keep pace with the boat, he rinsed himself as best as he could in the powerful blast of the wake.\n\nA single droplet of blood...\n\nAs Corky stood up, fully exposed to the night, he knew there was only one thing left to do. He had learned once that animals marked their territory with urine because uric acid was the most potent-smelling fluid the human body made. More potent than blood, he hoped. Wishing he'd had a few more beers tonight, Corky heaved his injured leg up onto the gunwale and tried to urinate on the duct tape. Come on! He waited. Nothing like the pressure of having to piss allover yourself with a helicopter chasing you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally it came. Corky urinated allover the duct tape, soaking it fully. He used what little was left in his bladder to soak a rag, which he then swathed across his entire body. Very pleasant.\n\nIn the dark sky overhead, a red laser beam appeared, slanting toward him like the shimmering blade of an enormous guillotine. The chopper appeared from an oblique angle, the pilot apparently confused that Corky had looped back toward the Goya.\n\nQuickly donning a high-float life vest, Corky moved to the rear of the speeding craft. On the boat's bloodstained floor, only five feet from where Corky was standing, a glowing red dot appeared.\n\nIt was time.\n\nOnboard the Goya, Michael Tolland did not see his Crestliner Phantom 2100 erupt inflames and tumble through the air in a cartwheel of fire and smoke. But he heard the explosion.\n\nThe West Wing was usually quiet at this hour, but the President's unexpected emergence in his bathrobe and slippers had rustled the aides and on-site staff out of their'day-timer beds\" and on-site sleeping quarters.\n\n\"I can't find her, Mr. President,\" a young aide said, hurrying after him into the Oval Office. He had looked everywhere. \"Ms. Tench is not answering her pager or cellphone.\"\n\nThe President looked exasperated. \"Have you looked in the-\"\n\n\"She left the building, sir,\" another aide announced, hurrying in. \"She signed out about an hour ago. We think she may have gone to the NRO. One of the operators says she and Pickering were talking tonight.\"\n\n\"William Pickering?\" The President sounded baffled. Tench and Pickering were anything but social. \"Have you called him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's not answering either, sir. NRO switchboard can't reach him. They say Pickering's cellphone isn't even ringing. It's like he's dropped off the face of the earth.\"\n\nHerney stared at his aides fora moment and then walked to the bar and poured himself a bourbon. Ashe raised the glass to his lips, a Secret Serviceman hurried in.\n\n\"Mr. President? I wasn't going to wake you, but you should be aware that there was a car bombing at the FDR Memorial tonight.\"\n\n\"What!\" Herney almost dropped his drink. \"When?\"\n\n\"An hour ago.\" His face was grim. \"And the FBI just identified the victim...\"\n\nDelta-Three's foot screamed in pain. He felt himself floating through a muddled consciousness. Is this death? He tried to move but felt paralyzed, barely able to breathe. He saw only blurred shapes. His mind reeled back, recalling the explosion of the Crestliner out at sea, seeing the rage in Michael Tolland's eyes as the oceanographer stood over him, holding the explosive pole to his throat. Certainly Tolland killed me...\n\nAnd yet the searing pain in Delta-Three's right foot told him he was very much alive. Slowly it came back. On hearing the explosion of the Crestliner, Tolland had let out a cry of anguished rage for his lost friend. Then, turning his ravaged eyes to Delta-Three, Tolland had arched as if preparing to ram the rod through Delta-Three's throat. But as he did, he seemed to hesitate, as if his own morality were holding him back. With brutal frustration and fury, Tolland yanked the rod away and drove his boot down on Delta-Three's tattered foot. The last thing Delta-Three remembered was vomiting in agony as his whole world drifted into a black delirium. Now he was coming to, with no idea how long he had been unconscious. He could feel his arms tied behind his back in a knot so tight it could only have been tied by a sailor. His legs were also bound, bent behind him and tied to his wrists, leaving him in an immobilized backward arch. He tried to call out, but no sound came. His mouth was stuffed with something. Delta-Three could not imagine what was going on. It was then he felt the cool breeze and saw the bright lights. He realized he was upon the Goya's main deck. He twisted to look for help and was met by a frightful sight, his own reflection-bulbous and misshapen in the reflective Plexiglas bubble of the Goya's deepwater submersible. The sub hung right in front of him, and Delta-Three realized he was lying on a giant trapdoor in the deck. This was not nearly as unsettling as the most obvious question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I'm on deck..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "then where is Delta-Two?\n\nDelta-Two had grown uneasy.\n\nDespite his partner's CrypTalk transmission claiming he was fine, the single gunshot had not been that of a machine gun. Obviously, Tolland or Rachel Sexton had fired a weapon. Delta-Two moved over to peer down the ramp where his partner had descended, and he saw blood.\n\nWeapon raised, he had descended belowdecks, where he followed the trail of blood along a catwalk to the bow of the ship. Here, the trail of blood had led him backup another ramp to the main deck. It was deserted. With growing wariness, Delta-Two had followed the long crimson smear along the sideboard deck back toward the rear of the ship, where it passed the opening to the original ramp he had descended.\n\nWhat the hell is going on? The smear seemed to travel in a giant circle. Moving cautiously, his gun trained ahead of him, Delta-Two passed the entrance to the laboratory section of the ship. The smear continued toward the stern deck. Carefully he swung wide, rounding the corner. His eye traced the trail. Then he saw it.\n\nJesus Christ!\n\nDelta-Three was lying there-bound and gagged-dumped unceremoniously directly in front of the Goya's small submersible. Even from a distance, DeltaTwo could see that his partner was missing a good portion of his right foot. Wary of a trap, Delta-Two raised his gun and moved forward. Delta-Three was writhing now, trying to speak. Ironically, the way the man had been bound-with his knees sharply bent behind him-was probably saving his life; the bleeding in his foot appeared to have slowed.\n\nAs Delta-Two approached the submersible, he appreciated the rare luxury of being able to watch his own back; the entire deck of the ship was reflected in the sub's rounded cockpit dome. Delta-Two arrived at his struggling partner. He saw the warning in his eyes too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The flash of silver came out of nowhere.\n\nOne of the Triton's manipulator claws suddenly leaped forward and clamped down on Delta-Two's left thigh with crushing force. He tried to pull away, but the claw bore down. He screamed in pain, feeling a bone break. His eyes shot to the sub's cockpit. Peering through the reflection of the deck, Delta-Two could now see him, ensconced in the shadows of the Triton's interior. Michael Tolland was inside the sub, at the controls.\n\nBad idea, Delta-Two seethed, blocking out his pain and shouldering his machine gun. He aimed up and to the left at Tolland's chest, only three feet away on the other side of the sub's Plexiglas dome. He pulled the trigger, and the gun roared. Wild with rage at having been tricked, Delta-Two held the trigger back until the last of his shells clattered to the deck and his gun clicked empty. Breathless, he dropped the weapon and glared at the shredded dome in front of him.\n\n\"Dead!\" the soldier hissed, straining to pull his leg from the clamp. Ashe twisted, the metal clamp severed his skin, opening a large gash. \"Fuck!\" He reached now for the CrypTalk on his belt. But as he raised it to his lips, a second robotic arm snapped open in front of him and lunged forward, clamping around his right arm. The CrypTalk fell to the deck.\n\nIt was then that Delta-Two saw the ghost in the window before him. A pale visage leaning sideways and peering out through an unscathed edge of glass. Stunned, Delta-Two looked at the center of the dome and realized the bullets had not even come close to penetrating the thick shell. The dome was cratered with pockmarks. An instant later, the topside portal on the sub opened, and Michael Tolland emerged. He looked shaky but unscathed. Climbing down the aluminum gangway, Tolland stepped onto the deck and eyed his sub's destroyed dome window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ten thousand pounds per square inch,\" Tolland said. \"Looks like you need a bigger gun.\"\n\nInside the hydrolab, Rachel knew time was running out. She had heard the gunshots out on the deck and was praying that everything had happened exactly as Tolland had planned. She no longer cared who was behind the meteorite deception-the NASA administrator, Marjorie Tench, or the President himself-none of it mattered anymore.\n\nThey will not getaway with this. Whoever it is, the truth will be told. The wound on Rachel's arm had stopped bleeding, and the adrenaline coursing through her body had muted the pain and sharpened her focus. Finding a pen and paper, she scrawled a two-line message. The words were blunt and awkward, but eloquence was not a luxury she had time for at the moment. She added the note to the incriminating stack of papers in her hand-the GPR printout, images of Bathynomous giganteus, photos and articles regarding oceanic chondrules, an electron microscan printout. The meteorite was a fake, and this was the proof. Rachel inserted the entire stack into the hydrolab's fax machine. Knowing only a few fax numbers by heart, she had limited choices, but she had already made up her mind who would be receiving these pages and her note. Holding her breath, she carefully typed in the person's fax number.\n\nShe pressed'send,\" praying she had chosen the recipient wisely. The fax machine beeped.\n\nERROR: NO DIAL TONE\n\nRachel had expected this. The Goya's communications were still being jammed. She stood waiting and watching the machine, hoping it functioned like hers at home.\n\nCome on!\n\nAfter five seconds, the machine beeped again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "REDIALING...\n\nYes! Rachel watched the machine lock into an endless loop. ERROR: NO DIAL TONE\n\nREDIALING...\n\nERROR: NO DIAL TONE\n\nREDIALING...\n\nLeaving the fax machine in search of a dial tone, Rachel dashed out of the hydrolab just as helicopter blades thundered overhead.\n\nOne hundred and sixty miles away from the Goya, Gabrielle Ashe was staring at Senator Sexton's computer screen in mute astonishment. Her suspicions had been right.\n\nBut she had never imagined how right.\n\nShe was looking at digital scans of dozens of bank checks written to Sexton from private space companies and deposited in numbered accounts in the Cayman Islands. The smallest check Gabrielle saw was for fifteen thousand dollars. Several were upward of half a million dollars.\n\nSmall potatoes, Sexton had told her. All the donations are under the two-thousanddollar cap. Obviously Sexton had been lying all along. Gabrielle was looking at illegal campaign financing on an enormous scale. The pangs of betrayal and disillusionment settled hard now in her heart. He lied.\n\nShe felt stupid. She felt dirty. But most of all she felt mad. Gabrielle sat alone in the darkness, realizing she had no idea what to do next.\n\nAbove the Goya, as the Kiowa banked over the stern deck, Delta-One gazed down, his eyes fixating on an utterly unexpected vision.\n\nMichael Tolland was standing on deck beside a small submersible. Dangling in the sub's robotic arms, as if in the clutches of a giant insect, hung Delta-Two, struggling in vain to free himself from two enormous claws. What in the name of God!?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Equally as shocking an image, Rachel Sexton had just arrived on deck, taking up a position over abound and bleeding man at the foot of the submersible. The man could only be Delta-Three. Rachel held one of the Delta Force's machine guns on him and stared up at the chopper as if daring them to attack. Delta-One felt momentarily disoriented, unable to fathom how this possibly could have happened. The Delta Force's errors on the ice shelf earlier had been a rare but explainable occurrence. This, however, was unimaginable. Delta-One's humiliation would have been excruciating enough under normal circumstances. But tonight his shame was magnified by the presence of another individual riding with him inside the chopper, a person whose presence here was highly unconventional.\n\nThe controller.\n\nFollowing the Delta's kill at the FDR Memorial, the controller had ordered DeltaOne to fly to a deserted public park not far from the White House. On the controller's command, Delta-One had set down on a grassy knoll among some trees just as the controller, having parked nearby, strode out of the darkness and boarded the Kiowa. They were all en route again in a matter of seconds. Although a controller's direct involvement in mission operations was rare, DeltaOne could hardly complain. The controller, distressed by the way the Delta Force had handled the kills on the Milne Ice Shelf and fearing increasing suspicions and scrutiny from a number of parties, had informed Delta-One that the final phase of the operation would be overseen in person.\n\nNow the controller was riding shotgun, witnessing in persona failure the likes of which Delta-One had never endured.\n\nThis must end. Now.\n\nThe controller gazed down from the Kiowa at the deck of the Goya and wondered how this could possibly have happened. Nothing had gone properly-the suspicions about the meteorite, the failed Delta kills on the ice shelf, the necessity of the high-profile kill at the FDR." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Controller,\" Delta-One stammered, his tone one of stunned disgrace as he looked at the situation on the deck of the Goya." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I cannot imagine...\"\n\nNor can I, the controller thought. Their quarry had obviously been grossly underestimated.\n\nThe controller looked down at Rachel Sexton, who stared up blankly at the chopper's reflective windshield and raised a CrypTalk device to her mouth. When her synthesized voice crackled inside the Kiowa, the controller expected her to demand that the chopper back off or extinguish the jamming system so Tolland could call for help. But the words Rachel Sexton spoke were far more chilling.\n\n\"You're too late,\" she said. \"We're not the only ones who know.\"\n\nThe words echoed fora moment inside the chopper. Although the claim seemed far-fetched, the faintest possibility of truth gave the controller pause. The success of the entire project required the elimination of all those who knew the truth, and as bloody as the containment had turned out to be, the controller had to be certain this was the conclusion.\n\nSomeone else knows...\n\nConsidering Rachel Sexton's reputation for following strict protocol of classified data, the controller found it very hard to believe that she would have decided to share this with an outside source.\n\nRachel was on the CrypTalk again. \"Back off and we'll spare your men. Come any closer and they die. Either way, the truth comes out. Cut your losses. Back off.\"\n\n\"You're bluffing,\" the controller said, knowing the voice Rachel Sexton was hearing was an androgynous robotic tone. \"You have told no one.\"\n\n\"Are you ready to take that chance?\" Rachel fired back. \"I couldn't get through to William Pickering earlier, so I got spooked and took out some insurance.\"\n\nThe controller frowned. It was plausible.\n\n\"They're not buying it,\" Rachel said, glancing at Tolland. The soldier in the claws gave a pained smirk. \"Your gun is empty, and the chopper's going to blow you to hell. You're both going to die. Your only hope is to let us go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like hell, Rachel thought, trying to assess their next move. She looked at the bound and gagged man who lay at her feet directly in front of the sub. He looked delirious from loss of blood. She crouched beside him, looking into the man's hard eyes. \"I'm going to takeoff your gag and hold the CrypTalk; you're going to convince the helicopter to back off. Is that clear?\"\n\nThe man nodded earnestly.\n\nRachel pulled out the man's gag. The soldier spat a wad of bloody saliva up into Rachel's face.\n\n\"Bitch,\" he hissed, coughing. \"I'm going to watch you die. They're going to kill you like a pig, and I'm going to enjoy every minute.\"\n\nRachel wiped the hot saliva from her face as she felt Tolland's hands lifting her away, pulling her back, steadying her as he took her machine gun. She could feel in his trembling touch that something inside him had just snapped. Tolland walked to a control panel a few yards away, put his hand on a lever, and locked eyes with the man lying on the deck.\n\n\"Strike two,\" Tolland said. \"And on my ship, that's all you get.\"\n\nWith a resolute rage, Tolland yanked down on the lever. A huge trapdoor in the deck beneath the Triton fell open like the floor of a gallows. The bound soldier gave a short howl of fear and then disappeared, plummeting through the hole. He fell thirty feet to the ocean below. The splash was crimson. The sharks were on him instantly.\n\nThe controller shook with rage, looking down from the Kiowa at what was left of Delta-Three's body drifting out from under the boat on the strong current. The illuminated water was pink. Several fish fought over something that looked like an arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jesus Christ.\n\nThe controller looked back at the deck. Delta-Two still hung in the Triton's claws, but now the sub was suspended over a gaping hole in the deck. His feet dangled over the void. All Tolland had to do was release the claws, and Delta-Two would be next.\n\n\"Okay,\" the controller barked into the CrypTalk. \"Hold on. Just hold on!\"\n\nRachel stood below on the deck and stared up at the Kiowa. Even from this height the controller sensed the resolve in her eyes. Rachel raised the CrypTalk to her mouth. \"You still think we're bluffing?\" she said. \"Call the main switchboard at the NRO. Ask for Jim Samiljan. He's in P& A on the nightshift. I told him everything about the meteorite. He will confirm.\"\n\nShe's giving me a specific name? This did not bode well. Rachel Sexton was no fool, and this was a bluff the controller could check in a matter of seconds. Although the controller knew of no one at the NRO named Jim Samiljan, the organization was enormous. Rachel could quite possibly be telling the truth. Before ordering the final kill, the controller had to confirm if this was a bluff-or not.\n\nDelta-One looked over his shoulder. \"You want me to deactivate the jammer so you can call and check it out?\"\n\nThe controller peered down at Rachel and Tolland, both in plain view. If either of them made a move fora cellphone or radio, the controller knew Delta-One could always reactivate and cut them off. The risk was minimal.\n\n\"Kill the jammer,\" the controller said, pulling out a cellphone. \"I'll confirm Rachel's lying. Then we'll find away to get Delta-Two and end this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Fairfax, the operator at the NRO's central switchboard was getting impatient.\n\n\"As I just told you, I see no Jim Samiljan in the Plans and Analysis Division.\"\n\nThe caller was insistent. \"Have you tried multiple spellings? Have you tried other departments?\"\n\nThe operator had already checked, but she checked again. After several seconds, she said, \"Nowhere on staff do we have a Jim Samiljan. Under any spelling.\"\n\nThe caller sounded oddly pleased by this. \"So you are certain the NRO employs no Jim Samil-\"\n\nA sudden flurry of activity erupted on the line. Someone yelled. The caller cursed aloud and promptly hung up.\n\nOnboard the Kiowa, Delta-One was screaming with rage as he scrambled to reactivate the jamming system. He had made the realization too late. In the huge array of lighted controls in the cockpit, a tiny LED meter indicated that a SATCOM data signal was being transmitted from the Goya. But how? Nobody left the deck! Before Delta-One could engage the jammer, the connection from the Goya terminated on its own accord.\n\nInside the hydrolab, the fax machine beeped contentedly. CARRIER FOUND... FAX SENT\n\nKill or be killed. Rachel had discovered apart of herself she never knew existed. Survival mode-a savage fortitude fueled by fear.\n\n\"What was in that outbound fax?\" the voice on the CrypTalk demanded. Rachel was relieved to hear confirmation that the fax had gone out as planned.\n\n\"Leave the area,\" she demanded, speaking into the CrypTalk and glaring up at the hovering chopper. \"It's over. Your secret is out.\" Rachel informed their attackers of all the information she had just sent. A half dozen pages of images and text. Incontrovertible evidence that the meteorite was a fake. \"Harming us will only make your situation worse.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a heavy pause. \"Who did you send the fax to?\"\n\nRachel had no intention of answering that question. She and Tolland needed to buy as much time as possible. They had positioned themselves near the opening in the deck, on a direct line with the Triton, making it impossible for the chopper to shoot without hitting the soldier dangling in the sub's claws.\n\n\"William Pickering,\" the voice guessed, sounding oddly hopeful. \"You faxed Pickering.\"\n\nWrong, Rachel thought. Pickering would have been her first choice, but she had been forced to choose someone else for fear her attackers had already eliminated Pickering-a move whose boldness would be a chilling testimony to her enemy's resolve. Ina moment of desperate decision, Rachel had faxed the data to the only other fax number she knew by heart.\n\nHer father's office.\n\nSenator Sexton's office fax number had been painfully engraved into Rachel's memory after her mother's death when her father chose to workout many of the particulars of the estate without having to deal with Rachel in person. Rachel never imagined she would turn to her father in a time of need, but tonight the man possessed two critical qualities-all the correct political motivations to release the meteorite data without hesitation, and enough clout to call the White House and blackmail them into calling off this kill squad.\n\nAlthough her father was most certainly not in the office at this hour, Rachel knew he kept his office locked like a vault. Rachel had, in effect, faxed the data into a time-lock safe. Even if the attackers knew where she had sent it, chances were slim they could get through the tight federal security at the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building and break into a senator's office without anyone noticing.\n\n\"Wherever you sent the fax,\" the voice from above said. \"You've put that person in danger.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel knew she had to speak from a position of power regardless of the fear she was feeling. She motioned to the soldier trapped in the Triton's claws. His legs dangled over the abyss, dripping blood thirty feet to the ocean. \"The only person in danger here is your agent,\" she said into the CrypTalk. \"It's over. Back off. The data is gone. You've lost. Leave the area, or this man dies.\"\n\nThe voice on the CrypTalk fired back, \"Ms. Sexton, you do not understand the importance-\"\n\n\"Understand?\" Rachel exploded. \"I understand that you killed innocent people! I understand that you lied about the meteorite! And I understand that you won't getaway with this! Even if you kill us all, it's over!\"\n\nThere was along pause. Finally the voice said, \"I'm coming down.\"\n\nRachel felt her muscles tighten. Coming down?\n\n\"I am unarmed,\" the voice said. \"Do not do anything rash. You and I need to talk face-to-face.\"\n\nBefore Rachel could react, the chopper dropped onto the Goya's deck. The passenger door on the fuselage opened and a figure stepped out. He was a plainlooking man in a black coat and tie. For an instant, Rachel's thoughts went totally blank.\n\nShe was staring at William Pickering.\n\nWilliam Pickering stood on the deck of the Goya and gazed with regret at Rachel Sexton. He had never imagined today would come to this. Ashe moved toward her, he could seethe dangerous combination of emotions in his employee's eyes. Shock, betrayal, confusion, rage.\n\nAll understandable, he thought. There is so much she does not understand. Fora moment, Pickering flashed on his daughter, Diana, wondering what emotions she had felt before she died. Both Diana and Rachel were casualties of the same war, a war Pickering had vowed to fight forever. Sometimes the casualties could be so cruel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rachel,\" Pickering said. \"We can still work this out. There's a lot I need to explain.\"\n\nRachel Sexton looked aghast, nauseated almost. Tolland had the machine gun now and was aiming at Pickering's chest. He too looked bewildered.\n\n\"Stay back!\" Tolland yelled.\n\nPickering stopped five yards away, focusing on Rachel. \"Your father is taking bribes, Rachel. Payoffs from private space companies. He plans to dismantle NASA and open space to the private sector. He had to be stopped, as a matter of national security.\"\n\nRachel's expression was blank.\n\nPickering sighed. \"NASA, for all its flaws, must remain a government entity.\"\n\nCertainly she can understand the dangers. Privatization would send NASA's best minds and ideas flooding into the private sector. The brain trust would dissolve. The military would lose access. Private space companies looking to raise capital would start selling NASA patents and ideas to the highest bidders worldwide!\n\nRachel's voice was tremulous. \"You faked the meteorite and killed innocent people... in the name of national security?\"\n\n\"It was never supposed to happen like this,\" Pickering said. \"The plan was to save an important government agency. Killing was not part of it.\"\n\nThe meteorite deception, Pickering knew, like most intelligence proposals, had been the product of fear. Three years ago, in an effort to extend the NRO\n\nhydrophones into deeper water where they could not be touched by enemy saboteurs, Pickering spearheaded a program that utilized a newly developed NASA building material to secretly design an astonishingly durable submarine capable of carrying humans to the deepest regions of the ocean-including the bottom of the Mariana Trench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forged from a revolutionary ceramic, this two-man submarine was designed from blueprints hacked from the computer of a California engineer named Graham Hawkes, a genius sub designer whose life dream was to build an ultra-deepwater submersible he called Deep Flight II. Hawkes was having trouble finding funding to build a prototype. Pickering, on the other hand, had an unlimited budget. Using the classified ceramic submersible, Pickering sent a covert team underwater to affix new hydrophones to the walls of the Mariana Trench, deeper than any enemy could possibly look. In the process of drilling, however, they uncovered geologic structures unlike any that scientists had ever seen. The discoveries included chondrules and fossils of several unknown species. Of course, because the NRO's ability to dive this deep was classified, none of the information could ever be shared.\n\nIt was not until recently, driven yet again by fear, that Pickering and his quiet team of NRO science advisers had decided to put their knowledge of the Mariana's unique geology to work to help save NASA. Turning a Mariana rock into a meteorite had proven to be a deceptively simple task. Using an ECE slushhydrogen engine, the NRO team charred the rock with a convincing fusion crust. Then, using a small payload sub, they had descended beneath the Milne Ice Shelf and inserted the charred rock up into the ice from beneath. Once the insertion shaft refroze, the rock looked like it had been therefor over three hundred years. Unfortunately, as was often the casein the world of covert operations, the grandest of plans could be undone by the smallest of snags. Yesterday, the entire illusion had been shattered by a few bioluminescent plankton...\n\nFrom the cockpit of the idling Kiowa, Delta-One watched the drama unfold before him. Rachel and Tolland appeared to be in clear control, although Delta-One almost had to laugh at the hollowness of the illusion. The machine gun in Tolland's hands was worthless; even from here Delta-One could seethe cocking bar assembly had kicked back, indicating the clip was empty. As Delta-One gazed out at his partner struggling in the Triton's claws, he knew he had to hurry. The focus on deck had turned completely to Pickering, and now Delta-One could make his move. Leaving the rotors idling, he slipped out of the rear of the fuselage and, using the chopper for cover, made his way unseen onto the starboard gangway. With his own machine gun in hand, he headed for the bow. Pickering had given him specific orders before they landed on deck, and DeltaOne had no intention of failing at this simple task. Ina matter of minutes, he knew, this will all be over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still wearing his bathrobe, Zach Herney sat at his desk in the Oval Office, his head throbbing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The newest piece of the puzzle had just been revealed. Marjorie Tench is dead.\n\nHerney's aides said they had information suggesting Tench had driven to the FDR\n\nMemorial fora private meeting with William Pickering. Now that Pickering was missing, the staff feared Pickering too might be dead.\n\nThe President and Pickering had endured their battles lately. Months ago Herney learned that Pickering had engaged in illegal activity on Herney's behalf in an attempt to save Herney's floundering campaign.\n\nEmploying NRO assets, Pickering had discreetly obtained enough dirt on Senator Sexton to sink his campaign-scandalous sexual photos of the senator with his aide Gabrielle Ashe, incriminating financial records proving Sexton was taking bribes from private space companies. Pickering anonymously sent all the evidence to Marjorie Tench, assuming the White House would use it wisely. But Herney, upon seeing the data, had forbidden Tench to use it. Sex scandals and bribery were cancers in Washington, and waving another one in front of the public only added to their distrust of government.\n\nCynicism is killing this country.\n\nAlthough Herney knew he could destroy Sexton with scandal, the cost would be besmirching the dignity of the U. S. Senate, something Herney refused to do. No more negatives. Herney would beat Senator Sexton on the issues. Pickering, angered by the White House's refusal to use the evidence he had provided, tried to jump-start the scandal by leaking a rumor that Sexton had slept with Gabrielle Ashe. Unfortunately, Sexton declared his innocence with such convincing indignation that the President ended up having to apologize for the leak personally. In the end William Pickering had done more damage than good. Herney told Pickering that if he ever interfered in the campaign again, he would be indicted. The grand irony, of course, was that Pickering did not even like President Herney. The NRO director's attempts to help Herney's campaign were simply fears over the fate of NASA. Zach Herney was the lesser of two evils. Now has someone killed Pickering?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Herney could not imagine.\n\n\"Mr. President?\" an aide said. \"As you requested, I called Lawrence Ekstrom and told him about Marjorie Tench.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"He would like to speak to you, sir.\"\n\nHerney was still furious with Ekstrom for lying about PODS. \"Tell him I'll talk to him in the morning.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ekstrom wants to talk to you right away, sir.\" The aide looked uneasy. \"He's very upset.\"\n\nHE'S upset? Herney could feel his temper fraying around the edges. Ashe stalked off to take Ekstrom's call, the President wondered what the hell else could possibly go wrong tonight.\n\nOnboard the Goya, Rachel felt lightheaded. The mystification that had settled around her like a heavy fog was lifting now. The stark reality that came into focus left her feeling naked and disgusted. She looked at the stranger before her and could barely hear his voice.\n\n\"We needed to rebuild NASA's image,\" Pickering was saying. \"Their declining popularity and funding had become dangerous on so many levels.\" Pickering paused, his gray eyes locking on hers. \"Rachel, NASA was desperate fora triumph. Someone had to make it happen.\"\n\n---\n\nSomething had to be done, Pickering thought.\n\nThe meteorite had been a final act of desperation. Pickering and others had tried to save NASA by lobby-ing to incorporate the space agency into the intelligence community where it would enjoy increased funding and better security, but the White House continuously rebuffed the idea as an assault on pure science. Shortsighted idealism. With the rising popularity of Sexton's anti-NASA rhetoric, Pickering and his band of military powerbrokers knew time was running short. They decided that capturing the imagination of taxpayers and Congress was the only remaining way to salvage NASA's image and save it from the auction block. If the space agency was to survive, it would need an infusion of grandeur-something to remind the taxpayers of NASA's Apollo glory days. And if Zach Herney was going to defeat Senator Sexton, he was going to need help. I tried to help him, Pickering told himself, recalling all the damaging evidence he had sent Marjorie Tench. Unfortunately, Herney had forbidden its use, leaving Pickering no choice but to take drastic measures." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rachel,\" Pickering said, \"the information you just faxed off this ship is dangerous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You must understand that. If it gets out, the White House and NASA will look complicit. The backlash against the President and NASA will be enormous. The President and NASA know nothing, Rachel. They are innocent. They believe the meteorite is authentic.\"\n\nPickering had not even tried to bring Herney or Ekstrom into the fold because both were far too idealistic to have agreed to any deceit, regardless of its potential to save the presidency or space agency. Administrator Ekstrom's only crime had been persuading the PODS mission supervisor to lie about the anomaly software, a move Ekstrom no doubt regretted the moment he realized how scrutinized this particular meteorite would become.\n\nMarjorie Tench, frustrated by Herney's insistence on fighting a clean campaign, conspired with Ekstrom on the PODS lie, hoping a small PODS success might help the President fend off the rising Sexton tide.\n\nIf Tench had used the photos and bribery data I gave her, none of this would have happened!\n\nTench's murder, though deeply regrettable, had been destined as soon as Rachel called Tench and made accusations of fraud. Pickering knew Tench would investigate ruthlessly until she got to the bottom of Rachel's motives for the outrageous claims, and this was one investigation Pickering obviously could never let happen. Ironically, Tench would serve her president best in death, her violent end helping cement a sympathy vote for the White House as well as cast vague suspicions of foul play on a desperate Sexton campaign which had been so publicly humiliated by Marjorie Tench on CNN.\n\nRachel stood her ground, glaring at her boss.\n\n\"Understand,\" Pickering said, \"if news of this meteorite fraud gets out, you will destroy an innocent president and an innocent space agency. You will also put a very dangerous man in the Oval Office. I need to know where you faxed the data.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe spoke those words, a strange look came across Rachel's face. It was the pained expression of horror of someone who had just realized they may have made a grave mistake.\n\nHaving circled the bow and comeback down the port side, Delta-One now stood in the hydrolab from which he had seen Rachel emerge as the chopper had flown in. A computer in the lab displayed an unsettling image-a polychromatic rendering of the pulsating, deepwater vortex that was apparently hovering over the ocean floor somewhere beneath the Goya.\n\nAnother reason to get the hell out of here, he thought, moving now toward his target.\n\nThe fax machine was on a counter on the far side of the wall. The tray was filled with a stack of papers, exactly as Pickering had guessed it would be. Delta-One picked up the stack. A note from Rachel was on top. Only two lines. He read it. To the point, he thought.\n\nAshe flipped through the pages, he was both amazed and dismayed by the extent to which Tolland and Rachel had uncovered the meteorite deception. Whoever saw these printouts would have no doubt what they meant. Fortunately, Delta-One would not even need to hit'redial\" to find out where the printouts had gone. The last fax number was still displayed in the LCD window.\n\nA Washington, D. C., prefix.\n\nHe carefully copied the fax number down, grabbed all the papers, and exited the lab.\n\nTolland's hands felt sweaty on the machine gun as he gripped it, aiming the muzzle at William Pickering's chest. The NRO director was still pressuring Rachel to tell him where the data had been sent, and Tolland was starting to get the uneasy feeling that Pickering was simply trying to buy time. For what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The White House and NASA are innocent,\" Pickering repeated. \"Work with me. Don't let my mistakes destroy what little credibility NASA has left. NASA will look guilty if this gets out. You and I can come to an arrangement. The country needs this meteorite. Tell me where you faxed the data before it's too late.\"\n\n\"So you can kill someone else?\" Rachel said. \"You make me sick.\"\n\nTolland was amazed with Rachel's fortitude. She despised her father, but she clearly had no intention of putting the senator in any danger whatsoever. Unfortunately, Rachel's plan to fax her father for help had backfired. Even if the senator came into his office, saw the fax, and called the President with news of the meteorite fraud and told him to call off the attack, nobody at the White House would have any idea what Sexton was talking about, or even where they were.\n\n\"I will only say this one more time,\" Pickering said, fixing Rachel with a menacing glare. \"This situation is too complex for you to fully understand. You've made an enormous mistake by sending that data off this ship. You've put your country at risk.\"\n\nWilliam Pickering was indeed buying time, Tolland now realized. And the reason was striding calmly toward them up the starboard side of the boat. Tolland felt a flash of fear when he saw the soldier sauntering toward them carrying a stack of papers and a machine gun.\n\nTolland reacted with a decisiveness that shocked even himself. Gripping the machine gun, he wheeled, aimed at the soldier, and pulled the trigger. The gun made an innocuous click.\n\n\"I found the fax number,\" the soldier said, handing Pickering a slip of paper. \"And Mr. Tolland is out of ammunition.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sedgewick Sexton stormed up the hallway of the PhilipA. Hart Senate Office Building. He had no idea how Gabrielle had done it, but she had obviously gotten into his office. While they were speaking on the phone, Sexton had clearly heard the distinctive triple-click of his Jourdain clock in the background. All he could imagine was that Gabrielle's eavesdropping on the SFF meeting had undermined her trust in him and she had gone digging for evidence.\n\nHow the hell did she get into my office!\n\nSexton was glad he'd changed his computer password.\n\nWhen he arrived at his private office, Sexton typed in his code to deactivate the alarm. Then he fumbled for his keys, unlocked the heavy doors, threw them open, and burst in, intent on catching Gabrielle in the act.\n\nBut the office was empty and dark, lit only by the glow of his computer screensaver. He turned on the lights, his eyes scanning. Everything looked in place. Dead silence except for the triple-tick of his clock. Where the hell is she?\n\nHe heard something rustle in his private bathroom and raced over, turning on the light. The bathroom was empty. He looked behind the door. Nothing. Puzzled, Sexton eyed himself in the mirror, wondering if he'd had too much to drink tonight. I heard something. Feeling disoriented and confused, he walked back into his office.\n\n\"Gabrielle?\" he called out. He went down the hall to her office. She wasn't there. Her office was dark.\n\nA toilet flushed in the ladies' room, and Sexton spun, striding now back in the direction of the restrooms. He arrived just as Gabrielle was exiting, drying her hands. She jumped when she saw him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My God!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You scared me!\" she said, looking genuinely frightened. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"You said you were getting NASA documents from your office,\" he declared, eyeing her empty hands. \"Where are they?\"\n\n\"I couldn't find them. I looked everywhere. That's what took so long.\"\n\nHe stared directly into her eyes. \"Were you in my office?\"\n\nI owe my life to his fax machine, Gabrielle thought.\n\nOnly minutes ago she'd been sitting at Sexton's computer, trying to make printouts of the images of illegal checks on his computer. The files were protected somehow, and she was going to need more time to figure out how to print them. She would probably still be trying right now if Sexton's fax machine had not rung, startling her and snapping her back to reality. Gabrielle took it as her cue to get out. Without taking time to see what the incoming fax was, she logged off Sexton's computer, tidied up, and headed out the way she had come. She was just climbing out of Sexton's bathroom when she heard him coming in. Now, with Sexton standing before her, staring down, she sensed him searching her eyes fora lie. Sedgewick Sexton could smell untruths like nobody Gabrielle had ever met. If she lied to him, Sexton would know.\n\n\"You've been drinking,\" Gabrielle said, turning away. How does he know I was in his office?\n\nSexton put his hands on her shoulders and spun her back around. \"Were you in my office?\"\n\nGabrielle felt arising fear. Sexton had indeed been drinking. His touch was rough.\n\n\"In your office?\" she demanded, forcing a confused laugh. \"How? Why?\"\n\n\"I heard my Jourdain in the background when I called you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle cringed inwardly. His clock? It had not even occurred to her. \"Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?\"\n\n\"I spend all day in that office. I know what my clock sounds like.\"\n\nGabrielle sensed she had to end this immediately. The best defense is a good offense. At least that's what Yolanda Cole always said. Placing her hands on her hips, Gabrielle went for him with all she had. She stepped toward him, getting in his face, glaring. \"Let me get this straight, senator. It's four o'clock in the morning, you've been drinking, you heard a ticking on your phone, and that's why you're here?\" She pointed her finger indignantly down the hall at his door. \"Just for the record, are you accusing me of disarming a federal alarm system, picking two sets of locks, breaking into your office, being stupid enough to answer my cellphone while in the process of committing a felony, rearming the alarm system on my way out, and then calmly using the ladies' room before I runoff with nothing to show for it? Is that the story here?\"\n\nSexton blinked, wide-eyed.\n\n\"There's a reason people shouldn't drink alone,\" Gabrielle said. \"Now do you want to talk about NASA, or not?\"\n\nSexton felt befuddled as he walked back into his office. He went straight to his wet bar and poured himself a Pepsi. He sure as hell didn't feel drunk. Could he really have been wrong about this? Across the room, his Jourdain ticked mockingly. Sexton drained his Pepsi and poured himself another, and one for Gabrielle.\n\n\"Drink, Gabrielle?\" he asked, turning back into the room. Gabrielle had not followed him in. She was still standing in the doorway, rubbing his nose in it. \"Oh, for God's sake! Come in. Tell me what you found out at NASA.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I've had enough for tonight,\" she said, sounding distant. \"Let's talk tomorrow.\"\n\nSexton was in no mood for games. He needed this information now, and he had no intention of begging for it. He heaved a tired sigh. Extend the bond of trust. It's all about trust. \"I screwed up,\" he said. \"I'm sorry. It's been a hell of a day. I don't know what I was thinking.\"\n\nGabrielle remained in the doorway.\n\nSexton walked to his desk and set Gabrielle's Pepsi down on his blotter. He motioned to his leather chair-the position of power. \"Have a seat. Enjoy a soda. I'm going to go stick my head in the sink.\" He headed for the bathroom. Gabrielle still wasn't moving.\n\n\"I think I saw a fax in the machine,\" Sexton called over his shoulder as he entered the bathroom. Show her you trust her. \"Have a look at it for me, will you?\"\n\nSexton closed the door and filled the sink with cold water. He splashed it on his face and felt no clearer. This had never happened to him before-being so sure, and being so wrong. Sexton was a man who trusted his instincts, and his instincts told him Gabrielle Ashe had been in his office.\n\nBut how? It was impossible.\n\nSexton told himself to forget about it and focus on the matter at hand. NASA. He needed Gabrielle right now. This was no time to alienate her. He needed to know what she knew. Forget your instincts. You were wrong.\n\nAs Sexton dried his face, he threw his head back and took a deep breath. Relax, he told himself. Don't get punchy. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply again, feeling better." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: thriller, conspiracy, mystery, science fiction, NASA\nAuthor: Dan Brown\nTitle: Deception Point\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stupid bitch, Sexton thought. \"I'll take those,\" he snapped, holding out his hand for the envelopes.\n\nThe woman scraped up the last of the envelopes and handed them up to Sexton without looking up. \"Sorry...,\" she muttered, obviously embarrassed. Hunkering low in shame, she scurried off into the crowd.\n\nSexton quickly counted the envelopes. Ten. Good. Nobody was going to steal his thunder today. Regrouping, he adjusted the microphones and gave a joking smile to the crowd. \"I guess I'd better hand these out before someone gets hurt!\"\n\nThe crowd laughed, looking eager.\n\nSexton sensed his daughter nearby, standing just off-stage behind the partition.\n\n\"Don't do this,\" Rachel said to him. \"You'll regret it.\"\n\nSexton ignored her.\n\n\"I'm asking you to trust me,\" Rachel said, her voice growing louder. \"It's a mistake.\"\n\nSexton picked up his envelopes, straightening the edges.\n\n\"Dad,\" Rachel said, intense and pleading now. \"This is your last chance to do what's right.\"\n\nDo what's right? Sexton covered the microphone and turned as if clearing his throat. He glanced discreetly over at his daughter. \"You're just like your mother-idealistic and small. Women simply do not understand the true nature of power.\"\n\nSedgewick Sexton had already forgotten his daughter by the time he turned back toward the jostling media. Head held high, he walked around the podium and handed the stack of envelopes into the hands of the waiting press. He watched the envelopes disseminate rapidly through the crowd. He could hear the seals being broken, the envelopes being torn apart like Christmas presents. A sudden hush came over the crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the silence, Sexton could hear the defining moment of his career." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The meteorite is a fraud. And I am the man who revealed it. Sexton knew it would take the press a moment to understand the true implications of what they were looking at: GPR images of an insertion shaft in the ice; a living ocean species almost identical to the NASA fossils; evidence of chondrules that formed on earth. It all led to one shocking conclusion.\n\n\"Sir?\" one reporter stammered, sounding stunned as he looked in his envelope. \"Is this for real?\"\n\nSexton gave a somber sigh. \"Yes, I'm afraid it's very real indeed.\"\n\nMurmurs of confusion now spread through the crowd.\n\n\"I'll give everyone a moment to look through these pages,\" Sexton said, \"and then I'll take questions and attempt to shed some light on what you're looking at.\"\n\n\"Senator?\" another reporter asked, sounding utterly bewildered. \"Are these images authentic?... Unretouched?\"\n\n\"One hundred percent,\" Sexton said, speaking more firmly now. \"I would not present the evidence to you otherwise.\"\n\nThe confusion in the crowd seemed to deepen, and Sexton thought he even heard some laughter-not at all the reaction he had expected. He was starting to fear he had overestimated the media's ability to connect the obvious dots.\n\n\"Um, senator?\" someone said, sounding oddly amused. \"For the record, you stand behind the authenticity of these images?\"\n\nSexton was getting frustrated. \"My friends, I will say this one last time, the evidence in your hands is one-hundred-percent accurate. And if anyone can prove otherwise, I'll eat my hat!\"\n\nSexton waited for the laugh, but it never came.\n\nDead silence. Blank stares." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reporter who had just spoken walked toward Sexton, shuffling through his photocopies as he came forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're right, senator. This is scandalous data.\"\n\nThe reporter paused, scratching his head. \"So I guess we're puzzled as to why you've decided to share it with us like this, especially after denying it so vehemently earlier.\"\n\nSexton had no idea what the man was talking about. The reporter handed him the photocopies. Sexton looked at the pages-and fora moment, his mind went totally blank.\n\nNo words came.\n\nHe was staring at unfamiliar photographs. Black-and-white images. Two people. Naked. Arms and legs intertwined. For an instant, Sexton had no idea what he was looking at. Then it registered. A cannonball to the gut. In horror, Sexton's head snapped up to the crowd. They were laughing now. Half of them were already phoning in the story to their news desks. Sexton felt a tap on his shoulder.\n\nIna daze, he wheeled.\n\nRachel was standing there. \"We tried to stop you,\" she said. \"We gave you every chance.\" A woman stood beside her.\n\nSexton was trembling as his eyes moved to the woman at Rachel's side. She was the reporter in the cashmere coat and mohair beret-the woman who had knocked over his envelopes. Sexton saw her face, and his blood turned to ice. Gabrielle's dark eyes seemed to bore right through him as she reached down and opened her coat to reveal a stack of white envelopes tucked neatly beneath her arm.\n\nThe Oval Office was dark, lit only by the soft glow of the brass lamp on President Herney's desk. Gabrielle Ashe held her chin high as she stood before the President. Outside the window behind him, dusk was gathering on the west lawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hear you're leaving us,\" Herney said, sounding disappointed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gabrielle nodded. Although the President had graciously offered her indefinite sanctuary inside the White House away from the press, Gabrielle preferred not to ride out this particular storm by hiding out in the eye. She wanted to be as faraway as possible. At least fora while.\n\nHerney gazed across his desk at her, looking impressed. \"The choice you made this morning, Gabrielle...\" He paused, as if at a loss for words. His eyes were simple and clear-nothing compared to the deep, enigmatic pools that had once drawn Gabrielle to Sedgewick Sexton. And yet, even in the backdrop of this powerful place, Gabrielle saw true kindness in his gaze, an honor and dignity she would not soon forget.\n\n\"I did it for me, too,\" Gabrielle finally said.\n\nHerney nodded. \"I owe you my thanks all the same.\" He stood, motioning for her to follow him into the hall. \"I was actually hoping you'd stick around long enough that I could offer you a post on my budgeting staff.\"\n\nGabrielle gave him a dubious look. \"Stop spending and start mending?\"\n\nHe chuckled. \"Something like that.\"\n\n\"I think we both know, sir, that I'm more of a liability to you at the moment than an asset.\"\n\nHerney shrugged. \"Give it a few months. It will all blow over. Plenty of great men and women have endured similar situations and gone onto greatness.\" He winked.\n\n\"A few of them were even U. S. presidents.\"\n\nGabrielle knew he was right. Unemployed for only hours, Gabrielle had already turned down two other job offers today-one from Yolanda Cole at ABC, and the other from St. Martin's Press, who had offered her an obscene advance if she would publish a tell-all biography. No thanks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Gabrielle and the President moved down the hallway, Gabrielle thought of the pictures of herself that were now being splashed across televisions. The damage to the country could have been worse, she told herself. Much worse. Gabrielle, after going to ABC to retrieve the photos and borrow Yolanda Cole's press pass, had snuck back to Sexton's office to assemble the duplicate envelopes. While inside, she had also printed copies of the donation checks in Sexton's computer. After the confrontation at the Washington Monument, Gabrielle had handed copies of the checks to the dumbstruck Senator Sexton and made her demands. Give the President a chance to announce his meteorite mistake, or the rest of this data goes public too. Senator Sexton took one look at the stack of financial evidence, locked himself in his limousine, and drove off. He had not been heard from since.\n\nNow, as the President and Gabrielle arrived at the backstage door of the Briefing Room, Gabrielle could hear the waiting throngs beyond. For the second time in twenty-four hours, the world was assembled to hear a special presidential broadcast.\n\n\"What are you going to tell them?\" Gabrielle asked.\n\nHerney sighed, his expression remarkably calm. \"Over the years, I've learned one thing over and over...\" He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. \"There's just no substitute for the truth.\"\n\nGabrielle was filled with an unexpected pride as she watched him stride toward the stage. Zach Herney was on his way to admit the biggest mistake of his life, and oddly, he had never looked more presidential.\n\nWhen Rachel awoke, the room was dark.\n\nA clock glowed 10:14 P. M. The bed was not her own. For several moments, she lay motionless, wondering where she was. Slowly, it all started coming back... the megaplume... this morning at the Washington Monument... the President's invitation to stay at the White House." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm at the White House, Rachel realized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I slept here all day. The Coast Guard chopper, at the President's command, had transported an exhausted Michael Tolland, Corky Marlinson, and Rachel Sexton from the Washington Monument to the White House, where they had been fed a sumptuous breakfast, been seen to by doctors, and been offered any of the building's fourteen bedrooms in which to recuperate.\n\nAll of them had accepted.\n\nRachel could not believe she had slept this long. Turning on the television, she was stunned to see that President Herney had already completed his press conference. Rachel and the others had offered to stand beside him when he announced the meteorite disappointment to the world. We all made the mistake together. But Herney had insisted on shouldering the burden alone.\n\n\"Sadly,\" one political analyst on TV was saying, \"it seems NASA has discovered no signs of life from space after all. This marks the second time this decade that NASA has incorrectly classified a meteorite as showing signs of extraterrestrial life. This time, however, a number of highly respected civilians were also among those fooled.\"\n\n\"Normally,\" a second analyst chimed in, \"I would have to say that a deception of the magnitude the President described this evening would be devastating for his career... and yet, considering the developments this morning at the Washington Monument, I would have to say Zach Herney's chances of taking the presidency look better than ever.\"\n\nThe first analyst nodded. \"So, no life in space, but no life in Senator Sexton's campaign either. And now, as new information surfaces suggesting deep financial troubles plaguing the senator-\"\n\nA knock on the door drew Rachel's attention.\n\nMichael, she hoped, quickly turning off the television. She hadn't seen him since breakfast. On their arrival at the White House, Rachel had wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in his arms. Although she could tell Michael felt the same, Corky had intervened, parking himself on Tolland's bed and exuberantly telling and retelling his story about urinating on himself and saving the day. Finally, utterly exhausted, Rachel and Tolland had given up, heading for separate bedrooms to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, walking toward the door, Rachel checked herself in the mirror, amused to see how ridiculously she was dressed. All she had found to wear to bed was an old Penn State football jersey in the dresser. It draped down to her knees like a nightshirt.\n\nThe knocking continued.\n\nRachel opened the door, disappointed to see a female U. S. Secret Service agent. She was fit and cute, wearing a blue blazer. \"Ms. Sexton, the gentleman in the Lincoln Bedroom heard your television. He asked me to tell you that as long as you're already awake...\" She paused, arching her eyebrows, clearly no stranger tonight games on the upper floors of the White House.\n\nRachel blushed, her skin tingling. \"Thanks.\"\n\nThe agent led Rachel down the impeccably appointed hallway to a plain-looking doorway nearby.\n\n\"The Lincoln Bedroom,\" the agent said. \"And as I am always supposed to say outside this door, \"Sleep well, and beware of ghosts.\"\"\n\nRachel nodded. The legends of ghosts in the Lincoln Bedroom were as old as the White House itself. It was said that Winston Churchill had seen Lincoln's ghost here, as had countless others, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Amy Carter, actor Richard Dreyfuss, and decades of maids and butlers. President Reagan's dog was said to bark outside this door for hours at a time.\n\nThe thoughts of historical spirits suddenly made Rachel realize what a sacred place this room was. She felt suddenly embarrassed, standing therein her long football jersey, bare-legged, like some college coed sneaking into a boy's room.\n\n\"Is this kosher?\" she whispered to the agent. \"I mean this is the Lincoln Bedroom.\"\n\nThe agent winked. \"Our policy on this floor is \"Don't ask, don't tell.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rachel smiled. \"Thanks.\" She reached for the door-knob, already feeling the anticipation of what lay beyond.\n\n\"Rachel!\" The nasal voice carried down the hallway like abuzz saw. Rachel and the agent turned. Corky Marlinson was hobbling toward them on crutches, his leg now professionally bandaged. \"I couldn't sleep either!\"\n\nRachel slumped, sensing her romantic tryst about to disintegrate. Corky's eyes inspected the cute Secret Service agent. He flashed her abroad smile. \"I love women in uniform.\"\n\nThe agent pulled aside her blazer to reveal a lethal-looking sidearm. Corky backed off. \"Point taken.\" He turned to Rachel. \"Is Mike awake, too? You going in?\" Corky looked eager to join the party.\n\nRachel groaned. \"Actually, Corky...\"\n\n\"Dr. Marlinson,\" the Secret Service agent intervened, pulling a note from her blazer. \"According to this note, which was given tome by Mr. Tolland, I have explicit orders to escort you down to the kitchen, have our chef make you anything you want, and ask you to explain tome in vivid detail how you saved yourself from certain death by...\" the agent hesitated, grimacing as she read the note again.\n\n\"... by urinating on yourself?\"\n\nApparently, the agent had said the magic words. Corky dropped his crutches on the spot and put an arm around the woman's shoulders for support, and said, \"To the kitchen, love!\"\n\nAs the indisposed agent helped Corky hobble off down the hall, Rachel had no doubt Corky Marlinson was in heaven. \"The urine is the key,\" she heard him saying, \"because those damned telencephalon olfactory lobes can smell everything!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lincoln Bedroom was dark when Rachel entered. She was surprised to seethe bed empty and untouched. Michael Tolland was nowhere to be seen. An antique oil lamp burned near the bed, and in the soft radiance, she could barely make out the Brussels carpet... the famous carved rosewood bed... the portrait of Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd... even the desk where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.\n\nAs Rachel closed the door behind her, she felt a clammy draft on her bare legs. Where is he? Across the room, a window was open, the white organza curtains billowing. She walked over to close the window, and an eerie whisper murmured from the closet.\n\n\"Maaaarrrrrrrry...\"\n\nRachel wheeled.\n\n\"Maaaaaarrrrrrrry?\" the voice whispered again. \"Is that you?... Mary Todd Liiiiiincoln?\"\n\nRachel quickly closed the window and turned back toward the closet. Her heart was racing, although she knew it was foolish. \"Mike, I know that's you.\"\n\n\"Noooooo...\" the voice continued. \"I am not Mike... I am... Aaaaabe.\"\n\nRachel put her hands on her hips. \"Oh, really? Honest Abe?\"\n\nA muffled laugh. \"Moderately honest Abe... yes.\"\n\nRachel was laughing now too.\n\n\"Be afraaaaaaid,\" the voice from the closet moaned. \"Be veeeeeery afraid.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid.\"\n\n\"Please be afraid...\" the voice moaned. \"In the human species, the emotions of fear and sexual arousal are closely linked.\"\n\nRachel burst out laughing. \"Is this your idea of a turn-on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Forgiiiive me...\" the voice moaned. \"It's been yeeeeeeears since I've been with a woman.\"\n\n\"Evidently,\" Rachel said, yanking the door open.\n\nMichael Tolland stood before her with his roguish, lopsided grin. He looked irresistible wearing a pair of navy blue satin pajamas. Rachel did a double take when she saw the presidential seal emblazoned on his chest.\n\n\"Presidential pajamas?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"They were in the drawer.\"\n\n\"And all I had was this football jersey?\"\n\n\"You should have chosen the Lincoln Bedroom.\"\n\n\"You should have offered!\"\n\n\"I heard the mattress was bad. Antique horsehair.\" Tolland winked, motioning to a gift-wrapped package on a marble-topped table. \"This'll make it up to you.\"\n\nRachel was touched. \"For me?\"\n\n\"I had one of the presidential aides go out and find this for you. Just arrived. Don't shake it.\"\n\nShe carefully opened the package, extracting the heavy contents. Inside was a large crystal bowl in which were swimming two ugly orange goldfish. Rachel stared in confused disappointment. \"You're joking, right?\"\n\n\"Helostoma temmincki,\" Tolland said proudly.\n\n\"You bought me fish?\"\n\n\"Rare Chinese kissing fish. Very romantic.\"\n\n\"Fish are not romantic, Mike.\"\n\n\"Tell that to these guys. They'll kiss for hours.\"\n\n\"Is this supposed to be another turn-on?\"\n\n\"I'm rusty on the romance. Can you grade me on effort?\"\n\n\"For future reference, Mike, fish are definitely not a turn-on. Try flowers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tolland pulled a bouquet of white lilies from behind his back. \"I tried for red roses,\" he said, \"but I almost got shot sneaking into the Rose Garden.\"\n\nAs Tolland pulled Rachel's body against his and inhaled the soft fragrance of her hair, he felt years of quiet isolation dissolving inside him. He kissed her deeply, feeling her body rise against him. The white lilies fell to their feet, and barriers Tolland had never known he'd built were suddenly melting away. The ghosts are gone.\n\nHe felt Rachel inching him toward the bed now, her whisper soft in his ear. \"You don't really think fish are romantic, do you?\"\n\n\"I do,\" he said, kissing her again. \"You should seethe jellyfish mating ritual. Incredibly erotic.\"\n\nRachel maneuvered him onto his back on the horsehair mattress, easing her slender body down on top of his.\n\n\"And seahorses...,\" Tolland said, breathless as he savored her touch through the thin satin of his pajamas. \"Seahorses perform... an unbelievably sensual dance of love.\"\n\n\"Enough fish talk,\" she whispered, unbuttoning his pajamas. \"What can you tell me about the mating rituals of advanced primates?\"\n\nTolland sighed. \"I'm afraid I don't really do primates.\"\n\nRachel shed her football jersey. \"Well, nature boy, I suggest you learn fast.\"\n\nThe NASA transport jet banked high over the Atlantic.\n\nOnboard, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom took a last look at the huge charred rock in the cargo hold. Back to the sea, he thought. Where they found you. On Ekstrom's command, the pilot opened the cargo doors and released the rock. They watched as the mammoth stone plummeted downward behind the plane, arcing across the sunlit ocean sky and disappearing beneath the waves in a pillar of silver spray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The giant stone sank fast.\n\nUnderwater, at three hundred feet, barely enough light remained to reveal its tumbling silhouette. Passing five hundred feet, the rock plunged into total darkness.\n\nRacing down.\n\nDeeper.\n\nIt fell for almost twelve minutes.\n\nThen, like a meteorite striking the dark side of the moon, the rock crashed into avast plain of mud on the ocean floor, kicking up a cloud of silt. As the dust settled, one of the ocean's thousands of unknown species swam over to inspect the odd newcomer.\n\nUnimpressed, the creature moved on." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mercifully.\n\n\"All righty then. Let's load up and get back to the office. That should get you on the road and headed home before rush hour traffic gets crazy. Don't want to holdup any of your vacations,\" said Shea, to around of grunts and groans. \"Quit your bitching. It's a paid vacation.\"\n\nDevin checked his watch on the way out: 5:35. Unless they were closer to DC than he'd guessed, that put him in heavy Beltway traffic on the ride from the office in Alexandria to his apartment in Hyattsville.\n\nHis estimate about the distance turned out to be pretty accurate. After a seventy-minute, light-traffic drive, and about a half hour inside the MINERVA headquarters building, he slumped into the leather driver's seat of his SUV and took a few moments to think about how he'd go about skipping town. His dad would not be keen on the idea of packing a suitcase and heading straight to the airport this morning, later today, or even tomorrow, for no other reason than he'required more notice than that.\" He could hear the words right now. His dad never rushed into things, or out of them.\n\nHe'd show up in a few days, which actually worked out better. Kari was a little more like herself when he wasn't around. A lot more. Mom's downward spiral had really done a number on her. Five years younger than Devin, she had been around for the worst of it, while he'd been away at college. He still felt guilty about that. He'd gone to school thirty minutes away, unaffected and mostly oblivious to their mother's unraveling. Kari had spent her high school years struggling with their mother's rapidly worsening psychosis and a just as swiftly dwindling collection of friends." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Falls Church, Virginia, was a small, densely packed community a few miles west of the National Mall, which put it just south of McClean, Virginia, home of the Central Intelligence Agency. Growing up, all Devin's friends\" parents had either worked on Capitol Hill in high-visibility jobs or'for the government.\" Most of the kids had known to stop asking questions when you got the generic answer. Even the new kids caught on, because word got around-even when it wasn't supposed to. As it had with their mother.\n\nKari had pulled a Houdini after graduation and never looked back-more like she never came back. She had applied to schools on the West Coast and had gotten accepted to UCLA, spending nearly all her vacation time with friends and her summer quarters loading upon prerequisites. She had graduated in five years with a master of social welfare degree and had immediately been hired at a major nonprofit organization, where she'd worked nonstop for the past five years. She'd been home twice since leaving for college almost fifteen years ago. Dad had visited her at least once a year, usually with Devin. She wouldn't let Mom visit and had seen her only once during the two times she made it back east. Mom had seemed to understand, or she hadn't cared. It had gotten harder to tell overtime, until he'd pretty much stopped seeing her, too. Devin didn't want to think about it anymore.\n\nHe opened the compact nylon satchel he'd thrown on the passenger seat and removed his phone. MINERVA required them to leave all personal items behind during operations, especially electronics devices. At the start of each operation, they were given a slim wallet preloaded with a basic identification card and enough cash to fulfill their mission, an encrypted and presumably untraceable smartphone, and any additional personal gear deemed necessary by the operation leader. They handed in their phones and wallets before departing for the mission staging area and retrieved them upon return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Devin pressed the power button and set the phone on the seat before starting the SUV." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shifted into reverse and checked the backup camera. All clear. The last thing he needed, while his fortune somewhat shined at MINERVA, was to back over one of his colleagues. Shea would undoubtedly interpret that as the unceremonious end to his good luck streak.\n\nThe phone caught his eye before he let his foot off the brake. The home screen was filled with missed-call notifications and text messages. He put the vehicle in park and grabbed the phone. Jesus. His dad had called and left voicemails seven times in the past two hours. He found text messages buried between the call notifications.\n\nPLEASE CALL MEAS SOON AS YOU GET THIS. VERY IMPORTANT.\n\nSERIOUSLY. NEED YOU TO CALL ME RIGHT AWAY.\n\nDEVIN. CALL ME NOW!\n\nDEVIN. I'M AT YOUR APARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU!\n\nJUST CALL ME. SOMETHING HAPPENED. I'M PARKED AT YOUR PLACE.\n\nHEADING HOME. CALL ME OR COME BY ASAP!\n\nIT'S ABOUT HELEN. PLEASE CALL.\n\nOf course it was. It was always about her-though this sounded entirely different. His dad rarely overreacted to her antics, or anything for that matter. Devin had seen him frazzled once, maybe twice, since as far back as he could remember. And Mom had given him plenty of opportunities to lose his shit. He must have been one hell of an analyst at the CIA. A voice of reason in a troubled world, even as his own world fell apart. Respected enough that they kept him on for three years after dismissing Helen, which got him to thirty years of service and a full pension annuity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He called his dad and braced for impact.\n\n\"Devin! I've been trying to get ahold of you for-\"\n\n\"Dad. Dad. I was working all night. I just got my phone back,\" interrupted Devin.\n\n\"Okay. Okay. Jeez. I'm sorry,\" said Mason Gray. \"I didn't even think of that. I just uh... I, uh. I don't know how to say this.\"\n\n\"Did Mom do something crazy?\" asked Devin, regretting his choice of words.\n\nHis dad had made it abundantly clear over the years that he disapproved of the crude characterization. Apart of him still cared for her very deeply, despite everything she had put him through.\n\n\"Sorry. I didn't mean to say that,\" said Devin.\n\n\"No. It's all right,\" said Mason. \"Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe that's the only way to describe it.\"\n\nDevin didn't like where this was going.\n\n\"Dad?\" said Devin. \"Is Mom okay?\"\n\n\"No. She's not. She's dead,\" said Mason. \"She killed herself-but that's not the worst of it.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHow could that not be the worst of it?\n\n\"Not on the phone. Can you come by the house?\" asked his dad. \"I'll make some breakfast. You must be hungry. What can I make you?\"\n\n\"Dad. I'll be therein thirty to forty minutes,\" said Devin. \"I'll grab bagel sandwiches on the way.\"\n\n\"Okay. I'll see you then.\"\n\nHe really didn't sound like himself at all.\n\n\"Dad?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"How bad is the rest of it?\"\n\n\"It doesn't make sense,\" said Mason. \"They say she killed a Tennessee sheriff's deputy. Shot him right in the face.\"\n\n\"Jesus. Let's talk about this at home,\" said Devin, but his dad kept going.\n\n\"That was after she kidnapped a seventy-six-year-old man from an assisted living facility in Branson, Missouri,\" he said, with no hint of emotion.\n\n\"Dad. I'm on my way home,\" said Devin, shifting the SUV into reverse.\n\n\"I don't even know when or if they'll release her body. They wouldn't say much,\" said Mason.\n\n\"When did they call?\"\n\n\"They didn't. A Falls Church officer came by the house a little after five. Tennessee police found an old registration in the glove box with my address. Everyone at the department here knew she had issues.\"\n\n\"All right, Dad. Just sit down. Do some of that meditation you do everyday. And I'll be over before you know it. We'll figure this all out.\"\n\n\"I'll make us some scrambled eggs with cheese and toast,\" said his dad, as though he hadn't heard a word Devin had just said.\n\n\"Sounds delicious. Do you want me to stay on the line? Are you okay?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"I can't talk on the phone and make scrambled eggs at the same time,\" he said. \"I'll see you in a bit. Sorry I left all of those messages. Dome a favor and don't listen to them.\"\n\n\"I'll delete them,\" said Devin, taking a deep breath before continuing. \"Did you call Kari?\"\n\n\"No. I'll call her in a little bit,\" said his dad. \"It was too early in LA.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll call her with you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can do it after breakfast or wait until later,\" said Devin. \"There's no hurry.\"\n\nAlong pause ensued.\n\n\"She would never have killed a police officer,\" said Mason. \"Something doesn't add up.\"\n\n\"I'll be right home, Dad,\" said Devin. \"We can talk about it then.\"\n\n\"All right. I'll get breakfast ready,\" said Mason before disconnecting the call.\n\nDevin stared at the phone for several moments, perplexed by his dad's statement about the police officer. None of what he had just learned about his mom's final hours added up. Not a single word of it. But his dad almost sounded as though he hadn't been surprised by the kidnapping. Or maybe he was reading too much into the conversation. Devin hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours, and his dad didn't sound like himself.\n\nHe filed the thought away for later and backed out of the parking space without checking the backup camera. His time at MINERVA would be short lived, no matter whom he ran down in the parking lot. He'd have to call Brendan Shea sooner than later and explain why he couldn't leave the greater DC area. When the circumstances surrounding his mother's death surfaced... they'd be forced to let him go. His mother was the gift that kept on giving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin checked his watch. Two minutes later than the last time he'd looked. Ten minutes until the viewing ended. The hushed sound of feet brushing across carpet somewhere behind them turned his head. His sister didn't budge, her eyes locked on a point somewhere above their mother's closed coffin. Same expression for the last hour and fifty minutes. Indifferent. Dad pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sighed, turning to Devin for any sign it maybe a guest paying their last respects. He didn't have it in him to look for himself and be disappointed. They'd had one visitor, an old friend and almost girlfriend of Devin's, who'd sat behind them for ten minutes before heading out.\n\nThe funeral home director, a tall, long-faced elderly gentleman whom Devin remembered from every wake and funeral he'd attended here, going back decades, paused by the guestbook located on a small table just inside the room and gave it a quick look. He glanced in Devin's direction and nodded almost imperceptibly before stepping out of the room.\n\nKari had been right. The whole thing should have been a quick graveside memorial service. Fifteen minutes at the cemetery-just the three of them and a minister. They hadn't expected anyone to show up, not after the grisly details of Helen's rampage made the news. But attendance hadn't been the point.\n\nTheir dad had insisted Helen get a full memorial, regardless of the circumstances. Awake, funeral service, and interment. At first Devin had resisted, firmly in his sister's camp, but he eventually relented. Mom deserved to be recognized for her entire life's accomplishments, not the tragic consequences of the treacherous illness that had so unfairly twisted her mind. He still remembered the good times. They were pretty vague as an adult, but the picture books at the house had brought it all back. Honoring the Helen Gray they had all once known was the point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd been a wonderful, loving mother for more than half of his life. She had traveled frequently for the CIA, but she had always been vibrant and entirely present for them when she was home. Then something had changed. In 2004, Devin had spent fall break at home, during his freshman year at Maryland, and things had been different. Mom had been unusually distant. Dad had tiptoed around her. Kari wouldn't talk to either of them.\n\nHer situation had worsened every year after that, Mom managing to pull it together for big occasions, like his college graduation. Sometimes she'd go a few months seeming entirely better-but she wasn't. She'd fall even deeper into the hole that had swallowed her, vanishing for weeks or longer. After his parents had separated, she'd disappeared for months. There was no point to dwelling on this any longer. She was gone. It was time to let it go.\n\nHis dad cracked his knuckles and stood up. \"I think that's it. I'm going to pay my last respects. I'll talk to the funeral director on the way out. We'll skip right to the graveside memorial and be done with it. Sorry to put you through this.\"\n\nKari took his hand and hugged him. \"It was the right thing to do. Sorry for being a pain about it.\"\n\nSomething caught his dad's eye, and he craned his head above her shoulder to get a better view. Devin followed his gaze to the viewing room's entrance. An older man in a black suit, with an unkempt beard, stood in the doorway-appearing hesitant to enter. Minus the deep tan, he looked like a Hasidic Jew who had misplaced his hat. His dad patted Kari's back.\n\n\"Looks like we have a visitor,\" he said, letting goof Kari. \"Karl?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man stepped inside and smiled somberly. \"I didn't think you'd recognize me after all the years. And the beard.\"\n\n\"I might not have been able to pick you out of a crowd,\" said his dad, glancing around the room. \"But as you can see.\"\n\nThey met halfway across the room and shook hands, while Devin and Kari stayed behind.\n\n\"Do you recognize him?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Kari. \"Are you gonna see Marnie later?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Marnie Young. The hot fighter pilot friend of yours that stopped in,\" said Kari. \"The only other person that stopped by tonight? She gave you her number.\"\n\n\"I know who you're talking about,\" said Devin. \"Now isn't the time.\"\n\n\"Well. Whenever it's time, you should look her up,\" said Kari.\n\n\"I'll take that under advisement,\" said Devin before nodding toward his dad. \"Here they come.\"\n\nMason Gray accompanied the mystery visitor to the front of the room, stopping to introduce him.\n\n\"This is Karl Berg. He knew your mother from Langley,\" said Mason. \"I don't think you've ever met?\"\n\nBerg shook his head. \"No. But I've seen the two of you in pictures on her desk. Kind of watched you grow up. Ina noncreepy way. Though I'm sure it sounded creepy.\"\n\n\"It didn't,\" said Devin, shaking his hand. \"Thank you for coming.\"\n\n\"I had to come,\" said Berg. \"She earned it.\"\n\nKari took his hand reluctantly, maintaining a neutral expression.\n\n\"Good instincts. I wouldn't trust me, either,\" said Berg. \"Hey. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a few moments to pay my respects.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their dad stepped out of the way and motioned toward the casket. \"Sorry. Of course.\"\n\nKarl Berg, who Devin assumed had worked in the same line of business as their mother at the CIA-Directorate of Operations, a. k. a. the Clandestine Service-spent a few quiet moments next to her coffin before returning.\n\n\"I'm genuinely sorry for your loss,\" said Berg, looking torn about something. \"I know things haven't been easy.\"\n\nNone of them responded right away, presumably because they didn't know what to say to a near-complete stranger who had just summarized the past decade and a half of their experience with Helen Gray in one sentence.\n\n\"It's been along haul, but it's all behind us now,\" said their dad, offering his hand to Berg. \"Thank you for coming. Seriously. It means a lotto me, and as funny as this might sound, I know it would have meant a lotto Helen. If you don't mind, I need to speak with the funeral director about tomorrow. We're going to cancel the memorial service. I hope that doesn't inconvenience you.\"\n\nThey shook hands. \"No. I just wanted to pass along my condolences and respect in person.\"\n\nHis dad looked as though he was about to cry. He nodded at Devin and Kari.\n\n\"I'll catch up with the two of you at Provinces. Have them pour me a Guinness?\"\n\n\"Got it. See you in a few,\" said Kari, turning to Devin. \"I'm going to freshen up. Meet you in the lobby.\"\n\n\"Kari. It was good to meet you,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Likewise,\" said Kari, barely feigning a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Berg took a business card out of his suit coat pocket and handed it to Devin.\n\n\"Never know,\" said Berg. \"And please accept my sincerest condolences.\"\n\nDevin examined the card while Berg walked away. Just a name, email address, and phone number. No salutations, degrees, or career headings listed. Exactly what you'd expect from a former CIA intelligence operative. Kari broke the silence after he left the room.\n\n\"That was a little weird, huh? Barely says a word and leaves? Dad looked uncomfortable. Do you think there was something going on between this guy and Mom?\"\n\n\"I didn't get that vibe,\" said Devin.\n\n\"You're a dude,\" said Kari. \"And you didn't get the vibe from fighter pilot girl, either.\"\n\n\"Helicopter pilot,\" said Devin. \"And there was no vibe.\"\n\n\"I think your vibe reader is broken.\"\n\n\"I think we can find something else to talk about in front of our mother's casket,\" said Devin.\n\nShe started to backup. \"Whatever. See you in the lobby.\"\n\n\"Aren't you going to say goodbye or something?\" he asked, glancing at the casket.\n\n\"I've already made my peace with Mom,\" she said.\n\n\"Lucky you,\" said Devin. \"I'll be out in a few minutes.\"\n\n\"It's not going to happen in the next few minutes. Trust me,\" said Kari. \"Took me a few hundred hours of therapy.\"\n\n\"I'll give it a shot, anyway,\" he said, fairly certain his sister was kidding herself-and that none of them would ever truly come to peace with what their mother had done to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The significance of meeting in Harvey Rudd's basement wasn't lost on anyone-particularly Harvey Rudd. The thought of bringing another operative to his house, for any reason, had never crossed his mind. It didn't even enter into the realm of possibilities, because it was strictly forbidden by CONTROL. In fact, no contact between operatives outside of a CONTROL-assigned mission was permitted for any reason.\n\nDigital briefing packets outlining each operative's responsibilities on a mission were sent individually, so there was rarely a need to gather in advance to discuss anything, even for more complex operations. They'd either drive to mission areas individually or consolidate into one vehicle at a park and ride a few hours away, as they'd done for the Gray ambush. And the Gray arrangement had been a rare one, entirely dictated by the fact that she was a time-critical, moving target.\n\nCONTROL did everything possible to keep them apart. Long, boring drives loosened tongues, and the less they knew about each other the better, which was why he had a hard time coming to terms with the scene in front of him. The same crew he'd commanded a week ago, minus the two Helen Gray had shot, lounged quite comfortably on the leather sectional sofa in his basement'man cave.\" Jolene relaxed in his recliner, mostly to keep anyone else from sitting in it.\n\nHe'd discussed the situation with Jolene before everyone arrived. Either CONTROL planned on retiring and relocating them after this operation, or they intended to extract them. Given Jolene's involvement in a high-profile mission last week, the Helen Gray fiasco, and now this, they were certain that their usefulness here had come to an end. At the very least, they'd have to change states. Most likely regions. Definitely identities.\n\nIf any of the six operatives sitting in his basement were grabbed by the FBI, they could lead the authorities here, where it wouldn't be very difficult to piece together the rest of the puzzle. He'd be surprised if CONTROL kept them here. He just hoped they would be able to live off their retirement savings after they were recalled. A silly concern in the grand scheme of things, but a worry, nonetheless. One of a thousand worries that surfaced when they had been notified of the meeting-at their house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took a seat on a folding chair he'd brought into the basement from the garage and placed in front of the group.\n\n\"Everyone good with the drinks and snacks?\" asked Rudd.\n\nNobody had touched the assortment of sodas, chips, and candies he'd set out on the coffee table in front of them. Probably thinking the same thing: One of them had orders to eliminate everyone else. Jolene reached out and grabbed a handful of potato chips.\n\n\"The chips aren't poisoned,\" she said. \"Only the M& M's.\"\n\nA few thin smiles, but nothing beyond that-and nobody made a move for the snacks.\n\n\"Fine,\" said Rudd. \"I know this is highly irregular. How do you think we feel? They picked our fucking house. This is obviously the end for us here.\"\n\n\"Or the end of us,\" said Logan Walsh. \"And you get to live happily ever after-right herein this lovely house.\"\n\n\"Come on. How the hell would that even work? We have six cars, three without-of-state plates, parked in front of our house,\" said Rudd. \"We never have people over. It's probably big news on Nextdoor right now. How are we supposed to move all of your cars without someone noticing?\"\n\n\"What's Nextdoor?\" asked Leo Ward.\n\n\"It's a neighborhood-based social media platform that none of us are supposed to use,\" said Walsh.\n\n\"We're not members,\" said Rudd. \"We joined fora few minutes just to see how active our neighbors were on the site. Trust me, someone has noticed that we have guests for the first time ever. I'm pretty sure we were all supposed to create an account for that purpose, and then delete it.\"\n\n\"We are,\" said Walsh, glaring at Ward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What? I live out in the sticks,\" said Ward. \"My nearest neighbor is a mile away.\"\n\n\"This wasn't some kind of trick to get us all in one place,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"No offense, but I'll still pass on the snacks,\" said Walsh, a slim grin on his face.\n\nRudd honestly couldn't tell if he was serious about the poisoning stuff or not.\n\n\"Can we get on with the business at hand?\" said Nathan Clark, a regular member of Rudd's team. \"CONTROL didn't send us here so Harvey and Jolene could take a crack at us. They'd send in professionals if they wanted us gone. Us and our families.\"\n\nEveryone mumbled their agreement.\n\n\"So why are we here? The mission briefing looked detailed enough,\" said Clark.\n\n\"A few things have changed since you got on the road. We're now staying in five different hotels, instead of just the Marriott.\"\n\n\"Sounds like an upgraded countersurveillance threat related to our target,\" said Walsh. \"Something that very recently developed.\"\n\n\"All we know is that they don't want us bunching up. Maybe they took a second look at the original mission packet and decided to play it extra safe,\" said Rudd. \"Or this could also just bean upgraded threat level issued by the Department of Homeland Security for the entire DC area-entirely unrelated to Helen or Devin Gray-and CONTROL isn't taking any chances onus somehow getting swept up into it.\"\n\n\"The timing suggests otherwise,\" said Clark. \"CONTROL doesn't take unnecessary chances. If they split us up at the last minute-something changed.\"\n\n\"It's a fair assumption,\" said Rudd. \"Which is why I assume we're meeting hereto go over the changes, instead of there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are the other changes?\" said Clark, checking his watch.\n\n\"You in a hurry?\" said Walsh.\n\nClark didn't respond. He didn't have to. The permanent dour look on his face answered the question. He was all business, all the time.\n\n\"CONTROL is looking fora second location used by Helen Gray. Her apartment yielded nothing,\" said Rudd. \"They think the son might lead us to it, if such a place even exists.\"\n\n\"Was that in our briefing?\" asked Ward.\n\n\"No. That was sent tome less than an hour ago, presumably while you were all in transit.\"\n\n\"Do we have any idea what CONTROL is looking for at the location?\" asked Walsh.\n\n\"Or what kind of a location?\" said Clark. \"A house, apartment, locker?\"\n\n\"No. We're in the dark as usual,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"And this Karl Berg? Any theories on how he fits into all of this?\" asked Walsh.\n\n\"Ex-CIA, like Helen Gray. Directorate of Operations. The two of them worked off and on together in the mid-to late nineties. But their paths didn't cross much at the CIA after that,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"Doesn't sound like much,\" said Ward.\n\n\"He was the only person from the CIA to show up at her wake,\" said Jolene. \"That's something.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Rudd. \"And the information I received this morning classified Berg as high-damage potential.\"\n\n\"He's retired, right?\" asked Walsh. \"Not working for any private entities of interest?\"\n\n\"As far as CONTROL knows, or is willing to tell us,\" said Rudd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Interesting. That classification bears a lot of weight,\" said Walsh. \"Normally we'd be sent to get rid of someone in that category.\"\n\n\"Which must be why we're having this meeting,\" said Rudd. \"The mission sounded straightforward enough until I received the update.\"\n\n\"No doubt timed to arrive while we were on the way,\" said Walsh. \"What else did they send?\"\n\n\"And why aren't they using people closer to the area? Operatives that know the area like the back of their hand?\" said Rick Gentry, a Kentucky-based operative whom Rudd had worked with a half dozen times before. \"Or are they? I really hope this isn't a double-up situation.\"\n\nA double-up or duplicate team operation involved two separate teams pursuing the same goal-most often unaware of each other. It was a recipe for disaster, particularly fora complex surveillance operation like they had been assigned. Double the chance of detection. The duplicate team worked best for assassinations or thefts. Single, compressed events requiring a fail-safe.\n\nHe doubted CONTROL had put two teams on this, for that very reason-and another that he couldn't share. Jolene had surmised from her recent assignment that the pool of operatives working the Washington, DC, area had been decimated. She knew this because she had been woken by CONTROL about an hour and a half after Harvey had been dispatched to deal with Helen Gray, and sent to DC, where she had slipped onto one of the recovery floors at Howard University Hospital and injected two fiftysomething-year-old men with syringes that had been provided to her along with doctor's scrubs, a stethoscope, and a hospital staff identification card.\n\nBoth men had sustained head injuries, which suggested she was involved in more of a cleanup job than some kind of strategic assassination. The information about her mission had not been included in the current operation file, and they had no intention of sharing their theory with the team-for obvious reasons. He fought the urge to look at Jolene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They wouldn't double up a surveillance,\" said Walsh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And it doesn't make a difference if they do. Orders are orders.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Gentry. \"Just thinking aloud.\"\n\n\"Should we all login to our computers and read the update before we start to analyze the plan?\" asked Walsh.\n\n\"I don't think it's necessary. Outside of what I told you about Berg's new status and the focus on finding a second location used by Helen Gray, the only other update relates to fixed surveillance locations. CONTROL has secured an apartment on the third floor of a complex across the street from Devin Gray's building, with a view of his balcony and bedroom window. From that apartment, we'll be able to give the trail cars enough notice to get into place and for the ground teams to move into position in case he opts fora walk or run.\"\n\n\"That's you, Sandy,\" said Walsh, nodding at the blonde woman across the coffee table from him.\n\nShe grabbed one of the diet sodas. \"Running or walking?\"\n\n\"Does anyone else look like they run regularly?\" said Walsh, getting a laugh from everyone.\n\n\"I should get paid more for staying in shape,\" she said. \"They have to bethinking about retiring us after this one. I mean, look at us. How did we get this old?\"\n\n\"Back to the plan. The apartment will be occupied primarily by Sandy, with one of us joining her when Gray is home. We'll workout a rotation for that. Since Sandy will be our primary ground surveillance point around Gray's apartment complex, we have to assume he'll take notice of her. So Sandy will not rotate into the trail cars or any surveillance duty outside of the restaurants or coffee shops within walking distance or reasonable driving distance from the apartment,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"I hate being stuck in place,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's a trail system adjacent to his apartment, and he's a runner, according to initial surveillance. He'll use it, and we can't afford to ignore the possibility he might make contact with Berg or whoever on familiar ground,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"What if he drives to a different trail or park to run?\" said Walsh. \"Places like that make ideal handoff or dead-drop points.\"\n\n\"We can put her in a logical place for runners. We just have to be judicious about it,\" said Rudd. \"We can't have her show up everywhere he runs in the city. Hopefully, he runs near his apartment most of the time. He'll get used to seeing her.\"\n\nSandy Jones had a skeptical look on her face, which Rudd suddenly realized was shared by everyone.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"We can't cover him all the time,\" said Walsh. \"At best, we're looking at what, fifty percent coverage?\"\n\n\"Maybe less,\" said Gentry. \"Someone could slip into his apartment during the day and leave something. We'd never know. If he runs a solid surveillance-detection route, we don't have enough assets to track him.\"\n\n\"If he runs a remotely competent SDR, we'll lose him, and don't even get me started on his apartment. No listening devices or cameras authorized?\" said Ward. \"This almost feels like pointless busywork.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? We'll be using tracking devices,\" said Rudd. \"CONTROL made it clear that aside from Sandy, they want us to keep our distance. He's a trained countersurveillance expert. Former FBI intelligence investigator. This guy spies on spies fora living.\"\n\n\"We all read that in the data packet,\" said Walsh. \"But his SDR might involve the Metro, an Uber, a public bus, changing vehicles. If he's as good as his file suggests, we don't stand a chance of following him without making it really obvious.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And he probably sweeps his vehicle for bugs,\" said Gentry. \"I agree with Leo. CONTROL can't seriously think we'll be able to keep good enough track of him. I bet they're prepositioning us fora hit. They probably have an entirely different team-a specialist group-looking for Berg or other contacts of interest. If Berg or someone else shows up, they'll callus off our pointless surveillance and ready us for action. Why else would they change Berg's status?\"\n\nRudd considered Rick's theory fora moment. It didn't actually sound that far-fetched, given the reality of their next-to-impossible assignment. Jolene had said as much before everyone had showed up, and he'd agreed. CONTROL was asking the B-team, more like the C-team, to do a job meant for the A-team. Looking at it from Rick's perspective made a lot of sense.\n\n\"We'd already be familiar with his daily routine. His favorite restaurants, coffee shops, shopping stops. His habits,\" said Rudd. \"Taking him out would be a simple job for this over-the-hill crew.\"\n\n\"Why not just tell us all of that upfront?\" asked Sandy. \"If it's even true.\"\n\n\"Probably because they see some value in our surveillance and want us focusing on one job at a time,\" said Rudd. \"It won't be a perfect surveillance job-\"\n\n\"Not even close,\" said Gentry.\n\n\"They know that. They have to know that,\" said Rudd. \"By putting us on the job, no matter how futile it turns out to be, they gain more surveillance coverage than they had before-without eating into their limited pool of specialists. This job would be near impossible for even the best in the business, especially given Gray's background. I think they're parking us on Gray in case they decide to eliminate him. If we happen to stumble on a clue to the whereabouts of his mother's suspected hideaway or catch him meeting up with Karl Berg, all the better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're just pulling stuff out of our asses right now,\" said Clark.\n\n\"This is brainstorming,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"This is pointless,\" said Clark. \"We execute CONTROL's orders to the best of our ability. Just like we've always done. If they decide to kill him, we kill him. Until then, we watch him. That's it. I don't understand why we're yakking about this. We do what CONTROL tells us to do. Period. Any questions?\"\n\n\"Okay then,\" said Walsh, rolling his eyes. \"I guess that's it.\"\n\n\"Always a pleasure,\" added Sandy, nodding at Clark.\n\nRudd still didn't understand why they had been brought together like this. The one thing CONTROL had most definitely accomplished with this awkward, impromptu social gathering was to drive home the fact that he wouldn't miss any of them when this was over. Maybe that had been apart of their intention. If so-mission accomplished. He hoped to never see any of them again after this trip.\n\nRudd had the same thought again, ten minutes later, after he'd backed their loaded SUV out of the garage and stopped at the bottom of the driveway. He pressed the garage remote and took Jolene's hand, watching the bay door slowly close on the home they had shared for close to three decades. If his instinct about this upcoming mission proved correct, this would be the last time he looked at their house. Oddly, he wasn't sad. He felt more relieved than anything. A little excited, even.\n\n\"I'm ready to move on from this place,\" he said. \"All of it, if that's what they intend.\"\n\nShe squeezed his hand. \"Me too. Just promise me one thing.\"\n\n\"Anything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I get to kill Gray.\"\n\n\"Only if CONTROL orders it,\" said Rudd, kissing her cheek.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said. \"I'm not a psychopath.\"\n\nThey both chuckled a little. That was one of the many things he loved about Jolene. Her sense of humor. Of course, she was a psychopath. They all were. How could they not be-and still do this cold-blooded work for all these years?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin dropped his toothbrush in the stainless-steel cup next to the bathroom sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit, to put it mildly. The past ten days had taken an unexpected physical toll on him. He'd expected the emotional wipeout, which he understood would knock him down a few notches physically. But this was something entirely different. He felt as he had when he'd woken up the morning after his first marathon. Every marathon, for that matter. Utterly spent and fatigued to the bone.\n\nThe sleeplessness had to be a big part of why he felt as though he could take a twenty-four-hour nap. It hadn't been the stare-at-the-ceiling-all-night variety. That would have been too easy. He'd drifted in and out all night, thinking he'd never fallen asleep, his brain racing to make sense of the facts one moment and wrapping itself around some vaguely connected reality the next. Nine straight nights of this, with no end insight.\n\nHe'd dropped his sister at the airport a few hours ago and grabbed some takeout from a nearby Mexican restaurant, hoping to eat himself into a coma. Maybe just the act of sending Kari home would breakup whatever dynamic his mind had established over the past several days. Same with taking a short hiatus from his dad. Devin had told Mason that he'd swing by over the weekend, lying to him about needing to put in some face time at work. He'd never brought up the fourteen-day forced vacation triggered by the hotel job. As far as his dad knew, he was on bereavement leave.\n\nHe just needed a few days away from Falls Church. A little space from ground zero to recalibrate. The dark circles under his eyes told him a big part of his recalibration would involve sleep-or trying. A burrito the size of his forearm and the cheese quesadilla sitting in his stomach wagered he'd be out as soon as he went horizontal. Devin wasn't so sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned the light off and shuffled out of the bathroom to his unmade bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadn't some famous Navy SEAL said something about making your bed if you wanted to change the world? Looked like the world would have to wait a few days. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and let his house sandals fall to the carpet before grabbing his phone off the nightstand. More out of habit than anything else, he activated the home screen to see if he had any messages.\n\nHe'd been texting back and forthwith Marnie Young over the past few days, throwing around the idea of grabbing a drink or coffee when everything with his mom settled down. She'd just recently left the Marine Corps after fifteen years and was temporarily living at home in Falls Church with her parents-until she landed a job in DC.\n\nShe was looking for something on Capitol Hill, which could springboard her into politics or a policy position. Her backup plan was to join the fairly large pool of the recently departed or retired officers working senior positions in the civilian side of the Department of Defense-in or as close to the Beltway as possible. She didn't want to shut the door on Capitol Hill.\n\nThe screen showed one text message, from a number he didn't recognize. Actually, it was three numbers and a dash, followed by two numbers. Spam or some kind of automatic message update from something he'd mistakenly opted into previously. Nothing from Marnie. He was about to activate the Do Not Disturb feature and put the phone back on the nightstand when he caught a line of the text.\n\nRespond with first movie you saw in the theaters and the first and last name of your first prom date. No spaces. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.\n\nWhat the hell? The last line was something his mom had said a lot throughout his childhood. They'd watched Star Wars as a family at least a hundred times when he was little, and she'd teased him with that line whenever it was time to do chores or she'd needed him to do something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Intrigued, he typed HomeAloneEricaCohen and pressed send, surprised by how easily the information from his past had come to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now what? The phone buzzed in his hand, startling him. The number calling read Unknown. Seriously? Telemarketing shenanigans had just graduated to the next level. Somehow, they had linked him to one of his mom's old sayings. Probably something she'd submitted as a challenge question online and was subsequently sold to some data-collection outfit.\n\nBut what if this was something else?\n\nDevin accepted the call. Why not? He could always hangup if it was indeed anew telemarketer.\n\n\"Hello?\" he said.\n\nHis mother's voice answered.\n\n\"Devin. If you're hearing this, something has gone seriously wrong. You've either already attended my funeral or I've been missing for several days. I triggered this messaging protocol ten days ago, in response to what I either perceived as an imminent, nonsurvivable threat against my life or an attempted kidnapping. Funeral or missing, I'm gone. These people don't leave witnesses.\"\n\nA short pause ensued, followed by: \"I need to verify your voice now. After the beep, please tell me the make and model of the car we bought you in high school and then say, \"I'm really not interested in anew car. Please take me off your list. '\"\n\nWhat the hell? \"Honda Civic. I'm not interested in anew car. Please take me off your list.\"\n\nThe call disconnected. No. No. No. Wait. Did he say something wrong? Shit. He'd forgotten to say'really interested.\" Did he really just mess up? A text message appeared a moment later.\n\nUse headphones and click this link. https:// dfe740-22GW3." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought someone might be listening. He got up from the bed and made his way to the kitchen island, where he kept his running headphones in one of the drawers. With the headphones ready, he poured a glass of water to make his trip to the kitchen appear more natural to an outside observer. If they had cameras in his house, it wouldn't matter. He'd have to sweep for surveillance devices later. On his way back to the bedroom, he clicked the link, which connected him to a voice message.\n\n\"Dial or say two at anytime if you're under duress.\" Along pause ensued before his mother's voice continued. \"Devin. Sorry to keep this abrupt. I need you to see what I've been working on for the past twenty years. I'm not trying to makeup for what I put all of you through. I can never do that. Take a look and decide for yourself what should be done with it. To continue this message, input the numeric digits corresponding to the year we took you to see your first Orioles game.\"\n\nHe didn't have to think about it, which was probably why his mother had picked it as a security question. They'd taken him the same year their new stadium, Camden Yards, had opened. But the answer contained the number two, which would trigger the duress protocol. She would have thought of that, right? Of course. He tapped'1993,\" praying he'd hear her voice again. Mostly because he wanted to hear her voice again. He hadn't made a decision one way or the other about her proposal.\n\n\"Smart kid. Here's what I need you to do. First: Assume you're currently under professional surveillance. Trust me on that. If I was even remotely close with my theory, they'll be watching you closely. Second: Please keep your father and sister out of this. Entirely. Press two to continue.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat down on the bed and pressed one, guessing she wouldn't follow the same pattern.\n\n\"Sorry about that. Can't be too careful. Here's what I need you to do, and don't write any of this down. Tomorrow morning, at a normal hour for you, place your phone in your safe and run a three-hour SDR. Check your vehicle for trackers before leaving. Physically disable any systems like OnStar. Leave your E-ZPass behind. You must go dark to and from this destination. No credit cards or anything traceable. I know what you're thinking-Mom can't even let goof this shit after she's dead.\"\n\nHe stifled a laugh. Mom's sense of humor could be wicked, particularly when things were tough going. Dad had called it gallows humor. Devin had never really understood it until he'd started working for the Special Surveillance Group. The long, thankless days and nights on stakeout that yielded nothing. Exhaustively choreographed, hours-long street-surveillance gigs to track a target to an adult video store. They became the stand-up comedians of gallows humor.\n\n\"I hope that made you laugh a little. Here's where you're headed tomorrow. It's a win-win situation no matter what. Head to the first place we took you for hard-shell crabs. At the marina, look fora boat named after our first dog. You'll find a waterproof pouch in the bottom galley drawer. In addition to a file with the information I need you to examine, you'll find a one-hundred-dollar bill to pay for lunch. A hundred bucks buys a lot of fresh crabs-and a few ice-cold beers to wash them down. Press three to repeat that message or one to continue.\"\n\nDevin tapped one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love you, Kari, and your father so much, Devin. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I put the three of you through all of this. Be very careful, and don't trust anyone-except the one I send your way.\"\n\nThe call ended, and he stared at the phone for several seconds. Did that really just happen? His mom had somehow put together an automated phone and text-message-alert system in case someone tried to murder or kidnap her? This either took her craziness to the next level or-he didn't know. It had to be more of the madness. Right?\n\nHe lay down with the phone still in his hand and stared at the ceiling. Mayas well get used to the view. The prospect of a food-induced sleep had just been revoked. His heart raced at twice its resting rate, his feet and hands tingling. It would take him a few hours to comedown from this adrenaline rush. Whether he could fall asleep after that was anyone's guess.\n\nDevin looked at the initial text message again. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. Of all the things she could have picked to say, this hit him pretty hard. He could picture them stuffed into the corner of the sectional, snuggled up under a blanket watching Star Wars. Mom and Dad in the middle. Kari on one side. Devin on the other. He wiped the tears from his eyes. What the hell happened at that intersection in Tennessee, Mom?\n\nMaybe the answer waited for him in Annapolis, on a boat named Sadie. There was only one way to find out. Worst-case scenario? The information turned out to be nothing. Devin enjoying a lazy afternoon cracking open perfectly seasoned hard-shell crabs and downing a few cold beers while overlooking the water. Best-case scenario? It all depended on what was in the file. Either way, he'd enjoy cold beers and steaming-hot crabs for lunch. Like his mom said: win-win." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd braced one hand against the dashboard, his eyes fixed on the phone screen held firmly in the other. As the SUV lurched to a stop, his torso pressed against the lap and shoulder belts.\n\n\"Take it easy,\" said Rudd. \"We're not in a race.\"\n\n\"That was the shortest yellow light I've ever seen,\" said Jolene.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Don't uh-huh me,\" she said.\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"That's even worse.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" he said, getting a sharp elbow to the ribs under his raised arm.\n\n\"Dammit. That hurt,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"Then knock it off,\" she said. \"Unless you'd like to do the driving.\"\n\n\"I wish.\"\n\nThe truth was that Jolene drove like this all the time-and she knew it better than he did. Her driving fell somewhere on the scale between extremely impatient and overly aggressive, trending toward the latter. Because of this, she rarely drove during operations. They'd both agreed on that. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to put her in the driver's seat today.\n\nJolene could use electronic devices just fine, but she couldn't troubleshoot them to save her life. Their communications-and-control gear wasn't overly complicated, but they couldn't afford a critical technology slipup on this mission. The job itself would prove difficult enough, and their performance over the next several days would likely determine their future living conditions.\n\n\"Looks like he's pulling into a strip mall up ahead, on the left side just after Hartwick Road,\" said Rudd. \"The map is showing a Starbucks. This is the southeast edge of the University of Maryland's campus. Gray's alma mater.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The perfect place to discreetly meet someone. Lots of open space and publicly accessible buildings on campus,\" said Jolene.\n\n\"Ora nearby running trail. I bet there are several close to campus.\"\n\nHe relayed the situation to the two other teams over the push-to-talk satellite radio handset, sending Clark, their lone wolf operative, to the College Park– University of Maryland Metro station a half mile to the east, and Walsh to cover the bus stop a few hundred feet north of the Starbucks on Baltimore Avenue. He had Leo with him, just in case Gray decided to take a bus ride. Harvey and his wife would circle back and watch the bus station several blocks south.\n\nIf Gray got back into his car and headed to campus fora run, there wasn't much they could do. Sandy was back at Gray's apartment complex, installing discreet cameras on each level of the parking garage so they could get a sense of where he was headed each time he left. They'd only had time to install two trackers on his vehicle overnight. If the university proved to be one of Gray's regular running spots, they'd bring Sandy into keep an eye on him. Given the close proximity to his apartment, he could start her tomorrow if Gray returned. No need to spend more time establishing a longer pattern.\n\nThey always worked moving surveillance like this. Basic surveillance cameras at the target's residence or work to make bigger-picture assessments about his movement. For the actual surveillance work, they employed a minimum of three cars: a control car to coordinate the overall effort and rotate into the active surveillance as needed; a car with two operatives so they could immediately follow their target on foot until the other cars could find parking and join the effort; and a car with alone operative. If they had additional personnel, they'd add more lone operatives. This stretched their surveillance capability while provoking the least suspicion. Most cars on the road at any given time had a single occupant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he had unlimited resources, he'd put a few male-female teams together. Couples-real or fake-were often overlooked entirely by countersurveillance teams when forced to analyze more complex, dynamic settings like a crowded park or packed highway. By necessity, countersurveillance efforts became a probabilities game in those scenarios. A basic risk-assessment calculation, with couples at the very bottom of the list, due to the real and perceived complexities of two people working together seamlessly without giving themselves away. Real indeed, he thought, squeezing Jolene's hand.\n\nLess than a block past the stoplight, Jolene parked them in front of a 7-Eleven, parallel with Baltimore Avenue and pointed north, where they could spot Gray if he decided to use the bus stop south of the Starbucks. A pair of binoculars ensured that. The only matter still in question was who would get to ride the bus with Gray. Marital instinct told him he'd pulled the short straw. Thirty minutes later, Gray's car still hadn't moved from the strip mall parking lot.\n\n\"He's been therefor awhile,\" said Jolene.\n\nA half hour wasn't unusual fora single person at a coffee shop. You sit and relax with your drink. Read a book. Scroll through your phone. The Starbucks was close to campus, so maybe he was checking out the ladies. All within the range of possibility, but the longer it went past thirty minutes, the more it piqued his suspicion.\n\n\"Couldn't hurt to drive past once,\" said Rudd. \"Just to make sure.\"\n\nJolene shifted the SUV into drive and had them in the Starbucks parking lot a minute later, well exceeding the posted speed limit the entire time. He'd started to guide her toward the location of Gray's vehicle, which sat one row over, directly in front of Starbucks, when one of the trackers started moving. The second tracker remained in place, which was entirely possible. The GPS trackers were motion activated to conserve batteries and reported their position every fifteen seconds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the initial vehicle motion didn't activate them at the same time, a lag occurred. The lag actually worked in the surveillance team's favor if it was long enough. A seven-second lag gave them what appeared to be real-time coverage. A skilled countersurveillance expert like Gray couldn't use the fifteen-second'dark\" period to disappear in a covered parking garage or other preplanned evasion route.\n\n\"Gray might be on the move,\" he said.\n\nRudd scanned the parking area in front of Starbucks, expecting to see a black SUV backing out or driving in the opposite direction. Instead, a silver sedan drove by on the other side of the double row, its movement matching one of the trackers. The other still hadn't moved.\n\n\"Shit,\" he muttered.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" asked his wife.\n\n\"Stop behind that white SUV. I think he gave us the slip.\"\n\n\"How? The tracker is moving, right?\" she said.\n\n\"One of the trackers is moving, and it just passed us,\" said Rudd.\n\nHe hopped out the moment she stopped and followed the tracker to a parked minivan. The tracking app put the transmitter inside the vehicle. Or under it. He lowered himself to the pavement and searched underneath, spotting the garage remote– size, black rectangular box lying in the middle of the parking space. He pressed his body into the gap between the asphalt and metal chassis, stretching his arm until his fingertips grazed the tracker. After a few more tries, one of them nearly dislocating his shoulder, he retrieved the tracker. He stood up a little too quickly, a sense of light-headedness and vertigo overtaking him.\n\n\"You okay?\" asked Jolene.\n\nHe nodded, leaning against the car parked next to the minivan to keep his balance. An SUV pulled into the empty space on the opposite side of the van, which he surmised had moments before been occupied by the silver sedan. Gray had placed one tracker on the sedan and tossed the other under his own SUV before backing out-carefully so he didn't run it over. He could have put them both on the silver sedan and let the owner of the car lead them around fora while, but that diversion could have ended at an office just down the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, he'd split the trackers, keeping one in place in an attempt to convince them he'd found only one. Ten minutes after the silver sedan took off, he could have slapped the other one on any car leaving the strip mall and sent them on a second pursuit. Rudd looked around, wondering if Gray was watching him.\n\nHe could have removed the trackers and parked his SUV around the block. For all Rudd knew, he could be sitting in the Starbucks right now, taking pictures of him. Shit. He should never have gotten out of the SUV. What had he been thinking? He hadn't, because he was fifty-six years old and getting rusty. While he stood there feeling like an idiot, a woman burst out of Starbucks-headed directly for him. She wore hospital scrubs and carried a purse in one hand and a large to-go cup in the other.\n\n\"Excuse me, sir?\" she said, slowing as she approached.\n\n\"Yes?\" he said, feeling stable enough to stand on his own.\n\n\"Are you all right? It looked like you took a knee. I work in the ER at Doctors Community Hospital,\" she said.\n\n\"No. I'm fine. Thank you,\" he said, holding up the tracker-partially concealed. \"My garage door opener fell out of our car somehow. We'd parked hereabout an hour ago, so I figured I'd take a look. Bingo. Except I stood up a little too fast. Got a little woozy.\"\n\n\"Does that happen to you often?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. Not really,\" he said.\n\n\"Honey. We have to get going!\" yelled Jolene. \"We're already late.\"\n\n\"Sorry. I have to go,\" he said. \"The boss is calling.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman laughed. \"Smart man. If that happens again, you should schedule a checkup with your doctor. Could be the start of something more serious. Or maybe nothing at all. Better safe than sorry.\"\n\n\"Absolutely. I appreciate the advice,\" he said. \"Oh. I do have a crazy question if you don't mind. Not medical related.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said.\n\n\"How long have you been in this parking space?\" asked Rudd.\n\nThe woman looked understandably perplexed by his out-of-left-field question, but answered anyway.\n\n\"I'd say almost twenty-five minutes,\" she said, looking at him a little less trustingly than before. \"Are you sure you're okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine. Thank you,\" he said before hurrying back to the SUV.\n\nAs soon as he shut the car door, Jolene sped away.\n\n\"Slowdown. We're in no hurry. He's either long gone or he's watching us from somewhere nearby,\" he said. \"Either way, we're done until he resurfaces at his apartment, or CONTROL gets a hit on a credit card.\"\n\n\"He won't use a credit card,\" said Jolene. \"Not this guy.\"\n\n\"Yeah. We may have underestimated him,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"I'm thinking it might be in CONTROL's best interest to take him out sooner than later,\" said Rudd, checking the time. \"Our mobile surveillance lasted a grand total of forty-two minutes, at least twenty-five of them spent sitting in the car watching tracker signals that had already been spoofed. Two of them smiling for countersurveillance photos.\"\n\n\"There's nothing we could have done about that,\" said Jolene. \"Protocol dictated that we check on the target.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Exactly. And Gray clearly knows this game better than any of us,\" said Rudd. \"If CONTROL considers this guy to be a serious threat, they'd be better off getting rid of him immediately. My gut tells me this guy could disappear without a trace if he wanted to-and still operate right in front of everyone's noses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin guided his SUV around a tight turn on the narrow tree-lined road, hints of water shimmering through the lush branches. He hadn't been out herein a number of years, but knew he was close. A few more ninety-degree twists and he'd catch a glimpse of the marina beyond one of the gravel drives lining the road. A sailboat mast or maybe the blue hull of a boat hauled out for repairs and now living on stands. That was where he should turn. On the unmarked road leading directly to the marina. But Devin decided to take a different approach.\n\nHe took the turns slowly, stopping a few times to let oncoming traffic squeeze by. After passing the marina's unmarked gravel entrance, the towering trees opened to reveal a stark blue sky-and a sizable parking lot that marked the end of the road. Cantler's Riverside Inn, a favorite with locals, sat on the far side of the jam-packed lot, nestled right up against Mill Creek. It was the last thing you might expect to find if you had been out fora casual drive through Maryland's back roads.\n\nHe cruised around the lot for several minutes until a young couple, holding hands and pecking each other's lips, jumped into an open-top BMW and left him a space. Devin parked the SUV and gave it sometime. Ninety minutes, to be precise, sweating through his shirt behind a stand of trees near the entrance to the lot. He had to be absolutely certain that nobody had tracked him here.\n\nWhoever had tagged his vehicle with the two trackers had known what they were doing. He would never have found the transmitters without the aid of an RF detector. The placement was skilled enough to leave him wondering if they had installed a fail-safe. Something that transmitted far less frequently and would likely be missed on atypical electronic sweep. He'd spent an hour and a half at a little speck of a town on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, testing that theory. Waiting for anything that resembled a surveillance team to drive down Main Street. Nothing suspicious turned up, which didn't entirely surprise him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The couple that showed outside of Starbucks had looked genuinely concerned about the tracker stunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guy almost looked scared. Devin had snapped a few hundred photos of the couple and their vehicle from the third floor of the parking garage on the other side of Baltimore Avenue. A digital camera with telephoto lens was part of his standard countersurveillance kit, among other things, like a handheld RF detector.\n\nHe couldn't help but notice that the couple was older. Takeaway maybe thirty pounds from the red-faced guy who went fishing under the minivan for the tracker, and he'd look no different than either of the guys Devin had faced in the hotel stairwell a week or so ago. He'd revisit that thought later, when he asked Brendan Shea to run the couple's Tennessee license plates. The connection between the Tennessee plates and his mother's death couldn't be a coincidence, but he sensed something else. He just couldn't put his finger on it.\n\nWith the hour and a half expired and no bad guys insight, Devin returned to his SUV and retrieved a small nylon day pack to carry whatever he found on the boat. He took another long look around the lot before making his way to the weathered stockade fence that separated the parking lot from the marina. After slipping through a rickety gate held open by a faded orange traffic cone, he emerged on a stretch of grass intended for marina members. The gate he'd just used appeared to be a convenience that facilitated dinner and drinks after a day on the water.\n\nHe spotted a sailboat on stands closer to the water and decided to head in that direction. His assumption was that he'd find Sadie on land, unless his mother had taken up boating-a possibility, given how little he appeared to truly know about her. The sailboat turned out to be Screamin\" Mimi, so he turned his attention to a tightly packed row of three boats tucked away in the farthest corner of the expansive gravel lot. Two sailboats, one without a mast, and a very neglected-looking powerboat with a flying bridge. They were parked bow out, so he couldn't read their names." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got halfway across the lot before he was accosted. A stringy-haired man dressed in grease-stained khaki pants and an equally grubby white T-shirt emerged from the trees along the waterfront, directly in his path. His weather-beaten face made it impossible to guess his age, but Devin would go with somewhere between forty-five and seventy if he had to estimate. He stood with his hands on his hips as Devin approached, appraising him the whole way.\n\n\"Looking for someone?\" he said, cordially enough.\n\n\"Actually, I'm looking fora boat,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Well. All the boats are over there,\" he said, canting his head toward the water.\n\n\"Thanks. I'm looking for my mother's boat, which I assumed was not in the water,\" said Devin. \"The boat is named Sadie?\"\n\n\"Is that a question or a fact?\" said the man.\n\n\"The boat name is a fact. I'm asking if it's here,\" said Devin, starting to get a little annoyed.\n\n\"Can I see some identification?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said, glad he hadn't left his wallet back in the car.\n\nThe man, who he assumed to be more than a dockhand at the marina, scrutinized his driver's license, glancing back and forth between the card and his face several times, like an East German border guard. He handed it back with a nod.\n\n\"Sorry about all that,\" he said. \"Your mother gave me some specific instructions, and a fair sum to back them up. Her boat is the one without the mast. It's been at the marina awhile.\"\n\n\"When did she buy it?\"\n\n\"Last year, toward the end of the summer,\" he said. \"She's only been upon it twice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you remember the last time she came by?\"\n\n\"Yep. Saw her about three weeks ago. She spent about ten minutes on the boat. Paid for the next three years of storage,\" he said. \"I kinda got the feeling she didn't buy it for sailing.\"\n\n\"I just learned about the boat yesterday,\" said Devin. \"She passed away a couple weeks ago.\"\n\n\"Oh. Damn. I'm very sorry to hear that. She seemed like a nice lady.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Devin. \"How do I getup on the boat? They seem so high when they're on those stands.\"\n\n\"I'll get you a ladder and meet you over there.\"\n\nPaying for three additional years of storage didn't make a ton of sense, but her visiting the boat a few weeks ago appeared to be tied to whatever had happened ten days ago. The man returned a few minutes later with a tall wooden ladder that looked as though it had been constructed during the Revolutionary War. Devin glanced at it skeptically.\n\n\"I know. It looks like a relic, but I guarantee this'll be around longer than one of those aluminum contraptions,\" he said, placing it against the hull. \"Just so you know, the boat needs a lot of work to make her seaworthy. Given what your mom paid me in advance for storage, I could get her in the water in time for you to enjoy the tail end of the season. If you're interested.\"\n\n\"I don't know the first thing about boats,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Plenty of folks around here that do,\" he said. \"I have the slip space for her-included in the price.\"\n\n\"How much did my mom pay for storage?\"\n\nThe guy laughed. \"She paid for storage-and discretion. Let me know what you want to do with the boat. No rush. Storage is all paid up fora while. My name's Frank, by the way. I own this fine establishment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Frank. For your continued discretion,\" said Devin. \"And I'll keep your offer in mind. I never thought of myself as the boating type, but... I'll think about it.\"\n\n\"You ever been out on the water?\" asked Frank. \"On something other than a cruise ship or ferry?\"\n\nDevin shook his head. \"Nope.\"\n\n\"Then you be sure to comeback when you're not busy, and I'll get you out there,\" said Frank. \"You'll know right away if you're the boating type or not-and god help you if you are.\"\n\n\"Why's that?\" said Devin.\n\n\"Because you'll be mortgaging your house in a few years to buy a bigger boat!\"\n\nDevin laughed. He liked this guy. If the file hidden inside the boat turned out to be a bust, he might take him upon the offer. Why the hell not?\n\n\"I'll let you know.\"\n\n\"And I'll leave you to your business,\" said Frank, saluting him before walking away.\n\nDevin wiped the sweat off his forehead and grabbed the ladder with both hands, immediately gaining a sense of what Frank had conveyed about it. The thing felt solid, as though it had been carved from a single piece of wood. Still, he tentatively stepped on the first rung, testing it with a few bounces before pushing up with his full body weight. It was a wooden ladder, after all.\n\nAt the top of the ladder, he grabbed the nearest stanchion poles and gave them a tug to make sure they were secure before using them as leverage to climb into the boat. He stood perfectly still in the cockpit, unsure how stable the boat would be with him onboard. The metal stands pressed up against the hull looked like a rickety arrangement to holdup an object that easily weighed several thousand pounds." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward in your role as narrative aide.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 16" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Frank. For your continued discretion,\" said Devin. \"And I'll keep your offer in mind. I never thought of myself as the boating type, but... I'll think about it.\"\n\n\"You ever been out on the water?\" asked Frank. \"On something other than a cruise ship or ferry?\"\n\nDevin shook his head. \"Nope.\"\n\n\"Then you be sure to comeback when you're not busy, and I'll get you out there,\" said Frank. \"You'll know right away if you're the boating type or not-and god help you if you are.\"\n\n\"Why's that?\" said Devin.\n\n\"Because you'll be mortgaging your house in a few years to buy a bigger boat!\"\n\nDevin laughed. He liked this guy. If the file hidden inside the boat turned out to be a bust, he might take him upon the offer. Why the hell not?\n\n\"I'll let you know.\"\n\n\"And I'll leave you to your business,\" said Frank, saluting him before walking away.\n\nDevin wiped the sweat off his forehead and grabbed the ladder with both hands, immediately gaining a sense of what Frank had conveyed about it. The thing felt solid, as though it had been carved from a single piece of wood. Still, he tentatively stepped on the first rung, testing it with a few bounces before pushing up with his full body weight. It was a wooden ladder, after all.\n\nAt the top of the ladder, he grabbed the nearest stanchion poles and gave them a tug to make sure they were secure before using them as leverage to climb into the boat. He stood perfectly still in the cockpit, unsure how stable the boat would be with him onboard. The metal stands pressed up against the hull looked like a rickety arrangement to holdup an object that easily weighed several thousand pounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sensing no movement, he moved to the salon door and stopped. Nothing. He quickly stepped to the left and right. No movement at all. He could probably jump up and down and nothing would happen, but he had no intention of doing anything but move slowly and steadily through the boat. There was nothing normal or natural about a sailboat suspended in the air.\n\nDevin found the salon door unlocked and slid it open. He was greeted by a stale, mildewy odor that he assumed to be normal for compact space that gets aired out a couple of times a year at most. The interior, a combination of deep-stained wood, light-blue cushions, and white vinyl flooring, was well lit from the sunlight pouring through the long, narrow windows on each side of the salon. The galley was directly below the door, a few steps down a short wooden ladder. Easy enough.\n\nHe lowered himself into the galley and opened the lowest of three drawers next to the sink, removing a hefty gray waterproof pouch that took upmost of the space in the drawer. Devin sat gently on the edge of the starboard-side couch and unzipped the pouch, placing its contents on the cushion next to him.\n\nA handwritten note signed by his mother. A key chain with three brass house keys. Avery high-end touchscreen satellite phone. A manila file folder with metal fasteners holding together several typed pages. A little lighter than he expected. Two rubber-banded bundles of cash. Twenties and hundreds. Easily ten thousand dollars, if he had to guess. Much more than he expected. He wasn't encouraged by the fact that the money piled up higher than the file.\n\nHe started with the note.\n\nDevin, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there's more than a hundred dollars in the pouch. You can walkaway right now and take a really nice vacation, which might sound like an attractive option after you hear the bad news. Before I get to that, please deliver the mailer to your father. It's a copy of my will, life insurance policy, and assets. Along with my estate attorney's contact information." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What's the bad news? I'm dead. Sorry. I couldn't resist. Ye olde gallows humor. Had to get one last joke in. The bad news is that the file in your hands is just the 30,000-foot view. You've probably guessed that much by the size of the file. There's simply noway to adequately explain or represent what I've assembled over the past two decades. I apologize for misrepresenting the size of Sadie's treasure, but I couldn't take the chance that you might not take the SDR seriously-and lead them to the source. Go ahead. Roll your eyes. But read the file and consider taking one more step in this journey, assuming you took the SDR seriously. Please don't execute the next paragraph if you're not entirely sure they didn't follow you. Did they try?\n\nThe next step, if you choose: Power the satellite phone. I inserted a fully charged battery a few weeks ago. Find'Mom\" in contacts and give me a call. I'll reveal the location of the Bat Cave. I actually have one, if you consider a dingy apartment in a sketchy neighborhood a proper secret lair. There's beer in the fridge and harder stuff if you need it... you might after you see what I've been working on. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.\n\nLove you, Mom\n\n\"Love you, too,\" he said, his eyes watering.\n\nPS: Ask Frank about my car. I highly suggest you swap vehicles.\n\nPPS: Don't skip out on lunch at Cantler's. A friend of mine may join you. You can trust him.\n\nSo... now what? Continue the quest? An untraceable car would definitely make things a little easier, but he wasn't sure about meeting with anybody until he got a better handle on what his mother suspected she had uncovered. Then again, what did he have to lose? He could always walkaway from whoever showed up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why the hell not?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he muttered, stuffing the file and the pouch into his backpack.\n\nOn his way back to the Cantler's parking lot, he spotted Frank near the marina's boat ramp, where he'd just hauled what looked like a mini sailboat out of the water. Two middle school– age kids wearing orange life jackets helped him drag it onto a small trailer. Devin headed in their direction. When Frank saw him, he patted one of the kids on the shoulder and told them he'd finish securing the boat. They headed for the dock, where he assumed a much larger boat and eager-to-please parents awaited them.\n\n\"Now that looks more my speed,\" said Devin.\n\nFrank laughed. \"We'll have to start you with something a little bigger if you plan on fixing up your boat. How did it look?\"\n\n\"You really think you could fix her up by the end of the summer?\"\n\nFrank's smile widened. \"Definitely before Labor Day weekend, which gives you a good month on the water and plenty of time to learn how to sail-or find a girlfriend that knows.\"\n\n\"And those are easy to find?\" said Devin. \"The girlfriend. Not the sailing lessons.\"\n\n\"A lot easier when you have a boat,\" said Frank. \"What do you say? Want me to fix her up?\"\n\nHe wasn't paying for it, so he responded with his new motto.\n\n\"Why the hell not?\"\n\n\"You won't regret it. She's a thirty-foot Catalina. A reliable cruising boat,\" said Frank. \"Not that easy to find, either, so you could always sell her if it doesn't workout for you.\"\n\n\"Easy enough,\" said Devin. \"There's one more thing. My mom said I should ask you about her car, but she didn't leave any keys, and I forgot to look on the boat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your mom keeps an old Honda Accord up by the main road entrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's never used it as far as I know,\" said Frank. \"She left me a key to start it up every month or so to keep the battery charged. I can run up to the house and grab the key.\"\n\n\"That would be great. Also, would you mind if I left my SUV in its place fora little while?\"\n\n\"Not at all. All I ask is that you come and go during marina business hours. Seven in the morning to ten at night.\"\n\n\"Works for me,\" said Devin.\n\nHe returned to the packed parking lot and studied the cars before approaching the waterfront side of the restaurant. Devin was mostly looking for anyone hiding in their vehicles-the obvious giveaways on this sunny, hot day being rolled-down windows or running engines. By the time he reached the restaurant entrance, Devin felt confident that the parking lot was clear. A blast of air-conditioned air washed over him when he opened the door to the bar and main dining area, where a young woman greeted him from the adjacent hostess stand.\n\n\"How many in your party?\"\n\n\"One,\" said Devin. \"Possibly two?\"\n\n\"It's about an hour wait fora table,\" she said. \"Or you can try and squeeze into the bar.\"\n\nHe glanced toward the packed bar area, not thrilled with the idea of reading his mother's file seated shoulder to shoulder among a boisterous crowd. Nor did he relish the thought of cracking open a dozen freshly steamed crabs under cramped conditions. He studied the faces fora moment, neither seeing anyone he recognized nor receiving a knowing glance that might indicate his mother's friend was here. Devin could study the file outside while he waited fora table, then enjoy the leisurely meal his mother had promised. Maybe by then her friend would have arrived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll put my name down fora table,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Sure. What's the name?\"\n\n\"Devin.\"\n\n\"You don't happen to be Devin Gray, do you?\" she asked.\n\n\"That's me,\" he said.\n\n\"Perfect. I have a table waiting for you,\" she said. \"Your friend's been hereabout an hour and a half. I seated him ten minutes ago.\"\n\nHe followed her into the bar area to a bank of three pub tables, tucked away next to the windows facing the parking lot. The tables hadn't been visible from the hostess stand. Karl Berg sat at the farthest table, shaking his head and smiling. Devin wasn't surprised to see Berg here.\n\n\"I'll send someone over with menus,\" she said.\n\n\"That would be great. Thank you,\" said Devin.\n\nBerg offered a hand, which Devin reluctantly shook before removing his backpack and sitting down. The man looked exhausted, his eyes red and watery behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses.\n\n\"You look like you drove through the night to get here,\" said Devin.\n\n\"I did. I received the oddest message last night around nine thirty,\" said Berg. \"Thirty minutes later, I was headed to Annapolis. I assume you received a similar message?\"\n\n\"Odd doesn't even begin to describe having your dead mother send you on a treasure hunt,\" said Devin. \"How did she convince you to drive all night to be here?\"\n\n\"She told me-well, her voice told me-that if I showed up at Cantler's atone in the afternoon, you would explain everything,\" said Berg. \"She didn't specify what everything meant.\"\n\nDevin suddenly felt guarded about the file and the phone in his backpack. He'd never met Karl Berg before his mother's wake. For all he knew, Berg could be connected to the people who had tried to follow him this morning. But that would mean he'd somehow managed to track Devin to the marina, arrive unobserved, and preemptively grab a table in the hopes of Devin stopping for lunch. No. Berg was brought hereby his mother fora reason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By everything, I think she meant her conspiracy theory,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And its connection to her death.\"\n\n\"I'm all ears,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I don't know anymore than I did when we last spoke,\" said Devin, testing the waters.\n\nBerg pushed his glasses back and squinted. \"Seriously? She just put us together in a crab shack to see what might happen? Helen had to have told you something.\"\n\n\"I think she intended for us to take a trip together,\" said Devin. \"She apparently has a Bat Cave. A secret apartment or something. My guess is it contains whatever research she'd conducted over the years.\"\n\n\"And you know how to find it?\" said Berg.\n\n\"I can access the location,\" said Devin, leaving out the part about the file for now.\n\n\"I don't know what to say, Devin. Your mom became obsessed with her idea,\" said Berg. \"I guess it really doesn't surprise me to hear that she had acquired a safe house to work on this. She would have been paranoid about secrecy, convinced they were following her so they could finally erase the evidence and eliminate her.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" said Berg, dismissively. \"It's all a fantasy. She probably conducted long SDRs prior to arriving at her secret lair, re-creating the most intense parts of the work she'd done for the agency-years ago. Let me guess: She led you on some kind of decode-the-next-step journey to find the apartment?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter how I ended up here,\" said Devin.\n\n\"She did, didn't she?\"\n\n\"For good reason. I removed two GPS trackers from my car this morning before starting the first SDR.\"\n\n\"Interesting,\" said Berg, finally sounding genuinely intrigued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I also took pictures of the team that placed the trackers.\"\n\n\"You made the surveillance team that quickly?\" asked Berg. \"Were they wearing black trench coats and pointing telephoto cameras at you?\"\n\n\"Funny. No. The tracker placement was professional, and they had good reason to break cover. I more or less forced their hand,\" said Devin. \"I do this fora living, remember?\"\n\n\"Yes. I remember,\" said Berg. \"Could it have been the FBI, local police, or some other federal agency?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. The trackers were high end, but still the kind of stuff you can buy off the shelf. Definitely not the kind of gear we used in the FBI.\"\n\n\"How did you locate the trackers?\" asked Berg.\n\n\"Radio frequency detector,\" said Devin.\n\n\"How long did you spend on the tracker sweep?\"\n\n\"Not long enough to detect something that transmits infrequently, but I eliminated that possibility later,\" said Devin. \"Helen's decode-the-next-step journey included a vehicle swap, a high-end, untraceable satellite phone, and about ten thousand dollars in cash. She'd obviously put a lot of thought into how to get me here undetected, and she took a number of these steps as recently as three weeks ago.\"\n\n\"She must have gotten mixed up with some bad people while chasing down this thing,\" said Berg. \"Maybe she pissed off the Russian mob? I could see her getting desperate enough to go after them for information. Possibly staking them out. Now that I think about it, this whole thing kind of makes sense. If she'd put herself on Solntsevskaya Bratva's radar by pissing them off, it wouldn't take much for them to pull the trigger on her. Sorry to be blunt.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin shook his head. His mother's death wasn't a Russian mob hit. The people following him this morning didn't fit that profile.\n\n\"How much did Helen tell you about her theory?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Berg, nodding in the direction of an approaching waitress.\n\nThey ordered beers and a dozen crabs each, Berg continuing when the waitress was out of earshot.\n\n\"Helen was pretty guarded about what she'd tell me. I got the impression through some of the things she'd said that she was trying to protect me from ruining my career,\" said Berg. \"She gave me just enough to test the waters. Enough to keep the channel of communication open.\"\n\n\"What did my mother think she'd uncovered?\" said Devin. \"I won't repeat any of this. I promise.\"\n\nBerg looked torn.\n\n\"You didn't hear this from me. Understood? This is all still classified, as far as I know.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" said Devin.\n\n\"An operation she'd conducted had revealed the names of five sleepers.\"\n\n\"Russians?\"\n\n\"Apparently. Two couples and-Donald Wilson,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Jesus,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Here's the thing. Technically the agency only knew about the two couples. Helen had only shared Donald Wilson's name with me, and I've never repeated it at Langley.\"\n\n\"Why would she do that?\" said Devin.\n\n\"The FBI and CIA investigated the couples thoroughly. They turned out to be retired and living on pensions. Dead ends. None of them even remotely linked by work or social circle to the government or companies that contracted with the government. They were classified as low to no risk to national security and put on a travel watch list. Don't get me wrong. They were'illegals, ' as far as we could tell. Cold War relics based on their ages. Sleepers in the truest sense of the word. But everyone agreed that hauling them in for interrogation or deportation would alert the Russians and possibly create some kind of ripple effect that would undermine ongoing espionage investigations. The FBI was working Operation Ghost Stories at the time. Did you ever work on that one?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had just finished training and reported to the Special Surveillance Group when they made the arrests,\" said Devin.\n\n\"The FBI's decision to back off the identified sleepers made more sense in light of those arrests. They took down ten active spies with Operation Ghost Stories, some who were making dangerous inroads within the Beltway-instead of busting a few retired schoolteachers and steelworkers,\" said Berg. \"Helen had guessed as much and withheld Wilson's name. She never said why, but she felt there was more to Wilson than the others. One name consumed her for two decades.\"\n\nDevin opened his backpack and removed the file his mother had put together.\n\n\"My mother says this is an executive summary of her conspiracy,\" said Devin, placing it on the table.\n\nBerg looked extremely uncomfortable in the file's presence. As though its contents might be radioactive.\n\n\"Have you looked at it?\" asked Berg.\n\n\"No,\" said Devin, pushing it toward Berg. \"You first. I want your opinion before I read it.\"\n\nBerg took the file and opened it, just before two sweating bottles of ice-cold beer arrived. Less than a minute later, he closed it and pushed it back across the table-his face impassive.\n\n\"You didn't finish it,\" said Devin.\n\nBerg took along swig from his bottle before answering. \"I've seen enough to warrant a visit to the Bat Cave.\"\n\n\"That's it?\" said Devin. \"What did it say?\"\n\nBerg shook his head. \"You need to read it yourself. Then we need to take our lunch to go. We may not be safe here.\"\n\nDevin opened the file and started reading. By the time he finished skimming his mother's summary, he wondered if he shouldn't go back and tell Frank to hold off on refurbishing the boat. If any of what his mother had written turned out to be true, he didn't foresee a lot of time in his immediate future for sailing lessons. For the first time ever, he actually hoped his mom had been crazy, because if she had been sane all along, the United States of America had one hell of a problem on its hands. The kind of problem that could dramatically and permanently alter the course of the nation's trajectory-in the wrong direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin's mother hadn't been kidding when she'd written'sketchy neighborhood.\" After conducting an abbreviated surveillance-detection route, which took them over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and up through the back roads of eastern Maryland, he'd approached Baltimore from the northeast along US Route 40. He knew they were in fora treat when they got off the Route 40 bypass at Federal Street. The area started out fine but got progressively worse as he navigated the mile and a half west to the provided address.\n\nBoarded-up windows and doors. Knee-high weeds growing through the cracked sidewalks. Corner convenience stores with faded signs-no real indication whether they were open or closed for business. Men huddled on stubby concrete stoops, eyeing him warily as he drove. The words NOS HOOT ZONE spray-painted on the sides of buildings or larger pieces of plyboard.\n\nThe number of abandoned buildings and commercial structures increased the farther west he drove, until he reached a one-block section that looked as though it had been scheduled for demolition. The block ended at a tall stonewall topped with cyclone fencing and barbed wire. A sturdy barrier designed to keep troublemakers out of the Green Mount Cemetery, which lay on the other side. He turned left on the street next to the wall and followed it south until he could bypass the cemetery.\n\nGreenmount West, a neighborhood on the other side of the cemetery, looked like a different world than what he could only assume had been Greenmount East. Still sketchy as hell in his opinion, but not a quasi-demilitarized zone. If he had to guess, he'd say this part of town was in the throes of gentrification. A chic coffee shop and a massive, newish-looking four-story apartment complex gave it away, even if every street-level apartment window was covered with tasteful stainless-steel grating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin drove north along the western cemetery wall, the three-story row house– style apartment buildings to his left looking either well maintained or upgraded. Gentrification defined. He passed a second modern apartment complex before taking a left onto East Lafayette Avenue, where his mother had kept a secret residence since 2010. Upon turning, he immediately spied several brightly colored, full-building-facade street art mosaics. Devin presumed the neighborhood had looked significantly different twelve years ago. A lot more like the neighborhood due east of the cemetery.\n\nHe pulled up to the address and stopped to scan the street. East Lafayette Avenue was a one-way with cars tightly lining both sides. No boarded-up windows. Nobody milling around porches. About a quarter of the street-level windows were protected by some variation of steel burglar bars. A lot of new or restored three-story redbrick facades-his mother's building not included. She must have missed the restoration memo or decided to ignore it. His money was on the latter.\n\nThe bricks had been painted alight gray, which was chipped or faded in several spots. The look hovered between intentionally weathered or recently neglected. Three mailboxes, squeezed together vertically, adorned the wall to the left of the white door. A rust streak stretched several bricks below the lowest mailbox. Not the darkest of stains, but on its way to being an eyesore. His mom also didn't share the same gentrified optimism about crime. The street-level windows featured decorative, but very sturdy-looking, black wrought iron gates.\n\nDevin drove halfway down the block before finding a parking space, barely managing to squeeze the older-model sedan between two oversize luxury SUVs. He wondered what one of these apartments was worth now. His mother had probably bought here because it was cheap, and nobody would think to look for her in this neighborhood. She was most likely sitting on a tidy profit at this point. Or someone was sitting on it. Hopefully his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kari shared a place with two other social workers from her office-the only way any of them could afford housing within semireasonable commuting distance to work. It was only fair. He got the boat. She got to sell the apartment. Devin was getting ahead of himself. For all he knew, all this was going to his father, the most logical destination.\n\nDevin and Berg got out of the car, both of them taking along lookup and down the street.\n\n\"What do you think?\" asked Berg.\n\n\"Looks clear,\" said Devin, and Berg nodded. Nothing.\n\nDevin hadn't expected anything. Even if his pursuers had managed to track either him or Berg to the Cantler's parking lot, they most certainly didn't follow him here. He'd made sure of that with his trip through the countryside. The SDR had been solid, and the car was untraceable to Helen, as far as Devin could tell. He couldn't find the registration anywhere in the car and assumed she'd bought it in a private transaction, keeping it off the books.\n\nThe license plate renewal sticker reflected the current year, which led him to believe his mother had a junker in storage somewhere and kept its registration current for the express purpose of getting an updated renewal sticker. As long as he didn't give the police a reason to run these plates, they should be fine.\n\nHe removed a black nylon duffel bag, containing the countersurveillance kit and his mother's waterproof pouch, from the trunk and locked the car before heading to the apartment. Devin caught some movement through the ground-floor apartment windows as they approached the stoop. Berg must have noticed it, too.\n\n\"My name's Fred,\" said Berg. \"For their safety and ours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fred doesn't sound suspicious at all.\"\n\nWhen he got to the door, he started trying the keys, while Berg watched the street for signs of trouble. The keys hadn't been marked, so he had no idea which one went to which door. The first one didn't fit. Neither did the second. The door opened before he tried the third, startling him enough that he dropped the key chain. An elderly Black woman with white hair appeared in the open doorway. She looked around eighty years old, but stood like she was in her early fifties.\n\n\"Oh my god. I didn't mean to scare you,\" she said.\n\nDevin scooped up the keys. \"Just caught me off guard, ma'am.\"\n\n\"You must be Helen's boy, Devin,\" she said, glancing between him and Berg.\n\n\"I am,\" said Devin, giving her a puzzled look. \"This is Fred. A friend of the family.\"\n\n\"I'm Henrietta Silver. I live on the first floor with my son and daughter-in-law. My granddaughter lives on the second floor with my great-grandson, who's at Johns Hopkins on a full scholarship. Pre-med,\" she said.\n\n\"Must be a sharp young man,\" he said. \"I didn't even bother applying to Hopkins. I considered myself lucky to get into Maryland.\"\n\n\"He is a very sharp young man,\" said Henrietta, smiling warmly. \"You look just like your mother. Sound like her, too.\"\n\nHe swallowed hard and nodded, worried that his voice would crack if he answered. He wasn't able to hide the tears.\n\nHenrietta's smile faded into a mournful, sympathetic look. \"I assume something happened to your Helen?\"\n\n\"She passed away about a week ago,\" said Devin. \"Unexpectedly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm so sorry, honey,\" she said, giving him a hug and holding onto him. \"She was a kind woman. A bit of a mystery, but warmhearted. I could tell. And she talked about you and Kari all the time. Helen loved the two of you. She never explained her situation or what she was doing here, but I got the feeling over the years that she'd want me to tell you that.\"\n\n\"Thank you. That means a lotto me,\" said Devin. \"Things kind of got away from all of us.\"\n\n\"It happens,\" she said. \"Sometimes there's nothing we can do about it. Trust me, I know.\"\n\n\"Are you headed out?\" he asked.\n\n\"No. No. I saw you stop in your car and recognized you immediately. Got my old bones up to say hello,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm glad you did,\" said Devin. \"It was a pleasure meeting you.\"\n\n\"Likewise,\" she said before moving out of his way.\n\nThey stepped inside, and Devin shut the door behind them, checking fora deadbolt or someway to make sure it was locked.\n\n\"Itself-locks. You need to use the key every time when entering,\" she said. \"But if you lock yourself out, just wave through the window. One of us is almost always in the living room.\"\n\n\"I will. Thank you,\" he said before heading for the staircase.\n\n\"Oh, uh... Devin?\"\n\nHe stopped at the foot of the stairs. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Will we, uh... see you around much?\" she asked.\n\n\"I can't say,\" he said, which was the truth.\n\nHe had no idea what he'd find up there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well. I hope we see you around,\" she said, opening her apartment door.\n\nDevin nodded. \"Okay. See you later.\"\n\n\"It was a pleasure meeting you,\" said Berg.\n\nHenrietta smiled as she went back inside her apartment and gently closed the door.\n\nDevin reached the third floor, with Berg following closely behind, and made his way to the only door in the hallway, which had no doorknob. Just a deadbolt. Henrietta and her family must have thought that was more than a little bit odd. He glanced around the hallway, unable to locate the camera he assumed was recording him. Security seemed a little light for something supposedly this important. Then again, looks could be deceiving.\n\nIt took him two tries to select the right key to turn what felt like a heavy-duty deadbolt. Without a doorknob, he wasn't entirely sure what to do next, other than push his way in-which turned out to be the right answer. When the heavy metal slab swung inward, he quickly entered and located the framed print of Van Gogh's Starry Night in the empty family room, tilting its left corner upward to reveal a basic alarm pad set into the wall.\n\nHis mother wasn't kidding about the tight timeline. The display read six seconds-and counting. He pressed the pound sign, followed by the four-digit code she had provided in the phone message he had accessed by speed-dialing'Mom\" on the satellite phone. She'd briefly walked him through the entire apartment process in that message. With the alarm system deactivated and Berg inside, Devin shut the door and threw the deadbolt. The door was solid enough, but not what he had expected from a security standpoint.\n\nA quick look around explained why. The space contained nothing but a small wooden table and two mismatched kitchen chairs. This meant one thing. Whatever lay behind the next door would be epic. The question was, In what way? Epically critical to national security as she claimed or epically fucking crazy-and there was only one way to find out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm guessing she didn't spend much time in this room,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Probably a safe bet,\" said Devin before wandering into the kitchen. \"Take a look at this.\"\n\nBerg followed him to a hallway off the kitchen, which turned out to be more of a vestibule. A sturdy-looking door stood at the end of the stunted corridor, featuring a deadbolt, a regular keyless doorknob, and a touch pad embedded in the wall next to the doorframe.\n\n\"That looks promising,\" said Berg.\n\nDevin pulled the satellite phone from one of the duffel bag's outer pockets and checked the last number he'd dialed. Exhausted from ten sleepless nights, he didn't trust his memory at this point. He'd inputted the eight-digit code and pressed send so it would appear in his recent calls for easy retrieval.\n\nDevin tapped the screen, activating the digital touch pad. He entered the code and pressed the green SUBMIT icon. A mechanical whirring in the wall behind the touch pad started a moment later, followed by a solid thunk closer to the door. Some kind of power-driven locking mechanism. No wonder she hadn't invested much in the front door. The screen read OPEN DEADBOLT, so he took the next step toward the big reveal and dug the keys out of his pocket.\n\nA full minute later-the door wide open-Devin remained in the doorway, still trying to process what he was seeing. Mostly, he was afraid to step inside and get sucked into whatever had so entirely consumed his mother. Helen Gray had renovated the place, spending her available funds on her obsession, instead of the public-facing neighborhood gentrification effort.\n\nAll the interior walls had been removed and replaced by a dispersed pattern of cylindrical metal supports, initially giving the space an open feel. The complete absence of windows closed it right backup. If he'd blacked out and woken up in this room, he'd guess it was abasement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The left wall, extending about twenty-five feet from front to back, consisted of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. From what he could tell, the shelves housed numbered binders. Several hundred if he had to guess. The rear wall, about twelve feet wide, featured a sizable wall-mounted flat-screen television. A recliner and an end table with a lamp satin front of the television. A short length of string hung down from a square attic door directly above the recliner.\n\nThe only other pieces of furniture were a simple black writing desk and chair in the center of the space, facing right-toward the room's pièce de résistance. A floor-to-ceiling, front-to-back'conspiracy wall,\" complete with red strings going in every direction, photographs, headshots, maps, Post-it notes, and newspaper clippings.\n\nThe difference between this wall and every wall he'd seen at the FBI or in the movies was that Helen's wall was meticulously organized. She hadn't continually tacked items to the wall as they developed, building a shantytown of information. She'd obviously rebuilt this wall dozens, if not hundreds, of times.\n\n\"Are you going in?\" said Berg.\n\n\"I don't know,\" whispered Devin.\n\nThe effort that had gone into this project was mind-boggling. The very least he could do was give this a chance. Still, he couldn't bring himself to enter the room.\n\n\"Do you mind if I take a look?\"\n\nDevin shook his head and made space for him to squeeze by. Berg walked the length of the conspiracy wall, pausing a few times to stare at the displayed information. When he'd reached the end, he turned and crossed the room, taking in the wall of binders.\n\n\"What are we looking at?\" asked Devin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On the surface, it appears that your mother uncovered an extensive network of Russian sleeper agents,\" said Berg. \"Far more extensive than anything we've ever suspected-assuming this isn't some kind of elaborate delusion sprinkled with magical conspiracy theory dust. It's going to take sometime to sort this out and draw our own conclusions.\"\n\n\"Where do we even start?\" asked Devin. \"How do we begin to make sense of this?\"\n\nBerg walked over to the desk and examined a yellow legal pad that sat next to a closed laptop. Tight handwriting covered the top sheet.\n\n\"True to form, your mother left instructions,\" said Berg, tapping the notepad.\n\nShe'd apparently thought of everything, which meant she clearly had understood that she might not comeback from whatever she had set out to accomplish by kidnapping Donald Wilson. In other words, Helen Gray had convinced herself that what she had discovered was worth dying for. He stepped inside the room-well aware that the wall could swallow him just the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd moved the curtain a few inches away from the wall and studied Gray's apartment through a night vision scope. Darkness. Same as the past several hours-confirmed by a continuous recording made by the tripod-mounted camera in the bedroom. He checked his watch: 3:34 a. m. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't coming back tonight. Either the discovery of the trackers had spooked him enough to keep him away fora little while or he'd met with someone, after tossing the trackers, who convinced him to go dark. Neither scenario boded well for the Rudds\" retirement plans.\n\nThe next step was to contact CONTROL and let them know that Devin Gray had significantly deviated from the pattern. He'd already made them aware of the tracking device incident, which they'd thankfully dismissed as expected. An encouraging sign that Rudd and the team had been right about CONTROL having low expectations about the surveillance effort. It was time to take the gloves off.\n\nHis phone rang, its screen softly illuminating the darkened room, his face, and the ridiculously thin curtain next to him. If Gray was watching from somewhere, it would have drawn his attention. Maybe he really was getting too old for this shit. Turning off your phone or at least flipping it facedown at night on a stakeout was basic procedure. He swiped the phone off the coffee table in front of him and answered the call.\n\n\"Yes, my love?\"\n\n\"Anything?\" asked Jolene.\n\n\"No. I was about to send an update up the chain,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"Maybe give it a few more hours?\" she said. \"Even if he's up to no good, which is pretty much guaranteed, there's a good chance he'll show up in the morning to grab some personal items. We've seen that before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's why I want to update CONTROL,\" said Rudd. \"If he very unwisely shows up tomorrow, which is unlikely given the circumstances, it could very well be the last time anyone sees him. CONTROL might want us to pop him if we get the chance, and I don't feel like jumping through hoops at the last second. I'd like the green light now, if that's where this is headed. We can get setup and do it right in the parking lot-or inside his apartment.\"\n\n\"Don't tease me,\" she said. \"I can picture it now.\"\n\n\"Well. Like I said, he'd be crazy to show up, unless he just got spooked and decided to stay away fora night or two. We don't have anyone watching his father's place, or his work. He could be crashed out in his office or on a couch in Falls Church.\"\n\n\"I doubt he's anywhere obvious,\" said Jolene.\n\n\"I agree. It's wishful thinking,\" said Rudd, taking another peek at Gray's dark apartment. \"I'm going to put together a message. See what they say.\"\n\n\"All right. Let me know their response. I won't be able to sleep until I know,\" she said. \"I hate loose ends.\"\n\n\"Hopefully CONTROL will let us tie this one up,\" he said. \"Love you.\"\n\n\"Love you, too.\"\n\nHe ended the call and took his laptop to the dining room table, away from the sliding glass door and its virtually transparent curtain. After negotiating the security protocols to access the dark web website designed exclusively for communicating with CONTROL, he typed CHATBOX followed by his username in the single text field on the homepage. His cellphone buzzed a moment later, a text appearing with a twenty-digit alphanumeric code, which he typed in the now-empty text field. A rudimentary chat box opened, and he typed a quick update." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite his eagerness to speedup what he thought to be the inevitable with Devin Gray, he never made any assumptions or recommendations when communicating directly with CONTROL. He reported the facts and answered with facts. The group running the show on the other end of this gave the orders based on Rudd's reporting and information available from dozens of other sources that he'd likely never be made aware of.\n\nHR (Harvey Rudd): Subject hasn't returned.\n\nSeveral seconds elapsed before a response appeared.\n\nCL (CONTROL): Sending mission addendum by 7 AM your time. Synopsis follows. Discontinuing mobile surveillance of DG. Focusing on likely personal contacts in area. Priority remains discovering possible secondary HG location.\n\nHR: Copy. Will adjust and execute.\n\nThe chat box disappeared, leaving him with the generic homepage and text box. He shut the computer down and called his wife with the update. She answered before he heard the first ring.\n\n\"That was fast,\" she said.\n\n\"I think they had already decided,\" said Rudd. \"Sounds like we'll be following the father and a few other people they picked out as possible personal contacts. And we're still looking for this supposed hideout.\"\n\n\"Sounds exciting,\" she said.\n\n\"Areal barn burner,\" said Rudd. \"Go to bed. We'll get the details in the morning and figure out what that means for us in terms of splitting everyone up.\"\n\n\"Did they say how many folks we'd be watching?\"\n\n\"No. But they did say no more mobile surveillance of this guy, so it sounds like we'll still keep someone hereto watch over the apartment,\" he said. \"Let's hope it's no more than four, or you and I will have to go our separate ways fora while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is turning into areal turkey of a job,\" she said.\n\n\"If by turkey you mean low key and low risk, I'm not complaining,\" said Rudd. \"I don't need to go all Mission: Impossible on my last job to feel fulfilled. Sitting in a car and staring through a pair of binoculars sounds like a perfect send-off.\"\n\n\"I guess,\" she said, clearly disappointed.\n\n\"Keep your chin up,\" said Rudd. \"They didn't take popping him off the table.\"\n\n\"Well. There's that. See you in a few hours.\"\n\n\"Love you.\"\n\n\"Love you, too,\" she said.\n\nRudd had meant what he'd said about not complaining. Something gave him the sense that this whole mission could escalate at the drop of a hat. Like the situation with Helen Gray. Dave Bender probably never knew what hit him. She'd lit him up before any of them could react.\n\nDevin Gray didn't strike him as the instantly lethal type, but as the old saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree-and he'd like to stay as faraway from that family tree as possible this close to retirement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin massaged his chin, his fingers pushing through the thick stubble. Morning had finally arrived, the first vestiges of light appearing through the gaps in the living room curtains visible from his seat at the desk. They'd been up all night studying'the wall,\" both of them feeling like they had barely scratched the surface. Helen's binders were extensive, representing hundreds of hours of reading and study. Working continuously from the moment they stepped up to the wall until now, they'd only pulled about a tenth of the folders from'the library,\" mostly skimming each folder's contents for the context necessary to track his mother's logic chain.\n\nDevin had followed her story from start to finish, admittedly skimming the files instead of scrutinizing them, and it all made perfect sense.\n\nBased on the service background file she'd left behind, she had worked as a specialized skills officer, serving in anon-demand capacity as an NOC (nonofficial cover) throughout Europe, Russia, and Russia's former satellite nations. She spoke fluent Russian and German, and had earned a master's degree in international relations at Boston University. The CIA apparently hadn't wanted to potentially burn her identity by formally sending her abroad under official cover at an embassy. She'd been productive over the years as an NOC, often traveling behind the Iron Curtain to support intelligence operations that required an outside touch.\n\nHelen Gray's skill and success in this specialized role put her in Saint Petersburg during the spring of 2003. A fateful assignment that would end two decades later with the kidnapping and murder of Donald Wilson, the point-blank killing of an off-duty sheriff's deputy, and her own suicide.\n\nWilson's name had been the third name provided to her by Sergei Kozlov, the retired GRU general she had been sent to meet in Saint Petersburg, during the spring of 2003. Brian Kelley had been the first. A'puzzling hors d'oeuvre\" meant to whet the CIA's appetite-his mom had away with words. The FBI hadn't been able to find a trace of him or his wife, Kathleen, in the United States prior to 1974." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Kelleys had materialized in northwest Indiana during the spring of that year, when Brian took a job atone of the sprawling steel mills in the region-a job he held until his retirement in the late nineties." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kathleen had split her time between substitute teaching and staying home with their two children.\n\nIf the Kelleys were sleeper agents, as Sergei Kozlov had implied, they hadn't done any obvious damage to United States national security from their blue-collar enclave in northwest Indiana. From what the FBI could initially determine, the family rarely traveled outside the state. The Kelleys appeared to have spent most of their leisure time and money on a no-frills pontoon boat they'd kept at a nearby marina on Lake Michigan.\n\nNot exactly asocial circle that implied a productive espionage career for the couple. That said, intelligence gathered from defectors during the Cold War heydays strongly suggested that some Soviet sleepers served purposes beyond espionage. Targeted sabotage and discreet assassination topping their list of potential assignments. Even more troubling, these'deep sleepers\" typically remained completely inactive until called onto execute their grim tasks.\n\nPossible confirmation of along-dormant network of saboteurs and killers in the US scared the hell out of CIA leadership. Unfortunately, the results of a more thorough investigation into the Kelleys would take months. Time the CIA didn't feel they'd had with Kozlov. The agency had dispatched Helen to meet him again, with instructions to demand a more compelling sample of what he hoped to trade for an exceptionally comfortable and secure life in the United States.\n\nHer recall of the meeting was uncanny. She'd apparently sensed something was wrong the moment Kozlov arrived at the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden. He had appeared agitated and nervous upon arrival, glancing over his shoulder a number of times and snapping at the clerk while he'd purchased a ticket fora guided tour of the garden's greenhouses. A stark difference from the stoic, unreadable GRU general she'd meta few weeks earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd seemed to settle down once the tour started, the two of them keeping their distance and pretending to care about exotic plants for the hour or so it took the agency support team to give their meeting the green light. Deep inside the sprawling, densely wooded grounds south of the greenhouse complex, the two of them had sat for several minutes in the shade of a towering oak tree, on a small wrought iron bench facing a lily pad– covered pond.\n\nHe'd given her the name and address of Denise Holman, suggesting they study the similarities between Holman and Kelley. When she'd pressed him to explain the connection, he'd just stared at the pond for an uncomfortably long period of time-ultimately rejecting her demand. Kozlov had said the CIA needed to identify the pattern and draw the right conclusion on their own.\n\nNo more than thirty minutes after Kozlov had given her the second name and walked away, he'd been crushed under a trolleybus on Bolshoy Prospekt, less than a quarter mile from the entrance to the gardens. Helen had been scooped off the street moments later by one of the CIA countersurveillance teams watching over her, and driven straight to Pulkovo Airport, where she had been rushed onboard awaiting Gulfstream jet. Barely an hour and a half later, a small convoy of armored SUVs had driven her onto the US embassy compound in Stockholm.\n\nKozlov's words had haunted Helen. The pattern she'd ultimately deciphered was chilling, but it had taken her a number of years to figure it out.\n\nThe agency had kept her at the embassy for close to a week. The Langley team flew in the day of her arrival and dissected the time she had spent with Kozlov. Second by second. Word byword. Memory by memory. By day three, the team's questioning had started to feel more like an interrogation than a debriefing to her. By the time they had wrapped up, she'd wished the Saint Petersburg fiasco had never happened. From what she'd gathered, so had the rest of the CIA officers involved in the operation. Preliminary investigative reporting on the Holmans hadn't looked promising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Denise Holman and her husband had fit the same profile as the Kelleys. Another possible sleeper team-collecting public pensions and living nowhere close to an obvious espionage target. Retired teachers who had spent the better part of the past three decades working, raising kids, and putting them through college, all while carving out a nice life for themselves in a middle-class suburb of Minneapolis. The once-frightening specter of a potentially devastating sleeper network on US soil was starting to look more and more like an unconnected collection of unused, retired agents.\n\nIt hadn't taken long for the skeptics at Langley to start suggesting Kozlov had played the agency. That the GRU general had tried to pass off retired or deactivated sleepers in exchange fora cushy retirement in the United States. Unlike many of his high-ranking GRU colleagues, Kozlov hadn't leveraged his position within the still-feared and influential intelligence agency to amass a personal fortune during the rush to privatize the Russian economy.\n\nHe'd kept plugging along in the role of the loyal general until his retirement, long after the new oligarch class had risen from the dust and stolen the last of the privatized shares from the people. From what the CIA could gather, Kozlov had little to show for his devoted service beyond a modest government pension, a two-bedroom apartment in a drab low-rise beyond the Third Ring Road, and a tiny, run-down dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. They'd speculated that bitterness and jealousy had pushed Kozlov into an inconsequential betrayal of his country.\n\nHelen Gray hadn't entirely agreed with the agency's assessment of the retired general's motivations, but it hadn't made a difference what she thought. Kozlov had been a dead end, along with the names he had provided. Despite the puzzling Cold War enigma surrounding the Kelleys'and Holmans\" seemingly unexciting three-decades-long stint in the United States, nobody had wanted to put anymore serious time or resources into the matter-including Helen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until she'd discovered a folded index card in the front pocket of the bomber jacket she had worn to the botanical garden in Saint Petersburg, accompanied by a note.\n\nFairly sure I won't be around fora third meeting. Consider this a parting gift. Don't let them waste it. Donald Wilson. Springdale, AR. The glue that holds the others together. Sergei Kozlov.\n\nKozlov couldn't have put the card into her pocket. The two of them had never come within three feet of each other at any moment during that afternoon. He must have directed someone else to do it after she'd left the garden. Areal street pro, because neither Helen nor the surveillance team watching her had detected it. Kozlov must have suspected that the GRU was onto him. There was no other way to explain the card and the note.\n\nBut had he triggered its delivery after leaving the garden, or had it been his plan to give it to her all along? Had he committed suicide to keep the revealed names a secret from the GRU, or had he been murdered? Questions that would never be answered. Answers that didn't really matter. The only meaningful question that remained to be asked was, What should she do with the third name?\n\nThe obvious answer was to hand it over to her superiors at the agency, but Kozlov had covertly given it to her fora reason-along with a warning. Don't let them waste it. She'd understood what he had meant, which was why she hadn't turned over the name immediately upon her return to Langley. The agency had effectively closed the Kozlov file. They'd either deep-six the name with the rest of the file or hand it off to the FBI with a nonurgent request fora background investigation, where it would meet a similar fate.\n\nGeneral Kozlov had given her the third name, knowing his time had run out. He had ultimately decided that passing her the note card had been more important than taking Donald Wilson's name to the grave. She'd looked into Wilson on her own, ultimately ending up in the same place as Kozlov. Dead by her own hand instead of revealing what she'd discovered: a widespread, multitiered sleeper network-unlike anything the FBI or CIA had ever caught wind of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mother had identified seventy additional sleeper couples that fit the same profile as the Kelleys, Holmans, and Wilsons. Materialized out of thin air in the early seventies. Regular jobs. Nothing that would require a background check beyond running a basic police report. More than half of them had made their grand entrance in college. One moment they didn't exist. The next-they were college freshmen.\n\nLike the Kelleys and Holmans, none of them had appeared to have ever held a position that might pose an espionage threat to the country. Sabotage or assassination was a different story. The traditional assumption had always been that the Soviet Union would activate sleeper agents if the two countries went to war, to create chaos in the United States. But according to Helen's theory, it had never really been about the parents. It had always been about the children. That was what his mother had figured out, and why she had become so obsessed with unraveling the sleeper network.\n\nHelen's wall listed three members of the House of Representatives. An assistant secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. A principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. A one-star Air Force general working in the Pentagon. A one-star Navy admiral serving as commander, US Forces, Japan. Several other high-ranking officers spread throughout the four branches. Two FBI special agents in charge. A few other high-ranking FBI agents. State Department personnel, including our Ukrainian ambassador. And at least two suspected CIA officers working at Langley, both of them in counterintelligence.\n\nKarl Berg visibly reeled when they came across those two names. The Soviets had successfully launched an extensive second-generation network of sleepers who could breeze through the most rigorous security clearance investigations. The parents checked out. They checked out.\n\nThe only flaw in Helen's conspiracy theory was that she had absolutely no proof that the identified individuals were indeed Russian sleeper agents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin's stomach growled, mercifully distracting him from the grim thought. He'd been running on Red Bull all night. There was no point in continuing this without eating. He could barely concentrate at this point. He searched online fora nearby breakfast spot, finding something within fairly easy walking distance. He got up from the desk, the sound of the chair scraping the floor and jolting Berg awake. The retired CIA officer lifted his head off the kitchen table, which they'd dragged into the room last night, and yawned.\n\nHe still didn't know what to think of Berg, but his mother had trusted him implicitly, according to a note he'd found on the first page of Helen's executive summary file.\n\n\"How long was I out?\" asked Berg.\n\n\"Maybe an hour,\" said Devin. \"I was thinking we could use some breakfast-and a lot of coffee. There's a bagel and breakfast sandwich shop about a fifteen-minute walk from here. The food ranges from moderately healthy fare to a guaranteed heart attack.\"\n\n\"Heart attack food sounds about right,\" said Berg. \"I just need to use the bathroom.\"\n\n\"Watch your head,\" said Devin.\n\nThe bathroom had clearly been an afterthought. About the size of a modest walk-in closet, it featured a toilet, wall-mounted sink that you had to lean your head away from when sitting on the toilet, and the smallest shower stall Devin had ever seen.\n\nWhen Berg emerged from the bathroom, he pointed a thumb over his shoulder.\n\n\"We're down to a single roll of toilet paper,\" said Berg. \"Unless she has a hidden stash somewhere.\"\n\nDevin shook his head. \"I already looked. I'll make a run for some basics later.\"\n\n\"We're not moving in, so don't go overboard,\" said Berg. \"Speaking of which, where do you think she slept?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Devin shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think she slept in the recliner. I found a few blankets folded on the floor under the TV.\"\n\n\"Clothes?\"\n\n\"French wardrobe in the armoire in the living room,\" said Devin.\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"About ten pieces she could mix and match to go from casual to dressy. A few pairs of shoes. It's a minimalist trick.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" said Berg, shaking his head. \"But she had another apartment?\"\n\n\"The FBI said it didn't look like she'd spent any significant time there over the past two months,\" said Devin. \"They were light on the details.\"\n\n\"So they're looking for this apartment, too.\"\n\n\"That's what I assumed,\" said Devin.\n\n\"And there's noway the apartment can be traced back to your mother?\" said Berg, looking slightly concerned.\n\n\"The building was purchased by a Nevada LLC, which Helen formed anonymously. One of the benefits of a Nevada corporation filing. I got a look at how she set it up when I reviewed the documents transferring the title deed to Henrietta Silver.\"\n\n\"That was very generous of her,\" said Berg. \"What are your plans for Ms. Silver while we camp out here?\"\n\n\"The effective date of the title transfer is forty-five days after her recorded death, so that gives us thirty-four days to workout of this apartment. I'm going to put Henrietta and her family in an Airbnb within the city, but far enough away from here,\" said Devin. \"I'm hoping that will be enough time for us.\"\n\n\"It should be,\" said Berg. \"How do you plan to pay for the Airbnb?\"\n\n\"I'll give them ten thousand in gift cards and five thousand in cash. That should be enough for them to arrange a nice Airbnb or two and pay for incidentals for up to a month.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Helen had fifty thousand dollars in five-hundred-dollar Visa gift cards locked away in her safe, along with what looked like fifty thousand in cash. And that wasn't all.\n\n\"That'll be more than enough,\" said Berg. \"Make sure they understand the stakes.\"\n\n\"I think they do,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Not good enough,\" said Berg. \"Make sure they do.\"\n\n\"I will. I'll make it clear when I drop everything off with Henrietta later,\" said Devin.\n\nThe five-foot-tall-by-three-foot-wide safe, which had been built into the wall and hidden behind the bookshelf to the left of the hallway door, also contained a small arsenal, and an assortment of expensive, hard-to-acquire items when you wanted to remain off the grid.\n\nA few semiautomatic pistols. A decked-out, short-barrel AR-15 that he suspected hadn't been properly licensed. One of those new Scorpion EVO nine-millimeter carbines. Plenty of ammunition. Two sets of body armor and night vision gear. A nice array of person-to-person communications equipment, along with dozens of burner phones and a few more touchscreen satellite phones. GPS tracking devices. Knives. Flash-bang grenades. Ketamine vials. Syringes. The usual stuff you'd find in your mom's hidden safe.\n\n\"Sounds good. Let's get out of here fora few hours,\" said Berg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd drove down the shaded, tree-congested street, keeping a closer eye on his phone than the road. He had no choice but to rely on the digital map to tell him when he'd reached the target house. There was noway to read the addresses without driving five miles per hour and gawking at the houses, which wasn't an option in this neighborhood. CONTROL had warned him that a significant percentage of the Falls Church population either worked for or had retired from the government. Many of them from the very agencies his own country had fought against for several decades.\n\nAnd even if he drove slowly, the address numbers weren't always clear from the street. Bushes and trees often blocked the view, or the numbers were located in the oddest places. Not right next to the door as you'd expect. By the time he'd finally spotted a number on one of the houses, it was gone-leaving him unable to read the digits. On top of that, some of the houses were too far from the street for the naked eye. He'd need binoculars or some kind of scope to read the numbers. The FBI would probably intercept him before he got out of the neighborhood if he started studying houses with binoculars.\n\nRudd needed to be particularly careful during this quick reconnaissance. He'd even swapped cars with Rick Gentry on the off chance that Devin Gray had warned Marnie Young to watch out fora gray SUV-or that he'd surreptitiously installed a camera to watch the street. They couldn't be too cautious with this guy. CONTROL clearly didn't have much to work with if they were putting most of their surveillance eggs in this basket.\n\nWhen the phone's map indicated he was about to pass the Youngs\" address, he glanced to the right and took in the scene. Marnie Young's childhood home was an unassuming redbrick Cape Cod– style house with a stepped, brick walkway leading up the gentle slope of their well-kept front lawn from the foot of a well-worn asphalt driveway. A black four-door Jeep Wrangler with a United States Marine Corps spare tire cover and a gold naval aviator bumper sticker sat on the driveway about midway between the street and the garage. Easy peasy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Credit card data put her in one of two area coffee shops almost everyday fora few hours, and now they knew what to look for. According to CONTROL, Marnie Young, a combat-decorated Marine Corps helicopter pilot, had recently left active duty to pursue a civilian career, presumably in the DC area. She'd been one of only two people to attend Helen Gray's wake herein Falls Church-Karl Berg had been the other-which put her at the top of the likely Devin Gray contacts list. CONTROL assumed they had some kind of ongoing connection.\n\nThey'd slap a few trackers on her Jeep and hope for the best. Same with the car belonging to Devin's father, who lived in a very similar Falls Church neighborhood. Hope for the best pretty much described the overall surveillance strategy at this point, since it was in noway feasible for his team to physically stakeout either of the houses.\n\nHarvey and his wife, whom he'd just dropped at a nearby Enterprise Rent-A-Car office to acquire anew surveillance vehicle, would work with Rick Gentry to follow Marnie Young. They'd most likely take rooms at the Hampton Inn less than a half mile away and wait for her tracker to start moving. That way they wouldn't run the risk of unknowingly parking in front of an FBI agent's house and land them all in an interrogation room at the J. Edgar Hoover Building on the other side of the Potomac River.\n\nLogan Walsh and Nathan Clark would take up residence in the Hilton Garden Inn a few miles north of here and follow the same procedure. Mason Gray lived a quarter of a mile from that hotel, on the other side of Falls Church. It was the best they could do with the limited resources and personnel available. The biggest flaw in the plan was the inability to watch either of these target locations. Devin Gray could drive right into Falls Church and hangout with Marnie or his dad at their houses, and there was nothing Rudd could do about it. It was a huge flaw, mitigated by the assumption that Devin Gray wouldn't risk visiting either location now that he knew he was the target of an active surveillance effort. He wouldn't know how thinly they were spread. In fact, he'd likely assume that the effort had been expanded since he'd so easily spoofed their first attempt to follow him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rudd felt so sure about this that he'd almost pushed back against CONTROL's insistence that he keep Sandy Jones and Leo Ward at the stakeout across the street from Devin's apartment. He was glad he hadn't, because after thinking about it fora while, Rudd realized he would have made a fool out of himself. The decision to keep Sandy and Ward in place was a hedged bet by CONTROL against the assumption that Devin Gray would stay away from any obvious surveillance traps.\n\nWhat if the discovery of the trackers hadn't triggered some kind of deep conspiracy fears? What if he'd concluded that he was being ridiculous after a day or two of hiding from the deep state and returned to his apartment? Or that it had been the FBI that had tagged his vehicle? It wasn't unreasonable to assume that the FBI might want to track his movements fora while. His mother had recently kidnapped an elderly man for no apparent reason and shot a sheriff's deputy in cold blood.\n\nPinning the cop's murder on Helen Gray had been a stroke of genius, even if he hadn't been given a choice in the matter. The deputy had rolled upon them too damn quickly. He'd barely gotten to the intersection in time to keep the officer from spotting the van and the pickup truck, and possibly calling it in. Rudd's fake FBI credentials had gotten him to stop before he'd driven far enough into the intersection to seethe other vehicles. He'd been especially thankful that Helen Gray had left a few rounds in her pistol's magazine.\n\nIf he'd been forced to use his own pistol, an astute forensics team might have cast some doubt on the initial conclusion drawn by the Tennessee State Police investigators, which might have prolonged or even deepened the FBI's involvement. Never a good thing when you were nearing retirement.\n\nRudd stayed just below the speed limit as he left the neighborhood, giving nobody a reason to look twice in his direction. When he reached Broad Street, he took aright and made his way toward the rental car office. Before they dispersed to stakeout the coffee shops, he'd send his wife through with the rental car to make her own assessment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was at least twice as observant and would undoubtedly notice something important that he had missed. Like a sticker on the other side of the Jeep's bumper that read, PROUD PARENTS OF AU NITED STATES MARINE. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? Awkwardly, it wouldn't be the first time he'd glossed over something that had completely changed the game. He just hoped it was the last, and that CONTROL sent them home to Tennessee after this job to pack up for another part of the country or Moscow. He'd be fine either way-as long as he was still with Jolene. Or would she want to be called Ludmilla again? He was getting ahead of himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin left Berg alone fora few hours while he headed out to grab some essentials at a nearby Walmart and dinner from a Thai restaurant about a mile north on Greenmount Avenue. Paper goods, a case of bottled water, two full-size air mattresses, two cheap sleeping bags, and an assortment of toiletries-mostly for himself. Berg had brought an overnight bag, an idea that hadn't crossed Devin's mind when he'd set off on Helen's treasure hunt yesterday morning.\n\nBerg had already started arranging the take-out containers when he dropped the last of the Walmart bags inside the apartment. Devin shut and locked the door, breathing heavily from the back-to-backstair climbs. He wiped the thin film of sweat off his face on his shirtsleeve, suddenly remembering that he'd forgotten to buy a few changes of clothes. Tomorrow. He wouldn't have any trouble sleeping at this point, no matter how grimy he felt.\n\n\"Looks like enough food to last us several days,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I figured we'd be locked inhere fora while,\" said Devin, heading for the refrigerator. \"Drink?\"\n\n\"A beer and a couple of those waters if you don't mind,\" said Berg. \"I wasn't sure about drinking from the tap.\"\n\n\"I was more concerned about the grimy glasses in the cabinet,\" said Devin. \"I bought some paper cups.\"\n\nBerg laughed and shook his head. \"Your mom has a hundred thousand dollars sitting in a five-thousand-dollar safe, and we're afraid to drink the water from her apartment. The world is a strange place, my friend.\"\n\nDevin took a seat at the table without washing his hands. He was too tired for basic hygiene at this point. Berg set a can of Joint Resolution Hazy IPA in front of him and sat down across the table from him before cracking open his own beer. Devin followed suit and toasted Helen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After spending nearly a day in Helen's mind-what do you think now?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"I think we have a nightmare on our hands. I kept searching and searching for that one piece of evidence or link that brought the whole wall down. A fatal flaw that I could point to and say, \"Dammit, Helen! This is where you went off the rails!\" But I couldn't find it. On top of that, this is even worse than she thought.\"\n\nWith Berg's last comment, Devin finished the can and got up. \"Can I grab you another?\"\n\n\"Mayas well,\" said Berg. \"This one will begone soon.\"\n\nDevin returned with the rest of the six-pack, placing it on the table before pulling a can free from the plastic binding.\n\n\"How does it get worse than a sleeper network penetrating nearly every level of government, the military, law enforcement, and industry?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Try tanking our economy, kneecapping our military, and eroding our allies'trust in us to the point of hostility,\" said Berg. \"Israel almost broke off diplomatic relations with us over the Iron Dome failure. Antheon's stock dropped by half overnight, and now their SM-3 antiballistic missile program is under scrutiny. That puts several of our allies in an awkward position, since they rely on those missiles for protection from ballistic missile threats. Not to mention what they did to Boeing, Lockram Industries, and Ampere, if we're to assume that the Russian sleeper network penetrated those companies and sabotaged their flagship projects.\"\n\nIt all made sense to Devin. This wasn't just about espionage. The Russians had a much broader strategic goal in mind. They planned to use the network to reshape the geopolitical world in their favor, by flatlining US global influence." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer, move the story forward.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 26" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What happened, if you don't mind my asking?\"\n\n\"True America happened,\" said Berg. \"Right around the time your mother was ousted, come to think of it. You know, she was still doing really good work for Langley at that point-pet sleeper project aside, which ironically turned out to be her best work. I wonder if her removal wasn't somehow related, given the fact that one of President Crane's top advisers was one of those sleepers. True America cleaned house in 2009. It wouldn't surprise me if whispers of her theory reached the wrong ears, and Sean Walker made sure she was swept up in the political purge.\"\n\n\"Why did they push you so far out of the fold?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"True America had some serious skeletons in their closet, and I had one of the keys to that closet,\" said Berg. \"Anyone with one of those keys was runoff the road into a ditch and left there.\"\n\n\"Did you have anything to do with their downfall?\"\n\n\"What do you know about that?\" asked Berg, raising an eyebrow.\n\n\"I heard rumors at SSG that there was more to it than an election fraud scandal,\" said Devin. \"Something related to the 2007 True America incident.\"\n\n\"Rumors,\" said Berg, shrugging.\n\nHe got the hint. Time to change the subject.\n\n\"I assume Marnie is clear to book the Airbnb?\" asked Devin.\n\nBerg looked as though the question had caught him off guard.\n\n\"Yes. They ran a passive radio frequency sweep of her vehicle and actively pinged fora possible long-haul device. Her Jeep is clean. They watched the coffee shop, followed her to Whole Foods, and one of the operatives ghosted her inside the store. Nothing. She can proceed with the booking. Let her know they need the address as soon as she has it. They'll likely get there ahead of her to watch for any suspicious activity while she's checking the place outwith the owner and immediately afterward.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're extremely thorough,\" said Devin. \"That's for sure.\"\n\n\"They're extremely paranoid and thorough. That's how they stay alive in this business,\" said Berg. \"Which brings us to the most important condition of my continued participation and theirs.\"\n\nDevin cocked his head a bit. He wasn't going to like what Berg had to say. That much was obvious from his tone and the fact that he'd waited this long to give an ultimatum he probably could have led with last night at dinner.\n\n\"What's the condition?\"\n\n\"We do this my way,\" said Berg. \"I don't say that because I'm a control freak. I say that because I've learned a thing or two about the Russians over the years. One of them being that they don't play by the rules or respect any conventions. You leave the rule books and the referee manuals behind when you're dealing with the Russians.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" said Devin.\n\n\"It's not that simple,\" said Berg. \"Some of the time, my way will not resemble your way-at all. In fact, I can guarantee you we will reach a point, at least once or twice, where you find my way to be the antithesis of everything you thought you stood for. You'll be repulsed by it, but it will be the only way to effectively deal with the Russians.\"\n\n\"I think I understand,\" said Devin.\n\n\"You can't, yet,\" said Berg. \"I just need you to trust me when your instincts are screaming otherwise. Once we reach a certain point in this little venture, we can't turn back without catastrophic results for everyone.\"\n\nDevin didn't need to ask what that meant. It certainly didn't mean standing in the unemployment line with a black mark on your résumé. It meant ending up facedown in the Chesapeake Bay with your throat slashed or buried in afield somewhere off the beaten path with a bullet hole in your forehead. He asked the next logical question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When do we reach that point?\"\n\n\"That's the tricky part, Devin, and it's never a clear path,\" said Berg. \"It's why I need you to trust me enough to do this my way no matter what your gut is telling you.\"\n\n\"My mom trusted you-so I trust you,\" said Devin.\n\nBerg nodded. \"Then I better not let her down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie Young left her parents' house a little after 6:15 to meet with the owner of the townhouse she had rented in the Canton District of Baltimore. The owner agreed to meet her at 8:00 p. m. to walk her through the place and give her the keys.\n\nDevin said he'd arrive around nine with an'associate\" to check the place out and pay her for the two weeks she'd fronted. Finding a thirty-day rental in the city for twelve occupants, in a good neighborhood, hadn't left her with any bargain-basement options-especially at the start of the summer. Four hundred and fifty a night, with a two-week deposit, had been the best she could manage, which didn't seem to faze him in the least.\n\nThe rest of his new associates would supposedly arrive later that night. She still had no idea what he meant by'associates,\" or what he was up to, but she was determined to find out. They had concluded that she wasn't under surveillance, which had been a huge relief. She'd packed an overnight bag and had every intention of sticking around until she could fully assess Devin's mental state and determine how she could help. He'd probably argue with her, but she didn't care. That was what friends did for each other, and unless her status as a friend had lapsed in his mind, which she highly doubted fora number of reasons, she wouldn't take no for an answer.\n\nShe also wanted to take a good look at these so-called associates, to make sure Devin was acting in his own best interest-or his own interest at all. She'd stuffed her pistol and a few spare magazines in the overnight bag, just in case. Devin simply didn't sound like himself. He'd looked shaken and dazed at his mother's funeral, which was to be expected, but something was really off with him right now. He sounded rushed and unfocused. Or maybe unfocused wasn't the right word. Scripted? There was no real way to tell over the phone, which was why she'd insisted on handing over the keys in person and sticking around fora while." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie merged onto Interstate 495 several minutes later, coming to a complete stop just a few seconds later. Eight thirty p. m. might be a more realistic estimate. Traffic was heavier than she'd anticipated. If it didn't breakup after the George Washington Memorial Parkway interchange, about five miles north of here, she'd call the townhouse owner and let her know that she was behind schedule. Hopefully that wouldn't be a problem and push things back until the morning. The last thing she wanted to do was add more stress to Devin's situation right now. He sounded as though he was at a breaking point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd scraped the last of the marinara sauce out of the tiny bowl before shoving the final mozzarella stick into his mouth. They never gave you enough sauce for the whole basket. He licked his fingers clean, a Chattanooga barbecue-joint habit that Jolene loathed. She shook her head and looked away as he went from finger to finger. Long gone were the days when she would complain.\n\nThey'd gotten along like that for as long as he could remember. From the beginning, actually, which was why they'd eventually been put together as a team. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her like it was yesterday. They had been flirting fora few months between classes during their first semester at Moscow State University, not quite dating, when Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) agents abruptly plucked them out of school and sent them to an intensive American studies institute on the outskirts of Novosibirsk. GRU authorities told them the academy was a temporary extension of their studies at the School of International Relations, but both of them knew better.\n\nThe institute, which reminded him of a Komsomol academy he had attended a few summers ago fora young communist leadership camp, was run more like a military program than an academic extension. They lived in well-worn but solid barracks buildings, and participated in rigorous physical training twice a day, once in the early morning and again after classes ended in the late afternoon. The instructors had been conditioning them for something big. That much was obvious.\n\nDespite the harsh, scarcely academic conditions, he had never considered leaving. On most weekends, the hundred or so students were bused in groups to downtown Novosibirsk fora few hours of leisure time, where they spent most of their university stipend on restaurant meals they could never afford back in Moscow. He'd spent most of that time with Ludmilla, a. k. a. Jolene, building the relationship that would lead to their marriage and get them posted together in the United States. She had gotten him through the darkest of days with little more than a smile, and the prospect of her companionship on the weekend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five years and three military bases later, the GRU smuggled Vadim Krukov and Ludmilla Alyev into the US with perfectly forged identities, a generously padded bank account that was refilled regularly, and a paid-off house in the Chattanooga suburbs, where they'd posed as Harvey and Jolene Rudd for nearly thirty years.\n\nHis phone chirped and buzzed at the same time. A quick look at the screen told him Marnie Young was on the move. Crap.\n\n\"Looks like we'll be needin\" a to-go bag,\" he said, passing the phone to Jolene.\n\n\"I'll take care of it,\" said Jolene, waving down one of the servers. \"You get the car.\"\n\n\"See you out front,\" he said, getting up.\n\nOn his way out, he stopped at the host stand and notified the young man managing the wait list that they had to leave immediately due to a family emergency-just to double upon Jolene's efforts to get them out of here quickly. He jogged through the parking lotto their SUV and put his phone in the holder attached to the dashboard. After backing out of the space, he took the satellite phone out of the glove box and gave Rick Gentry a call.\n\n\"I see it,\" said Gentry. \"On my way out of the room. She just turned north on Broad Street, so maybe she's headed back to the coffee shop?\"\n\n\"CONTROL indicated little to no evening activity since she moved back to DC,\" said Rudd, headed for the restaurant's entrance.\n\n\"She's thirty-seven, single, and has been living with her parents fora few weeks,\" said Gentry. \"This night could go in any of a dozen directions.\"\n\n\"I hope they go in Devin Gray's direction,\" said Rudd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't sound like it if he hasn't answered her texts,\" said Gentry.\n\n\"He went dark on that phone,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"Same result,\" said Gentry. \"Who knows. Maybe we'll get lucky. I'm in the lobby. I'll be on the road shortly.\"\n\nJolene barreled through the door several seconds after he'd stopped and put on the SUV's hazard lights. She carried a take-out bag and two large to-go drink cups as she hustled to the car. He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for her.\n\n\"I can't tell you how happy I am to see those bags!\" he said. \"And you, of course.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" she said, handing him the cups. \"I didn't want to have to fight you over the last granola bar in my purse.\"\n\nHe set the cups in the cup holders, and she dropped her purse into the footwell, keeping the take-out bag balanced on her knees while she buckled her seat belt.\n\n\"We'll deal with this later,\" she said, placing the bag on the rear passenger seat row.\n\n\"Hopefully sooner than later,\" he said, driving them to the exit onto Broad Street.\n\nYoung had passed the restaurant about a minute ago, still headed north. He squeezed into traffic and managed to cut the distance between them in half by the time they reached the Whole Foods from this morning. When she kept going, he started to suspect they were in fora long night. At the Capitol Beltway, any lingering doubt was removed. She took the on-ramp headed north, which was the last thing he'd expect anyone to do with rush hour still in progress. If Young were driving anywhere nearby, she would have been better off staying on local roads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About an hour and a half later, Young exited the Beltway at the I-95 interchange that took them north toward Baltimore. Twenty-two miles in ninety-three minutes translated into Rudd being ready to eat the rib eye steak he'd ordered at the restaurant with his bare hands. A single hand. One would have to remain on the steering wheel. He was about to suggest that Jolene crack open their dinner when the satellite phone rang. \"Rick,\" she said before answering the call.\n\n\"Hope you had dinner. Looks like we're headed to Baltimore,\" she said.\n\nRudd couldn't hear the other side of their conversation, but his wife hadn't rolled her eyes yet, which usually meant she agreed with whatever was being passed along. She lowered the phone.\n\n\"Rick is thinking we should get Logan and Nathan moving in this direction,\" she said. \"In case this pans out. Possibly Sandy.\"\n\nHe was right. If Gray surfaced, CONTROL might order them to make an immediate move against him, capture or kill being the only two options. Killing Gray on the spot wouldn't require more than the three of them. Kidnapping was a different story. They should be able to make it work with three, but the more the merrier.\n\n\"Let's get them on the road,\" said Rudd. \"But Sandy stays in place, on the outside chance that Gray shows his face at the apartment.\"\n\nShe passed that along to Gentry and called the rest of the team. When that was done, she reached between the seats, and fora brief moment he thought she might be going for their dinner. Instead, her hand reemerged with their laptop. She shook her head, smiling.\n\n\"I'll work on dinner in a minute,\" she said. \"We need to contact CONTROL with an update and transfer primary communications to the encrypted chat app on one of our mobile phones. Things will move fast if Gray materializes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Agreed,\" said Rudd.\n\nShe retrieved the Iridium SatSleeve from the glove box and inserted her smartphone, enabling satellite call capability. A few minutes later, after accessing the dark web chat box through the laptop and explaining the situation to CONTROL, she opened an app on her phone and entered along code provided in the chat session. Shortly after that, Jolene shut her laptop and returned it to the backseat.\n\n\"We're good,\" she said.\n\nThey'd now established a direct communications channel to CONTROL through the satellite-converted cellphone, which could get tricky. The specifically designed application replicated the dark web chat box but required them to enter a memorized'start word\" every time they typed into the text field. The application randomly prompted them with a number between one and one hundred by displaying it at the top of the screen-each number corresponding to a unique password. They both knew these words by heart. Only one mistake was tolerated. Two incorrect attempts shutdown everything, including their laptop's access. He had no idea what happened after that and didn't want to find out.\n\nAt 8:34 p. m., Harvey Rudd dropped his wife at the corner of Fait Avenue and South Glover Street in what looked like an upscale part of Baltimore, even though it was hard to tell with the flat redbrick facades. The map said they were in Canton, which was within walking distance of the northwest harbor, just to the east of Fells Point-a high-rent district. They'd have to be somewhat cautious here. People paying a premium fora one-bedroom loft with a view tended to keep an eye on the neighborhood. He wanted to keep his drive-bys to a minimum, if not eliminate them altogether. Young had parked her Jeep about halfway between Fait and Foster Avenues on South Glover Street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd turned off Foster Avenue onto South Glover just in time to see her disappear into a townhouse on the east side of the street with another woman. Young carried a backpack that looked large enough to bean overnight bag. The other woman was dressed in a business suit. The Rudds drew no conclusions from the little they witnessed, which was why he dropped Jolene off to keep an eye on things while he looked fora parking space with a view of the townhouse.\n\nThe problem was that South Glover, like almost all the north-south streets in this neighborhood, was a one-way street. In this case directed south. It took him several passes to finally score a parking space, which was ill suited for any of their possible follow-on missions. Located south of the townhouse, on the other side of Fait Avenue, he'd have to throw the SUV into reverse and blindly cross Fait Avenue, a marginally busy two-way street, to reach the townhouse-if CONTROL gave them the order to hit the house.\n\nAs much as he'd like to be positioned upstreet from the target house, pointing him in the right direction, he didn't dare give up what might end up being the only parking opportunity on the street. From here, he'd guide the rest of the team into place on nearby streets, where they'd be in quick striking distance if Devin Gray made an appearance. Rick Gentry had found a space two blocks over, facing Foster Avenue. He could arrive in front of the target house within thirty seconds.\n\nJolene joined him moments after he backed into the space, insisting that they prepare for possible breaching orders. They moved a duffel bag packed with flash-bang grenades in case they suspected armed opposition inside; bolt cutters for simple but persistent chain locks; a handheld, solid-steel battering ram for bypassing deadbolts or standard doorknob locks; and a pistol-gripped, short-barreled shotgun loaded with breacher slugs in case the locks proved to be resistant to brute physical force. Along with the compact pistols hidden in concealed holsters along their waistbands, they were ready for pretty much anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You hungry?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Rudd.\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Jolene, focusing a pair of binoculars on the townhouse.\n\nShe passed them to him a few moments later. \"Take a look.\"\n\nMarnie Young stood in the open doorway of the townhouse, nodding and laughing with the woman, who handed her a set of keys and a folder. The two of them shook hands after another minute or so of conversation, and the smartly dressed woman departed-walking to her car, which had been parked at the end of the street, on the corner of Foster Avenue. A near-perfect position for their purposes! He was about to suggest relocating to that spot when another vehicle slowed to turn onto the street as the other car departed, sliding into its place. It wasn't meant to be. He shifted the view back to Marnie Young, who glanced up and down the street before shutting the door behind her.\n\n\"She's up to something,\" said Rudd.\n\n\"Yep. Let's eat before this goes down,\" she said. \"I give it fifteen minutes tops.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Timothy Graves parked the rental sedan on the corner of South Glover Street and Foster Avenue and passed the keys between the seats to the woman lying on the back row under a blanket. She didn't say a word, which was fine by him. He wanted to get as far from here as possible. Just minutes ago, he'd driven out of a parking space down the road to make room for one of their targets before slowly circling the block to take the Airbnb owner's space-moving the final chess pieces into place.\n\nIf the couple in the Durango noticed that the cars were the same, a remote but existent possibility under the circumstances, trouble could escalate quicker than any of them had planned. And unchoreographed trouble was the last thing he was looking for tonight. Graves much preferred the kind the team could control, since they typically directed it away from him.\n\nHe wasn't a combat type. Far from it. And he was here only as a favor. He'd emerged from his mostly permanent retirement because Anish needed his help on a short-fused job, and Graves was within easy striking distance.\n\nHe'd settled into a nice living on the southern Outer Banks, near Emerald Isle, where he'd vacationed as a kid. Hauling himself to Jacksonville to get on a flight to Baltimore hadn't been any trouble at all.\n\n\"Good luck,\" he said.\n\n\"Yep,\" she said.\n\nHe got out and shut the door, the vehicle's locking system immediately chirping behind him. A little early on the locks, Emily. The average system took a little longer than that to arm itself. Hopefully, nobody would notice. He'd never worked with Emily Miralles before today. She'd joined Farrington's crew a year and a half ago, replacing Cassiopeia, a. k. a. Caz, who'd accepted a lucrative head security position for one of Capitol Hill's more influential senators. Miralles didn't say much, which, once again, suited him fine. The less he knew about any of these people the better, and the less they knew about him? Priceless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't that he disliked any of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd enjoyed his years working for Sanderson's program and subsequently with Farrington's spin-off operation. They'd taken on some giants in that time and come out on top, making the world a better place-he hoped. It was just that he could count on one hand the number of people who had been around from the beginning. Some of them had split and gone their own way, like him, but most of them had been killed on missions or assassinated in retribution for some of their more notorious jobs.\n\nThe fact that this job involved the Russians had almost kept him from showing up. The Russians had long memories, and Farrington had done a number on them in the past. More than once.\n\nHe walked a block east on Foster Avenue and crossed the street at South Lakewood, heading for the tricked-out silver Suburban Anish called home these days. Graves had to admit that his former partner in crime had made some aesthetic and functional improvements to the original concept of their undercover communications hub.\n\nBack in the day, they'd just bolt a folding desk and some industrial metal bookshelves to the floor of a cargo van, relying on a combination of Velcro, zip ties, and bungee cords to keep everything in place. Gupta had even completely hidden the antennae array, which had always posed a detection risk to them in the past. The only issue with the new arrangement was interior space. He'd traded the expansiveness of the somewhat conspicuous Mercedes cargo van for the assured cover of the oversize SUV-ubiquitous in the suburbs and city these days.\n\nThe Suburban was parked in a row of diagonal spaces on the left side of the street, facing out for quick egress. The rear passenger door opened the moment he stepped off the curb, Richard'Rich\" Farrington hopping down with a wide grin on his face. A rarity in Graves's experience." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Timothy. Sorry I missed you earlier. I was putting the final magic touches on a few things,\" said Rich. \"Good to see you. Sounds like life on the Outer Banks is treating you well.\"\n\n\"I can't complain too much,\" said Graves. \"It wasn't the easiest adjustment to make after spending close to two decades in this line of business, but I'm making it work. Everyday my shoulders relax about a quarter of a millimeter.\"\n\nRich laughed. \"Well, I apologize for setting your shoulders back a few months, but I do appreciate you coming out of retirement temporarily. My guess is we're going to need all the help we can get on this one. Did Miralles bring you up to speed on the mechanics of the operation?\"\n\n\"She did. Is this really the Russians?\" asked Graves.\n\nRich nodded. \"Long-dormant sleeper network. Second generation-if it checks out.\"\n\n\"Second generation? Holy shit,\" said Graves. \"Wait. You haven't vetted this yet?\"\n\n\"Tonight's operation has been vetted,\" said Rich. \"But Karl Berg says it's connected to a much-bigger conspiracy. We'll all get a chance to scour the evidence and try to poke holes in the theory.\"\n\n\"This is Berg's theory? I thought he was retired.\"\n\n\"He is. Or was. Kind of like someone else I know,\" said Rich, patting him on the shoulder. \"A former colleague of his at Langley apparently spent close to the past two decades investigating this theory. She was killed under suspicious circumstances about two weeks ago. Killed herself, but too many aspects of her case don't add up. She handed over the reins to her son, Devin Gray. He reached out to Berg at his mother's recommendation-and here we are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And Berg is convinced?\" asked Graves.\n\n\"He sounds convinced,\" said Rich. \"But he's open to criticism. Same with Devin Gray. They both want to be wrong about this.\"\n\n\"I knew I should have left my phone behind when I took the boat out this morning.\"\n\n\"What kind of boat?\"\n\n\"Nothing too fancy,\" said Graves. \"Just a fishing boat.\"\n\n\"Does it have a flying bridge?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"It might.\"\n\n\"Sounds kind of fancy,\" said Rich. \"Don't worry. We'll get you back to your yacht in one piece.\"\n\n\"I'll hold you to that,\" said Graves. \"And take you fishing if you make good on it.\"\n\n\"Deal,\" said Rich, shaking his hand. \"Keep your friend out of trouble. He hasn't matured since you left.\"\n\n\"I heard that,\" said Gupta.\n\n\"Be good, guys,\" said Rich before crossing the street and getting into the passenger seat of a black SUV that hadn't drawn Graves's attention until now.\n\nIn the fading light of the evening, he recognized Scott Daly, former Navy SEAL, behind the wheel of the SUV. Daly waved at him, and he nodded back. They were in good hands. Graves climbed inside and gave Gupta a high five before shutting the door.\n\n\"Thanks for answering the call of the wild, bro!\" said Gupta. \"The band is back together, baby!\"\n\n\"Is it too late to go home?\" asked Graves.\n\n\"You know you missed me,\" said Gupta.\n\n\"Not really,\" said Graves. \"What are we looking at here? They shoved me behind the wheel of a car a few minutes after I showed up and parked me on Glover Street with the least talkative operative I've ever met.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miralles? Yeah. She's all business, and good at it, too,\" said Gupta. \"All right. So here's what we've got for coverage. Two low-light-capable, high-def block cameras placed on the townhouse adjacent to the target house, giving us a good enough view up and down Glover Street. The trees kind of mess with the view at certain distances, but we have a good overall picture of the street. I have that on a split screen here. I'm running the feeds through motion-detection software, so it'll draw our attention to anything larger than a dog.\"\n\nGupta leaned forward and tapped the space baron the laptop sitting on the Suburban's wide front-seat armrest, activating the screen. Graves saw what he meant about the trees. Not ideal but not bad. The motion-detection software would overcome that issue.\n\n\"We also have a basic fish-eye dome camera setup on the fence behind the townhouse, off the alley. One-hundred-and-eighty-degree coverage. Motion activated. It'll popup as a window in the bottom-right corner of the screen if it's triggered, or you can click on the rightmost tab to open the feed at anytime. We both have the same access on our laptops, in case we need to split our attention between the front and back of the townhouse. I anticipate doing that during the pickup.\"\n\nGraves clicked the tab and liked what he saw. The concrete alley was well lit.\n\n\"Other than that, I have a multiband antenna on one of our vehicles on Glover Street, plus one on each adjacent street-attached as high up in the trees as we could manage. They have a very limited power supply. Our Russian friends have mainly used encrypted push-to-talk satellite communications. We should be able to map them out as they move into position.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed Graves one of the laptops on the seat between them and took the other for himself.\n\n\"There's no difference between either of these laptops, for redundancy reasons,\" he said, flipping the screen up. \"I figured I'd analyze the frequencies and sensors, while you maintained the bigger picture and communicated with the teams?\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan. Same comms arrangement?\" asked Graves.\n\nGupta reached behind the seat and retrieved a headphone set attached to a heavy-duty-looking coiled cord. He handed them over to Graves.\n\n\"Same. Same,\" said Gupta. \"Right ear is the primary communications channel. We're using one channel. Left ear is whatever you want. I currently have it tuned to the local police frequency. You can change it through the computer interface. If for some reason we need to leave the vehicle, there's a handheld radio preset with the same frequencies and an earbud headset in the seat pocket directly in front of you.\"\n\nGraves didn't like the sound of that at all, but it came with the job, along with a wide variety of other possible unpleasantries-like getting shot in the leg and walking with a slight limp for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, things like that didn't go away like tensed shoulders. He knew that from experience, which led to his next question.\n\n\"What's our security situation?\"\n\n\"Rich and Scott will be across the street until the extraction,\" said Gupta. \"Other than that, there's a loaded Sig Sauer compact pistol with two spare magazines in each door pocket.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" said Graves.\n\n\"Back into the frying pan, man,\" said Gupta. \"Just like old times.\"\n\n\"It wasn't that long ago,\" said Graves, suddenly remembering just how much he didn't miss this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin Gray drove up and down the streets east of the townhouse for close to twenty minutes before a parking space opened on South Belmore Avenue. He spent the next few minutes trying to squeeze his car into the opening left by a Prius. The end result wasn't pretty-the back end of his car protruded about afoot into the street-but it would have to do. Berg's people were anxious to offload their gear and get started. From what he had gathered, most of them would remain at the townhouse overnight, while the team leaders joined Devin and Berg at Helen's apartment to examine the evidence.\n\nBefore they set off down the street, Berg grabbed his arm. \"Are you sure there's noway to convince Marnie to leave the keys in the mailbox and get out of there? Right now. Her insistence on staying at the townhouse isn't sitting well with the crew. I don't want to give them any reason to back out of this.\"\n\n\"She's a good friend and a combat-decorated Marine. Completely trustworthy,\" said Devin. \"All she wants to do is make sure I'm not being put up to something or being forced to do something against my will. I know how that sounds, given the fact that I came to you with this, but she's not going to let this go. She's doing what a good friend would do. The harder I try to get her to leave, the less likely she will. She made that clear. You heard the phone call.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Well, she's getting in the way,\" said Berg, sliding his satchel's strap over a shoulder.\n\n\"She won't stick around for long. She'll see everything's fine with me, and that'll be it.\"\n\nBerg shook his head and started walking, almost mumbling to himself. They got to the corner of Foster Avenue, where Berg stopped. \"I need you to remember what we discussed earlier today,\" he said. \"About doing this my way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I remember,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I simply can't force Marnie to leave without making her even more suspicious than she already is. She'll just hang around in her car all night. I know her.\"\n\n\"That would be even worse,\" said Berg, looking somewhat exasperated.\n\n\"What?\" asked Devin, thinking he might have misspoken.\n\n\"Nothing. Let's go,\" he said.\n\nThey walked the two blocks to South Glover Avenue, Berg checking his phone every minute or so for texts and immediately assuring Devin that everything was on schedule. They didn't encounter much foot traffic on the way. A college-age student with a backpack bopping along to whatever music was pumping through his headphones. A thirtysomething-looking couple headed in the opposite direction, probably on their way to a cozy dinner in one of a number of Canton neighborhood restaurants. He'd pictured the streets hereto be a little busier, due to the proximity to the waterfront, but it was still early by city standards. Just a little past ten.\n\nSouth Glover was packed with cars, like every street in the area. He imagined having a dedicated garage or parking space behind your townhouse in the alley was important if you owned a place here. The parking situation around his mother's apartment was bad enough, but nothing like this. While they walked down the street, he scanned the vehicles without being obvious.\n\n\"Karl. Would it be fair to assume that your friends are already watching the townhouse?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"It's possible,\" said Berg. \"Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"We either passed by two friends or two hostiles a few cars back,\" said Devin. \"One close to the intersection. The second on the other side of the street. Both sedans. The car windows are cracked open for air, which means they've probably been therefor awhile. I also saw some movement in the backseat of one of the cars. Very subtle, but definitely movement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They've been here fora few hours,\" said Berg. \"To make sure Marnie hadn't been followed.\"\n\n\"They need to work on their surveillance fieldcraft,\" said Devin.\n\n\"I'll pass that along,\" said Berg.\n\nDevin watched the numbers on the front of the brick townhomes, stopping about two-thirds of the way to the next cross street, in front of a brightly lit redbrick stoop with a single black handrail, which pretty much looked like every other stoop in the neighborhood. He imagined this hadn't been exactly the best part of town a decade or so ago. Fully rehabilitated now, but not much you could do with the squat row house facades.\n\n\"Seven-twenty-seven,\" said Devin, raising his hand to knock on the door.\n\nHe'd belying if he said he wasn't more nervous about seeing Marnie than Berg's mercenaries. A different kind of nervous. More like butterflies in the stomach.\n\n\"Holdup,\" said Berg, checking his phone.\n\n\"I have a third surveillance vehicle down the road, before the next intersection,\" said Devin. \"Make sure that's ours.\"\n\n\"It is,\" said Berg, typing a response on the phone before looking up at Devin. \"They're being extra cautious. Ready?\"\n\nDevin knocked on the door.\n\n\"Just remember. I need you to trust me. No matter what happens,\" said Berg. \"When Marnie opens the door, we get inside fast. Okay?\"\n\n\"Are you sure everything is all right?\"\n\n\"Couldn't be better,\" said Berg.\n\nMarnie opened the door a moment later, smiling warmly.\n\n\"I thought you might have stood me up,\" she said, glancing at her watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Definitely not,\" said Devin. \"We just ran a little behind-\"\n\n\"Why don't we talk about this inside,\" said Berg, basically shoving him into the townhouse.\n\nMarnie's smile evaporated as she backed out of the doorway, her lips pursing and eyes squinting.\n\n\"Devin. What the hell is going on?\" she said, pulling him out of Berg's way. \"Who is this asshole?\"\n\nBerg shut and locked the door.\n\n\"My name is Karl. I was a friend of Devin's mother at the CIA. Devin trusts me, and I need you to trust me. At least fora few minutes. Our lives depend on it.\"\n\n\"What is he talking about?\" asked Marnie.\n\n\"Karl. I think you're being a little overdramatic,\" said Devin before turning to Marnie. \"I don't know what his deal is right now.\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, I don't like it,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes. I'm an asshole. Agreed. Let's move to the back of the townhouse, please,\" said Berg. \"It's safer.\"\n\nMarnie didn't budge, shaking her head instead. \"I'm not going anywhere.\"\n\n\"Please. We're about to have company at the front door. Russian houseguests with no manners. If we move now, we'll belong gone before they arrive.\"\n\n\"Devin?\" she said, giving him a puzzled look.\n\n\"Karl. How does that make any-\" started Devin.\n\nJesus. He'd used them as bait!\n\n\"You son of a bitch. You let them follow her here, didn't you?\" said Devin. \"This whole townhouse is nothing but a setup. I knew it didn't sound right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I'm half of the bait,\" said Berg, starting to walkaway. \"So please. Can we get the fuck out of here? We really don't have time for this. Our ride will be outback any second.\"\n\n\"Don't take another step,\" said Marnie, pointing a compact pistol at Berg. \"We're going to make sometime.\"\n\nBerg's shoulders slumped and he exhaled deeply.\n\n\"Did you give her your gun?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Devin.\n\nThe pistol he'd taken from his mother's safe had been a Smith& Wesson M& P9 Compact. She was holding some kind of modular Sig Sauer.\n\n\"Jesus. Please talk to her. Quickly,\" said Berg. \"We're out of time.\"\n\n\"Marnie. I need you to trust me,\" said Devin. \"If he says we need to go, we need to go. I'll explain everything at my mother's apartment.\"\n\n\"Your mother's apartment is still an active crime scene,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"My mother's other apartment,\" said Devin. \"She wasn't crazy. She discovered a Russian sleeper network, and nobody believed her-but it's all true. She kept a second apartment with all of the evidence.\"\n\n\"Devin. I want to believe you, but I'm really having a hard time with this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd nudged Jolene's arm. She'd been turned in her seat, staring through the binoculars for too long without saying anything.\n\n\"Knock it off,\" she said.\n\n\"What are you seeing?\" asked Rudd.\n\n\"Let me seethe pictures again,\" she said.\n\nRudd held the pictures of Karl Berg and Devin Gray in the subdued light cast by the open glove box. Jolene glanced down at the pictures fora few seconds before returning to the binoculars.\n\n\"It's Karl Berg and Devin Gray,\" said Jolene.\n\n\"How sure are you?\"\n\n\"One hundred percent. They just entered the townhouse,\" said Jolene. \"Call it in.\"\n\nRudd could barely believe their luck. Two of CONTROL's high-priority targets in one place. He'd been expecting only Gray, and even that had been along shot. He opened the chat app on Jolene's phone and typed the code word corresponding with the number at the top of the screen, followed by a dash and then his message.\n\nDANDELION-Berg and Gray just entered townhouse. 100% positive ID. Have 6 members of team standing by with breaching kit and weapons. Advise how to proceed.\n\nThe number at the top of the screen changed several seconds later, followed by a reply.\n\nIs Young in townhouse?\n\nUNICORN-Yes. Young, Berg and Gray.\n\nKill Young. Abduct Berg and Gray. If only feasible to abduct ONE, take Berg and kill Gray. Advise of results when complete. Will pass directions to safe house for delivery. Acknowledge receipt of this order.\n\nThe number changed again. They weren't taking any chances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "STARWARS-Order received.\n\nExecute orders immediately. Authorization code CARWASH.\n\nCARWASH was the code the other members of the team would receive via text. He'd have to recite the code to prove that he'd received authorization to deviate from their previous order to locate and follow Devin Gray and/or Karl Berg. It was a crude method that still left a lot of room for abuse. He could essentially tell the team anything he wanted, and they wouldn't have anyway to verify the actual orders.\n\n\"Read this,\" said Rudd, handing the phone to his wife.\n\nShe gave it a quick look. \"Call Logan. We need to move quick, while they're standing around making introductions. I assume Young has never met Berg before.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" said Rudd, grabbing his satellite phone and pressing the push-to-talk button. \"Put me on speakerphone,\" he said to Logan, doing the same.\n\n\"You're on speakerphone,\" said Walsh. \"We all just received text messages.\"\n\n\"CARWASH. CARWASH. Berg and Gray just entered the townhouse. CONTROL gave me the green light to hit the townhouse,\" said Rudd. \"We're going to try and take both Berg and Gray, but if grabbing both of them starts to go sideways, we kill Gray and take Berg.\"\n\n\"What about Young?\" asked Walsh.\n\n\"We kill her right away,\" said Rudd. \"We don't need any Marine heroics.\"\n\n\"We're ready to roll,\" said Walsh.\n\n\"Get everyone set and move up to the corner,\" said Rudd. \"You'll have to be my eyes when I back across Fait Avenue. I won't be able to seethe cross traffic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm already on the move,\" said Walsh. \"No traffic right now. I'll keep you posted.\"\n\n\"Let's do this,\" said Rudd, starting the Durango. \"Breach kit is in the backseat.\"\n\n\"We're at the corner,\" said Walsh.\n\nHe glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Walsh's Pathfinder pull into place at the intersection.\n\n\"You ready?\" he said.\n\nJolene had already drawn her compact stainless-steel revolver. \"Quit talking and start driving.\"\n\nRudd maneuvered the Durango out of the tight space and lined up with the intersection using the backup camera screen on the center console. His phone chirped, followed by Walsh's voice.\n\n\"You're all clear.\"\n\nHe pressed the accelerator, starting slow and picking up speed. Eyes glued to the screen, he raced across Fait Avenue, immediately slowing when he'd crossed to the other side safely.\n\n\"Tell me when to stop,\" said Rudd.\n\nHe proceeded at a manageable speed until Jolene squeezed his knee. \"A few more seconds.\"\n\nRudd counted to three and slowed to a crawl, turning his head to check the street addresses. Seven thirty-one. Seven twenty-nine. He tapped the brakes, bringing them to a stop directly in front of the target address.\n\n\"Jesus, Logan!\" yelled Jolene, as Walsh's SUV screeched to a halt just inches from Rudd's front bumper.\n\nSo much for the element of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Car tires screeched outside, turning all their heads.\n\n\"We have to go-right fucking now,\" said Berg, taking off for the back of the townhouse.\n\nDevin put his hand on Marnie's wrist and lowered the gun. \"I'll explain everything later. Right now, we need to do what Karl says.\"\n\nMarnie fumed fora moment before bolting through the townhouse, with Devin in close pursuit. Once out the backdoor, he spotted a black SUV parked in the alley just beyond a low concrete wall. A man he'd never seen before whisper-yelled obscenities at them through the front passenger window as they raced across the brick patio toward a black wrought iron gate.\n\n\"Hurry the fuck up!\" he hissed as they piled through the gate and into the back row of the SUV.\n\nThe vehicle took off the moment Devin jumped inside, the door still wide open. He reached out to pull it shut, a plastic garbage bin clipping the end of the door and slamming it against his hand. Devin pulled the door shut with his other hand, groaning in pain.\n\nThe man in the passenger seat glanced over his shoulder. \"What was the damn holdup? Half the Red Army is in front of the townhouse.\"\n\n\"Just a little disagreement,\" said Berg. \"It wasn't my best moment.\"\n\n\"No worries. We're still good to go,\" he said before fully turning in his seat. \"Devin. Marnie. I'm Rich, the de facto team leader. And this is Scott. I apologize for this sudden stunt, but we needed to get a handle on who's been following both of you.\"\n\nScott turned left out of the alley at Fait Avenue and picked up speed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought my Jeep was clean,\" said Marnie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that nobody was following me.\"\n\n\"That's what I was told,\" said Devin. \"I would never have put you in any danger.\"\n\nRich glanced down at the pistol in Marnie's lap. \"My guess is she can take care of herself.\"\n\n\"You lied tome, Karl. For an entire day. How am I supposed to trust any of you?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Devin. There was no other way to pull this off. We needed all of the Russians in one place, which meant you and me showing up at the townhouse to offer an irresistible target,\" said Berg. \"Ms. Young insisted on staying at the townhouse. I begged you to get her out of there.\"\n\n\"I wasn't going anywhere,\" said Marnie. \"I needed to see for myself who was pulling the strings. Now I know.\"\n\nScott took a hard left on South Belnord Street, tires screeching.\n\n\"Take it easy,\" said Rich.\n\nScott slowed the vehicle down significantly.\n\n\"We'll explain everything later,\" said Rich. \"Right now, I'm going to drop the two of you off at Devin's car, and you're going to run a short SDR to the northeast. Thirty minutes tops. Just get out of the city and into the suburbs. Work your magic in a nice, quiet neighborhood, then back to your mother's apartment. Stick north of the city on your return. The police will be allover this part of town.\"\n\n\"What's happening back at the townhouse?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Bad shit,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Point-of-no-return shit, to be precise,\" said Berg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harvey Rudd had pulled the nylon duffel bag containing their breacher kit onto the sidewalk by the time the entire team had assembled in front of the door. They wasted no time rifling through its contents, removing the battering ram first. Leo Ward took possession of the forty-pound, two-handed chunk of metal, and headed for the townhouse stoop. Logan Walsh grabbed the shotgun, which they'd preloaded with twelve-gauge slug shots, and followed closely behind Ward. Rick Gentry stuffed a few of the flash-bang grenades into his cargo pant pockets, keeping one out for immediate use.\n\nThey stacked upon the door like a SWAT team: Ward with the battering ram first, lining it up with the door handle; Walsh racking the shotgun to chamber one of the lock-shattering slugs and positioning himself on the hinge side of the door-in case the battering ram didn't do the trick. Gentry stood at the bottom of the stoop, flash-bang grenade in hand, ready to toss it inside if they met with any immediate gunfire. Clark stacked up behind Walsh, ready to rush in and shoot Young. Everything was in place.\n\nRudd threw the duffel bag in the backseat of the Durango and drew a compact Glock from the concealed holster on his hip.\n\n\"Do it! Breach!\" he said, heading straight for the townhouse stoop.\n\nWard retracted the battering ram, ready to smash it against the handle, when his head snapped sideways, a watermelon-size scarlet blotch exploding against the yellow door. Walsh's neck erupted a fraction of a second later, painting Ward's expressionless face deep red. Both of them crumpled to the stoop as bullets tore through the rest of the team.\n\nGentry pitched forward, striking the brick stairs with his head, the grenade rolling down the sidewalk-pin and safety lever still intact. Clark whirled to his right, snapping off two shots into the darkness, before along burst of bullets thumped into his head and chest, knocking him backward like he'd been hit by a bus. He slammed into Jolene, who lost her balance and stumbled sideways until she tripped over her own feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rudd launched forward and broke her fall with one arm, keeping her head from bouncing off the sidewalk. He kept his pistol hand extended, for no real reason other than to feel as though he were doing something to protect his wife. He hadn't seen a single muzzle flash, and the sidewalks were empty. Whoever had positioned these snipers had orchestrated this moment perfectly. They'd probably been behind everything that had gone down today. All leading to this stoop, and the annihilation of his team.\n\nHe managed to say'sorry\" to Jolene before a bullet hit the crown of her head and switched her off forever. Rudd pressed the Glock's trigger repeatedly, aiming at nothing in particular, before he joined her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jared Hoffman searched through the night vision scope attached to his suppressed rifle for any movement, finding the stoop and sidewalk completely still aside from the occasional postmortem twitch. He took his eye out of the scope and observed the entire street. Nothing. The three sweltering hours he'd spent hidden in the backseat of this car had comedown to a five-second, very-one-sided gun battle. Well worth the price. He pressed the transmit button hidden inside his shirt collar.\n\n\"Melendez. You see any unfinished business?\" he asked.\n\nHis earpiece crackled. \"Negative. Six targets down. The couple and the four that arrived in the second SUV. Down hard.\"\n\nHe agreed with that assessment. Hoffman had fired nothing but head and neck shots, connecting with each burst.\n\n\"Graves. You got any funky chatter out there?\" asked Hoffman.\n\n\"No. Satellite push-to-talk traffic went quiet right before the vehicles moved in,\" he said. \"I'm monitoring the police frequencies closely. We heard the shots from here.\"\n\nHoffman was mad at himself for that. He should have plugged the husband first, especially when he didn't drop the pistol to catch her. Those five shots would guarantee a dozen or more 911 calls. The first two, fired by the other guy, might have kept people inside the townhomes guessing fora while before they finally decided to play it safe and call the police.\n\n\"Copy that,\" said Hoffman. \"Miralles. It's all you. We'll keep you covered.\"\n\nA car started on the other side of the street, down toward Foster Avenue. He caught a brief glimpse of Miralles's ski-masked face and a gloved middle finger when her vehicle raced by.\n\n\"I saw that,\" said Hoffman over the net." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were supposed to,\" she said.\n\nMiralles squeezed her car past the two idling SUVs and parked in the middle of the street. She worked the scene fast, first emptying the loose contents inside each SUV into a heavy-duty black rectangular gym bag. She'd search under the seats. Inside the glove box. The seat pockets. Everywhere.\n\nNext, she searched the bodies, emptying pockets and tossing everything but the weapons into the bag. When she'd finished with that, Miralles removed a digital camera from one of the outer pockets of the gym bag and took close-up pictures of the Russians\" faces-what was left of them. A few dozen flashes later, she pocketed the camera and started on the fingerprints with a handheld scanning device. Thumbs and index fingers only.\n\n\"I'm getting a lot of police scanner traffic,\" said Graves.\n\n\"How long do we have?\" asked Hoffman.\n\n\"Software just picked up a unit responding with \"one minute ETA.\" Get out of there now,\" said Graves.\n\n\"Pack it up, Miralles,\" said Hoffman, pulling down his ski mask. \"Melendez. Blaze a trail for us.\"\n\n\"I'm already Oscar Mike,\" said Miralles, headed for her car with the gym bag.\n\nAn SUV parked about five spaces beyond Miralles's sedan pulled into the street and stopped.\n\n\"Ready to roll,\" said Melendez. \"I can hear sirens. No lights yet.\"\n\nHoffman could hear them, too. He climbed over the reclined driver's seat and slid into place behind the steering wheel, then straightened his seat before starting the car. The keys had been in the ignition the entire time. He'd left them there when he'd rolled the windows down all the way to keep from slow cooking himself to death. The last thing he needed was to be fumbling for keys at a critical moment-like his escape. A quick scan of his mirrors caught some faint red and blue flashes on the buildings at the intersection behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have lights coming down Foster Avenue,\" said Hoffman. \"Can't tell the direction. Get out of here. I'll catch up.\"\n\nHe yanked the wheel all the way to the left and pulled out of the parking space at full speed, somehow avoiding the vehicle parked in front of him. A once-in-a-lifetime stunt, he graciously accepted. Every second would count here. He sped down the street toward the Russians'SUVs, centering his car on the narrow gap between their vehicles and the cars parked along the right side of the road. He shot through the opening, once again emerging unscathed. Things were going entirely too smoothly for him so far. He'd probably broadside a police cruiser at the next intersection.\n\nWith that thought in mind, he slowed as he approached Fait Avenue, looking in both directions as he crept through the empty intersection. A few blocks west, two police cars turned onto Fait Avenue, headed in his direction. He floored the accelerator.\n\n\"I have two police cruisers coming up Fait Avenue from the west,\" said Hoffman. \"Not sure if they saw me.\"\n\n\"I haven't picked up any pursuit calls,\" said Graves. \"All townhouse units. Take the first left off Glover. We need to get you out of sight.\"\n\nUp ahead, Melendez and Miralles turned off the road, their taillights racing left and vanishing. He hoped to get to that turn before the police cars reached the intersection behind him. Red and blue lights flashed in his mirrors, momentarily disappearing-then reappearing. They looked a lot farther away than he'd expected. Mirror tricks? Another glance in his rearview mirror left him believing they'd turned onto Glover Street beyond the Russian SUVs. He ripped off his ski mask and tossed it on the passenger seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I have police units approaching the townhouse from Foster Avenue. Nothing off Fait Avenue yet,\" said Hoffman. \"Almost at the turn.\"\n\n\"Confirming the units turning off Foster,\" said Graves. \"Fait is still clear.\"\n\nHe glanced in the side mirror, confirming that the police units approaching from the west on Fait Avenue had not reached a point where they could see him. He had a few more seconds at most before they raced into sight. No time for stop signs. His four-door sedan skidded into the intersection ahead of him, tires screeching the entire time-as he cut directly in front of a minivan. The woman honked her horn, and kept it blaring as he drove away.\n\n\"I'm clear,\" said Hoffman. \"But I nearly hit a minivan when I was turning off Glover. Fifty-fifty she calls nine-one-one, especially given all the police activity she's about to encounter. That and the fact that I'm still wearing a ski mask.\"\n\n\"You're kidding, right?\" asked Melendez.\n\nThe masks were meant to prevent one of the neighbors from getting lucky with their smartphone camera. Same with the opaque license plate covers, which they'd have to remove sooner than later.\n\n\"Yeah. But I'm not kidding about the minivan. I think she's still laying on the horn,\" said Hoffman.\n\n\"This is Rich. Even if she calls nine-one-one, we'll belong gone before they piece any of this together. Good job, everyone. Let's run Hoffman, Miralles, and Melendez directly to Gray's apartment. The police will get makes and models from the neighbors, or the minivan lady. We don't need you reentering the city later tonight after along SDR. The chances of getting pulled over are too high. The rest of us will-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rich. This is Graves. Are we sure that was the only Russian team working the townhouse? A shitload of push-to-talk satellite traffic just lit up my screen. We're trying to pinpoint, but all I can give you is a general direction at the moment.\"\n\n\"Where?\" asked Farrington.\n\n\"Somewhere east of our current location on Linwood Avenue. A few blocks away, I'd guess, based on signal strength.\"\n\n\"Where's Gray and Young?\"\n\n\"Turning onto Eastern Avenue off Robinson Street,\" said Graves. \"A few blocks east of here.\"\n\nHoffman hit the accelerator and blew through his second stop sign of the night. Definitely not his last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin Gray turned his mother's car onto Eastern Avenue, which ran parallel to the southern edge of Patterson Park for several city blocks. His plan was to take Eastern to Interstate 95 and drive north fora good twenty to thirty minutes, exiting in one of the city's suburbs, where he'd run a few countersurveillance drills through some of the quiet neighborhoods. Anyone following them would stick out immediately once he got off the interstate.\n\n\"How am I supposed to get my Jeep?\" asked Marnie.\n\nIt was the first thing she'd said since they'd been dropped off at his car. To say that Marnie looked angry would bean understatement. Seething might be a more accurate description.\n\n\"I honestly don't know,\" said Devin. \"I wasn't aware that the townhouse was a setup. I swear.\"\n\n\"I heard gunshots, Devin,\" said Marnie. \"Gunshots. My name is on the Airbnb agreement.\"\n\n\"Tell them you ran out the backdoor when you heard the gunshots,\" said Devin, instantly realizing the many flaws in that plan.\n\n\"But I didn't call nine-one-one or hide in the alley until the police arrived,\" said Marnie. \"I suppose if we turned around right now and you dropped me off a few blocks over, I could approach the nearest police station and ask a few questions. Maybe try to figure out if anyone reported you and Karl showing up minutes before the gunshots, so I don't totally get caught in a lie when I say that Iran away in fear. You know, get my alibi straightened out and all that.\"\n\n\"Marnie. You didn't do anything wrong,\" he said, now utterly convinced he'd be better off just shutting up.\n\n\"True. I could probably just lawyer up and tell the police that it's none of their business why I rented an Airbnb for twelve people in Baltimore for five hundred dollars a night and that same townhouse got attacked a few hours later. And that the two guys who showed up a few minutes before it got attacked was just a random coincidence. Spend sometime trying to explain you and Karl. All while the Russians, or whoever is really after you, decides to up the ante and stop by my parents\" place. Speaking of which, I need to call them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin hadn't thought of her parents, or even his dad, for that matter-because he'd had no idea any of this would happen. He'd come to terms with the possibility that he might have to hide his dad and sister at some point but figured that was weeks away. Plus, Berg had said he could help with that, especially if Devin could convince his dad to fly out to Los Angeles. Apparently, Berg knew a crew out there that specialized in hiding people. But tonight's events had come as a complete surprise. He should do the same as Marnie and call his dad. Get him on a red-eye flight to Los Angeles. Same with Marnie's parents.\n\n\"You might not want to hear this, but Karl knows some people in LA that can disappear our parents fora while,\" said Devin. \"I'm going to make my dad take that option. Karl said it would bean entirely comfortable experience. Not some desert bunker somewhere.\"\n\nDevin's attention shifted from Marnie to a dark SUV speeding into the intersection. Shit. His satellite phone rang a moment later, the name KARL appearing on the screen.\n\n\"Sounds wonderful,\" said Marnie. \"I'll let you explain to them. I'm sure they'll-\"\n\nDevin slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt well short of the black SUV.\n\n\"What the hell, Devin!\" said Marnie, bracing her arms against the dashboard.\n\nHe detected movement in his peripheral vision, his eyes shifting to the driver's-side mirror. A sedan parked itself diagonally across the two-lane street behind him, blocking most of it. He briefly considered turning left and driving into the park, but the doors flew open on both vehicles as a second SUV screeched into the intersection in front of him. If he turned the vehicle, he'd expose the sides of his car to gunfire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Russians. Get down!\" said Devin, ducking below the dashboard and opening his car door. \"Takeout the guys behind us first. We'll use the car as cover until help arrives.\"\n\n\"How do we even know-\" she started, the windshield instantly spider-cracking from several bullet holes.\n\n\"That's how!\" said Devin, sliding out of the car and staying low. \"Get behind the car!\"\n\nHe drew the M& P9 from the concealed holster on his right hip and sighted in on the masked attacker who had just jumped down from the rear driver's-side seat. He fired as he moved toward the back of his car, pressing the trigger five times in rapid succession and knocking his target against the back of the sedan. He shifted the pistol's sights to the driver, who had dropped to both knees-arms by his side, pistol clattering to the street. The man's head snapped back before Devin pressed the trigger, Marnie finishing him off.\n\nBullets from the intersection snapped inches overhead and to his side as he emptied the rest of his magazine at the shooter who had crouched next to the sedan's rear bumper. The man pitched forward and caught his fall with both hands, his pistol still clutched in one of them. Devin ejected the spent pistol magazine and grabbed one of the spares concealed on his left hip, his brain doing the math. Time was not on his side.\n\nHis reload was quick and flawless, but the man had his gun up and pointed in his direction before he'd thumbed the slide release and chambered around. Devin should have reserved a few bullets and assessed his first volley. He'd made a fatal error. Gunfire exploded in his ear, the heat from repeated muzzle blasts warming the side of his face. The shooter next to the car's bumper slammed against the street, his arms giving out beneath him as several bullets peppered his body. The business end of Marnie's Sig Sauer suddenly appeared in Devin's peripheral vision, its barrel smoking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He released his pistol's slide and scooted behind the car, bullets fired from the intersection chasing him around the bumper. Devin searched the sedan for movement, finding none at the moment.\n\n\"Any left back here?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"No. I took out the driver, front passenger, and the guy that was about to shoot you,\" said Marnie, reloading her pistol. \"This is my last mag.\"\n\n\"I thought you were a helicopter pilot,\" he said.\n\n\"Marine first. Helicopter pilot second,\" she said.\n\nA burst of automatic gunfire raked the sedan. Glass blasted across the top of the trunk and rained down on their heads, the car's metal chassis thumping from multiple bullet hits along its side. Devin risked a look around the corner of the car, drawing more automatic fire, a few bullets punching through the trunk near his head. He counted at least three attackers moving in on his side.\n\nMarnie's gun barked twice before she was driven back by gunfire, sparks flying off the pavement next to her. She moved toward the center of the trunk moments before the taillight exploded, spraying her with plastic shards. Devin peeked around the taillight next to him with his pistol, firing at a man who had reached a point even with the hood of the car. His bullets caught the attacker high on the left side of his torso, spinning him to face the hood. Before Devin could drill the man again, a hail of bullets pushed him back-to-back against Marnie. They were out of room and nearly out of time. He saw only one way out of this now-for one of them.\n\n\"Get ready to make a run for the back of the sedan. Stay low and focus your shots on targets to the left side of this car. You should be screened from any gunfire on the other side. Empty your gun and pickup one of theirs,\" said Devin, nodding at the dead guy lying behind the SUV. \"They probably have something that packs a bigger punch in the vehicle. I'll buy you sometime.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What does that mean?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said, before popping up to squeeze off three quick shots.\n\nA furious maelstrom of bullets answered her gunfire, a few skipping off the pavement underneath the car-miraculously missing their feet. The car dropped several inches, its tires flattened by the latest fusillade of supersonic projectiles.\n\n\"They're right up next to the car,\" she said. \"We won't make it.\"\n\n\"I'll draw their fire down the left side,\" said Devin. \"You empty your pistol at anyone you see. You'll make it.\"\n\n\"But you won't. We stick together,\" said Marnie, winking at him. \"That's the plan.\"\n\nA bullet creased his left shin, dropping his knee to the pavement. Marnie grabbed his shirt and kept him from falling forward. He raised his pistol over the trunk and fired a few blind shots, hoping to dissuade anyone creeping along the side of the car.\n\n\"I got you into this,\" he said. \"I'll get you out. Get ready to run.\"\n\n\"I don't think either of us is getting out of this, but I'd rather go down trying,\" she said before extending her pistol around the shattered taillight next to her and blindly emptying her magazine.\n\nScreams erupted from her side of the car, once again answered by more gunfire than they could hope to repel with one pistol remaining between them.\n\n\"Let's go,\" she said, taking off.\n\nDevin grabbed her wrist and yanked her back, having heard the screech of tires somewhere nearby.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\" she said.\n\nThe volume of gunfire passing over and next to them doubled instantly, muzzle flashes appearing from the corner of the nearest building at the intersection one street behind them. More tires screeched, this time clearly coming from the intersection ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our backup arrived,\" said Devin.\n\nHe quick-peeked around the side of the car with his pistol, seeing two masked figures. Both of them fired their submachine guns over the hood at Berg's newly arrived associates. One of them noticed him and started to swing his weapon back in Devin's direction, but it was too late. Devin pressed the trigger twice, punching two holes in his face, before shifting aim and firing the remaining six bullets center mass-knocking the second shooter flat. A short burst of bullets fired from one of Berg's people stitched across the guy's torso just moments after he hit the street.\n\nThe mix of gunfire changed over the course of the next several seconds. More and more suppressed gunfire, which sounded more like hands clapping than regular gunfire-until everything went quiet. Devin started to getup.\n\n\"Stay down!\" yelled a voice from the intersection. \"We'll tell you when it's clear!\"\n\nDevin crouched beside Marnie and reloaded his pistol while a brief symphony of suppressed gunshots played out in the intersection against a background of police sirens.\n\n\"I can't believe this just happened,\" she said, a single suppressed shot punctuating her sentence. \"That it's still happening. They're just walking around intersections popping people in the head, aren't they?\"\n\n\"I can't see exactly what they're doing, but-\"\n\n\"It was more of a rhetorical question,\" she said, a nearby shot startling both of them. \"Of course they're executing people. How is any of this even possible-in the middle of fucking Baltimore? What did your mom stumble on?\"\n\n\"You'll see soon enough,\" said Devin. \"It's big.\"\n\n\"It must be,\" she said." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 35" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our backup arrived,\" said Devin.\n\nHe quick-peeked around the side of the car with his pistol, seeing two masked figures. Both of them fired their submachine guns over the hood at Berg's newly arrived associates. One of them noticed him and started to swing his weapon back in Devin's direction, but it was too late. Devin pressed the trigger twice, punching two holes in his face, before shifting aim and firing the remaining six bullets center mass-knocking the second shooter flat. A short burst of bullets fired from one of Berg's people stitched across the guy's torso just moments after he hit the street.\n\nThe mix of gunfire changed over the course of the next several seconds. More and more suppressed gunfire, which sounded more like hands clapping than regular gunfire-until everything went quiet. Devin started to getup.\n\n\"Stay down!\" yelled a voice from the intersection. \"We'll tell you when it's clear!\"\n\nDevin crouched beside Marnie and reloaded his pistol while a brief symphony of suppressed gunshots played out in the intersection against a background of police sirens.\n\n\"I can't believe this just happened,\" she said, a single suppressed shot punctuating her sentence. \"That it's still happening. They're just walking around intersections popping people in the head, aren't they?\"\n\n\"I can't see exactly what they're doing, but-\"\n\n\"It was more of a rhetorical question,\" she said, a nearby shot startling both of them. \"Of course they're executing people. How is any of this even possible-in the middle of fucking Baltimore? What did your mom stumble on?\"\n\n\"You'll see soon enough,\" said Devin. \"It's big.\"\n\n\"It must be,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Devin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie. It's Rich. I'm standing directly in front of your car,\" he yelled. \"We're clear, and we need to get out of here immediately.\"\n\n\"You okay?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"I didn't get shot, if that's what you mean,\" said Marnie. \"You?\"\n\n\"I'm good,\" he said before slowly rising from a crouch to a standing position.\n\nHis shin burned from the bullet that had grazed him, but that was about it. He'd been extremely lucky. An inch back, and the bullet would have torn muscle and possibly fragmented bone. They were both lucky, when he thought about it. Several bullets had zipped under the car during the gun battle, anyone of them with the potential to have altered the night's outcome.\n\nRich met them along the side of the car, next to three dead operatives. Suppressed assault rifle slung across a black-plate carrier vest, he pointed at a black SUV parked at the edge of the intersection.\n\n\"Get in the back with Karl,\" said Farrington. \"We're out of herein fifteen seconds. Go!\"\n\nThey took off for the SUV, Devin surveying the carnage as they ran. Rich and three of his associates quickly spread out among the vehicles, yanking the masks off several of the shooters and taking pictures. The moment Devin and Marnie reached the SUV, Rich spoke into his microphone and the crew bolted in their direction. Marnie opened the door and got inside, while Devin watched a precision machine inaction.\n\nRich stopped next to Devin's car and took something that looked like a phone from one of the dead shooters\" hands. After pocketing the device, he tossed two cylindrical devices in the car, one in the backseat and one in the front. He took off for the SUV as soon as the second device left his hand. Down the street, beyond the sedan that had boxed them in from behind, a massive billow of smoke exploded in the middle of the intersection, followed by a second, rapidly expanding cloud of smoke about twenty yards past the first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scott sprinted by him and continued past the two cars parked tightly behind the SUV. He pulled the pinon a smoke grenade and overhand threw it at least fifty feet down the street. On his way back, he prepped another grenade and tossed it about half as far as the one before. The distant grenade detonated, instantly obscuring the street with a pure white smoke. The second popped a few seconds later, thickening the smokescreen. They did the same at all points leading into the intersection, as the sound of sirens approached, and police lights started reflecting off the trees in the adjacent park.\n\nA blinding flash lit the entire intersection, followed almost immediately by a hollow-sounding explosion. Devin turned in time to seethe second incendiary grenade detonate in his mother's car, ejecting a shower of brightly burning pellets out of every window in a hissing fireworks-grade pyrotechnic display. The interior of the car burst into flames instantly. Rich raced up to the SUV and handed him a satellite phone, which he recognized as his own. One of the Russians must have taken it.\n\nDevin slid inside and shut the door. The SUV lurched forward and pinned him against the seat. Visibility beyond the windshield dropped to zero as soon as they turned onto Eastern Avenue. They drove blind for several seconds before emerging from the smoke. The traffic light a block ahead was green. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the intersection's buildings. Scott slowed the SUV as two police Ford Interceptor SUVs raced into view and turned in their direction.\n\nRich raised his rifle a few inches, adjusting his grip. Devin glanced at Marnie, who had apparently noticed the same thing. Berg leaned forward.\n\n\"Rich. We had an agreement,\" he said.\n\nThe rifle lowered. \"Sorry. Just a little wired.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Interceptors sped past them, and Devin turned to watch them through the cargo compartment windshield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two police vehicles stopped at the edge of the expanding street-wide cloud and immediately backed up, their white reverse lights already hazy from the smoke. The two sedans carrying other members of Rich's team peeled left at the intersection they'd just crossed, headed north on South Ellwood Avenue. The Interceptors stopped backing up about halfway to the intersection, but none of the officers got out. Alone police car swerved into the intersection from the north, where Rich's associates had just turned, and parked next to the SUVs. It appeared that the police hadn't taken notice of them. Yet.\n\n\"Looks like we're clear for now,\" said Devin.\n\nRich glanced between the seats. \"Clear is a relative term at the moment. This changes things.\"\n\n\"Changes everything,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Definitely changes our escape and evasion plan. I think we'll head to BWI and abandon these in long-term parking. Pickup some rentals in the terminal. I'll have Gupta make the arrangements through a business account,\" said Rich. \"We have to assume all four of the vehicles involved with the townhouse have been made. This one and the three sedans.\"\n\n\"Scrap the airport rental car idea,\" said Devin. \"They'll have people watching the rental agencies inside and outside of the terminal. That's what I would do. We need to find a twenty-four-hour parking garage just north of DC, near a Metro station. A number of the parking garages offer monthly parking, payable on the spot. Silver Spring has a few. Ride the Metro fora little while, then grab a taxi back to the general vicinity of my mother's apartment. Cash only. Nobody will find the vehicles.\"\n\n\"Devin's right. We can rendezvous with the Suburban along the way and transfer all of our weapons and gear,\" said Rich." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We need to be careful with the Suburban,\" said Berg. \"They must have had someone watching the front of the townhouse and possibly the back. The timing of this attack suggests they knew when to start looking for vehicles leaving the area.\"\n\n\"I'll tell Graves and Gupta to be careful and take their time. It's going to be along night,\" said Rich.\n\n\"There's noway they could have known the townhouse address before we setup our surveillance,\" hissed Scott. \"We should have detected them.\"\n\n\"Not if they started off assuming the whole thing was a setup,\" said Devin. \"They would have kept their distance and used text messages to communicate. They probably had four teams out there like the one that hit us. Each team spread out to cover the most likely routes away from the townhouse in each direction.\"\n\n\"Who the hell are we dealing with?\" asked Marnie. \"That's a lot of personnel to throw at a problem on US soil. Russians or not.\"\n\n\"I have a sneaking suspicion we're dealing with two groups tonight. Pulled by the same strings,\" said Berg.\n\n\"When we run the photos taken of the group that boxed you in by the intersection, my money is on matching a few of the faces to Russian embassy or consulate employees from DC and New York City. The rest are probably nonofficial cover types. Tourists flown in for this job or Russian nationals that work or study in the US. That's the new thing. No need to buildup an alias to run missions in the US. All you need is a nonimmigrant visa, which isn't hard to come by.\"\n\n\"This felt like more of an assassination team,\" said Devin. \"And not a subtle one.\"\n\n\"Not a good one, either,\" said Rich. \"Neither of you should have made it out of the car. You certainly shouldn't have been able to takeout the entire team that pulled up behind you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We managed just fine,\" said Marnie. \"Fora while, at least.\"\n\n\"My friend has a point,\" said Berg. \"They threw a junior varsity team at you. Probably all they could put together at the moment. They thought it would be enough, but you surprised them. Unlike Rich, I give credit where credit is due.\"\n\n\"Some consolation,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"So if they saw the two of us walk into the townhouse together, why didn't they try to take us both out?\" said Devin. \"What good am I dead, when someone else obviously knows about their secret plot?\"\n\n\"They just wanted your phone,\" said Rich. \"They could have hacked your location data and figured out where your mother's apartment is located. That's why one of them grabbed it in the middle of a gun battle.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" said Devin. \"Then what about the other team?\"\n\n\"I've been trying to put my finger on this,\" said Berg. \"The team that has been following you-\"\n\n\"And me,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"And you,\" said Berg, pausing as though he might say he was sorry. \"That team looked and acted old school. I mean, all in their mid-to late fifties? They've been around fora while, probably doing low-level stuff to stay off the radar. SVR or GRU illegals planted right after the Soviet Union collapsed, probably in the early nineties-when our guard was down.\"\n\n\"Still is down,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Good point,\" said Berg.\n\n\"This is kind of odd,\" said Devin, remembering the crew he put in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. \"I think I've run into this crew before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The group following you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Berg.\n\n\"No. I worked a sting at MINERVA, the same night everything went down with my mom. It was a counter-honey-trap operation, except that everyone but the honey trap was in their fifties. I put three of them in the hospital that night; the rest flew out of Dulles the next morning. One of our surveillance teams followed them to the KLM ticket counter.\"\n\n\"That's very interesting,\" said Berg. \"Did MINERVA identify any of them? I know they can be pretty thorough.\"\n\n\"I don't know. Everything blew up with my mother right after the operation,\" said Devin. \"They were reaching out to law enforcement contacts to get some help with fingerprints. None of them carried ID. I can reach out to my boss to see if they found anything.\"\n\n\"We'll have to vet him first,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Devin. \"He fits the profile.\"\n\nMarnie ran her fingers through her shoulder-length hair, back and forth, before making two fists in her lap, hands shaking.\n\n\"You okay?\" asked Devin, wondering if once again he should keep his mouth shut.\n\n\"I feel like you guys are talking in code,\" said Marnie. \"On purpose.\"\n\n\"We're not,\" said Berg. \"It's too much to explain without showing you. Trust me. This is complicated in an epically bad way.\"\n\n\"I can't wait,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Neither can I,\" said Rich.\n\n\"You haven't seen it yet?\" she asked.\n\n\"I got Helen's executive summary,\" said Rich. \"What she prepared for Devin or whoever took over the fight for her. That was enough to get me out here. Seeing the first Russian team move in was enough to convince me this was real. The last attack? That sealed the deal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't suppose there's anyway I could get my hands on that right now?\" she said.\n\n\"I have a copy in the glove box,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't really have a copy in the glove box,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I do,\" said Rich. \"I hate reading on my phone.\"\n\n\"Marnie. You don't have to get involved in this any further than I've involved you,\" said Devin. \"We need to get your parents to a safe house or something until Karl can reach out to that group in LA that's good at hiding people. I'm really sorry about all of this.\"\n\nRich turned in his seat. \"I've already taken the liberty of making those arrangements. I prepositioned two of my people in Falls Church in case something went wrong tonight. I figured this qualified, so I activated the plan. My team will escort them to a private terminal at Reagan National Airport, where they'll board a private jet and fly to Los Angeles. Same with your dad, Devin. Unless they refuse. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.\"\n\n\"I need to call them and let them know it's okay,\" said Marnie, pulling out her cellphone.\n\n\"One call and then we have to toss that phone,\" said Rich.\n\n\"We could drop her off at Reagan instead of BWI and grab a few rentals there,\" said Scott.\n\nMarnie stopped dialing. \"I am not going to LA.\"\n\n\"You don't have to stick around,\" said Devin. \"Seriously. This will more than likely get way uglier.\"\n\n\"I can guarantee it,\" said Rich.\n\n\"You're not getting rid of me that easily,\" said Marnie. \"I want to see exactly what your mother was up to. To see why the Russians would go this far to bury it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Careful what you wish for,\" said Berg. \"If you gaze long enough into this abyss-\"\n\n\"Russians try to kill you?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Sounds about right,\" said Rich, handing her the document that had started all this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yuri Pichugin nodded at the squat mercenary standing next to the mahogany door set into the thirty-foot-high white marble wall of the five-thousand-square-foot indoor arboretum, his favorite place to relax in his palace-size mansion on Lake Ladoga. Especially in the winter, when Saint Petersburg became quite dark and dreary. On five-degree, blustery overcast days, the exquisite tropical paradise provided a welcome refuge when he was in town. In fact, he so preferred this space to any other that he'd replicated a small section of his office overlooking the lake in one of the corners of the arboretum, adjacent to the main house.\n\nThe ex-GRU Spetsnaz soldier opened the door for his surprise guest. Unexpected in that he'd anticipated receiving a simple phone call confirming that the threat to FIREBIRD had been extinguished. Not a personal visit. General Kuznetzov's trip obviously heralded bad news. The kind that required a one hundred percent secure method of communication. A face-to-face discussion. The value of which could never be understated, or more importantly-intercepted.\n\nYuri stood up from his desk and walked over to greet him. A carafe of vodka and two shot glasses sat on a sprawling coffee table between two oversize blue velvet couches, along with a three-tiered silver stand loaded with finger sandwiches and toasted crostini. Two silver caviar servers flanked the sandwiches. Normally he wouldn't roll out anything but the vodka for Kuznetzov, but his visit coincided with lunch.\n\n\"Grigory! Please come!\" said Pichugin, expending all the fake enthusiasm he could muster for the man.\n\nHe personally couldn't stand Kuznetzov, but their fates had been inexorably tied together for two decades. The man had been in the right place at the right time-at the right price. If Yuri had thought he could have run FIREBIRD after the last Directorate's purge without the general's help, he would have encased the rotund man in cement after taking over the program and dropped him in the Baltic Sea years ago. The man had proved instrumental during those early years, systematically migrating all control and evidence of the highly compartmentalized secret program out of the GRU's hands and into Pichugin's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd belying if he said he didn't think of disappearing Kuznetzov in the years immediately following the handover, but FIREBIRD had proved more difficult to manage than Pichugin had assumed-and the general had led him to believe. They needed the GRU's long-established and expiring network of illegals to pave the way for FIREBIRD's second generation. To remove any obstacles from their assigned paths.\n\nPichugin could have attempted to outsource this work, but the GRU operatives had proved their loyalty and effectiveness for decades. He didn't see any reason to risk the use of men and women whose sole allegiance rested in a bank deposit when he had an army of well-paid idealogues at his disposal.\n\nKuznetzov emerged indispensable. Even more so when Pichugin brought FIREBIRD and his revised plans for its use to Putin, a mutual confidant and partner in several enterprises at that point. Putin endorsed FIREBIRD's repurposing without hesitation, ensuring them access to whatever resources they required to make it succeed. Once Putin linked Kuznetzov's name and face so intimately to FIREBIRD's success-the general became untouchable.\n\n\"Yuri!\" said the general, eyeballing the spread. \"You shouldn't have gone to any trouble.\"\n\n\"I figured I might need to settle my stomach during our chat,\" said Pichugin. \"This can't be good.\"\n\nThe door shut behind Kuznetzov, the security operative leaving them alone.\n\n\"Nothing we can't handle,\" he said, taking a seat opposite him across the table.\n\nPichugin poured two shots of vodka and handed one to the general.\n\n\"Za vstrechu,\" he said, and they downed a premier version of Russian Standard. \"So. Tell me about this problem we can handle but requires you to fly out from Moscow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Devin Gray made some new friends over the past couple of days,\" said the general. \"Some very deadly and resourceful friends. Do you remember the name Karl Berg?\"\n\n\"Vaguely,\" he said. \"CIA?\"\n\n\"Ex-CIA,\" said Kuznetzov. \"Pegged to General Terrence Sanderson's troublemakers.\"\n\n\"Now that's a name I'm more familiar with,\" said Pichugin. \"Never crossed paths with his people, but the name has come up at the highest level before. I thought there was some kind of understanding in place.\"\n\n\"There is. But this would fall well outside of that back channel deal,\" said the general. \"For obvious reasons.\"\n\n\"I suppose it would,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"And Sanderson is supposedly retired these days. Richard Farrington reportedly took over what was left of Sanderson's black ops program. He has apparently rebuilt it to some degree.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"The illegals sent to the townhouse to grab Berg and Gray were killed at the doorstep. All of them dead within seconds. The only survivor was the illegal left to watch Gray's apartment.\"\n\n\"I want her dead as soon as possible,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"Already taken care of. She's melting in a barrel of lye as we speak,\" said the general. \"The real problem is that the GRU team comprised of consulate and NOC operatives was wiped out several blocks away, attempting to intercept Gray. There's going to be a little bit of a shitstorm at GRU headquarters. Frankly, I'm glad to be out of town right now.\"\n\n\"There's going to be a considerable shitstorm,\" said Pichugin. \"I hope you have your story straight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kuznetzov shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The illegals team was expendable. I had used them as bait-just in case Gray was onto them. Apparently he was, probably with Berg's help. The other group's mission will pass scrutiny, because there will be no scrutiny. I gave it the \"from the top\" label. I hope it won't be a problem.\"\n\n\"I'll make sure he's aware of that situation,\" said Pichugin, slyly referring to Putin. \"I don't see a problem. But we can't use anymore Russian Federation assets moving forward.\"\n\n\"Including the old illegals?\" asked the general.\n\n\"For now. Especially in the DC area,\" he said. \"I'll assemble atop-drawer mercenary crew and move them into position to strike when we locate Gray and Berg.\"\n\n\"Shall I leverage a few of our more well-placed FIREBIRD assets to help expedite the process of finding them? Gray and his new friends obviously know better than to use their credit cards or cellphones.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Pichugin. \"Devin Gray's mother has obviously been working on this for sometime. The fact that she uncovered Donald Wilson leaves more questions than answers. Like how many more did she discover?\"\n\n\"I see three scenarios. None of them is good. Unfortunately, we'll never know which one has materialized, so we have to assume the worst. Best-case scenario is that Kozlov only passed one more name to the Gray woman: Donald Wilson. We know she received at least two names from General Kozlov,\" said Kuznetzov. \"We deactivated both families six years ago after one of the FIREBIRD assets discovered that both families had been investigated by the FBI in 2003.\"\n\n\"Remember how close we came to shutting everything down after Kozlov?\" asked Pichugin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How could I forget?\" said the general. \"I don't think I slept for the next two years, waiting for the whole thing to fall apart.\"\n\nThe general poured more vodka, which they tossed back immediately. Followed by another round.\n\n\"Back to the Wilson scenario. If Kozlov indeed passed his name, he would have done it for the express purpose of exposing SITE ZERO. Wilson oversaw the program for most of its years,\" said the general.\n\n\"But she never found it,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"Exactly. She nosed around the lakes for several years, but never located it,\" said the general.\n\n\"Remind me again why we didn't kill her years ago?\"\n\n\"Because she was kicked out of the CIA for obsessing over a possible Russian sleeper conspiracy. We were afraid that her untimely death might trigger a serious look into her theory,\" said the general. \"And we never got any real indication that she'd uncovered any of the FIREBIRD families outside of the two names she had been given. She'd vanish for weeks at a time, but nobody reported anything unusual. Not even Wilson.\"\n\n\"I think we might have underestimated her,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"On some level, yes. Which brings me to the worst-case scenario, which I don't believe is in play-but we have to consider,\" said the general. \"Kozlov gave her the whole list.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said Pichugin. \"The CIA would have taken a list like that seriously. They would have investigated the families, like the other two, and determined they had a serious Russian sleeper agent problem on their hands. There's no indication that this occurred. Helen Gray was working alone when she kidnapped Wilson.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Agreed. I think we need to assume that Helen Gray discovered Wilson on her own years ago, based on some publicly available connection to one of the two names Kozlov provided,\" said the general. \"And that she eventually figured out the greater pattern that the CIA overlooked-the kids. She could start a list of politicians or government types that fit the age group and work backward.\"\n\n\"No evidence of grandparents,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"A dead giveaway. Not conclusive, but a start,\" said the general. \"My guess is that she'd put together a list and wanted to run some names by Donald Wilson.\"\n\n\"The timing couldn't be worse. We're too close to the endgame to have this unravel onus,\" said Pichugin. \"I want you to alert the entire FIREBIRD network. Basic surveillance and security precautions for now. We have to assume that other FIREBIRD assets have been identified by Devin Gray and his new friends.\"\n\n\"I'll instruct Gusev to send the alert when I get back to Moscow,\" said the general. \"We'll also bring US National Security Agency and law enforcement support onboard to locate Gray for your mercenary team.\"\n\nGusev ran one of the most tightly guarded secrets in Russia from a nameless, ultrasecure compound on a sprawling estate west of Moscow-known only as CONTROL to the agents it directed in the United States.\n\n\"Contact Gusev from my secure line, after we finish lunch,\" said Pichugin. \"We need to get the ball rolling on this.\"\n\nEverything was at stake if Gray and his new friends fully unraveled their secret." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie Young sat cross-legged in one of the far corners of Helen Gray's vault, sifting through the last of the Branson file papers. She'd been upmost of the night absorbing as much of the information Helen had assembled as possible, in the order Karl Berg had recommended-which ended with the accordion file in front of her.\n\nRich sat next to her in the corner, his legs extended along the evidence wall. She handed him the packet she'd just finished, which he started reading without comment. Marnie had made her peace with Rich and Karl last night during their lengthy drive around Baltimore. Cleared the air might be a better description. She still intended to keep a close eye on the two of them, until they fully earned her trust. Marnie got the impression it wouldn't take long. They seemed just as vested in getting to the bottom of what Devin's mother had uncovered as Devin-and now Marnie.\n\nAfter spending close to six hours digesting Helen Gray's documentation, there was no doubt in her mind that the conspiracy was real, and possibly worse than Devin's mother had believed. The double-layered attack on Devin last night demonstrated that the Russians were desperate to erase this evidence and anyone who had seen it. Now they were all targets. Something Berg said last night had stuck with her. She hadn't known what it meant at the time, but it made perfect sense now. They'd crossed the point of no return.\n\nShe skimmed the last few packets, having seen enough. Berg's overview last night painted a clear enough picture. They needed to find this suspected camp in the Ozarks, if it even still existed, to lend credibility to the entire conspiracy. This second generation of sleepers couldn't have been radicalized at home. She had no doubt that their home lives were strictly regulated to ensure that they remained loyal to Mother Russia, but Helen Gray was right. The Russians would need away to test and reinforce this loyalty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One break in allegiance could burn the entire conspiracy down, and it was clear from the research that thirty-seven children pressed into service to the Russian Federation from birth had been murdered to maintain the program's secrecy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought of it was spine-tingling. Parents had delivered their children to their executions, or at the very least looked the other way when the grim reaper came knocking.\n\nShe passed the rest of the packets to Rich.\n\n\"Seen enough?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yep,\" she said.\n\nHe dropped them on the pile he'd built on his lap. \"Me too. The whole thing is mind-boggling, but the Branson file is just sick. They ran a brainwashing camp right in the heartland of the country, complete with firing squads and everything. Unbelievable.\"\n\n\"I feel terrible for Devin's mother. And for Devin. They thought she was slowly going crazy for close to two decades,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Sometimes a conspiracy, or any big idea, I suppose, is simply too big or hard to believe for its time.\"\n\n\"Or both,\" she said.\n\n\"Right,\" said Rich. \"Conversely, if you don't give people enough, they can't even begin to seethe bigger picture and take it seriously. The downfall of the United States-an economic, political, and military superpower-is a hard pill to swallow. From her notes, it appears that she started with the big picture, instantly alienating everyone she approached. That poisoned her later attempts to trickle information to her remaining allies, who started avoiding her entirely. She could never seem to strike the right balance, and maybe there wasn't a balance to be struck at the time. On top of that, the CIA had its hands full right around the time she'd started to strike gold with some of her investigative work. Full of Russians and domestic terrorists. Bad timing all around for Helen Gray.\"\n\n\"It was awful for her family,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How long have you known Devin?\" said Rich. \"Seems like a solid guy.\"\n\n\"We've been friends since middle school. Better friends in high school,\" she said. \"We've kept in touch since then. Mostly off and on, but anytime our paths cross, we grab dinner or a drink. We've both been pretty busy since college.\"\n\n\"Just friends?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"More or less,\" she said.\n\n\"I see,\" he said, slightly raising an eyebrow.\n\n\"What do you mean by \"I see\"\"?\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Rich, nodding toward the vault door. \"Here comes Mr. More-or-Less right now with our breakfast.\"\n\n\"Funny,\" she said.\n\nDevin and the operative named Jared walked through the doorway carrying brown oil-stained bags and two carryout cartons of Dunkin'coffee. The rest of Rich's team came to life as they started to move files to make room on the table that had been dragged into the vault from the kitchen.\n\nAs much as she wanted to use the term'motley crew\" to describe Rich's team, they didn't fit that description. Everyone looked ragged after sleeping on the floor in the same clothes they'd worn yesterday, but this wasn't the kind of rogues' gallery you might connect to the words mercenary or soldier of fortune.\n\nThe two operatives who had escorted her parents and Devin's dad to the airport looked as though they'd just returned from a business conference, dressed in pressed khaki pants, oxford shirts, and windbreakers-to conceal their holstered pistols. Alex and Michael. Just two regular guys who could probably draw those pistols and drill every person in this room through the head in the span of a few seconds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then you had Scott, who she'd really only seen drive an SUV at this point and throw a smoke grenade farther than she'd ever seen someone throw a grenade before. Berg said he was an ex– Navy SEAL, which would have been her first guess. Tall with a muscular swimmer's build, totally contrasting with the rest of the team members, who looked like career ground-pounders. Muscular and stocky.\n\nShe assumed Rico and Jared were the team's designated snipers, based on the assignments they'd been given at the townhouse. Emily could be anything. A taut, unsmilingly serious woman of few words, with catlike reflexes, who looked just as at ease with a knife as a firearm. Earlier she'd balanced a daggerlike blade on her fingertip while studying the wall, flipping to the handle and then back again repeatedly. Of all the mercenaries in the room, Emily scared her the most.\n\nThe two surveillance gurus had expressed similar sentiments earlier. Graves and Gupta had nodded toward heron a few occasions, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at something Emily had said. Those two intrigued her the most. Gupta might be in his early forties, but he acted like he was twenty-two, and stuck in a late-nineties rap video. Graves, who spent most of his time calming Gupta down, was clearly pushing fifty and walked with a limp. The two couldn't be more different, but between the occasional sibling-like bickering, they worked together seamlessly. All in all, she could see why Karl had placed so much faith in this crew.\n\nDevin opened the bags and started tossing aluminum foil– wrapped breakfast burritos around the room. Everyone snatched them out of the air as though their lives depended on it. Devin hand delivered her burrito, along with Rich's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're all the same. Chorizo and eggs, with cheese and a bunch of other stuff,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Sounds heavenly,\" said Marnie, thinking she sounded like an idiot.\n\n\"Two thousand calories of heaven,\" said Rich. \"How's your leg?\"\n\nDevin lifted his pant leg to expose a napkin-size compress taped in place over the front of his shin. A few specks of red poked through the sterile white dressing.\n\n\"It's not bad at all. Normally this would take a few stitches, but it'll heal up fine,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Emily can stitch you up if you want. She's a former combat medic,\" said Rich. \"Her kit includes a serious local anesthetic. You won't feel a thing.\"\n\nMarnie nodded. \"I'd take them upon the offer. God knows what we'll be up to over the next several days.\"\n\n\"We'll be up to no good. That's for certain,\" said Rich, getting up. \"What kind of coffee do you have in the kitchen?\"\n\n\"Nespresso machine. No idea about the coffee itself,\" said Devin. \"Berg seemed happy.\"\n\n\"Berg knows his coffee. I think I'll grab one of those,\" said Rich. \"Be right back.\"\n\nDevin took Rich's place next to Marnie, unceremoniously tearing open one end of his breakfast burrito and taking a bite large enough to have possibly included some aluminum foil. He glanced at her and covered his mouth.\n\n\"Sorry,\" he mumbled.\n\n\"I'm right therewith you,\" she said before hungrily attacking her own breakfast.\n\nThey'd finished half of their burritos before Devin broke the silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you think's next?\"\n\nAn odd question, she thought.\n\n\"The consensus seems to be that we need to find this summer camp in the Ozarks.\"\n\n\"Yeah. But how?\" said Devin. \"I'm a little worried about what I'm hearing.\"\n\nMarnie hadn't heard any talk beyond locating the camp, but she'd given it some thought and probably came to the same conclusion reached by Rich and Karl. She wasn't sure how she felt about it, but what choice did they have? And as long as they could keep things under control, which they seemed more than capable of doing, nobody innocent would get hurt. At least that was what she kept telling herself.\n\n\"What are you hearing?\" she asked.\n\nHe leaned over and whispered, \"I'm hearing the words kidnap and interrogation.\"\n\n\"It's in their hands,\" said Marnie. \"They know what they're doing.\"\n\nDevin lowered his breakfast and considered her fora moment. \"You're okay with that?\"\n\n\"What are the other options?\" she said. \"From what I've read, your mother spent weeks down at the Missouri-Arkansas border, with nothing to show for it. Given the stakes here, I can't say I disagree with them.\"\n\nDevin looked conflicted, but he nodded. \"I know. I'm just worried about how far they'll go to secure the information. This group doesn't fuck around-at all.\"\n\n\"We'll have to be the voice of reason,\" she said. \"Draw the line at innocent family members. Especially kids.\"\n\n\"I don't think we'll have to worry about Rich and his crew hurting kids,\" said Devin. \"I don't see them as the types to go that far, and there maybe no point trying to leverage the kids against the parents. This second generation of sleepers lived through a modern-day pogrom. Thirty-seven of their summer camp friends executed. Nearly a third of their numbers. I don't expect anything different from this generation of sleepers. They'll more than likely sacrifice their children before betraying the cause.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She squeezed his hand. \"Promise me the children are off limits.\"\n\nDevin took her hand firmly. \"No kids. No innocent victims. That's the line. That's also the reason we can't let them sideline us.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" she asked.\n\nHe let goof her hand. \"Berg made it very clear that he didn't think I was, uh... up to the task-for lack of a better phrase. That's why he kept me in the dark about the townhouse ambush. He knew I would have freaked out and blown the whole operation.\"\n\n\"Why would you freak out?\" she asked.\n\n\"Because of you,\" he said abruptly before pausing for an uncomfortable amount of time. \"The thought of causing you or your parents any harm would have driven me to-look, it's not like you would have left the townhouse if I had asked you, right?\"\n\n\"Right. I had no intention of leaving until I was satisfied that you were mentally sound and not under duress,\" she said before scanning the room. \"From Karl and his associates.\"\n\n\"Which is why I would have done something rash to warn you off. Something that could have blown the whole operation. I would not have sat on my hands and let you get sucked into this. Or worse,\" said Devin. \"He knew that.\"\n\n\"What's worse?\"\n\n\"Worse is what almost happened at the intersection,\" said Devin. \"Berg was smart not to say anything. My concern is that he's already warned everyone on the team about my reservations, and they won't level with us during the planning phase. Then they'll bench us at the last minute to keep us out of it altogether.\"\n\nMarnie took his hand, for no other reason than she needed to hold someone's hand right now. At least that was what she told herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's nothing we can do about that, ultimately,\" she said. \"But we can't stay silent. We need to make our position clear on this. Trust me, it'll make a difference.\"\n\nShe let goof his hand when Rich returned with one of the coffee mugs Devin had previously advised her not to use for sanitary reasons. He glanced in her direction and vaguely nodded, presumably acknowledging what he'd just seen transpire. She nodded back, still unsure what to make of the undeniably special connection she shared with Devin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They wolfed down their breakfast burritos in silence, Devin wanting to expand on his earlier sentiment about keeping her out of danger. Put a more personal spin on it. He'd already reviewed his words several times and decided it sounded a little too perfunctory, like an obligation. It was more than that for him, but this wasn't the time or the place to risk making her feel even more uncomfortable. The moment was awkward enough.\n\nThey had a job to do and couldn't afford any distractions moving forward. As last night had clearly demonstrated, the difference between life and death in Karl and Rich's world could be defined by fractions of a second. Devin had managed to respond quickly enough to salvage the initial situation, but he couldn't help thinking that if he'd been paying better attention, he could have bypassed the roadblock altogether by turning into the park.\n\nInstead, his only real option had been to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision, which had forced them into a lopsided gun battle. If Rich's team hadn't arrived when they had, neither of them would be sitting here munching on breakfast. He finished the last few bites and started to put the Branson file back together. Rich was making the rounds, and it sounded as though they were about to kickoff their first planning session as a group. Devin guessed the file would be a key part of any discussion regarding their next move.\n\n\"Need anything before we get started?\" asked Devin before standing up.\n\n\"Coffee? Maybe one of those Nespressos?\" she said, accepting a liftoff the floor.\n\n\"Coming right up,\" he said.\n\nDevin dropped the file off next to his mother's desk, which had been converted into Graves and Gupta's workstation. Their fingers had been clacking on three laptops all night, their screens mirrored on a fifty-inch curved screen that spanned the desk to make it easier to highlight their findings. On the floor next to the desk, they had setup a proxy server to filter all data traffic sent and received through the satellite dish they had mounted outside the kitchen window. Devin got the distinct impression that they'd done this hundreds of times in support of Rich's operations, in much tighter and less accommodating spaces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he returned with the coffees, everyone had gathered in a stretched semicircle behind the desk. A few sitting cross-legged, Graves and Gupta in chairs off to the side with laptops. The rest standing. Everyone nurturing a cup of coffee like it might be their last. He squeezed behind the group and stood on the edge, next to Marnie. She took the paper cup and gave it a try.\n\n\"Lives up to the hype,\" she said, giving him an approving look.\n\n\"My mom always loved her coffee,\" said Devin. \"I feel like we're dishonoring her memory by serving that other stuff.\"\n\nShe nudged his arm with her elbow, as she'd done countless times before, but it now felt infinitely more distracting. He was going to get them killed if he didn't focus better.\n\nRich nodded at him. \"Ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"It's your show,\" said Devin before turning his head to acknowledge Karl Berg. \"And Karl's.\"\n\n\"With all due respect,\" said Karl, who occupied the only other chair set off to the other side of the semicircle, \"this is your mother's show. I wish she were hereto be apart of this. For those of you who don't know-or only caught a whiff of the story-everything you see here is the work of a single person: Helen Gray. Devin's mother. Helen took her life under what can only be described as inexplicable circumstances, though I have a theory, for another time. She put this together after trying to warn authorities for years. She even warned me back in 2007, but as most of you know, I was a bit preoccupied with another conspiracy. I just wanted everyone to know that one woman, a true American patriot in every sense of the word, easily spent several thousand hours of her time, at great cost, to assemble this. A truly remarkable accomplishment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Berg looked teary eyed, which made this difficult for Devin. He simply nodded at Berg, focusing all his remaining energy on not crying. This didn't strike him as an emotional crowd, and the last thing he wanted to do was give them the final nudge toward shelving him during the upcoming operation. Marnie squeezed his hand briefly as Rich raised his coffee mug.\n\n\"To Helen Gray. To your mother,\" he said.\n\nRich got down to business the moment the toast ended.\n\n\"Everyone has been briefed on the overall concept of operations moving forward. Find the Ozarks camp, if it exists. Still a big if. The camp should shed some more light on the size and scope of the sleeper network. If we can directly link it to these sleepers, jackpot. At the very least, finding the camp could put some federal eyes on the situation. If we can get that ball rolling, I'm fairly certain it will grow wings and fly. Backup to that is to target the seventy-three sleepers identified by Helen Gray and look fora crack in their armor. Someone willing to spill the beans. Given the program's history of sacrificing their young, I don't know if that will yield anything short of a tortured confession, if that. Not exactly what we want to package up and deliver to the FBI. G and G. What do you have for us?\"\n\nGraves nodded at Gupta, who tapped a few keys to bring up an array of faces on the widescreen monitor. Eight faces split into four pairs. Pictures taken at the intersection last night compared to what looked like candid surveillance photographs.\n\n\"To start, last night's festivities were undoubtedly sponsored by the Russian Federation. We cross-referenced all of the photos taken last night to our database and came up with four hits. Three with suspected ties to the DC consulate and one confirmed to be a consulate employee in New York City. This is going to cause a bit of an international-relations stink.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure Putin will get over it,\" said Berg. \"But this raises an important issue. Ms. Young will most definitely have to remain off the grid-the entire grid. I know we discussed this earlier, because Baltimore PD will be looking to question her as a possible witness to last night's festivities, but the Russians have a nasty habit of throwing names into the mix out of spite-and in hopes of getting the feds involved. They do this allover the world. The FBI will be keeping an eye out for Ms. Young by the afternoon at the latest. Same for myself and Devin. The entire team, essentially. It won't take them long to figure out who lent me a hand with this. We should also strongly consider taking precautions to thwart facial-recognition software.\"\n\nAnew set of faces emerged. He recognized one of the faces from the photos he'd taken in front of the Starbucks near the University of Maryland. Gupta nodded at him.\n\n\"I thought you might find this particularly interesting,\" said Gupta. \"We did a deep dive through the bowels of the internet and found three deaths directly linked to patients transferred from the W Hotel to area hospitals on the night of your honey-trap sting. Two men, in their early to midfifties, succumbed to the angel of death the morning after they were stabilized. The angel of death being Jolene Rudd, who you photographed following you a few days ago and who we photographed dead in front of the townhouse. She was caught on security camera entering and exiting both of their rooms posing as a member of the Howard University Hospital.\"\n\n\"Busy lady,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Even more interesting? Her husband was photographed right next to her outside of the townhouse. Harvey Rudd. Both from Chattanooga, Tennessee,\" said Gupta." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Driver's licenses collected at the townhouse put the whole group within easy driving distance around central Tennessee and Kentucky. One from northern Georgia,\" said Graves.\n\n\"Odd that they would be working this faraway,\" said Rich.\n\nDevin had a theory. \"Not if they were involved with my mother's situation. The Russians would have wanted some continuity for compartmentalization reasons. Right? If they had something to do with intercepting my mother in Tennessee, it makes sense to use them again on a related operation.\"\n\n\"Very good point,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Who the fuck are these people? They look like people you'd trust to watch your house when you went on vacation,\" said Alex, one of the most nondescript people Devin had ever met, by design, no doubt.\n\n\"Based on their ages,\" said Berg, \"I'd say they were planted herein the early nineties, right after the Soviet Union collapsed. Possibly for the express purpose of supporting the sleeper network Helen discovered. I think the connection to DEVTEK needs to be considered. What role does Brian Chase fill at the company? The Russians clearly wanted something from him.\"\n\n\"We weren't given those details,\" said Devin.\n\n\"DEVTEK is primarily an information security company,\" said Graves. \"Deep ties to the Department of Defense and pretty much every government agency that requires secure mobile communications. Rumor has it that the CIA accepted their recent bid on a classified CIA request for proposal-which my research suggests is a groundbreaking, modular communications encryption system. A one-size-fits-all, easy-to-implement encryption solution for computers, office phones, mobile phones, radios. It would basically create an interoperable, secure communications platform usable across agencies and across the spectrum of assets within an agency or group. A CIA officer on the India-Pakistani border could contact an available air-support asset with their satellite phone and direct an airstrike on a high-value target of opportunity. Normally that would require a UHF radio with encryption compatible with the aircraft's system. A logistical nightmare. This would streamline everything. It's a game changer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That sounds like the kind of system the Russians would love to corrupt or steal,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Or both,\" added Marnie.\n\n\"If they were running a honey trap, sounds like they needed away into the company,\" said Rich.\n\nBerg shook his head. \"I don't know. Why use a team on the verge of retirement for that? I know that springing a honey trap isn't complicated, but following through with the blackmail side of an operation is tricky. Especially if you're asking someone to commit a crime. Not something you'd put in Harvey and Jolene Rudd's hands. I think this was more of a one-and-done situation. My guess is they were trying to get him to quit the company, so someone could take his place. Whoever filled his shoes is most likely another one of these second-generation sleepers.\"\n\n\"So there's more of these things out there,\" said Emily Miralles.\n\nDevin liked her use of the word things to describe the sleepers. Like manufactured goods.\n\n\"We have to assume there are more,\" said Berg. \"In total, possibly twice the number Helen discovered. The rest of them hidden in tech companies like DEVTEK, where they can remain mostly anonymous-and do untold damage. That's why it's so important to get a look at this camp. If it exists. There's always the possibility that it doesn't. She spent a significant amount of time looking for it and came up empty handed.\"\n\n\"Locating the camp appears to be the tricky part,\" said Rich. \"But Gray has been right about everything else up to now, so this is where we start. Graves?\"\n\nGraves started typing, and a list of names filled the left third of the screen. A map of the United States filled the remaining two-thirds-red dots appearing across the country. Devin guessed immediately that they were looking at a list of the 109 sleepers and a map corresponding to their locations. Frighteningly, but not surprisingly, a majority of them resided around Washington, DC. The rest were scattered across the country, corresponding with a major military base, state capital, or larger city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For obvious reasons, we'll remove anyone connected to law enforcement or the military from the list,\" said Graves.\n\nAbout thirty names disappeared from the left side of the screen, their red dots vanishing with them.\n\n\"We went through the rest of the names and disqualified anyone with a sensitive or anon-call position instate or federal government, along with anyone at a high-enough level in that we might be running an outsize risk by grabbing them. Anyone protected for sure.\"\n\nThe list dropped to less than twenty names.\n\n\"That doesn't leave us a lotto work with,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Even less if we want to avoid five-day car rides,\" said Graves, clicking his mouse and eliminating everyone west of the Rockies.\n\nTwelve names remained.\n\n\"We may as well focus on opportunities within easy or easier driving distance of the Ozarks,\" said Rich.\n\n\"That leaves us with Susan Belker. Secretary of state for Missouri,\" said Graves.\n\n\"Too high profile,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Harrison Jeffries. Deputy chief of staff to the attorney general in Illinois?\" said Graves.\n\n\"That's a possibility.\"\n\n\"Or William Barber, the supervising deputy attorney general for the litigation division in Indiana?\" said Graves.\n\n\"Let's look at Barber's profile,\" said Rich.\n\n\"These seem like low-profile jobs for Russian sleeper agents,\" said Scott.\n\n\"State-level secretary of state is a stepping-stone toward governor, which can launch a national political career,\" said Berg. \"Deputy chief of staff to the AG puts you in a position to run for AG, and failing that, an appointment to the state supreme court or US district court. The sky's the limit from there. Politics. Higher courts. Same with a supervising deputy attorney general position. Governor. AG. Courts. Politics. These are solid roles.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barber's face appeared on the screen.\n\n\"William Barber. Forty-four years of age. Married to Stacy Barber. Same age. She works as an IT specialist at Defenders in Indianapolis. That's an ADT subsidiary.\"\n\n\"As in the home security company?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Yes. ADT bought them out a few years ago,\" said Gupta. \"That's actually good news. We have some regularly updated, custom hack kits for ADT systems. We can shut it down so it'll look like it's still working.\"\n\n\"That's a disturbing thought,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Just a little,\" said Devin.\n\nGraves continued. \"They have two children, David and Melissa. Sixteen and fifteen years old, respectively. All-American family.\"\n\n\"That's how it's supposed to look,\" said Berg. \"What do you think, Rich?\"\n\n\"Can you bring up an image of their neighborhood?\" asked Rich.\n\nGupta brought up a Google Earth satellite image of a wooded lot on a golf course. An expansive patio featuring a pool and hot tub. The level of detail they could glean about the property from this publicly available tool was disturbing.\n\n\"Nice and private. Easy access to the backyard from the golf course. We won't even have to drive up to the house, until we're ready to leave. And it doesn't look like a gated community,\" said Rich. \"Can you confirm that?\"\n\nThe image shifted a few times, zooming into street level on a few of the roads leading into the neighborhoods surrounding the golf course. No gates.\n\n\"I say we start with William Barber,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Looks about as good as it gets,\" said Berg. \"Not too far of a drive from the Ozarks, if we manage to strike gold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seven hours and thirty-seven minutes,\" said Gupta.\n\n\"Harrison Jeffries will be our backup plan,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Rich?\" said Marnie. \"Or Karl?\"\n\nRich took a sip of his coffee before answering. \"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Why don't we just digitally package this entire room and send it to every media outlet in the country? Put it in their hands and let the chips fall where they may. Post it online if they won't take it seriously,\" said Marnie. \"I'm not doubting this team's abilities, but we are talking about along shot strategy here. Exposing the entire network, or at least what Helen uncovered, would effectively shut it down, right?\"\n\nRich glanced at Berg, who addressed what Devin considered to bean excellent suggestion.\n\n\"It's tempting, but here's why I fear it won't work,\" said Berg. \"One: The Russians will deny everything and feign outrage. Two: We have things like due process, courts, evidentiary standards, and a whole list of other safeguards designed to protect our own citizens, and everyone on Helen's list is entitled to them, particularly the second-generation sleepers who were born in the US. The names would be public, so the government couldn't pull any of their secret shenanigans. And all of the first generation is deceased, so they can't confess. Wilson was the last alleged sleeper, and Helen shot him to death after stuffing him in the back of her trunk. This is sounding crazier by the minute to the public and the ACLU-and the Department of Justice task force assembled to investigate this bombshell conspiracy theory.\"\n\n\"But it would draw an unhealthy amount of attention to the conspiracy-and the network,\" said Devin. \"Stopping it.\"\n\n\"Maybe. Maybe not. The alleged sleepers would leave their jobs, because that's what a normal person assumed by colleagues to be a spy would do, so we would have accomplished that much. But then what? The most dangerous sleepers maybe the ones your mother didn't find.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This would make national headlines. Defense and technology companies would start to dig into their employees' backgrounds,\" said Marnie. \"Especially employees that fit the profile.\"\n\n\"Would it make national headlines?\" asked Berg. \"Because of the lack of any verifiable evidence, even the National Enquirer would pass on the story. The libel danger would be very real. Anyone losing their job anywhere to the McCarthy-esque purge that followed would have a strong case against whichever media outlet ran the story. This would have to be published online, anonymously, and my guess is that a few billion dollars'worth of Russian-backed Bitcoin would quickly push the story into online obscurity. I'm not saying we won't end up taking this public at some point. But we need tangible evidence before we consider putting this out there, because we'll only get one shot at bringing this into the public sphere-and it'll need to be our best shot.\"\n\n\"Then we do it the hard way,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"In my experience,\" said Rich, \"there is no other way.\"\n\n\"I knew he was going to say that,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Jeep Wrangler crept along the rutted, gravel-dirt road, Felix Orlov rapidly alternating his attention between the map on his satellite phone screen and the seemingly impenetrable, untamed forest passing down the right side of their vehicle. He couldn't imagine trying to reach this place in the dead of winter. The 6.2-mile trip up Bear Creek Mountain Road on a clear June day had been sketchy enough.\n\nHe could see why this had been chosen as a cache point, even if it was a little extreme. Nobody was likely to stumble onto it. Since turning off the paved road that forked into this one, they hadn't seen a soul. Only a few closed gates clearly marked with NOT RESPASSING signs. Isolated from prying eyes, but less than an hour from Interstate 80. Once on the interstate, they could be in any major city on the East Coast within six to seven hours or most Midwest cities within eight to nine hours.\n\nThat said, he didn't anticipate them staying here for long. This was more of an equipment run than anything.\n\nThey'd grab all the gear they might need and wait until night to shuttle it back to the two RVs parked at a campground closer to the interstate. None of the sites available at the campground had been entirely private. Transferring a dozen or so overstuffed nylon duffel bags from the Jeeps to the RVs was a sight he'd rather keep concealed from the public. From there, they'd wait for further instructions, possibly relocating to a more private site.\n\nHe hadn't been provided with their next destination, which either meant Pichugin was releasing the information in stages for security reasons or that they didn't have a location on the team's target. He got the impression from Pichugin's proxy that it was the latter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see something,\" said Oleg, slowing the Jeep to a crawl.\n\nHe'd worked with Oleg fora number of years now, mostly in Europe and Asia, where Pichugin needed them the most. Like Felix, he spoke fluent English, with no hint of an accent, which had made him a shoo-in for this trip. Similarly, he was former Russian Federation Spetsnaz. Along with Valerie and Oksana, who drove the Jeep behind them, they made up the core direct-action element of his team.\n\nKsenia, their electronic surveillance specialist, and Lashev, a police-trained sniper, had remained behind with the RVs. Maybe not the best decision, given that they spoke only broken, heavily Russian-accented English, but he needed his best people on the cache mission-just in case the location had been compromised.\n\n\"We should be right on top of the entrance,\" said Felix, putting down the phone.\n\n\"Looks like a break in the trees... and agate,\" said Oleg, pulling as far over to the left side of the road as possible to make room for the tight turn.\n\nHe cut the wheel sharply to the right and pointed them directly at a rickety wood gate partially overgrown with thin, new growth from the adjacent bushes. Felix hopped out of the Jeep and approached the gate, which turned out to be significantly more solid and secure than it appeared. The dilapidated-looking wood had been affixed to a thick steel barrier, which was latched to a metal post. The latch was secured in place by a fist-size, heavy-duty combination lock. He reached over the gate and lifted the lock so he could align the four numbers to match the code he'd received.\n\nWith the lock open, he pushed the gate inward, surprised that it moved almost effortlessly. He waved the Jeeps through and locked the gate behind them before getting back into his seat for the rest of the journey, which he had been told spanned about seven hundred yards on a hardened 4× 4 trail. The trip from the gate to the cabin turned out to be smoother than the ride up Bear Creek Mountain Road. At several points along the gently twisting dirt road, he saw evidence of recently chainsawed trees, which had likely fallen during a recent storm and blocked the approach. The cache location was obviously well maintained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The road opened into a football field– size, slightly overgrown clearing, a modest two-story log cabin with a green metal roof standing in its center. Solar panels lined the south side of the roof. A sizable metal shed sat about ten yards from the house. It looked large enough to house a pair of ATVs, possibly more. An exhaust vent poking through its sloped roofline suggested it might contain a generator.\n\n\"Pull up to the front porch,\" he said, rolling his window down and motioning for the other Jeep to do the same.\n\nHe got out and approached the long porch, stopping short of the stairs and putting his hands on his hips. The rest of the team gathered around him.\n\n\"Looks self-contained,\" said Valerie. \"Kind of elaborate for some kind of Soviet-era weapons cache.\"\n\n\"It was probably just a concrete cellar atone point,\" said Felix. \"More like an underground shelter than anything else.\"\n\n\"A Pichugin upgrade,\" said Oleg. \"In the middle of Pennsylvania.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And his proxy said we had access to more of these around the country, if needed, along with an unlimited travel budget. Whatever he's up to here must be serious,\" said Felix. \"We need to keep that in mind moving forward. I'd like to be around to spend the money he's paying us.\"\n\nHe stepped onto the porch and unlatched the weather-sealed faux mailbox next to the door, revealing a touch pad and biometric scanner. Referencing the message sent to him less than an hour ago on his satellite phone, he entered a ten-digit code and waited for instructions. The screen asked him to press his index finger on his right hand against the scanner, followed by the thumb of his left hand. Anew instruction appeared on the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oksana. I need your thumb immediately,\" he said.\n\nThe dark-haired operative smirked and flipped him the middle finger.\n\n\"The digital counter on the screen says you have seven seconds to press your right thumb against the scanner,\" said Felix. \"Six. Five.\"\n\nShe scrambled up the porch and pressed her thumb against the glass, stopping the countdown at two seconds. A series of heavy-duty mechanical clicks came from the door, the screen now indicating they could proceed.\n\nHe patted heron the shoulder. \"Thank you, Oksana. You can go back to making jokes now that we're not going to be vaporized in an explosion.\"\n\n\"Don't bean asshole,\" she said.\n\n\"That's my job,\" he said, grabbing the door handle and nudging the hefty door inward.\n\n\"Is it stuck?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. It's heavy like a vault door,\" said Felix, reaching his hand inside. \"And it must be five inches thick.\"\n\nThey pushed it open together, a motion-triggered bank of fluorescent lights above revealing exactly why the designers had installed a vault-level door. Racks of military-grade weapons lined three of the walls, suspended a few feet above drawers labeled with different bullet calibers. Pistols. Assault rifles. Light machine guns. Submachine guns. Sniper rifles. He stepped inside, noting that the windows had been for show only. Not a crack of light peeped in where the windows should be. The wall facing the porch was stacked with night vision goggles, binoculars, weapons scopes of all varieties, tactical radio rigs, helmets, and several types of body armor carriers. And this was just the outer room. A keypad-guarded door satin the middle of the interior wall, leading to the'heavy stuff,\" as Pichugin's proxy had stated. Stuff they were to'show restraint when selecting,\" whatever that meant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Welcome, Kmart shoppers,\" said Oksana.\n\nWhile the team walked around, inspecting the weapons cache, Felix entered the code to open the second door, which proved to be equally as substantial as the first-fora good reason. After shoving it several inches inward, he caught a glimpse of a military-grade revolver-style grenade launcher inside. A few more inches took his breath away. Pichugin could start a small war with the weapons in this cabin. And there were more of these across the United States?\n\n\"If this room is Kmart,\" grunted Felix, pushing the door all the way open, \"then this one is Harrods.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie took the motel stairs in a hurry, eager to return with a bag full of soft drinks she'd acquired from the vending machine room next to the lobby. She'd announced her intention to run out and grab a Mountain Dew a few minutes before their scheduled briefing, unintentionally inviting close to a dozen requests from the rest of the team. She'd gotten to the midpoint landing of the U-shaped stairs when she heard an argument above her. Karl Berg and Rich in a heated debate-about Devin. She slowly made her way up the rest of the stairs, taking in the whispered dispute as she approached the second-floor walkway.\n\n\"You have to trust me on this,\" said Berg. \"Devin has a sixth sense when it comes to surveillance. The FBI's Special Surveillance Group is about as elite as it gets. He spent twelve years learning the tricks of the trade, then landed a position with MINERVA-against all odds. His mother poisoned that well, so to speak, and they still hired him, because he's that good at what he does. He's an asset to the team.\"\n\n\"I'm not disputing his surveillance or countersurveillance skills,\" said Rich. \"But my team is pretty well versed in the same game, and we've been doing it for decades with our very lives on the line, which trumps Devin's experience, in my opinion.\"\n\n\"I don't agree,\" said Berg. \"He's been one step ahead of everyone from day one. He busted the team following him from his apartment. He detected all three of the operatives you placed outside of the Airbnb townhouse. And he anticipated the ambush a few blocks away from the townhouse.\"\n\n\"Not soon enough,\" said Rich. \"They survived because we rescued them.\"\n\nMarnie stepped onto the walkway, immediately drawing their attention. \"We survived because of Devin's quick thinking. He was able to assess threats from multiple directions and make a split-second decision about what to do next. The right decision. It bought us enough time for your team to respond.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My concern is with the direct-action side of future operations,\" said Rich. \"We don't always have the luxury of separating combat from the surveillance.\"\n\n\"Devin can hold his own in a gunfight,\" said Marnie. \"I saw that firsthand.\"\n\n\"And I'm absolutely useless in any kind of fight,\" said Berg. \"But nobody is trying to sideline me.\"\n\n\"That's because you've always understood your role,\" said Rich. \"I'm worried about Devin getting in over his head if he starts swimming outside of his area of expertise.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" said Marnie. \"I'm just a former Marine helicopter pilot.\"\n\nRich shook his head. \"The same goes for you. I can't have two nonoperators in the middle of a covert raid. It puts my people at risk. You know how this works, Marnie. Imagine flying into a heavily contested landing zone while you're taking fire from multiple directions-\"\n\n\"I don't need to imagine. I've been there,\" said Marnie. \"And we didn't sideline new pilots. They flew the same missions as the rest of us.\"\n\n\"Sure. But in a dual-control helicopter, an experienced pilot could takeover at anytime,\" said Rich.\n\n\"How is this any different?\" asked Berg. \"In this case, the ratio of experienced operators to inexperienced is more like four to one.\"\n\n\"It's different,\" said Rich.\n\nBerg shrugged. \"Some circumstances and missions maybe different, requiring the sole use of your veteran operators, but tonight's job doesn't meet that threshold.\"\n\n\"And when it does?\" asked Rich, nodding at Marnie.\n\n\"Neither of us is suicidal, and we're well aware of our limitations,\" said Marnie. \"I know I'm speaking for Devin when I say that he won't be sidelined without a damn good reason. Same for me.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the plot as the writer's tale assistant.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 48" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie Young moved deliberately, frequently scanning the forest along her right flank and constantly recalculating a few variables. The first was cover. As the team crept closer to the cabins, she became more aware of the threat axis to the southwest, which forced a running evaluation of the best tree to use to block incoming gunfire-in the event of an ambush. The second variable was Devin.\n\nShe had no doubt he was invisible when tailing an espionage suspect through the urban jungle of DC, blending seamlessly into Metro station crowds and drawing no suspicion on the streets. But none of those skills seemed to transfer over to sneaking through a pitch-dark forest-even with night vision. The little mental energy Marnie had to spare beyond herself had been focused on the slew of noises Devin made, and whether that might require her to seek cover immediately.\n\nThe team clearly felt the same strain. Rich had halted the group at least eight times after Devin stumbled, scraped a tree, ran into a low-hanging branch, or tripped over a root. She was relieved they had almost reached the bottom edge of the northeast cabin wing, even though that meant the start of an infinitely more dangerous phase of the mission. Part of her wanted to suggest that Devin stay at the first set of cabins, to provide rear security. Any excuse to keep him from giving up the team's position as they infiltrated deeper into the camp.\n\nShe glanced in his direction, catching him stopped in front of a branch, trying to find it with his hand. Once his hand brushed across it, he ducked and continued forward. At least he was learning. The night vision goggles played havoc with a person's depth perception, particularly at short distances. It took some getting used to. Marnie probably knew this better than anyone here, since she had flown entire missions at night, relying on night vision goggles. With little margin for error when landing in tight spots, she had mastered the complexities of night vision rather quickly. The lives of her crew and the Marines she transported had depended on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The forward element of the team reached the first set of three cabins a few minutes later, Rich halting the rest of the group in the forest. They waited while Emily, Alex, and Scott each took positions behind one of the cabins and used binoculars to peer into the camp.\n\n\"This is Scott. Overall, we're looking at three fairly even rows of very evenly spaced cabins. I see what looks like a longer cabin in the middle row, about five cabins down. Probably a bathhouse. A straight, ten-foot-wide dirt trail runs from here all the way to the center of the X. I can vaguely see a few of the buildings in the center of the camp from here. The third row of cabins, next to Emily, is connected to the main trail by a dirt path. The cabins look abandoned and neglected, but not completely ignored. I see evidence of weed whacking along the perimeter of the cabins. Alex?\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Rich. \"Can you count the number of cabins in each row?\"\n\n\"Standby,\" said Scott.\n\nRich turned and signaled for the rear team to move forward. He gathered them in a loose huddle when they arrived.\n\n\"Definitely bigger than your mother's numbers suggested,\" said Rich. \"I'm conflicted about how to proceed. Part of me says we go back the way we came and try to pitch this to the FBI using some of Karl's contacts and mine. I have the ear of a US senator that should be able to help. But that approach is like along, slow-moving train. Once it gets going, it'll be hard to stop, but getting it moving at all is the big trick. And getting it up to speed will give this circus all the time it needs to pull up its tent stakes and flee town. By the time the FBI finally checks this place out, Stalin's traveling sleeper carnival will belong gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the faster-moving option?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"I don't know if there is one,\" said Rich, \"other than document the shit out of this place and try to identify some of the campers.\"\n\n\"We could grab a few,\" said Jared.\n\n\"I don't think that'll strengthen our case with the FBI,\" said Rich. \"I think our best play is to get as close as possible and take photographs of the campers, the buildings-everything. I'm starting to think we might spend more time here than I had originally planned. I'd really like to get into a few of those buildings and steal some of their training material. Take pictures while some of the campers are still awake. Attempt a break-in around two or three in the morning?\"\n\n\"Whatever it takes,\" said Devin, everyone else mumbling agreement.\n\n\"How long do we have drone coverage?\" asked Marnie.\n\n\"The drone's enhanced surveillance package puts it at the higher end of the model's takeoff weight range, which taxes the battery,\" said Rich. \"Normally I'd say we had two hours, but the gliding might buy us more time.\"\n\nRich activated his radio. \"OVERWATCH. How long can you keep the drone up? We're thinking about extending our stay.\"\n\n\"I need to take the drone off station around twelve forty-five to land it safely. If we ditch the drone, and I time its last pass right, you'll have coverage until a little after one.\"\n\n\"The gliding didn't help the battery situation?\" said Rich.\n\n\"Negative. It came out as awash. Actually, we may have lost battery time. The altitude hikes eat up power.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" said Rich, ending the chat with Gupta. \"There's your answer. If we stick around fora little breaking and entering, we'll have to do it partially blind, unless everyone up there goes to bed within the next twenty minutes. It's eleven thirty-five right now, and I wouldn't risk cracking open one of those doors until everyone has been down fora good hour or so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think it's worth it,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We need to leave herewith more than pictures.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" said Marnie. \"If we can do it without waking them up. Don't forget that we're dealing with brainwashed zealots here, and this is sacred ground to them. All bets are off if someone raises the alarm.\"\n\n\"You bring up a really good point. I hadn't thought of it that way,\" said Rich. \"Come to think of it, they probably have some kind of emergency procedure for trespassers that get too close, whether they stumble inhere on purpose or unintentionally. I'd be willing to bet there's a history of unexplained disappearances in this county. That said, I still think we should stick around and try.\"\n\n\"WWKD,\" said Jared.\n\n\"Huh?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"What would Karl do?\" said Jared. \"When in doubt. WWKD.\"\n\n\"I like it,\" said Marnie, stifling a laugh. \"So. What would Karl do?\"\n\n\"Something a lot more drastic than a late-night break-in,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Like what?\" asked Devin.\n\nDon't encourage him, she wanted to say. Marnie had a good idea what Karl would do.\n\n\"He'd position most of us in a line at the edge of the camp center, facing the active community branch. Anyone that jumped out of their cabin to investigate our noise would experience a steel-jacketed aneurysm.\"\n\n\"What if they all came out?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"A massacre,\" said Marnie, not entirely believing this idea hadn't already crossed Rich's mind.\n\n\"We'd be acting in self-defense,\" said Rich. \"And in the interest of the United States.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had thought of it. Had she just stumbled on some kind of soft coup, unintentionally exposed by Jared's careless joke?\n\n\"We're not going that route,\" said Devin. \"I'm not saying we don't setup security when we start poking around the buildings, but we won't beholding the line if we stir up a hornet's nest. We defend ourselves according to the ROE, as we retreat to the boats.\"\n\n\"That's the plan,\" said Rich.\n\n\"It better be,\" said Marnie.\n\nRich looked as though he wanted to get the last word in but thought better of it. Her earpiece crackled.\n\n\"This is Scott. We've compared notes. The outer rows have thirty to thirty-five cabins. It's impossible to get an exact count from here. The middle is harder to determine because of the bathhouses, but I'd say around twenty-five.\"\n\n\"Anyone good with math?\" said Rich.\n\nDevin was ready with an answer. \"Three hundred and forty cabins. Assuming each cabin houses one family, which looks to be the case, but needs to be confirmed-we're looking at close to seven hundred second-generation sleepers instead of the one hundred and forty-six she identified. Assuming a twenty-five percent attrition rate, which is roughly what she calculated, we're looking at around six hundred sleepers embedded in US society instead of one hundred and nine.\"\n\nRich and Devin were right. They had to do more than take pictures. The stakes were too high.\n\n\"What would Karl do?\" she said, turning a few heads. \"Without killing every man, woman, and child in the camp?\"\n\n\"That's the trick here,\" said Rich. \"In this business, sometimes you pull a tiger out of the hat instead of a bunny.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then we'll have to feel around inside the hat fora while before the big show,\" said Marnie. \"Sit on the place until we're certain we can investigate the buildings without pulling out a tiger.\"\n\n\"WWMD,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Exactly,\" she said.\n\nWhat would Marnie do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felix Orlov woke from alight nap, the phone on his chest buzzing. He gripped the phone and sat upon the shiny concrete hangar floor, taking a few moments to regain his bearings. When the phone kept buzzing, his stomach sank. Felix assumed he'd just received a text message with a code to access a mission update on the dark website. He stared at the unfamiliar number for another second, surprised they had called him directly. Pichugin's proxy never arranged direct call protocol.\n\n\"Hello?\" he said, accepting the call.\n\n\"Give the order to start the helicopters. I'll wait.\"\n\nThe voice was modulated to disguise the speaker. Felix yelled at Oleg, who stood in the open pedestrian doorway adjacent to the closed hangar bay door. \"Get the helicopters ready for takeoff! Everyone else up and checking their gear.\"\n\nOleg bolted out of the hangar, while the rest of the team shook off their naps and got to their feet.\n\n\"The order has been given,\" said Felix.\n\n\"The pilots will fly you to the two athletic fields north of SITE ZERO. One helicopter in each field. You'll lead the team to the coordinates I will text to your phone the moment I hangup. The coordinates correspond with a hostile team's boat infiltration point. Friendly forces at SITE ZERO will engage the hostile team and force them to retreat. Our assumption is that they will immediately return to the boats at their original infiltration point, where you will ambush the hostile team.\"\n\nThe high-pitched whine of the helicopters' engines resonated inside the hangar. The blades would reach their full rotor speed in just under a minute.\n\n\"We'll pay everyone on your team fifty thousand US dollars per prisoner taken, but there is no penalty for killing the entire team. The hostile force is comprised of nine mercenaries. Nongovernment affiliated. Seven of them to be considered top-tier special operators. The other two have a high level of military firearms proficiency. Do not take any catastrophic risks with your team to capture any of them. You're up against a highly skilled crew. Handle them as your equals.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Understood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What if they don't retreat from SITE ZERO?\" asked Felix.\n\n\"I'll be indirect contact with the group at the site. If they can't force a retreat, I'll call you directly and redirect your team.\"\n\nOleg reappeared in the doorway and gave him a thumbs-up before assembling the team around the door.\n\n\"The helicopters are ready,\" said Felix.\n\n\"Don't let me hold you up.\" The call disconnected.\n\nHe jogged over to the team and repeated their orders, leaving out the part about prisoner bounties. Handle them as equals told Felix everything he needed to know about the hostile force. He had to kill all of them quickly and efficiently, or they would extract a heavy price from his team. Fifty thousand dollars was tempting, but not that tempting-to him. He couldn't speak for the rest of the team's financial situations. His life was worth far more than a measly fifty grand, and he wasn't about to put it in the hands of someone who needed a quick money fix to payoff a gambling debt.\n\nSatisfied that everyone understood the parameters of the mission, he turned them loose. They split up into two groups and boarded their assigned helicopters. Felix followed Oksana and Lashev, their sniper, to the leftmost Bell 429 helicopter, where they climbed inside, slid the wide side door into place, and immediately went to work donning their equipment.\n\nThe helicopter lifted off a moment later, a feeling of heaviness overtaking him until the helicopter's flight leveled off, headed toward SITE ZERO. The pilot told him it would take no more than four minutes to reach the landing zone, which put them all under a bit of a time crunch to slip into their full combat kit. They worked methodically, starting with their plate carrier vests and moving onto their drop holsters. Rifles attached to one-point carry slings next, followed by helmets and night vision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One minute!\" yelled the pilot.\n\nHe was glad Pichugin had arranged for two helicopters. This particular Bell model was rated for seven passengers, enough to ferry the team to the site, but the cabin felt cramped enough with the three of them unloading and swinging gear around. He couldn't imagine trying to pull this off with the seven operatives in the same space. Not in four minutes. He patted himself down again to make sure he hadn't missed something. All good.\n\nWith his personal gear squared away, he went to work on the last duffel bag with Oksana. Together, they wrestled the M249 LMG (light machine gun) out of the bag and onto the rear passenger bench seat. He retrieved one of the seventy-five-round-drum magazines from the bag and inserted it into the magazine well. All a gunner had to do at this point was release the safety and pull the charging handle back. Four additional drums satin each bag.\n\n\"Should we bring one of these along?\" asked Oksana. \"The firepower might come in handy.\"\n\nHe thought about it fora moment. The light machine gun's high rate of fire would certainly pack a punch, but nobody on the team had much experience on the M249. Nearly all their operational time had been spent behind the gunsights of Russian-made weapons or similar knockoffs, which was most likely why the arsenal in Pennsylvania contained several AK variants. Everyone on the team, except for their sniper, had chosen a compact version of the AK-12 assault rifle.\n\n\"How many times have you fired one of these?\" asked Felix.\n\n\"A few times. It's not the easiest weapon to handle. The rate of fire is extremely high.\"\n\nHe shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was throw a wrench in the works at the last minute. Especially if their opponents were as skilled as Pichugin's proxy had suggested. If their mission changed and they needed the firepower to dislodge the hostiles from the camp, he could send a team back to grab them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's stick with what we know,\" said Felix.\n\n\"Thirty seconds!\" said the pilot.\n\nThirty seconds until they hit the ground running-literally. The landing zone and SITE ZERO were nearly equidistant from the ambush site-a race he had no intention of losing if the hostile team retreated faster than Pichugin's planners had anticipated. Second place was an unceremonious death in the Ozark Mountains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin checked the cabin door, surprised to discover that the doorknob turned. They'd moved through twelve sets of cabins while working their way toward the center of camp, finding all of them securely locked. He'd taken a step closer to the door to push it inward when a hand clamped down on his arm. Mike shook his head and motioned for him to stand back, which suddenly struck Devin as a more sensible course of action. Was he really moments from pushing in the only open door they'd found out of the thirty-odd they'd checked? Marnie must have been shaking her head.\n\nMike crouched and pointed his rifle at the door. \"Rich. We found an unlocked door.\"\n\n\"Be right there.\"\n\nDevin backed up next to Marnie, who knelt in the recently cut weeds several feet behind Mike, her rifle pointed down the long, empty gap between rows that extended all the way to the center of the camp. Unlike the dirt path, several trees grew right up in the middle of the gap, mostly obscuring their view of the buildings. Devin raised his rifle and covered their flank, not that they expected any trouble from the forest.\n\nRich patted his shoulder as he passed by, quickly joining Mike near the door. The two of them conversed fora moment before Rich very gently turned the knob and opened the door far enough for Mike to take a quick peek inside. He nodded at Rick before disappearing into the cabin, his head poking out a few seconds later.\n\n\"It's clear,\" he said.\n\nRich turned to Devin and Marnie. \"The moment of truth. If this is a two-family cabin, we're defaulting to WWKD.\"\n\nA two-family cabin meant they were potentially looking at twelve hundred sleepers instead of six hundred. If that turned out to be the case, Devin might have to reconsider his position regarding the building break-in scenario, consequences be damned, whether they pulled the rabbit or the tiger. He got the feeling Marnie would agree." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They followed Rich inside, Devin instantly relieved to see a full bed frame on one side and a bunk bed on the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A single-family arrangement. Aside from the beds, the dank-smelling cabin contained a nightstand between the beds, wooden chests at the foot of the beds, and a small table and chair set for four near the window. He didn't see any electrical outlets or overhead lights.\n\n\"Pretty sparse,\" whispered Rich.\n\n\"That's what I was thinking,\" said Devin. \"Camp Stalin looks more like a gulag than a future training ground for sleepers.\"\n\n\"My guess is that the main buildings area little more luxurious,\" said Rich. \"The gulags didn't have swimming pools.\"\n\n\"They probably use the pool exclusively for swim training,\" said Marnie. \"This place has a very deprived, utilitarian feel.\"\n\n\"On purpose,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Like a cult,\" she said. \"I wouldn't be surprised if the entire camp looked like this.\"\n\n\"We'll find out later tonight,\" said Rich. \"I'm thinking we work our way up the rows, until we're five or so cabins away from the center, then hunker down until the camp goes night night. Move up to the cabins closest to the center and give it another hour before we send a few people out to scout the buildings.\"\n\n\"Works for me,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Sounds like a plan,\" said Devin.\n\n\"We won't have drone coverage, but I don't think we'll need it at that point. If the sentries at the dock haven't turned in for the night by the time the drone goes off station, I'll position one of the snipers to cover that approach. We'll probably find a trail leading to the dock from the center of the camp. It doesn't make sense for the campers to trudge through the woods after they're dropped off. Hopefully, they'll go straight to their cabins.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Getting a good look inside those buildings takes priority,\" said Marnie. \"They probably have fairly extensive files on every kid here. Right? They'd have to in order to monitor the kids\" progress, chronicle their loyalty-whatever they do here. That could be the big ticket that wins an FBI raid or at the very least shines a bright light on every family named in the files.\"\n\n\"I like the way you think,\" said Rich, turning to Devin before leaving the cabin. \"She's a keeper.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said, not sure that was an appropriate response.\n\nMarnie left without saying a word, so he decided not to pursue it. Devin followed and crouched next to her in the gap between cabins, rifles pointed toward the center of camp, as Rich rejoined his team on the dirt path. Mike softly shut the cabin door and paused at the top of the wooden stoop. Marnie scooted behind Devin in a hurry, stopping at the foot of the stairs.\n\n\"Did you hear it, too?\" she asked.\n\nMike remained almost perfectly still, his head slowly canting to the side as though he was listening intently for something.\n\n\"What did you-\"\n\nThen Devin heard it. Just fora few seconds. A distant, deep rhythmic thumping sound that faded in and out. Mike turned to them.\n\n\"Take cover behind the cabin,\" he said before hopping down from the stoop. \"There's an airport nearby. Probably the last flight out of-\"\n\nMuzzle flashes erupted from the center of camp, bullets snapping overhead and thunking into the cabins-along with the sharp crackle of automatic gunfire. Marnie yanked Devin behind the cabin, moments before gunfire sliced through the space he'd just occupied. Mike slammed to the ground next to him, a few feet beyond the corner of the cabin. Devin leaned out and grabbed one of his shoulder straps with both hands, hauling him out of the line of fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mike was in bad shape, clutching his throat and cycling his legs wildly. Devin raised his night vision goggles and went in fora closer look, warm blood spraying his face. Mike's hands were soaked, blood pumping through his fingers. Devin triggered his radio.\n\n\"Mike's down. Hit in the neck,\" he said. \"It looks really bad.\"\n\n\"Copy that. Emily will be therein a second,\" said Rich.\n\n\"You got this?\" asked Marnie, moving to the corner of the cabin.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, trying to move Mike's hands to get a better look.\n\nHe couldn't budge them. Marnie crouched low and fired a few sustained bursts toward the center of camp. She ducked back as bullets splintered the corner above her head and slapped into the cabin behind them. A dark figure appeared behind the middle cabin, racing in their direction.\n\n\"Emily's inbound! Give her some cover fire!\" said Devin.\n\nMarnie emptied the rifle magazine as Emily sprinted across the gap. The operative stumbled halfway, losing control of her forward momentum and crashing next to Mike.\n\n\"Shit!\" Emily said, pounding the ground several times with a fist and groaning.\n\n\"You okay?\" said Devin.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she said, immediately going to work on Mike. \"Bullet zipped my leg.\"\n\nIf anyone on the team could help him, it would be her. She'd stitched up Devin's shin wound like a practiced surgeon.\n\n\"Help me move his hands,\" she said, straddling Mike.\n\nHe planted his knees behind Mike's head, and together they forced his hands apart. Devin kept them pinned against the ground while she assessed the wound. Mike resisted every step of the way, but his strength had clearly diminished since the first time Devin had tried to remove his hands. After a few more seconds of poking and prodding around the profusely bleeding bullet hole, Emily shook her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mike is gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's nothing I can do for him. Bullet went straight through his neck and ripped open one of his carotid arteries.\" Emily spoke over the net. \"Rich. Mike is KIA. He bled out.\"\n\n\"Copy. You're responsible for Devin and Marnie now. I'm sending Jared in your direction. Start laying down suppressing fire so we can give our snipers some breathing room to do their magic. We'll have this under control in no time.\"\n\nRich transmitted over the radio. \"OVERWATCH, this is RIFFRAFF. We've been engaged by automatic fire originating near the center of camp. Mike is KIA. Need a SITREP.\"\n\n\"Copy. I'll have a SITREP for you in a few seconds.\"\n\nAnother long burst of bullets kicked up dirt in the gap and tore into the cabin behind them, leaving Devin with the distinct impression that Rich's pep talk with Emily was more wishful thinking than reality. The drumbeat of nearby helicopter rotors reinforced that feeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Graves watched in horror as the team's situation shifted within a matter of seconds. Several automatic weapons had opened fire on the team, all located near the center of the camp. The hostile muzzle flashes did not correspond with human heat signatures, suggesting that they were firing from inside the cabins or well-concealed positions he had been unable to identify with the drone's sensors.\n\nThe dozen or so people gathered around the firepits had rushed into action, sprinting to the nearest building, where they disappeared fora few moments-before reappearing with rifles. And now they had two helicopters landing in the fields north of the camp. The team's arrival had obviously been detected, most likely at the shoreline infiltration point, given what he was seeing at the landing fields.\n\n\"I'm taking positive control of the drone,\" said Gupta. \"We only have another minute on this glide path. They're going to need uninterrupted coverage.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" said Graves, taking a few moments to assess the scene before contacting the team. \"RIFFRAFF, this is OVERWATCH. We're taking active control of the drone to pass you continuous information. SITREP follows. A dozen or more armed hostiles are headed toward the concealed gun positions near the center of the camp. From what I can see, they're bringing rifles to the fight. I also have some activity inside the southwest wing of the camp. Small groups forming. No weapons present. How copy?\"\n\n\"Copy all. Are you seeing helicopters nearby?\"\n\nGunfire on Rich's end of the radio call made it hard to decipher what he had said, but Graves caught the gist of it.\n\n\"Affirmative. Two Bell 400-series helicopters landed in the rectangular clearings north of the camp. One in each clearing. Seven hostiles in total exited the helicopters. They're headed east, away from RIFFRAFF, at a rapid pace. My guess is they're going to setup an ambush along your exfiltration route.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anymore good news?\"\n\n\"The team dropped off by the helicopters looked like serious types. Helmets. Night vision. Body armor. Rifles with suppressors. Moving like professionals. I do not recommend returning to the boats.\"\n\n\"Copy. We're still weighing our options here. Looks like we might be swimming out. Keep the information flowing.\"\n\n\"We can meet you somewhere along the eastern shoreline. We'll squeeze everyone onboard. I'm sending Berg to the marina just south of the conservation area. The boat pickup is looking more and more like the only way out of there.\"\n\n\"We're not out of the fight yet. But I concur. Out.\"\n\nA quick look at the IR camera view suggested otherwise. They couldn't possibly advance toward the center of the camp without sustaining more casualties, and making a run for the boats would prove catastrophic. He tapped Anish's elbow.\n\n\"Prepare an autonomous drone pattern over the camp,\" said Graves. \"My guess is we'll be on a full-speed run to pick them up within minutes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie sighted in on a muzzle flash through the 4X ACOG scope and pressed her trigger twice, the suppressed rifle biting into her shoulder. Like the other nonsnipers on the team, her rifle scope was not compatible with night vision goggles, so she'd switched from NVGs to the naked eye, which limited her to targeting muzzle flashes or the occasional silhouette. The gunfire at the receiving end of her bullets stopped, but it was impossible to tell if she'd hit the shooter or momentarily discouraged them.\n\nEither outcome accomplished her goal, which was to reduce the level of incoming gunfire to a point where the team's snipers could focus more on shooting and lesson hiding behind cover. The two snipers had higher magnification and thermal scopes, which made targeting unfair against opponents at night. The more time they could spend behind those scopes, the better chance the team had of getting out of this intact.\n\nReturn fire from the camp continued to snap past the corner of the cabin at different heights off the ground, many of them passing well over her head. She got the impression that the hostile gunfire wasn't well aimed. More of a quantity-over-quality situation-though equally deadly if you got caught out in the open at the wrong moment. They'd managed to advance only one set of cabins since the shooting started, the team miraculously suffering nothing more than a few grazing hits like Emily's. Only sheer luck had prevented another casualty, a reality not lost on Rich. He halted them to reassess the situation.\n\nShe fired another series of shots toward a different muzzle blast, pulling back from the corner as along string of bullets stitched through the gap and slapped into the thick wood cabins around her. Devin remained exposed on the other side of the gap, firing several two-shot bursts until his magazine ran dry-seemingly oblivious to the string of bullets that splintered the wood right below his rifle barrel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced in her direction and shook his head before reloading. She peeked around the corner with the rifle and rapidly pressed her trigger, emptying the few rounds left in her magazine. Emily lay behind the wooden stoop several feet in front of Marnie, her body pressed against the bottom of the cabin, only her rifle and part of her head exposed. Emily fired relentlessly, seemingly changing magazines every third time Marnie leaned out to shoot.\n\n\"Do you need ammo?\" asked Marnie.\n\nEmily had turned to reply when a bullet ricocheted off her helmet, driving her head down. She rolled tight against the cabin and checked her night vision, which looked to be intact. Emily looked up at her.\n\n\"I'm down to three mags!\"\n\nMarnie patted the magazine pouches attached to her plate carrier, finding that she'd expended only two of her eight spares. She removed two and tossed them next to Emily, who snatched one and reloaded her rifle before stuffing the other in an empty pouch on her vest. She gave Marnie a quick thumbs-up and went back to firing. Marnie reloaded and got ready to stick her head and rifle out again.\n\n\"This isn't going anywhere!\" yelled Devin.\n\n\"I know!\"\n\n\"Rich is assessing the situation,\" yelled Emily.\n\nHow long did it take to assess the fact that the mission was scrubbed? If they didn't start making their way to the eastern shoreline very soon, they ran the risk of getting squeezed by the mercenary team dropped off by the helicopters. Devin leaned out to fire and was driven back by a torrent of gunfire. Enough was enough. She triggered her radio.\n\n\"Rich. This is Marnie. We need to start moving east before we get pinched. We're not breaking through to the camp.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jared and Melendez are starting to make a difference. If we can hold on here for another minute, I think we'll have a shot at breaking through and mopping up this rabble,\" said Rich.\n\n\"I'm more concerned with the hostile team dropped off by the helicopters,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"If we breakthrough to the center,\" said Rich, \"the hostile team will be forced to respond. We can run a counter-ambush.\"\n\n\"We got pictures of the camp. Video evidence of a heavily armed force. The whole enchilada isn't an option anymore,\" she said. \"We need to get out of here now.\"\n\n\"We'll still have to deal with the mercenary team,\" said Rich. \"If they figure out that we've slipped away, they'll hunt us down with the helicopters. Our extremely overcrowded boat won't last very long on the lake. And the Suburban will stick out like a sore thumb from the air on thermal imaging.\"\n\n\"Maybe we just cross the lake and melt into the forest on the other side,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"We'd just be delaying the inevitable,\" said Rich. \"Maybe we could evade the helicopters on foot. It all depends on the helicopters\" surveillance capability.\"\n\n\"Marnie?\" said Devin over the net. \"Can you fly one of those helicopters?\"\n\nHoly shit. With everything going on, they had overlooked the obvious. She could fly them out of here.\n\n\"Yes. I can definitely fly one of those helicopters. No doubt about it.\"\n\nRich cut into the conversation immediately.\n\n\"OVERWATCH, this is RIFFRAFF. Do we have a clear path to the helicopters?\"\n\n\"This is OVERWATCH. The path is clear. The nearest hostiles are at the center of camp roughly five hundred feet away. If you head directly to the nearest helicopter, you'll continue to open that distance. With the thick tree cover, you'll get there fine. The mercenary team is setup about a hundred feet in front of the boats, close to a thousand yards away. Even if they hauled ass, they couldn't beat you there. You're about three hundred and fifty yards from the easternmost clearing. I'll send you a waypoint. Designating the helicopter team RIFFRAFF ONE. Cover team is RIFFRAFF TWO.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Copy. No security on the helicopters?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"No security. I'm seeing a single pilot in each cockpit, buckled up and waiting to takeoff. Could be someone hiding in back. The helicopters are shutdown, so keep that in mind.\"\n\n\"It'll take about a minute to spool up the rotors,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"That'll be along minute,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Not a problem,\" said Rich. \"We'll post security at the edge of the clearing until the helo is ready for takeoff. The trick will be keeping the armed campers from bum-rushing the helicopter. If they see us bolt north, they'll put two and two together pretty fast. We can't afford a running gun battle. It'll slow us down enough for the mercenaries to possibly beat us to the helicopter or arrive at the same time. Or the helicopter will takeoff once everyone figures out what we're up to.\"\n\n\"Rich. This is Jared. Rico and I can stay here and keep firing. Give you guys ahead start before they figure out what's happening. We'll melt away when the jig is up and rendezvous with the speedboat.\"\n\n\"That could work,\" said Rich.\n\n\"This is Emily. They'll know something's wrong the moment we drop down to two guns. I'll stay behind, too. I can move from one side of the middle cabin to the other, firing long bursts. We should probably leave four behind to buy as much time as possible. The whole point of this is to steal one of those helicopters, right? You could shoot the shit out of the other helicopter and eliminate any risk to the boat extraction.\"\n\n\"Scott. You've been volunteered,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Sounds good.\"\n\n\"Good thing I insisted on bringing a helicopter pilot along,\" said Rich." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah. Good thing you didn't try to convince Devin and me to stay behind every step of the way.\"\n\n\"Your next drink is on me,\" said Rich.\n\n\"The next three are on you,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Fair enough,\" said Rich. \"We should probably shift some ammunition around before we takeoff. Everyone flying out of herewith Marnie, cough up some magazines.\"\n\nShe took three of her remaining five rifle magazines and tossed them one by one next to Emily, who glanced back when one of them bounced and hither leg. A quick turn of the head and nod acknowledged the transfer, the shooter's trigger finger never letting up. Devin tossed her one magazine, which skipped across her back and hit the side of the cabin. She grabbed it without looking and reloaded, barely skipping a beat.\n\n\"Devin. Standby to cross the gap,\" Marnie said. \"Emily and I will cover you.\"\n\n\"Ready,\" said Devin.\n\nShe centered her scope's illuminated crosshairs on a muzzle flash and took some slack off the trigger.\n\n\"Now,\" she said, her rifle barking along with Emily's until Devin slammed into the side of the cabin next to her.\n\nHe put a hand on her shoulder and panted from the sprint.\n\n\"You can thank me later,\" said Devin.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"I bet you never thought you'd fly a helicopter again until a few minutes ago,\" said Devin.\n\nShe chuckled. Devin always had a knack for telling the truth, no matter how ridiculous the circumstances. Marnie just hoped she could pull this off so they could laugh about it later." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin waited behind the cabin, keeping his eye on Rich, who had ventured about fifteen yards into the forest. A fierce gun battle raged behind Devin, the four members of the team who'd volunteered to stay behind increasing the volume of fire to draw attention away from their escape.\n\n\"Devin. You're up. Leapfrog about ten yards past me,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Don't fuck this up,\" he muttered to himself and stepped into the forest.\n\nHe scurried toward Rich, his feet hitting a few roots on the way. Branches weren't a problem anymore-he'd learned to gauge the distances to closer objects better-and it really didn't matter if he snapped a few twigs. Nobody would hear it over the gunfire. He scooted past Rich and settled in behind a thick tree trunk-just glad not to have fallen on his face.\n\n\"Nice job,\" said Rich. \"I don't detect any reaction to our movement so far. Marnie and Alex, same drill. Head past Devin and take cover. If your movement goes unnoticed, we'll linkup at your position and move out from thereat a faster pace.\"\n\n\"Heading out now,\" said Alex.\n\nDevin watched the two of them duck and weave through the trees, moving at a fast clip. They passed in front of him and halted behind a dense stand of brush about twenty yards away, rifles pointed toward the center of camp. He caught some movement in his peripheral vision. Rich was heading his way, moving significantly faster than before. Rich tapped his shoulder on the way by, and Devin followed in his footsteps, the two of them reaching Marnie and Alex without Devin stumbling or running into anything. He felt as though he was getting the hang of this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"OVERWATCH, this is RIFFRAFF ONE. Any sign we've been detected?\" said Rich.\n\n\"Negative. I don't see any unusual movement.\"\n\nRich removed a satellite phone from a pouch on his vest and checked the digital navigation screen, which he'd programmed with the waypoint passed to him by Graves. He compared the screen to his wrist compass, aiming the two in the presumed direction of the helicopter, before turning to address the group.\n\n\"We have about three hundred yards to go. I say we jog the rest of the way. Space ourselves about twenty feet apart.\"\n\n\"This may sound like a dumb question, but what do we do if we start taking fire?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Not a dumb question. Given the range and density of the forest, I say skip the return-fire part and just haul ass. It'll take one hell of a shot to hit a running target at this range through all of these trees. The farther we run, the harder it will be for them,\" said Rich. \"Alex and I will take the lead. We'll have to deal with the pilot when we reach the clearing. Marnie. Can you still fly the helicopter if we pop a few holes in the windshield?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Just keep your shots as high as possible to avoid hitting the instruments,\" she said. \"I'd say no more than two shots, tightly spaced to avoid compromising the windshield's integrity. I can fly it with busted glass, but I'd have to fly a lot slower.\"\n\n\"Easy enough. If we fuck it up too badly, we can try and grab the other helicopter,\" said Rich. \"Let's get moving.\"\n\nThey took off in a column-Rich followed shortly by Alex. Devin tapped Marnie's shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're next,\" he said.\n\nShe nodded and chased after them. Devin waited until she looked to be about the right distance away and followed her path through the trees. He didn't get far before a bullet cracked overhead, followed by another-both of them striking trees somewhere past him.\n\n\"Taking fire,\" said Devin over the radio net.\n\n\"Haul ass and follow me,\" said Rich.\n\nThe surrounding forest came alive with zips and thunks as imprecise gunfire raked their formation, ricocheting off tree trunks and snapping branches. The gunfire intensified for several seconds-pushing Rich's\"it'll take a hell of a shot\" theory to the limit with a few near misses-before it tapered off to a few scattered bullets.\n\n\"Everyone still with us?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"All good,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Bringing up the rear,\" said Devin, glancing over his left shoulder in the direction of the few remaining muzzle flashes. \"We must be out of range.\"\n\n\"RIFFRAFF ONE, this is OVERWATCH. You have about a dozen hostiles from the center of the camp headed in your direction. They're moving fast, but as long as you keep up your pace, they won't be a problem.\"\n\n\"Understood. Have the mercenaries moved?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"Negative. And the helicopter rotors remain stationary. Looking good so far.\"\n\nDevin focused his attention on Marnie, who had gained some distance on him while he was looking over his shoulder. His only job right now was to keep her insight so he didn't get lost, and to not fall down. A simple set of tasks if you weren't running for your life through an unfamiliar forest-with no depth perception." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felix Orlov listened intently to the distant gunfire, detecting a shift beyond the significant drop in intensity. Or maybe his judgment had been impaired by his impatience. This whole thing was taking entirely too long. It was obvious that the team he'd been sent to ambush had hunkered down among the cabins, content to exchange fire with the group that had been assigned to scare them into a hasty retreat.\n\nIf the target team was as good as Pichugin's proxy alleged, they would be able to assess what stood in their way, quickly determining the odds of pushing through-and what it would cost them. This team had clearly made the decision to slug it out at the camp, which meant there would be no ambush. Not here, at least.\n\nMore gunfire, this time definitely coming from a slightly different direction. He hit his radio button.\n\n\"Oleg. Is the direction of the gunfire moving, or am I imagining things?\" asked Felix.\n\n\"It's shifting to the right,\" replied Oleg.\n\n\"Sounds like a one-sided battle,\" said Lashev, the team's sniper. \"I don't hear anymore suppressed shots.\"\n\nSomething was off. He removed his satellite phone and hit redial on the number that had called him at the hangar. After several ringtones, he ended the call. Ridiculous. Why wasn't anyone passing him information?\n\n\"Moving fast, too,\" added Lashev.\n\nFelix scanned the forest ahead of them with a handheld infrared scope, finding nothing. He pointed it in the new direction of gunfire, still coming up empty. The action was too faraway to detect with a portable thermal imaging device. He checked the Garmin Foretrex strapped to his wrist to get an idea of the direction of the gunfire. Almost due west, when it should becoming from the southwest. Shit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're headed for the helicopters,\" he said over the radio net. \"One of them must be a pilot.\"\n\n\"Why would they bring a pilot on a direct-action mission?\" asked Oksana.\n\n\"I don't know, but why the fuck else would they beheaded for the helicopters?\" said Felix. \"Valerie. Oksana. We're headed to the helicopters. All-out sprint.\"\n\n\"Our orders haven't changed,\" said Oksana.\n\n\"Our orders are to kill that team,\" said Felix. \"And that's what I intend to do. Oleg. If they show up along the planned ambush route for some bizarre reason, take down as many as you can and radio me immediately. We'll flank the survivors.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" said Oleg, not sounding too enthusiastic about the decision.\n\nFelix pressed a few buttons on his wrist-mounted GPS unit to select the waypoint he'd inputted when they first landed-and took off at a full sprint. At this point, he'd be lucky if they arrived in time to stop the team from stealing one of the helicopters, but he had to try. Ashe ducked under branches and dodged trees, another thought hit him like a hammer. The machine guns.\n\nIt didn't matter if they could fly the helicopters out or not. If that team took possession of the M249s, or even just one of them, they could flip the odds definitively in their favor. He hoped he hadn't waited too long to prevent a disaster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The helicopter engine started somewhere ahead of them and slowly began to power up. Devin still had no idea how far they had to go to reach the clearing. He'd caught up with Marnie after she tripped and tumbled to the forest floor-quickly getting her back on her feet and moving again. By the time they'd resumed sprinting, presumably in the right direction, Alex and Rich had vanished into the sea of green ahead of them.\n\n\"We don't have much time,\" said Marnie, picking up what felt like an impossible pace.\n\nTwo suppressed shots echoed off the trees, giving him no indication of a direction. He barreled through the forest a few steps behind her, thinking they couldn't possibly miss a one-hundred-yard-wide clearing. Or could they? His earpiece crackled.\n\n\"Where the hell are you two?\" asked Rich.\n\n\"We should be there any-\" he started, the two of them breaking through a jumble of bushes into the clearing.\n\nThe helicopter stood in the center of what looked like a mowed field, its rotors slowly picking up speed. Alex stood next to the helicopter, pointing his rifle inside.\n\n\"There you are,\" said Rich, waving to them from the eastern edge of the clearing before vanishing into the forest.\n\n\"Cabin is clear,\" said Alex. \"I found an M249-ready to rock and roll. Do you want it on the treeline?\"\n\n\"Negative. We'll be wheels up in forty seconds or less. I don't see anything moving out here,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Copy. On my way over,\" said Alex, already scrambling across the field toward Rich.\n\n\"Marnie. Do whatever you need to do to get us out of here,\" said Rich. \"Remember. There's another helicopter in the clearing west of here, maybe fifty yards away. My guess is they're pretty desperate to stop us, so watch your three o'clock on the way out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Got it.\"\n\nThe two side-by-side bullet holes in the windshield came into focus when they passed under the rotor blade arc. Marnie reached the helicopter first, immediately opening the pilot-side door and going to work on the dead pilot's seat harness. She'd pulled him free of the helicopter just as Devin hopped into the cabin. Marnie poked her head between the front seats, nodding at the machine gun.\n\n\"Do you know how to work that?\" she asked.\n\n\"I've held one, but never fired one,\" said Devin, lifting the machine gun off the bench seat to examine it. \"But I can't imagine it's that complicated.\"\n\n\"It's not. Press the trigger fora second or two at most. It has a very high rate of fire. Very hard to control if you don't brace it against something. And don't forget about the safety. It's a button right about where your thumb rests. You have to push it from the other side with your index finger to take it off safe. And make sure to fire very short bursts.\"\n\n\"Shouldn't you be worried about taking off?\" asked Devin, taking a seat with the machine gun pointed toward the forest.\n\n\"The Bell 429 kind of flies itself,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"I'm willing to bet it doesn't,\" said Devin.\n\nHis radio squawked. \"Marnie. How long until takeoff? We have company coming in from the east.\"\n\nShe plopped down in the pilot's seat. \"Rotor speed is still building, but it's starting to level off. Fifteen to twenty seconds max.\"\n\n\"Copy. We're on our way back. It's going to be a close call,\" said Rich. \"Devin. I need you on that 249. The moment we jump onboard, start hosing down the treeline where we pop out. You should be able to see us-right about now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin looked up and caught the two of them emerging from the forest and sprinting toward the helicopter. Jesus. Here we go. He quickly located the safety button on the right side of the trigger grip and pressed it. Rich and Alex piled into the helicopter moments later, nearly knocking him over.\n\n\"Hit the treeline!\" said Rich, slapping him on the shoulder. \"Marnie. Get us the fuck out of here!\"\n\nDevin braced the M249 against the doorframe and aimed at the point where they had emerged, pressing the trigger briefly. The machine gun pounded his shoulder, rattling off a short burst. Marnie hadn't been kidding. The gun was a beast. He pressed the trigger again, holding it fora full second. The machine gun wasn't as hard to control now that he knew what to expect. Devin repeated the process six more times before the magazine drum emptied-methodically shifting his aim along a twenty-yard stretch of treeline. The helicopter lurched skyward as he fired the last burst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felix Orlov knew they were running out of time when he heard the two suppressed gunshots. His only hope of preventing a catastrophic mission failure lay in reaching the landing zone and surprising the hostile force before they could either takeoff or put the machine gun to use against the group that had chased them to the helicopters. The race would be extremely close. The helicopter sounded as though it was ready for takeoff.\n\nHe weaved around trees, ducked under branches, and brute-forced his way through the brush, single-mindedly focused on catching a glimpse of the helicopter through the thick forest. Once Felix spotted the helicopter, he would halt the team and unleash a storm of gunfire. Two full magazines before moving forward to assess the situation. The rotor pitch suddenly deepened, meaning one thing. Someone on the team knew how to fly a helicopter!\n\nHe was about to give the order to fire blindly ahead of them when his satellite phone buzzed.\n\nAbout fucking time!\n\nHe slowed to remove the phone from his vest, the other two operatives burning past him.\n\n\"Holdup!\" he yelled before stopping to accept the phone call.\n\nAutomatic gunfire ripped through the trees, a single short burst at first, passing well overhead. He darted to the right and dived behind a thick tree trunk, barely escaping the longer bursts that followed-which struck at waist height. When the shooting stopped fora few seconds, he peeked around the tree with his rifle and fired on full automatic until the magazine ran dry. None of his bullets hit their mark. A stiff gust of dusty air washed through the foliage, indicating that the helicopter had already taken off.\n\nFelix searched the ground next to him for the satellite phone. He'd dropped it when he slammed into the tree. His hand bumped into it next to his foot. He snatched it up and put it to his ear. \"This is Felix!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't sound like you're at the ambush site.\"\n\n\"They got away,\" said Felix.\n\n\"Not for long. We managed to get a few of our friendlies on the second helicopter. Head back to the ambush site and wait for instructions.\"\n\nThe call disconnected, and he threw the phone to the ground.\n\n\"Valerie. Oksana. What's your status?\" he said over the net.\n\nNo response-and he had no intention of breaking cover to check on them visually. He was still well in range of the M249 LMG. A few seconds later, he risked a look, seeing one of them on the ground, arms and legs splayed in a manner that strongly suggested they wouldn't begetting backup. Ever.\n\nScrew it. Felix launched to his feet and sprinted for the tree next to Oksana, making it halfway before tripping on a pair of legs hidden by the brush. He landed face-to-face with Valerie, the young operative's lifeless eyes competing for Felix's attention with the small bullet hole an inch to the side of the man's nose.\n\nTwo KIA in the blink of an eye. He'd known this would be a shit show the moment he saw the mission packet-but you didn't turn down work when Yuri Pichugin offered it. Once you started working for his organization, you were either on his payroll or you were dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Timothy Graves eased the Sea Ray into a wide starboard turn, with the full intention of opening the throttle once they had cleared the cove. RIFFRAFF TWO was on the move, estimated to arrive at the eastern shoreline in roughly ten minutes. Plenty of time for Graves to get the boat in position fora quick extraction.\n\n\"Stop the boat!\" screamed Anish, near scaring him out of his skin.\n\nHe yanked the throttle back, putting the engine into idle, before shifting into reverse and bringing the boat to a quick stop. They lurched forward from the sudden deceleration, Gupta uttering a few choice words as he straightened himself out in the seat.\n\n\"What's happening?\" said Graves, leaning across the seat to get a better view of the laptop screen.\n\n\"The second helo took off with armed passengers from the camp,\" said Gupta. \"I'm going to crash the drone into the helicopter.\"\n\n\"What?\" said Graves.\n\n\"No time to explain,\" said Gupta, taking positive control of the drone. \"Warn the team.\"\n\n\"Marnie, this is OVERWATCH. The second helicopter took on armed passengers. Gupta is going to take it outwith the drone.\"\n\n\"Say again?\"\n\n\"We're going to ram the second helicopter with the drone,\" said Graves. \"Bank hard left.\"\n\nThe laptop's screen switched from the navigation map to the drone's night vision– enhanced nose view. Two helicopters rose from the forest a few hundred yards away, the closest one turning left as soon as it had cleared the treetops. The first helicopter zipped out of view, the drone passing it at eighty miles per hour. Gupta centered the nose-view reticle on the starboard-side windshield of the pursuing helicopter and kept it locked in place until the screen went blank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess that worked?\" said Gupta.\n\n\"You just slammed a twenty-pound drone traveling at eighty miles per hour into a windshield designed to deflect a bird,\" said Graves. \"I suspect it worked.\"\n\nA bright orange fireball rose above the northwest horizon, reflecting off the glassy-smooth lake.\n\n\"There's your proof. Hang on,\" said Graves, giving Gupta a few moments before pushing the throttle forward.\n\nA deep boom echoed across the lake several seconds later as they raced down the middle of the lake toward RIFFRAFF TWO's primary extraction point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An ear-crunching detonation rattled the helicopter, Marnie's view through the night vision goggles flaring bright white and blinding her at the worst possible time fora helicopter pilot-in the middle of a hard turn at treetop level. She flipped the goggles up, instantly determining why her night vision had unexpectedly whited out.\n\nA fireball rose skyward from the trees to their left, rapidly dissipating in the starry night sky. She maneuvered the helicopter out of the turn and picked up some altitude to give herself a little more space above the trees. When the fuel explosion burned out, the forest instantly darkened, once again rendering her blind. She swung her goggles back into place over her face and readjusted to the green-scale view.\n\n\"Thanks for the assist, OVERWATCH,\" said Marnie. \"Scratch one hostile helicopter.\"\n\n\"For the record, that was all Gupta. I'm just kicking back driving a boat.\"\n\n\"Hat tip to Anish,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"What happened to the whole drinks-are-on-me thing?\"\n\n\"You don't even drink, Anish,\" said Rich.\n\n\"I know. Just want to feel like part of the team.\"\n\n\"You are part of-\" started Rich.\n\n\"Drinks are on me, Anish,\" she said before glancing over her shoulder. \"Did we lose anyone?\"\n\nShe was only half kidding. Marnie had given them a few seconds of warning before banking hard left, but a sudden, unannounced turn like that could throw someone out of the helicopter, if the maneuver caught them off guard and off balance.\n\n\"I still count three of us,\" said Rich. \"Good try, though.\"\n\n\"Don't tempt me,\" said Marnie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her night vision goggles flared again, and she knocked them away from her face. \"Dammit!\"\n\n\"Jesus. Look at that,\" said Devin.\n\nMarnie peered through her door's window, catching a glimpse of a broken, burning helicopter fuselage through the dense tree cover. The ground around the helicopter flickered from hundreds of little fires created by the explosions.\n\n\"I guess that solves our second helicopter problem,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Bummer. I was looking forward to machine-gunning it out of the sky. Mike would have approved of that,\" said Alex.\n\n\"He would have, but I have something else in mind,\" said Rich. \"Marnie. I need you to fly us over the center of camp.\"\n\n\"Shouldn't we get the hell out of here?\" she asked. \"We're almost over the lake to the north of the conservation area.\"\n\n\"We need to do more than just take pictures and give them a helicopter to cleanup,\" said Rich.\n\n\"If this is about avenging Mike, forget it,\" said Marnie. \"We've pushed our luck far enough tonight. They might have a heavy-caliber machine gun setup on one of those roofs.\"\n\n\"Drone surveillance didn't show anything like that,\" said Rich. \"Trust me on this, Marnie. We need to draw some serious attention to this place. Get people asking questions.\"\n\n\"They heard that explosion all the way in Branson,\" said Marnie. \"Not to mention the gun battle that probably woke everyone for miles.\"\n\n\"It won't be enough,\" said Rich. \"The maps might say Mincy Conservation Area, but I guarantee you the camp is on a large tract of private property. Probably a few thousand acres. Shooting up your own land isn't a crime. The explosion might draw some attention; my guess is that the crash will be covered with netting by the morning. We're left with some compelling video that we could have created in a studio.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie put the helicopter into a gentle right turn. \"What's the plan?\"\n\n\"I'd like to burn their buildings down. Leave something the authorities can see in the morning,\" said Rich. \"At the very least, I'd like to put Camp Stalin out of business.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Mayas well add arsonist to my rapidly expanding résumé. You guys don't happen to be hiring, do you?\"\n\n\"No. But I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say that we'd make room fora combat-decorated Marine helicopter pilot. Same offer applies to any former FBI SSG investigative specialists.\"\n\n\"Is that your first job offer?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Nice. As a matter of fact, it is,\" she said. \"Have to sleep on it, though. Hey. We're about fifteen seconds out from the camp center. I can slow us down if you're not ready.\"\n\nShe heard the M249 charging bolt slide home.\n\n\"They're ready,\" said Devin.\n\nMarnie took a longer look behind her, disturbed by what she saw. Alex had scooted to the edge of the bench seat next to the portside door, machine gun in his lap and three additional drum magazines on the seat next to him. Rich sat on the opposite side of the bench seat, having opened the starboard-side door at some point in all the excitement. He held a cylindrical grenade in both hands. Devin sat directly behind her. For all she knew, he had a stick of dynamite and a lighter in his hand. Rich had away of coaxing bad behavior out of everyone.\n\n\"Rich, is that a white phosphorus grenade?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Maybe,\" he said. \"And maybe I have three more in my drop pouch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her pilot instincts flashed red. Pyrotechnic devices ranked right up therewith explosives on a pilot's'fuck no\" list.\n\n\"Rich. If you drop that in the helicopter, I will bank this thing ninety degrees and empty you and your grenades right over the side,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"I would expect nothing less,\" said Rich. \"Pick four buildings. Your choice. We'll be out of herein thirty seconds.\"\n\nShe slowed down for the approach, the buildings in the camp's center suddenly appearing in the square-shaped opening. Five one-story structures, all flat roofed. The rooftop adjacent to the northeast branch of cabins, where the team had been ambushed, held three armed figures. She turned the helicopter so its port side faced the rooftop and let the helicopter drift slowly in the building's direction.\n\n\"Three targets on the nearest rooftop,\" said Marnie.\n\nAlex didn't respond. The M249 buzzed fora few seconds, and all three shooters dropped to the roof in contorted positions. Marnie made no adjustments to the helicopter's flight, sliding directly over the building fora few seconds. She put them in a hover, glancing downward at the chin window below her feet.\n\n\"Perfect alignment,\" said Rich. \"Grenade away.\"\n\nMarnie spun the helicopter in place until the rest of the compound came into view. A bullet thunked inside, somewhere near the cockpit. She slid leftover the adjacent building.\n\n\"Grenade away! Next!\" said Rich.\n\nSeveral bullets peppered the fuselage, one puncturing the copilot's door window and putting a hole in the top of the cockpit. Her night vision flared from the first grenade but didn't whiteout for more than a fraction of a second. The grenade had exploded fifty feet below on the other side of the helicopter, scattering white-hot chunks across the rooftop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no targets,\" said Alex. \"We're facing the wrong way.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of that,\" she said, flying forward fora few seconds before going into a hover again.\n\nShe spun the helicopter 180 degrees, pointing Alex and Devin in the direction of the incoming ground fire. A torrent of gunfire erupted from the cabin the moment she stopped the spin. The second grenade detonated, momentarily blinding her. She popped her night vision goggles, determining that she had enough light from the fires below to pull this off with the naked eye.\n\n\"Give me about twenty feet directly to the right,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Tell me when,\" said Marnie, putting the helicopter into a slow drift in the direction Rich had requested.\n\n\"Grenade out!\" he said. \"One more! Let's go for the big one on the western side.\"\n\nDevin yelled as a string of bullets hit the pilot's side of the helicopter. The door window next to her shattered, a sharp pain creasing her forearm. Alex's machine gun responded with burst after burst. The third grenade exploded, illuminating the trees around them.\n\n\"Devin?\" she said, getting no answer.\n\nShe looked over her shoulder in time to see Rich sidearm his last grenade out the starboard-side door. Fuck this. We're out of here. She pulled upon the collective lever and took them higher, until they'd risen about three hundred feet above the buildings, where she pushed the cyclic forward. The helicopter angled down several degrees and sped away from the camp.\n\n\"Is Devin okay?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm fine. Just got a little preoccupied therefor a moment,\" said Devin. \"Nice flying, by the way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you. It's been a little while.\"\n\n\"Just like riding a bike,\" said Rich. \"But about a thousand times more complicated.\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" she said.\n\nThe treetops below lit up fora moment, the last grenade hopefully spreading its flammable contents over the roof of the biggest building in the camp.\n\n\"Did you land it on the roof?\" she asked, peeking over her shoulder.\n\nRich pulled his head back inside the helicopter. \"Looks like it. Can I ask you for one more favor?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'd like to have Alex disable our pontoon boats,\" he said. \"I don't want any of those fuckers getting a free ride out of there tonight.\"\n\n\"We certainly can't allow that,\" said Marnie.\n\nShe lowered her night vision goggles over her face before putting them into a wide left turn and taking them back over the northeastern tip of the Mincy Conservation Area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin somehow fell asleep on the short trip down the lake to Diamond City. He woke to Rich shaking his arm, the helicopter rapidly descending.\n\n\"Rise and shine. We're almost at the motel,\" he said.\n\nHe squinted and looked around, noticing that the M249 was gone. \"Where did the machine gun go?\"\n\n\"We dumped it in the lake about a minute back,\" said Rich. \"I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing the serial number on that weapon can be traced to a batch of M249 Squad Automatic Weapons that either never made it to their final destination or were reported stolen from a US military armory. We do not want to get caught with a stolen military firearm. Particularly a machine gun.\"\n\n\"And the rest of this gear is clean?\" asked Devin.\n\nRich shrugged. \"We could explain the rest of this away, if we had to. I'd rather not, since it would tie us up fora while.\"\n\n\"You mean we'd be sitting in jail while a team of expensive lawyers worked on getting us releases so we could flee the country and have to travel on forged IDs for the rest of our lives.\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" said Rich.\n\nAlex laughed, which was a welcome shift away from the dark mood that had enveloped him since Mike's death. The two of them had obviously been close. Devin had overheard Scott talking with Emily about how they had been plank owners in the original program-whatever that meant. The story behind Rich's team was still unclear.\n\n\"Alex. I'm very sorry about Mike,\" said Devin, not sure if he had stepped over the line.\n\n\"We've all lived far longer than we should have,\" said Alex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's for sure,\" said Rich.\n\n\"We're almost there,\" said Marnie over the radio. \"I'm going to set us down toward the southern end of the campground. I don't want to get us caught up in any power lines. Looks like a short jog to the motel.\"\n\n\"Works for me,\" replied Rich before turning to Alex. \"It's kind of late to ask this, but do you have the keys to the SUV?\"\n\nAlex lifted a set of keys by his index finger. \"They were in Mike's pocket. I thought about them right before we headed for the helicopter.\"\n\n\"I'm glad one of us was thinking,\" said Rich.\n\nAn old-fashioned white streetlight rose slowly in the distance as the helicopter gently bounced on its wheels before settling into the landing. The high-pitched whine of the turboshaft engines shifted to a slightly lower tone as Marnie shutdown the helicopter. Rich pointed toward the streetlight.\n\n\"Let's head to the road and take aright instead of trying to cut through someone's backyard,\" said Rich. \"I don't want to get shot and killed by a local after running Stalin's gauntlet back at the camp. The whole town is probably on alert from the combination of the explosion and a helicopter suddenly landing. This is tinfoil-hat country.\"\n\n\"Hard to argue with not getting shot,\" said Devin, and they set off for the road.\n\nA short jog later, they arrived safely at the motel parking lot, where they immediately removed their tactical gear and stowed it in the back of the SUV, along with their rifles. Rich handed one of the rifles to Devin, along with a few spare magazines.\n\n\"Keep this out of sight, but accessible if I need it.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling and proceed with the tale.\nTags: techno-thriller, science fiction, action, conspiracy, nanotechnology\nAuthor: Steven Konkoly\nTitle: Deep Sleep\nChapter: 59" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's for sure,\" said Rich.\n\n\"We're almost there,\" said Marnie over the radio. \"I'm going to set us down toward the southern end of the campground. I don't want to get us caught up in any power lines. Looks like a short jog to the motel.\"\n\n\"Works for me,\" replied Rich before turning to Alex. \"It's kind of late to ask this, but do you have the keys to the SUV?\"\n\nAlex lifted a set of keys by his index finger. \"They were in Mike's pocket. I thought about them right before we headed for the helicopter.\"\n\n\"I'm glad one of us was thinking,\" said Rich.\n\nAn old-fashioned white streetlight rose slowly in the distance as the helicopter gently bounced on its wheels before settling into the landing. The high-pitched whine of the turboshaft engines shifted to a slightly lower tone as Marnie shutdown the helicopter. Rich pointed toward the streetlight.\n\n\"Let's head to the road and take aright instead of trying to cut through someone's backyard,\" said Rich. \"I don't want to get shot and killed by a local after running Stalin's gauntlet back at the camp. The whole town is probably on alert from the combination of the explosion and a helicopter suddenly landing. This is tinfoil-hat country.\"\n\n\"Hard to argue with not getting shot,\" said Devin, and they set off for the road.\n\nA short jog later, they arrived safely at the motel parking lot, where they immediately removed their tactical gear and stowed it in the back of the SUV, along with their rifles. Rich handed one of the rifles to Devin, along with a few spare magazines.\n\n\"Keep this out of sight, but accessible if I need it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Still not out of the woods, so to speak?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"I hate to break this to you, but we just stepped deeper in the woods with tonight's stunt,\" said Rich, shutting the rear liftgate. \"Out of the woods means busting up this sleeper conspiracy.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" she said.\n\nDevin opened the door to the backseat for Marnie, who hopped in and took the rifle. As soon as Devin shut the door behind him, Alex tore out of the parking lot, throwing him against the seat. He'd noticed that Rich's people weren't big on wasting time, even under the most mundane circumstances. Every second counted with these people, which was probably one of dozens of reasons why they were still alive. Most of them, anyway.\n\n\"We still need to pickup the third vehicle at Highway Marina,\" said Rich, checking his satellite phone. \"Berg will meet us there so we can balance out the vehicles. He's still waiting for the speedboat. Should be there any minute.\"\n\n\"Then what?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Then we get off these rural roads onto some kind of interstate highway. Get as far from here as possible by sunrise. The Ozarks will be crawling with law enforcement sooner than later,\" said Rich.\n\n\"At some point I'm going to need some sleep,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Why? You slept on the helicopter,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Really?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"He was out like alight once the shooting stopped.\"\n\n\"I apologize if that's a faux pas when your best friend is flying the helicopter. Something about the rhythm of the rotors or something just pulled me under,\" said Devin.\n\n\"It's actually pretty normal,\" she said. \"We'd takeoff with a platoon of Marines, headed fora hot LZ, and half of them would be out within the first five minutes-like they were in the backseat of a car on a road trip. Then again, they were always exhausted when we were flying them around.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's me right now,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five minutes from passing out again.\"\n\n\"We're all right therewith you,\" said Rich. \"We'll pick a decent-size city we can reach by dawn and find a motel with a few sets of adjoining rooms. Rest up and go through what we collected on video. Scan the news out of Branson. Figure out our next move. Based on what we saw at the camp, we'll have to up our game somehow. Convince some people at a much higher level to take a serious look at what we've assembled. We're looking at somewhere around six hundred sleepers, most in positions we might not be able to figure out-until they've done their damage.\"\n\n\"I don't see how we're going to crack this,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Your mother did,\" said Rich. \"She put you and Karl Berg together fora reason. If anyone can figure out away to pull this off, it'll be him. Karl's cracked a few major conspiracies before.\"\n\n\"True America?\"\n\nRich didn't answer right away, which confirmed what Devin had suspected. Either Karl or Rich had had a hand in whatever had happened to True America. Possibly both of them.\n\n\"What did Karl tell you about True America?\"\n\n\"He said it was a story for another time,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Well. I'll let him decide when that time arrives,\" said Rich.\n\nDevin let it go for now. He was too tired to pursue a dead-end conversation. Marnie put her head on his shoulder and held his hand, the two of them drifting asleep in the company of two shadowy mercenaries they'd barely known for forty-eight hours. Not coincidentally the same amount of time he'd been awake. Devin didn't resist the sandman. He had a feeling Rich's idea of rest would amount to an hour-long nap while they waited for him to wake up. He'd have to take whatever sleep he could get, whenever he could take it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felix Orlov crawled up the muddy shore and shrugged off his rucksack, exhausted from the long swim. He rolled onto his back and rested in the fetid sludge, staring at the clear night sky. The fire raging across the lake flickered at the bottom of his field of vision. After he'd caught his breath, he turned his head to see who else had washed upon shore with him. One lay in the muck about forty feet away, where the lake broke off into a cove. He couldn't tell if they were facedown or on their back. Another clambered out of the water between them and dropped flat. Ksenia, judging by the longer hair. Just two?\n\nHe propped himself upon his elbows to scan the lake. The third slogged through the water about fifty feet out, kicking and splashing hard enough to suggest panic. That had to be Lashev. The sniper had spent more time trying to convince them to somehow paddle one of the half-sunken pontoon boats across the lake rather than fessing up that he could barely swim. None of them had wanted to abandon most of their gear and swim several hundred yards to an unfamiliar shore, but the M249 machine gun Felix had chosen to leave in the helicopter had made the decision for them.\n\nAnd staying on the other side of the lake, trusting their fate to whoever called that camp home, wasn't a viable option. Not after the small war that had been waged out therefor close to fifteen minutes, not to mention the helicopter explosion that had probably rattled windows and set off car alarms for miles. The police would be allover this place soon, the several-story-high bonfire rising above the treetops serving as their beacon. The team was better off on their own, which meant along swim.\n\nFelix got upon wobbly legs and reentered the water, wading halfway to his struggling colleague, before he could no longer feel the bottom of the lake. He sidestroked the rest of the way and made the mistake of approaching Lashev directly. Like all terrified swimmers in a near-drowning situation, his teammate instinctively grabbed onto Felix the moment he arrived, intent on dragging him to the bottom, too. He pounded Lashev's face a few times, stunning him long enough to implement a forced-rescue hold-and start swimming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He dragged Lashev to waist-high water and let go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The operative thrashed fora few seconds before realizing he could stand. He immediately waded to shore and sat next to Ksenia. Oleg got up from his spot near the break in the shoreline and plopped down beside Lashev.\n\n\"No rest for the wicked,\" said Felix, trudging out of the water. \"We need to steal a boat or a car and get the hell out of here. I'm leaning toward one of the covered docks we spotted inside the cove. Less chance of getting shot trespassing. Most Americans are more heavily armed than the police.\"\n\n\"I saw tire tracks near the cove entrance,\" said Oleg. \"Looks like they lead in the direction of the docks.\"\n\n\"Can't they just drive our Jeeps over from the airport?\" asked Ksenia.\n\n\"The people watching over our gear and Jeeps back at the hangar have been diverted to evacuate the camp burning across the lake,\" said Felix. \"They moved everything away from the hangar, because the helicopters will eventually be traced back to the airport-but that's all I know. They'll contact us when they can spare the personnel to reunite us with our vehicles. Until then, I want to get as far from here as possible.\"\n\nFelix grabbed his backpack and tossed it in front of the group. He'd volunteered to carry the fifteen-to twenty-pound bag because he was a strong swimmer-and didn't think anyone else would make it across with the equivalent of an anchor strapped to their back. Boots, socks, pistols, and ammunition. The essentials. He'd sealed his satellite phone and wallet in a waterproof bag and stuffed it in one of his cargo pockets.\n\nThey'd thrown everything else-the rifles, body armor, helmets, and night vision gear-into the water, as far off the shoreline on the other side of the lake as possible. Why give investigators a sense of their true numbers? Whoever combed through the property would eventually find Oksana and Valerie, unless the camp's residents cleaned up their bodies. He'd provided their general location to Pichugin's contact after the helicopter exploded. Let them deal with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five minutes. Don't forget to drain your pistols and work the action a few times. Hold your magazines upside down until they stop dripping. We might not be done using them tonight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Devin opened his eyes to a dark, unfamiliar room. It took a few seconds to figure out exactly where he'd woken up and why. They'd driven through the night to Nashville, passing through the city and checking into the most nondescript motel he'd ever seen-basically, a two-story rectangle with evenly spaced doors and windows. About as inconspicuous as he could imagine, which was almost as big a selling point as the Cracker Barrel restaurant next door.\n\nThey settled into three sets of adjoining rooms, clearly a big coup for the mostly unoccupied motel, since an'exception\" was made regarding the usual check-in time. Everyone got their own bed to rest, Rich insisting the team needed to take a time-out before going any further. All Devin really remembered after that was ordering three times the amount of Cracker Barrel he could possibly eat and putting himself into a food coma.\n\nHe glanced over at the other bed, finding the blankets rumpled but empty. A quick look at the open, dark bathroom doorway told him Marnie had slipped out at some point to join the team. They'd probably taken a few hours off and gone back to work. How long had he been out? The light peeking through the shade told him he hadn't slept into the night. His watch said he'd given it his best effort: 6:48 p. m. He'd been out for more than ten hours. Rich and Karl probably had the next operation planned by now.\n\nDevin rolled off the cheap mattress and reached for the ceiling to give his stiff body a quick stretch. He noticed afresh pair of jeans, a few T-shirts, socks, and underwear on the dresser. Someone had been busy. He grabbed the jeans and checked the inside of the waist, finding them a few sizes too large-but not big enough to slide off. The shirt was a large, which would hang off him but otherwise work just fine for now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took everything into the bathroom and changed out of the swampy outfit he'd been wearing, before indulging in a quick shower to wash away the grime of last evening's mission. Feeling deceptively refreshed, he tucked his wallet and satellite phone into his pockets and stepped into the crusty boots next to his bed. The sort-of-human feeling the shower and new clothes had loaned him took a hit when his feet sank into the damp boots. More than just damp. He stood up, and they squished-not that he was complaining.\n\nHe swiped the old-school metal key from his nightstand and headed out to find the team. His search didn't last long. A pizza-delivery car idled in the parking lot below, where a teenager was unloading about a dozen pizza boxes between Scott and Alex.\n\nThe past week didn't feel real. From setting off to follow his mother's clues to the apartment to the forty-eight-hour whirlwind tour of violence across three states, none of it seemed possible. But here he was-watching a mercenary who had easily killed a half dozen or more people over the past three nights dig into his pocket to pay a pizza-delivery kid. An entirely unremarkable transaction to an outside observer. It made him wonder how many times he'd witnessed something this extraordinary before without even knowing it. Devin met them a few rooms down.\n\n\"Welcome back to the land of the living,\" said Scott.\n\n\"You didn't have to let me sleep that long,\" said Devin, opening the door for them.\n\n\"Marnie said you were snoring like a sawmill,\" said Alex, pausing in the doorway. \"You didn't miss much. Most of us crashed well into the afternoon. Except for Rich and Karl. I have no idea how those two are still upright and talking incomplete sentences.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seriously,\" said Devin, following him into the crowded room and closing the door.\n\nEveryone was dressed in jeans and plain gray T-shirts. The only way it could look more comical was if all the T-shirts had the same pattern.\n\n\"There he is,\" said Berg, standing in the doorway between the adjoining rooms. \"Did they tell you that the Russians surrendered while you were asleep? It's allover.\"\n\n\"Pizza coming through,\" said Alex, making his way past Berg into the other room.\n\nRich appeared in the doorway. \"Pizza, soda, water, and beer. One-beer limit.\"\n\n\"Seriously?\" said Gupta, seated next to Graves at the foot of one of the beds. \"I think I can be trusted-\"\n\n\"You don't drink, knucklehead,\" said Graves.\n\n\"It's the principle that matters,\" said Gupta.\n\n\"Can I have his beer?\" asked Marnie.\n\n\"Yes. And Devin is welcome to mine,\" said Rich.\n\n\"That still leaves two. It's a twelve-pack,\" said Gupta.\n\n\"There's no rule requiring that they be consumed,\" said Graves. \"Do I have to share a room with him? I'm retired. Doesn't that get me my own room?\"\n\n\"Nobody pulling security tonight goes past the limit. We have no idea what kind of law enforcement or government tracking muscle they're capable of harnessing through the people we haven't identified in the network,\" said Rich. \"We may have to shoot our way out of herein an hour.\"\n\n\"I'll pass on the second,\" said Marnie, who sat cross-legged with her back against the dresser. \"Consider me part of the watch rotation.\"\n\n\"Count me in, too,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marnie motioned for him to join her.\n\n\"Good. I'll put the two of you on the four to sunrise, since you slept most of the day,\" said Rich as he crossed the room. \"Grab some slices and fuel up. Karl has a few things to go over with the team.\"\n\nDevin dropped next to Marnie as the room emptied.\n\n\"I'm not really hungry,\" she said. \"But I'll take that beer.\"\n\nHe started to getup, his leg muscles screaming from last night's operation.\n\n\"Sorry,\" she said. \"I can get it.\"\n\n\"Don't even think about it,\" said Devin. \"Drinks are on me, even if I'm not buying.\"\n\nRich leaned through the doorway with two cans of Budweiser. \"Heads up. Pure Americana coming through.\"\n\nDevin slid back down to the threadbare carpet as the beers floated through the air. Marnie snatched them both out of the air, her hands at least two feet apart when she grabbed them. She handed one off to Devin faster than a blackjack dealer spitting out cards.\n\n\"Nice trick,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Hand-eye coordination,\" said Marnie. \"It's a helicopter pilot quirk.\"\n\nDevin popped his can, followed by Marnie. \"So... we actually have a next move?\"\n\nRich scooted into the room with a Coke and sat on the bed in front of them, a cryptic smile on his face.\n\n\"Karl's been busy. He spent part of yesterday and all of today researching a lead that sounds promising. Something that could crack the wider sleeper list open. There's that and the big news that came later this afternoon while examining the gun-camera footage. Nice shooting to both of you, by the way. Saw some likely hits when we were slugging it out at the cabins. Impossible to say one hundred percent at night with those cameras, but I'd score them as confirmed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is bizarre,\" said Marnie, taking along sip of her beer.\n\n\"Yeah. There's absolutely nothing normal about this,\" said Devin. \"Anyway. What's the big news?\"\n\n\"Scott's team took out the sentries from the boat dock, on their way east to linkup with Graves and Gupta. The two never knew what hit them, and the team certainly didn't know who they hit-until we reviewed Emily's gun-camera footage. She put alight on them while they were down, to give us a better shot at identifying them,\" said Rich. \"Berg recognized one of them immediately. Senator Robert Filmore's wife, Emma. The other KIA was their son, Thomas.\"\n\n\"This is going to be front-page news,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"It's definitely going to test the sleeper network's spin doctors.\"\n\n\"How the hell did my mother miss them?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"I thought the same thing, but Gupta and Graves did some digging, and neither of their family backgrounds would have raised alarms. It has to be some kind of digital historical-archive manipulation. I'm thinking they only do this for high-profile sleepers.\"\n\n\"This kind of calls into question everything,\" said Marnie. \"If we can't identify them even when we're looking right at them. And if we can't trust Helen's vetting process, how can we trust anyone that fits the age profile?\"\n\n\"We can't,\" said Rich. \"Right now, we have to assume the worst. Our circle of trust just shrank considerably.\"\n\n\"The Russians will have to assume that we discovered their identities,\" said Devin. \"What if they go to work digitally altering all of the family histories? Make it impossible to root out the rest.\"\n\n\"That's why we have to approach this from multiple angles,\" said Rich. \"Senator Filmore represents an opportunity. We just don't know what it is yet. We're waiting to see how the Russians handle it. For all we know, they'll arrange some kind of accident that eliminates the entire Filmore family. It wouldn't surprise me. He represents a loose end.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's gruesome,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"But not out of the realm of possibilities,\" said Devin. \"Nothing is out of the realm at this point. Not with the Russians. They'll do anything to protect their sleeper network. Speaking of protecting networks-I need to check on my dad and sister.\"\n\n\"I'll put you indirect touch with them when we finish up here,\" said Rich. \"I spoke with the contact who arranged their protection, and everything is going well. Your sister wasn't exactly pleased with the work interruption, but I'm told she's making the adjustment. Same with your father. I trust the group watching over them. They'll keep your family safe for as long as this takes.\"\n\n\"Do we have any idea how long that might be?\" asked Devin. \"I understand this isn't exactly a timeline-driven operation, but what's your gut feeling?\"\n\n\"It's impossible to say,\" said Rich. \"Graves and Gupta are putting together a video of the drone footage, gun-camera evidence, and proof-of-death stills. We could upload that to the internet and promote it as evidence of some kind of cult that committed amass homicide-suicide at the camp. Draw conspiracy crazies from allover the country to the Ozarks to see for themselves and to bug the shit out of Senator Filmore. Put some pressure on the system. Force an error, maybe. I don't know. It's a work in progress. We could go your route and expose and disrupt the current network. Get the whole country working on finding the sleepers. Whatever they're up to, they seem to be picking up speed.\"\n\n\"That could give them the cover they need to continue operating right in the open, until it's too late. If everyone is a potential sleeper agent, the whole thing devolves into a perverse, hyper-McCarthyism tornado,\" said Devin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rich shrugged. \"Karl is reaching out to some trusted allies to try and get them onboard. One of them could get the CIA involved. The other might get us to the source.\"\n\n\"In Russia?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"Most likely,\" said Rich. \"Based on what Karl discovered.\"\n\n\"What did he discover?\" said Marnie.\n\n\"I did some research into who owns the land used for the camp,\" said Berg, suddenly looming in the doorway.\n\nMarnie flinched, nearly dropping her beer.\n\n\"Jesus. You scared me,\" she said.\n\n\"A little jumpy, are we?\" said Berg. \"Welcome to the club. It never goes away if you do this kind of work long enough.\"\n\n\"I don't feel edgy,\" said Rich.\n\n\"You don't count, and I mean that in the friendliest possible way,\" said Berg, getting a laugh out of all of them. \" Anyway. The Dreery family bought the land encompassing the Mincy Conservation Area in the early eighteen hundreds. I think. The history is unclear. What we do know is that they leased much of the land to the Missouri Conservation Department in the nineteen thirties, withholding a few large parcels for their own use, to include the fifteen hundred or so acres now encompassing the camp. That parcel was sold to a corporation named Firebird Development, owned by the Belsky family, in 1971.\n\n\"Long story short, the original Belskys emigrated to the US from Russia in the late eighteen hundreds and accumulated a tidy fortune by American standards. Today's Belskys renounced their US citizenship in 2001, after selling the company to Concordia Management and Consulting for an undisclosed sum, and emerged as well-connected oligarchs on the Moscow scene. Concordia Management and Consulting is owned by mega-oligarch Yuri Pichugin, one of Vladimir Putin's closest confidants. Pichugin rose to prominence between 2001 and 2003, after running a very successful Saint Petersburg catering company. He reportedly met Putin, who is a Saint Petersburg native, through catered events.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He must have served a mean pierogi,\" said Devin, the joke falling flat.\n\n\"Piroshki, maybe,\" said Berg. \"Every eastern European country has aversion of pierogi.\"\n\n\"Sounds the same,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Not even close. It's a sweet or savory stuffed bun, panfried right before serving. To die for,\" said Berg. \"But I doubt that's how Pichugin rose so quickly into the highest stratosphere of Russian power and wealth. I think the Belsky family originally bought the land, on behalf of the Soviets, for the original summer camp. Maybe they were secret Communists. Maybe they got paid. Who knows?\"\n\n\"They sound like opportunists,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Communists. Opportunists. All the same in the end,\" said Berg. \"Whatever the deal is-the Belskys turn the land over to the GRU, or whoever is running the sleeper network, and everything runs smoothly. The second generation is indoctrinated and trained at the camp before being launched into the world. Then things go dormant fora while, waiting for the third generation. Somewhere along the line, the Belskys figure out away to cash out of this valuable possession.\"\n\n\"Opportunism at its finest,\" said Rich.\n\n\"It has to be Pichugin. I just don't know how he got his mitts on the program. That's the missing link here. How did the sleeper program come into his possession? Unless the Russian Federation outsourced it to him, and he's just a proxy. My gut tells me it's the other way around.\"\n\n\"Why don't we just go after Pichugin?\" asked Devin.\n\nRich took over from there.\n\n\"First. His entire network of businesses is located in Russia or former Soviet satellite countries. We've operated in Russia before, but not in awhile-and it's far easier said than done. Second. The guy owns the largest private military contracting agency in the world. He supplies entire mercenary paramilitary units to the highest bidders around the world. Putin allegedly uses Pichugin's forces when he's looking for plausible deniability about Russia's involvement in a conflict, like the eastern Ukraine front, Crimean Peninsula, or Syria. We'd need a small army of our own to go after him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They all have their weaknesses,\" said Berg. \"We've hit harder targets than Pichugin.\"\n\n\"Only as a last resort,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Fair enough,\" said Berg.\n\n\"How did you piece together the link between Belsky's company and Pichugin's?\"\n\n\"A hunch,\" said Berg. \"Firebird Development was kind of a dead end. An anonymous Delaware corporation, with its listing agent registered as another anonymous Delaware corporation. Classic hide-the-owner shell game. With Russia on my mind, Iran a search through the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control public database to see if Firebird Development was on their sanctions list. Stab in the dark.\"\n\n\"Bingo?\" said Devin.\n\n\"Big time,\" said Berg. \"Firebird Development popped upon Yuri Pichugin's asset list. Pichugin had been sanctioned through the Magnitsky Act in early 2013, which bans him from entering the United States and freezes all of his US-based assets, including Firebird Development. I found Andrei and Viktor Belsky listed in the sanction filing as the previous owners. Apparently, the US Treasury Department cut through the corporate shell game and surfaced their names. A quick Google search confirmed that the Belskys had indeed moved up in the world.\"\n\n\"This is ahead-scratcher,\" said Devin. \"I mean... how do we use that information? Try to get the Treasury Department interested?\"\n\n\"We don't have anything to offer them. They did their job. Firebird Development's assets, if any still exist, are frozen in accordance with the Magnitsky Act ruling,\" said Berg.\n\n\"It didn't look like they'd skipped a beat, other than reduced attendance,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Kids these days. Addicted to their phones and social media,\" said Rich. \"In the seventies and eighties you still had a shot at brainwashing people.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd laugh if it weren't so true,\" said Berg. \"I'm going to reach out to someone in Russia who might be able to help. It's along shot, but I'm convinced it's an opportunity to unravel the entire sleeper network. Sergei Kozlov, the GRU general who passed information to your mother in Saint Petersburg, knew more than three names. He likely had access to the entire roster. That's what I suspect he was going to offer the CIA-but he never got past the second meeting. Kozlov may not have been the only senior-level officer at the GRU with access to that information. I'm hoping my contact can point us in the right direction-so we can arrange a chat with one of those officers.\"\n\n\"That sounds like something my team could pull off,\" said Rich. \"With a little inside help. We don't have any assets in Russia right now.\"\n\n\"I might be able to help with that, but it'll be along shot,\" said Berg. \"We have to approach this from as many angles as possible. Your mother got the sense that the sleeper network was building up to something. That it had accelerated its pace. That's what convinced her to kidnap Wilson. I get the same sense that we're up against a deadline. Maybe not an endgame, but something pivotal.\"\n\n\"And we may have accelerated their timeline with our actions over the past few days,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Correct,\" said Berg. \"Every time we hit them without delivering a crippling or mortal blow, they make an adjustment, though they may not have much flexibility with a major deadline. It's something to consider when we're planning how to proceed.\"\n\n\"If we're looking for more angles of attack, I think we should approach MINERVA-whether I'm still employed or not,\" said Devin. \"Given Jolene Rudd's connection to the DEVTEK honey-trap ploy, I think it's fair to assume that MINERVA has not been compromised. Not by anyone involved in the planning or execution of MINERVA's operation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would be in it for MINERVA?\" asked Rich. \"Aside from doing their patriotic duty to the United States.\"\n\nDevin couldn't tell if Rich was being sarcastic.\n\n\"I see two ways to draw them in. The first would be to give them the opportunity to best serve their client. MINERVA is all about client satisfaction. With our information, they could inform DEVTEK that the risks to the company extend well beyond industrial espionage-to possible product sabotage and ruin. I could see them setting up another sting and integrating us into that operation. The other approach is to pay them as a client to boost our surveillance and counterespionage capability,\" said Devin.\n\n\"Or offer them the DEVTEK information as payment for their services,\" said Marnie.\n\n\"Right. Or both,\" said Devin. \"Karl. You mentioned some kind of financial backing behind this team? Would it be enough to pay them on top of handing them the DEVTEK lead?\"\n\n\"That's another angle altogether,\" said Rich.\n\n\"One we can't rule out,\" said Berg.\n\n\"First we have to vet the hell out of MINERVA,\" said Rich. \"I'm not even clear how we'd go about that. My guess is that their employee roster is a well-kept secret.\"\n\n\"That's why I think paying them makes more sense, if that's feasible. As clients, we could insist on a custom vetting process. Maybe even dangle the DEVTEK information over their heads. Make the information contingent on vetting,\" said Devin.\n\n\"That's going to put you in an uncomfortable position,\" said Rich. \"Going this route will most likely terminate your employment with them.\"\n\n\"What choice do I have?\" asked Devin. \"It's along shot, but like Rich said, the more angles we explore, the better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hard to argue with that,\" said Berg, shrugging. \"I just wish we had something up our sleeves that wasn't such along shot.\"\n\n\"One of them has to work,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Not necessarily,\" said Berg. \"But it is what it is.\"\n\n\"How long will it take to hear back from your contacts?\" asked Devin.\n\n\"The bigger question is, How long will it take them to make a difference?\" said Berg.\n\n\"That's assuming they agree to help,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Fair point. This will put them in awkward positions at best. Dangerous at worst,\" said Berg. \"It could take a few weeks. Until things start shaping up, we'll need to lie low. A small group of us should head back to Helen's apartment in Baltimore and keep digging through the files. We're bound to find an opportunity we missed on the first few passes through the information. We barely scratched the surface, to be honest.\"\n\n\"I'll scatter the rest of the team nearby,\" said Rich. \"We can move fast if we find anything in the files, or one of your contacts comes through.\"\n\n\"We'll need to invest in some basic disguises,\" said Berg. \"Nothing dramatic, but enough to throw off facial-recognition software. There's no telling what the Russians can access through their sleeper network. The DC area has a lot of public-facing cameras.\"\n\n\"Noted,\" said Rich. \"We'll put together some basics before we set off for Baltimore.\"\n\n\"When will we takeoff?\" said Devin.\n\n\"After I get a good night's sleep,\" said Berg. \"We'll head straight to your mother's apartment and wait for one or more of our long shots to payoff.\"\n\nMarnie raised her beer. \"To long shots.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To not getting shot,\" said Rich.\n\n\"Cheers to both,\" said Berg, raising his can. \"Though if I had to choose between the two, I'm going with not getting shot.\"\n\nWas it possible to have it both ways if they took the fight against the Russians to the next level? Devin clinked all their cans, a heavy sense of dread hanging over the toast. He couldn't shake the distinct feeling that they wouldn't all be alive for the next one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yuri Pichugin took General Kuznetzov's call on a secure line in the state-of-the-art, surveillance-proof room deep inside his Lake Ladoga mansion complex. Modeled after the sensitive compartmented information facility concept used by major world intelligence agencies, Pichugin had consulted with the world's top information security consultants to ensure it met or exceeded industry standards.\n\nIn truth, it was more for show than anything else. A luxuriously appointed, soundproofed, and electromagnetically sealed space that he mostly used to impress new clients and reassure long-standing allies. He could arrange to have the secure phone line run to either of his offices inside the mansion, and not risk acoustic or digital eavesdropping.\n\n\"It's late,\" said Pichugin. \"More bad news, I assume?\"\n\n\"More of the same, unfortunately,\" said the general. \"I have the final casualty count. We lost twenty-six of the parents and fifteen of the children. Plus eight of the ten GRU sleepers brought in for the cabin side of the ambush. Farrington's sharpshooters took a hefty toll.\"\n\n\"Have we confirmed it was Farrington?\"\n\n\"No. But this has his team's fingerprints allover it,\" said the general. \"From Baltimore to the torture job on the two morons in Indianapolis-and now this mess. Given Berg's involvement, it has to be Farrington.\"\n\n\"And they brought the helicopter pilot along, obviously.\"\n\n\"Nobody anticipated that. Sanderson and Farrington have never operated in the field with outsiders,\" said the general.\n\nHe supposed it could have been worse, though he wasn't sure how. The camp had been operating at its new full capacity when it was attacked. Thirty-nine sets of siblings representing the third generation, along with one of their parents, had been onsite. Not only did this represent a sizable blow to the currently active network, but it also potentially endangered the network by further exposing it to Devin Gray and Karl Berg, who would undoubtedly be combing the news and law enforcement bulletins for missing person reports or deadly accidents involving teens and adults, or, in some cases, child and parent. You couldn't just hide the fact that someone was missing in the United States." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are the survivors?\"\n\n\"The team that had been watching over Orlov's gear at the airport scrambled to arrange transportation out of there. Everyone has been evacuated to a friendly site just off the lake, about a mile south of the Missouri-Arkansas border. That includes the bodies. We're going to keep them there until things settle down, then start smuggling people out in small groups. They managed to retrieve all of the files from the buildings before the fires got out of control, so that's one less thing to worry about.\"\n\n\"Big consolation,\" said Pichugin, sensing that Kuznetzov was building up to something.\n\n\"There's one thing that's going to be a significant problem,\" said the general.\n\n\"Just one? What is it?\"\n\n\"Senator Filmore's wife and son were killed during the attack. They were found along the trail between the boat landing and the camp. Both of them shot twice in the chest.\"\n\nThat was how it could be worse. They'd just lost one of the highest-placed sleepers in the entire network.\n\n\"We have to assume that Farrington's people have identified them. They probably documented the entire raid with video cameras. They'll go after the senator at some point, if only to fuck with us,\" said Pichugin. \"Has Senator Filmore been notified?\"\n\n\"None of the families have been notified,\" said the general. \"And strict communications protocols have been activated at the evacuation site.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Pichugin. \"Hold off on any notifications, and under no circumstances are any of the sleepers to make contact with anyone. I need to think about how we're going to deal with this, particularly the senator's situation.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" said the general. \"May I make a suggestion?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course.\"\n\n\"I think we need to strongly consider eliminating Senator Filmore and his daughter,\" said the general. \"Put all of their bodies on a private jet and crash it.\"\n\n\"Was the daughter at the camp?\" asked Pichugin.\n\n\"Yes. She survived.\"\n\nHe didn't see anyway to salvage the situation with Senator Filmore at this point. If Farrington's people started circulating pictures of the wife and son, the media and federal law enforcement would start asking questions that nobody could adequately answer. They needed to get ahead of that. A tidy plane crash with all four of them onboard would snuff out the fire generated by the pictures.\n\n\"Make it happen. Quickly,\" said Pichugin. \"And have Alexei prepare a list of the entire network. I want the sleepers broken down into three categories: critical, essential, and nonessential to FIREBIRD. Then break each of those categories down into public sector or private sector. Any operative that can be easily identified represents a risk to FIREBIRD and an opportunity for Farrington and Berg. I expect them to sharpen their sleeper-hunting skills in the upcoming days. The fewer liabilities we have out there-the better.\"\n\n\"As in permanently retire?\" said the general.\n\n\"I mean recall them. Give them twenty-four hours to get on a plane and leave the United States behind,\" said Pichugin. \"Why? What did you think I meant?\"\n\n\"I was just making sure,\" said the general.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong, Grigory,\" said Pichugin. \"If we activate a recall of noncritical sleepers, anyone that doesn't comply with the order will experience the other type of recall.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" said the general." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll need to speak with the big man regarding a recall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He may not want to dismantle that much of FIREBIRD yet,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"Will you becoming to Moscow, then?\" asked the general.\n\n\"No. He's in Saint Petersburg. I'll arrange a meeting this afternoon,\" said Pichugin. \"And Grigory? A few more things.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"First. Have we made any progress toward finding Gray, Berg, or any of their suspected associates?\" asked Pichugin.\n\n\"Kazakhstan filed a Red Notice for Karl Berg and Richard Farrington yesterday. Russia will file one today, citing the same charges related to their alleged involvement in terrorist attacks against state facilities. Both of them are actually suspected to have been involved with the attack on the Vector Institute in Novosibirsk and the downing of two Russian helicopters in Kazakhstan,\" said the general.\n\n\"They like blowing up helicopters,\" grumbled Pichugin.\n\n\"Apparently so. The Red Notices will give our people in US law enforcement an excuse to put some more robust surveillance and detection measures into action. We're still looking at a few days before that gets rolling. We can expand the list of names to other known associates of General Terrence Sanderson-Farrington's mentor-and Farrington himself. Once we get a bunch of names in there, our people inside US law enforcement can start looking at Devin Gray and Marnie Young.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Pichugin. \"And what about DEVTEK? Are we making any progress on that front? Without aback door to their infrastructure-security software, we'll have to do things the hard way-which represents a significant delay. Not to mention the risk.\"\n\n\"We're working on it. As you can imagine, a company that provides state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions isn't easy to hack,\" said the general. \"We're exploring more direct options, but their guard is up after the honey-trap debacle. Kind of ironic that Gray may have been involved in the DEVTEK operation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More like annoying,\" said Pichugin. \"Keep a close eye on MINERVA. If Gray makes the same connection, he could complicate our efforts to breach DEVTEK.\"\n\n\"We're doing what we canto monitor MINERVA without alerting them to our presence. Not the easiest task, given their specialty,\" said the general. \"Was there anything else?\"\n\n\"Yes. Give Felix Orlov whatever he needs to make sure the job gets done next time,\" said Pichugin.\n\n\"It wasn't his fault.\"\n\n\"I know it wasn't his fault,\" said Pichugin, on the verge of screaming at Kuznetzov for underutilizing Orlov. \"Which is why I don't want him restrained in anyway. We're licking our wounds this time. Next time we'll be mopping our blood off the floor. We can't afford another setback. Not this close to the finish line. The final dominoes should fall within the next few weeks, driving a permanent wedge between the Americans and their European allies-reopening doors long shut to Russia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alexei Kaparov sat alone on a concrete bench a few blocks from his apartment, the dingy gray of Soviet-era block-style high-rises peeking through the trees. Old men crowded around chessboards on the stone tables lining one side of the park's wide brick promenade, pigeons navigating their feet to peck at the lunch crumbs as they fell.\n\nKaparov had never taken to chess. He'd taken to vodka instead during his spare time, which had been scarce before he'd retired from the FSB a few years ago. Now, he had all the time in the world on his hands, and there was only so much time he could spend drinking-a challenge he rose to everyday. Maybe he should take up smoking again to fill the void.\n\nHe took a short pull from the stainless-steel flask he had brought on his daily walk and relished in the comfortably warm glow that followed. His buzz was cut short by the phone in his pocket. Kaparov debated whether to check the phone or take another swig of vodka. He didn't get many calls these days, so he set the flask on the bench next to him and pulled the phone from his pocket, noticing that he'd received a text message a minute earlier that had somehow gone unnoticed.\n\nThe message came from a different number, containing a code word established long ago by an old friend. Kaparov was coming upon the second anniversary of his retirement, a benchmark the two of them had agreed would be the earliest they could finally meet in personas allies and not adversaries. He answered the call.\n\n\"Karl. So good of you to call,\" said Kaparov. \"I'm very much looking forward to next year's trip, though it's difficult to determine if this all-inclusive idea of yours is legitimate or some kind of scam to get you out of paying full price. I saw something on Tripadvisor about top-shelf liquors not being served, so-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alexei. Sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid this is a business call, and a very serious one at that,\" said Karl Berg.\n\n\"You know what I'm doing right now?\" asked Kaparov.\n\n\"Drinking vodka.\"\n\n\"Besides that.\"\n\n\"I haven't a clue,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I'm sitting on a park bench watching people older than me play chess,\" said Kaparov. \"Thinking about learning chess. Because I'm bored out of my fucking mind after retiring. I'm retired, Karl, which means I'm no longer in a position to help you.\"\n\n\"I think you might be able to help,\" said Berg. \"What do you know about Yuri Pichugin? Specifically, his ties to the GRU.\"\n\n\"Please tell me you haven't somehow made enemies with Yuri Pichugin,\" said Kaparov. \"He's one of the wealthiest and connected oligarchs in Russia. Connected right to the top, if you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"I do. I've stumbled across something that might be connected to him,\" said Berg. \"It's definitely connected to Viktor Belsky. Does that name sound familiar?\"\n\n\"I know the name, but not much more than that,\" said Kaparov. \"Midlevel oligarch with decent connections. Returned to Russia from the US in the mid– two thousands, if my memory serves me correctly.\"\n\n\"It serves you well. Viktor Belsky and his father sold a company based in the United States to Yuri Pichugin around that time,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Must have been a very successful company,\" said Kaparov.\n\n\"That's the thing,\" said Berg. \"The Belskys had money, but not that kind of money, and the company they sold to Pichugin didn't appear to have any assets beyond a sizable chunk of land in the middle of the United States. Valuable, but not that valuable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Karl. Maybe my brain is a little mushy these days,\" said Kaparov. \"But what are we talking about here?\"\n\n\"The bottom line is that I believe Yuri Pichugin is bankrolling a Soviet-era GRU-run sleeper network in the United States through this company and is pulling the strings on behalf of your beloved leaders.\"\n\n\"And you have evidence of this?\"\n\n\"We're piecing it together, but the network is real. I've seen it firsthand. The network's training camp was located on the land the Belskys sold to Pichugin. I've seen that, too,\" said Karl. \"The problem is that we're unable to identify close to eighty percent of the network. We're talking upwards of six hundred sleepers.\"\n\n\"Six hundred! Come on. That's a ludicrous number,\" said Kaparov. \"But assuming it was true, they'd all be in their seventies by now.\"\n\n\"I'm talking about their children,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Second generation?\" said Kaparov. \"That's the stuff of legends.\"\n\n\"Not anymore,\" said Berg. \"They've penetrated everything here. One of them is a senator. And they're working on a third generation.\"\n\n\"Maybe this would be a better conversation to have in person,\" said Kaparov.\n\n\"I would gladly discuss this with you in person, in private, but Russia and Kazakhstan have just put me on Interpol's Red Notice list. We've stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest over here.\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\n\"Some of the same off-the-books associates I've used before in the course of our dealings,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I still don't see what I can do to help,\" said Kaparov." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Without going into too much detail, the decades-long process of discovering this network started with a GRU general who threw himself under a tram in Saint Petersburg in 2003, immediately after passing some very specific information about the network to one of our officers,\" said Berg. \"The general was one of a handful of Soviet-era hard-liners still active in the GRU at the time, which is why we were surprised he wanted to defect to the United States. We were in the process of verifying what he had to offer when everything went sideways. He couldn't have been the only GRU general with knowledge of this program. If we can identify another, perhaps we could take the next step toward unearthing the rest of the network.\"\n\n\"Two thousand three was a very unlucky year for GRU generals and high-ranking officers,\" said Berg. \"A few dozen committed suicide, died in car accidents, or drowned in puddles near their dachas. Everyone in the GRU feared some kind of purge, but nobody could figure out if they were next. The only discernible pattern was that there was no pattern. Nobody could figure out where they worked within the GRU. People started calling it the Lost Directorate; then word came down from the top to stop talking about it-and that was it. Reinforced by firings and a few more suspicious deaths.\"\n\n\"The Lost Directorate. Sounds like they were running something off the books,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Nothing was off the books in the Soviet Union. We documented and accounted for everything, and we still do. It's in our DNA,\" said Kaparov.\n\n\"Then what I'm asking you to do is lean on some of your Soviet-era comrades in arms to see if any of the possible members of this Lost Directorate survived the purge,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Then you'll send people hereto have a friendly chat with them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something like that.\"\n\n\"Let me see what I can dig up without getting myself killed,\" said Kaparov. \"This reminds me of something. Have you ever heard the term Khrushchev's Ghost?\"\n\n\"I've obviously heard of Khrushchev, but I'm unfamiliar with his ghost.\"\n\n\"It's a term that floated around in the late sixties, in the aftermath of Khrushchev's reign. Rumors about a group of hard-liners unhappy with the direction Brezhnev was taking the country. Just whispers here and thereabout Khrushchev's Ghost watching over the country. Nothing ever came of it. I only brought it up because it somehow rings the same.\"\n\n\"It does, and it sounds creepy as hell, if you ask me,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I thought you'd like it,\" said Kaparov. \"A word of warning, my friend. If this sleeper network is as extensive as you've suggested and has any connection to Khrushchev's Ghost, or any Cold War– era hard-liner faction, it will be positioned to inflict maximum damage on the United States. Meaning-it represents the ultimate under-the-table leverage. Whoever controls it will not go gently into the night. Be very careful with this one.\"\n\n\"That's the plan,\" said Berg.\n\n\"And if Pichugin's pulling the strings,\" said Kaparov, \"keep a close eye on Ukraine. Rumor has it that nearly three-quarters of the separatist ground forces massed near the Donbass region are mercenaries. Battalion-size units in some cases. This represents a significant increase over last year. Something is brewing over there.\"\n\n\"Sounds like the Wegner Group?\"\n\n\"Nobody will confirm it,\" said Kaparov. \"But who else could it be? The Wegner Group has been Pichugin's private army for close to a decade.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More like Putin's private army,\" said Berg.\n\n\"Once again, nobody will confirm either connection. At least nobody that wants to live to a ripe old age,\" said Kaparov.\n\n\"Thank you for helping outwith this, Alexei. As always, watch your back,\" said Berg. \"And I owe you again. For the record, all-inclusive is the way to go when you're drinking from nine in the morning into the late hours of the night on a Caribbean vacation. And it's not like you're drinking the high-end stuff anyway.\"\n\n\"Ha! I just don't want you to think my services come cheap!\"\n\n\"I'm well aware they don't,\" said Berg.\n\n\"I'll callas soon as I know something,\" said Kaparov. \"Or be on the next flight out of Moscow, headed to the Caribbean, if I somehow kick the same hornet's nest here.\"\n\nHe ended the call convinced that Karl Berg would be the end of him and determined to soak every ruble possible out of him when they finally met up. If he survived the latest mess Karl had stepped in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To start, a big thank-you to my family for supporting this book during the pandemic. Deep Sleep is the second manuscript I produced in'lockdown,\" and I'm not going to lie: it took every bit of focus I could muster. Everyone here at home played a significant role in keeping me on my deadline.\n\nTo Kosia, my better half, for locking me in the office when necessary and banning me from social media when my attention strayed. More importantly, for taking the conspiracy I created for this story to the next level. The wider geopolitical scope and deeper penetration of the conspiracy were a direct result of a series of brainstorming sessions conducted months before I put words on the pages.\n\nAs always, to the editorial team at Thomas& Mercer for enthusiastically giving Deep Sleep the green light and throwing their full support behind it. And to Megha for believing in this project!\n\nTo Kevin, who put the final developmental touches on the story. Four books together, and I don't bother to argue with him anymore. I know he's right. I can't wait to get the next book into your hands.\n\nTo the Mountainside crew for listening to the earliest iteration of the Deep Sleep concept and passing along invaluable feedback. I had no idea at the time that the vague idea I presented over drinks would be my next series, but the notes I took stuck with me long after our visit.\n\nTo my advance reader team. I've enjoyed sharing sneak peeks, cover reveals, and advance copies with you. Thank you forgetting the word out!\n\nFinally, to the readers. I know I say this every time, but without you, none of this would be possible." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling and proceed with the tale.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 1" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ONE\n\nHe left home early, as he always did, six days a week, fifty weeks a year. A cautious breakfast, appropriate to a short, round man aiming to stay in shape through his forties. Along walk down the carpeted corridors of a lakeside house, appropriate to a man who earned a thousand dollars on each of those three hundred days he worked. A thumb on the button of the garage door-opener and a twist of the wrist to start the silent engine of his expensive, imported sedan. A CD into the player, a backward sweep into his gravel driveway, a dab on the brake, a snick of the selector, a nudge on the gas, and the last short drive of his life was underway. Six forty-nine in the morning, Monday.\n\nThe only light on his route to work was green, which was the proximate cause of his death. It meant that as he pulled into his secluded slot behind his professional building the prelude ahead of Bach's B minor fugue still had thirty-eight seconds left to run. He sat and heard it out until the last organ blast echoed to silence, which meant that as he got out of his car the three men were near enough for him to interpret some kind of intention in their approach. So he glanced at them. They looked away and altered course, three men instep, like dancers or soldiers. He turned toward his building. Started walking.\n\nBut then he stopped. And looked back. The three men were at his car.\n\nTrying the doors.\n\n\"Hey!\" he called.\n\nIt was the short universal sound of surprise, anger, challenge. The sort of instinctive sound an earnest, naive citizen makes when something should not be happening. The sort of instinctive sound which gets an earnest, naive citizen killed. He found himself heading straight back to his car. He was outnumbered three to one but he was in the right, which swelled him up and gave him confidence. He strode back and felt outraged and fit and commanding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But those were illusory feelings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A soft, suburban guy like him was never going to be in command of a situation like that. His fitness was just health-club tone. It counted for nothing. His tight abdominals ruptured under the first savage blow. His face jerked forward and down and hard knuckles pulped his lips and smashed his teeth. He was caught by rough hands and knotted arms and held upright like he weighed nothing at all. His keys were snatched from his grasp and he was hit a crashing blow on the ear. His mouth filled with blood. He was dropped onto the blacktop and heavy boots smashed into his back. Then his gut.\n\nThen his head. He blacked out like a television set in a thunderstorm.\n\nThe world just disappeared in front of him. It collapsed into a thin hot line and sputtered away to nothing.\n\nSo he died, because fora split-second he got brave. But not then. He died much later, after the split-second of bravery had faded into long hours of wretched gasping fear, and after the long hours of fear had exploded into long minutes of insane screaming panic.\n\nJack Reacher stayed alive, because he got cautious. He got cautious because he heard an echo from his past. He had a lot of past, and the echo was from the worst part of it.\n\nHe had served thirteen years in the army, and the only time he was wounded it wasn't with a bullet. It was with a fragment of a Marine sergeant's jawbone. Reacher had been stationed in Beirut, in the US compound out by the airport. The compound was truck-bombed. Reacher was standing at the gate. The Marine in sergeant was standing a hundred yards nearer the explosion. The jawbone fragment was the only piece left of the guy. It hit Reacher a hundred yards away and went tumbling through his gut like a bullet. The army surgeon who patched Reacher up told him afterward he was lucky. He told him areal bulletin the gut would have felt much worse. That was the echo Reacher was hearing. And he was paying a whole lot of attention to it, because thirteen years later he was standing therewith a handgun pointing straight at his stomach. From a range of about an inch and a half." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The handgun was a nine-millimeter automatic. It was brand new. It was oiled. It was held low, lined upright on his old scar. The guy holding it looked more or less like he knew what he was doing. The safety mechanism was released. There was no visible tremor in the muzzle. No tension. The trigger finger was ready to go to work.\n\nReacher could see that. He was concentrating hard on that trigger finger.\n\nHe was standing next to a woman. He was holding her arm. He had never seen her before. She was staring at an identical nine-millimeter pointed at her own gut. Her guy was more tensed up than his. Her guy looked uneasy. He looked worried. His gun was trembling with tension.\n\nHis fingernails were chewed. A nervous, jumpy guy. The four of them were standing thereon the street, three of them still like statues and the fourth hopping slightly from foot to foot.\n\nThey were in Chicago. Center of the city, a busy sidewalk, a Monday, last day of June. Broad daylight, bright summer sunshine. The whole situation had materialized in a split second. It had happened in away which couldn't have been choreographed in a million years. Reacher had been walking down the street, going nowhere, not fast, not slow. He had been about to pass the exit door of a storefront dry-cleaner's. The door had opened up in his face and an old metal walking cane had clattered out on the sidewalk right in front of him. He'd glanced up to see a woman in the doorway. She was about to drop an armful of nine dry-cleaning bags. She was someway short of thirty, expensively dressed, dark, attractive, self-assured. She had some kind of a bad leg. Some kind of an injury. Reacher could see from her awkward posture it was causing her pain. She'd thrown him a would-you-mind look and he'd thrown her a no-problem look and scooped up the metal cane. He'd taken the nine bags from her with one hand and given her the cane with the other. He'd flicked the bags up over his shoulder and felt the nine wire hangers bite into his ringer. She had planted the cane on the sidewalk and eased her forearm into the curved-metal clip. He had offered his hand. She had paused. Then she had nodded in an embarrassed fashion and he had taken her arm and waited a beat, feeling helpful but awkward. Then they had turned together to move away. Reacher had figured he would maybe stroll a few steps with her until she was steady on her feet. Then he would let her arm go and hand back her garments. But he'd turned straight into the two guys with the nine-millimeter automatics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four of them stood there, face to face in pairs. Like four people eating together in a tight booth in a diner. The two guys with the guns were white, well fed, vaguely military, vaguely alike. Medium height, short brown hair. Big hands, muscular. Big, obvious faces, bland pink features. Tense expressions, hard eyes. The nervous guy was smaller, like he burned up his energy worrying. They both wore checked shirts and poplin windbreakers. They stood there, pressed together. Reacher was a lot taller than the other three. He could see all around them, over their heads. He stood there, surprised, with the woman's dry-cleaning slung over his shoulder. The woman was leaning on her crutch, just staring, silent. The two men were pointing the guns.\n\nClose in. Reacher felt they'd all been standing like that fora longtime. But he knew that feeling was deceptive. It probably hadn't been more than a second and a half.\n\nThe guy opposite Reacher seemed to be the leader. The bigger one. The calmer one. He looked between Reacher and the woman and jerked his automatic's barrel toward the kerb.\n\n\"In the car, bitch,\" the guy said. \"And you, asshole.\" He spoke urgently, but quietly. With authority. Not much of an accent. Maybe from California, Reacher thought. There was a sedan at the kerb. It had been waiting therefor them. A big car, black, expensive. The driver was leaning across behind the front passenger seat. He was stretching over to pop the rear door. The guy opposite Reacher motioned with the gun again. Reacher didn't move. He glanced left and right. He figured he had about another second and a half to make some kind of an assessment. The two guys with the nine-millimeter automatics didn't worry him too much. He was one-handed, because of the dry-cleaning, but he figured the two guys would go down without too much of a problem. The problems lay beside him and behind him. He stared up into the dry-cleaner's window and used it like a mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twenty yards behind him was a solid mass of hurrying people at a crosswalk. A couple of stray bullets would find a couple of targets.\n\nNo doubt about that. No doubt at all. That was the problem behind him. The problem beside him was the unknown woman. Her capabilities were an unknown quantity. She had some kind of a bad leg. She would be slow to react. Slow to move. He wasn't prepared to go into combat.\n\nNot in that environment, and not with that partner.\n\nThe guy with the Californian accent reached up and grabbed Reacher's wrist where it was pinned against his collar by the weight of the nine clean garments hanging down his back. He used it to pull him toward the car. His trigger finger still looked ready to go to work. Reacher was watching it, corner of his eye. He let the woman's arm go. Stepped over to the car. Threw the bags into the rear seat and climbed in after them. The woman was pushed in behind him. Then the jumpy guy crowded in on them and slammed the door. The leader got in front on the right. Slammed the door. The driver nudged the selector and the car moved smoothly and quietly away down the street.\n\nThe woman was gasping in pain and Reacher figured she had the jumpy guy's gun jammed in her ribs. The leader was twisted around in the front seat with his gun hand resting against the thick leather headrest. The gun was pointing straight at Reacher's chest. It was a Clock 17. Reacher knew all about that weapon. He had evaluated the prototype for his unit. That had been his assignment during his light-duty convalescence after the Beirut wound. The Glock was a tough little weapon. Seven and a half inches long from firing pinto muzzle tip. Long enough to make it accurate. Reacher had hit thumbtack heads at seventy-five feet with it. And it fired a decent projectile. It delivered quarter-ounce bullets at nearly eight hundred miles an hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seventeen rounds to a magazine, hence the name. And it was light. For all its power, it weighed under two pounds. The important parts were steel. The rest of it was plastic. Black polycarbonate, like an expensive camera. A fine piece of craftsmanship. But he hadn't liked it much. Not for the specialized requirements of his unit. He'd recommended rejection. He'd supported the Beretta 92F instead. The Beretta was also a nine-millimeter, a half-pound heavier, an inch longer, two fewer rounds in the magazine. But it had about 10 percent more stopping power than the Clock. That was important to him. And it wasn't plastic. The Beretta had been Reacher's choice. His unit commander had agreed. He had circulated Reacher's paper and the army as a whole had backed his recommendation. The same week they promoted him and pinned on his Silver Star and his Purple Heart, they ordered Berettas even though the Beretta was more expensive and NATO was crazy for the Clock and Reacher had been just about alone voice and was not long out of West Point. Then he had been assigned elsewhere and served all around the world and hadn't really seen a Clock 17 since. Until now. Twelve years later he was getting a pretty damn good second look atone.\n\nHe switched his attention away from the gun and took another look at the guy holding it. He had a decent tan which whitened near his hairline. A recent haircut. The driver had a big shiny brow, thinning hair sweptback, pink and vivid features, the smirk that pig-ugly guys use when they think they're handsome. Same cheap chain store shirt, same windbreaker. Same corn-fed bulk. Same in-charge confidence, edged around with a slight breathlessness. Three guys, all of them maybe thirty or thirty-five, one leader, one solid follower, one jumpy follower. All of them tense but rehearsed, racing through some kind of a mission. A puzzle. Reacher glanced past the steady Clock into the leader's eyes. But the guy shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No talking, asshole,\" he said. \"Start talking, I'll shoot you. That's a damn promise. Keep quiet, you could be OK.\"\n\nReacher believed him. The guy's eyes were hard and his mouth was a tight line. So he said nothing. Then the car slowed and pulled onto a lumpy concrete forecourt. It headed around behind an abandoned industrial building. They had driven south. Reacher figured they were now maybe five miles south of the Loop. The driver eased the big sedan to a stop with the rear door lined up with the back of a small panel truck. The truck was standing alone on the empty lot. It was a Ford Econoline, dirty white, not old, but well used. There had been some kind of writing on the side. It had been painted over with fresh white paint which didn't exactly match the bodywork Readier scanned around.\n\nThe lot was full of trash. He saw a paint can discarded near the truck. A brush. There was nobody insight. The place was deserted.\n\nIf he was going to make some kind of a move, this was the right time to make it, and the right location. But the guy in front smiled a thin smile and leaned right over into the back of the car. Caught Reacher's collar with his left hand and ground the tip of the Clock's muzzle into Reacher's ear with his right.\n\n\"Sit still, asshole,\" the guy said.\n\nThe driver got out of the car and skipped around the hood. Pulled anew set of keys from his pocket and opened up the rear doors of the truck. Reacher sat still. Jamming a gun into a person's ear is not necessarily a smart move. If the person suddenly jerks his head around toward it, the gun comes out. It rolls around the person's forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then even a quick trigger-finger won't do much damage. It might blow a hole in the person's ear, just the outside flap, and it's sure to shatter the person's eardrum. But those are not fatal wounds. Reacher spent a second weighing those odds. Then the jumpy guy dragged the woman out of the car and hustled her straight into the back of the truck. She hopped and limped across the short distance. Straight out of one door and in through the other. Reacher watched her, corner of his eye. Her guy took her pocketbook from her and tossed it back into the car. It fell at Reacher's feet. It thumped heavily on the thick carpet. A big pocketbook, expensive leather, something heavy in it.\n\nSomething metal. Only one metal thing women carry could make a heavy thump like that. He glanced across at her, suddenly interested.\n\nShe was sprawled in the back of the truck. Impeded by her leg. Then the leader in the front pulled Reacher along the leather seat and passed him onto the jumpy guy. As soon as one Clock was out of his ear, the other was jammed into his side. He was dragged over the rough ground. Across to the rear of the truck. He was pushed inside with the woman. The jumpy guy covered them both with the trembling Clock while the leader reached into the car and pulled out the woman's metal crutch. He walked over and tossed it into the truck. It clanged and boomed on the metal siding. He left her dry-cleaning in the back of the sedan with her handbag. Then he pulled a set of handcuffs from the pocket of his jacket. He caught the woman's right wrist and cuffed it with half the handcuff. Pulled her roughly sideways and caught Reacher's left wrist. Snapped the other half of the cuff onto it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shook the cuff to check it was secure. Slammed the truck's left rear door. Reacher saw the driver emptying plastic bottles into the sedan.\n\nHe caught the pale color and the strong smell of gasoline. One bottle into the backseat, one into the front. Then the leader swung the truck's right rear door shut. Last thing Reacher saw before darkness enveloped him was the driver, pulling a matchbook from his pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWO MILES FROM CHICAGO byroad guest quarters were being prepared. They took the form of a single room. The room was following an unconventional design, specified by a thorough man after a great deal of careful thought. The design called for several unusual features.\n\nThe quarters were designed fora specific purpose, and fora specific guest. The nature of the purpose and the identity of the guest had dictated the unusual features. The construction was concentrated on the second floor of an existing building. A corner room had been selected. It had a series of large windows on the two outside walls.\n\nThey faced south and east. The glass had been smashed out and replaced by heavy plywood sheeting nailed to the remaining window frames The plywood was painted white on the outside, to match the building's siding. On the inside, the plywood was left unfinished.\n\nThe corner room's ceiling was torn out. It was an old building, and the ceiling had been made of heavy plaster. It had been pulled down in a shower of choking dust. The room was now open to the rafters. The interior walling was torn off. The walls had been paneled in old pine, worn smooth with age and polish. That was all gone. The framing of the building and the heavy old tarpaper behind the exterior siding was exposed. The floorboards were pulled up. The dusty ceiling of the room below was visible under the heavy joists. The room was just a shell.\n\nThe old plaster from the ceiling and the boards from the walls and the floor, had been thrown out through the windows before they were covered over with the plywood. The two men who had done the demolition work had shoveled all that debris into a large pile, and they had backed their truck up to the pile ready to cart the trash away. They were very anxious to leave the place looking neat and tidy. This was the first time they had worked for this particular employer, and there had been hints of more work to come. And looking around, they could see that there was plenty more needed doing. All in all, an optimistic situation. New contracts were hard to find, and this particular employer, had shown no concern overprice. The two men felt that to make a good first impression was very much in their long-term interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were hard at work loading their truck with every last plaster fragment when the employer himself stopped by.\n\n\"All done?\" he asked.\n\nThe employer was a huge guy, freakishly bloated, with a high voice and two nickel-sized red spots burning on his pale cheeks. He moved lightly and quietly, like a guy a quarter his size. The overall effect was a guy people looked away from and answered quickly.\n\n\"Just clearing up,\" the first guy said to him. \"Where do we dump this stuff?\"\n\n\"I'll show you,\" the employer said. \" You'll need to make two trips.\n\nBring those boards separately, right?\"\n\nThe second guy nodded. The floorboards were eighteen inches wide, from back when lumbermen had the pick of any tree they wanted. Noway would they fit into the flatbed with the rest of the junk. They finished loading the plaster and their employer squeezed into their truck with them. He was such a big guy, it made fora tight fit. He pointed beyond the old building.\n\n\"Drive north,\" he said, 'about a mile.\"\n\nThe road led them straight out of town and then wound upward through some steep bends. The employer pointed to a place.\n\n\"In there,\" he said, 'all the way in back, OK?\"\n\nHe strolled quietly away and the two guys unloaded their truck. Drove it back south and heaved the old pine boards in. Followed the winding bends again and unloaded. They carried the boards inside and stacked them neatly. All the way in back of the dark space. Then the employer stepped out of the shadows. He had been waiting for them. He had something in his hand.\n\n\"We're all done,\" the first guy said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The employer nodded.\n\n\"You sure are,\" he said.\n\nHis hand came up. He was holding a gun. A dull black automatic. He shot the first guy in the head. The crash of the bullet was deafening.\n\nBlood and bone and brain sprayed everywhere. The second guy froze in terror. Then he ran. He launched himself sideways in a desperate sprint for cover. The employer smiled. He liked it when they ran. He dropped his huge arm to a shallow angle. Fired and put a bullet through the back of the guy's knee. Smiled again. Now it was better.\n\nHe liked it when they ran, but he liked it better when they were squirming on the floor. He stood and listened to the guy's yelping fora long moment. Then he strolled quietly over and took careful aim. Put a bullet through the other knee. He watched fora while, then he tired of the game. Shrugged and put a final bullet through the guy's head.\n\nThen he laid the gun on the ground and rolled the two bodies over and over until they were stacked neatly inline with the old floorboards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THEY HAD BEEN ON THE ROAD AN HOUR AND THIRTY-THREE minutes. Some urban crawling, then an acceleration to a steady cruise. Maybe sixty miles covered. But in the noisy darkness inside the panel truck Reacher had no idea which direction those sixty miles were taking him.\n\nHe was handcuffed to the young woman with the bad leg and within the first few minutes of their forced acquaintance they had worked out how to get as comfortable as they were ever going to get. They had crabbed around inside the truck until they were sitting sideways on the floor, legs straight out, propped against the big wheel well on the right, braced against the motion. The woman sat against the rear side and Reacher sat on the forward side. Their cuffed wrists lay together on the flattop of the metal bulge like they were lovers idling their time away in a cafe.\n\nAt first they hadn't spoken. They'd just sat fora longtime in stunned silence. The immediate problem was the heat. It was the middle of the last day of June in the Midwest. They were shut into an enclosed metal space. There was no ventilation. Reacher figured the rush of air over the outside of the truck's body must be cooling it to an extent, but nowhere near enough. He just sat therein the gloom and used the hot dead time thinking and planning like he was trained to do.\n\nStaying calm, staying relaxed, staying ready, not burning his energy away with useless speculation. Assessing and evaluating. The three guys had shown a measure of efficiency. No great talent, no real finesse, but no significant mistakes. The jumpy guy with the second Clock was the weakest component of the team, but the leader had covered for him pretty well. An efficient threesome. Not at all the worst he'd ever seen. But, at that point, he wasn't worrying. He'd been in worse situations and survived them. Much worse situations, and more than once. So he wasn't worrying yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he noticed something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He noticed that the woman wasn't worrying yet either. She was calm too. She was just sitting there, swaying, cuffed to his wrist, thinking and planning like maybe she was trained to do, as well. He glanced across at her in the gloom and saw her looking steadily at him. A quizzical stare, calm, in control, faintly superior, faintly disapproving. The confidence of youth. She met his gaze. Held it fora long moment. Then she stuck out her cuffed right hand, which jarred his left wrist, but it was an encouraging gesture.\n\nHe reached around and shook her hand and they smiled brief ironic smiles together at their mutual formality.\n\n\"Holly Johnson,\" she said.\n\nShe was assessing him carefully. He could see her eyes traveling around his face. Then they flicked down to his clothing and backup to his face. She smiled again, briefly, like she had decided he merited some kind of courtesy.\n\n\"Nice to meet you,\" she said.\n\nHe looked back at her. Looked at her face. She was a very good-looking woman. Maybe twenty-six, twenty-seven. He looked at her clothes. Aline from an old song ran through his head: hundred dollar dresses, that I ain't paid for yet. He waited for the next line, but it didn't come. So he smiled back at her and nodded.\n\n\"Jack Readier,\" he said. \"Pleasure's all mine, Holly, believe me.\"\n\nIt was difficult to speak, because the truck was cruising noisily. The sound of the engine was fighting with the roar from the road. Reacher would have been happy to sit quiet fora while, but Holly wasn't.\n\n\"I need to get rid of you,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A confident woman, well in control of herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made no reply.\n\nJust glanced at her and glanced away. The next line was: cold, cold-blooded woman. A dying fall, a sad poignant line. An old Memphis Slim song. But the line was not right for her. Not right at all. This was not a cold-blooded woman. He glanced over again and shrugged at her. She was staring at him. Impatient with his silence.\n\n\"You understand exactly what's happening?\" she asked him.\n\nHe watched her face. Watched her eyes. She was staring straight at him. Astonishment on her face. She thought she was stuck in therewith an idiot. She thought he didn't understand exactly what was happening.\n\n\"It's pretty clear, right?\" he said. \"From the evidence?\"\n\n\"What evidence?\" she said. \"It was allover in a split second.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" he said. That's all the evidence I need, right? Tells me more or less what I need to know.\"\n\nHe stopped talking and started resting again. Next opportunity to getaway would be the next time the truck stopped. Could be some hours away. He felt he could be in fora long day. Felt he should be prepared to conserve his resources.\n\n\"So what do you need to know?\" the woman said.\n\nHer eyes were steady on his.\n\n\"You've been kidnaped,\" he said. \"I'm hereby accident.\"\n\nShe was still looking at him. Still confident. Still thinking. Still not sure whether or not she was cuffed to an idiot.\n\n\"It's pretty clear, right?\" he said again. \"It wasn't me they were after.\"\n\nShe made no reply. Just arched a fine eyebrow.\n\n\"Nobody knew I was going to be there,\" he said. \"I didn't even know I was going to be there. Until I got there. But it was a well planned operation. Must have taken time to setup. Based on surveillance, right? Three guys, one in the car, two on the street. The car was parked exactly level. They had no idea where I was going to be. But obviously they knew for sure where you were going to be. So don't be looking at me like I'm the idiot here. You're the one made the big mistake.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mistake?\" the woman said.\n\n\"You're too regular in your habits,\" Readier said. They studied your movements, maybe two or three weeks, and you walked right into their arms. They weren't expecting anybody else to be there. That's clear, right? They only brought one set of handcuffs.\"\n\nHe raised his wrist, which raised hers too, to make his point. The woman went quiet fora long moment. She was revising her opinion of him. Reacher rocked with the motion of the vehicle and smiled.\n\n\"And you should know better,\" he said. \"You're a government agent of some sort, right? DEA, CIA, FBI, something like that, maybe a Chicago PD detective? New in the job, still fairly dedicated. And fairly wealthy. So somebody is either looking fora ransom, or you've already become a potential problem to somebody, even though you're new, and either way you should have taken more care of yourself.\"\n\nShe looked across at him. Nodded, eyes wide in the gloom. Impressed.\n\n\"Evidence?\" she asked.\n\nHe smiled at her again.\n\n\"Couple of things,\" he said. \"Your dry-cleaning. My guess is every Monday lunch break you take last week's clothes into get them cleaned and you pickup this week's clothes to wear. That means you must have about fifteen or twenty outfits. Looking at that thing you got on, you're not a cheap dresser. Call it four hundred bucks an outfit, you've got maybe eight grand tied up in things to wear. That's what I call moderately wealthy, and that's what I call too regular in your habits.\"\n\nShe nodded slowly.\n\n\"OK,\" she said. \"Why am Ia government agent?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Easy enough,\" he said. \"You had a Clock 17 shoved at you, you were bundled into a car, you were thrown in a truck, handcuffed to a complete stranger and you've got no idea where the hell they're taking you, or why. Any normal person would befalling apart overall that, screaming the place down. But not you. You're sitting there quite calmly, which suggests some kind of training, maybe some kind of familiarity with upsetting or dangerous situations. And maybe some kind of sure knowledge there'll be a bunch of people looking to get you back soon as they can.\"\n\nHe stopped and she nodded for him to continue.\n\n\"Also, you had a gun in your bag,\" he said. \" Something fairly heavy, maybe a. 38, long barrel. If it was a private weapon, a dresser like you would choose something dainty, like a snub. 22.\n\nBut it was a big revolver, so you were issued with it. So you're some kind of an agent, maybe a cop.\"\n\nThe woman nodded again, slowly.\n\n\"Why am I new in the job?\" she asked.\n\n\"Your age,\" Reacher said. \"What are you? Twenty-six?\"\n\nTwenty-seven,\" she said.\n\n\"That's young fora detective,\" he said. \"College, a few years in uniform? Young for the FBI, DBA, CIA, too. So whatever you are, you're new at it.\"\n\nShe shrugged.\n\n\"OK,\" she said. \"Why am I fairly dedicated?\"\n\nReacher pointed, left-handed, rattling their shared handcuff.\n\n\"Your injury,\" he said. \"You're back to work after some kind of an accident, before you're really recovered. You're still using that crutch for your bad leg. Most people in your position would be staying home and drawing sick pay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled.\n\n\"I could be handicapped,\" she said. \"Could have been born this way.\"\n\nReacher shook his head in the gloom.\n\n\"That's a hospital crutch,\" he said. They loaned it to you, short term, until you're over your injury. If it was a permanent thing, you'd have bought your own crutch. Probably you'd have bought a dozen.\n\nSprayed them all different to match all your expensive outfits.\"\n\nShe laughed. It was a pleasant sound above the drone and boom of the truck's engine and the roar of the road.\n\n\"Pretty good, Jack Reacher,\" she said. \" I'm an FBI special agent.\n\nSince last fall. I just ripped up my cruciate ligaments playing soccer.\"\n\n\"You play soccer?\" Reacher said. \"Good for you, Holly Johnson. What kind of an FBI agent since last fall?\"\n\nShe was quiet fora beat.\n\n\"Just an agent,\" she said. \"One of many at the Chicago office.\"\n\nReacher shook his head.\n\n\"Not just an agent,\" he said. \"An agent who's doing something to somebody who maybe wants to retaliate. So who are you doing something to?\"\n\nShe shook her head back at him.\n\n\"I can't discuss that,\" she said. \"Not with civilians.\"\n\nHe nodded. He was comfortable with that.\n\n\"OK,\" he said.\n\n\"Any agent makes enemies,\" she said.\n\n\"Naturally,\" he replied.\n\n\"Meas much as anybody,\" she said.\n\nHe glanced across at her. It was a curious remark. Defensive. The remark of a woman trained and eager and ready to go, but chained to a desk since last fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Financial section?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he guessed.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"I can't discuss it,\" she said again.\n\n\"But you already made enemies,\" he said.\n\nShe gave him a half-smile which died fast. Then she went quiet. She looked calm, but Reacher could feel in her wrist that she was worried for the first time. But she was hanging in there. And she was wrong.\n\nThey're not out to kill you,\"he said. They could have killed you in that waste ground. Why haul you away in this damn truck? And there's your crutch, too.\"\n\n\"What about my crutch?\" she said.\n\n\"Doesn't make any sense,\" he said. \"Why would they toss your crutch inhere if they're going to kill you? You're a hostage, Holly, that's what you are. You sure you don't know these guys? Never saw them before?\"\n\n\"Never,\" she said. \"I don't know who the hell they are, or what the hell they want from me.\"\n\nHe stared at her. She sounded way too definite. She knew more than she was telling him. They went quiet in the noise. Rocked and bounced with the movement of the truck. Reacher stared into the gloom. He could feel Holly making decisions, next to him. She turned sideways again.\n\n\"I need to get you out of here,\" she said again.\n\nHe glanced at her. Glanced away and grinned.\n\n\"Suits me, Holly,\" he said. \"Sooner the better.\"\n\n\"When will somebody miss you?\" she asked.\n\nThat was a question he would have preferred not to answer. But she was looking hard at him, waiting. So he thought about it, and he told her the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never,\" he said.\n\n\"Why not?\" she asked. \"Who are you, Readier?\"\n\nHe looked across at her and shrugged.\n\n\"Nobody,\" he said.\n\nShe carried onlooking at him, quizzically. Maybe irritated.\n\n\"OK, what kind of nobody?\" she asked.\n\nHe heard Memphis Slim in his head: got me working in a steel mill.\n\n\"I'm a doorman,\" he said. \"At a club in Chicago.\"\n\n\"Which club?\" she asked.\n\n\"A blues place on the South Side,\" he said. \"You probably don't know it.\"\n\nShe looked at him and shook her head.\n\n\"A doorman?\" she said. \"You're playing this pretty cool fora doorman.\"\n\n\"Doormen deal with a lot of weird situations,\" he said.\n\nShe looked like she wasn't convinced and he put his face down near his wristwatch to check the time. Two-thirty in the afternoon.\n\n\"And how long before somebody misses you?\" he asked.\n\nShe looked at her own watch and made a face.\n\n\"Quite awhile,\" she said. \"I've got a case conference starting at five o'clock this afternoon. Nothing before then. Two and a half hours before anybody even knows I'm gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "RIGHT INSIDE THE SHELL OF THE SECOND-FLOOR ROOM, A SECOND shell was taking shape. It was being built from brand-new softwood two-by-fours, nailed together in the conventional way, looking like anew room growing right there inside the old room. But the new room was going to be about afoot smaller in every dimension than the old room had been.\n\nAfoot shorter in length, afoot narrower in width, and afoot shorter in height.\n\nThe new floor joists were going to be raised afoot off the old joists with twelve-inch lengths of the new softwood. The new lengths looked like a forest of short stilts, ready to hold the new floor up. More short lengths were ready to hold the new framing afoot away from the old framing all the way around the sides and the ends. The new framing had the bright yellowness of new wood. It gleamed against the smoky honey color of the old framing. The old framing looked like an ancient skeleton which was suddenly growing anew skeleton right inside itself.\n\nThree men were building the new shell. They were stepping from joist to joist with practiced skill. They looked like men who had built things before. And they were working fast. Their contract demanded they finish on time. The employer had been explicit about it. Some kind of a rush job. The three carpenters were not complaining about that. The employer had accepted their first bid. It had been an inflated bid, with a large horse-trading margin builtin. But the guy had not eaten into that margin. He had not negotiated at all. He had just nodded and told them to start work as soon as the wrecking crew had finished. Work was hard to find, and employers who accepted your first price were even harder to find. So the three men were happy to work hard, work fast, and work late. They were anxious to make a good first impression. Looking around, they could seethe potential fora lot more employment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So they were giving it their best shot. They ran up and down the stairs with tools and fresh lumber. They worked by eye, marking cut-lines in the wood with their thumbnails, using their nail guns and their saws until they ran hot. But they paused frequently to measure the gap between the old framing and the new. The employer had made it clear that dimension was critical. The old framing was six inches deep. The new framing was four. The gap was twelve inches.\n\n\"Six and four and twelve,\" one guy said. Twenty-two inches total.\"\n\n\"OK?\" the second guy asked the crew chief.\n\n\"Ideal,\" the crew chief said. \"Exactly what he told us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "HOLLY JOHNSON'S FIVE O'CLOCK CASE CONFERENCE WAS ALLOCATED to the Chicago FBI office's third-floor meeting room. This was a large room, better than forty feet by twenty, and it was more or less filled by along polished table flanked by thirty chairs, fifteen on each side. The chairs were substantial and leather and the table was made of fine hardwood, but any tendency for the place to look like a corporate boardroom was defused by the scruffy government wall covering and the cheap carpet. There were ninety square yards of carpet on the floor and the whole ninety together had probably cost less than just one of the chairs.\n\nFive o'clock in the summer, the afternoon sun streamed in through the wall of windows and gave the people arriving in the room a choice. If they sat facing the windows, they got the sun in their eyes and squinted through the meeting and ended up with a blinding headache. And the sun overpowered the air conditioning, so if they sat backs to the windows, they got heated up to a point where it got uncomfortable and they started worrying about whether their deodorant was still OK at five o'clock in the afternoon. A tough choice, but the top option was to avoid the headache and take the risk of heating up. So the early attenders took the seats on the window side.\n\nFirst into the room was the FBI lawyer with special responsibility for financial crime. He stood fora moment and made a judgment about the likely duration of the meeting. Maybe forty-five minutes, he thought, knowing Holly, so he turned and tried to assess which seat might get the benefit of the shade from the slim pillar splitting the wall of windows into two. The bar of shadow was lying to the left of the third chair in the row, and he knew it would inch toward the head of the table as time passed. So he spilled his pile of folders onto the table in front of the second chair and shrugged his jacket off and claimed the place by dropping it onto the chair. Then he turned again and strolled to the credenza at the end of the room fora cup of coffee from the filter machine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Next in were two agents working on cases that might be tied into the mess that Holly Johnson was dealing with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They nodded to the lawyer and saw the place he'd claimed. They knew there was no point in choosing between the other fourteen chairs by the window. They were all going to get equally hot. So they just dumped their portfolios at the nearest two places and lined up for coffee.\n\n\"She not here yet?\" one of them said to the lawyer.\n\n\"Haven't seen her all day,\" the lawyer said.\n\n\"Your loss, right?\" the other guy said.\n\nHolly Johnson was anew agent, but talented, and that was making her popular. In the past the Bureau would have taken no pleasure at all in busting the sort of businessmen that Holly was employed to chase down, but times had changed and the Chicago office had gotten quite a taste for it. The businessmen now looked like scumbags, not solid citizens, and the agents were sick and tired of looking at them as they rode the commuter trains home. The agents would begetting off the train miles before the bankers and the stockbrokers were anywhere near their expensive suburbs. They would bethinking about second mortgages and even second jobs, and they'd bethinking about the years of private-detective work they were going to have to put into boost up the mean government pension. And the executives would be sitting therewith smug smiles. So when one or two of them started to take a fall, the Bureau was happy enough about it. When the ones and twos turned into tens and twenties, and then hundreds, it became a blood sport.\n\nThe only drawback was that it was hard work. Probably more difficult to nail than anything else. That was where Holly Johnson's arrival had made things easier. She had the talent. She could look at a balance sheet and just know if anything was wrong with it. It was like she could smell it. She'd sit at her desk and look at the papers, cock her head slightly to one side, and think. Sometimes she'd think for hours, but when she stopped thinking, she'd know what the hell was going on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she'd explain it all in the case conference. She'd make it all sound easy and logical, like there was noway anybody could be in any kind of doubt about it. She was a woman who made progress. She was a woman who made her fellow agents feel better on those commuter trains at night. That's what was making her popular.\n\nFourth person into the third-floor meeting room was the agent assigned to help Holly outwith the fetching and carrying until she recovered from her soccer injury. His name was Milosevic. A slight frame, a slight West Coast accent. Less than forty, casually dressed inexpensive designer khaki, gold at his neck and on his wrist. He was also anew arrival, recently transferred into the Chicago office, because that was where the Bureau found it needed its financial people.\n\nHe joined the line for coffee and looked around the room.\n\n\"She's late?\" he said.\n\nThe lawyer shrugged at him and Milosevic shrugged back. He liked Holly Johnson. He had worked with her five weeks, since the accident on the soccer field, and he had enjoyed every minute of it.\n\n\"She's not usually late for anything,\" he said.\n\nFifth person in was Brogan, Holly's section head. Irish, from Boston via California. The young side of middle age. Dark hair, red Irish face. A tough guy, handsomely dressed in an expensive silk jacket, ambitious. He'd come to Chicago the same time as Milosevic, and he was pissed it wasn't New York. He was looking for the advancement he was sure he deserved. There was a theory that Holly's arrival in his section was enhancing his chances of getting it.\n\n\"She not here yet?\" he said.\n\nThe other four shrugged at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll kick her ass,\" Brogan said.\n\nHolly had been a stock analyst on Wall Street before applying to join the FBI. Nobody was clear why she'd made the change.\n\nShe had some kind of exalted connections, and some kind of an illustrious father, and the easy guess was she wanted to impress him somehow. Nobody knew for sure whether the old guy was impressed or not, but the feeling was he damn well ought to be. Holly had been one often thousand applicants in her year, and she'd passed right at the top of the four hundred who made it. She'd creamed the recruitment criteria. The Bureau had been looking for college graduates in law or accountancy, or else graduates in flimsier disciplines who'd then worked somewhere for three years at least. Holly had qualified in every way. She had an accountancy degree from Yale, and a Master's from Harvard, and three years on Wall Street on top of all that. She'd blitzed the intelligence tests and the aptitude assessments. She'd charmed the three serving agents who'd grilled her at her main interview.\n\nShe'd sailed through the background checks, which was understandable on account of her connections, and she'd been sent to the FBI Academy at Quantico. Then she'd really started to get serious. She was fit and strong, she learned to shoot, she murdered the leadership reaction course, she scored outstanding in the simulated shootouts in Hogan's Alley. But her major success washer attitude. She did two things at once. First she bought into the whole Bureau ethic in the biggest way possible. It was totally clear to everybody that here was a woman who was going to live and die for the FBI. But second, she did it in away which avoided the slightest trace of bullshit. She tinged her attitude with a gentle mocking humor which saved people from hating her. It made them love her instead. There was no doubt the Bureau had signed a major new asset. They sent her to Chicago and sat back to reap the benefits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Last into the third-floor conference room was a bunch of men who came in together. Thirteen agents and the agent-in-charge, McGrath. The thirteen agents were clustered around their boss, who was conducting a sort of rolling policy review as he walked. The thirteen agents were hanging onto every word. McGrath had every advantage in the book. He was a man who'd been to the top, and then comeback down again into the field. He'd spent three years in the Hoover Building as an assistant director of the FBI, and then he'd applied fora demotion and a pay cut to take him back to a Field Office. The decision had cost him ten thousand dollars a year in income, but it had bought him back his sanity, and it had bought him undying respect and blind affection from the agents he worked with.\n\nAn agent-in-charge in a Field Office like Chicago is like the captain on a great warship. Theoretically there are people above him, but they're all a couple of thousand miles away in Washington. They're theoretical. The agent-in-charge is real. He runs his command like the hand of God. That's how the Chicago office looked at McGrath. He did nothing to undermine the feeling. He was remote, but he was approachable. He was private, but he made his people feel he'd do anything at all for them. He was a short, stocky man, burning with energy, the sort of tireless guy who radiates total confidence. The sort of guy who makes a crew better just by leading it. His first name was Paul, but he was called Mack, like the truck.\n\nHe let his thirteen agents sit down, ten of them backs to the window and three of them with the sun in their eyes. Then he hauled a chair around and stuck it at the head of the table ready for Holly. He walked down to the other end and hauled another chair around for himself. Sat sideways onto the sun. Started getting worried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where is she?\" he said. \"Brogan?\"\n\nThe section head shrugged, palms up.\n\n\"She should be here, far as I know,\" he said.\n\n\"She leave a message with anybody?\" McGrath asked. \"Milosevic?\"\n\nMilosevic and the other fifteen agents and the Bureau lawyer all shrugged and shook their heads. McGrath started worrying more. People have a pattern, a rhythm, like a behavioral fingerprint. Holly was only a minute or two late, but that was so far from normal that it was setting the bells ringing. In eight months he had never known her be late. It had never happened. Other people could be five minutes late into the meeting room and it would seem normal. Because of their pattern. But not Holly. At three minutes past five in the afternoon, McGrath stared at her empty chair and knew there was a problem. He stood up again in the quiet room and walked to the credenza on the opposite wall. There was a phone next to the coffee machine. He picked it up and dialed his office.\n\n\"Holly Johnson call in?\" he asked his secretary.\n\n\"No, Mack,\" she said.\n\nSo he dabbed the cradle and dialed the reception counter, two floors below.\n\n\"Any messages from Holly Johnson?\" he asked the agent at the door.\n\n\"No, chief,\" the agent said. \"Haven't seen her.\"\n\nHe hit the button again and called the main switchboard.\n\n\"Holly Johnson call in?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, sir,\" the switchboard operator said.\n\nHe held the phone and gestured for pen and paper. Then he spoke to the switchboard again.\n\n\"Give me her pager number,\" he said. \"And her cellphone, will you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The earpiece crackled and he scrawled down the numbers. Cut the switchboard off and dialed Holly's pager. Just got along low tone telling him the pager was switched off. Then he tried the cellphone number. He got an electronic bleep and a recorded message of a woman telling him the phone he was dialing was unreachable. He hung up and looked around the room. It was ten after five, Monday afternoon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SIX-THIRTY ON REACHER'S WATCH, THE MOTION INSIDE THE TRUCK changed. Six hours and four minutes they'd cruised steadily, maybe fifty-five or sixty miles an hour, while the heat peaked and fell away. He'd sat, hot and rocking and bouncing in the dark with the wheel well between him and Holly Johnson, ticking off the distance against a map inside his head. He figured they'd been taken maybe three hundred and ninety miles. But he didn't know which direction they were headed. If they were going east, they would be right through Indiana and just about out of Ohio by now, maybe just entering Pennsylvania or West Virginia.\n\nSouth, they would be out of Illinois, into Missouri or Kentucky, maybe even into Tennessee if he'd underestimated their speed. West, they'd be hauling their way across Iowa. They might have looped around the bottom of the lake and headed north up through Michigan. Or straight out northwest, in which case they could be up near Minneapolis.\n\nBut they'd gotten somewhere, because the truck was slowing. Then there was a lurch to the right, like a pull off a highway. There was gear noise and thumping over broken pavement. Cornering forces slammed them around. Holly's crutch slid and rattled side to side across the ridged metal floor. The truck whined upgrades and down slopes, paused at invisible road junctions, accelerated, braked hard, turned a tight left, and then drove slowly down a straight lumpy surface fora quarter hour.\n\n\"Farming country somewhere,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Obviously,\" Holly said. \"But where?\"\n\nReacher just shrugged at her in the gloom. The truck slowed almost to a stop and turned a tight right. The road surface got worse. The truck bounced forward maybe a hundred and fifty yards and stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the sound of the passenger door opening up in front." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The engine was still running. The passenger door slammed shut. Reacher heard a big door opening and the truck moved slowly forward. The engine noise boomed against metal walls. Reacher heard the door noise again and the engine noise echoed louder. Then it shutdown and died away into stillness.\n\n\"We're in some sort of a barn,\" Reacher said. \"With the door closed.\"\n\nHolly nodded impatiently.\n\n\"I know that,\" she said. \"A cow barn. I can smell it.\"\n\nReacher could hear muffled conversation outside the truck. Footsteps walking around to the rear doors. A key going into the lock. The handle turning. A blinding flood of light as the door opened. Reacher blinked against the sudden electric brightness and stared out across Holly at three men, two Clocks and a shotgun.\n\n\"Out,\" the leader said.\n\nThey struggled out, handcuffed together. Not easy. They were stiff and sore and cramped from bracing themselves against the wheel well for six solid hours. Holly's knee had gone altogether. Reacher started back for her crutch.\n\n\"Leave it there, asshole,\" the leader said.\n\nThe guy sounded tired and irritable. Reacher gave him a steady look and shrugged. Holly stiffened and tried her weight on her leg. Gasped in pain and gave it up. Glanced impersonally at Reacher like he was some kind of a tree and stretched around with her free left hand to hold on tight around his neck. It was the only way she could stay upright.\n\n\"Excuse me, please,\" she muttered.\n\nThe leader gestured with his Glock over to his left. They were in a large cow barn. No cows, but they hadn't been long absent, judging by the odor. The truck was parked in a wide central aisle. Either side were cow stalls, roomy, made up from galvanized steel-piping efficiently welded together. Reacher twisted and held Holly's waist and the two of them hopped and staggered over to the stall the guy with the Clock was pointing at. Holly seized a railing and held on, embarrassed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Excuse me,\" she muttered again.\n\nReacher nodded and waited. The driver with the shotgun covered them and the leader walked away. He heaved the big door open and stepped through. Reacher caught a glimpse of darkening sky. Cloudy. No clue at all to their location.\n\nThe leader was gone five minutes. There was silence in the barn. The other two guys stood still, weapons out and ready. The jumpy guy with the Clock was staring at Reacher's face. The driver with the shotgun was staring at Holly's breasts. Smiling a half-smile. Nobody spoke.\n\nThen the leader stepped back in. He was carrying a second pair of handcuffs and two lengths of heavy chain.\n\n\"You're making a big mistake here,\" Holly said to him. \"I'm an FBI agent.\"\n\n\"I know that, bitch,\" the guy said. \"Now be quiet.\"\n\n\"You're committing a serious crime,\" Holly said.\n\n\"I know that, bitch,\" the guy said again. \" And I told you to be quiet.\n\nAnother word out of you, I'll shoot this guy in the head. Then you can spend the night with a corpse chained to your wrist, OK?\"\n\nHe waited until she nodded silently. Then the driver with the shotgun took up position behind them and the leader unlocked their cuff and freed their wrists. He looped one of the chains around the stall railing and locked the ends into the spare half of the cuff dangling from Reacher's left arm. Pulled it and rattled it to check it was secure. Then he dragged Holly two stalls away and used the new cuffs and the second length of chain to lock her to the railing, twenty feet from Reacher. Her knee gave way and she fell heavily with a gasp of pain onto the dirty straw. The leader ignored her. Just walked back to where Reacher was chained up. Stood right in front of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So who the hell are you, asshole?\" he said.\n\nReacher didn't reply. He knew the keys to both cuffs were in this guy's pocket. He knew it would take him about a second and a half to snap his neck with the loop of chain hanging off his wrist. But the other two guys were out of reach. One Clock, one shotgun, too faraway to grab before he'd unlocked himself, too near to get a chance to do that. He was dealing with a reasonably efficient set of opponents. So he just shrugged and looked at the straw at his feet. It was clogged with dung.\n\n\"I asked you a damn question,\" the guy said.\n\nReacher looked at him. In the corner of his eye he saw the jumpy guy ratchet his Clock upward a degree or two.\n\n\"I asked you a question, asshole,\" the leader said again, quietly.\n\nThe jumpy guy's Clock was jutting forward. Then it was straight out, shoulder-high. Aimed right at Reacher's head. The muzzle was trembling through a small jerky circle, but probably not trembling enough to make the guy miss. Not from that sort of a close distance.\n\nReacher looked from one guy to the other. The guy with the shotgun tore his attention away from Holly's breasts. He raised the weapon to his hip. Pointed it in Reacher's direction. It was an Ithaca 37.\n\nTwelve-bore. The five-shot version with the pistol grip and no shoulder stock. The guy racked around into the chamber. The crunch-crunch of the mechanism was loud in the barn. It echoed off the metal walls. Died into silence. Reacher saw the trigger move through the first eighth-inch of its short travel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Name?\" the leader asked.\n\nThe shotgun trigger tightened another eighth. If it fired on that trajectory, Reacher was going to lose both his legs and most of his stomach.\n\n\"Name?\" the leader asked for the second time.\n\nIt was a twelve-bore, wouldn't kill him outright, but he'd bleed to death in the dirty straw. Femoral artery gone, about a minute, maybe a minute and a half. In those circumstances, no real reason to make a big deal out of giving this guy a name.\n\n\"Jack Reacher,\" he said.\n\nThe leader nodded in satisfaction, like he'd achieved a victory.\n\n\"You know this bitch?\" he asked.\n\nReacher glanced across at Holly.\n\n\"Better than I know some people,\" he said. \"I just spent six hours handcuffed to her.\"\n\n\"You some kind of a wiseguy asshole?\" the leader asked.\n\nReacher shook his head.\n\n\"Innocent passerby,\" he said. \"I never saw her before.\"\n\n\"You with the Bureau?\" the guy asked.\n\nReacher shook his head again.\n\n\"I'm a doorman,\" he said. \"Club back in Chicago.\"\n\n\"You sure, asshole?\" the guy said.\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"I'm sure,\" he said. \"I'm a wise enough guy that I can recall what I do fora living, one day to the next.\"\n\nThere was silence fora long moment. Tension. Then the jumpy guy with the Clock came out of his shooting stance. The driver with the shotgun swung his weapon down toward the straw on the floor. He turned his head and went back to staring at Holly's breasts. The leader nodded at Reacher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"OK, asshole,\" he said. \" You behave yourself, you stay alive for now.\n\nSame for the bitch. Nothing's going to happen to anybody. Not just yet.\"\n\nThe three men regrouped in the center aisle and walked out of the barn.\n\nBefore they locked the door, Reacher saw the sky again, briefly.\n\nDarker. Still cloudy. No stars. No clues. He tested the chain. It was securely fastened to the handcuff atone end and the railing at the other. Maybe seven feet long. He could hear Holly doing the same experiment. Tightening her chain and scoping out the radius it gave her to move through.\n\n\"Would you mind looking away?\" she called across.\n\n\"Why?\" he called back.\n\nThere was a short silence. Then a sigh. Part embarrassed, part exasperated.\n\n\"Do you really need to ask?\" she called. \"We were in that truck six hours, and it didn't have a bathroom, did it?\"\n\n\"You going in the next stall?\" he asked.\n\n\"Obviously,\" she said.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"You go right and I'll go left. I won't look if you won't.\"\n\nThe three men came back to the barn within an hour with food. Some kind of a beef stew in a metal mess tin, one for each of them. Mostly rare steak chunks and a lot of hard carrots. Whoever these guys were, cooking was not their major talent. Reacher was clear on that. They handed out an enamel mug of weak coffee, one for each of them. Then they got in the truck. Started it up and backed it out of the barn.\n\nTurned the bright lights off. Reacher caught a glimpse of dim emptiness outside. Then they pulled the big door shut and locked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Left their prisoners in the dark and the quiet.\n\n\"Gas station,\" Holly called from twenty feet away. \"They're filling up for the rest of the ride. Can't do it with us inside. They figure we'd be banging on the side and shouting out for help.\"\n\nReacher nodded and finished his coffee. Sucked the fork from the stew clean. Bent one of the prongs right out and put a little kink into the end with pressure from his thumbnail. It made a little hook. He used it to pick the lock on his handcuff. Took him eighteen seconds, beginning to end. He dropped the cuff and the chain in the straw and walked over to Holly. Bent down and unlocked her wrist. Twelve seconds. Helped her to her feet.\n\n\"Doorman, right?\" she said.\n\n\"Right,\" he said. \"Let's take a look around.\"\n\n\"I can't walk,\" she said. \"My crutch is in the damn truck.\"\n\nReacher nodded. She stayed in her stall, clinging to the railing. He scouted around the big empty barn. It was a sturdy metal structure, built throughout with the same flecked, galvanized metal as the stall railings. The big door was locked from the outside. Probably a steel bar padlocked into place. No problem if he could get at the padlock, but he was inside and the padlock was outside.\n\nThe walls met the floor with aright-angle flange bolted firmly into the concrete. The walls themselves were horizontal metal panels maybe thirty feet long, maybe four feet tall. They were joined together with more right-angle flanges bolted together. Each flange gave a lip about six inches deep. Like a giant stepladder with the treads four feet apart.\n\nHe climbed the wall, hauling himself quickly upward, flange to flange, four feet at a time. The way out of the barn was right thereat the top of the wall, seven sections up, twenty-eight feet off the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a ventilation slot between the top of the wall and the overhanging slope of the metal roof." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About eighteen inches high. A person could roll horizontally through the gap like an old-fashioned high jumper hang down outside and drop twenty feet to the ground below.\n\nHe could do that, but Holly Johnson couldn't. She couldn't even walkover to the wall. She couldn't climb it and she sure as hell couldn't hang down outside and drop twenty feet onto a set of wrecked cruciate ligaments.\n\n\"Get going,\" she called up to him. \"Get out of here, right now.\"\n\nHe ignored her and peered out through the slot into the darkness. The overhanging eaves gave him a low horizon. Empty country as far as the eye could see. He climbed down and went up the other three walls in turn. The second side gave out onto country just as empty as the first. The third had a view of a farmhouse. White shingles. Lights in two windows. The fourth side of the barn looked straight up the farm track. About a hundred and fifty yards to a featureless road.\n\nEmptiness beyond. In the far distance, a single set of headlight beams. Flicking and bouncing. Widely spaced. Growing larger. Getting nearer. The truck, coming back.\n\n\"Can you see where we are?\" Holly called up to him.\n\n\"No idea,\" Reacher called back. \"Farming country somewhere. Could be anywhere. Where do they have cows like this? And fields and stuff?\"\n\n\"Is it hilly out there?\" Holly called. \"Or flat?\"\n\n\"Can't tell,\" Reacher said. Too dark. Maybe a little hilly.\"\n\n\"Could be Pennsylvania,\" Holly said. They have hills and cows there.\"\n\nReacher climbed down the fourth wall and walked back to her stall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get out of here, for Christ's sake,\" she said to him. \"Raise the alarm.\"\n\nHe shook his head. He heard the diesel slowing to turn into the track.\n\nThat may not be the best option,\" he said.\n\nShe stared at him.\n\n\"Who the hell gave you an option?\" she said. \" I'm ordering you.\n\nYou're a civilian and I'm FBI and I'm ordering you to get yourself to safety right now.\"\n\nReacher just shrugged and stood there.\n\n\"I'm ordering you, OK?\" Holly said again. \"You going to obey me?\"\n\nReacher shook his head again.\n\n\"No,\" he said.\n\nShe glared at him. Then the truck was back. They heard the roar of the diesel and the groan of the springs on the rough track outside.\n\nReacher locked Holly's cuff and ran back to his stall. They heard the truck door slam and footsteps on the concrete. Reacher chained his wrist to the railing and bent the fork back into shape. When the barn door opened and the light came on, he was sitting quietly on the straw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE MATERIAL USED TO PACK THE TWENTY-TWO-INCH CAVITY between the outside of the old walls and the inside of the new walls was hauled over from its storage shed in an open pickup truck. There was a ton of it and it took four trips. Each consignment was carefully unloaded by a team of eight volunteers. They worked together like an old-fashioned bucket-brigade attending afire. They passed each box along, hand to hand, into the building, up the stairs to the second floor. The boxes were stacked in the hallway outside the modified corner room. The three builders opened each box in turn and carried the material into the room. Then they stacked it carefully into the wide spaces behind the new softwood framing. The unloaders generally paused fora moment and watched them, grateful fora moment of rest.\n\nThe process lasted most of the afternoon because of the amount of material and the care they took in moving it. When the last of the four loads was stacked upstairs, the eight volunteers dispersed. Seven of them headed for the mess hall. The eighth stretched in the last of the afternoon sun and strolled off. It was his habit. Four or five times a week, he would take along walk on his own, especially after a period of heavy work. It was assumed to be his way of relaxing.\n\nHe strolled in the forest. There was a beaten path running west through the silence. He followed it fora half-mile. Then he paused and stretched again. He used the weary twisting motion of a tired man easing a sore back to glance around a complete circle. Then he stepped sideways off the path. Stopped strolling. Started an urgent walk. He dodged trees and followed a wide looping course west, then north. He went straight fora particular tree. There was a large flat rock bedded in needles at its base. He stood still and waited. Listened hard. Then he ducked down and heaved the rock to one side. Underneath was a rectangular shape wrapped in oilcloth. He unfolded the cloth and took out a small hand-held radio. Pulled the stubby antenna and hit a button and waited. Then he whispered along and excited message." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the plot as the author's writing partner.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the accommodation huts, men and women were working in the gloom, cleaning their rifles. The word about Loder had traveled quickly. They all knew about the tribunal. They all knew the likely outcome. Any six of them could be selected for the firing squad. If there was going to be a firing squad. Most people figured there probably was. An officer like Loder, the commander might limit it to a firing squad. Probably nothing worse. So they cleaned their rifles, and left them locked and loaded next to their beds.\n\nThose of them with enough demerits to be on tomorrow's punishment detail were trying to get some sleep. If he didn't limit it to a firing squad, they could be in fora lot of work. Messy, unpleasant work. And even if Loder got away with it, there was always the other guy. The big guy who had come in with the federal bitch. There wasn't much chance of him surviving ivn past breakfast time. They couldn't remember the last time any stray stranger had lasted longer than that.\n\nHolly Johnson had a rule. It was a rule bred into her, like a family motto. It had been reinforced by her long training at Quantico. It was a rule distilled from thousands of years of military history and hundreds of years of law-enforcement experience. The rule said: hope for the best, but plan for the worst.\n\nShe had no reason to believe she would not be speeding south in a jeep just as soon as her new ally could arrange it. He was Bureau-trained, the same as she was. She knew that if the tables were turned, she would get him out, no problem at all. So she knew she could just sit tight and wait. But she wasn't doing that. She was hoping for the best, but she was planning for the worst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had given upon the bathroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Noway out there. Now she was going over the room itself, inch by inch. The new pine boarding was nailed tight to the frame, all six surfaces. It was driving her crazy.\n\nInch-thick pine board, the oldest possible technology, used for ten thousand years, and there was noway through it. Fora lone woman without any tools, it might as well have been the side of a battleship.\n\nSo she concentrated on finding tools. It was like she was personally speeding through Darwin's evolutionary process. Apes came down from the trees and they made tools. She was concentrating on the bed. The mattress was useless. It was a thin, crushed thing, no wire springs inside. But the bed frame was more promising. It was bolted together from iron tubes and flanges. If she could take it apart, she could put one of the little right-angle flanges in the end of the longest tube and make a pry-bar seven feet long. But the bolts were all painted over. She had strong hands, but she couldn't begin to move them. Her fingers just bruised and slipped on her sweat.\n\nLoder had been dragged away and Reacher was locked up alone with the last remaining guard from the evening detail. The guard sat behind the plain desk and propped his weapon on the wooden surface with the muzzle pointing directly at him sitting on his chair. His hands were still cuffed behind him. He had decisions to make. First was noway could he sit all night like that. He glanced calmly at the guard and eased himself up and slid his hands underneath.\n\nPressed his chest down onto his thighs and looped his hands out under his feet. Then he sat up and leaned back and forced a smile, hands together in his lap.\n\n\"Long arms,\" he said. \"Useful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guard nodded slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had small piercing eyes, setback in a narrow face. They gleamed out above the big beard, through the camouflage smudges, but the gleam looked innocent enough.\n\n\"What's your name?\" Reacher asked him.\n\nThe guy hesitated. Shuffled in his seat. Reacher could see some kind of natural courtesy was prompting a reply. But there were obvious tactical considerations for the guy. Reacher kept on forcing the smile.\n\n\"I'm Reacher,\" he said. \"You know my name. You got a name? We're here all night, we may as well be a little civilized about it, right?\"\n\nThe guy nodded again, slowly. Then he shrugged.\n\n\"Ray,\" he said.\n\n\"Ray?\" Reacher said. \"That your first name or your last?\"\n\n\"Last,\" the guy said. \"Joseph Ray.\"\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"OK, Mr. Ray,\" he said. \"Pleased to meet you.\"\n\n\"Call me Joe,\" Joseph Ray said.\n\nReacher forced the smile again. The ice was broken. Like conducting an interrogation. Reacher had done it a thousand times. But never from this side of the desk. Never when he was the one wearing the cuffs.\n\n\"Joe, you're going to have to help me out a little,\" he said. \"I need some background here. I don't know where I am, or why, or who all you guys are. Can you fill me in on some basic information?\"\n\nRay was looking at him like he was maybe having difficulty knowing whereto start. Then he was glancing around the room like maybe he was wondering whether he was allowed to start at all.\n\n\"Where exactly are we?\" Reacher asked him. \"You can tell me that, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Montana,\" Ray said.\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"Wherein Montana?\"\n\n\"Near a town called Yorke,\" Ray said. \"An old mining town, just about abandoned.\"\n\nReadier nodded again.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"What are you guys doing here?\"\n\n\"We're building a bastion,\" Ray said. \"A place of our own.\"\n\n\"What for?\" Readier asked him.\n\nRay shrugged. An inarticulate guy. At first, he said nothing. Then he sat forward and launched into what seemed to Reacher like a mantra, like something the guy had rehearsed many times. Or like something the guy had been told many times.\n\n\"We came up hereto escape the tyranny of America,\" he said. \"We have to draw up our borders and say, it's going to be different inside here.\"\n\n\"Different how?\" Reacher asked him.\n\n\"We have to take America back, piece by piece,\" Ray said. \"We have to build a place where the white man can live free, unmolested, in peace, with proper freedoms and proper laws.\"\n\n\"You think you can do that?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"It happened before,\" Ray said. \" It happened in 1776. People said enough is enough. They said we want a better country than this. Now we're saying it again. We're saying we want our country back. And we're going to get it back. Because now we're acting together. There were a dozen militias up here. They all wanted the same things. But they were all acting alone. Beau's mission was to put people together.\n\nNow we're unified and we're going to take our country back. We're starting here. We're starting now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher nodded. Glanced to his right and down at the dark stain where Loder's nose had bled onto the floor.\n\n\"Like this?\" he said. \"What about voting and democracy? All that kind of stuff? You should vote people out and vote new people in, right?\"\n\nRay smiled sadly and shook his head.\n\n\"We've been voting for two hundred and twenty years,\" he said. \" Gets worse all the time. Government's not interested in how we vote.\n\nThey've taken all the power away from us. Given our country away. You know where the government of this country really is?\"\n\nReacher shrugged.\n\n\"DC, right?\" he said.\n\n\"Wrong,\" Ray said. \" It's in New York. The United Nations building.\n\nEver asked yourself why the UN is so near Wall Street? Because that's the government. The United Nations and the banks. They run the world. America's just a small part of it. The president is just one voice on a damn committee. That's why voting is no damn good.\n\nYou think the United Nations and the world banks care what we vote?\"\n\n\"You sure about all this?\" Reacher asked.\n\nRay nodded, vigorously.\n\n\"Sure I'm sure,\" he said. \" I've seen it at work. Why do you think we send billions of dollars to the Russians when we got poverty herein America? You think that's the free choice of an American government?\n\nWe send it because the world government tells us to send it. You know we got camps here? Hundreds of camps allover the country? Most of them are for United Nations troops. Foreign troops, waiting to move in when we start any trouble. But forty-three of them are concentration camps. That's where they're going to put us when we start speaking out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You sure?\" Reacher said again.\n\n\"Sure I'm sure,\" Ray said again. \"Beau's got the documents. We've got the proof. There are things going on you wouldn't believe. You know it's a secret federal law that all babies born in the hospital get a microchip implanted just under their skin? When they take them away, they're not weighing them and cleaning them up. They're implanting a microchip. Pretty soon the whole population is going to be visible to secret satellites. You think the space shuttle gets used for science experiments? You think the world government would authorize expenditure for stuff like that? You got to be kidding. The space shuttle is thereto launch surveillance satellites.\"\n\n\"You're joking, right?\" Reacher said.\n\nRay shook his head.\n\n\"Noway,\" he said. \" Beau's got the documents. There's another secret law, guy in Detroit sent Beau the stuff. Every car builtin America since 1985 has a secret radio transmitter box in it, so the satellites can see where it's going. You buy a car, the radar screens in the UN Building know where you are, every minute of the day and night. They've got foreign forces training in America, right now, ready for the official takeover. You know why we-send so much money to Israel? Not because we care what happens to the Israelis. Why should we care? We send the money because that's where the UN is training the secret world army. It's like an experimental place. Why do you think the UN never stops the Israelis from invading people? Because the UN has told them what to do in the first place. Training them for the world takeover.\n\nThere are three thousand helicopters right now, at airbases round the US, all ready for them to use. Helicopters, painted flat black, no markings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You sure?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher said again. He was keeping his voice somewhere between worried and skeptical. \"I never heard about any of this stuff.\"\n\nThat proves it, right?\" Ray said.\n\n\"Why?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Obvious, right?\" Ray said. \"You think the world government is going to allow media access to that stuff? World government controls the media, right? They own it. So it's logical that whatever doesn't appear in the media is what is really happening, right? They tell you the safe stuff, and they keep the secrets away from you. It's all true, believe me. I told you, Beau's got the documents. Did you know every US highway sign has a secret mark on the back? You drive out and take a look. A secret sign, to direct the world troops around the country. They're getting ready to takeover. That's why we need a place of our own.\"\n\n\"You think they're going to attack you?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"No doubt about it,\" Ray said. \"They're going to come right after us.\"\n\n\"And you figure you can defend yourselves?\" Reacher said. \"A few guys in some little town in Montana?\"\n\nJoe Ray shook his head.\n\n\"Not a few guys,\" he said. There area hundred of us.\"\n\n\"A hundred guys?\" Reacher said. \"Against the world government?\"\n\nRay shook his head again.\n\n\"We can defend ourselves,\" he said. \"Beau's a smart leader. This territory is good. We're in a valley here. Sixty miles north to south, sixty miles east to west. Canadian border along the northern edge.\"\n\nHe swept his hand through the air, above eye level, left to right like a karate chop, to demonstrate the geography. Reacher nodded. He was familiar with the Canadian border. Ray used his other hand, up and down the left edge of his invisible map." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rapid River,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's our western border. It's a big river, completely wild. Noway to cross it.\"\n\nHe moved the Canadian border hand across and rubbed a small circle in the air, like he was cleaning a pane of glass.\n\n\"National forest,\" he said. \" You seen it? Fifty miles, east to west.\n\nThick virgin forest, noway through. You want an eastern border, that forest is as good as you're going to get.\"\n\n\"What about the south?\" Reacher asked.\n\nRay chopped his hand sideways at chest level.\n\n\"Ravine,\" he said. \" Natural-born tank trap. Believe me, I know tanks.\n\nNoway through, except one road and one track. Wooden bridge takes the track over the ravine.\"\n\nReacher nodded. He remembered the white truck pattering over a wooden structure.\n\nThat bridge gets blown,\"Ray said.\" Noway through.\"\n\n\"What about the road?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Same thing,\" Ray said. \"We blow the bridge and we're safe. Charges are set right now.\"\n\nReacher nodded slowly. He was thinking about air attack, artillery, missiles, smart bombs, infiltration of special forces, airborne troops, parachutes. He was thinking about navy SEALs bridging the river or Marines bridging the ravine. He was thinking about NATO units rumbling straight down from Canada.\n\n\"What about Holly?\" he asked. \"What do you want with her?\"\n\nRay smiled. His beard parted and his teeth shone out as bright as his eyes.\n\n\"Beau's secret weapon,\" he said. Think about it. The world government is going to use her old man to lead the attack. That's why they appointed him. You think the president appoints those guys? You got to be joking. Old man Johnson's a world government guy, just waiting for the secret command to move. But when he gets here, what's he going to find?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"He comes up from the south, right?\" Ray said. \"First building he sees is that old courthouse, southeast corner of town. You were just there. She's upon the second floor, right? You notice the new construction? Special room, double walls, twenty-two inches apart. The space is packed with dynamite and blasting caps from the old mine stores. The first stray shell will blow old man Johnson's little girl to kingdom come.\"\n\nReacher nodded again, slowly. Ray looked at him.\n\n\"We're not asking much,\" he said. \"Sixty miles by sixty miles, what is that? Thirty-six hundred square miles of territory.\"\n\n\"But why now?\" Reacher asked. \"What's the big hurry?\"\n\n\"What's the date?\" Ray asked back.\n\nReacher shrugged.\n\n\"July something?\" he said.\n\n\"July second,\" Ray said. Two days to go.\"\n\nTo what?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Independence Day,\" Ray said. \"July fourth.\"\n\n\"So?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"We're declaring independence,\" Ray said. \" Day after tomorrow. The birth of a brand-new nation. That's when they'll come for us, right?\n\nFreedom for the little guys? That's not in their plan.\"\n\nTWENTY-FOUR\n\nTHE BUREAU LEAR REFUELED AT FARGO IN AND FLEW STRAIGHT southwest to California. McGrath had argued again in favor of heading straight for Montana, but Webster had overruled him. One step at a time was Webster's patient way, so they were going to checkout the Beau Borken story in California and then they were going to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to meet with General Johnson. McGrath was about the only Bureau guy alive capable of shouting at Webster, and he had, but arguing is not the same thing as winning, so they were all in the air heading first for Mojave, McGrath and Webster and Brogan and Milosevic, all overtired, overanxious and morose in the hot noisy cabin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need all the background I can get,\" Webster said. They put me in personal charge and these are not the type of guys I can be vague with, right?\"\n\nMcGrath glared at him and thought: don't play your stupid Beltway games with Holly's life, Webster. But he said nothing. Just sat tight until the tiny plane started arrowing down toward the airfield on the edge of the desert.\n\nThey were on the ground just after two o'clock in the morning, West Coast time. The Mojave agent-in-charge met them on the deserted tarmac in his own car. Drove them south through the sleeping town.\n\nThe Borkens were a Kendall family,\"he said.\" Small town, fifty miles from here. Fanning place, mostly citrus. One-man police department.\n\nThe sheriff is waiting for us down there.\"\n\n\"He know anything?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe guy at the wheel shrugged.\n\n\"Maybe,\" he said. \"Small town, right?\"\n\nFifty miles through the desert night at eighty-five took them just thirty-six minutes. Kendall was a small knot of buildings adrift in a sea of groves. There was a gas station, a general store, a grower's operation and a low cement building with whip antennas spearing upward from the roof. A smart black-and-white was parked upon the apron outside. It was marked: Kendall County Sheriff. There was a single light in the office window behind the car.\n\nThe five agents stretched and yawned in the dry night air and trooped single file into the cement building. The Kendall County sheriff was a guy about sixty, solid, gray. He looked reliable. Webster waved him back into his seat and McGrath laid the four glossy mugshots on his desk in front of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know these guys?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked.\n\nThe sheriff slid the photographs nearer and looked at each of them in turn. He picked them up and shuffled them into anew order. Laid them back down on the desk like he was dealing a hand of giant playing cards. Then he nodded and reached down to his desk pedestal. Rolled open a drawer. Lifted out three buff files. He placed the files underneath three of the photographs. Laid a stubby finger on the first face.\n\n\"Peter Wayne Bell,\" he said. \" Mojave kid, but he was down here a lot.\n\nNot a very nice boy, as I believe you know.\"\n\nHe nodded across to his monitor screen on a computer cart at the end of the desk. A page from the National Crime Center Database was glowing green. It was the report from the North Dakota cops about the identity of the body they had found in a ditch. The identity, and the history.\n\nThe sheriff moved his wrist and laid a finger on the next photograph.\n\nIt was the gunman who had pushed Holly Johnson into the back of the Lexus.\n\n\"Steven Stewart,\" he said. \"Called Stevie, or Little Stevie. Farmboy, a couple of bushels short of a wagonload, know what I mean? Jumpy, jittery sort of a boy.\"\n\n\"What's in his file?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe sheriff shrugged.\n\n\"Nothing too serious,\" he said. The boy was just too plain dumb for his own good. Group of kids would go out and mess around, and guess who'd be the one still stood there when I roll up? Little Stevie, that's who. I locked him up a dozen times, I guess, but he never did much of what you would want to call serious shit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath nodded and pointed to the photograph of the gunman who had gotten into the front seat of the Lexus.\n\nThis guy?\" he asked.\n\nThe sheriff moved his finger and laid it on the guy's glossy throat.\n\nTony Loder,\"he said. This is a fairly bad guy. Smarter than Stevie, dumber than you or me. I'll give you the file. Maybe it won't keep you Bureau guys awake nights, but it sure won't help you sleep any better than you were going to anyhow.\"\n\n\"What about the big guy?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe sheriff jumped his finger along the row and shook his grizzled head.\n\n\"Never saw this guy before,\" he said. That's for damn sure. I'd remember him if I had.\"\n\n\"We think maybe he's a foreigner,\" Webster said. \" Maybe European.\n\nMaybe had an accent. That ring any bells with you?\"\n\nThe sheriff just kept on shaking his head.\n\n\"Never saw him before,\" he said again. \"I'd remember.\"\n\n\"OK,\" McGrath said. \"Bell, Little Stevie Stewart, Tony Loder and the mystery man. Where do these Borken guys fit in?\"\n\nThe sheriff shrugged.\n\n\"Old Dutch Borken never fit in nowhere,\" he said. That was his problem. He was in Nam, infantry grunt, moved out here when he got out of the service. Brought a pretty wife and a little fatten-year-old boy with him, started growing citrus, did pretty well fora long while.\n\nHe was a strange guy, a loner, never saw much of him. But he was happy enough, I guess. Then the wife took sick and died, and the boy started acting weird, the market took a couple of hits, profits were down, the growers all started getting into the banks for loans, interest went up, land went down, the ion collateral was disappearing, irrigation water got expensive, they all started going belly-up one after the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Borken took it bad and swallowed his shotgun.\"\n\nWebster nodded.\n\nThe little fatten-year-old was Beau Borken?\" he asked.\n\nThe sheriff nodded.\n\n\"Beau Borken,\" he said. \"Very strange boy. Very smart. But obsessed.\"\n\n\"With what?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Mexicans started coming up,\" the sheriff said. \"Cheap labor. Young Beau was dead set against it. He started hollering about keeping Kendall white. Joined the John Birch types.\"\n\n\"So he was a racist?\" McGrath said.\n\n\"At first,\" the sheriff said. Then he got into all that conspiracy stuff. Talking about the Jews running the government. Or the United Nations, or both, or some damn thing. The government was all communists, taking over the world, secret plans for everything. Big conspiracy against everybody, especially him. Banks controlled the government, or was it the government controlled the banks? So the banks were all communists and they were out to destroy America. He figured the exact reason the bank loaned his father the money was so it could default him later and give the farm to the Mexicans or the blacks or some damn thing. He was raving about it, all the time.\"\n\n\"So what happened?\" Webster said.\n\n\"Well, of course, the bank did end up defaulting him,\" the sheriff said. The guy wasn't paying the loan, was he? But they didn't give his land to the Mexicans. They sold it onto the same big corporation owns everything else around here, which is owned by the pension funds, which probably means it's owned by you and me, not communists or Mexicans or anybody else, right?\"\n\n\"But the boy blamed the conspiracy for his father's death?\" Brogan asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He sure did,\" the sheriff said. \"But the truth is it was Beau himself who did for the old man. I figure old Dutch could have faced just about anything, except his only boy had turned out to be a complete lunatic. A cruel, selfish, weird boy. That's why he swallowed the damn shotgun, if you want to know the truth.\"\n\n\"So where did Beau go?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"Montana,\" the sheriff said. That's what I heard. He was into all those right-wing groups, you know, the militias. Built himself up to leader. Said the white man was going to have to stand and fight.\"\n\n\"And those other guys went with him?\" Brogan asked.\n\nThe three of them for sure,\" the sheriff said. This big guy, I never saw before. But Little Stevie and Loder and Peter Bell, they were all in awe of Beau, like little robots. They all went up there together.\n\nThey had a little cash, and they stripped the Borken place of anything they could carry, and they headed north. Figured to buy some cheap land up there and defend themselves, you know, although against who I can't say, because the way I hear it there ain't nobody up there, and if there is they're all white people anyway.\"\n\n\"What's in his file?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe sheriff shook his head.\n\n\"Just about nothing,\" he said. \"Beau's way too smart to get caught doing anything bad.\"\n\n\"But?\" McGrath said. \"He's doing stuff without getting caught?\"\n\nThe sheriff nodded.\n\nThat armored car robbery?\"he said.\" North of the state somewhere? I heard about that. Didn't stick to him, did it? I told you, way too smart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything else we should know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster asked.\n\nThe sheriff thought fora while and nodded again.\n\nThere was a fifth guy,\"he said.\" Name of Odell Fowler. He'll turn up alongside of Beau, for sure. You can bet on that. Loder and Stevie and Bell get sent outdoing mischief, you can be damn sure Borken and Fowler are sitting therein the shadows pulling their strings.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\" Webster said again.\n\n\"Originally there was a sixth guy,\" the sheriff said. \"Guy named Packer. Six of them, all thick as thieves. But Packer took up with a Mexican girl. Couldn't help himself, I guess, just plain fell in love with her. Beau told him to stop seeing her. They fell out about it, a lot of tension going on. One day Packer's not around anymore, and Beau is all smiling and relaxed. We found Packer out in the scrub, nailed to a big wooden cross. Crucified. Dead fora couple of days.\"\n\n\"And you figure Borken did it?\" Brogan asked.\n\n\"Couldn't prove it,\" the sheriff replied. \"But I'm sure of it. And I'm sure he talked the others into helping him do it. He's a born leader. He can talk anybody into doing anything, I can promise you that.\"\n\nKendall back to Mojave was fifty miles by car. Mojave to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado was another eight hundred and thirty miles by Lear. Three hours of travel, door to door, which put them down at Peterson through the gorgeous mountain dawn. It was the kind of sight people pay money to see, but the four FBI men took no notice at all.\n\nThursday July third, the fourth day of the crisis, and no proper rest and no proper nutrition had left them ragged and focused on nothing except the job in hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Johnson himself was not available to meet them. He was elsewhere on the giant base, on duty glad-handing the returning night patrols. His aide saluted Webster, shook hands with the other three, and walked them allover to a crew room reserved for their use. There was a huge photograph on the table, black-and-white, crisply focused.\n\nSome kind of a landscape. It looked like the surface of the moon.\n\nThat's Anadyr, in Siberia,\"the aide said.\" Satellite photograph. Last week, there was a big airbase there. A nuclear bomber base. The runway was aimed straight at our missile silos in Utah. Arms reduction treaty required it to be blown up. The Russians complied last week.\"\n\nThe four agents bent for another look. There was no trace of any man-made structure in the picture. Just savage craters.\n\n\"Complied?\" McGrath said. \"Looks like they did an enthusiastic job of work.\"\n\n\"So?\" Webster said.\n\nThe aide pulled a map from the portfolio. Unfolded it and stepped around so that the agents could share his view. It was a slice of the world, eastern Asia and the western United States, with the mass of Alaska right in the center and the North Pole right at the top. The aide stretched his thumb and finger apart and spanned the distance from Siberia southeast down to Utah.\n\n\"Anadyr was here,\" he said. \"Utah is here. Naturally we knew all about the bomber base, and we had countermeasures in place, which included big missile bases in Alaska, here, and then a chain of four small surface-to-air facilities strung out north to south all the way underneath Anadyr's flightpath into Utah, which are here, here, here and here, straddling the line between Montana and the Idaho panhandle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The agents ignored the red dots in Idaho. But they looked closely at the locations in Montana.\n\n\"What sort of bases are these?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe aide shrugged.\n\n\"They were kind of temporary,\" he said. \" Thrown together in the sixties, just sort of survived ever since. Frankly, we didn't expect to have to use them. The Alaska missiles were more than adequate.\n\nNothing would have gotten past them. But you know how it was, right?\n\nCouldn't be too ready.\"\n\n\"What sort of weapons?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThere was a Patriot battery at each facility,\"the aide said.\" We pulled those out awhile back. Sold them to Israel. All that's left is Stingers, you know, shoulder-launch infantry systems.\"\n\nWebster looked at the guy.\n\n\"Stingers?\" he said. \"You were going to shoot Soviet bombers down with infantry systems?\"\n\nThe aide nodded. Looked definite about it.\n\n\"Why not?\" he said. \"Don't forget, those bases were basically window-dressing. Nothing was supposed to get past Alaska. But the Stingers would have worked. We supplied thousands of them to Afghanistan. They knocked down hundreds of Soviet planes. Mostly helicopters, I guess, but the principle is good. A heat-seeker is a heat-seeker, right? Makes no difference if it gets launched off a truck or off a GI's shoulder.\"\n\n\"So what happens now?\" Webster asked him.\n\n\"We're closing the bases down,\" the guy said. \"That's why the general is here, gentlemen. We're pulling the equipment and the personnel back hereto Peterson, and there's going to be some ceremonies, you know, end-of-an-era stuff.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are these bases?\" McGrath asked. \" The Montana ones?\n\nExactly?\"\n\nThe aide pulled the map closer and checked the references.\n\n\"Southernmost one is hidden on some farmland near Missoula,\" he said.\n\n\"Northern one is hidden in a valley, about forty miles south of Canada, near a little place called Yorke. Why? Is there a problem?\"\n\nMcGrath shrugged.\n\n\"We don't know yet,\" he said.\n\nThe aide showed them whereto get breakfast and left them to wait for the general. Johnson arrived after the eggs but before the toast, so they left the toast uneaten and walked back together to the crew room.\n\nJohnson looked a lot different from the glossy guy Webster had met with Monday evening. The early hour and three days' strain made him look twenty pounds thinner and twenty years older. His face was pale and his eyes were red. He looked like a man on the verge of defeat.\n\n\"So what do we know?\" he asked.\n\n\"We think we know most of it,\" Webster answered. \"Right now our operational assumption is your daughter's been kidnaped by a militia group from Montana. We know their location, more or less. Somewhere in the northwestern valleys.\"\n\nJohnson nodded slowly.\n\n\"Any communication?\" he asked.\n\nWebster shook his head.\n\n\"Not yet,\" he said.\n\n\"So what's the reason?\" Johnson asked. \"What do they want?\"\n\nWebster shook his head again.\n\n\"We don't know that yet,\" he said.\n\nJohnson nodded again, vaguely.\n\n\"Who are they?\" he asked.\n\nMcGrath opened the envelope he was carrying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got four names,\" he said. \"Three of the snatch squad, and there's pretty firm evidence about who the militia leader is. A guy named Beau Borken. That name mean anything to you?\"\n\n\"Borken?\" Johnson said. He shook his head. That name means nothing.\"\n\n\"OK,\" McGrath said. \"What about this guy? His name's Peter Bell.\"\n\nMcGrafti passed Johnson the computer print of Bell at the wheel in the Lexus. Johnson took along look at it and shook his head.\n\n\"He's dead,\" McGrath said. \"Didn't make it back to Montana.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Johnson said.\n\nMcGrath passed him another picture.\n\n\"Steven Stewart?\" he said.\n\nJohnson paid the print some attention, but ended up shaking his head.\n\n\"Never saw this guy before,\" he said.\n\nTony Loder?\" McGrath asked.\n\nJohnson stared at Loder's face and shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said.\n\nThose three and Borken are all from California,\"McGrath said. There maybe another guy called Odell Fowler. You heard that name?\"\n\nJohnson shook his head.\n\n\"And there's this guy,\" McGrath said. \"We don't know who he is.\"\n\nHe passed over the photograph of the big guy. Johnson glanced at it, then glanced away. But then his gaze drifted back.\n\n\"You know this one?\" McGrath asked him.\n\nJohnson shrugged.\n\n\"He's vaguely familiar,\" he said. \"Maybe somebody I once saw?\"\n\n\"Recently?\" McGrath asked.\n\nJohnson shook his head.\n\n\"Not recently,\" he said. \"Probably along time ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Military?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"Probably,\" Johnson said again. \"Most of the people I see are military.\"\n\nHis aide crowded his shoulder fora look.\n\n\"Means nothing tome,\" he said. \"But we should fax this to the Pentagon. If this guy is military maybe there'll be somebody somewhere who served with him.\"\n\nJohnson shook his head.\n\n\"Fax it to the military police,\" he said. This guy's a criminal, right? Chances are he was in trouble before, in the service. Somebody there will remember him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THEY CAME FOR HIM AN HOUR AFTER DAWN. HE WAS DOZING ON his hard chair, hands cuffed in his lap, Joseph Ray awake and alert opposite him. He had spent most of the night thinking about dynamite. Old dynamite, leftover from abandoned mining operations. He imagined hefting a stick in his hand. Feeling the weight. Figuring the volume of the cavity behind Holly's walls. Picturing it packed with old dynamite.\n\nOld dynamite, rotting, the nitroglycerin sweating out, going unstable.\n\nMaybe a ton of unstable old dynamite packed in all around her, still not so far gone it would explode with random movement, but gone bad enough it would explode under the impact of astray artillery shell. Ora stray bullet. Or even a sharp blow with a hammer.\n\nThen there was a rattle of feet on shale as a detachment of men halted outside the hut. The door was flung open and Reacher turned his head and saw six guards. The point man clattered inside and hauled him up by the arm. He was dragged outside into the bright morning sun to face five men, line abreast, automatic rifles at the slope. Camouflage fatigues, beards. He stood and squinted in the light. The rifle muzzles jerked him into rough formation and the six men marched him across the diameter of the clearing to a narrow path running away from the sun into the forest.\n\nFifty yards in there was another clearing. A rough scrubby rectangle, small in area. Two plywood and cedar structures. Neither had any windows. The guards halted him and the point man used his rifle barrel to indicate the left-hand building.\n\n\"Command hut,\" he said.\n\nThen he pointed to the right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Punishment hut,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We try to avoid that one.\"\n\nThe six men laughed with the secure confidence of an elite detachment and the point man knocked on the command hut door. Paused a beat and opened it. Reacher was shoved inside with a rifle muzzle in the small of his back.\n\nThe hut was blazing with light. Electric bulbs added to green daylight from mossy skylights set into the roof. There was a plain oak desk and matching chairs, big old round things like Reacher had seen in old movies about newspaper offices or country banks. There was no decor except flags and banners nailed to the walls. There was a huge red swastika behind the desk, and several similar black-and-white motifs on the other walls. There was a detailed map of Montana pinned to aboard on the back wall. A tiny portion of the northwest corner of the state was outlined in black. There were bundles of pamphlets and manuals stacked on the bare floor. One was titled: Dry It, You'll Like It. It claimed to show how food could be preserved to withstand a siege.\n\nAnother claimed to show how guerillas could derail passenger trains.\n\nThere was a polished mahogany bookcase, incongruously fine, packed with books. The bar of daylight from the door fell across them and illuminated their cloth spines and gold-blocked titles. They were standard histories of the art of war, translations from German and Japanese. There was a whole shelf with texts about Pearl Harbor. Texts that Reacher himself had studied, elsewhere and along time ago.\n\nHe stood still. Borken was behind the desk. His hair gleamed white in the light. The black uniform showed up gray. Borken was just staring silently at him. Then he waved him to a chair. Motioned the guards to wait outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reacher sat heavily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fatigue was gnawing at him and adrenalin was burning his stomach. The guards tramped across the floor and stepped outside. They closed the door quietly. Borken moved his arm and rolled open a drawer. Took out an ancient handgun. Laid it on the desktop with aloud clatter.\n\n\"I made my decision,\" he said. \"About whether you live or die.\"\n\nThen he pointed at the old revolver lying on the desk.\n\n\"You know what this is?\" he asked.\n\nReacher glanced at it through the glare and nodded.\n\n\"It's a Marshal Colt,\" he said.\n\nBorken nodded.\n\n\"You bet your ass it is,\" he said. \"It's an original 1873 Marshal Colt, just like the US cavalry were given. It's my personal weapon.\"\n\nHe picked it up, right-handed, and hefted it.\n\n\"You know what it fires?\" he said.\n\nReacher nodded again.\n\n\"Forty-fives,\" he said. \"Six shots.\"\n\n\"Right first time,\" Borken said. \"Six forty-fives, nine hundred feet per second out of a seven and a half inch barrel. You know what those bullets could do to you?\"\n\nReacher shrugged.\n\n\"Depends if they hit me or not,\" he said.\n\nBorken looked blank. Then he grinned. His wet mouth curled upward and his tight cheeks nearly forced his eyes shut.\n\nThey'd hit you,\"he said.\" If I'm firing, they'd hit you.\"\n\nReacher shrugged again.\n\n\"From there, maybe,\" he said.\n\n\"From anywhere,\" Borken said. \"From here, from fifty feet, from fifty yards, if I'm firing, they'd hit you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holdup your right hand,\" Reacher said.\n\nBorken looked blank again. Then he put the gun down and held up his huge white hand like he was waving to a vague acquaintance or taking an oath.\n\n\"Bullshit,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Bullshit?\" Borken repeated.\n\n\"For sure,\" Reacher said. That gun's reasonably accurate, but it's not the best weapon in the world. To hit a man at fifty yards with it, you'd need to practice like crazy. And you haven't been.\"\n\n\"I haven't?\" Borken said.\n\n\"No, you haven't,\" Reacher said. \" Look at the damn thing. It was designed in the 1870s, right? You seen old photographs? People were much smaller. Scrappy little guys, just immigrated from Europe, been starving for generations. Small people, small hands. Look at the stock on that thing. Tight curve, way too small for you. Yougrab that thing, your hand looks like a bunch of bananas around it. And that stock is hundred-and-twenty-year-old walnut. Hard as a rock. The back of the stock and the end of the frame below the hammer would be pounding you with the recoil. You used that gun a lot, you'd have a pad of callus between your thumb and forefinger I could see from here.\n\nBut you haven't, so don't tell me you've been practicing with it, and don't tell me you can be a marksman without practicing with it.\"\n\nBorken looked hard at him. Then he smiled again. His wet lips parted and his eyes closed into slits. He rolled open the opposite drawer and lifted out another handgun. It was a Sig-Sauer 9mm. Maybe five years old. Well used, but well maintained. A big boxy grip fora big hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I lied,\" he said. This is my personal weapon. And now I know something. I know my decision was the right one.\"\n\nHe paused so Reacher could ask him about his decision. Reacher stayed silent. Clamped his lips. He wasn't about to ask him about anything, not even if it would be the last sentence he would ever live to say.\n\n\"We're serious here, you know,\" Borken said to him. \" Totally serious.\n\nWe're not playing games. And we're correct about what's going on.\"\n\nHe paused again, so Reacher could ask him what was going on. Reacher said nothing. Just sat and stared into space.\n\n\"America has got a despotic government,\" Borken said. \"A dictatorship, controlled from abroad by our enemies. Our current president is a member of a world government which controls our lives in secret. His federal system is a smokescreen for total control. They're planning to disarm us and enslave us. It's started already. Let's be totally clear about that.\"\n\nHe paused. Picked up the old revolver again. Reacher saw him checking the fit of the stock in his hand. Felt the charisma radiating out of him. Felt compelled to listen to the soft, hypnotic voice.\n\nTwo main methods,\"Borken said. The first is the attempt to disarm the civilian population. The second amendment guarantees our right to bear arms, but they're going to abolish that. The gun laws, all this beefing about crime, homicides, drug wars, it's all aimed at disarming people like us. And when we're disarmed, they can do what they like with us, right? That's why it was in the Constitution in the first place. Those old guys were smart. They knew the only thing that could control a government was the people's willingness and ability to shoot them down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Borken paused again. Reacher stared up at the swastika behind his head.\n\n\"Second method is the squeeze on small business,\" Borken said. \"This is a personal theory of mine. You don't hear it much around the Movement. But I spotted it. It puts me way ahead of the others in my understanding.\"\n\nBorken waited, but Reacher still stayed silent. Looking away.\n\n\"It's obvious, right?\" Borken said to him. \"World government is basically a communistic type of government. They don't want a strong small-business sector. But that's what America had. Millions of people, all working hard for themselves and making a living. Too many just to murder out of hand, when the time comes. So the numbers have to be reduced in advance. So the federal government was instructed to squeeze the small businessman. They put on all kinds of regulations, all kinds of laws and taxes, they rig the markets, they bring the small guy to his knees, then they order the banks to come sniffing round with attractive loans, and as soon as the ink is dry on the loan papers they jack up the interest, and rig the market some more, until the poor guy defaults. Then they takeaway his business, and so that's one less for the gas ovens when the time comes.\"\n\nReacher glanced at him. Said nothing.\n\n\"Believe it,\" Borken said. \"It's like they're solving a corpse-disposal problem in advance. Get rid of the middle class now, they don't need so many concentration camps later.\"\n\nReacher was just staring at Borken's eyes. Like looking at a bright light. The fat red lips were smiling an indulgent smile.\n\n\"I told you, we're way ahead of the others,\" he said. \"We've seen it coming. What else is the Federal Reserve for? That's the key to this whole thing. America was basically a nation founded on business, right? Control business, you control everything. How do you control business? You control the banks. How do you control the banks? You setup a bullshit Federal Reserve system. You tell the banks what to do. That's the key. The world government controls everything, through the Fed. I've seen it happen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were open wide. Shining with no color.\n\n\"I saw them do it to my own father,\" he screamed. \"May his poor soul rest in peace. The Fed bankrupted him.\"\n\nReacher tore his gaze away. Shrugged at the corner of the room. Said nothing. He started trying to recall the sequence of titles in Borken's fine mahogany bookcase. Warfare from ancient China through Renaissance Italy through Pearl Harbor. He concentrated on naming the titles to himself, left to right, trying to resist the glare of Borken's attention.\n\n\"We're serious here,\" Borken was saying again. \"You may look at me and think I'm some kind of a despot, or a cult leader, or whatever the world would want to label me. But I'm not. I'm a good leader, I won't deny that. Even an inspired leader. Call me intelligent and perceptive, I won't argue with you. But I don't need to be. My people don't need any encouraging. They don't need much leading. They need guidance, and they need discipline, but don't let that fool you. I'm not coercing anybody. Don't make the mistake of underestimating their will. Don't ignore their desire fora change for the better.\"\n\nReacher was silent. He was still concentrating on the books, skimming in his mind through the events of December 1941, as seen from the Japanese point of view.\n\n\"We're not criminals here, you know,\" Borken was saying. \"When a government turns bad, it's the very best people who stand up against it. Or do you think we should all just act like sheep?\"\n\nReacher risked another glance at him. Risked speaking.\n\n\"You're pretty selective,\" he said. \"About who's here and who's not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Borken shrugged.\n\n\"Like unto like,\" he said. That's nature's way, isn't it? Black people have got the whole of Africa. White people have got this place.\"\n\n\"What about Jewish dentists?\" Reacher asked. \"What place have they got?\"\n\nBorken shrugged again.\n\nThat was an operational error,\"he said.\" Loder should have waited until he was clear. But mistakes happen.\"\n\n\"Should have waited until I was clear, too,\" Reacher said.\n\nBorken nodded.\n\n\"I agree with you,\" he said. \"It would have been better for you that way. But they didn't, and so here you are among us.\"\n\n\"Just because I'm white?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Don't knock it,\" Borken replied. \"White people got precious few rights left.\"\n\nReacher stared at him. Stared around the bright, hate-filled room.\n\nShuddered.\n\n\"I've made a study of tyranny,\" Borken said. \" And how to combat it.\n\nThe first rule is you make a firm decision, to live free or die, and you mean it. Live free or die. The second rule is you don't act like a sheep. You stand up and you resist them. You study their system and you learn to hate it. And then you act. But how do you act? The brave man fights back. He retaliates, right?\"\n\nReacher shrugged. Said nothing.\n\n\"The brave man retaliates,\" Borken repeated. \" But the man who is both brave and clever acts differently. He retaliates first. In advance.\n\nHe strikes the first blows. He gives them what they don't expect, when and where they don't expect it. That's what we're doing here. We're retaliating first. It's their war, but we're going to strike the first blows. We're going to give them what they don't expect. We're going to upset their plans.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher glanced back at the bookcase. Five thousand classic pages, all saying the same thing: don't do what they expect you to do.\n\n\"Go look at the map,\" Borken said.\n\nReacher thrust his cuffed hands forward and lifted himself awkwardly out of the chair. Walked over to the map of Montana on the wall. He found Yorke in the top left-hand corner. Well inside the small black outline. He checked the scale and looked at the contour shading and the colors. The river Joseph Ray had talked about lay thirty miles to the west, on the other side of high mountains. It was a thick blue slash running down the map. There were enormous brown heights shown to the north, all the way up to Canada. The only road ran north through Yorke and terminated at some abandoned mine workings. A few haphazard tracks ran through solid forest to the east. To the south, contour lines merged together to show a tremendous east-west ravine.\n\n\"Look at that terrain, Reacher,\" Borken said quietly. \"What does it' tell you?\"\n\nReacher looked at it. It told him he couldn't get out. Not on foot, not with Holly. There were weeks of rough walking east and north.\n\nNatural barriers west and south. The terrain made a better prison than wire fences or minefields could have. He had once been in Siberia, after glasnost, following upon ancient stories about Korean MIAs. The gulags had been completely open. No wire, no barriers. He had asked his hosts: but where are the fences? The Russians had pointed out over the miles of snow and said: there are the fences. Nowhere to run. He looked up at the map again. The terrain was the barrier. To get out was going to require a vehicle. And a lot of luck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They can't get in,\"Borken said.\" We're impregnable. We can't be stopped. And we mustn't be stopped. That would be a disaster of truly historic proportions. Suppose the Redcoats had stopped the American Revolution in 1776?\"\n\nReacher glanced around the tiny wooden room and shuddered.\n\nThis isn't the American Revolution,\" he said.\n\n\"Isn't it?\" Borken asked. \"How is it different? They wanted freedom from a tyrannical government. So do we.\"\n\n\"You're murderers,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"So were they in 1776,\" Borken said. They killed people. The established system called that murder, too.\"\n\n\"You're racists,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Same in 1776,\" Borken said. \" Jefferson and his slaves? They knew black people were inferior. Back then, they were exactly the same as we are now. But then they became the new redcoats. Slowly, over the years. It's fallen to us to get back to how it should have stayed.\n\nLive free or die, Reacher. It's a noble aim. Always has been, don't you think?\"\n\nHe was leaning forward with his great bulk pressing tight against the desk. His hands were in the air. His colorless eyes were shining.\n\n\"But there were mistakes made in 1776,\" he said. \" I've studied the history. War could have been avoided if both sides had acted sensibly.\n\nAnd war should always be avoided, don't you think?\"\n\nReacher shrugged.\n\n\"Not necessarily,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, you're going to help us avoid it,\" Borken said. That's my decision. You're going to be my emissary.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your what?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"You're independent,\" Borken said. \" Not one of us. No ax to grind. An American like them, an upstanding citizen, no felony icu convictions.\n\nA clever, perceptive man. You notice things. They'll listen to you.\"\n\n\"What?\" Readier said again.\n\n\"We're organized here,\" Borken said. \"We're ready for nationhood. You need to understand that. We have an army, we have a treasury, we have financial reserves, we have a legal system, we have democracy. I'm going to show all that to you today. I'm going to show you a society ready for independence, ready to live free or die, and just a day away from doing so. Then I'm going to send you south to America. You're going to tell them our position is strong and their position is hopeless.\"\n\nReacher just stared at him.\n\n\"And you can tell them about Holly,\" Borken said quietly. \"In her special little room. You can tell them about my secret weapon. My insurance policy.\"\n\n\"You're crazy,\" Reacher said.\n\nThe hut went silent. Quieter than silent.\n\n\"Why?\" Borken whispered. \"Why am I crazy? Exactly?\"\n\n\"You're not thinking straight,\" Reacher said. \"Don't you realize that Holly counts for nothing? The president will replace Johnson faster than you can blink an eye. They'll crush you like a bug and Holly will be just another casualty. You should send her back outwith me.\"\n\nBorken was shaking his bloated head, happily, confidently.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"That won't happen. There's more to Holly than who her father is. Hasn't she told you that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher stared at him and Borken checked his watch.\n\n\"Time to go,\" he said. \"Time for you to see our legal system at work.\"\n\nHolly heard the quiet footsteps outside her door and eased off the bed.\n\nThe lock clicked back and the young soldier with the scarred forehead stepped up into the room. He had his finger to his lips and Holly nodded. She limped to the bathroom and set the shower running noisily into the empty tub. The young soldier followed her in and closed the door.\n\n\"We can only do this once a day,\" Holly whispered. \"They'll get suspicious if they hear the shower too often.\"\n\nThe young guy nodded.\n\n\"We'll get out tonight,\" he said. \"Can't do it this morning. We're all on duty at Loder's trial. I'll come by just after dusk, with a jeep. We'll make a run for it in the dark. Head south. Risky, but we'll make it.\"\n\n\"Not without Readier,\" Holly said.\n\nThe young guy shook his head.\n\n\"Can't promise that,\" he said. \"He's in with Borken now. God knows what's going to happen to him.\"\n\n\"I go, he goes,\" Holly said.\n\nThe young guy looked at her, nervously.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"I'll try.\"\n\nHe opened the bathroom door and crept out. Holly watched him go and turned the shower off. Stared after him.\n\nHe looped north and west and took along route back through the woods, same way as he had come. The sentry Fowler had hidden in the trees fifteen feet off the main path never saw him. But the one he had hidden in the backwoods did. He caught a glimpse of a camouflage uniform hustling through the undergrowth. Spun around fast, but was too late to make the face. He shrugged and thought hard. Figured he'd keep it to himself. Better to ignore it than report he'd failed to make the actual ID." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So the young man with the scar hurried all the way and was back in his hut two minutes before he was due to escort his commander down to the tribunal hearing.\n\nIn the daylight, the courthouse on the southeast corner of the abandoned town of Yorke looked pretty much the same as a hundred others Reacher had seen allover rural America. Built early in the century.\n\nBig, white, pillared, ornate. Enough square solidity to communicate its serious purpose, but enough lightness in its details to make it a handsome structure. He saw a fine cupola floating off the top of the building, with a fine clock in it, probably paid for by a public subscription held long ago among along-forgotten generation. More or less the same as a hundred others, but the roof was steeper-pitched than some, and heavier built. He guessed it had to be that way in the north of Montana. That roof could be carrying a hundred tons of snow all winter long. But this was the third morning of July, and there was no snow on the roof. Reacher was warm after walking a mile in the pale northern sun. Borken had gone ahead separately and Reacher had been marched down through the forest by the same six elite guards. Still in handcuffs. They marched him straight up the front steps and inside.\n\nThe first-floor interior was one large space, interrupted by pillars holding up the second floor, paneled in broad smooth planks sawed from huge pines. The wood was dark from age and polish, and the panels were stern and simple in their design.\n\nEvery seat was taken. Every bench was full. The room was a sea of camouflage green. Men and women. Sitting rigidly upright, rifles exactly vertical between their knees. Waiting expectantly. Some children, silent and confused. Reacher was led in front of the crowd, over to a table in the well of the court. Fowler was waiting there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stevie next to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded to a chair. Reacher sat. The guards stood behind him. A minute later, the double doors opened and Beau Borken walked over to the judge's bench. The old floor creaked beneath his bulk. Every person in the room except Reacher stood up. Stood to attention and saluted, as if they were hearing an inaudible cue. Borken was still in his black uniform, with belt and boots. He had added a large holster to hold his Sig-Sauer. He held a slim leather-bound book. He came in with six armed men in a loose formation. They took up station in front of the bench and stood at rigid attention, gazing forward, looking blank.\n\nThe people sat down again. Reacher glanced up at the ceiling and quartered it with his eyes. Worked out which was the southeast corner.\n\nThe doors opened again and the crowd drew breath. Loder was pushed into the room. He was surrounded by six guards. They pushed him to the table opposite Fowler's. The accused's table. The guards stood behind him and forced him into the chair with their hands on both his shoulders. His face was white with fear and crusted with blood. His nose was broken and his lips were split. Borken stared across at him.\n\nSat down heavily in the judge's chair and placed his big hands, palms down, on the bench. Looked around the quiet room and spoke.\n\n\"We all know why we're here,\" he said.\n\nHolly could sense there was a big crowd in the room below her. She could feel the faint rumble of a body of people holding themselves still and quiet. But she didn't stop working. No reason to believe her Bureau contact would fail, but she was still going to spend the day preparing. Justin case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her search fora tool had led her to the one she had brought in with her. Her metal crutch. It was a one-inch aluminum tube, with an elbow clip and a handle. The tube was too wide and the metal was too soft to act as a pry-bar. But she realized that maybe if she pulled the rubber foot off, the open end of the tube could be molded into a makeshift wrench. She could maybe crush the tube around the shape of the bolts holding the bed together. Then she could bend the tube at aright angle, and maybe use the whole thing like a flimsy tire iron.\n\nBut first she had to scrape away the thick paint on the bolts. It was smooth and slick, and it welded the bolts to the frame. She used the edge of the elbow clip to flake the top layers. Then she scraped at the seams until she saw bright metal. Now her idea was to limp back and forth from the bathroom with a towel soaked in hot water. She would press the towel hard on the bolts and let the heat from the water expand the metal and crack its grip. Then the soft aluminum of the crutch might just prove strong enough to do the job.\n\n\"Reckless endangerment of the mission,\" Beau Borken said.\n\nHis voice was low and hypnotic. The room was quiet. The guards in front of the judge's bench stared forward. The guard at the end was staring at Reacher. He was the younger guy with the trimmed beard and the scar on his forehead Reacher had seen guarding Loder the previous night. He was staring at Reacher with curiosity.\n\nBorken held up the slim leather-bound volume and swung it slowly, left to right, like it was a searchlight and he wanted to bathe the whole of the room with its bright beam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Constitution of the United States,\"he said.\" Sadly abused, but the greatest political tract ever devised by man. The model for our own constitution.\"\n\nHe turned the pages of the book. The rustle of stiff paper was loud in the quiet room. He started reading.\n\nThe Bill of Rights,\"he said. The fifth amendment specifies no person shall beheld to answer fora capital crime without a grand jury indictment except in cases arising in the militia in times of public danger. It says no person shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. The sixth amendment specifies the accused shall have the right to a speedy public trial in front of a local jury. It says the accused has the right to assistance of counsel.\"\n\nBorken stopped again. Looked around the room. Held up the book.\n\nThis book tells us what to do,\"he said.\" So we need a jury. Doesn't say how many. I figure three men will do. Volunteers?\"\n\nThere was a flurry of hands. Borken pointed randomly here and there and three men walked across the pine floor. They stacked their rifles and filed into the jury box. Borken turned in his seat and spoke to them.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said. \"This is a militia matter and this is a time of public danger. Are we agreed on that?\"\n\nThe new jurymen all nodded and Borken turned and looked down from the bench toward Loder, alone at his table.\n\n\"You had counsel?\" he said.\n\n\"You offering me a lawyer now?\" Loder asked.\n\nHis voice was thick and nasal. Borken shook his head.\n\nThere are no lawyers here,\"he said.\" Lawyers are what went wrong with the rest of America. We're not going to have lawyers here. We don't want them. The Bill of Rights doesn't say anything about lawyers. It says counsel. Counsel means advice. That's what my dictionary says." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You had advice? You want any?\"\n\n\"You got any?\" Loder said.\n\nBorken nodded and smiled a cold smile.\n\n\"Plead guilty,\" he said.\n\nLoder just shook his head and dropped his eyes.\n\n\"OK,\" Borken said. \"You've had counsel, but you're pleading not guilty?\"\n\nLoder nodded. Borken looked down at his book again. Turned back to the beginning.\n\nThe Declaration of Independence,\"he said.\" It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish the old government and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.\"\n\nHe stopped and scanned the crowd.\n\n\"You all understand what that means?\" he said. The old laws are gone.\n\nNow we have new laws. New ways of doing things. We're putting right two hundred years of mistakes. We're going back to where we should have been all along. This is the first trial under a brand-new system. A better system. A system with afar stronger claim to legitimacy. We have the right to do it, and what we are doing is right.\"\n\nThere was a slight murmur from the crowd. Reacher detected no disapproval in the sound. They were all hypnotized. Basking in Borken's bright glow like reptiles in a hot noontime sun. Borken nodded to Fowler. Fowler stood up next to Reacher and turned to the jury box.\n\n\"The facts are these,\" Fowler said. The commander sent Loder out on a mission of great importance for all our futures. Loder performed badly. He was gone for just five days, but he made five serious mistakes. Mistakes which could have wrecked the whole venture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Specifically, he left a trail by burning two vehicles. Then he mistimed two operations and thereby snarled up two civilians. And finally he allowed Peter Bell to desert. Five serious mistakes.\"\n\nFowler stood there. Reacher stared at him, urgently.\n\n\"I'm calling a witness,\" Fowler said. \"Stevie Stewart.\"\n\nLittle Stevie stood up fast and Fowler nodded him across to the old witness box, alongside and below the judge's bench. Borken leaned down and handed him a black book. Reacher couldn't see what book it was, but it wasn't a Bible. Not unless they had started making Bibles with swastikas on the cover.\n\n\"You swear to tell the truth here?\" Borken asked.\n\nStevie nodded.\n\n\"I do, sir,\" he said.\n\nHe put the book down and turned to Fowler, ready for the first question.\n\n\"The five mistakes I mentioned?\" Fowler said. \"You see Loder make them?\"\n\nStevie nodded again.\n\n\"He made them,\" he said.\n\n\"He take responsibility for them?\" Fowler asked.\n\n\"Sure did,\" Stevie said. \"He played the big boss the whole time we were away.\"\n\nFowler nodded Stevie back to the table. The courtroom was silent.\n\nBorken smiled knowingly at the jurymen and glanced down at Loder.\n\n\"Anything to say in your defence?\" he asked quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "' \"\" \"\" IS NAME IS JACK REACHER,\" WEBSTER SAID.\n\nII'Good call, General,\" McGrath said. \" I guess they rem em-. 1.\n\nAbered him.\"\n\nJohnson nodded.\n\n\"Military police keeps good records,\" he said.\n\nThey were still in the commandeered crew room inside Peterson Air Force Base. Ten o'clock in the morning, Thursday July third. The fax machine was rolling out along reply to their inquiry. The face in the photograph had been identified immediately. The subject's service record had been pulled straight off the Pentagon computer and faxed along with the name.\n\n\"You recall this guy now?\" Brogan asked.\n\n\"Readier?\" Johnson repeated vaguely. \"I don't know. What did he do?\"\n\nWebster and the general's aide were crowding the machine, reading the report as the paper spooled out. They twisted it right side up and walked slowly away to keep it up off the floor.\n\n\"What did he do?\" McGrath asked them urgently.\n\n\"Nothing,\" Webster said.\n\n\"Nothing?\" McGrath repeated. \"Why would they have a record on him if he didn't do anything?\"\n\n\"He was one of them,\" Webster said. \"Major Jack Reacher, military police.\"\n\nThe aide was racing through the length of paper.\n\n\"Silver Star,\" he said. Two Bronzes, Purple Heart. This is a hell of a record, sir. This guy was a hero, for God's sake.\"\n\nMcGrath opened up his envelope and pulled out the original video pictures of the kidnap, black-and-white, un enlarged grainy. He selected the first picture of Reacher's involvement. The one catching him in the act of seizing Holly's crutch and pulling the dry-cleaning from her grasp. He slid the photograph across the table." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the story as the author's writing assistant.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 35" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were leaning into the truck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their voices were muffled by the thick canvas siding.\n\n\"Does he need the missile as well?\" Fowler asked.\n\n\"Just the launcher,\" Borken answered. \"It's in the electronic part.\"\n\nReadier lay among the scuffling rats and heard the sound of the clips being undone. Then the squeak of the rubber as a launcher came out of its mountings. Then the rattle of the tailgate bolts ramming home. The footsteps receded. The flashlight beams flicked back toward the doors.\n\nThe hinges creaked and the bulky timber doors thumped shut. Reacher heard the launcher being laid gently on the shale and the gasps as the two men lifted the old log back into the brackets. The rattle of the chain and the click of the padlocks. The crunch of the footsteps crossing the shale.\n\nHe rolled away from the corpses and hit out at a rat. Caught it with an angry backhand and sent it squealing off into the dark. He sat up and waited. Walked slowly to the door. Listened hard. Waited six minutes. Put his hands into the gap at the bottom of the doors and pulled them apart.\n\nThey wouldn't move more than an inch. He laid his palms flat on the smooth timbers and bunched up his shoulders and heaved. They were rock solid. Like trying to pushover a tree. He tried fora minute. He was straining like a weightlifter. The doors were jammed. Then he suddenly realized why. They had put the warped old log back in the brackets the other way around. The curve pointing in toward him, not out away from him. Clamping the doors with extra efficiency, instead of allowing the foot of loose movement it had allowed before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pictured the log as he had seen it. More than afoot thick, warped, but dried like iron. Curving away, it was no problem. Curving in, it would be immovable. He glanced at the army trucks. Gave it up. There was no space to hit the doors with any kind of momentum. The truck would be pressing on them with all the torque of a big diesel engine, but it wouldn't be enough. He couldn't imagine how much force it would take to shatter that old log.\n\nHe thought about using a missile. Gave it up. Too noisy and it wouldn't work anyway. They didn't arm themselves until they were thirty feet into the air. And they only carried six and a half pounds of explosive. Enough to smash a jet engine in flight, but six and a half pounds of explosive against those old timbers would be like scratching at them with a nail file He was trapped inside, and Holly was waiting.\n\nIt was not in his nature to panic. Never had been. He was a calm man, and his long training had made him calmer. He had been taught to assess and evaluate, and to use pure force of will to prevail. You're Jack Readier, he had been told. You can do anything. First his mother had told him, then his father, then the quiet deadly men in the training schools. And he had believed them.\n\nBut, at the same time, he hadn't believed them. Part of his mind always said: you've just been lucky. Always lucky. And, in the quiet times, he would sit and wait for his luck to run out. He sat on the stony ground with his back against the timbers of the door and asked himself: has it run out now?\n\nHe flicked the flashlight beam around the cavern. The rats were staying away from him. They were interested in the darkness in back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They're deserting me, he thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deserting the sinking ship. Then his mind clicked in again. No, they're interested in the tunnels, he thought. Because tunnels lead places. He remembered the giant mouse holes blasted into the rock face, north wall of the bowl. Maybe all interconnected by these narrow seams in back.\n\nHe ran back into the depth of the cavern, past the trucks, past the grotesque heap of corpses. Back to where he could no longer stand. A rat disappeared into the seam to his left. He dropped to his stomach and flicked the flashlight on. Crawled after it.\n\nHe crawled into a skeleton. He scrabbled with his feet and came face to face with a grinning skull. And another. There were four or five skeletons jammed into the excavated seam. Jumbled bones in a pile. He gasped in shock and backed off afoot. Looked carefully. Used the flashlight closeup.\n\nAll males. He could see that from the five pelvises. The skulls showed gunshot wounds. All in the temples. Neat entry wounds, neat exit holes. Jacketed high-velocity handgun bullets. Fairly recent, certainly within a year. The flesh hadn't decayed. It had been eaten off. He could seethe parallel scrape marks on the bones from rodent teeth.\n\nThe bones were all disturbed. The rats had hauled them away to eat.\n\nThere were scraps of clothing material here and there. Some of the ribcages were still covered. Rats don't disturb clothing much. Not on the torso. Why should they? They eat their way in through the inside.\n\nThe soft parts first. They come to the ribs from the back.\n\nThe clothing material was khaki and olive green. Some black and gray camouflage. Reacher saw a colored thread. Traced it back to a shoulder flash hidden under a gnawed shoulder blade. It was a curved felt badge embroidered in silk. It said: Northwestern Freemen. He pulled at the skeleton's jacket. The ribcage collapsed. The breast pocket had three chromium stars punched through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reacher made a thorough search, lying on his stomach, up to his armpits in bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pieced together five separate uniforms. He found two more badges. One said: White Christian Identity. The other said:\n\nMontana Constitutional Militia. He lined up the five splintered skulls. Checked the teeth. He was looking at five men, middle-aged, maybe between forty and fifty. Five leaders. The leaders who had disappeared. The leaders who could not stand the pace. The leaders who had abandoned their members to Beau Borken.\n\nThe roof was too low for Reacher to climb over the bones. He had to push them aside and crawl through them. The rats showed no interest.\n\nThese bones were picked clean. Their new feast lay back inside the cavern. They swarmed back in that direction. He held the flashlight out in front of him and pushed on into the mountain against the squealing tide.\n\nHe lost his sense of direction. He hoped he was going roughly west, but he couldn't tell. The roof came down to a couple of feet. He was crawling through an old geological seam, excavated long ago for its ore. The roof came down even more. Down to afoot and a half. It was cold. The seam narrowed. His arms were out in front of him. The seam became too narrow to pull them back. He was crawling down a slim rock tube, a billion tons of mountain above him, no idea where he was going.\n\nAnd the flashlight was failing. The battery was spent. Its light was fading to a dull orange glow.\n\nHe was breathing hard. And shaking. Not from exertion. From dread.\n\nFrom terror. This was not what he had expected. He had visualized a stroll down a spacious abandoned gallery. Not this narrow crack in the rock. He was pushing himself head-first into his worst childhood nightmare. He was a guy who had survived most things, and he was a guy who was rarely afraid. But he had known since his early boyhood that he was terrified of being trapped in the dark in a space too small to turn his giant frame. All his damp childhood nightmares had been about being closed into tight spaces. He lay on his stomach and screwed his eyes shut. Lay and panted and gagged. Forced the air in and out through his clamping throat. Then he inched himself slowly onward into the nightmare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The glow from the flashlight finally died a hundred yards into the tunnel. The darkness was total. The seam was narrowing. It was pushing his shoulders down. He was forcing himself into a space that was way too small for him. His face was forced sideways. He fought to stay calm. He remembered what he had said to Borken: people were smaller then. Scrappy little guys, migrating west, seeking their fortune in the bowels of the mountain. People half the size of Reacher, squirming along, maybe on their backs, chipping the bright veins out of the rock roof.\n\nHe was using the dead flashlight like a blind man uses a white cane. It smashed on solid rock two feet ahead of his face. He heard the tinkle of glass over the rasping of his breath. He struggled ahead and felt with his hands. A solid wall. The tunnel went no farther. He tried to move backward. He couldn't move at all. To push himself backward with his hands, he had to raise his chest to get leverage. But the roof was too low to let him do that. His shoulders were jammed up hard against it. He could get no leverage. His feet could push him forward, but they couldn't pull him backward. He went rigid with panic. His throat clamped solid. His head hit the roof and his cheek hit the grit floor. He fought a scream by breathing fast.\n\nHe had to go back. He hooked his toes into the grit. Turned his hands inward and planted his thumbs on the floor. Pulled with his toes and pushed with his thumbs. He moved backward a fraction and then the rock clamped hard against his sides. To slide his weight backward, his shoulder muscles were bunching and jamming against the rock. He breathed out and let his arms go limp. Pulled with his toes. They scrabbled uselessly in the grit. He helped them with his thumbs. His shoulders bunched and jammed again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He jerked his hips from side to side. He had a couple of inches spare.\n\nHe smashed his hands into the shale and heaved backward. His body jammed solid, like a wedge in a door. He tilted sideways and banged his cheek on the roof. Jerked back down and caught his other cheek on the floor. The rock was crushing in on his ribs. This time, he couldn't fight the scream. He had to let it go. He opened his mouth and wailed in terror. The air in his lungs crushed his chest against the floor and his back against the roof.\n\nHe couldn't tell if his eyes were open or shut. He pushed forward with his feet and regained the inch he'd moved back. He stretched with his arms. Felt up ahead again. His shoulders were jammed so tight he couldn't move his hands through much of an angle. He spread his fingers and scrabbled them left and right, up and down. Solid rock ahead. Noway to go forward. Noway to move backward.\n\nHe was going to die trapped inside the mountain. He knew it. The rats knew it. They were sniffing up behind him. Coming closer. He felt them at his feet. He kicked out and sent them squealing away. But they came back. He felt their weight on his legs. They were swarming over him. They burrowed up around his shoulders. Slid under his armpits. He felt cold oily fur on his face as they forced their way past. The flick of their tails as they ran ahead.\n\nTo where? He let them run over his arm, to estimate their direction.\n\nThey were moving ahead of him, into the blind darkness. He felt with his hands. Felt them flowing left. Their passage was stirring the air. The air was cool. He felt it move, a faint breeze, on the sweat on the left side of his face. He jammed himself hard against the right hand wall and moved his left arm sideways, ahead of him. Felt for the left hand wall. It wasn't there. He was stuck at a junction in the tunnels. Anew seam ran at aright angle away from the end of the seam he was in. A tight, narrow right angle. Ninety degrees. He forced himself backward as far as his thumbs would push him. He scraped his face on the end wall and jammed his side into the rock. Folded himself arms first around the corner and dragged his legs behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new seam was no better. It was no wider. The roof was no higher.\n\nHe hauled himself along, gasping and sweating and shaking. He propelled himself with his toes, an inch at a time. The rats forced their way past him. The rock tore at his sides and his back. But there was still a slight breeze on his face. The tunnel was heading somewhere. He was gasping and panting. He crawled on. Then the new seam widened. Still very low. A flat, low crack in the rock. He crawled on through it, exhausted. Fifty yards. A hundred. Then he felt the roof soar away above him. He pushed on with his toes and suddenly he felt the air change and he was lying halfway into the motor-pool cavern. He realized his eyes were wide open and the white Econoline was right therein front of him in the dark.\n\nHe rolled onto his back and lay gasping on the grit. Gasping and shaking. Staggered to his feet and looked back. The seam was invisible. Hidden in the shadow. He made it as far as the white truck and collapsed against its side. The luminous figures on his watch showed he'd been in the tunnels nearly three hours. Most of the time jammed there sweating in panic. A three-hour screaming nightmare come to life. His pants and his jacket were shredded. Every muscle in his body was on fire. His face and hands and elbows and knees were bleeding. But it was the fear that had done it to him. The fear of not getting through. He could still feel the rock pressing down on his back and pressing upon his chest. He could feel it clamping inward on his ribs. He got up again and limped to the doors. Pushed them open and stood in the moonlight, arms out, eyes crazy, mouth open, breathing in lungfuls of the sweet night air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was halfway across the bowl before he started thinking straight. So he ran back and ducked into the motor pool once more. Found what he wanted. He found it on one of the jeep's tow hook assemblies. Some heavy stiff wire, ready to feed a trailer's electric circuits. He wrenched it out and stripped the insulation with his teeth. Ran back to the moonlight.\n\nHe kept close to the road, all the way back to Yorke. Two miles, twenty minutes at a slow agonizing jog through the trees. He looped around behind the ruined northeastern block and approached the courthouse from the rear. Circled it silently in the shadows. Waited and listened.\n\nHe tried to think like Borken. Complacent. Happy with his perimeter.\n\nConstant information from inside the FBI. Reacher locked into the punishment hut, Holly locked into her prison room. Would he post a sentry? Not tonight. Not when he was expecting heavy action tomorrow and beyond. He would want his people fresh. Readier nodded and gambled he was right.\n\nHe arrived at the courthouse steps. Deserted. He tried the door.\n\nLocked. He smiled. Nobody posts a sentry behind a locked door. He bent the wire into a shallow hook and felt for the mechanism. An old two-lever. Eight seconds. He stepped inside. Waited and listened.\n\nNothing. He went up the stairs.\n\nThe lock on Holly's door was new. But cheap. He worked quietly which delayed him. Took him more than thirty seconds before the last tumbler clicked back. He pulled the door open slowly and stepped onto the built-up floor. Glanced apprehensively at the walls. She was on a mattress on the floor. Fully dressed and ready. Awake and watching him. Huge eyes bright in the gloom. He gestured her outside. Turned and climbed down and waited in the corridor for her. She picked up her crutch and limped to the door. Climbed carefully down the step and stood next to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello, Readier,\" she whispered. \"How are you doing?\"\n\n\"I've felt better,\" he whispered back. Time to time.\"\n\nShe turned and glanced back into her room. He followed her gaze and saw the dark stain on the floor.\n\n\"Woman who brought me lunch,\" she whispered.\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"What with?\" he whispered back.\n\nTart of the bed frame,\" she said.\n\nHe saw the satisfaction on her face and smiled.\n\nThat should do it,\"he said, quietly.\" Bed frames are good for that.\"\n\nShe took a last look at the room and gently closed the door. Followed him through the dark and slowly down the stairs. Across the lobby and through the double doors and out into the bright silent moonlight.\n\n\"Christ,\" she said, urgently. \"What happened to you?\"\n\nHe glanced down and checked himself over in the light of the moon. He was gray from head to foot with dust and grit. His clothing was shredded. He was streaked with sweat and blood. Still shaky.\n\n\"Long story,\" he said. \"You got somebody in Chicago you can trust?\"\n\n\"McGrath,\" she said immediately. \"He's my agent-in-charge. Why?\"\n\nThey crossed the wide street arm-in-arm, looking left and right.\n\nSkirted the mound in front of the ruined office building. Found the path running northwest.\n\n\"You need to send him a fax,\" he said. They've got missiles. You need to warn him. Tonight, because their line is going to be cut first thing in the morning.\"\n\nThe mole tell them that?\" she asked.\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"How?\" she asked. \"How is he communicating?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Short-wave radio,\" Reacher said. \"Has to be. Anything else is traceable.\"\n\nHe swayed and leaned on a tree. Gave her the spread, everything, beginning to end.\n\n\"Shit,\" she said. \"Ground-to-air missiles? Mass suicide? A nightmare.\"\n\n\"Not our nightmare,\" he said. \"We're out of here.\"\n\n\"We should stay and help them,\" she said. The families.\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"Best help is for us to get out,\" he said. \"Maybe losing you will change their plan. And we can tell them about the layout around here.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said.\n\n\"I do,\" he said. \" First rule is stick to priorities. That's you.\n\nWe're out of here.\"\n\nShe shrugged and nodded.\n\n\"Now?\" she asked.\n\n\"Right now,\" he said.\n\n\"How?\" she asked.\n\n\"Jeep through the forest,\" he said. \"I found their motor pool. We getup there, steal a jeep, by then it should be light enough to find our way through. I saw a map in Borken's office. There are plenty of tracks running east through the forest.\"\n\nShe nodded and he pushed off the tree. They hustled up the winding path to the Bastion. A mile, in the dark. They stumbled on the stones and saved their breath for walking. The clearing was dark and silent.\n\nThey worked their way around beyond the mess hall to the back of the communications hut. They came out one of the trees and Reacher stepped close and pressed his ear to the plywood siding. There was no sound inside.\n\nHe used the wire again and they were inside within ten seconds. Holly found paper and pen. Wrote her message. Dialed the Chicago fax number and fed the sheet into the machine. It whirred obediently and pulled the paper through. Fed it back out into her waiting hand. She hit the button for the confirmation. Didn't want to leave any trace behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another sheet fed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It showed the destination number correct. Timed the message at ten minutes to five, Friday morning, the fourth of July.\n\nShe shredded both papers small and buried the pieces in the bottom of a trashcan.\n\nReacher rooted around on the long counter and found a paperclip.\n\nFollowed Holly back out into the moonlight and relocked the door.\n\nDodged around and found the cable leading down from the short-wave whip into the side of the hut. Took the paperclip and worried at it until it broke. Forced the broken end through the cable like a pin. Pushed it through until it was even, a fraction showing at each side. The metal would short-circuit the antenna by connecting the wire inside to the foil screen. The signal would comedown out of the ether, down the wire, leak into the foil and runaway to ground without ever reaching the short-wave unit itself. The best way to disable a radio. Smash one up, it gets repaired. This way, the fault is untraceable, until an exhausted technician finally thinks to check.\n\n\"We need weapons,\" Holly whispered to him.\n\nHe nodded. They crept together to the armory door. He looked at the lock. Gave it up. It was a huge thing. Unpickable.\n\n\"I'll take the Glock from the guy guarding me,\" he whispered.\n\nShe nodded. They ducked back into the trees and walked through to the next clearing. Reacher tried to think of a story to explain his appearance to Joseph Ray. Figured he might say something about being beamed over to the UN. Talk about how high-speed beaming can rip you up a little. They crept around behind the punishment hut and listened.\n\nAll quiet. They skirted the corner and Reacher pulled the door. Walked straight into a nine-millimeter. This time, it wasn't a Glock. It was a Sig-Sauer. Not Joseph Ray's. It was Beau Borken's. He was standing just inside the door with Little Stevie at his side, grinning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FOUR-THIRTY IN THE MORNING, WEBSTER WAS MORE THAN READY for the watch change. Johnson and Garber and the general's aide were dozing in their chairs. McGrath was outside with the telephone linemen. They were just finishing up. The job had taken much longer than they had anticipated. Some kind of interface problem. They had physically cut the phone line coming out of Yorke, and bent the stiff copper down to a temporary terminal box they had placed at the base of a pole. Then they had spooled cable from the terminal box down the road to the mobile command vehicle. Connected it into one of the communications ports.\n\nBut it didn't work. Not right away. The linemen had fussed with multimeters and muttered about impedances and capacitances. They had worked for three solid hours. They were ready to blame the army truck for the incompatibility when they thought to go back and check their own temporary terminal box. The fault lay there. A failed component.\n\nThey wired in a spare and the whole circuit worked perfectly. Four thirty-five in the morning, McGrath was shaking their hands and swearing them to silence when Webster came out of the trailer. The two men stood and watched them drive away. The noise of their truck died around the curve. Webster and McGrath stayed standing in the bright moonlight. They stood therefor five minutes while McGrath smoked.\n\nThey didn't speak. Just gazed north into the distance and wondered.\n\n\"Go wake your boys up,\" Webster said. \"We'll stand down fora spell.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded and walked down to the accommodation trailers. Roused Milosevic and Brogan. They were fully dressed on their bunks. They got up and yawned. Came down the ladder and found Webster standing therewith Johnson and his aide. Garber standing behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The telephone line is done,\" Webster said.\n\n\"Already?\" Brogan said. \"I thought it was being done in the morning.\"\n\n\"We figured sooner was better than later,\" Webster said. He inclined his head toward General Johnson. It was a gesture which said: he's worried, right?\n\n\"OK,\" Milosevic said. \"We'll look after it.\"\n\n\"Wake us at eight,\" Webster said. \"Or earlier if necessary, OK?\"\n\nBrogan nodded and walked north to the command vehicle. Milosevic followed. They paused together fora look at the mountains in the moonlight. As they paused, the fax machine inside the empty command trailer started whirring. It fed its first communication face upward into the message tray. It was ten to five in the morning, Friday the fourth of July.\n\nBrogan woke General Johnson an hour and ten minutes later, six o'clock exactly. He knocked loudly on the accommodation trailer door and got no response, so he went in and shook the old guy by the shoulder.\n\nTeterson Air Force Base, sir,\"Brogan said. They need to talk to you.\"\n\nJohnson staggered up to the command vehicle in his shirt and pants.\n\nMilosevic joined Brogan outside in the pre-dawn glow to give him some privacy. Johnson was back out in five minutes.\n\n\"We need a conference,\" he called.\n\nHe ducked back into the trailer. Milosevic walked down and roused the others. They came forward, Webster and the general's aide yawning and stretching, Garber ramrod-straight. McGrath was dressed and smoking.\n\nMaybe hadn't tried to sleep at all. They filed up the ladder and took their places around the or n table, bleak red eyes, hair fuzzed on the back from the pillows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Teterson called, \"Johnson told them.\" They're sending a helicopter search-and-rescue out, first light, looking for the missile unit.\"\n\nHis aide nodded.\n\nThat would be standard procedure,\" he said.\n\n\"Based on an assumption,\" Johnson said. \"They think the unit has suffered some kind of mechanical and electrical malfunction.\"\n\n\"Which is not uncommon,\" his aide said. \"If their radio fails, their procedure would be to repair it. If a truck also broke down at the same time, their procedure would be to wait as a group for assistance.\"\n\n\"Circle the wagons?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe aide nodded again.\n\n\"Exactly so,\" he said. They would pull off the road and wait fora chopper.\"\n\n\"So do we tell them?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe aide sat forward.\n\nThat's the question,\"he said. Tell them what exactly? We don't even know for sure that these maniacs have got them at all. It's still possible it's just a radio problem and a truck problem together.\"\n\n\"Dream on,\" Johnson said.\n\nWebster shrugged. He knew how to deal with such issues.\n\n\"What's the upside?\" he said.\n\nThere is no upside,\"Johnson said.\" We tell Peterson the missiles have been captured, the cat's out of the bag, we lose control of the situation, we're seen to have disobeyed Washington by making an issue out of it before Monday.\"\n\n\"OK, so what's the downside?\" Webster asked.\n\nTheoretical,\"Johnson said.\" We have to assurrje they've been captured, so we also have to assume they've been well hidden. In which case the air force will never find them. They'll just fly around fora while and then go home and wait.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster nodded.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"No upside, no downside, no problem.\"\n\nThere was a short silence.\n\n\"So we sit tight,\" Johnson said. \"We let the chopper fly.\"\n\nMcGrath shook his head. Incredulous.\n\n\"Suppose they use them to shoot the chopper down?\" he asked.\n\nThe general's aide smiled an indulgent smile.\n\n\"Can't be done,\" he said. The IFF wouldn't allow it.\"\n\n\"IFF?\" McGrath repeated.\n\n\"Identify Friend or Foe,\" the aide said. \" It's an electronic system.\n\nThe chopper will be beaming a signal. The missile reads it as friendly, refuses to launch.\"\n\n\"Guaranteed?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe aide nodded.\n\n\"Foolproof,\" he said.\n\nGarber glowered at him. But he said nothing. Not his field of expertise.\n\n\"OK,\" Webster said. \"Back to bed. Wake us again at eight, Brogan.\"\n\nOn the tarmac at Peterson, a Boeing CH-47D Chinook was warming its engines and sipping the first of its eight hundred fifty-eight gallons of fuel. A Chinook is a giant aircraft, whose twin rotors thump through an oval of air a hundred feet long and sixty wide. It weighs more than ten tons empty, and it can lift another eleven. It's a giant flying box, the engines and the fuel tanks strapped to the top and the sides, the crew perched high at the front. Any helicopter can search, but when heavy equipment is at stake, only a Chinook can rescue.\n\nBecause of the holiday weekend, the Peterson dispatcher assigned a skeleton crew of two. No separate spotter. He figured he didn't need one. How difficult could it be to find five army trucks on some shoulder in Montana?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should have stayed here,\" Borken said. \"Right, Joe?\"\n\nReacher glanced into the gloom inside the punishment hut. Joseph Ray was standing to attention on the yellow square. He was staring straight ahead. He was naked. Bleeding from the mouth and nose.\n\n\"Right, Joe?\" Borken said again.\n\nRay made no reply. Borken walked over and crashed his fist into his face. Ray stumbled and fell backward. Staggered against the back wall and scrambled to regain his position on the square.\n\n\"I asked you a question,\" Borken said.\n\nRay nodded. The blood poured off his chin.\n\n\"Readier should have stayed here,\" he said.\n\nBorken hit him again. A hard straight right to the face. Ray's head snapped back. Blood spurted. Borken smiled.\n\n\"No talking when you're on the square, Joe,\" he said. \"You know the rules.\"\n\nBorken stepped back and placed the muzzle of the Sig-Sauer in Reacher's ear. Used it to propel him out into the clearing. Gestured Stevie to follow.\n\n\"You stay on the square, Joe,\" he called over his shoulder.\n\nStevie slammed the door shut. Borken reversed his direction and used the Sig-Sauer to shove Readier toward him.\n\nTell Fowler to get rid of this guy,\"he told him.\" He's outlived his usefulness, such as it ever was. Put the bitch back in her room. Put a ring of sentries right around the building. We got things to do, right? No time for this shit. Parade ground at six-thirty. Everybody there. I'm going to read them the proclamation, before we fax it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath couldn't sleep. He walked back to the accommodations trailer with the others and got back on his bunk, but he gave it up after ten minutes. Quarter to seven in the morning, he was back in the command vehicle with Brogan and Milosevic.\n\n\"You guys take a break if you want,\" he said. \"I'll look after things here.\"\n\n\"We could go organize some breakfast,\" Brogan said. \"Diners in Kalispell should be open by now.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded vaguely. Started into his jacket for his wallet. \"Don't worry about it,\" Brogan said. \"I'll pay. My treat.\" \"OK, thanks,\"\n\nMcGrath said. \"Get coffee. Lots of it.\" Brogan and Milosevic stood up and left. McGrath stood in the doorway and watched them drive an army sedan south. The sound of the car faded and he was left with the silent humming of the equipment behind him. He turned to sit down.\n\nThe clock ticked around to seven. The fax machine started whirring.\n\nHolly smoothed her hands over the old mattress like Reacher was thereon it. Like it was really his body under her, scarred and battered, hot and hard and muscular, not a worn striped cotton cover stuffed with ancient horsehair. She blinked the tears out of her eyes. Blew a deep sigh and focused on the next decision. No Readier, no Jackson, no weapon, no tools, six sentries in the street outside. She glanced around the room for the thousandth time and started scoping it out allover again.\n\nMcGrath woke the others by thumping on the sides of the accommodations trailer with both fists. Then he ran back to the command post and found a third copy of the message spooling out of the machine. He already had two. Now he had three." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster was the first into the trailer. Then Johnson, a minute behind.\n\nThen Garber, and finally the general's aide. They rattled up the ladder one by one and hurried over to the table. McGrath was absorbed in reading.\n\n\"What, Mack?\" Webster asked him.\n\nThey're declaring independence,\"McGrath said.\" Listen to this.\"\n\nHe glanced around the four faces. Started reading out loud.\n\n\"\"Governments are instituted among men.\" he read\" \"Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. It is the right of the people to alter or abolish them after along train of abuses and usurpations.\"\n\nThey're quoting from the original,\" Webster said.\n\n\"Paraphrasing,\" Garber said.\n\nMcGrath nodded.\n\n\"Listen to this,\" he said again. \"The history of the present government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all designed to establish an absolute tyranny over the people.\"\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" Webster said. 1776 allover again?\"\n\n\"It gets worse,\" McGrath said.\"\" We therefore are the representatives of the Free States of America, located initially in what was formerly Yorke County in what was formerly Montana, and we solemnly publish and declare that this territory is now a free and independent state, which is absolved of allegiance to the United States, with all political connection totally dissolved, and that as a free and independent state has full power to levy war, conclude peace, defend its land borders and its airspace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other things as all independent states may do.\"\n\nHe looked up. Shuffled the three copies into a neat stack and laid them on the table in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why three copies?\" Garber asked.\n\nThree destinations,\"McGrath said.\" If we hadn't intercepted them, they'd be allover the place by now.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"First one is a DC number,\" McGrath said. \"I'm guessing it's the White House.\"\n\nJohnson's aide scooted his chair to the computer terminal. McGrath read him the number. He tapped it in, and the screen scrolled down. He nodded.\n\n\"The White House,\" he said. \"Next?\"\n\n\"New York somewhere,\" McGrath said. Readout the number from the second sheet.\n\n\"United Nations,\" the aide said. \"They want witnesses.\"\n\nThird one, I don't know,\"McGrath said.\" Area code is 404.\"\n\n\"Atlanta, Georgia,\" Garber said.\n\n\"What's in Atlanta, Georgia?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe aide was busy at the keyboard.\n\n\"CNN,\" he said. They want publicity.\"\n\nJohnson nodded.\n\n\"Smart moves,\" he said. They want it all on live TV. Christ, can you imagine? The United Nations as umpires and round-the-clock coverage on the cable news? The whole world watching?\"\n\n\"So what do we do?\" Webster asked.\n\nThere was along silence.\n\n\"Why did they say airspace?\" Garber asked out loud.\n\nThey were paraphrasing,\"Webster said. 1776, there wasn't any airspace.\"\n\nThe missiles,\"Garber said.\" Is it possible they've disabled the IFF?\"\n\nThere was another long silence. They heard a car pull up. Doors slammed. Brogan and Milosevic rattled up the ladder and stepped into the hush. They carried brown bags and Styrofoam cups with plastic lids." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The giant search-and-rescue Chinook made it north from Peterson in Colorado to Malmstrom Air Force Base outside of Great Falls in Montana without incident. It touched down there and fuel bowsers came out to meet it. The crew walked to the mess for coffee. Walked back twenty minutes later. Took off again and swung gently in the morning air before lumbering away northwest.\n\nTHIRTY-EIGHT\n\nWE'RE GETTING NO REACTION,\"FOWLER SAID.\" MAKES US wonder why.\"\n\nReacher shrugged at him. They were in the command hut. Stevie had dragged him through the trees to the Bastion, and then Fowler had dragged him back again with two armed guards. The punishment hut was unavailable. Still occupied by Joseph Ray. They used the command hut instead. They sat Reacher down and Fowler locked his left wrist to the arm of the chair with a handcuff. The guards took up position on either side, rifles sloped, watchful. Then Fowler walked up to join Borken and Stevie for the ceremony on the parade ground. Reacher heard faint shouting and cheering in the distance as the proclamation was readout. Then he heard nothing. Ninety minutes later, Fowler came back to the hut alone. He sat down behind Borken's desk and lit a cigarette, and the armed guards remained standing.\n\n\"We faxed it an hour ago,\" Fowler said. \"No reaction.\"\n\nReacher smelled his smoke and gazed at the banners on the walls. Dark reds and dull whites, vivid crooked symbols in black.\n\n\"Do you know why we're getting no reaction?\" Fowler asked.\n\nReacher just shook his head.\n\n\"You know what I think?\" Fowler said'They cut the line. Phone company is colluding with the federal agents. We were told it would happen at seven-thirty. It obviously happened earlier.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reacher shrugged again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Made no reply.\n\n\"We would expect to be informed about a thing like that,\" Fowler said.\n\nHe picked up his Clock and propped it in front of him, button the desktop, swiveling it like naval artillery left and right.\n\n\"And we haven't been,\" he said.\n\n\"Maybe your pal from Chicago has given you up,\" Reacher said.\n\nFowler shook his head. His Clock came to rest aimed at Reacher's chest.\n\n\"We've been getting a stream of intelligence,\" he said. \" We know where they are, how many of them there are, what their intentions are. But now, when we still need information, we aren't getting it.\n\nCommunication has been interrupted.\"\n\nReacher said nothing.\n\n\"We're investigating,\" Fowler said. \"We're checking the radio right now.\"\n\nReacher said nothing.\n\n\"Anything you want to tell us about the radio?\" Fowler asked.\n\n\"What radio?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"It worked OK yesterday,\" Fowler said. \"Now it doesn't work at all, and you were wandering around all night.\"\n\nHe ducked down and rolled open the drawer where Borken kept the Colt Marshal. But he didn't come outwith a revolver. He came outwith a small black radio transmitter.\n\n\"This was Jackson's,\" he said. \"He was most anxious to show us where it was hidden. In fact he was begging to show us. He screamed and cried and begged. Just about tore his fingernails off digging it up, he was so anxious.\"\n\nHe smiled and put the unit carefully in his pocket.\n\n\"We figure we just switch it on,\" he said. That should put us straight through to the federal scum, person-to-person. This stage of the process, we need to talk direct. See if we can persuade them to restore our fax line.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Terrific plan,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"The fax line is important, you see,\" Fowler said. \"Vital. The world must be allowed to know what we're doing here. The world must be allowed to watch and witness. History is being made here. You understand that, right?\"\n\nReadier stared at the wall.\n\n\"They've got cameras, you know,\" Fowler said. \"Surveillance planes are up there right now. Now it's daylight again, they can see what we're doing. So how can we exploit that fact?\"\n\nReacher shook his head.\n\n\"You can leave me out of it,\" he said.\n\nFowler smiled.\n\n\"Of course we'll leave you out of it,\" he said. \"Why would they care about seeing you nailed to a tree? You're nothing but apiece of shit, to us and to them. But Holly Johnson, there's a different story. Maybe we'll call them upon their own little transmitter and tell them to watch us do it with their own spy cameras. That might make them think about it. They might trade a fax line for her left breast.\"\n\nHe ground out his cigarette. Leaned forward. Spoke quietly.\n\n\"We're serious here, Reacher,\" he said. \" You saw what we did to Jackson. We could do that to her. We could do that to you. We need to be able to communicate with the world. We need that fax line. So we need the short-wave to confirm what the hell they've done with it.\n\nWe need those things very badly. You understand that, right? So if you want to avoid a lot of unnecessary pain, for you and for her, you better tell me what you did to the radio.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher was twisted around, looking at the bookcase. Trying to recall the details of the inexpert translations of the Japanese Pearl Harbor texts he'd read.\n\nTell me now,\"Fowler said softly.\" I can keep them away from you and from her. No pain for either of you. Otherwise, nothing I can do about it.\"\n\nHe laid his Clock on the desk.\n\n\"You want a cigarette?\" he asked.\n\nHe held out the pack. Smiled. The good cop. The friend. The ally.\n\nThe protector. The oldest routine in the book. Requiring the oldest response. Reacher glanced around. Two guards, one on each side of him, the right-hand guard nearer, the left-hand guard back almost against the sidewall. Rifles held easy in the crook of their arms.\n\nFowler behind the desk, holding out the pack. Reacher shrugged and nodded. Took a cigarette with his free right hand. He hadn't smoked in ten years, but when somebody offers you a lethal weapon you take it.\n\n\"So tell me,\" Fowler said. \"And be quick.\"\n\nHe thumbed his lighter and held it out. Reacher bent forward and lit his cigarette from the flame. Took a deep draw and leaned back. The smoke felt good. Ten years, and he still enjoyed it. He inhaled deeply and took another lungful.\n\n\"How did you disable our radio?\" Fowler asked.\n\nReacher took a third pull. Trickled the smoke out of his nose and held the cigarette like a sentry does, between the thumb and forefinger, palm hooded around it. Take quick deep pulls, and the coal on the end of a cigarette heats up to a couple of thousand degrees. Lengthens to a point. He rotated his palm, like he was studying the glowing tip while he thought about something, until the cigarette was pointing straightforward like an arrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How did you disable our radio?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fowler asked again.\n\n\"You'll hurt Holly if I don't tell you?\" Reacher asked back.\n\nFowler nodded. Smiled his lipless smile.\n\nThat's a promise,\"he said.\" I'll hurt her so bad she'll be begging to die.\"\n\nReacher shrugged unhappily. Sketched a listen-up gesture. Fowler nodded and shuffled on his chair and leaned close. Reacher snapped forward and jammed the cigarette into his eye. Fowler screamed and Reacher was on his feet, the chair cuffed to his wrist clattering after him. He windmilled right and the chair swung through a wide arc and smashed against the nearer guard's head. It splintered and jerked away as Reacher danced to his left. He caught the farther guard with a forearm smash to the throat as his rifle came up. Snapped back and hit Fowler with the wreckage of the chair. Used the follow-through momentum to swing back to the first guard. Finished him with an elbow to the head. The guy went down. Reacher grabbed his rifle by the barrel and swung straight back at the other guard. Felt skull bones explode under the butt. He dropped the rifle and spun and smashed the chair to pieces against Fowler's shoulders. Grabbed him by the ears and smashed his face into the desktop, once, twice, three times. Took a leg from the broken chair and jammed it crossways under his throat.\n\nFolded his elbows around each exposed end and locked his hands together. Tested his grip and bunched his shoulders. Jerked hard, once, and broke Fowler's neck against the chair leg with a single loud crunch.\n\nHe took both rifles and the Clock and the handcuff key. Out of the door and around to the back of the hut. Straight into the trees. He put the Clock in his pocket. Took the handcuff off his wrist. Put a rifle in each hand. Breathing hard. He was in pain. Swinging the heavy wooden chair had opened the red weal on his wrist into a wound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised it to his mouth and sucked at it and buttoned the cuff of his shirt over it.\n\nThen he heard a helicopter. The faint bass thumping of a heavy twin-rotor machine, a Boeing, a Sea Knight or a Chinook, far to the southeast. He thought: last night Borken talked about eight Marines.\n\nThey've only got eight Marines, he said. The Marines use Sea Knights.\n\nHe thought: they're going fora frontal assault. Holly's paneled walls flashed into his mind and he set off racing through the trees.\n\nHe got as far as the Bastion. The thumping from the air built louder.\n\nHe risked stepping out onto the stony path. It was a Chinook. Not a Sea Knight. Search-and-rescue markings, not Marine Corps. It was following the road up from the southeast, a mile away, a hundred feet up, using its vicious downdraft to part the surrounding foliage and aid its search. It looked slow and ponderous, hanging nose-down in the air, yawing slightly from side to side as it approached. Reacher guessed it must be pretty close to the town of Yorke itself.\n\nThen he glanced into the clearing and saw a guy, fifty yards away. A grunt, camouflage fatigues. A Stinger on his shoulder. Turning and aiming through the crude open sight. He saw him acquire the target.\n\nThe guy steadied himself and stood with his feet apart. His hand fumbled for the activator. The missile's infrared sensor turned on.\n\nReacher waited for the IFF to shut it down. It didn't happen. The missile started squealing its high-pitched tone. It was locked on the heat from the Chinook's engines. The guy's finger tightened on the trigger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher dropped the rifle in his left hand. Swung the other one up and clicked the safety off with his thumb as he did so. Stepped to his left and leaned his shoulder on a tree. Aimed at the guy's head and fired.\n\nBut the guy fired first. A fraction of a second before Reacher's bullet killed him, he pulled the Stinger's trigger. Two things happened. The Stinger's rocket motor lit up. It exploded along its launch tube. Then the guy was hit in the head. The impact knocked him sideways. The launcher caught the rear of the missile and flipped it.\n\nIt came out and stalled tail-down in the air like a javelin, cushioned on the thrust of its launch, virtually motionless.\n\nThen it corrected itself. Reacher watched in horror as it did exactly what it was designed to do. Its eight little wings popped out. It hung almost vertical until it acquired the helicopter again. Then its second-stage rocket lit up and it blasted into the sky. Before the guy's body hit the ground it was homing in on the Chinook at a thousand miles an hour.\n\nThe Chinook was lumbering steadily northwest. A mile away. Following the road. The road ran straight up through the town. Between the abandoned buildings. On the southeast corner the first building it passed was the courthouse. The Chinook was closing on it at eighty miles an hour. The Stinger was heading into meet it at a thousand miles an hour.\n\nOne mile at a thousand miles an hour. One thousandth of an hour. A fraction over three and a half seconds. It felt like a lifetime to Reacher. He watched the missile all the way. A wonderful, brutal weapon. A simple, unshakable purpose. Designed to recognize the exact heat-signature of aircraft exhaust, designed to follow it until it either got there or ran out of fuel. A simple three-and-a-half-second mission." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chinook pilot saw it early. He wasted the first second of its flight, frozen. Not in horror, not in fear, just in simple disbelief that a heat-seeking missile had been fired at him from a small wooded clearing in Montana. Then his instinct and training took over. Evade and avoid. Evade the missile, avoid crashing on settlements below.\n\nReacher saw him throw the nose down and the tail up. The big Chinook wheeled away and spewed a wide fan of exhaust into the atmosphere. Then the tail flipped the other way, engines screaming, superheated fumes spraying another random arc. The missile patiently followed the first curve. Tightened its radius. The Chinook dropped slowly and then rose violently in the air. Spiraled upward and away from the town. The missile turned and followed the second arc. Arrived at where the heat had been a split-second before. Couldn't find it. It turned a full lazy circle right underneath the helicopter. Caught an echo of the new maneuver and set about climbing a relentless new spiral.\n\nThe pilot won an extra second, but that was all. The Stinger caught him right at the top of his desperate climb. It followed the trail of heat all the way into the starboard engine itself. Exploded hard against the exhaust nacelle.\n\nSix and a half pounds of high explosive against ten tons of aircraft, but the explosive always wins. Reacher saw the starboard engine disintegrate, then the rear rotor housing blow off. Shattered fragments of the drivetrain exploded outward like shrapnel and the rotor detached and spun away in terrible slow motion. The Chinook stalled in the air and fell, tail-down, checked only by the screaming forward rotor, and slowly spun to the earth, like a holed ship slips slowly below the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holly heard the helicopter. She heard the low-frequency beat pulsing faintly through her walls. She heard it grow louder. Then she heard the explosion and the shriek of the forward rotor grabbing the air.\n\nThen she heard nothing.\n\nShe jammed her elbow into her crutch and limped across to the diagonal partition. The prison room was completely empty except for the mattress. So her search was going to have to start again in the bathroom.\n\n\"Only one question,\" Webster said. \"How long can we keep the lid on this?\"\n\nGeneral Johnson said nothing in reply. Neither did his aide. Webster moved his gaze across to Garber. Garber was looking grim.\n\n\"Not too damn long,\" he said.\n\n\"But how long?\" Webster asked. \"A day? An hour?\"\n\n\"Six hours,\" Garber said.\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Standard procedure,\" Garber said. They'll investigate the crash, obviously. Normally they'd send another chopper out. But not if there's a suspicion of ground fire. So they'll come byroad from Malmstrom. Six hours.\"\n\nWebster nodded. Turned to Johnson.\n\n\"Can you delay them, General?\" he asked.\n\nJohnson shook his head.\n\n\"Not really,\" he said. His voice was low and resigned. \"They just lost a Chinook. Crew of two. I can't call them and say, dome a favor, don't investigate that. I could try, I guess, and they might agree at first, but it would leak, and then we'd be back where we started. Might gain us an hour.\"\n\nWebster nodded.\n\n\"Seven hours, six hours, what's the difference?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody replied.\n\n\"We've got to move now,\" McGrath said. \"Forget the White House. We can't wait any longer. We need to do something right now, people. Six hours from now, the whole situation blows right out of control. We'll lose her.\"\n\nSix hours is three hundred and sixty minutes. They wasted the first two sitting in silence. Johnson stared into space. Webster drummed his fingers on the table. Garber stared at McGrath, awry expression on his face. McGrath was staring at the map. Milosevic and Brogan were standing in the silence, holding the brown bags of breakfast and the Styrofoam cups.\n\n\"Coffee here, anybody wants it,\" Brogan said.\n\nGarber waved him over.\n\n\"Eat and plan,\" he said.\n\n\"Map,\" Johnson said.\n\nMcGrath slid the map across the table. They all sat forward. Back in motion. Three hundred and fifty eight minutes to go.\n\n\"Ravine's about four miles north of us,\" the aide said. \"All we got is eight Marines in a LAV-25.\"\n\nThat tank thing?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe aide shook his head.\n\n\"Light Armored Vehicle,\" he said. \"LAV. Eight wheels, no tracks.\"\n\n\"Bulletproof?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"For sure,\" the aide said. They can drive it all the way to Yorke.\"\n\n\"If it gets through the ravine,\" Garber said.\n\nJohnson nodded.\n\nThat's the big question,\"he said.\" We need to go take a look.\"\n\nThe Light Armored Vehicle looked just like a tank to McGrath's hasty civilian glance, except there were eight wheels on it instead of tracks. The hull was welded up out of brutal sloping armor plates and there was a turret with a gun. The driver sat forward, and the commander satin the turret. In the rear, two rows of three Marines sat back to back, facing weapon ports. Each port had its own periscope. McGrath could visualize the vehicle rumbling into battle, invulnerable, weapons bristling out of those ports. Down into the ravine, up the other side, along the road to Yorke to the courthouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pulled Webster to one side and spoke urgently.\n\n\"We never told them,\" he said. \"About the dynamite in the walls.\"\n\n\"And we're not going to,\" Webster said quietly. The old guy would freak out. He's close to falling apart right now. I'm going to tell the Marines direct. They're going in there. They'll have to deal with it. Makes no difference if Johnson knows in advance or not.\"\n\nMcGrath intercepted Johnson and Webster ran over to the armored vehicle. McGrath saw the Marine commander leaning down from the turret. Saw him nodding and grimacing as Webster spoke. Then the general's aide fired up the army Chevrolet. Johnson and Garber crammed into the front with him. McGrath jumped in back. Brogan and Milosevic crushed in alongside him.\n\nWebster finished up and raced back to the Chevy. Squeezed in next to Milosevic. The LAV fired up its big diesel with a blast of black smoke. Then it crunched into gear and lumbered off north. The Chevy accelerated in its wake.\n\nFour miles north they crested a slight rise and entered a curve. Slowed and jammed to a stop in the lee of a craggy outcrop. The Marine commander vaulted down from the turret and ran north on the road.\n\nWebster and Johnson and McGrath got out and hurried after him. They paused together in the lee of the rock face and crept around the curve.\n\nStared out and down into the ravine. It was an intimidating sight.\n\nIt ran left to right in front of them, more or less straight. And it was not just a trench. It was a trench and a step. The whole crust of the earth had fractured, and the southern plate had fallen below the level of the northern plate. Like adjacent sections of an old concrete highway where a car thumps up an inch at the seam. Expanded to geological size, that inch was a fifty-foot disparity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where the earth had fractured and fallen, the edges had brokenup into giant boulders. The scouring of the glaciers had tumbled those boulders south. The ice and the heave and the weather over a million years had raked out the fracture and turned it into a trench. It had cutback the rock plates to where they became solid again. Some places, it had carved a hundred-yard width. Other places, tougher seams of rock had kept the gap down to twenty yards.\n\nThen the roots of a thousand generations of trees and the frozen water of the winters had eroded the edges until there was a steep ragged descent to the bottom and a steep ragged rise backup the northern side to the top, fifty feet higher than the starting point. There were stunted trees and tangled undergrowth and rock slides. The road itself was lifted progressively on concrete trestles and rose gently across abridge. Then more concrete trestles set it down on the level ground to the north and it snaked away through the forest into the mountains.\n\nBut the bridge was blown. Charges had been exploded against the two center trestles. A twenty-foot section of the center span had fallen a hundred feet into the trench. The four men in the lee of the outcrop could see fragments of the road lying shattered in the bottom of the ravine.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Johnson asked urgently.\n\nThe Marine commander was giving it a fast sweep through his field glasses. Left and right, up and down, examining the exact terrain.\n\n\"I think it's shit, sir,\" he said.\n\n\"Can you get through?\" Johnson asked him.\n\nThe guy lowered his field glasses and shook his head.\n\n\"Not a hope in hell,\" he said.\n\nHe stepped across, shoulder-to-shoulder with the general, so Johnson could share the same line of sight. Started talking rapidly and pointing as he did so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We could get down to the bottom,\" he said. \"We could go in right there, where the rock slide gives us a reasonable descent. But getting up the other side is the problem, sir. The LAV can't climb much more than forty-five degrees. Most of the north face looks a lot steeper than that. Some places, it's near enough vertical. Any gentle slopes are overgrown. And they've felled trees. See there, sir?\"\n\nHe pointed to a wooded area on the slope opposite. Trees had been felled and left lying with their chopped ends facing south.\n\n\"Abatises,\" the Marine said. The vehicle is going to stall against them. No doubt about that. Coming uphill, slowly, those things would stop a tank. We go in there, we'll be trapped in the ditch, no doubt at all.\"\n\n\"So what the hell do we do?\" Johnson said.\n\nThe Marine officer shrugged.\n\n\"Bring me some engineers,\" he said. \"The gap they blew is only about twenty feet wide. We can bridge that.\"\n\n\"How long will that take?\" Webster asked.\n\nThe Marine shrugged again.\n\n\"All the way up here?\" he said. \"Six hours? Maybe eight?\"\n\n\"Way too long,\" Webster said.\n\nThen the radio receiver in McGrath's pocket started crackling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "REACHER WAS HIDING OUT IN THE WOODS, WORRIED ABOUT THE dogs. They were the only thing he wasn't certain about. People, he could handle. Dogs, he had very little experience. He was in the trees, north of the Bastion, south of the rifle range. He had heard the Chinook hit the ground from a mile away. It hit tail first, smashing and tearing into the wooded slope. It looked to have slipped sideways in the air and missed the courthouse by two hundred yards. No explosions. Not from the courthouse or from the chopper itself. No sound of fuel tanks going up. Reacher was reasonably optimistic for the crew. He figured the trees and the collapse of the big boxy body might have cushioned the impact for them. He had known chopper crews survive worse.\n\nHe had an M-16 rifle in his hand and a Glock in his pocket. The Clock was fully loaded. Seventeen shells. The M-16 had the short clip.\n\nTwenty shells, less the one that had killed the guy with the missile.\n\nThe second M-16 had the long clip. A full load of thirty. But it was hidden in the trees. Because Reacher had a rule: choose the weapon you know for sure is in working order.\n\nHe felt instinctively that the focus of attention would be in the southeast direction. That was where Holly was being held, and that was where the Chinook had comedown. That was wherethe opposition forces would be massing. He felt people would be turning to face southeast, apprehensively, staring down into the rest of the United States, waiting. So he turned his back and headed northwest.\n\nHe moved cautiously. The bulk of the enemy was elsewhere, but he knew there were squads out looking for him. He knew they had already discovered Fowler's body. He had seen two separate patrols searching the woods. Six men in each, heavily armed, crashing through the undergrowth, searching. Not difficult to avoid. But the dogs would be difficult to avoid. That was why he was worried. That was why he was moving cautiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stayed in the trees and skirted the western end of the rifle range.\n\nTracked back east around the parade ground. Fifty yards north, he turned again and paralleled the road up to the mines. He stayed in the trees and moved at a fast jog. Used the time to start laying out some priorities. And a timescale He figured he had maybe three hours.\n\nBringing down the Chinook was going to provoke some kind of a violent reaction. No doubt about that. But in all his years in the service, he had never known anything happen faster than three hours. So he had three hours, and a lot of ground to cover.\n\nHe slowed to a fast walk when the rocky ground started rising under his feet. Followed a wide uphill circle west and cut straight into the edge of the bowl where the mine entrances were. He heard diesel engines idling. He bent double and crept across to the cover of a rock. Looked out and down.\n\nHe was just above halfway up the slope surrounding the bowl. Looking more or less due east across its diameter. The log doors of the farther shed were standing open. Four of the missile unit's trucks were standing on the shale. The four with the weapon racks in back.\n\nThe troop carrier was still inside.\n\nThere was a handful of men in the bowl. They were set in an approximate circle around the cluster of trucks. Reacher counted eight guys. Fatigues, rifles, tense limbs. What had the kitchen woman said?\n\nThe mines were off limits. Except to the people Borken trusted.\n\nReacher watched them. Eight trusted lieutenants, acting out a reasonable imitation of sentry duty.\n\nHe watched them fora couple of minutes. Slid his rifle to his shoulder. He was less than a hundred yards away. He could hear the rattle of the shale as the sentries moved around. He clicked the selector to the single-shot position. He had nineteen shells in the box, and he needed to fire a minimum of eight. He needed to be cautious with ammunition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The M-16 is a good rifle. Easy to use, easy to maintain. Easy to aim.\n\nThe carrying handle has a grooved top which lines up with an identical groove in the front sight. At a hundred yards, you squint down the handle groove and let it merge with the front groove, and what you see is what you hit. Reacher rested his weight on the rock and lined up the first target. Practiced the slight sweep that would take him onto the second. And the third. He rehearsed the full sequence of eight shots. He didn't want his elbow snagging somewhere in the middle.\n\nHe returned to the first target. Waited a beat and fired. The sound of the shot crashed through the mountains. The right front tire of the first truck exploded. He swept the sights onto the left front. Fired again. The truck dropped to its rims like a stunned ox falling to its knees.\n\nHe kept firing steadily. He had fired five shots and hit five tires before anybody reacted. Ashe fired the sixth he saw in the corner of his eye the sentries diving for cover. Some were just dropping to the ground. Others were running for the shed. He fired the seventh.\n\nPaused before the eighth. The farthest tire was the hardest shot. The angle was oblique. The sidewall was unavailable to him. He was going to have to fire at the treads. Possible that the shell might glance off. He fired. He hit. The tire burst. The front of the last truck dropped.\n\nThe nearest sentry was still on his feet. Not heading for the shed.\n\nJust standing and staring toward the rock Reacher was behind. Raising his rifle. It was an M-16, same as Reacher's. Long magazine, thirty shells. The guy was standing there, sighting it in on the rock. A brave man, or an idiot. Reacher crouched and waited. The guy fired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His weapon was set on automatic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He loosed off a burst of three. Three shots in a fifth of a second. They smashed into the trees fifteen feet above Reacher's head. Twigs and leaves drifted down and landed near him. The guy ran ten yards closer. Fired again. Three more shells.\n\nWay off to Reacher's left. He heard the whine of the bullets and the thunking as they hit the trees before he heard the muzzle blast.\n\nBullets which travel faster than sound do that. You hear it all in reverse order. The bullet gets there before the sound of the shot.\n\nReacher had decisions to take. How close was he going to let this guy get? And was he going to fire a warning shot? The next burst of three was nearer. Low, but nearer. Not more than six feet away. Reacher decided: not much damn closer, and no warning shot. The guy was all pumped up. No percentage in trying a warning shot. This guy was not going to get calmed down in any kind of a hurry.\n\nHe lay on his side. Straightened his legs and came out at the base of the rock. Fired once and hit the guy in the chest. He went down in a heap on the shale. The rifle flew off to his right. Reacher stayed where he was. Watched carefully. The guy was still alive. So Reacher fired again. Hit him through the top of the head. Kinder not to leave him with a sucking chest wound for the last ten minutes of his life.\n\nThe echoes of the brief firefight died into the mountain silence and then the air was still. The other seven guys were nowhere. The trucks were all resting nose-down on their front rims. Disabled. Maybe they could be driven out of the bowl, but the first of the mountain hairpins was going to strip the blown tires right off. The trucks were neutralized. No doubt about that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher crawled backward ten yards and stood up in the trees. Jogged down the slope and headed back toward the Bastion. Seventeen shells in the Glock, nine in the rifle. Progress, at a price.\n\nThe dogs found him halfway back. Two big rangy animals. German shepherds. He saw them at the same time as they saw him. They were loping along with that kind of infinite energy big dogs display. Long bounding strides, eager expressions, wet mouths gaping. They stopped short on stiff front legs and switched direction in a single fluid stride. Thirty yards away. Then twenty. Then ten. Acceleration. New energy in their movement. Snarls rising in their throats.\n\nPeople, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a manor a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got.\n\nHis response was their problem. But dogs were different.\n\nNo freewill. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.\n\nHe left the Clock in his pocket. The rifle was better. It was about two and a half feet longer than the handgun. An extra two and a half feet of separation seemed like a good idea. The dogs stopped short of him. The fur on their shoulders was raised. The fur down their backs was raised, following their spines. They crouched, front feet splayed, heads down, snarling loudly. They had yellow teeth. Lots of them.\n\nTheir eyes were brown. Reacher could see fine dark eyelashes, like a girl's.\n\nOne of them was forward of the other. The leader of the pack. He knew dogs had to have a pecking order. Two dogs, one of them had to be superior to the other. Like people. He didn't know how dogs worked it out for themselves. Posturing, maybe. Maybe smell. Maybe fighting." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help keep the tale going for the author.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 37" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher crawled backward ten yards and stood up in the trees. Jogged down the slope and headed back toward the Bastion. Seventeen shells in the Glock, nine in the rifle. Progress, at a price.\n\nThe dogs found him halfway back. Two big rangy animals. German shepherds. He saw them at the same time as they saw him. They were loping along with that kind of infinite energy big dogs display. Long bounding strides, eager expressions, wet mouths gaping. They stopped short on stiff front legs and switched direction in a single fluid stride. Thirty yards away. Then twenty. Then ten. Acceleration. New energy in their movement. Snarls rising in their throats.\n\nPeople, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a manor a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got.\n\nHis response was their problem. But dogs were different.\n\nNo freewill. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.\n\nHe left the Clock in his pocket. The rifle was better. It was about two and a half feet longer than the handgun. An extra two and a half feet of separation seemed like a good idea. The dogs stopped short of him. The fur on their shoulders was raised. The fur down their backs was raised, following their spines. They crouched, front feet splayed, heads down, snarling loudly. They had yellow teeth. Lots of them.\n\nTheir eyes were brown. Reacher could see fine dark eyelashes, like a girl's.\n\nOne of them was forward of the other. The leader of the pack. He knew dogs had to have a pecking order. Two dogs, one of them had to be superior to the other. Like people. He didn't know how dogs worked it out for themselves. Posturing, maybe. Maybe smell. Maybe fighting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stared at the forward dog. Stared into its eyes. Time to time, he had heard people talking about dogs. They said: never show fear. Stare the dog down. Don't let it know you're afraid. Reacher wasn't afraid.\n\nHe was standing therewith an M16 in his hands. The only thing he was worried about was having to use it.\n\nHe stared silently at the doglike he used to stare at some service guy gone bad. A hard, silent stare like a physical force, like a cold, crushing pressure. Bleak, cold eyes, unblinking. It had worked a hundred times with people. Now it was working with the lead dog.\n\nThe dog was only partially trained. Reacher could see that. It could go through the motions. But it couldn't deliver. It hadn't been trained to ignore its victim's input. It was eye to eye with him, backing off fractionally like his glare was a painful weight on its narrow forehead. Reacher turned up the temperature. Narrowed his eyes and bared his own teeth. Sneered like a tough guy in a bad movie. The dog's head dropped. Its eyes swiveled upward to maintain contact. Its tail dropped down between its legs.\n\n\"Sit,\" Reacher said. He said it calmly but firmly. Plenty of emphasis on the plosive consonant at the end of the word. The dog moved automatically. Shuffled its hind legs inward and sat. The other dog followed suit, like a shadow. They sat side by side and stared up at him.\n\n\"Lie down,\" Reacher said.\n\nThe dogs didn't move. Just stayed sitting, looking at him, puzzled.\n\nMaybe the wrong word. Not the command they were accustomed to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Down,\" Reacher said.\n\nThey slid their front paws forward and dropped their bellies to the forest floor. Looking up at him.\n\n\"Stay,\" Reacher said.\n\nHe gave them a look like he meant it and moved off south. Forced himself to walk slow. Five yards into the trees, he turned. The dogs were still on the ground. Their necks were twisted around, watching him walkaway.\n\n\"Stay,\" he called again.\n\nThey stayed. He walked.\n\nHe could hear people in the Bastion. The sound of a fair-sized crowd trying to keep quiet. He heard it when he was still north of the parade ground. He skirted the area in the trees and walked around the far end of the rifle range. Came through the trees behind the mess hall. Opposite the kitchen door. He walked a circle deep in the woods behind the buildings until he got an angle. Crept forward to take a look.\n\nThere were maybe thirty people in the Bastion. They were standing in a tight group. Edging forward into a cluster. All men, all in camouflage fatigues, all heavily armed. Rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, pockets bulging with spare magazines. The crowd ebbed and flowed. Shoulders touched and parted. Reacher glimpsed Beau Borken in the center of the mass of people. He was holding a small black radio transmitter. Reacher recognized it. It was Jackson's. Borken had retrieved it from Fowler's pocket He was holding it up to\" his ear.\n\nStaring into space like he'd just switched it on and was waiting fora reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "MCGRATH SNATCHED THE RADIO FROM HIS POCKET. FLIPPED IT open and stared at it. It was crackling loudly in his hand. Webster stepped forward and took it from him. Ducked back to the cover of the rock face and clicked the button.\n\n\"Jackson?\" he said. \"This is Harland Webster.\"\n\nMcGrath and Johnson crowded in on him. The three men crouched against the rock wall. Webster moved the unit an inch from his ear so the other two could listen in. In the cover of the rock, in the silence of the mountains, they could hear it crackling and hissing and the fast breathing of a person on the other end. Then they heard a voice.\n\n\"Harland Webster?\" the voice said. \"Well, well, the headman himself.\"\n\n\"Jackson?\" Webster said again.\n\n\"No,\" the voice said. This is not Jackson.\"\n\nWebster glanced at McGrath.\n\n\"So who is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Beau Borken,\" the voice said. \"And as of today, I guess that's President Borken. President of the Free States of America. But feel free to speak informally.\"\n\n\"Where's Jackson?\" Webster asked.\n\nThere was a pause. Nothing to hear except the faint electronic sound of FBI telecommunications technology. Satellites and microwaves.\n\n\"Where's Jackson?\" Webster asked again.\n\n\"He died,\" the voice said.\n\nWebster glanced at McGrath again.\n\n\"How?\" he asked.\n\n\"Just died,\" Borken said. \"Relatively quickly, really.\"\n\n\"Was he sick?\" Webster asked.\n\nThere was another pause. Then there was the sound of laughter. A high, tinny sound. Aloud, shrieking laugh which overloaded Webster's earpiece and spilled into distortion and bounced off the rock wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, he wasn't sick, Webster,\" Borken said. \"He was pretty healthy, up until the last ten minutes.\"\n\n\"What did you do to him?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"Same as I'm going to do to the general's little girl,\" Borken said.\n\n\"Listen up, and I'll tell you the exact details. You need to pay attention, because you need to know what you're dealing with here.\n\nWe're serious here. We mean business, you understand? You listening?\"\n\nJohnson pushed in close. White and sweating.\n\n\"You crazy bastards,\" he yelled.\n\n\"Who's that?\" Borken asked. That the general himself?\"\n\n\"General Johnson,\" Webster said.\n\nThere was a chuckle on the radio. Just a short, satisfied sound.\n\n\"A full house,\" Borken said. \"The director of the FBI and the joint chairman. We're flattered, believe me. But I guess the birth of anew nation deserves nothing less.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"We crucified him,\" Borken said. \"We found a couple of trees a yard apart, and we nailed him up. We're going to do that to your daughter, General, if you step out of line. Then we cut his balls off. He was pleading and screaming for us not to, but we did it anyway. We can't do that to your kid, her being a woman and all, but we'll find some equivalent, you know what I mean? Do you think she'll be screaming and pleading, General? You know her better than me. Personally, I'm betting she will be. She likes to think she's a tough cookie, but when she sees those blades coming close, she's going to change her damn tune pretty quick, I'm just about sure of that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Johnson turned whiter. All his blood just drained away. He fell back and sat heavily against the rock. His mouth was working soundlessly.\n\n\"What the hell do you bastards want?\" Webster yelled.\n\nThere was another silence. Then the voice came back, quiet and firm.\n\n\"I want you to stop yelling,\" it said. \"I want you to apologize for yelling at me. I want you to apologize for calling me a rude name. I'm the President of the Free States, and I'm owed some courtesy and deference, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nHis voice was quiet, but McGrath heard it clearly enough. He looked across at Webster in panic. They were close to losing, before they had even started. First rule was to negotiate. To keep them talking, and gradually gain the upper hand. Establish dominance. Classic siege theory. But to start out by apologizing for yelling was to kiss goodbye to any hope of dominance. That was to lie down and rollover.\n\nFrom that point on, you were their plaything. McGrath shook his head urgently. Webster nodded back. Said nothing. Just held the radio without speaking. He knew how to do this. He had been in this situation before. Several times. He knew the protocol. Now, the first one to speak was the weaker one. And it wasn't going to be him.\n\nHe and McGrath gazed at the ground and waited.\n\n\"You still there?\" Borken asked.\n\nWebster carried on staring down. Saying nothing.\n\n\"You there?\" Borken said again.\n\n\"What's on your mind, Beau?\" Webster asked, calmly.\n\nThere was angry breathing over the air.\n\n\"You cut my phone line,\" Borken said. \"I want it restored.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we didn't,\" Webster said. \"Doesn't your phone work?\"\n\n\"My faxes,\" Borken said. \"I got no response.\"\n\n\"What faxes?\" Webster said.\n\n\"Don't bullshit me,\" Borken said. \"I know you cut the line. I want it fixed.\"\n\nWebster winked at McGrath.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"We can do that. But you've got to do something for us first.\"\n\n\"What?\" Borken asked.\n\n\"Holly,\" Webster said. \"Bring her down to the bridge and leave her there.\"\n\nThere was another silence. Then the laughter started up again. High and loud.\n\n\"No dice,\" Borken said. \"And no deals.\"\n\nWebster nodded to himself. Lowered his voice. Sounded like the most reasonable man on earth.\n\n\"Listen, Mr. Borken,\" he said. \"If we can't deal, how can we help each other?\"\n\nAnother silence. McGrath stared at Webster. The next reply was crucial. Win or lose.\n\n\"You listen tome, Webster,\" the voice said. \"No deals. You don't do exactly what I say, Holly dies. Ina lot of pain. I holdall the cards, and I'm not doing deals. You understand that?\"\n\nWebster's shoulders slumped. McGrath looked away.\n\n\"Restore the fax line,\" the voice said. \"I need communications. The world must know what we're doing here. This is a big moment in history, Webster. I won't be denied by your stupid games. The world must witness the first blows being struck against your tyranny.\"\n\nWebster stared at the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This decision is too big for you alone,\"Borken said.\" You need to consult with the White House. There's an interest there too, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nEven over the tinny hand-held radio the force of Borken's voice was obvious. Webster was flinching like a physical weight was against his ear. Flinching and gasping, as his heart and lungs fought each other for space inside his chest.\n\n\"Make your decision,\" Borken said. \"I'll callback in two minutes.\"\n\nThen the radio went dead. Webster stared at it like he had never seen such apiece of equipment before. McGrath leaned over and clicked the button off.\n\n\"OK,\" he said. \"We stall, right? Tell him we're fixing the line. Tell him it will take an hour, maybe two. Tell him we're in contact with the White House, the UN, CNN, whoever. Tell him whatever the hell he wants to hear.\"\n\n\"Why is he doing this?\" Webster asked, vaguely. \"Escalating everything? He's making it so we have to attack him. So we have to, right? Like he wants us to. He's giving us no choice. He's provoking us.\"\n\n\"He's doing it because he's crazy,\" McGrath said.\n\n\"He must be,\" Webster said. \"He's a maniac. Otherwise I just can't understand why he's trying to attract so much attention. Because like he says, he holds all the cards already.\"\n\n\"We'll worry about that later, chief,\" McGrath said. \"Right now, we just need to stall him.\"\n\nWebster nodded. Forced himself back to the problem in hand.\n\n\"But we need longer than two hours,\" he said. \"Hostage Rescue will take at least four to get over here. Maybe five, maybe six.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"OK, it's the Fourth of July,\" McGrath said. Tell him the linemen are all off-duty. Tell him it could take us all day to get them back.\"\n\nThey stared at each other. Glanced at Johnson. He was right out of it. Just slumped against the rock face white and inert, barely breathing. Ninety hours of mortal stress and emotion had finally broken him. Then the radio in Webster's hand crackled again.\n\n\"Well?\" Borken asked, when the static cleared.\n\n\"OK, we agree,\" Webster said. \"We'll fix the line. But it's going to take sometime. Linemen are off-duty for the holidays.\"\n\nThere was a pause. Then a chuckle.\n\n\"Independence Day,\" Borken said. \"Maybe I should have chosen another date.\"\n\nWebster made no reply.\n\n\"I want your Marines where I can see them,\" Borken said.\n\n\"What Marines?\" Webster said.\n\nThere was another short laugh. Short and complacent.\n\n\"You got eight Marines,\" Borken said. \"And an armored car. We got lookouts allover the place. We've been watching you. Like you're watching us with those damn planes. You're lucky Stingers don't shoot that high, or you'd have more than a damn helicopter on the ground by now.\"\n\nWebster made no reply. Just scanned the horizon. McGrath was doing the same thing, automatically, looking for the glint of the sun on field glasses.\n\n\"I figure you're close to the bridge right now,\" Borken said. \"Am I right?\"\n\nWebster shrugged. McGrath prompted him with a nod.\n\n\"We're close to the bridge,\" Webster said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want the Marines on the bridge,\" Borken said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sitting on the edge in a neat little row. Their vehicle behind them. I want that to happen now, you understand? Or we go to work on Holly. Your choice, Webster. Or maybe it's the general's choice. His daughter, and his Marines, right?\"\n\nJohnson roused himself and glanced up. Five minutes later the Marines were sitting on the fractured edge of the roadway, feet dangling down into the abyss. Their LAV was parked up behind them. Webster was still in the lee of the rock face with McGrath and Johnson. The radio still pressed to his ear. He could hear muffled sounds. Like Borken had pressed his handover the microphone and was using a walkie-talkie.\n\nHe could hear his muffled voice alternating with crackly replies. Then he heard the hand come away and the voice comeback again, loud and clear in the earpiece.\n\n\"OK, Webster, good work,\" Borken said to him. \"Our scouts can see all eight of them. So can our riflemen. If they move, they die. Who else have you got therewith you?\"\n\nWebster paused. McGrath shook his head urgently.\n\n\"Can't you see?\" Webster asked. \"I thought you were watching us.\"\n\n\"Not right now,\" Borken said. \"I pulled my people back a little. Into our defensive positions.\"\n\nThere's nobody else here,\"Webster said.\" Just me and the general.\"\n\nThere was another pause.\n\n\"OK, you two can join the Marines,\" Borken said. \"On the bridge. On the end of the line.\"\n\nWebster waited fora long moment. A blank expression on his face. Then he got up and nodded to Johnson. Johnson got up unsteadily and the two of them walked forward together around the curve. Left McGrath on his own, crouched in the lee of the rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath waited there two minutes and crawled back south to the Chevrolet. Garber and Johnson's aide were in front and Milosevic and Brogan were in back. They were all staring at him.\n\n\"What the hell happened?\" Brogan asked.\n\n\"We're in deep, deep shit,\" McGrath said.\n\nTwo minutes of hurried explanation, and the others agreed with him.\n\n\"So what now?\" Garber asked.\n\n\"We go get Holly,\" McGrath said. \"Before he realizes we're bullshitting him.\"\n\n\"But how?\" Brogan asked.\n\nMcGrath glanced at him. Glanced at Milosevic.\n\nThe three of us,\"he said.\" End of the day, this is a Bureau affair.\n\nCall it whatever you want, terrorism, sedition, kidnaping, it's all FBI territory.\"\n\n\"We're going to do it?\" Milosevic said. \"Just the three of us? Right now?\"\n\n\"You got a better way?\" McGrath said. \"You want something done properly, you do it yourself, right?\"\n\nGarber was twisted around, scanning along the three faces on the rear seat.\n\n\"So go do it,\" he said.\n\nMcGrath nodded and held up his right hand. The thumb and the first two fingers sticking out.\n\n\"I'm the thumb,\" he said. \" I go in east of the road. Brogan, you're the first finger. You walk a mile west of the road and go in from there. Milo, you're the second finger. You walk two miles west and go north from there. We infiltrate separately, spaced out a mile between each of us. We meetup back on the road a half-mile shy of the town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clear?\"\n\nBrogan made a face. Then he nodded. Milosevic shrugged. Garber glanced at McGrath and the general's aide started the Chevy and rolled it gently south. He stopped it again after four hundred yards where the road came back out of the rock cover and there was clear access left and right into the countryside. The three FBI men checked their weapons. They each had a government-issue. 38 in a shiny brown leather shoulder holster. Full load of six, plus another six in a speed loader in their pockets.\n\nTry to capture a couple of rifles,\"McGrath said.\" Don't worry about taking prisoners. You see somebody, you shoot the bastard down, OK?\"\n\nMilosevic had the longest walk, so he was first to go. He ducked across the road and struck out due west across the mountain scrub. He made it to a small stand of trees and disappeared. McGrath lit a cigarette and sent Brogan after him. Garber waited until Brogan was in the trees, then he turned back to McGrath.\n\n\"Don't forget what I told you about Readier,\" he said. \"I'm not wrong about that guy. He's on your side, believe me.\"\n\nMcGrath shrugged and said nothing. Smoked in silence. Opened the Chevy's door and slid out. Ground out the cigarette under his shoe and walked away east, across the grassy shoulder and onto the scrub.\n\nMcGrath was not far off fifty, and a heavy smoker, but he was a fit man. He had that type of mongrel constitution that age and smoke could not hurt. He was short at five seven, but sturdy. About one-sixty, made up of that hard slab by muscle which needs no maintenance and never fades into fat. He felt the same as he had as a kid. No better, no worse. His Bureau training had been along time ago, and fairly rudimentary compared to what people were getting now. But he'd aced it. Physically, he'd been indestructible. Not the fastest guy in his class, but easily the best stamina. The training runs in the early days of Quantico had been crude. Around and around in the Virginia woods, using natural obstacles. McGrath would come in maybe third or fourth every time. But if they were sent around again, he could do the same exact time, just about to the second. The faster guys would be struggling at his side as he pounded relentlessly onward. Then they would fallback. Second time around McGrath would come in first. Third time around, he would be the only guy to finish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he was jogging comfortably as he approached the southern edge of the ravine. He had worked about three hundred yards east to a point where the slopes were reasonable and not directly overlooked. He went straight down without pausing. Short, stiff strides against the incline. The footing was loose. He skidded on small avalanches of gravel and used the stunted trees to check his speed. He dodged around the litter of rocks in the bottom of the trench and started up the northern slope.\n\nGoing up was harder. He kicked his toes into the gravel for grip and hauled himself upward with handfuls of grass. He zigzagged between the small trees and bushes, looking for leverage. The extra fifty feet on the northern rim was a punishment. He tracked right to where a small landslide had created a straight path at a kinder angle. Slipped and slid upward through the crushed rock to the top.\n\nHe waited in the overhang, where the earth had fallen away beneath the crust of roots. Listened hard. Heard nothing except silence. He lifted himself onto the rim. Stood therewith his chest against the earth, head and shoulders exposed, looking north into enemy territory.\n\nHe saw nothing. Just the gentle initial slopes, then the hills, then the giant mountains glowering in the far distance. Blue sky, a million trees, clean air, total silence. He thought: you're along way from Chicago, Mack.\n\nAhead of him was a belt of scrub where the ancient rock was too close to the surface for much to grow. Then a ragged belt of trees, interrupted at first by rocky outcrops, then growing denser into the distance. He could seethe curved gap in the treetops where the road must run. Three hundred yards to his left. He rolled up onto the grass and ran for the trees. Worked left toward the road and shadowed it north in the forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jogged along, dodging trees like a slow-motion parody of a wide receiver heading for the end zone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The map was printed in his mind. He figured he had maybe three miles to go. Three miles at a slow jog, not much better than a fast walk, maybe forty-five, fifty minutes. The ground was rising gently under his feet. Every fourth or fifth stride, his feet hit the floor a fraction sooner than they should have as the gradient lifted him into the hills. He tripped a couple of times on roots. Once, he slammed into a pine trunk. But he pounded on, relentlessly.\n\nAfter forty minutes, he stopped. He figured Brogan and Milosevic were having a similar journey, but they were dealing with extra distance because they had tracked west at the outset. So he expected a delay.\n\nWith luck they would be about twenty minutes behind him. He walked deeper into the woods and sat down against a trunk. Lit a cigarette.\n\nHe figured he was maybe a half-mile shy of the rendezvous. The map in his head said the road was about due to arrow up into the town.\n\nHe waited fifteen minutes. Two cigarettes. Then he stood up and walked on. He went cautiously. He was getting close. He made two diversions to his left and found the road. Just crept through the trees until he caught the gleam of sun on the gray cement. Then he dodged back and carried on north. He walked until he saw the forest thinning ahead. He saw sunlight on open spaces beyond the last trees.\n\nHe stopped and stepped left and right to find a view. He saw the road running up to the town. He saw buildings. A gray ruin on a knoll on the left. The courthouse on the right. Better preserved. Gleaming white in the sunshine. He stared through the trees at it fora long moment. Then he turned back. Paced five hundred yards into the woods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drifted over toward the road until he could just make out the gray gleam through the trees. Leaned on a trunk and waited for Brogan and Milosevic.\n\nThis time, he resisted the attraction of another cigarette. He had learned along time ago that to smoke while in hiding was not a smart thing to do. The smell drifts, and a keen nose can detect it. So he leaned on the tree and stared down in frustration. Stared at his shoes. They were ruined from the scramble up the north face of the ravine. He had jabbed them hard into the rocky slope and they were scratched to pieces. He stared at the ruined toecaps and instantly knew he had been betrayed. Panic rose in his throat. His chest seized hard. It hit him like a prison door swinging gently shut. It swung soundlessly inward on greased hinges and clanged shut right in his face.\n\nWhat had Borken said on the radio? He had said: like you're watching us with those damn planes. But what had the general's aide told him back in the Butte office? You lookup and you see a tiny vapor trail and you think it's TWA. You don't think it's the air force checking if you've shined your shoes this morning. So how did Borken know there were surveillance planes in the sky? Because he had been told. But by who? Who the hell knew?\n\nHe glanced around wildly and the first thing he saw was a dog coming at him from dead ahead. Then another. They bounded through the trees at him. He heard a sound from behind him. The crunch of feet and the flick of branches. Then the same sound from his right. The snicking and slapping of a weapon from his left. The dogs were at his feet. He spun in a panic-stricken circle. All around him men were coming at him through the trees. Lean, bearded men, in camouflage gear, carrying rifles and machine guns. Grenades slung from their webbing. Maybe fifteen or twenty men. They stepped forward calmly and purposefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were in a complete ring, right around him. He turned one way, then the other. He was surrounded. They were raising their weapons.\n\nHe had fifteen or twenty automatic weapons pointing straight at him like spokes in a wheel.\n\nThey stood silent, weapons ready. McGrath glanced from one to the next, in a complete wild circle. Then one of them stepped forward.\n\nSome kind of an officer. His hand went straight in under McGrath's jacket. Jerked the. 38 out of his holster. Then the guy's hand went into McGrath's pocket. Closed over the speed loader and pulled it out.\n\nThe guy slipped both items into his own pocket and smiled. Swung his fist and hit McGrath in the face. McGrath staggered and was prodded back forward with the muzzle of a rifle. Then he heard tires on the road. The grumble of a motor. He glanced left and caught a flash of olive green in the sun. A jeep. Two men in it. The soldiers pressed in and forced him out of the forest. They jostled him through the trees and onto the shoulder. He blinked in the sun. He could feel his nose was bleeding. The jeep rolled forward and stopped alongside him.\n\nThe driver stared at him with curiosity. Another lean, bearded man in uniform. In the passenger seat was a huge man wearing black. Beau Borken. McGrath recognized him from his Bureau file photograph. He stared at him. Then Borken leaned over and grinned.\n\n\"Hello, Mr. McGrath,\" he said. \"You made good time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "REACHER WATCHED THE WHOLE THING HAPPEN. HE WAS A HUNDRED and fifty yards away in the trees. Northwest of the ambush, high up the slope on the other side of the road. There was a dead sentry at his feet. The guy was lying in the dirt with his head at right angles to his neck.\n\nReacher had his field glasses raised to his eyes. Watching. Watching what, he wasn't exactly sure.\n\nHe had caught the gist of the radio conversation in the Bastion. He had heard Borken's side. He had guessed the replies. He had heard the southern lookouts calling in on the walkie-talkies. He knew about the Marines on the bridge. He knew about Webster and Johnson sitting there alongside them, on the end of the line.\n\nHe had wondered who else was down there. Maybe more military, maybe more FBI. The military wouldn't come. Johnson would have ordered them to sit tight. If anybody came, it would be the FBI. He figured they might have substantial numbers standing by. He figured they would becoming in, sooner or later. He needed to exploit them. Needed to use them as a diversion while he got Holly out. So he had moved southeast to wait for their arrival. Now, an hour later, he was gazing down at the short stocky guy getting loaded into the jeep. Dark suit, white shirt, town shoes. FBI, for sure.\n\nBut not the hostage rescue team. This guy had no equipment. The HRT came in all loaded down with paramilitary gear. Reacher was familiar with their procedures. He had read some of their manuals. Heard about some of their training. He knew guys who had been in and out of Quantico. He knew how the HRT worked. They were a high-technology operation. They looked like regular soldiers, in blue. They had vehicles. This guy he was watching was on foot in the forest. Dressed like he had just stepped out of a meeting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a puzzle. Eight Marines. No hostage rescue team. An unarmed search-and-rescue Chinook. Then Reacher suddenly thought maybe he understood. Maybe this was a very clandestine operation. Low profile.\n\nInvisible. They had tracked Holly all the way west from Chicago, but for some reason they maybe weren't gathering any kind of a big force.\n\nThey were dealing with it alone. Some tactical reason. Maybe apolitical reason. Maybe something to do with Holly and the White House. Maybe the policy was to deal with this secretly, deal with it hard, tackle it with a tight little team. So tight the right hand didn't know what the left was doing. Hence the unarmed search-and-rescue chopper. It had come in blind. Hadn't known what it was getting into.\n\nIn which case this ambushed guy he was watching was direct from Chicago. Part of the original operation that must have started up back on Monday. He looked like a senior guy. Maybe approaching fifty.\n\nCould be Brogan, Holly's section head. Could even be McGrath, the top boy. In either case that made Milosevic the mole. Question was, was he up here as well, or was he still back in Chicago?\n\nThe jeep turned slowly in the road. The Bureau guy in the suit was in back, jammed between two armed men. His nose was bleeding and Reacher could see a swelling starting on his face. Borken had twisted his bulk around and was talking at him. The rest of the ambush squad was forming up in the road. The jeep drove past them, north toward town.\n\nPassed by thirty yards from where Reacher was standing in the trees. He watched it go. Turned and picked up his rifle. Strolled through the woods, deep in thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His problem was priority order. He had a rule: stick to the job in hand. The job in hand was getting Holly away safe. Nothing else. But this Bureau guy was in trouble. He thought about Jackson. The last Bureau guy they'd gotten hold of. Maybe this new guy was heading for the same fate. In which case, he ought to intervene. And he liked the look of the guy. He looked tough. Small, but strong. A lot of energy. Some kind of charisma there. Maybe anally would be a smart thing to have. Two heads, better than one. Two pairs of hands. Four trigger fingers. Useful. But his rule was: stick to the job in hand.\n\nIt had worked for him many times over the years. It was a rule which had served him well. Should he bend that rule? Or not? He stopped and stood concealed in the forest while the ambush squad marched by on the road. Listened to the sound of their footsteps die away. Stood there and thought about the guy some more and forced himself toward a tough decision.\n\nGeneral Garber watched the whole thing happen, too. He was a hundred and fifty yards south of the ambush. West side of the road, behind a rocky outcrop, exactly three hundred yards south of where Readier had been. He had waited three minutes and then followed McGrath in through the ravine. Garber was also a reasonably fit man, but a lot older and it had cost him a lotto keep pace with McGrath. He had arrived at the rocky outcrop and collapsed, out of breath. He figured he had maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to recover before the rendezvous took place.\n\nThen his plan was to follow behind the three agents and see what was going to happen. He didn't want anybody making mistakes about Jack Readier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the rendezvous had never happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had watched the ambush and realized a lot of mistakes had been made about a lot of things.\n\n\"You're going to die,\" Borken said.\n\nMcGrath was jammed between two soldiers on the backseat of the jeep.\n\nHe was bouncing around because the road was rough. But he couldn't move his arms, because the seat was not really wide enough for three people. So he put the shrug into his injured face instead.\n\n\"We're all going to die,\" he said. \"Sooner or later.\"\n\n\"Sooner or later, right,\" Borken said. \"But for you, it's going to be sooner not later.\"\n\nBorken was twisted around in the front seat, staring. McGrath looked past him at the vast blue sky. He looked at the smallwhite clouds and thought: who was it? Who knew? Air force operational personnel, he guessed, but that link was ludicrous. Had to be somebody nearer and closer. Somebody more involved. The only possibilities were Johnson or his aide, or Webster himself, or Brogan, or Milosevic.\n\nGarber, conceivably. He seemed pretty hot on excusing this Reacher guy. Was this some military police conspiracy to overthrow the joint chiefs?\n\n\"Who was it, Borken?\" he asked.\n\n\"Who was what, dead man?\" Borken asked back.\n\n\"Who's been talking to you?\" McGrath said.\n\nBorken smiled and tapped his finger on his temple.\n\n\"Common cause,\" he said. This sort of issue, there area lot more people than you think on our side.\"\n\nMcGrath glanced back to the sky and thought about Dexter, safe in the White House. What had Webster said he'd said? Twelve million people?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or was it sixty-six million?\n\n\"You're going to die,\" Borken said again.\n\nMcGrath shifted his focus back.\n\n\"So tell me who it was, before I do,\" he said.\n\nBorken grinned at him.\n\n\"You'll find out,\" he said. \"It's going to be a big surprise.\"\n\nThe jeep pulled up in front of the courthouse. McGrath twisted and looked up at it. There were six soldiers standing guard outside the building. They were fanned into a rough arc, facing south and east.\n\n\"She in there?\" he asked.\n\nBorken nodded and smiled.\n\n\"Right now she is,\" he said. \"I may have to get her out later.\"\n\nThe walkie-talkie on his belt burst into life. Aloud burst of static and a quick distorted message. He pressed the key and bent his head down. Acknowledged the information without unclipping the unit. Then he pulled the radio transmitter from his pocket. Flipped it open and pulled up the short antenna. Pressed the send button.\n\n\"Webster?\" he said. \"You lied tome. Twice. First, there were three of your agents down therewith you. We just rounded them all up.\"\n\nHe listened to the response. Kept the radio tight against his ear.\n\nMcGrath could not hear what Webster was saying.\n\n\"Doesn't matter anyway,\" Borken said. \" They weren't all on your side.\n\nSome people in this world will do anything for money.\"\n\nHe paused fora response. Apparently there was none.\n\n\"And you bullshitted me,\" Borken said. \"You weren't going to fix the line at all, were you? You were just stringing me along.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster was starting a reply, but Borken cut him off.\n\n\"You and Johnson,\" he said. \"You can get off the bridge now. The Marines stay there. We're watching. You and Johnson walk back to your trucks. Get yourselves in front of those TVs. Should be some interesting action pretty soon.\"\n\nHe clicked off the radio and folded it back into his pocket. A big wide smile on his face.\n\n\"You're going to die,\" he said to McGrath for the third time.\n\n\"Which one?\" McGrath asked. \"Brogan or Milosevic?\"\n\nBorken grinned again.\n\n\"Guess,\" he said. \"Figure it out for yourself. You're supposed to be the big smart federal investigator. Agent-in-charge, right?\"\n\nThe driver jumped down and pulled a pistol from his holster. Aimed it two-handed at McGrath's head. The left-hand guard squeezed out and unslung his rifle. Held it ready. The right-hand guy did the same.\n\nThen Borken eased his bulk down.\n\n\"Out,\" he said. \"We walk from here.\"\n\nMcGrath shrugged and eased himself down into the circle of weapons.\n\nBorken stepped behind him and caught his arms. Cuffed his wrists together behind his back. Then he shoved him forward. Pointed beyond the ruined county office.\n\n\"Up there, dead man,\" he said.\n\nThey left the jeep behind them next to the courthouse. The two guards formed up. McGrath stumbled across the street and up onto the lumpy knoll. He was pushed past the dead tree. He was pushed left until he found the path. He followed it around behind the old building. The rough ground bit up through the thin soles of his ruined city shoes. He might as well have been walking barefoot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Faster, asshole,\" Borken grunted at him.\n\nThe guards were behind him, prodding him forward with the muzzles of their rifles. He picked up the pace and stumbled on through the woods.\n\nHe felt the blood clotting on his lip and nose. After a mile, he came out into the clearing he recognized from the surveillance pictures. It looked bigger. From seven miles overhead, it had looked like a neat hole in the trees, with a tidy circle of buildings. From ground level, it looked as big as a stadium. Rough shale on the floor of the clearing, big wooden huts propped expertly on solid concrete piles.\n\n\"Wait here,\" Borken said.\n\nHe walked away and the two guards took up station either side of McGrath as he gazed around. He saw the communications hut, with the phone wire and the whip antenna. He saw the other buildings. Smelled stale institutional food coming out of the largest. Saw the farthest hut, standing on its own. Must be their armory, he thought.\n\nHe glanced up and saw the vapor trails in the sky. The urgency of the situation was written up there, white on blue. The planes had abandoned their innocent east-west trawling. Their trails had tightened into continuous circles, one just inside the other. They were flying around and around, centered seven miles above his head. He stared up at them and mouthed: help! He wondered if their lenses were good enough to pick that out. Wondered if maybe Webster or Johnson or Garber or Johnson's gofer could lipread His best guess was: yes, and no.\n\nReacher's problem was a hell of an irony. For the first time in his life, he wished his opponents were better shots. He was concealed in the trees a hundred yards northwest of the courthouse. Looking down at six sentries. They were ranged in a loose arc, to the south and east beyond the big white building. Reacher's rifle was trained on the nearest man. But he wasn't shooting. Because if he did, the six men were going to shoot back. And they were going to miss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher was happy with an M-16 and a range of a hundred yards. He could pretty much absolutely guarantee to hit what he wanted with that weapon at that range. He would bet his life on it. Many times, he had. And normally, the worse shots his opponents were, the happier he'd be about it. But not in this situation.\n\nHe would be shooting from a northwest direction. His opponents would be shooting back from the southeast. They would hear his shots, maybe see some muzzle flash, they would take aim, and they would fire. And they would miss. They would shoot high and wide. The targets on the rifle range were mute evidence for that conclusion. There had been some competent shooting at three and four hundred yards. The damaged targets bore witness to that fact. But Reacher's experience was that guys who could shoot just about competently us at three or four hundred yards on a range would be useless in a firefight. Lying still on a mat and sighting in on a target in your own time was one thing. Shooting into a noisy confused hailstorm of bullets was a very different thing.\n\nA different thing entirely. The guy defending the missile trucks had proved that. His salvos had been allover the place. And that was the problem. Shooting back from the southeast, these guys' stray rounds were going to be allover the place, too. Up and down, left and right.\n\nThe down rounds and the left rounds were no problem. They were just going to damage the scrubby vegetation. But the up rounds and the right rounds were going to hit the courthouse.\n\nThe M-16 uses bullets designated M855. Common NATO rounds, 5.56 millimeters in caliber, just a fraction under a quarter-inch wide.\n\nFairly heavy for their size, because they area sandwich of lead and steel inside a copper jacket. Designed for penetration. Those stray rounds which hit the courthouse were going to impact the siding at two thousand miles an hour. They were going to punch through the old wood like it wasn't thereat all. They were going to smash through the unstable dynamite like a train wreck. The energy of their impact was going to act like a better blasting cap than anything any mining company had ever possessed. That was what those bullets were designed to do. Some committee had asked fora bullet capable of shooting through the sides of ammunition trucks. And that's what had been delivered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Reacher wasn't shooting. Three sentries, he might have risked it.\n\nHe figured he could get off three aimed shots in maybe three seconds.\n\nToo fast for any reaction. But six was too many. They were too spaced out. Too much physical movement was required between rounds. The later targets would have time to react. Not much time. Certainly not enough to be accurate. That was the problem.\n\nReversing the geometry would be no help, either. He could work himself right around to the south. It would take him maybe twenty minutes to skirt around in the trees and comeback at them from the opposite direction. But then what? He would be looking at his targets, uphill.\n\nThe courthouse would be right behind them. He could hit each of them in the head, no problem at all. But he couldn't ask the bullets just to stop therein midair. He couldn't prevent those high-energy copper-jackets bursting on out of the back of those skulls and heading on their uphill trajectories straight toward the courthouse's second-story walls. He shook his head and lowered his rifle.\n\nMcGrath saw Borken conferring with somebody on the edge of the clearing. It was the guy who had led the ambush squad. The guy who had taken his gun and his bullets and punched him in the face. The two of them were glancing at their watches and glancing up at the sky. They were nodding. Borken slapped the guy on the shoulder and turned away.\n\nDucked into the trees and disappeared back toward the town. The ambush leader started in toward McGrath. He was smiling. He was unslinging his rifle.\n\n\"Showtime,\" he called.\n\nHe stepped near and reversed the rifle in his hands as he did so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smashed the butt into McGrath's stomach. McGrath went down on the shale. One guard jammed the muzzle of his rifle into McGrath's throat.\n\nThe other jammed his into McGrath's stomach, right where the blow had landed.\n\n\"Lie still, asshole,\" the unit leader said. \"I'll be back in a minute.\"\n\nMcGrath could not move his head because of the rifle in his throat, but he followed the guy with his eyes. He was going into the next-to-last hut inline. Not the armory, which stood on its own. Some kind of an equipment store. He came outwith a mallet and ropes and four metal objects. Dull green, army issue. Ashe got nearer, McGrath recognized what they were. They were tent pegs. Maybe eighteen inches long, designed for some kind of big mess tent.\n\nThe guy dropped his load on the shale. The metal pegs clinked on the stones. The guy nodded to the soldier with the gun in McGrath's belly who straightened up and stepped away. The unit leader took his place.\n\nUsed his own weapon to keep McGrath pinned down.\n\nThe soldier got busy. He seemed to know what he was supposed to do. He used the mallet to drive the first peg into the ground. The ground was stony and the guy had to work hard. He was swinging the mallet in a big arc and using a lot of force. He drove the peg down until it was two-thirds buried. Then he paced off maybe eight feet and started driving the second. McGrath followed him with his eyes. When the second peg was in, the guy paced another eight feet at aright angle and hammered the third peg in. The fourth peg completed an exact square, eight feet on each side. McGrath had a pretty good idea what that square was for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We normally do this in the woods,\" the unit leader said. \"We normally do it vertically, with trees.\"\n\nThen the guy pointed upward at the sky.\n\n\"But we need to let them see,\" he said. They can't see properly in the woods. This time of year, too many leaves in the way, right?\"\n\nThe guard who had driven the tent pegs into the ground was panting from the exertion. He changed places with his leader again. Jammed his rifle into McGrath's gut and leaned on it, recovering. McGrath gasped and squirmed under the pressure. The leader squatted down and sorted through the ropes. Untangled one and caught McGrath by the ankle.\n\nLooped the rope around and tied it off, hard. Used the rope to drag McGrath by the leg into the approximate center of the square. Then he tied the loose end to the fourth peg. Tied it tight and tested it.\n\nThe second length of rope went around McGrath's other ankle. It was tied off to the third peg. McGrath's legs were forced apart at aright angle. His hands were still cuffed behind his back, crushed against the rocky ground. The leader used the sole of his boot to roll McGrath's upper body sideways. Ducked down and unlocked the cuff.\n\nCaught a wrist and looped a rope around. Tied it tight and hauled the wrist up to the second peg. He pulled on it until McGrath's arm was stretched tight, in a perfect straight line with the opposite leg. Then he tied it tight to the peg and reached down for the other wrist. The soldiers jammed their muzzles in tighter. McGrath stared up at the vapor trails and gasped in pain as his arm was stretched tight and he was tied into a perfect cross." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two soldiers jerked their rifles away and stepped back. They stood with their leader. Gazing down. McGrath lifted his head and looked wildly around. Pulled on the ropes, and then realized he was only pulling the knots tighter. The three men stepped farther back and glanced up at the sky. McGrath realized they were making sure the cameras got an uninterrupted view.\n\nThe cameras were getting an uninterrupted view. Seven miles in the sky, the pilots were flying circles, one on a tight radius of a few miles, the other outside him on a wider path. Their cameras were trained downward, under the relentless control of their computers. The inside plane was focusing tight on the clearing where McGrath was spreadeagled. The outer camera was zoomed wider, taking in the whole of the area from the courthouse in the south to the abandoned mines in the north. Their real-time video signals were bouncing down more or less vertically to the dish vehicle parked behind the mobile command post. The dish was focusing the datastream and feeding it through the thick armored cable into the observation truck. Then the decoding computers were feeding the large color monitors. Their phosphor screens were displaying the appalling truth. General Johnson and his aide and Webster were motionless in front of them. Motionless, silent, staring. Video recorders were whirring away, dispassionately recording every second's activity taking place six miles to the north. The whole vehicle was humming with faint electronic energy. But it was as silent as a tomb.\n\n\"Can you zoom in?\" Webster asked quietly. \"On McGrath?\"\n\nThe general's aide twisted a black rubber knob. Stared at the screen.\n\nHe zoomed in until the individual pixels in the picture began to clump together and distort. Then he backed off a fraction.\n\n\"Close as we can get,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was close enough. McGrath's spreadeagled figure just about filled the screens. The unit leader could be seen from directly above, stepping over the lengths of rope as he circled. He had a knife in his hand. A black handle, a shiny blade, maybe ten inches long. It looked like a big kitchen knife. The sort of thing a gourmet cook might buy.\n\nUseful for slicing a tough cut of steak into strips. The sort of tool that would get set out on the kitchen counter by somebody making a stew or a stroganoff.\n\nThey saw the guy lay the knife flat on McGrath's chest. Then he used both hands to fold back the flaps on McGrath's jacket. He loosened McGrath's tie and pulled it sideways, almost up under his ear. Then he grasped the shirt and tore it open. The cotton pulled apart under the knife, leaving the knife where it was, now next to the skin. The guy pulled the tails out of the waistband and tucked the shirt right back to the sides. Carefully, well out of the way, like he was a surgeon faced with a difficult emergency procedure.\n\nThey saw the guy pickup the knife again. He was squatted down to McGrath's right, leaning over slightly, holding the knife. He was holding it point-down, close to McGrath's belly. The electronic pink of McGrath's skin was reflected in the faces of the watchers inside the observation vehicle.\n\nThey saw the guy raise the knife an inch. They saw his index finger slide along the back of the blade, like he was adjusting his grip for extra precision. They saw the blade move down. The pale sun glinted on the steel. Then their view was disrupted. A silent puff of pink mist obscured the picture. When it cleared, the knife was still in the guy's hand. But the guy had no head. His whole head was a shattered pink wound, and he was toppling slowly sideways." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE LEFT-HAND GUARD WENT DOWN EASILY ENOUGH, TOO. REACHER put a bullet through the side of his head, just above the ear, and he fell heavily, right on top of the spreadeagled Bureau guy. But the right-hand guard reacted. He spun away and hurdled the taut ropes, racing for the trees. Reacher paused a beat and dropped him ten feet away. The guy sprawled and slid noisily through the shale and put up a slick of dust.\n\nTwitched once and died.\n\nThen Reacher waited. The last staccato echo of the three shots came back off the farthest mountains and faded into quiet. Reacher watched the trees, all around the Bastion. Watched for movement. The sunlight was bright. Too bright to be sure. There was a lot of contrast between the brightness of the clearing and the dark of the forest. So he waited.\n\nThen he came out from behind the radio hut at a desperate run. He sprinted straight across the clearing to the mess in the middle. Hauled the bodies out of the way. The guard was sprawled right on top of the Bureau guy. The unit leader was across his legs. He dumped them out of the way and found the knife. Sawed through the four coarse ropes.\n\nDragged the Bureau guy upright and pushed him off back the way he'd come. Then he grabbed the two nearest rifles and sprinted after him.\n\nCaught him up halfway. The guy was just tottering along. So Reacher caught him under the arms and bundled him to safety. Threw him well into the trees behind the huts and stood bent over, panting. Then he took the magazines off the new rifles and put one in his pocket and one on his own gun. They were both the elongated thirty-shot versions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been down to six rounds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now he had sixty. A ten-fold increase.\n\nAnd he had another pair of hands.\n\n\"Are you Brogan?\" he asked. \"Or McGrath?\"\n\nThe guy answered stiffly and neutrally. There was fear and panic and confusion in his face.\n\n\"McGrath,\" he said. \"FBI.\"\n\nReacher nodded. The guy was shaken up, but he was anally. He took Fowler's Clock out of his pocket and held it out to him, butt first.\n\nMcGrath was panting quietly and glancing wildly toward the deep cover of the trees. There was aggression in his stance. His hands were balled into fists.\n\n\"What?\" Reacher asked him, concerned.\n\nMcGrath darted forward and snatched the Clock and stepped back. Raised it and went into a shooting stance and pointed it two-handed. At Reacher's head. The cut ends of the ropes trailed down from his wrists. Reacher just stared blankly at him.\n\n\"Hell are you doing?\" he asked.\n\n\"You're one of them,\" McGrath said back. \"Drop the rifle, OK?\"\n\n\"What?\" Reacher said again.\n\n\"Just do it, OK?\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher stared at him, incredulous. Pointed through the trees at the sprawled bodies in the Bastion.\n\n\"What about that?\" he asked. \"Doesn't that mean anything to you?\"\n\nThe Clock did not waver. It was rock-steady, pointed straight at his head, at the apex of a perfect braced position. McGrath looked like a picture in a training manual, except for the ropes hanging like streamers from his wrists and ankles.\n\n\"Doesn't that count for something?\" Reacher asked again, pointing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not necessarily,\" McGrath growled back. \" You killed Peter Bell, too.\n\nWe know that. Just because you don't allow your troops to rape and torture your hostages doesn't necessarily put you on the side of the angels.\"\n\nReacher looked at him fora long moment, astonished Thought hard. Then he nodded cautiously and dropped the rifle exactly halfway between the two of them. Drop it right at his own feet, McGrath would just tell him to kick it over toward him. Drop it too near McGrath's feet, and it wouldn't work. This guy was an experienced agent. From the look of his shooting stance, Reacher was expecting at least a basic level of competence from him.\n\nMcGrath glanced down. Hesitated. He clearly didn't want Reacher near him. He didn't want him stepping nearer to nudge the rifle on toward him. So he slid his own foot forward to drag the weapon back close. He was maybe ten inches shorter than Reacher, all told. Aiming the Clock at Reacher's head from six feet away, he was aiming it upward at a fairly steep angle. Ashe slid his foot forward, he decreased his effective height by maybe an inch, which automatically increased the upward slope of his arms by a proportionate degree. And as he slid his foot forward, it brought him slightly closer to Reacher, which increased the upward angle yet more. By the time his toe was scrabbling for the weapon, his upper arms were near his face, interfering with his vision. Reacher waited for him to glance down again.\n\nHe glanced down. Reacher let his knees go and fell vertically. Lashed back upward with his forearm and batted the Clock away. Swiped a wide arc with his other arm behind McGrath's knees and dumped him flat on his back in the dirt. Closed his handover McGrath's wrist and squeezed gently until the Glock shook free. He picked it up by the barrel and held it the wrong way around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at this,\" he said.\n\nHe shook his cuff back and exposed the crusted weal on his left wrist.\n\n\"I'm not one of them,\" he said. \"They had me handcuffed most of the time.\"\n\nThen he held the Glock out, butt first, offering it again. McGrath stared at it, and then stared back into the clearing. He ducked his head left and right to take in the bodies. Glanced back at Reacher, still confused.\n\n\"We had you down as a bad guy,\" he said.\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"Evidently,\" he said. \"But why?\"\n\n\"Video in the dry cleaners,\" McGrath said. \"Looked just like you were snatching her up.\"\n\nReacher shook his head.\n\n\"Innocent passerby,\" he said.\n\nMcGrath kept onlooking hard at him. Quizzically, thinking. Reacher saw him arrive at a decision. He nodded in turn and accepted the Glock and laid it on the forest floor, exactly between them, like its positioning was a symbol, a treaty. He started fumbling at his shirt bur tons Cut ends of rope flailed at his wrists and ankles.\n\n\"OK, can we start over?\" he said, embarrassed.\n\nReacher nodded and stuck out his hand.\n\n\"Sure,\" he said. \"I'm Reacher, you're McGrath. Holly's agent-in-charge. Pleased to meet you.\"\n\nMcGrath smiled ruefully and shook hands limply. Then he started fumbling at the knots on his wrist, one-handed.\n\n\"You know a guy called Garber?\" McGrath asked.\n\nReacher nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Used to work for him,\" he said.\n\n\"Garber told us you were clean,\" McGrath said. \"We didn't believe him.\"\n\n\"Naturally,\" Reacher said. \"Garber always tells the truth. So nobody ever believes him.\"\n\n\"So I apologize,\" McGrath said. \"I'm sorry, OK? But just try and see it my way. You've been public enemy number one for five days.\"\n\nReacher waved the apology away and stood up and helped McGrath to his feet. Bent back down to the dirt and picked up the Glock and handed it to him.\n\n\"Your nose OK?\" he asked.\n\nMcGrath slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. Touched his nose gently and grimaced.\n\n\"Bastard hit me,\" he said. \"I think it's broken. Just turned and hit me, like they couldn't wait.\"\n\nThere was a noise in the woods, off to the left. Reacher caught McGrath's arm and pulled him deeper into the forest. Pushed through the brush and got facing east. He stood silently and listened for movement. McGrath was taking the ropes off his ankles and winding himself up to ask a question.\n\n\"So is Holly OK?\" he said.\n\nReacher nodded. But grimly.\n\n\"So far,\" he said. \"But it's going to be a hell of a problem getting her out.\"\n\n\"I know about the dynamite,\" McGrath said. That was the last thing Jackson called in. Monday night.\"\n\n\"It's a problem,\" Reacher said again. \" One stray round, and she's had it. And there area hundred trigger-happy people up here. Whatever we do, we need to do it carefully. Have you got reinforcements coming in?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hostage rescue?\"\n\nMcGrath shook his head.\n\n\"Not yet,\" he said. \"Politics.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's good,\" Reacher said. \"They're talking about mass suicide if they look like getting beat. Live free or die, you know?\"\n\n\"Whichever,\" McGrath said. \"Their choice. I don't care what happens to them. I just care about Holly.\"\n\nThey fell silent and crept together through the trees. Stopped deep in the woods, about level with the back of the mess hall. Now Reacher was winding himself up to ask a question. But he waited, frozen, a finger to his lips. There was noise to his left. A patrol, sweeping the fringe of the forest. McGrath made to move, but Reacher caught his arm and stopped him. Better to stand stock still than to risk making noise of their own. The patrol came nearer. Reacher raised his rifle and switched it to rapid fire. Smothered the sound of the click with his palm. McGrath held his breath. The patrol was visible, ten feet away through the trees. Six men, six rifles. They were glancing rhythmically as they walked, left and right, left and right, between the edge of the sunny clearing and the dark green depths of the woods.\n\nReacher breathed out, silently. Amateurs, with poor training and bad tactics. The bright sun in their eyes on every second glance was ruining their chances of seeing into the gloom of the forest. They were blind. They passed by without stopping. Reacher followed the sound of their progress and turned back to McGrath.\n\n\"Where are Brogan and Milosevic?\" he whispered.\n\nMcGrath nodded, morosely.\n\n\"I know,\" he said, quietly. \"One of them is bent. I finally figured that out about half a second before they grabbed me up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are they?\" Reacher asked again.\n\n\"Up here somewhere,\" McGrath said. \"We came in through the ravine together, a mile apart.\"\n\n\"Which one is it?\" Readier asked.\n\nMcGrath shrugged.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said. \"Can't figure it out. I've been going over and over it. They both did good work. Milosevic found the dry cleaner. He brought the video in. Brogan did a lot of work tracing it all back hereto Montana. He traced the truck. He liaised with Quantico. My gut says neither one is bent.\"\n\n\"When was I ID'd?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Thursday morning,\" McGrath said. \"We had your complete history.\"\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"He called it in right away,\" he said. These people suddenly knew who I was, Thursday morning.\"\n\nMcGrath shrugged again.\n\nThey were both thereat the time,\"he said.\" We were all down at Peterson.\"\n\n\"Did you get Holly's fax?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"What fax?\" McGrath said. \"When?\"\n\nThis morning,\"Reacher said.\" Early, maybe ten to five? She faxed you a warning.\"\n\n\"We're intercepting their line,\" McGrath said. \"Ina truck,\" down the road here. But ten to five, I was in bed.\"\n\n\"So who was minding the store?\" Reacher asked.\n\nMcGrath nodded.\n\n\"Milosevic and Brogan,\" he said, sourly. The two of them. Ten to five this morning, they'd just gone on duty. Whichever one of them it is must have gotten the fax and concealed it. But which one, I just don't know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher nodded back.\n\n\"We could figure it out,\" he said. \"Or we could just wait and see. One of them will be walking around best of friends and the other will be in handcuffs, or dead. We'll be able to tell the difference.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded, sourly.\n\n\"I can't wait,\" he said.\n\nThen Reacher stiffened and pulled him ten yards farther into the woods.\n\nHe had heard the patrol coming back through the trees.\n\nInside the courtroom, Borken had heard the three shots. He was sitting in the judge's chair and he heard them clearly. They went: crack crack... crack and repeated a dozen times as each of the distant slopes cannoned the echo back toward him. He sent a runner back to the Bastion. A mile there, a mile back on the winding path through the woods. Twenty minutes wasted, then the runner got back panting with the news. Three corpses, four cut ropes.\n\n\"Readier,\" Borken said. \"I should have wasted him at the beginning.\"\n\nMilosevic nodded in agreement.\n\n\"I want him kept away from me,\" he said. \"I heard the autopsy report on your friend Peter Bell. I just want my money and safe passage out of here, OK?\"\n\nBorken nodded. Then he laughed. A sharp, nervous laugh that was part excitement, part tension. He stood up and walked out from behind the bench. Laughed and grinned and slapped Milosevic on the shoulder.\n\nHolly Johnson knew no more than most people do about dynamite. She couldn't remember its exact chemical composition. She knew ammonium nitrate and nitrocellulose were in there somewhere. She wondered about nitroglycerin. Was that mixed in too? Or was that some other kind of explosive? Either way, she figured dynamite was some kind of a sticky fluid, soaked into a porous material and molded into sticks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heavy sticks, quite dense. If her walls were packed with heavy dense sticks they would absorb a lot of sound. Like a soundproofing layer in a city apartment. Which meant the shots she'd heard had been reasonably close.\n\nShe'd heard: crack crack... crack. But she didn't know who was shooting at who, or why. They weren't handgun shots. She knew the flat bark of a handgun from her time at Quantico. These were shots from along gun. Not the heavy thump of the big Barratts from the rifle range. A lighter weapon than that. Somebody firing a medium-caliber rifle three times. Or three people firing once, in a ragged volley. But whichever it was, something was happening. And she had to be ready.\n\nGarber heard the shots, too. Crack crack... crack, maybe a thousand yards northwest of him, maybe twelve hundred. Then a dozen spaced echoes coming back from the mountainsides. He was in no doubt about what they represented. An M-16, firing singles, the first pair in a tight group of two which the military called a double tap. The sound of a competent shooter. The idea was to get the second round off before the first shell case hit the ground. Then a third target, or maybe an insurance shot into the second. An unmistakable rhythm. Like a signature. The audible signature of somebody with hundreds of hours of weapons training behind him. Garber nodded to himself and moved forward through the trees.\n\n\"It must be Brogan,\" Reacher whispered.\n\nMcGrath looked surprised.\n\n\"Why Brogan?\" he asked.\n\nThey were squatted down, backs to adjacent trunks, thirty yards into the woods, invisible. The search patrol had tracked back and missed them again. McGrath had given Reacher the whole story. He had rattled through the important parts of the investigation, one professional to another, in a sort of insider's shorthand. Reacher had asked sharp questions and McGrath had given short answers." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In your role as the author's collaborator, continue the tale.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 40" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heavy sticks, quite dense. If her walls were packed with heavy dense sticks they would absorb a lot of sound. Like a soundproofing layer in a city apartment. Which meant the shots she'd heard had been reasonably close.\n\nShe'd heard: crack crack... crack. But she didn't know who was shooting at who, or why. They weren't handgun shots. She knew the flat bark of a handgun from her time at Quantico. These were shots from along gun. Not the heavy thump of the big Barratts from the rifle range. A lighter weapon than that. Somebody firing a medium-caliber rifle three times. Or three people firing once, in a ragged volley. But whichever it was, something was happening. And she had to be ready.\n\nGarber heard the shots, too. Crack crack... crack, maybe a thousand yards northwest of him, maybe twelve hundred. Then a dozen spaced echoes coming back from the mountainsides. He was in no doubt about what they represented. An M-16, firing singles, the first pair in a tight group of two which the military called a double tap. The sound of a competent shooter. The idea was to get the second round off before the first shell case hit the ground. Then a third target, or maybe an insurance shot into the second. An unmistakable rhythm. Like a signature. The audible signature of somebody with hundreds of hours of weapons training behind him. Garber nodded to himself and moved forward through the trees.\n\n\"It must be Brogan,\" Reacher whispered.\n\nMcGrath looked surprised.\n\n\"Why Brogan?\" he asked.\n\nThey were squatted down, backs to adjacent trunks, thirty yards into the woods, invisible. The search patrol had tracked back and missed them again. McGrath had given Reacher the whole story. He had rattled through the important parts of the investigation, one professional to another, in a sort of insider's shorthand. Reacher had asked sharp questions and McGrath had given short answers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Time and distance,\" Reacher said. That was crucial. Think about it from their point of view. They put us in the truck and they raced off straight to Montana. What's that? Maybe seventeen hundred miles?\n\nEighteen hundred?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" McGrath allowed.\n\n\"And Brogan's a smart guy,\" Reacher said. \" And he knows you're a smart guy. He knows you're smart enough to know that he's smart enough. So he can't dead-end the whole thing. But what he can do is keep you all far enough behind the action to stop you being a problem. And that's what he did. He managed the flow of information. The communication had to be two-way, right? So Monday, he knew they'd rented a truck.\n\nBut right through Wednesday, he was still \"focusing you on stolen trucks, right? He wasted a lot of time with that Arizona thing. Then he finally makes the big breakthrough with the rental firm and the stuff with the mud, and he looks like the big hero, but in reality what he's done is keep you way behind the chase. He's given them all the time they need to get us here.\"\n\n\"But he still got us here, right?\" McGrath said. \"A ways behind them, OK, but he brought us right here all the same.\"\n\n\"No loss to him,\" Reacher said. \" Borken was just itching to tell you where she was, soon as she was safely here, right? The destination was never going to be a secret, was it? That was the whole point.\n\nShe was a deterrent to stop you attacking. No point in that, without telling you exactly where she was.\"\n\nMcGrath grunted. Thinking about it. Unconvinced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They bribed him,\"Reacher said.\" You better believe it. They've got a big war chest, McGrath. Twenty million dollars, stolen bearer bonds.\"\n\nThe armored car robbery?\"McGrath asked.\" Northern California somewhere? They did that?\"\n\nThey're boasting about it,\" Reacher said.\n\nMcGrath ran it through his head. Went pale. Reacher saw it and nodded.\n\n\"Right,\" he said. \"Let me make a guess: Brogan was never short of money, was he? Never groused about the salary, did he?\"\n\n\"Shit,\" McGrath said. Two alimony checks every month, girlfriend, silk jackets, and I never even thought twice about it. I was just so grateful he wasn't one of the moaners.\"\n\n\"He's collecting his next payment right now,\" Reacher said. \"And Milosevic is dead or locked up somewhere.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded slowly.\n\n\"And Brogan worked out of California,\" he said. \" Before he came tome.\n\nShit, I never thought twice. A buck gets ten he was the exact agent who went after Borken. He said Sacramento couldn't make it stick. Said the files were unclear as to why not. Why not is because Borken was handing him bucketfuls of dollars to make sure it didn't stick. And the bastard was taking them.\"\n\nReacher nodded. Said nothing.\n\n\"Shit,\" McGrath said again. \"Shit, shit, shit. My fault.\"\n\nStill Reacher said nothing. More tactful just to keep quiet. He understood McGrath's feelings. Understood his position. He had been in the same position himself, time to time in the past. He had felt the knife slip in, right between the shoulder blades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll deal with Brogan later,\" McGrath said finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After we go get Holly. She mention meat all? She realize I'd come get her? She mention that?\"\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"She told me she trusted her people,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY YEARS GENERAL CAREER HAD killed a man. He hadn't meant to. He had meant to lay the man out and take his weapon.\n\nThat was all. The man was part of an inner screen of sentries. They were posted at haphazard intervals in a line a hundred yards south of the courthouse. Garber had trawled back and forth in the woods and scoped them out. A ragged line of sentries, maybe forty or fifty yards between each one, two on the shoulders of the road and the rest in the forest.\n\nGarber had selected the one nearest to a straight line between himself and the big white building. The man was going to have to move. Garber needed direct access. And he needed a weapon. So he had selected the man and worked nearer to him. He had scraped up a fist-sized rock from the damp forest floor. He had worked around behind him.\n\nTheir lack of training made the whole thing easy. A sentry screen should be mobile. They should be moving side-to-side along the length of the perimeter they are told to defend. That way, they cover every inch of the territory, and they find out if the next man inline has been ambushed and dumped on the floor. But these men were static. Just standing there. Watching and listening. Bad tactic.\n\nThe selected man was wearing a forage cap. It was camouflaged with the wrong camouflage. It was a black-and-gray interrupted pattern.\n\nCarefully designed to be very effective in an urban environment.\n\nUseless in a sun-dappled forest. Garber had come up behind the man and swung the rock. Hit him neatly on the back of the head.\n\nHit him too hard. Problem was, people are different. There's no set amount of impact that will do it. Not like playing pool. You want to roll the ball into the corner pocket, you know just about exactly how hard you need to cue. But skulls are different. Some are hard. This man's wasn't. It cracked like an eggshell and the spinal cord severed right up at the top and the man was dead before he hit the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shit,\" Garber breathed.\n\nHe wasn't worried about the ethics of the situation. Not worried about that at all. Forty years of dealing with hard men gone bad had defined a whole lot of points for him, ethically. He was worried about buzzards. Unconscious men don't attract them. Dead men do. Buzzards circling overhead spread information. They tell the other sentries: one of your number is dead.\n\nSo Garber changed his plan slightly. He took the dead man's M-16 and moved forward farther than he really wanted to. He moved up to within twenty yards of where the trees petered out. He worked left and right until he saw a rock outcrop, ten yards beyond the edge of the woods.\n\nThat would be the site of his next cautious penetration. He slipped behind a tree and squatted down. Stripped the rifle and checked its condition. Reassembled it, and waited.\n\nHarland Webster rolled back the videotape for the fourth time and watched the action again. The puff of pink mist, the guard going down, the second guard taking off, the camera's sudden jerked zoom out to cover the whole of the clearing, the second guard silently sprawling.\n\nThen along pause. Then Reacher's crazy sprint. Reacher tossing bodies out of the way, slashing at the ropes, bundling McGrath to safety.\n\n\"We made a mistake about that guy,\" Webster said.\n\nGeneral Johnson nodded.\n\n\"I wish Garber was still here,\" he said. \"I owe him an apology.\"\n\n\"Planes are low on fuel,\" the aide said into the silence.\n\nJohnson nodded again.\n\n\"Send one back,\" he said. \"We don't need both of them up there anymore. Let them spell each other.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The aide called Peterson and within half a minute three of the six screens in the vehicle went blank as the outer plane peeled off and headed south. The inner plane relaxed its radius and zoomed its camera out to cover the whole area. The close-up of the clearing fell away to the size of a quarter and the big white courthouse swam into view, bottom right-hand corner of the screens. Three identical views on three glowing screens, one for each of them. They hunched forward in their chairs and stared. The radio in Webster's pocket started crackling.\n\n\"Webster?\" Borken's voice said. \"You there?\"\n\n\"I'm here,\" Webster replied.\n\n\"What's with the plane?\" Borken said. \"You losing interest or something?\"\n\nFora second, Webster wondered how he knew. Then he remembered the vapor trails. They were like a diagram, up therein the sky.\n\n\"Who was it?\" he asked. \"Brogan or Milosevic?\"\n\n\"What's with the plane?\" Borken asked again.\n\n\"Low fuel,\" Webster said. \"It'll be back.\"\n\nThere was a pause. Then Borken's voice came back.\n\n\"OK,\" he said.\n\n\"So who was it?\" Webster asked again. \"Brogan or Milosevic?\"\n\nBut the radio just went dead on him. He clicked the button off and caught Johnson looking at him. Johnson's face was saying: the military man turned out good and the Bureau guy turned out bad. Webster shrugged. Tried to make it rueful. Tried to make it mean: we both made mistakes. But Johnson's face said: you should have known.\n\n\"Could be a problem, right?\" the aide said. \" Brogan and Milosevic?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whichever one is the good guy, he still thinks Reacher's his enemy. And whichever one is the bad guy, he knows Reacher's his enemy.\"\n\nWebster looked away. Turned back to the bank of screens.\n\nBorken put the radio back in the pocket of his black uniform. Drummed his fingers on the judge's desk. Looked at the people looking back at him.\n\n\"One camera is enough,\" he said.\n\n\"Sure,\" Milosevic said. \"One is as good as two.\"\n\n\"We don't need interference right now,\" Borken said. \"So we should nail Reacher before we do anything else.\"\n\nMilosevic glanced around, nervously.\n\n\"Don't look at me,\" he said. \"I'm staying inhere. I just want my money.\"\n\nBorken looked at him. Still thinking.\n\n\"You know how to catch a tiger?\" he asked. \"Ora leopard or something? Out in the jungle?\"\n\n\"What?\" Milosevic asked.\n\n\"You tether a goat to a stake,\" Borken said. \"And lie in wait.\"\n\n\"What?\" Milosevic asked again.\n\n\"Reacher was willing to rescue McGrath, right?\" Borken said. \"So maybe he's willing to rescue your pal Brogan, too.\"\n\nGeneral Garber heard the commotion and risked moving up a few yards. He made it to where the trees thinned out and he crouched. Shuffled sideways to his left to get a better view. The courthouse was dead ahead up the rise. The south wall was face-onto him, but he had a narrow angle down the front. He could seethe main entrance. He could seethe steps up to the door. He saw a gaggle of men come out. Six men. There were two flanking point men, alert, scanning around, rifles poised. The other four were carrying somebody, spreadeagled, face-down. The person had been seized by the wrists and the ankles. It was a man. Garber could tell by the voice. He was bucking and thrashing and screaming. It was Brogan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Garber went cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew what had happened to Jackson. McGrath had told him. He raised his rifle. Sighted in on the nearer point man.\n\nTracked him smoothly as he moved right to left. Then his peripheral vision swept the other five. Then he thought about the sentry screen behind him. He grimaced and lowered the rifle. Impossible odds. He had a rule: stick to the job in hand. He'd preached it like a gospel for forty years. And the job in hand was to get Holly Johnson out alive. He crept backward into the forest and shrugged at the two men beside him.\n\nThe Chinook crew had clambered out of their wrecked craft and stumbled away into the forest. They had thought they were heading south, but in their disorientation they had moved due north. They had passed straight through the sentry screen without knowing anything about it and come upon a three-star general sitting at the base of a pine. The general had hauled them down and told them to hide. They thought they were in a dream, and they were hoping to wake up. They said nothing and listened as the screaming faded behind the ruined county offices.\n\nReacher and McGrath heard it minutes later. Faintly, at first, deep in the forest to their left. Then it built louder. They moved together level with a gap between huts where they could see across the Bastion to the mouth of the track. They were ten feet into the forest, far enough back to be well concealed, far enough forward to observe.\n\nThey saw the two point men burst out into the sunlight. Then four more men, walking instep, rifles slung, leaning outward, arms counterbalancing something heavy they were carrying. Something that was bucking and thrashing and screaming.\n\n\"Christ,\" McGrath whispered. That's Brogan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher stared fora longtime. Silent. Then he nodded.\n\n\"I was wrong,\" he said. \"Milosevic is the bad guy.\"\n\nMcGrath clicked the Clock's trigger to release the safety device.\n\n\"Wait,\" Reacher whispered.\n\nHe moved right and signaled McGrath to follow. They stayed deep in the trees and paralleled the six men and Brogan across the clearing. The men were moving slow across the shale, and Brogan's screaming was getting louder. They looped past the bodies and the tent pegs and the cut ropes and walked on.\n\nThey're going to the punishment hut,\" Reacher whispered.\n\nThey lost sight of them as the trees closed around the path to the next clearing. But they could still hear the screaming. Sounded like Brogan knew exactly what was going to happen to him. McGrath remembered recounting Borken's end of the conversation on the radio.\n\nReacher remembered burying Jackson's mangled body.\n\nThey risked getting a little closer to the next clearing. Saw the six men head for the windowless hut and stop at the door. The point men turned and covered the area with their rifles. The guy gripping Brogan's right wrist fumbled the key out of his pocket with his spare hand. Brogan yelled for help. He yelled for mercy. The guy unlocked the door. Swung it open. Stopped in surprise on the threshold and shouted.\n\nJoseph Ray came out. Still naked, his clothes balled in his arms.\n\nDried blood allover the bottom of his face like a mask. He danced and stumbled over the shale in his bare feet. The six men watched him go.\n\n\"Who the hell's that?\" McGrath whispered.\n\n\"Just some asshole,\" Reacher whispered back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brogan was dropped onto the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he was hauled upright by the collar. He was staring wildly around and screaming. Reacher saw his face, white and terrified, mouth open. The six men threw him into the hut. They stepped in after him. The door slammed. McGrath and Reacher moved closer. They heard screams and the thump of a body hitting the walls. Those sounds went on for several minutes. Then it went quiet. The door opened. The six men filed out, smiling and dusting their hands. The last man darted back fora final kick.\n\nReacher heard the blow land and Brogan scream. Then the guy locked the door and hustled after the others. They crunched over the stones and were gone. The clearing fell silent.\n\nHolly limped across the raised floor to the door. Pressed her ear onto it and listened. All quiet. No sound. She limped back to her mattress and picked up the spare pair of fatigue trousers. Used her teeth to pick the seams. Tore the material apart until she had separated the front panel of one of the legs. It gave her apiece of canvas cloth maybe thirty inches long and six wide. She took it into the bathroom and ran the sink full of hot water. Soaked the strip of cloth in it. Then she took off her trousers. Squeezed the soaking canvas out and bound it as tight as she could around her knee. Tied it off and put her trousers back on. Her idea was the hot wet cloth might shrink slightly as it dried. It might tighten more. It was as near as she was going to get to solving her problem. Keeping the joint rigid was the only way to kill the pain.\n\nThen she did what she'd been rehearsing. She pulled the rubber foot off the bottom of her crutch. Smashed the metal end into the tile in the shower. The tile shattered. She reversed the crutch and used the end of the curved elbow clip to prise the shards off the wall. She selected two. Each was a rough triangle, narrow at the QfiQ base and pointed. She used the edge of the elbow clip to scrape away the clay at the leading point. Left the vitrified white surface layer intact, like the blade of a knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put her weapons in two separate pockets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pulled the shower curtain to conceal the damage. Put the rubber foot back on the crutch. Limped back to her mattress and sat down to wait.\n\nThe problem with using just one camera was that it had to beset to a fairly wide shot. That was the only way to cover the whole area. So any particular thing was small on the screen. The group of men carrying something had shown up like a large insect crawling across the glass.\n\n\"Was that Brogan?\" Webster asked out loud.\n\nThe aide ran the video back and watched again.\n\n\"He's face down,\" he said. \"Hard to tell.\"\n\nHe froze the action and used the digital manipulator to enlarge the picture. Adjusted the joystick to put the spreadeagled man in the center of the screen. Zoomed right in until the image blurred.\n\n\"Hard to tell,\" he said again. \"It's one of them, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"I think it was Brogan,\" Webster said.\n\nJohnson looked hard. Used his finger and thumb against the screen to estimate the guy's height, head to toes.\n\n\"How tall is he?\" he asked.\n\n\"How tall is he?\" Reacher asked suddenly.\n\n\"What?\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher was behind McGrath in the trees, staring out at the punishment hut. He was staring at the front wall. The wall was maybe twelve feet long, eight feet high. Right to left there was a two-foot panel, then the door, thirty inches wide, hinged on the right, handle on the left.\n\nThen a panel probably seven and a half feet wide running down to the end of the building.\n\n\"How tall is he?\" Reacher asked again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Christ, does it matter?\" McGrath said.\n\n\"I think it does,\" Reacher said.\n\nMcGrath turned and stared at him.\n\n\"Five nine, maybe five ten,\" he said. \"Not an especially big guy.\"\n\nThe cladding was made up of horizontal eight-by-fours nailed over the frame. There was a seam halfway up. The floor was probably three-quarters board laid over two-by-fours. Therefore the floor started nearly five inches above the bottom of the outside cladding.\n\nAbout an inch and a half below the bottom of the doorway.\n\n\"Skinny, right?\" Reacher said.\n\nMcGrath was still staring at him.\n\nThirty-eight regular, best guess,\" he said.\n\nReacher nodded. The walls would be two-by-fours clad inside and outwith the plywood. Total thickness five and a half inches, maybe less if the inside cladding was thinner. Call it the inside face of the end wall was five inches in from the corner, and the floor was five inches up from the bottom.\n\n\"Right-handed or left-handed?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Speak tome,\" McGrath hissed.\n\n\"Which?\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Right-handed,\" McGrath said. \"I'm pretty sure.\"\n\nThe two-by-fours would be on sixteen-inch centers. That was the standard dimension. But from the corner of the hut to the right-hand edge of the door, the distance was only two feet. Two feet less five inches, for the thickness of the end wall, was nineteen inches. There was probably a two-by-four set right in the middle of that span. Unless they skimped it, which was no problem. The wall would be stuffed with fiberglass wadding, for insulation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stand back,\" Reacher whispered.\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath said.\n\n\"Just do it,\" Reacher replied.\n\nMcGrath moved out of the way. Reacher put his eyes on a spot ten inches in from the end of the hut and just shy of five feet up from the bottom. Swayed left and rested his shoulder on a tree. Raised his M-16 and sighted it in.\n\n\"Hell are you doing?\" McGrath hissed.\n\nReacher made no reply. Just waited for his heart to beat and fired.\n\nThe rifle cracked and the bullet punched through the siding a hundred yards away. Ten inches from the corner, five feet from the ground.\n\n\"Hell are you doing?\" McGrath hissed again.\n\nReacher just grabbed his arm and pulled him into the woods. Dragged him north and waited. Two things happened. The six men burst back into the clearing. And the door of the punishment hut opened. Brogan was framed in the doorway. His right arm washanging limp. His right shoulder was shattered and pumping blood. In his right hand, he was holding his Bureau. 38. The hammer was back.\n\nHis ringer was tight on the trigger.\n\nReadier snicked the M-16 to burst fire. Stitched five bursts of three shells into the ground, halfway across the clearing. The six men skidded away, like they were suddenly facing an invisible barrier or a drop off a tall cliff. They ran for the woods. Brogan stepped out of the hut. Stood in a bar of sunshine and tried to lift his revolver.\n\nHis arm wouldn't work. It hung uselessly.\n\n\"Decoy,\" Reacher said. \"They thought I'd go in after him. He was waiting behind the door with his gun. I knew he was the bad guy. But they had me fooled fora moment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath nodded slowly. Stared at the government-issue. 38 in Brogan's hand. Remembered his own being confiscated. He raised the Clock and wedged his wrist against a tree. Sighted down the barrel.\n\n\"Forget it,\" Reacher said.\n\nMcGrath kept his eyes on Brogan and shook his head.\n\n\"I'm not going to forget it,\" he said quietly. \"Bastard sold Holly out.\"\n\n\"I meant forget the Clock,\" Reacher said. That's a hundred yards.\n\nClock won't get near. You'd be lucky to hit the damn hut from here.\"\n\nMcGrath lowered the Clock and Reacher handed him the M-16. Watched with interest as McGrath sighted it in.\n\n\"Where?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Chest,\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"Chest is good,\" he said.\n\nMcGrath steadied himself and fired. He was good, but not really good.\n\nThe rifle was still set to burst fire, and it loosed three rounds. The first hit Brogan in the upper left of his forehead, and the other two stitched upward and blasted fragments off the door frame. Good, but not very. But good enough to do the job. Brogan went down like a marionette with the strings cut. He just telescoped into the ground, right in front of the doorway. Reacher took the M-16 back and sprayed the trees on the edge of the clearing until the magazine clicked empty.\n\nReloaded and handed the Clock back to McGrath. Nodded him east through the forest. They turned together and walked straight into Joseph Ray. He was unarmed and half dressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blood dried on his face like brown paint. He was fumbling with his shirt buttons. They were done up into the wrong holes.\n\n\"Women and children are going to die,\" he said.\n\n\"You all got an hour, Joe,\" Reacher said back to him. \"Spread the word. Anybody wants to stay alive, better head for the hills.\"\n\nThe guy just shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"We've got to assemble on the parade ground. Those are our instructions. We've got to wait for Beau there.\"\n\n\"Beau won't becoming,\" Reacher said.\n\nRay shook his head again.\n\n\"He will be,\" he said. \"You won't beat Beau, whoever you are. Can't be done. We got to wait for him. He's going to tell us what to do.\"\n\n\"Run for it, Joe,\" Reacher said. \"For Christ's sake, get your kids out of here.\"\n\n\"Beau says they have to stay here,\" Ray said. \"Either to enjoy the fruits of victory, or to suffer the consequences of defeat.\"\n\nReacher just stared at him. Ray's bright eyes shone out. His teeth flashed in a brief defiant smile. He ducked his head and ran away.\n\n\"Women and children are going to die?\" McGrath repeated.\n\n\"Borken's propaganda,\" Reacher said. \"He's got them all convinced compulsory suicide is the penalty forgetting beat around here.\"\n\n\"And they're standing still for it?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"He controls them,\" Reacher said. \"Worse than you can imagine.\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in beating them,\" McGrath said. \"Right now, I just want to get Holly out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Same thing,\" Reacher said.\n\nThey walked on in silence, through the trees in the direction of the Bastion.\n\n\"How did you know?\" McGrath asked. \"About Brogan?\"\n\nReacher shrugged.\n\n\"I just felt it,\" he said. \"His face, I guess. They like hitting people in the face. They did it to you. But Brogan was unmarked. I saw his face, no damage, no blood. I figured that was wrong. The excitement of an ambush, the tension, they'd have worked it off by roughing him up a little. Like they did with you. But he was theirs, so he just walked in, handshakes all around.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded. Put his hand up and felt his nose.\n\n\"But what if you were wrong?\" he said.\n\n\"Wouldn't have mattered,\" Reacher said. \"If I was wrong, he wouldn't have been standing behind the door. He'd have been down on the floor with a bunch of broken ribs because all that thumping around would have been for real.\"\n\nMcGrath nodded again.\n\n\"And all that shouting,\" Reacher said. \"They paraded along, real slow, with the guy shouting his head off. They were trying to attract my attention.\"\n\nThey're good at that,\"McGrath said.\" Webster's worried about it. He doesn't understand why Borken seems so set on getting attention, escalating this whole thing way bigger than he needs to.\"\n\nThey were in the woods. Halfway between the small clearing and the Bastion. Reacher stopped. Like the breath had been knocked out of him. His hands went up to his mouth. He stood breathless, like all the air had been sucked off the planet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Christ, I know why,\" he said. \"It's a decoy.\"\n\n\"What?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"I'm getting a bad feeling,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"About what?\" McGrath asked him, urgently.\n\n\"Borken,\" Reacher said. \" Something doesn't add up. His intentions.\n\nStrike the first blow. But where's Stevie? You know what? I think there are two first blows, McGrath. This stuff up here and something else, somewhere else. A surprise attack. Like Pearl Harbor, like his damn war books. That's why he's set on escalating everything. Holly, the suicide thing. He wants all the attention up here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "HOLLY WAS STANDING UPRIGHT AND FACING HER DOOR WHEN THEY came for her.\n\nThe tight wrap on her knee was drying stiff. So she had to stand, because her leg would no longer bend. And she wanted to stand, because that was the best way to do it.\n\nShe heard the footsteps in the lobby. Heard them clatter up the stairs. Two men, she estimated. She heard them halt outside her door.\n\nHeard the key slide in and the lock click back. She blinked once and took a breath. The door opened. Two men crowded in. Two rifles. She stood upright and faced them. One stepped forward. \"Outside, bitch,\" he said.\n\nShe gripped her crutch. Leaned on it heavily and limped across the floor. Slowly. She wanted to be outside before anybody realized she could move better than they thought. Before anybody realized she was armed and dangerous.\n\n\"Strike the first blow,\" Reacher said. \"I interpreted that all wrong.\"\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath asked urgently.\n\n\"Because I haven't seen Stevie,\" Reacher said. \"Not since early this morning. Stevie's not here anymore. Stevie's gone somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Reacher, you're not making any sense,\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher shook his head like he was clearing it and snapped back into focus. Set off racing east through the trees. Talking quietly, but urgently.\n\n\"I was wrong,\" he said. \" Borken said they were going to strike the first blow. Against the system. I thought he meant the declaration of independence. I thought that was the first blow. The declaration, and the battle to secure this territory. I thought that was it. On its own. But they're doing something else as well. Somewhere else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They're doing two things at once. Simultaneous.\"\n\n\"What are you saying?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Attention,\" Reacher said. The declaration of independence is focusing attention up herein Montana, right?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" McGrath said. They planned to have CNN and the United Nations up here watching it happen. That's a lot of attention.\"\n\n\"But they'd have been in the wrong place,\" Reacher said. \" Borken had a bookcase full of theory telling him not to do what they expect. A whole shelf all about Pearl Harbor. And I overheard him talking in the mine. When he was fetching the missile launcher. Fowler was with him.\n\nBorken told Fowler by tonight this place will be way down the list of priorities. So they're doing something else someplace else as well.\n\nSomething different, maybe something bigger. Twin blows against the system.\"\n\n\"But what?\" McGrath asked. \"And where? Near here?\"\n\n\"No,\" Reacher said. \" Probably faraway. Like Pearl Harbor was.\n\nThey're reaching out, trying to land a killer blow somewhere. Because there's a time factor here. It's all coordinated.\"\n\nMcGrath stared at him.\n\nThey planned it well,\"Reacher said.\" Getting everybody's attention fixed up here. Independence. That stuff they were going to do with you. They were going to kill you slowly, with the cameras watching.\n\nThen the threats of mass suicide, women and children dying. A high-stakes siege. So nobody would be looking anywhere else. Borken's cleverer than I thought. Twin blows, each one covering for the other.\n\nEverybody's looking up here, then something big happens someplace else, everybody's looking down there, and he consolidates his new nation backup here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But where is it happening, for God's sake?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath asked. \"And what the hell is it?\"\n\nReacher stopped and shook his head.\n\n\"I just don't know,\" he said.\n\nThen he froze. There was a crashing noise up ahead and a patrol of six men burst around a tight thicket of pines and stopped dead in front of them. They had M-16s in their hands, grenades on their belts, and surprise and delight on their faces.\n\nBorken had deployed every man he had to the search for Reacher, except for the two he had retained to deal with Holly. He heard them start down the courthouse stairs. He pulled the radio from his pocket and flipped it open. Extended the stubby antenna and pressed the button.\n\n\"Webster?\" he said. \"Get focused in, OK? We'll talk again in a minute.\"\n\nHe didn't wait for any reply. Just snapped the radio off and turned his head as he tracked the sound of the footsteps on their way outside.\n\nFrom seventy-five yards south, Garber saw them come out of the door and down the steps. He had moved out of the woods. He had moved forward and crouched behind the outcrop of rock. He figured that was safe enough, now he had back-up of a sort. The Chinook crewmen were thirty yards behind him, well separated, well hidden, instructed to yell if anybody approached from the rear. So Garber was resting easy, staring up the slope at the big white building.\n\nHe saw two armed men, bearded, starting down the steps. They were dragging a smaller figure with a crutch. A halo of dark hair, neat green fatigues. Holly Johnson. He had never seen her before. Only in the photographs the Bureau men had showed him. The photographs had not done her justice. Even from seventy-five yards, he could feel the glow of her character. Some kind of radiant energy. He felt it, and pulled his rifle closer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The M-16 in Reacher's hands was a 1987 product manufactured by the Colt Firearms Company in Hartford, Connecticut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the A2 version. Its principal new feature was the replacement of automatic fire with burst fire. For the sake of economy, the trigger relocked after each burst of three shells. The idea was to waste less ammunition.\n\nSix targets, three shells each from the fresh magazine, a total of eighteen shells and six trigger pulls. Each burst of three shells took a fifth of a second, so the firing sequence itself amounted to just one and a fifth seconds. It was pulling the trigger over and over again which wasted the time. It wasted so much time for Reacher that he ran into trouble after the fourth guy was down. He wasn't aiming. He was just tracking a casual left-to-right arc, close range into the bodies in front of him. The opposing rifles were coming up as a unit. The first four never got there. But the fifth and the sixth were already raised horizontal by the time the fourth went back down, two-and-a-quarter seconds into the sequence.\n\nSo Reacher gambled. It was the sort of instinctive gamble you take so fast that to call it a split-second decision is to understate the speed by an absurd factor. He skipped his M-16 straight to the sixth guy, totally sure that McGrath would take the fifth guy with the Clock. The sort of instinctive gamble you take based on absolutely nothing at all except a feeling, which is itself based on absolutely nothing at all except the look of the guy and how he compares with the look of other people worth trusting in the past.\n\nThe flat crack of the Clock was lost under the rattle of the M-16 but the fifth guy went down simultaneous with the sixth. Reacher and McGrath crashed sideways together into the brush and flattened into the ground. Stared through the sudden dead silence at the cordite smoke rising gently through the shafts of sunlight. No movement. No survivors. McGrath blew a big sigh and stuck out his hand, from flat on the ground. Reacher twisted around and shook it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're pretty quick for an old guy,\" he said.\n\nThat's how I got to bean old guy,\" McGrath said back.\n\nThey stood up slowly and ducked back farther into the trees. Then they could hear more people moving toward them in the forest. A stream of people was moving northwest out of the Bastion. McGrath raised the Clock again and Reacher snicked the M-16 back to singles. He had twelve shells left. Too few to waste, even with the A2's economy measure. Then they saw women through the trees. Women and children.\n\nSome men with them. Family groups. They were marching in columns of two. Reacher saw Joseph Ray, a woman at his side, two boys marching blankly in front of him. He saw the woman from the mess kitchen, marching side by side with a man. Three children walking stolidly in front of them.\n\n\"Where are they going?\" McGrath whispered.\n\n\"The parade ground,\" Reacher said. \"Borken ordered it, right?\"\n\n\"Why don't they just run for it?\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher shrugged and said nothing. He had no explanation. He stood concealed and watched the blank faces pass through the dappled woods.\n\nThen he touched McGrath's arm and they sprinted on through the trees and came out behind the mess hall. Reacher glanced cautiously around.\n\nStretched up and grabbed at the roof overhang. Put afoot upon the window ledge and hauled himself up onto the shingles. Crawled up the slope of the roof and steadied himself against the bright metal chimney. Raised the stolen field glasses and trained them southeast, down toward the town, thinking: OK, but what the hell else is happening? And where?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Johnson's aide had the most aptitude with the computer controls, either from familiarity with such things, or from being younger. He used the rubber knobs and the joystick to focus on the area in front of the courthouse steps. Then he zoomed out a touch to frame the view. He had the western face of the courthouse on the right of the screen and the eastern face of the ruined county office on the left. In between were the two lawns, one abandoned and scrubby, the other still reasonably flat. The road ran vertically up the center of the picture, like a map. The jeep which had brought McGrath in was still there where they had dumped it. The aide used it to check his focus. It came in crisp and clear. It was a military surplus vehicle.\n\nSmudged white stencils. They could seethe windshield folded down, and a canvas map case and a jerrycan for fuel and a short-handled shovel clipped on the rear.\n\nThey all saw the two men bring Holly out. From above, they were in a perfect straight diagonal line, with Holly alone in the middle, like the shape you see when a die rolls a three. They brought her out and waited. Then they saw a huge figure lumbering down the courthouse steps behind them. Borken. He stepped into the road and looked up.\n\nRight into the camera, invisible seven miles above him. He stared and waved. Raised his right hand high. There was a black gun in it. Then he looked down and fiddled with something in his left hand. Raised it to his ear. The radio on the desk in front of Webster crackled.\n\nWebster picked it up and flipped it open.\n\n\"Yes?\" he said.\n\nThey saw Borken waving up at the camera again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he said.\n\n\"We see you,\" Webster said quietly.\n\n\"See this?\" Borken asked.\n\nHe raised the gun again. The general's aide zoomed in tight. Borken's huge bulk filled the screen. Upturned pink face, black pistol held high.\n\n\"We see it,\" Webster said.\n\nThe aide zoomed back out. Borken resumed his proper perspective.\n\n\"Sig-Sauer P226,\" Borken said. \"You familiar with that weapon?\"\n\nWebster paused. Glanced around.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"Nine-millimeter,\" Borken said. \"Fifteen shots to a clip.\"\n\n\"So?\" Webster asked.\n\nBorken laughed. Aloud sound in Webster's ear.\n\n\"Time for some target practice,\" Borken said. \"And guess what the target is?\"\n\nThey saw the two men move toward Holly. Then they saw Holly's crutch come up. She held it level with both hands. She smashed it hard into the first man's gut. She whipped it back and swung it. Spun and hit the second man in the head. But it was light aluminum. No weight behind it. She dropped it and her hands went to her pockets. Came outwith something in each palm. Things that glinted and caught the sun.\n\nShe skipped forward and slashed desperately at the face in front of her. Danced and whirled and swung the glinting weapons.\n\nThe aide jerked the zoom control. The first man was down, clutching at his throat and face. Blood on his hands. Holly was spinning fast circles, slashing at the air like a panther in a cage turning on a stiff leg, the other foot dancing in and out as she darted left and right. Webster could hear distorted breathing and gasping through the earpiece. He could hear shouting and screaming. He stared at the screen and pleaded silently: go left, Holly, go for the jeep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She went right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swung her left hand high and held her right hand low, like a boxer. Darted for the second man. He raised his rifle, but crossways, in a sheer panic move toward off the slashing blow. He punched the rifle up to meet her arm and her wrist cracked against the barrel. Her weapon flew off into the air. She kicked hard under the rifle and caught him in the groin. He wheeled away and collapsed. She darted for Borken. Her glittering hand swung a vicious arc. Webster heard a shriek in his ear. The camera showed Borken ducking away, Holly swarming after him. But the first man was up again, behind her.\n\nHesitating. Then he was swinging his rifle like a bat. He caught her with the stock flat on the back of her head. She went limp. Her leg stayed stiff. She collapsed over it like she was falling over agate and sprawled on the road at Borken's feet.\n\nTwo down. One of them was Holly. Reacher adjusted the field glasses and stared at her. Two still standing. A grunt with a rifle, and Borken with a handgun and the radio. All in a tight knot, visible through the trees twelve hundred yards southeast and three hundred feet below. Reacher stared at Holly, inert on the ground. He wanted her.\n\nHe loved her for her courage. Two armed men and Borken, and she'd gone for it. Hopeless but she'd gone for it. He lowered the field glasses and hitched his legs around the chimney. Like he was riding a metal horse. The chimney was warm. His upper body was flat on the slope of the roof. His head and shoulders were barely above the ridge. He raised the field glasses again, and held his breath, and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They saw Borken's agitated gestures and then the injured man was getting up and moving in with the other who had hither. They saw them pinning her arms behind her and dragging her to her feet. Her head was hanging down. One leg was bent, and the other was stiff. They propped heron it and paused. Borken signaled them to move. They dragged her away across the road. Then Borken's voice came back in Webster's ear, loud and breathy.\n\n\"OK, fun's over,\" he said. Tut her old man on.\"\n\nWebster handed the radio to Johnson. He stared at it. Raised it to his ear.\n\n\"Anything you want,\" he said. \"Anything at all. Just don't hurt her.\"\n\nBorken laughed. Aloud, relieved chuckle.\n\nThat's the kind of attitude I like,\"he said.\" Now watch this.\"\n\nThe two men dragged Holly up the knoll in front of the ruinedoffice building. Dragged her over to the stump of the dead tree. They turned her and walked her until her back thumped against the wood. They wrapped her arms around the stump behind her. Her head came up. She shook it, in a daze. One man held both wrists while the other fumbled with something. Handcuffs. He locked her wrists behind the tree. The two men stepped away, back toward Borken. Holly fell and slid down the stump. Then she pushed back and stood up. Shook her head again and gazed around.\n\n\"Target practice,\" Borken said into the radio.\n\nJohnson's aide fiddled with the zoom and made the picture bigger.\n\nBorken was walking away. He walked twenty yards south and turned, the Sig-Sauer pointing at the ground, the radio up at his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here goes,\" he said.\n\nHe turned side-on and raised his arm. Held it out absolutely straight, shoulders turned like a duelist in an old movie. Squinted down the barrel and fired. The pistol kicked silently and there was a puff of dust in the ground, three feet from where Holly was standing still.\n\nBorken laughed again.\n\n\"Bad shot,\" he said. \"I need the practice. Might take me awhile to get close. But I've got fourteen more shells, right?\"\n\nHe fired again. A puff of dust from the earth. Three feet the other side of the stump.\n\nThirteen left,\"Borken said.\" I guess CNN is your best bet, right?\n\nCall them and tell them the whole story. Make it an official statement. Get Webster to back you up. Then patch them through on this radio. You won't give me my fax line, I'm going to have to communicate direct.\"\n\n\"You're crazy,\" Johnson said.\n\n\"You're the one who's crazy,\" Borken said. \"I'm a force of history. I can't be stopped. I'm shooting at your daughter. The president's godchild. You don't understand, Johnson. The world is changing. I'm changing it. The world must be my witness.\"\n\nJohnson was silent. Stunned.\n\n\"OK,\" Borken said. \" I'm going to hangup now. You make that call.\n\nThirteen bullets left. I don't hear from CNN, the last one kills her.\"\n\nJohnson heard the line go dead and looked up at the screensand saw Borken drop the radio on the ground. Saw him raise the Sig-Sauer two-handed. Saw him sight it in. Saw him put around right between his daughter's feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reacher rested against the warm chimney and lowered the glasses. Ran a desperate calculation through his head. A calculation involving time and distance. He was twelve hundred yards away to the northwest. He couldn't get therein time. And he couldn't get there silently. He lay chest down on the roof of the mess hall and called down to McGrath.\n\nHis voice was already quiet and relaxed. Like he was ordering in a restaurant.\n\n\"McGrath?\" he said. \"Go break into the armory. It's the hut on the end, apart from the others.\"\n\n\"OK,\" McGrath called. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"You know what a Barren looks like?\" Reacher called. \"Big black thing, scope, big muzzle brake on it. Find a full magazine. Probably be next to them.\"\n\n\"OK,\" McGrath said again.\n\n\"And hurry,\" Reacher said.\n\nGarber's view up from the south cleared when the two soldiers came back around and stood behind Beau Borken. They hung back, like they didn't want to put him off his aim. Borken was maybe sixty feet from Holly, shooting up the rise of the knoll. Garber was seventy yards away down the steep slope. Holly was just left of straight ahead. Borken was just to the right. His black bulk was perfectly outlined against the whiteness of the south wall of the courthouse. Garber saw that somebody had blanked the upper-story windows with new white wood.\n\nBorken's head was framed dead center against one of the new rectangles.\n\nGarber smiled. It would be like shooting fora small pink bullseye on a sheet of white paper. He snicked the M-16 to burst fire and checked it visually. Then he raised it to his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGrath stretched upon his toes and passed the Barrett up toward Reacher. Reacher stretched his hand down and pulled it up. Glanced at it and passed it back down.\n\n\"Not this one,\" he said. \"Find one with the serial number ending in five-zero-two-four, OK?\"\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath called.\n\n\"Because I know for sure it shoots straight,\" Reacher said. \"I used it before.\"\n\n\"Christ,\" McGrath said. He set off again at a dead run. Reacher lay back on the roof, trying to keep his heartbeat under control.\n\nBorken's tenth shot was still wide, but not by much. Holly jumped as far as her cuffs would allow. Borken took to pacing back and forth in delight. He was pacing and laughing and stopping to shoot. Garber was tracking his huge bulk left and right against the whiteness of the building. Just waiting for him to stop moving. Because Garber had a rule: make the first shot count.\n\nMcGrath found the rifle Reacher had used before and passed it up to the roof. Reacher took it and checked the number. Nodded. McGrath ran like crazy for the mouth of the stony track. Disappeared down it at a sprint. Reacher watched him go. Thumbed the big bullets in the magazine and checked the spring. Pressed the magazine home gently with his palm. Raised the Barrett to his shoulder and balanced it carefully on the ridgeline. Pulled the stock in and ducked his eye to the scope.\n\nUsed his left thumb to ease the focus out to twelve hundred yards. It racked the lens right out to the stop. He laid his left palm over the barrel. Operated the silky mechanism and put around in the breech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stared down at the scene below.\n\nThe telescope on the rifle bunched it all up, but the geometry was fine. Holly was upon the knoll, slightly to the right of dead ahead.\n\nHandcuffed to the dead tree. He stared at her face fora long moment.\n\nThen he nudged the scope. Borken was below her, maybe sixty feet farther on, firing up the rise at her, slightly to the left. He was walking short arcs, back and forth. But anywhere he chose to stop, there was a hundred miles of empty country behind his head. The courthouse walls were well away from Reacher's trajectory. Safe enough. Safe, but not easy. Twelve hundred yards was a hell of a distance. He breathed out and waited for Borken to stop pacing.\n\nThen he froze. In the corner of his eye, he caught the gleam of sun on dull metal. Maybe seventy yards farther on down the slope. A rock. A man behind the rock. A rifle. A familiar head, grizzled hair on some of it. General Garber. Garber, with an M-16, behind a rock, moving the muzzle side to side as he tracked his target, who was walking short arcs seventy yards directly in front of him.\n\nReacher breathed out and smiled. He felt a warm flood of gratitude.\n\nGarber. He had backup. Garber, shooting from just seventy yards. In that split-second he knew Holly was safe. The warm flood of gratitude coursed through him.\n\nThen it changed to an icy blast of panic. His brain kicked in. The compressed geometry below him exploded into a dreadful diagram. Like something on a page, like a textbook explanation of a disaster. From Garber's angle, the courthouse was directly behind Borken. When Borken stopped moving, Garber was going to fire at him. He might hit or he might miss. Either way, his bullet was going to hit the courthouse wall. Probably right up therein the southeastern corner, second floor. The ton of old dynamite would go up in a percussive fireball a quarter mile wide. It would vaporize Holly and shred Garber himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shock-wave would probably knock Reacher right off the mess hall roof, twelve hundred yards away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How the hell could Garber not know?\n\nBorken stopped pacing. Stood sideways on and steadied himself. Reacher blew out a lungful of air. He moved the Barrett. He put the crosshairs dead center on Holly Johnson's temple, right where the soft dark hair billowed down toward her eyes. He kept his lungs empty and waited for the next thump of his heart. Then he squeezed the trigger.\n\nGarber watched Borken's arm come up. Waited until he had steadied.\n\nSquinted down the M-16's sighting grooves and put the pink and whitehead dead center. It sat there, big and obvious against the blur of sunny whitewall behind it. He waited like he'd been taught to a lifetime ago. Waited until his breath was out and his heart was between beats. Then he pulled the trigger.\n\nGeneral Johnson had closed his eyes. His aide was staring at the screen. Webster was watching through a lattice of fingers, mouth open, like a child with anew babysitter watching a horror movie on television, way after his bedtime.\n\nFirst thing out of the barrel of Reacher's Barrett was a blast of hot gas. The powder in the cartridge exploded in a fraction of a millionth of a second and expanded to a superheated bubble. That bubble of gas hurled the bullet down the barrel and forced ahead of it and around it to explode out into the atmosphere. Most of it was smashed sideways by the muzzle brake in a perfectly balanced radial pattern, like a donut, so that the recoil moved the barrel straight back against Reacher's shoulder without deflecting it either sideways or up or down.\n\nMeanwhile, behind it, the bullet was starting to spin inside the barrel as the rifling grooves grabbed at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the gas ahead of the bullet was heating the oxygen in the air to the point where the air caught fire. There was a brief flash of flame and the bullet burst out through the exact center of it, spearing through the burned air at nineteen hundred miles an hour. A thousandth of a second later, it was a yard away, followed by a cone of gunpowder particles and a puff of soot. Another thousandth of a second later, it was six feet away, and its sound was bravely chasing after it, three times slower.\n\nThe bullet took five-hundredths of a second to cross the Bastion, by which time the sound of its shot had just passed Reacher's ears and cleared the ridge of the roof. The bullet had a hand-polished copper jacket, and it was flying straight and true, but by the time it passed soundlessly over McGrath's head it had slowed a little. The friction of the air had heated it and slowed it. And the air was moving it. It was moving it right-to-left as the gentle mountain breeze tugged imperceptibly at it. Half a second into its travel, the bullet had covered thirteen hundred feet and it had moved seven inches to the left.\n\nAnd it had dropped seven inches. Gravity had pulled it in. The more gravity pulled, the more the bullet slowed. The more it slowed, the more gravity deflected it. It speared onward in a perfect graceful curve. A whole second after leaving the barrel, it was nine hundred yards into its journey. Way past McGrath's running figure, but still over the trees. Still three hundred yards short of its target. Another sixth of a second later, it was clear of the trees and alongside the ruined office building. Now it was a slow bullet. It had pulled four feet left, and five feet down. It passed well clear of Holly and was twenty feet beyond her before she heard the hiss in the air. The sound of its shot was still to come. It had just about caught up with McGrath, running through the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then there was a second bulletin the air. And a third, and a fourth.\n\nGarber fired a second-and-a-quarter later than Reacher. His rifle was set to auto. It fired a burst of three. Three shells in a fifth of a second. His bullets were smaller and lighter. Because they were lighter, they were faster. They came in at well over two thousand miles an hour. He was nearer the target. Because his bullets were faster and lighter and he was nearer, friction and gravity never really chipped in. His three bullets stayed pretty straight.\n\nReacher's bullet hit Borken in the head a full second-and-a-third after he fired it. It entered the front of his forehead and was out of the back of his skull three ten-thousandths of a second later. In and out without really slowing much more at all, because Borken's skull and brains were nothing to a two-ounce lead projectile with a needlepoint and a polished copper jacket. The bullet was well on over the endless forest beyond before the pressure wave built up in Borken's skull and exploded it.\n\nThe effect is mathematical and concerns kinetic energy. The way it had been explained to Reacher, long ago, it was all about equivalents. The bullet weighed only two ounces, but it was fast. Equivalent to something heavy, but slow. Two ounces moving at a thousand miles an hour was maybe similar to something weighing ten pounds moving at three miles an hour. Maybe something like a sledgehammer swinging hard in a man's hand. That was pretty much the effect. Reacher was watching it through the scope. Heart in his mouth. A full second-and-a-third is along time to wait. He watched Borken's skull explode like it had been burst from the inside with a sledgehammer. It came apart like a diagram. Reacher saw curved shards of bone bursting outward and red mist blooming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But what he couldn't see were Garber's three bullets, hurtling through the mess unimpeded, and flying straight on toward the courthouse wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE CLASSIC MISTAKE IN FIRING AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON IS TO let the recoil from the first bullet jerk the barrel upward, so that the second bullet goes high, and the third higher still. But Garber did not make that mistake. He had enough hours on the range to be reliable from seventy yards. He had been through enough edgy situations to know how to stay cool and concentrated. He put all three bullets right through the exact center of the pink cloud that had been Borken's head.\n\nThey spent two ten-thousandths of a second traveling through it and flew on uninterrupted. They smashed through the new plywood sheeting in the window frame The leading bullet was distorted slightly by the impact and jerked left, tearing through the inner pine siding twenty-two inches later. It crossed Holly's room and re-entered the wall to the left of the doorway. Smashed right through and buried itself in the far wall of the corridor.\n\nThe second bullet came in through the first bullet's hole and therefore traversed the twenty-two-inch gap in a straight line. It came out through the inner siding and was thrown to the right. Crossed the room and smashed on through the bathroom partition and shattered the cheap, white ceramic toilet.\n\nThe third shell was rising just a fraction. It hit a nail in the outer wall and turned aright angle. Drilled itself sideways and down through eight of the new two-by-fours like a demented termite before its energy was expended. It ended up looking like a random blob of lead pressed into the back of the new pine boarding.\n\nReacher saw Garber's muzzle flash through his scope. Knew he must be firing triples. Knew he must have hit the courthouse wall. He stared down from twelve hundred yards away and gripped the ridge of the roof and shut his eyes. Waited for the explosion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Garber knew his shots hadn't killed Borken. There hadn't been time.\n\nEven dealing with tiny fractions of a second, there's a rhythm. Fire... hit. Borken had been hit before his bullets could possibly have gotten there. So somebody else was up and shooting. There was a team inaction. Garber smiled. Fired again. Pumped his trigger finger nine more times and stitched Borken's two soldiers allover the courthouse wall with his remaining twenty-seven shells.\n\nMilosevic came out of the courthouse lobby and down the steps at a run.\n\nHe had his Bureau. 38 held high in his right hand and his gold shield in his left.\n\n\"FBI agent!\" he screamed. \"Everybody freeze!\"\n\nHe glanced to his right at Holly and then at Garber on his way up to meet him and at McGrath racing around from behind the office building.\n\nMcGrath went straight for Holly. He hugged her tight against the dead tree. She was laughing. She couldn't hug back, because her arms were still cuffed behind the post. McGrath let her go and ran down the slope. Smacked a high five with Milosevic.\n\n\"Who's got the keys?\" McGrath yelled.\n\nGarber pointed over toward the two dead soldiers. McGrath ran to them and searched through the oozing pockets. Came outwith a key and ran backup to the knoll. Ducked around to the back of the stump and unlocked Holly's wrists. She staggered away and McGrath darted forward and grabbed her arm. Milosevic found her crutch on the road and tossed it over. McGrath caught it and handed it to her. She got steady and came down the rise, arm in arm with McGrath. They made it to level ground and stood there together, gazing around in the sudden deafening quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who do I thank?\" Holly asked.\n\nShe was holding McGrath's arm, staring at the remains of Borken, lying sixty feet away. The corpse was flat on its back, high and wide. It had no head.\n\nThis is General Garber,\"McGrath said. Top boy in the military police.\"\n\nGarber shook his head.\n\n\"Wasn't me,\" he said. \"Somebody beat me to it.\"\n\n\"Wasn't me,\" Milosevic said.\n\nThen Garber nodded behind them.\n\n\"Probably this guy,\" he said.\n\nReacher was on his way down the knoll. Out of breath. A frame six five high and two hundred twenty pounds in weight is good fora lot of things, but not for sprinting a mile.\n\n\"Reacher,\" Holly said.\n\nHe ignored her. Ignored everybody. Just ran on south and turned to stare up at the whitewall. He saw bullet holes. A lot of bullet holes. Probably thirty holes, most of them scattered over the second floor in the southeastern corner. He stared at them fora second and ran for the jeep parked at the curb. Snatched the shovel from its clips under the spare fuel can. Sprinted for the steps. Crashed through the door and up the stairs to Holly's room. Ran for the front wall.\n\nHe could see at least a dozen exit holes punched through the wood.\n\nRagged splintered holes. He smashed the blade of the shovel into one of them. Split the pine board length ways and used the shovel to wrench it off. Smashed the shovel behind the next and tore it away from the nails securing it. By the time McGrath was in the room, he had exposed four feet of studding. By the time Holly joined them, they were staring into an empty cavity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No dynamite,\" she said, quietly.\n\nReacher ducked away to the adjacent wall. Tore enough boards off to be sure.\n\nThere never was any,\"Holly said.\" Shit, I can't believe it.\"\n\nThere was some,\"McGrath said.\" Jackson called it in. Described the whole thing. I saw his report. He unloaded the truck with seven other guys. He carried it up here. He saw it going into the walls, for God's sake. A ton of dynamite. Kind of a hard thing to be confused about.\"\n\n\"So they put it in,\" Reacher said. \"And then they took it out. They let people see it going in, then they took it out again secretly. They used it somewhere else.\"\n\nTook it out again?\" Holly repeated.\n\n\"Women and children have to die,\" Reacher said, slowly.\n\n\"What?\" Holly asked. \"What are you saying?\"\n\n\"But not here,\" he said. \"Not these women and children.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holly said again.\n\n\"Not mass suicide,\" Reacher said. \"Mass murder.\"\n\nThen he just went blank. He was silent. But in his head he was hearing something. He was hearing the same terrible blast he had heard thirteen years before. The sound of Beirut. The sound of the Marine compound, out near the airport. He was hearing it allover again, and it was deafening him.\n\n\"Now we know what it is,\" he muttered through the shattering roar.\n\n\"What is it?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Low on its springs,\" Reacher said. \"But we don't know where it's gone.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holly said again.\n\n\"Women and children have to die,\" Reacher repeated. \" Borken said so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said the historical circumstances justified it. But he didn't mean these women and these children up here.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you talking about?\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher glanced at him, and then at Holly, surprised, like he was seeing them both for the first time.\n\n\"I was in the motor pool,\" he said. \"I saw the truck. Our truck? It was parked up, low on its springs, like it had a heavyweight inside.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holly said again.\n\n\"They've made themselves a truck bomb,\" Reacher said. \" Stevie's delivering it somewhere, some public place. That's the other attack.\n\nThey're going to explode it in a crowd. There's a whole ton of dynamite in it. And he's six hours ahead of us.\"\n\nMcGrath was first down the stairs.\n\n\"Into the jeep,\" he yelled.\n\nGarber ran for the jeep. But Milosevic was much nearer. He vaulted in and fired it up. Then McGrath was helping Holly into the front seat.\n\nReacher was on the sidewalk, staring south, lost in thought. Milosevic was drawing his revolver. He was thumbing the hammer back. Garber stopped. Raised his rifle and aimed. Milosevicleaned across in front of Holly. McGrath jumped away. Milosevic stamped on the gas and roared away one-handed with the muzzle jammed into Holly's side. One-handed over the rough road, the jeep was allover the place. No chance of hitting Milosevic. Garber could see that. He lowered his rifle and watched them go.\n\n\"Both of them?\" Webster said to himself. \"Please, God, no.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take the role of the writer's aide, proceed with the narrative.\nTags: thriller, crime, mystery, action, Jack Reacher\nAuthor: Lee Child\nTitle: Die Trying\nChapter: 43" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said the historical circumstances justified it. But he didn't mean these women and these children up here.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you talking about?\" McGrath said.\n\nReacher glanced at him, and then at Holly, surprised, like he was seeing them both for the first time.\n\n\"I was in the motor pool,\" he said. \"I saw the truck. Our truck? It was parked up, low on its springs, like it had a heavyweight inside.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holly said again.\n\n\"They've made themselves a truck bomb,\" Reacher said. \" Stevie's delivering it somewhere, some public place. That's the other attack.\n\nThey're going to explode it in a crowd. There's a whole ton of dynamite in it. And he's six hours ahead of us.\"\n\nMcGrath was first down the stairs.\n\n\"Into the jeep,\" he yelled.\n\nGarber ran for the jeep. But Milosevic was much nearer. He vaulted in and fired it up. Then McGrath was helping Holly into the front seat.\n\nReacher was on the sidewalk, staring south, lost in thought. Milosevic was drawing his revolver. He was thumbing the hammer back. Garber stopped. Raised his rifle and aimed. Milosevicleaned across in front of Holly. McGrath jumped away. Milosevic stamped on the gas and roared away one-handed with the muzzle jammed into Holly's side. One-handed over the rough road, the jeep was allover the place. No chance of hitting Milosevic. Garber could see that. He lowered his rifle and watched them go.\n\n\"Both of them?\" Webster said to himself. \"Please, God, no.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We could use another chopper right now,\" the aide said. \"I don't think we have to worry about the missiles anymore.\"\n\nHe panned the camera north and west and zoomed in on the mountain bowl in front of the mine entrances. The four missile trucks were sitting inert. The sprawled body of the dead sentry was nearby.\n\n\"OK, call in a chopper,\" Johnson said.\n\n\"Better coming direct from you, sir,\" the aide said.\n\nJohnson turned sideways to use the phone. Then he spun back to watch as the jeep drove into shot. It bounced up out of the last hairpin into the bowl and raced across the shale. Swerved around the dead trucks and slewed to a stop in front of the left-hand shed. Milosevic jumped out and danced around the hood. Revolver steady on Holly as he approached. He pulled her out by the arm and dragged her to the big wooden doors. Levered one open with his foot and pushed her inside. He followed her in and the huge door swung shut. Webster glanced away from the screen.\n\n\"Call the chopper, sir,\" the aide said.\n\n\"Make it a fast one,\" Webster added.\n\nQuickest way to the mines was a shortcut through the Bastion. It was deserted and quiet. They ran through it and headed north across the rifle range toward the parade ground. Stopped short in the woods. The whole remaining militia population was standing silently in neat ranks, quiet fearful faces turned to the front, where Borken's upturned box still awaited his arrival.\n\nReacher ignored them and led the others around in the trees. Then in a straight line to the road. Straight north along it. Reacher was carrying the big Barren. He had retrieved it from the mess hall roof, because he liked it. Garber was hurrying at his side. McGrath was pushing ahead as fast as he could, desperate to get to Holly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They ducked back into the woods before the last hairpin and Reacher scouted ahead. He holed up behind the rock he'd used before and covered every inch of the bowl with the Barrett's scope. Then he waved the other two up to join him.\n\n\"They're in the motor pool,\" he said. \"Left-hand shed.\"\n\nHe pointed with the fat barrel of the sniper rifle and the others saw the abandoned jeep and nodded. He ran over the shale and crouched behind the hood of the first missile truck. Garber sent McGrath next.\n\nThen he ran over. They crouched together behind the truck and stared at the log doors.\n\n\"What now?\" Garber asked. \"Frontal assault?\"\n\n\"He's got a gun to her head,\" McGrath said. \"I don't want her hurt, Reacher. She's precious tome, OK?\"\n\n\"Any other way in?\" Garber asked.\n\nReacher stared at the doors and the roaring of the Beirut bomb receded and was replaced by the quiet whimpering of an earlier nightmare. He spent a minute trawling desperately for an alternative. He thought about the rifles and the missiles and the trucks. Then he gave it up.\n\n\"Keep him occupied,\" he said. Talk to him, anything.\"\n\nHe left the Barrett and took the Clock back from McGrath. Dodged to the next truck, and the next, all the way level with the entrance to the other cavern. The charnel house, full of bodies and skeletons and rats. He heard McGrath calling to Milosevic in a faint faraway voice and he ran to the big log doors. Ducked in through the gap and moved back into the dark.\n\nHe had no flashlight. He felt his way around the troop carrier and eased on into the mountain. He held his hand above his head and felt the roof comedown. Felt for the bodies in the pile and skirted them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crouched and headed left for the skeletons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rats were hearing him and smelling him and squealing angry warnings all the way back to their nests. He dropped to his knees and then lay down and swam through the pile of damp bones. Felt the roof of the tunnel lower and the sides press in. Took a deep breath and felt the fear comeback.\n\nThe fastest helicopter available on that day was a Marine Corps Night Hawk stationed at Malmstrom. It was along, fat, humped machine, but it was quick. Within minutes of Johnson's call, it was spinning up and receiving orders to head west and north to a gravel turnout on the last road in Montana. Then it was in the air. The Marine pilot found the road and followed it north, fast and low, until he spotted a cluster of army command vehicles parked tight into a rock cutting. He swung back and put down on the turnout and waited. Saw three men racing south toward him. One was a civilian and two were army. One was a colonel and the other was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The pilot shrugged at his crewman who pointed upward through the plexiglass canopy. There was alone vapor trail maybe thirty-six thousand feet up. Some big jet was unwinding a tight spiral and streaking south. The pilot shrugged again and figured whatever was happening, it was happening to the south. So he made a provisional course calculation and was surprised when the brass clambered aboard and ordered him to head north into the mountains.\n\nReacher was laughing. He was hauling himself along through the tunnel and laughing out loud. Shaking and crying with laughter. He was no longer afraid. The tight clamp of the rock on his body was like a caress. He had done this once, and survived it. It was possible. He was going to get through.\n\nThe fear had disappeared as suddenly as it had come. He had pushed through the pile of bones in the dark and stretched out and felt the rock clampdown against his back. His chest had seized and his throat had gagged tight. He had felt the hot damp flush of panic and pressed himself into the ground. He had felt his strength drain away. Then he had focused. The job in hand. Holly. Milosevic's revolver pushed against the dark billow of her hair, her fabulous eyes dull with despair. He had seen her in his mind at the end of the tunnel. Holly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the tunnel seemed to straighten and become a warm smooth tube. An exact fit for his bulky shoulders. Like it was tailored for him, and him alone. A simple horizontal journey. He had learned along time ago that somethings were worth being afraid of. And somethings were not. Things that he had done before and survived did not justify fear.\n\nTo be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational. And whatever else he was, Reacher knew he was a rational man. In that split second the fear disappeared and he felt himself relax. He was a fighter. An avenger. And Holly was waiting for him. He thrust his arms forward like a swimmer diving for the water and swarmed through the mountain toward her.\n\nHe charged along with a tidy rhythm. Like marching out on the open road, but doing it lying down in the dark. Small deft movements of hands and feet. Head lowered. Laughing with relief. He felt the tunnel get smaller and hug him. He slid on through. He felt the blank wall ahead and folded himself neatly around the corner. Breathed easily and stopped laughing. Told himself it was time for quiet. He crawled on as fast as he could. Slowed up when he sensed the roof soaring away above him. Crept forward until the smell of the air told him he was nearly through.\n\nThen he heard the helicopter. He heard the faint thumping of the rotors in the distance. He heard feet scuffling forty yards in front of him. The inarticulate sound of surprise and panic. He heard Milosevic's voice. High-pitched. West Coast accent.\n\n\"Keep that chopper away from here,\" Milosevic screamed through the door.\n\nThe noise was getting nearer. Growing louder.\n\n\"Keep it away, you hear?\" Milosevic screamed. \"I'll kill her, McGrath. That's a promise, you hear?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was totally dark. There were vehicles between Reacher and the cracks of light around the door. But not the white truck. That was gone. He rolled up into the space where it had been and pulled the Clock from his pocket. The thumping of the rotor blades was very close. It was battering the doors and filling the cavern.\n\n\"I'll trade her with you,\" Milosevic screamed through the door. \"I get out of here unharmed, you get her back, OK? McGrath? You hear me?\"\n\nIf there was a reply, Reacher didn't hear it.\n\n\"I'm not with these guys,\" Milosevic screamed. \"This whole thing is nothing to do with me. Brogan got me into it. He made me do it.\"\n\nThe noise was shattering. The heavy doors were shaking.\n\n\"I did it for the money, that's all,\" Milosevic screamed. \"Brogan was giving me money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, McGrath. You'd have done the exact same thing. Brogan was making me rich. He bought me a Ford Explorer. The Limited Edition. Thirty-five grand. How the hell else was I ever going to get one?\"\n\nReacher listened to the screaming voice in the darkness. He didn't want to shoot him. For one crazy moment, he felt absurdly grateful to him, because he had banished his childhood nightmare. He had forced him to confront it and defeat it. He had made him a betterman. He wanted to run up to him and shake him by the hand. He could picture himself doing it. But then the picture changed. He needed to run up to him and shake him by the throat and ask him if he knew where Stevie had taken the white truck. That was what he needed to do. That was why he didn't want to shoot him. He crept forward in the deafening noise and skirted around the vehicles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was operating in a one-dimensional world. He could see nothing because of the darkness. He could hear nothing, because of the helicopter. He sensed movement near the doors. Came out from behind a pickup and saw a shape framed against the cracks of light. A shape that should have been two shapes. Wide at the top, four legs.\n\nMilosevic with his arm around Holly's throat, his gun at her head. He waited for his vision to build. Their faces faded in from black to gray. Holly in front of Milosevic. Reacher raised the Clock. Circled left to get an angle. His shin caught a fender. He staggered and backed into a pile of paint cans. They crashed silently to the rock floor, inaudible in the crushing noise from outside. He sprinted closer to the light.\n\nMilosevic sensed it and turned. Reacher saw his mouth open in a silent shout. Saw him twist and push Holly out in front of him like a shield.\n\nSaw him stall with indecision, his revolver up in the air. Reacher dodged right, then danced back left. He saw Milosevic track him both ways. Saw Holly use the sway to tear herself out of his grip. The rotor noise was shattering. He saw Milosevic glancing left and right.\n\nSaw him making his decision. Reacher was armed, Holly was not.\n\nMilosevic lunged forward. The. 38 flashed silently in the noise. The brief white flame was blinding in the dark. Reacher lost his sense of where Holly was. He cursed and held his fire. He saw Milosevic aim again. Beyond him, he saw Holly's arm come up and stretch around his head from behind. He saw her hand touch his face with gentle precision. He saw him stumble. Then the door heaved open and Holly staggered away from the shattering flood of noise and sunlight and crashed straight into his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sunlight fell in a bright bar across Milosevic. He was lying on his back. His. 38 was in his hand. The hammer was back. There was a shard of bathroom tile sticking out of his head where his left eye should have been. It was maybe three inches in and three inches out. A small worm of blood was running away from the point of entry.\n\nThen the open door was crowded with people. Readier saw McGrath and Garber standing in a blast of dust. A Night Hawk was landing behind them. Three men were spilling out and running over. A civilian and a colonel. And General Johnson. Holly twisted and saw them and buried her face back in Reacher's chest.\n\nGarber was the first to them. He pulled them out into the light and the noise. They stumbled awkwardly, four-legged. The downdraft tore at them. McGrath stepped near and Holly pulled herself from Reacher's grip and threw herself at him and hugged him hard. Then General Johnson was moving in on her through the crowd.\n\n\"Holly,\" he mouthed through the din.\n\nShe straightened in the light. Grinned at him. Hooked her hair back behind her ears. Pulled away from McGrath and hugged her father close.\n\n\"Still stuff for me to do, Dad,\" she screamed over the engines. \"I'll tell you everything later, OK?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "REACHER MADE A TWIRLING SIGNAL WITH HIS HAND TO TELL THE helicopter pilot to keep the engines spinning and ran through the noise and the eddying dust to take the Barrett back from Garber. He waved the others toward the machine. Hustled them up the ladder and followed them in through the sliding door. Laid the Barrett on the metal floor and dumped himself into a canvas chair. Pulled his headset on. Thumbed the button and called through to the pilot.\n\n\"Standby, OK?\" he said. \"I'll give you a course as soon as I've got one.\"\n\nThe pilot nodded and ran the engines up out of idle. The rotor thumped faster and the noise built louder. The weight of the aircraft came up off the tires.\n\n\"Where the hell are we going?\" Webster shouted.\n\n\"We're chasing Stevie, chief,\" McGrath shouted back. \"He's driving the truck. The truck is full of dynamite. He's going to explode it somewhere. Remember what the Kendall sheriff said? Stevie always got sent out to do the dirty work? You want me to draw you a damn picture?\"\n\n\"But he can't have gotten out of here,\" Webster yelled. The bridge is blown. And there are no tracks through the forest. They closed them all.\"\n\n\"Forest Service guy didn't say that,\" McGrath yelled back. They closed some of them. He wasn't sure which ones, was all. What he said was maybe there's away through, maybe there isn't.\"\n\nThey had two years to spy it out,\"Reacher shouted.\" You said the pickup had spent time on Forest Service tracks, right? Crushed sandstone allover the underside? They had two whole years to find away through the maze.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster glanced to his left, east, over to where the forest lay beyond the giant mountain. He nodded urgently, eyes wide.\n\n\"OK, so we got to stop him,\" he yelled. \"But where has he gone?\"\n\n\"He's six hours ahead of us,\" Reacher shouted. \"We can assume the forest was pretty slow. Call it two hours? Then four hours on the open road. Maybe two hundred miles? Diesel Econoline, hauling a ton, can't be averaging more than about fifty.\"\n\n\"But which damn direction?\" Webster yelled through the noise.\n\nHolly glanced at Reacher. That was a question they had asked each other a number of times, in relation to that exact same truck. Reacher opened up the map in his head and trawled around it allover again, clockwise.\n\n\"Could have gone east,\" he shouted. \"He'd still be in Montana, past Great Falls. Could be down in Idaho. Could be in Oregon. Could be halfway to Seattle.\"\n\n\"No,\" Garber yelled. Think about it the other way around. That's the key to this thing. Where has he been ordered to go? What would the target be?\"\n\nReacher nodded slowly. Garber was making sense. The target.\n\n\"What does Borken want to attack?\" Johnson yelled.\n\nBorken had said: you study the system and you learn to hate it. Reacher thought hard and nodded again and thumbed his mike and called through to the pilot.\n\n\"OK, let's go,\" he said. \"Straight on south of here should do it.\"\n\nThe noise increased louder and the Night Hawk lifted heavily off the ground. It swung in the air and rose clear of the cliffs. Slipped south and banked around. Dropped its nose and accelerated hard. The noise moved up out of the cabin and settled to a deep roar inside the engines. The ground tilted and flashed past below. Reacher saw the mountain hairpins unwinding and the parade ground sliding past. The knot of tiny people was breaking up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were drifting away into the trees and being swallowed up under the green canopy. Then the narrow slash of the rifle range was under them, then the broad stony circle of the Bastion. Then the aircraft rose sharply as the ground fell away so that the big white courthouse slipped by underneath as small as a dollhouse. Then they were over the ravine, over the broken bridge, and away into the vast forested spaces to the south.\n\nReacher tapped the pilot on the shoulder and spoke through the intercom.\n\n\"What speed are we doing?\" he asked.\n\n\"Hundred and sixty,\" the pilot said.\n\n\"Course?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Dead on south,\" the pilot said.\n\nReacher nodded. Closed his eyes and started to calculate. It was like being back in grade school. He's two hundred miles ahead, doing fifty miles an hour. You're chasing him at a hundred and sixty. How long before you catch him? Grade-school math had been OK for Reacher. So had fighting in the yard. The fighting part had stayed with him better than the math. He was sure there must be some kind of a formula for it. Something with x and y allover the damn page. Something equaling something else. But if there was a formula, he had long ago forgotten it. So he had to do it by trial and error. Another hour, Stevie would be two hundred and fifty miles from home. The Night Hawk would have done one hundred and sixty. Way behind. An hour after that, Stevie would be three hundred miles out, and the Night Hawk would be three hundred and twenty. Overshot. Therefore they were going to catch him somewhere near the top of the second hour. If they were headed in the right direction.\n\nFlathead Lake came into view, far ahead and far below. Reacher could seethe roads snaking across the rugged terrain. He thumbed the button on his mike." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Still south?\" he asked.\n\n\"Dead on,\" the pilot said.\n\n\"Still one-sixty?\" Reacher asked.\n\n\"Dead on,\" the pilot said again.\n\n\"OK, stick with it,\" Reacher said. \"Hour and fifty minutes, maybe.\"\n\n\"So where is he going?\" Webster asked.\n\n\"San Francisco,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Or Minneapolis,\" Reacher said. \"But I'm gambling on San Francisco.\"\n\n\"Why?\" McGrath asked again.\n\n\"San Francisco or Minneapolis,\" Reacher said. \"Think about it. Other possibilities would be Boston, New York, Philly, Cleveland, Richmond in Virginia, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri, or Dallas in Texas.\"\n\nMcGrath just shrugged blankly. Webster looked puzzled. Johnson glanced at his aide. Garber was motionless. But Holly was smiling.\n\nShe smiled and winked at Reacher. He winked back and the Night Hawk thumped on south over Missoula at a hundred and sixty miles an hour.\n\n\"Christ, it's the Fourth of July,\" Webster said suddenly.\n\nTell me about it,\"Reacher said.\" Lots of people gathered in public places. Families, kids and all.\"\n\nWebster nodded grimly.\n\n\"OK, where exactly in San Francisco?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"North end of Market,\" Holly said. \" Right near Embarcadero Plaza.\n\nThat's where, chief. I've been thereon the Fourth. Big parade in the afternoon, fireworks over the water at night. Huge crowds all daylong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huge crowds everywhere on the Fourth,\" Webster said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You better be guessing right, people.\"\n\nMcGrath looked up. A slow smile was spreading over his bruised face.\n\n\"We are guessing right,\" he said. \"It's San Francisco for sure. Not Minneapolis or anyplace else.\"\n\nReacher smiled back and winked. McGrath had gotten it.\n\n\"You want to tell me why?\" Webster asked him.\n\nMcGrath was still smiling.\n\n\"Go figure,\" he said. \"You're the damn director.\"\n\n\"Because it's the nearest?\" Webster asked.\n\nMcGrath nodded.\n\n\"In both senses,\" he said, and smiled again.\n\n\"What both senses?\" Webster asked. \"What are we talking about?\"\n\nNobody answered him. The military men were quiet. Holly and McGrath were staring out through the windows at the ground, two thousand feet below. Reacher was craning up, looking ahead through the pilot's plexiglass canopy.\n\n\"Where are we?\" he asked him.\n\nThe pilot pointed down at a concrete ribbon below.\n\nThat's US 93,\"he said.\" Just about to leave Montana and enter Idaho.\n\nStill heading due south.\"\n\nReacher nodded.\n\n\"Great,\" he said. \" Follow 93. It's the only road goes south, right?\n\nWe'll catch him somewhere between here and Nevada.\"\n\nHe started worrying near the top of the second hour. Started worrying badly. Started desperate revisions to his grade-school calculations.\n\nMaybe Stevie was driving faster than fifty. He was a fast driver.\n\nFaster than Bell had been. Maybe he was doing nearer sixty. Where did that put him? Three hundred and sixty miles out. In which case they wouldn't catch him until two hours\" ; 0:+ ' fifteen minutes had elapsed. What if he was doing seventy? Could that Econoline sustain seventy, hour after hour, with a ton in back? Maybe. Probably. In which case he was four hundred and twenty miles out. A total of two hours forty minutes before they overhauled him. That was the envelope. Somewhere between one hour fifty minutes and two hours forty minutes, somewhere between Montana and Nevada. A whole fifty minutes of rising panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than a hundred miles of concrete ribbon to watch before he could know for sure he was wrong and they had to peel off hopelessly northeast toward Minnesota.\n\nThe helicopter was flying nose-down, top speed, straight along US 93.\n\nThe seven passengers were craned forward, staring down at the road.\n\nThey were over a town called Salmon. The pilot was calling out information like a tour guide. The giant peak of Mount McGuire, ten thousand feet, way off to the right. Twin Peaks, ten and a half thousand feet, up ahead to the right. Borah Peak, highest of all, twelve and a half thousand feet, way ahead to the left. The aircraft rose and fella thousand feet above the terrain. Hurtled along lower than the surrounding peaks, nose-down to the highway like a bloodhound.\n\nTime ticked away. Twenty minutes. Thirty. The road was pretty much empty. It connected Missoula in the north to Twin Falls in Idaho, three hundred miles to the south. Neither was a booming metropolis and this was a holiday. Everybody had already gotten where they were going. There was an occasional automobile and an occasional trucker working overtime. No white Econoline. There had been two white vehicles, but they were both pickups. There had been one panel truck, but it was dark green. That was all. Nothing else. No white truck.\n\nSometimes the road was empty all the way to the horizon in front of them. The time was ticking away. Like a bomb. Forty minutes. Fifty.\n\n\"I'm going to call Minneapolis,\" Webster said. \"We blew it.\"\n\nMcGrath waited, hoping. He shook his head.\n\n\"Not yet,\" he said. That's a desperation move. Mass panic. Can you imagine the crowds? The evacuation? People are going to get trampled.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster peered out and down. Stared at the road fora full minute.\n\nFifty-four minutes into the fifty-minute envelope.\n\n\"Get worse than trampled if that damn truck's already up there,\" he said. \"You want to imagine that?\"\n\nTime ticked away. Fifty-eight minutes. An hour. The road stayed empty.\n\n\"There's still time,\" Garber said. \"San Francisco or Minneapolis, either one, he's still got to be along way short.\"\n\nHe glanced at Reacher. Doubt and trust visible in his eyes, in approximately equal measures. More time ticked away. An hour and five minutes. The road still stayed empty, all the way to the distant horizon. The speeding helicopter reeled it in, only to reveal anew horizon, still empty.\n\n\"He could be anywhere,\" Webster said. \"San Francisco's wrong, maybe Minneapolis is wrong, too. He could be in Seattle already. Or anywhere.\"\n\n\"Not Seattle,\" Reacher said.\n\nHe stared forward. Stared on and on. Fear and panic had him by the throat. He checked his watch again and again. An hour and ten minutes. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. An hour and fifteen minutes. He stared at the watch and the empty ribbon below. Then he sat back and went quiet. Chilled with terror. He had hung on as long as he could, but they had reached the point where the math went absurd.\n\nTo be this far south without passing him, Stevie would need to be driving at a hundred miles an hour. Ora hundred and twenty. Ora hundred and fifty. He glanced at the others and spoke in a voice which didn't sound like his own.\n\n\"I blew it,\" he said. \"It must have been Minneapolis.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the thump of the engines faded and for the second time that day the huge bass roar of the bomb came back. He kept his eyes wide open so he wouldn't have to see it, but he saw it anyway. Not Marines this time, not hard men camped out in the heat to do a job, but soft people, women and children, small and smaller, camped out in a city park to watch fireworks, vaporizing and bursting into a hazy pink dew like his friends had done thirteen years before. The bone fragments coming out of children and hissing away through the burning air and hitting other children a hundred yards farther on. Hitting them and tearing through their soft guts like shrapnel and putting the luckiest ones in the hospital fora whole agonizing year.\n\nThey were all staring at him. He realized tears were rolling down his cheeks and splashing onto his shirt.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said.\n\nThey looked away.\n\n\"I got calls to make,\" Webster said. \"Why is it Minneapolis now? Why was it ever San Francisco?\"\n\n\"Federal Reserve branches,\" Reacher said quietly. There are twelve of them. The nearest two to Montana are San Francisco and Minneapolis.\n\nBorken hated the Fed. He thought it was the main instrument of the world government. He thought it was a big conspiracy to eliminate the middle classes. It was his special theory. He said it put him ahead in his understanding. And he believed the Fed ordered his father's bank to finagle the old guy into taking a loan so they could deliberately default him later.\"\n\n\"So Borken's attacking the Fed?\" Johnson asked urgently.\n\nReacher nodded.\n\nTwin blows,\"he said.\" In the war against the world government. Attack the old system with a surprise move, like Pearl Harbor. At the same time as setting up a brand-new system for converts to flock to. One bird with two stones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped talking. Too tired to continue. Too dispirited. Garber was staring at him. Real pain in his face. The beating of the engines was so loud it sounded like total silence.\n\nThe Declaration of Independence was only half of it,\" McGrath said.\n\n\"Double decoy. We were supposed to be focused up there, worried about Holly, worried about a suicide pact, going crazy, while they bombed the Fed behind our backs. I figured San Francisco because of Kendall, remember? I figured Borken would target the nearest branch to where his old man's farm was.\"\n\nWebster nodded.\n\n\"Hell of a plan,\" he said. \"Holiday weekend, agents on leave, big strategic decisions to make, everybody looking in the wrong place. Then the whole world looking at the bombing while Borken secures his territory backup there.\"\n\n\"Where is the Fed in Minneapolis?\" Johnson asked urgently.\n\nWebster shrugged vaguely.\n\n\"No idea,\" he said. \"I've never been to Minneapolis. I imagine it's a big public building, probably in a nice spot, parks all around, maybe on the river or something. There's a river in Minneapolis, right?\"\n\nHolly nodded.\n\n\"It's called the Mississippi,\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"It damn well is,\" Holly said. \"Everybody knows that.\"\n\n\"No,\" Reacher said again. \"It's not Minneapolis. It's San Francisco.\"\n\n\"Mississippi goes nowhere near San Francisco,\" Holly said.\n\nThen she saw a giant smile spreading across Reacher's face. A final gleam of triumph in his tired eyes.\n\n\"What?\" she said.\n\n\"San Francisco was right,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Webster grunted in irritation.\n\n\"We'd have passed him already,\" he said. \"Miles back.\"\n\nReacher thumbed his mike. Shouted up to the pilot.\n\nTurn back,\"he said.\" A big wide loop.\"\n\nThen he smiled again. Smiled and closed his eyes.\n\n\"We did pass him,\" he said. \" Miles back. Right over his damn head.\n\nThey painted the truck green.\"\n\nThe Night Hawk swung away into a high banked loop. The passengers swung their gaze from window to window as the landscape rotated below.\n\nThere was paint in the motor pool,\"Reacher said.\" I tripped over the cans. Probably camouflage base coat They slapped it on this morning.\n\nDamn stuff is probably still wet.\"\n\nThey saw a Kenworth they had passed minutes ago. It was snuffling along a thousand feet below. Then along stretch of empty pavement.\n\nThen a white pickup. More empty road. Then a dark-green panel truck, speeding south.\n\n\"Down, down,\" Reacher was calling through.\n\n\"Is that it?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe gap between the panel truck and the pickup in front was lengthening. The truck was falling back. There was nothing behind it, all the way to the horizon. The Night Hawk was losing height. It was dropping toward the truck the way an eagle heads fora baby rabbit.\n\n\"Is that it?\" McGrath asked again.\n\nThat's it,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"It sure is,\" Holly whooped.\n\n\"You positive?\" McGrath asked.\n\n\"Look at the roof!\" Holly told him.\n\nMcGrath looked. The roof was streaked with dark-green paint, but he could see it was peppered with tiny holes. Like somebody had fired a shotgun right through it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We stared at those damn holes for two whole days,\" Holly said. \"I'll remember them the rest of my life.\"\n\nThere area hundred and thirteen of them,\"Reacher said.\" I counted.\n\nIt's a prime number.\"\n\nHolly laughed and leaned over. Smacked a joyous high five with him.\n\nThat's our truck,\"she said.\" No doubt about it.\"\n\n\"Can you seethe driver?\" McGrath asked.\n\nThe pilot tilted down and rocked sideways fora close look.\n\n\"It's Stevie,\" Holly shouted back. \"For sure. We've got him.\"\n\nThis thing got weapons?\" Webster asked.\n\nTwo big machine guns,\"the pilot called through.\" But I'm not going to use them. That I can't do. Military can't get involved in law enforcement.\"\n\n\"Can you fly this thing straight and level?\" Reacher asked him. \"Fifty miles an hour? Maybe sixty? Without asking too many questions?\"\n\nThe pilot laughed. It came through the headsets tinny and distorted.\n\n\"I can fly this thing any old way you want me to,\" he said. \"With the general's permission, of course.\"\n\nJohnson nodded cautiously. Reacher leaned down and picked the Barrett up off the floor. Unfastened his harness and stood up into a crouch.\n\nWaved to Holly to change seats with him. She crawled across in front of McGrath and Reacher eased into her place. He could feel the Night Hawk slowing and dropping in the air. He put some length into Holly's harness and fastened it loosely around his waist. Stretched back for the door release. Tugged at the handle and the door slid back on its runners.\n\nThen there was a gale of air coming in as the slipstream howled through the opening and the aircraft was turning half-sideways, sliding through the air like a car skids through snow. The green truck was below and behind, maybe two hundred feet down. The pilot was stabilizing his speed until he matched the truck's progress and tilting the aircraft so that Reacher's eye line was pointing straight down at the road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How's this?\" the pilot asked.\n\nReacher thumbed his mike button.\n\n\"Dead on,\" he said. \"Anything up ahead?\"\n\n\"One vehicle coming north,\" the co-pilot said. \"When that's through, you got nothing at all for ten miles.\"\n\n\"Anything behind?\" Reacher asked. He saw the northbound vehicle streak by below.\n\nMcGrath stuck his head out into the gale. Ducked back in and nodded.\n\n\"Clear behind,\" he said.\n\nReacher raised the Barrett to his shoulder. Put around in the breech.\n\nShooting at a moving vehicle from another moving vehicle is not a great recipe for accuracy, but he was looking at a distance of less than seventy yards and a target about twenty feet long and seven feet wide, so he wasn't worrying about it. He put the crosshairs on a point two-thirds of the way down the length of the roof. He figured the forward movement of the truck and the backward movement of the air might put the bullet dead center through the load compartment. He wondered vaguely whether the three-foot mattress was still in there.\n\nAftfi'Wait,\" Webster shouted. \" What if you're wrong? What if it's empty?\n\nYou're only guessing, right? This whole thing is guesswork. We need proof, Reacher. We need some kind of corroboration here.\"\n\nReacher didn't glance back. Kept his eye on the scope.\n\n\"Bullshit,\" he said, quietly, concentrating. This is going to be all the corroboration we need.\"\n\nWebster grabbed his arm.\n\n\"You can't do this,\" he said. \"You could be killing an innocent man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bullshit,\" Reacher said again. \"If he's an innocent man, I won't be killing him, will I?\"\n\nHe shook Webster's hand off his arm. Turned to face him.\n\nThink about it, Webster,\"he said.\" Relax. Be logical. The proof comes after I shoot, right? If he's hauling a bomb, we'll know all about it. If he's hauling fresh air, nothing bad will happen to him.\n\nHe'll just get another hole in his damn truck. Number one hundred and fourteen.\"\n\nHe turned back to the door. Raised the rifle again. Acquired the target. Out of sheer habit, he waited for his breath to be out and his heart to be between beats. Then he pulled the trigger. It took a thousandth of a second for the sound of the shot to hit his ear, and seventy times as long as that for the big heavy bullet to hit the truck. Nothing happened fora second. Then the truck ceased to exist.\n\nIt was suddenly a blinding fireball rolling down the highway like a hot white tumbleweed. A gigantic concussion ring blasted outward. The helicopter was hit by a violent shock-wave and tossed sideways and five hundred feet higher in the air. The pilot caught it at the top and slewed back. Steadied it in the air and swung around. Dropped the nose. There was nothing to see on the highway except a roiling cloud of thin smoke slowing into a teardrop shape three hundred yards long.\n\nNo debris, no metal, no hurtling wheels, no clattering wreckage.\n\nNothing at all except microscopic invisible particles of vapor accelerating into the atmosphere way faster than the speed of sound.\n\nThe pilot stuck around at a hover fora long moment and then drifted east. Put his craft gently down on the scrub, a hundred yards from the shoulder. Shut the engines down. Reacher satin the deafening silence and undipped his belt. Laid the Barrett on the floor and vaulted out through the open door. Walked slowly toward the highway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A ton of dynamite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A whole ton. A hell of a bang. There was nothing left at all. He guessed there were flattened grasses fora half-mile all around but that was it. The terrible energy of the explosion had blasted outward and met absolutely nothing at all in its path. Nothing soft, nothing vulnerable. It had blasted outward and then weakened and slowed and died to a puff of breeze miles away and it had hurt nothing.\n\nNothing at all. He stood in the silence and closed his eyes.\n\nThen he heard footsteps behind him. It was Holly. He heard her good leg alternating with her bad leg. Along stride, then a shuffle. He opened his eyes and looked at the road. She walked around in front of him and stopped. Laid her head on his chest and put her arms around him. Squeezed him tight and held on. He raised his hand to her head and smoothed her hair behind her ear, like he had seen her do.\n\n\"All done,\" she said.\n\n\"Get a problem, solve a problem,\" he said. That's my rule.\"\n\nShe was quiet fora longtime.\n\n\"I wish it was always that easy,\" she said.\n\nThe way she said it, after the delay, it was like along speech. Like a closely reasoned argument. He pretended not to know which problem she was talking about.\n\n\"Your father?\" he said. \"You're way, way out of his shadow now.\"\n\nShe shook her head against his chest.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said.\n\n\"Believe it,\" he said. That thing you did for me on the parade ground was the smartest, coolest, bravest thing I ever saw anybody do, manor woman, young or old. Better than anything I ever did. Better than anything your old man ever did. He'd give his front-teeth for guts like that. So would I. You're way out of anybody's shadow now, Holly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Believe it.\"\n\n\"I thought I was,\" she said. \"I felt like it. I really did. Fora while. But then when I saw him again, I felt just the same as I always did. I called him Dad.\"\n\n\"He is your dad,\" Reacher said.\n\n\"I know,\" she replied. That's the problem.\"\n\nHe was quiet fora long moment.\n\n\"So change your name,\" he said. That might do it.\"\n\nHe could feel her holding her breath.\n\n\"Is that a proposal?\" she asked.\n\n\"It's a suggestion,\" he said.\n\n\"You think Holly Reacher sounds good?\" she asked.\n\nHis turn to stay quiet fora longtime. His turn to catch his breath.\n\nAnd, finally, his turn to talk about the real problem.\n\n\"It sounds wonderful,\" he said. \"But I guess Holly McGrath sounds better.\"\n\nShe made no reply.\n\n\"He's the lucky guy, right?\" he said.\n\nShe nodded. A small motion of her head against his chest'So tell him,\" he said.\n\nShe shrugged in his arms.\n\n\"I can't,\" she said. \"I'm nervous.\"\n\n\"Don't be,\" he said. \"He might have something similar to tell you.\"\n\nShe looked up. He squinted down at her.\n\n\"You think so?\" she asked.\n\n\"You're nervous, he's nervous,\" Reacher said. \"Somebody should say something. I'm not about to do it for either of you.\"\n\nShe squeezed him harder. Then she stretched up and kissed him. Hard and long on the mouth.\n\nThank you,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For what?\" he asked.\n\n\"For understanding,\" she said.\n\nHe shrugged. It wasn't the end of the world. Just felt like it'Coming?\" she asked.\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he said.\n\nShe left him on the shoulder of US 93, right therein Idaho. He watched her all the way back to the Night Hawk. Watched her climb the short ladder. She paused and turned. Looked back at him. Then she ducked up and in. The door closed. The rotor thumped. He knew he would never see her again. His clothes tore at him and the dust swirled all around him as the helicopter took off. He waved it away.\n\nWatched it until it was lost to sight. Then he took a deep breath and looked left and right along the empty highway. Friday, the Fourth of July. Independence Day.\n\nSaturday the fifth and Sunday the sixth, Yorke County was sealed oft and secret army units were moving in and out around the clock. Air artillery squads recovered the missile unit. They took it south in four Chinooks. Quartermasters went in and recovered all the ordnance they could find. They collected enough fora small war.\n\nMedical corpsmen removed the bodies. They found the twenty men from the missile unit in the cave. They found the skeletons Reacher had crawled through. They found five mutilated bodies in another cave.\n\nDressed like workmen. Like builders or carpenters. They took Fowler out of the command hut and Borken from the road in front of the courthouse. They brought Milosevic down from the mountain bowl and Brogan out of the small clearing west of the Bastion. They found Jackson's rough grave in the forest and dug him up. They laid eighteen dead militiamen and one dead woman side by side on the rifle range and helicoptered them away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of Garber's military investigators flew in alone and took the hard disk out of the financial computer and put it on a chopper for transport to Chicago. Engineers moved in and dynamited the mine entrances. Sappers moved into the Bastion and disabled the water supply and tore down the power lines. They set fire to the huts and watched as they burned. Late Sunday night, when the last of the smoke was rising, they marched back to their choppers and lifted away south.\n\nEarly Monday morning, Harland Webster was back in the oft-white parlor inside the White House. Ruth Rosen was smiling at him and asking how his holiday weekend had been. He was smiling back at her and saying nothing. An hour later, the morning sun was rolling west to Chicago and three agents were arresting Brogan's girlfriend. They grilled her for thirty minutes and advised her to get out of town, leaving behind anything he had ever bought her. Then the same agents took Milosevic's brand new Ford Explorer out of the Federal Building's parking lot and drove it five miles south. They left it on a quiet street, doors unlocked, keys in. By the time it had been stolen, Holly Johnson was arriving at the knee clinic for an early appointment. An hour after that, she was back at her desk. Before lunch, the missing money from the bearer-bond robbery was following a route of her own choosing out of the Caymans. Six o'clock Monday evening she was home and packing.\n\nShe threw her bags into her car and drove north. Moved into McGrath's house up in Evanston.\n\nTuesday morning, there were three separate stories on the National Militia Internet. Refugees from an isolated valley in Montana had drifted south and west to new settlements with reports of a recent world government maneuver. Foreign troops had wiped out a band of militia heroes. The foreign battalion had been led by a French mercenary. He had succeeded only because he had used classified SDI technology, including satellites and lasers and microchips. Journalists picked upon the story and called the Hoover Building. Late Tuesday evening, in a prepared statement, an FBI spokesperson denied all knowledge of any such events." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Early Wednesday morning, after five hitched rides and four buses through seven states, Reacher was finally in Wisconsin. It was where he had aimed to be exactly a week before. He liked it there. It struck him as a fine place to be in July. He stayed until Friday afternoon." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: spy fiction, thriller, action, mystery, James Bond\nAuthor: Ian Fleming\nTitle: Dr. No\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doctor No paused. He lifted his arms an inch and dropped them again resignedly in his lap. \" Mister Bond, I said that there was not a cloud in the sky during all these fourteen years. But one was there, all the time, below the horizon. And do you know what it was? It was a bird, a ridiculous bird called a roseate spoonbill! I will not weary you with the details, Mister Bond. You are already aware of some of the circumstances. The two wardens, miles away in the middle of the lake, were provisioned by launch from Cuba. They sent out their reports by the launch. Occasionally, ornithologists from America came by the launch and spent some days at the camp. I did not mind. The area is out of bounds to my men. The wardens were not allowed near my compounds. There was no contact. From the first I made it clear to the Audubon Society that I would not meet their representatives. And then what happens? One day, out of a clear sky, I get a letter by the monthly boat. The roseate spoonbills have become one of the bird wonders of the world. The Society gives me formal notification that they intend to build a hotel on their leasehold, near the river up which you came. Bird lovers from allover the world will come to observe the birds. Films will betaken. Crab Key, they told me in their flattering, persuasive letter, would become famous.\n\n\"Mister Bond,\" the arms were raised and dropped back. Irony gathered at the edges of the set smile. \"Can you believe it? This privacy I had achieved! The plans I had for the future! To be swept aside because of a lot of old women and their birds! I examined the lease. I wrote offering a huge sum to buy it. They refused. So I studied these birds. I found out about their habits. And suddenly the solution was there. And it was easy. Man had always bee: n the worst predator on these birds. Spoonbills are extremely shy. They frighten easily. I sent\"; to Florida fora marsh buggy-the vehicle that is used for oil prospecting, that will cover any kind of terrain. I adapted it to frighten and to burn-not only birds, but humans as well, for the wardens would have to go too. And, one night in December, my marsh buggy howled off across the lake. It smashed the camp, both wardens were reported killed-though one, it turned out, escaped to die in Jamaica-it burned the nesting places, it spread terror among the birds. Complete success! Hysteria spread among the spoonbills. They died in thousands. But then I get a demand fora plane to land on my airstrip. There was to bean investigation. I decide to agree. It seemed wiser. An accident is arranged. A lorry goes out of control down the airstrip as the plane is coming in. The plane is destroyed. All signs of the lorry are removed. The bodies are reverently placed in coffins and I report the tragedy. As I expected, there is further investigation. A destroyer arrives. I receive the captain courteously. He and his officers are brought round by sea and then led inland. They are shown the remains of the camp. My men suggest that the wardens went mad with loneliness and fought each other. The survivor set fire to the camp and escaped in his fishing canoe. The airstrip is examined. My men report that the plane was coming in too fast. The tyres must have burst on impact. The bodies are handed over. It is very sad. The officers are satisfied. The ship leaves. Peace reigns again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doctor No coughed delicately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked from Bond to the girl and back again, \"And that, my friends, is my story-or rather the first chapter of what I am confident will be along and interesting tale. Privacy has been re-established. There are now no reseate spoonbills, so there will be no wardens. No doubt the Audubon. Society will decide to accept my offer for the rest of their lease. No matter. If they start their puny operations again, other misfortunes will befall them. This has been a warning tome. There will be no more interference.\"\n\n\"Interesting,\" said Bond. \"An interesting case history. So that was why Strangways had to be removed. What did you do with him and his girl?\"\n\n\"They are at the bottom of the Mona Reservoir. I sent three of my best men. I have a small but efficient machine in Jamaica. I need it. I have established a watch on the intelligence services in Jamaica and Cuba. It is necessary for my further operations. Your Mister Strangways became suspicious and started ferreting about. Fortunately, by this time, the routines of this man were known tome. His death and the girl's were a simple matter of timing. I had hoped to deal with you with similar expedition. You were fortunate. But I knew what type of a man you were from the files at King's House. I guessed that the fly would come to the spider. I was ready for you, and when the canoe showed upon the radar screen I knew you would not getaway.\"\n\nBond said, \"Your radar is not very efficient. There were two canoes. The one you saw was the girl's. I tell you she had nothing to do with me.\"\n\n\"Then she is unfortunate. I happen to be needing a white woman fora small experiment. As we agreed earlier, Mister Bond, one generally gets what one wants.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond looked thoughtfully at Doctor No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered if it was worthwhile even trying to make a dentin this impregnable man. Was it worth wasting breath by threatening or bluffing? Bond had nothing but a miserable two of clubs up his sleeve. The thought of playing it almost bored him. Casually, indifferently he threw it down.\n\n\"Then you're out of luck, Doctor No. You are now a file in London. My thoughts on this case, the evidence of the poisoned fruit and the centipede and the crashed motorcar, are on record. So are the names of Miss Chung and Miss Taro. Instructions were left with someone in Jamaica that my report should be opened and acted upon if I failed to return from Crab Key within three days.\" Bond paused. The face of Doctor No was impassive. Neither the eyes nor the mouth had flickered. The jugular vein throbbed evenly. Bond bent forward. He said softly, \"But because of the girl, and only because of her, Doctor No, I will strike a bargain. In exchange for our safe return to Jamaica, you may have a week's start. You may take your aeroplane and your packet of stamps and try to getaway.\"\n\nBond sat back. \"Any interest, Doctor No?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A voice behind Bond said quietly, \"Dinner is served.\" Bond swung round. It was the bodyguard. Beside him was another man who might have been his twin. They stood there, two stocky barrels of muscle, their hands buried in the sleeves of their kimonos, and looked over Bond's head at Doctor No.\n\n\"Ah, nine o'clock already.\" Doctor No rose slowly to his feet. \"Come alone. We can continue our conversation in more intimate surroundings. It is kind of you both to have listened tome with such exemplary patience. I hope the modesty of my cuisine and my cellar will not prove a further imposition.\"\n\nDouble doors stood open in the wall behind the two white-jacketed men. Bond and the girl followed Doctor No through into a small octagonal mahogany panelled room lit by a central chandelier in silver with storm glasses round the candles. Beneath it was around mahogany table laid for three. Silver and glass twinkled warmly. The plain dark blue carpet was luxuriously deep. Doctor No took the centre high-backed chair and bowed the girl into the chair on his right. They sat down and unfolded napkins of white silk.\n\nThe hollow ceremony and the charming room maddened Bond. He longed to break it up with his own hands-to wind his silk napkin round Doctor No's throat and squeeze until the contact lenses popped out of the black, damnable eyes.\n\nThe two guards wore white cotton gloves. They served the food with a suave efficiency that was prompted by an occasional word in Chinese from Doctor No.\n\nAt first, Doctor No seemed preoccupied. He slowly ate through three bowls of different soup, feeding himself with a spoon with a short handle that fitted neatly between the pincers. Bond concentrated on hiding his fears from the girl. He sat relaxed and ate and drank with a forced good appetite. He talked cheerfully to the girl about Jamaica-about the birds and the animals and the flowers which were an easy topic for her. Occasionally his feet felt for hers under the table. She became almost gay. Bond thought they were putting on sab excellent imitation of an engaged couple being given dinner by a detested uncle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond had no idea if his thin bluff had worked. He didn't give much for their chances. Doctor No, and Doctor No's story, exuded impregnability. The incredible biography rang true. Not a word of it was impossible. Perhaps there were other people in\" the world with their private kingdoms-away from the beaten track, where there were no witnesses, where they could do what they liked. And what did Doctor No plan to do next, after he had squashed the flies that had come to annoy him? And if-when-he killed Bond and the girl, would London pickup the threads that Bond had picked up? Probably they would. There would be Pleydell-Smith. The evidence of the poisoned fruit. But where would Bond's replacement get with Doctor No? Not far. Doctor No would shrug his shoulders over the disappearance of Bond and Quarrel, Never heard of them. And there would be no link with the girl. In Morgan's Harbour they would think she had been drowned on one of her expeditions. It was hard to see what could interfere with Doctor No-with the second chapter of his life, whatever it was.\n\nUnderneath his chatter with the girl, Bond prepared for the worst. There were plenty of weapons beside his plate. When the cutlets came, perfectly cooked, Bond fiddled indecisively with the knives and chose the bread knife to eat them with. While he ate and talked, he edged the big steel meat knife towards him. An expansive gesture of his right hand knocked over his glass of champagne and in the split second of the crash his left hand flicked the knife into the deep sleeve of his kimono. In the midst of Bond's apologies and the confusion as he and the bodyguard mopped up the spilled champagne, Bond raised his left arm and felt the knife slip back to below his armpit and then fall inside the kimono against his ribs. When he had finished his cutlets he tightened the silk belt round his waist, shifting the knife across his stomach. The knife nestled comfortingly against his skin and gradually the steel grew warm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coffee came and the meal was ended." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two guards came and stood close behind Bond's chair and the girl's. They stood with their arms crossed on their chests, impassive, motionless, like executioners.\n\nDoctor No put his cup softly down on his saucer. He laid his two steel claws down on the table in front of him. He sat a fraction more upright. He turned his body an inch in Bond's direction. Now there was no preoccupation in his face. The eyes were hard and direct. The thin mouth creased and opened. \"You have enjoyed your dinner, Mister Bond?\"\n\nBond took a cigarette from the silver box in front of him and lit it. He played with the silver table-lighter. He smelled bad news coming. He must somehow pocket the lighter. Fire might perhaps be another weapon. He said easily, \"Yes. It was excellent.\" He looked across at the girl. He leant forward in his chair and rested his forearms on the table. He crossed them, enveloping the lighter. He smiled at her. \"I hope I ordered what you like.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it was lovely.\" For her the party was still going on.\n\nBond smoked busily, agitating his hands and forearms to create an atmosphere of movement. He turned to Doctor No. He stubbed out his cigarette and sat back in his chair. He'folded his arms across his chest. The lighter was in his left armpit. He smiled cheerfully.\" And what happens now, Doctor No?\"\n\n\"We can proceed to our after-dinner entertainment, Mister Bond.\" The thin smile creased and vanished. \"I have examined your proposition from every angle. I do not accept it.\"\n\nBond shrugged his shoulders. \"You are unwise.\"\n\n\"No, Mister Bond. I suspect that your proposition is a goldbrick. People in your trade do not behave as you suggest. They make routine reports to their headquarters. They keep their chief aware of the progress of their investigations. I know these things. Secret agents do not behave as you suggest you have done. You have been reading too many novels of suspense. Your little speech reeked of grease-paint and cardboard. No, Mister Bond, I do not accept your story. If it is true, I am prepared to face the consequences. I have too much at stake to be turned from my path. So the police come, the soldiers come. Where area man and a girl? What man and what girl? I know nothing. Please go away. You are disturbing my guanera. Where is your evidence? Your search warrant? The English law is strict, gentlemen. Go home and leave me in peace with my. beloved cormorants. You see, Mister Bond? And let us even say that the worst comes to the worst. That one of my agents talks, which is highly improbable (Bond remembered the fortitude of Miss Chung). What have Ito lose? Two more deaths on the charge sheet. But, Mister Bond, a man can only be hanged once.\" The tall pear-shaped head shook gently from side to side. \"Have you anything else to say? Any questions to ask? You both have a busy night ahead of you. Your time is getting short. And I must get my sleep. The monthly ship is putting in tomorrow and I have the loading to supervise. I shall have to spend the whole day down on the quay. Well, Mister Bond?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond looked across at the girl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had gone deathly pale. She was gazing at him, waiting for the miracle he would work. He looked down at his hands. He examined his nails carefully. He said, playing for time, \"And then what? After your busy day with the bird dung, what comes next on your programme? What is the next chapter you think you're going to write?\"\n\nBond didn't lookup. The deep quiet authoritative voice came to him as if it was coming down from the night sky.\n\n\"Ah, yes. You must have been wondering, Mister Bond. You have the habit of inquiry. It persists even to the last, even into the shadows. I admire such qualities in a man with only a few hours to live. So I will tell you. I will turnover the next page. It will console you. There is more to this place than bird dung. Your instincts did not betray you.\" Doctor No paused for emphasis. \"This island, Mister Bond, is about to be developed into the most valuable technical intelligence centre in the world.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Bond kept his eyes bent on his hands.\n\n\"Doubtless you know that Turks Island, about three hundred miles from here through the Windward Passage, is the most important centre for testing the guided missiles of the United States?\"\n\n\"It is an important centre, yes.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you have read of the rockets that have been going astray recently? The multi-stage SNARK, for instance, that ended its flight in the forests of Brazil instead of the depths of the South Atlantic?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You recall that it refused to obey the telemetred instructions to change its-course, even to destroy itself. It developed a will of its own?\"\n\n\"I remember.\"\n\n\"There have been other failures, decisive failures, from the long list of prototypes-the ZUNI, MATADOR, PETREL, REGULUS, BOMARC-so many names, so many changes, I can't even remember them all. Well, Mister Bond,\" Doctor No could not keep a note of pride out of his voice, \"it may interest you to know that the vast majority of those failures have been caused from Crab Key.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that so?\"\n\n\"You do not believe me? No matter. Others do. Others who have seen the complete abandonment of one series, the MASTODON, because of its recurring navigational errors, its failure to obey the radio directions from Turks Island. Those others are the Russians. The Russians are my partners in this venture. They trained six of my men, Mister Bond. Two of those men are on watch at this moment, watching the radio frequencies, the beams on which these weapons travel. There is a million dollars' worth of equipment up above us in the rock galleries, Mister Bond, sending fingers up into the Heavyside Layer, waiting for the signals, jamming them, countering beams with other beams. And from time to time a rocket soars upon its way a hundred, five hundred miles into the Atlantic. And we track it, as accurately as they are tracking it in the Operations Room on Turks Island. Then, suddenly, our pulses go out to the rocket, its brain is confused, it goes mad, it plunges into the sea, it destroys itself, it roars off at a tangent. Another test has failed. The operators are blamed, the designers, the manufacturers. There is panic in the Pentagon. Something else must be tried, different frequencies, different metals, a different radio brain. Of course,\" Doctor No was fair, \"we too have our difficulties. We track many practice shoots without being able to get through to the brain of the new rocket. But then we communicate urgently with Moscow. Yes, they have even given us a cipher machine with our own frequencies and routines. And the Russians get thinking. They make suggestions. We try them out. And then, one day, Mister Bond, it is like catching the attention of a man in a crowd. Up in the stratosphere the rocket acknowledges our signal. We are recognized and we can speak to it and change its mind,\" Doctor No paused. \"Do you not find that interesting, Mister Bond, this little sideline to my business in guano? It is, I assure you, most profitable. It might be still more so. Perhaps Communist China will pay more. Who knows? I already have my feelers out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond lifted his eyes. He looked thoughtfully at Doctor No. So he had been right. There 'had been more, much more, in all this than met the eye. This was a big game, a game that explained everything, a game that was certainly, in the international espionage market, well worth the candle. Well, well! Now the pieces in the puzzle fell firmly into place. For this it was certainly worth scaring away a few birds and wiping out a few people. Privacy? Of course Doctor No would have to kill him and the girl. Power? This was it. Doctor No had really got himself into business.\n\nBond looked into the two black holes with anew respect. He said, \"You'll have to kill a lot more people to keep this thing in your hands, Doctor No. It's worth a lot of money. You've got a good property here-a better one than I thought. People are going to want to cut themselves apiece of this cake. I wonder who will get to you first and kill you. Those men up there,\" he gestured towards the ceiling, \"who were trained in Moscow? They're the technicians. I wonder what Moscow is. telling them to do? You wouldn't know that, would you?\"\n\nDoctor No said, \"You persist in underestimating me, Mister Bond. You are an obstinate man, and stupider than I had expected. I am aware of these possibilities. I have taken one of these men and made him into a private monitor. He has duplicates of the ciphers and of the cipher machine. He lives in another part of the mountain. The others think that he died. He watches on all the routine times. He gives me a second copy of all the traffic that passes. So far, the signals from Moscow have been innocent of any sign of conspiracy. I am thinking of these things constantly, Mister Bond. I take precautions and I shall take further precautions. As I said, you underestimate me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't underestimate you, Doctor No. You're a very careful man, but you've got too many files open on you. In my line of business, the same thing applies tome. I know the feeling. But you've got some really bad ones. The Chinese one, for instance. I wouldn't like to have that one. The FBI should be the least painful-robbery and false identity. But do you know the Russians as well as I do? You're a \"best friend\" at the moment. But the'Russians don't have partners. They'll want to take you over-buy you outwith a bullet. Then there's the file you've started with my Service. You really want me to make that one fatter? I shouldn't do it if I were you, Doctor No. They're a tenacious lot of people in my Service. If anything happens tome and the girl, you'll find Crab Key's a very small and naked little island.\"\n\n\"You cannot play for high stakes without taking risks, Mister Bond. I accept the dangers and, so far as I can, I have equipped myself against them. You see, Mister Bond,\" the deep voice held a hint of greed, \" I am on the edge of still greater things. The Chapter Two to which I referred holds the promise of prizes which no one but a fool would throwaway because he was afraid. I have told you that I can bend the beams on which these rockets fly, Mister Bond. I can make them change course and ignore their radio control. What would you say, Mister Bond, if I could go further? If I could bring them down into the sea near this island and salvage the secrets of their construction. At present American destroyers, far out in the South Atlantic, salvage these missiles when they come to the end of their fuel and parachute down into the sea. Sometimes the parachutes fail to open. Sometimes the self-destruction devices fail to operate. No one on Turks Island would be surprised if every now and then the prototype of anew series broke off its flight and came down near Crab Key. To begin with, at least, it would be put down to mechanical failure. Later, perhaps, they would discover that other radio signals besides theirs were guiding their rockets. A jamming war would start. They would try and locate the origin of the false signals. Directly I found they were looking for me, I would have one last fling. Their rockets would go mad. They would land on Havana, on Kingston. They would turn round and home on Miami. Even without warheads, Mister Bond, five tons of metal arriving at a thousand miles an hour can cause plenty of damage in a crowded town. And then what? There would be panic, a public outcry. The experiments would have to cease. The Turks Island base would have to close down. And how much would Russia pay for that to happen, Mister Bond? And how much for each of the prototypes I captured for them? Shall we say ten million dollars for the whole operation?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twenty million? It would be a priceless victory in the armaments race. I could name my figure. Don't you agree, Mister Bond? And don't you agree that these considerations make your arguments and threats seem rather puny?\"\n\nBond said nothing. There was nothing to say. Suddenly he was back in the quiet room high up above Regent's Park. He could hear the rain slashing softly against the window and M's voice, impatient, sarcastic, saying, \"Oh, some damned business about birds... holiday in the sun'll do you good... routine inquiry.\" And he, Bond, had taken a canoe and a fisherman and a picnic lunch and had gone off-how many days, how many weeks ago?-\"to have a look\". Well, he had had his look into Pandora's Box. He had found out the answers, been told the secrets-and now? Now he was going to be politely shown the way to his grave, taking the secrets with him and the waif he had picked up and dragged along with him on his lunatic adventure. The bitterness inside Bond came up into his mouth so that fora moment he thought he was going to retch. He reached for his champagne and emptied the glass. He said harshly, \"All right, Doctor No. Now let's get on with the cabaret. What's the programme-knife, bullet, poison, rope? But make it quick, I've seen enough of you.\"\n\nDoctor No's lips compressed into a thin purple line. The eyes were hard as onyx under the billiard-ball forehead and skull. The polite mask had gone. The Grand Inquisitor satin the high-backed chair. The hour had struck for the peine forte et dure.\n\nDoctor No spoke a word and the two guards took a step forward and held the two victims above the elbows, forcing their arms back against the sides of their chairs. There was no resistance. Bond concentrated on holding the lighter in his armpit. The white-gloved hands on his biceps felt like steel bands. He smiled across at the girl. \"I'm sorry about this, Honey. I'm afraid we're not going to be able to play together after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl's eyes in the paleface were blue-black with fear. Her lips trembled. She said, \"Will it hurt?\"\n\n\"Silence!\" Doctor No's voice was the crack of a whip. \"Enough of this foolery. Of course it will hurt. I am interested in pain. I am also interested in rinding out how much the human body can endure. From time to time I make experiments on those of my people who have to be punished. And on trespassers like yourselves. You have both put me to a great deal of trouble, In exchange I intend to put you to a great deal of pain. I shall record the length of your endurance. The facts will be noted. One day my findings will be given to the world. Your deaths will have served the purposes of science. I never waste human material. The German experiments on live humans during the war were of great benefit to science. It is a year since I put a girl to death in the fashion I have chosen for you, woman. She was a Negress. She lasted three hours. She died of terror. I have wanted a white girl for comparison.-I was not surprised when your arrival was reported. I get what I want.\" Doctor No sat back in his chair. His eyes were now fixed on the girl, watching her reactions. She stared back at him, half hypnotized, like a bush mouse in front of a rattlesnake.\n\nBond set his teeth.\n\n\"You area Jamaican, so you will know what I am talking about. This island is called Crab Key. It is called by that name because it is infested with crabs, land crabs-what they call ia Jamaica \"black crabs\". You know them. They weigh about a pound each and they areas big as saucers. At this time of year they come up in thousands from their holes near the shore and climb up towards the mountain. There, in the coral uplands, they go to ground again in holes in the rock and spawn their broods. They march up in armies of hundreds at a time. They march through everything and over everything. In Jamaica they go through houses that are in their path. They are like the lemmings of Norway. It is a compulsive migra-. tion.\" Doctor No paused. He said softly, \"But there is a difference. The crabs devour what they find in their path. And at present, woman, they are \"running\". They are coming up the mountainside in their tens of thousands, great red and orange and black waves of them, scuttling and hurrying and scraping against the rock above us at this moment. And tonight, in the middle of their path, they are going to find the naked body of a woman pegged out-a banquet spread for, them-and they will feel the warm body with their feeding pincers, and one will make the first incision with his fighting claws and then... and then...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a moan from the girl. Her head fell forward slackly onto her chest. She had fainted. Bond's body heaved in his chair. A string of obscenities hissed out between his clenched teeth. The huge hands of the guard were like fire round his arms. He couldn't even move the chair-legs on the floor. After a moment he desisted. He waited for his voice to steady, then he said, with all the venom he could put into the words, \"You bastard. You'll fry in hell for this.\"\n\nDoctor No smiled thinly. \"Mister Bond, I do not admit the existence of hell. Console yourself. Perhaps they will start at the throat or the heart. The movement of the pulse will attract them. Then it will not belong.\" He spoke a sentence in Chinese. The guard behind the girl's chair leant forward and plucked her bodily out of the chair as if she had been a child and slung the inert body over his shoulder. Between the dangling arms the hair fell down in a golden shower. The guard went to the door and opened it and went out, closing it noiselessly behind him.\n\nFora moment there was silence in the room. Bond thought only of the knife against his skin and of the lighter under his armpit. How much damage could he do with the two pieces of metal? Could he somehow get within range of Doctor No?\n\nDoctor No said quietly, \"You said that power was an illusion, Mister Bond. Do you change your mind? My power to select this particular death for the girl is surely not an illusion. However, let us proceed to the method of your departure. That also has its novel aspects. You see, Mister Bond, I am interested in the anatomy of courage-in the power of the human body to endure. But how to measure human endurance? How to plot a graph of the will to survive, the tolerance of pain, the conquest of fear? I have given much thought to the problem, and I believe I have solved it. It is, of course, only a rough and ready method, and I shall learn by experience as more and more subjects are put to the test. I have prepared you for the experiment as best I could. I gave you a sedative so that your body should be rested and I have fed you well so that you maybe at full strength. Future-what shall I call them-patients, will have the same advantages. All will start equal in that respect. After that it will be a question of the individual's courage and powers of endurance.\" Doctor No paused, watching Bond's face. \"You see, Mister Bond, I have just finished constructing an obstacle race, an assault course against death. I will say no more about it because the element of surprise is one of the constituents of fear. It is the unknown dangers that are the worst, that bear most heavily on the reserves of courage. And I flatter myself that the gauntlet you will run contains a rich assortment of the unexpected. It will be particularly interesting, Mister Bond, that a man of your physical qualities is to be my first competitor. It will be most interesting to observe how far you get down the course I have devised. You should put up a worthy target figure for future runners. I have high expectations of you. You should go far, but when, as is inevitable, you have finally failed at an obstacle, your body will be recovered and I shall most meticulously examine the physical state of your remains. The data will be recorded. You will be the first dot on a graph. Something of an honour, is it not, Mister Bond?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond said nothing. What the hell did all this mean? What could this test consist of? Would it be possible to survive it? Could he conceivably escape from it and get to the girl before it was too late, even if it was only to kill her and save her from her torture? Silently Bond gathered his reserves of courage, steeling his mind against the fear of the unknown that already had him by the throat, focusing his whole will on survival. Somehow, above all else, he must cling to his weapons.\n\nDoctor No rose and stepped away from his chair. He walked slowly to the door and turned. The menacing black holes looked back at Bond from just below the lintel of the door. The head was inclined a fraction. The purple lips creased back. \"Run a good race for me, Mister Bond. My thoughts, as they say, will be with you.\"\n\nDoctor No turned away and the door closed softly behind the long thin gunmetal back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a man on the lift. The doors were open, waiting. James Bond, his arms still locked to his sides, was marched in. Now the dining-room would be empty. How soon would the guards go back, start clearing away the dinner, notice the missing things? The doors hissed shut. The liftman stood in front of the buttons so that Bond could not see which he had pressed. They were going up. Bond tried to estimate the distance. The lift sighed to a stop. The time seemed rather less than when he had comedown with the girl. The doors opened onto an uncarpeted corridor with rough grey paint on the stonewalls. It ran about twenty yards straight ahead.\n\n\"Hold it, Joe,\" said Bond's guard to the liftman. \"Be right with you.\"\n\nBond was marched down the corridor past doors numbered with letters of the alphabet. There was a faint hum of machinery in the air and behind one door Bond thought he could catch the crackle of radio static. It sounded as if they might be in the engine-room of the mountain. They came to the end door. It was marked with a black Q. It was ajar and the guard pushed Bond into the door so that it swung open. Through the door was a grey painted stone cell about fifteen feet square. There was nothingin it except a wooden chair on which lay, laundered and neatly folded, Bond's black canvas jeans and his blue shirt.\n\nThe guard let goof Bond's arms. Bond turned and looked into the broad yellow face below the crinkly hair. There was a hint of curiosity and pleasure in the liquid brown eyes. The man stood holding the door handle. He said, \"Well, this is it, bud. You're at the starting gate. You can either sit here and rotor find your way out onto the course. Happy landings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond thought it was just worth trying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced past the guard to where the liftman was standing beside his open doors, watching them. He said softly, \"How would you like to earn ten thousand dollars, guaranteed, and a ticket to anywhere in the world?\" He watched the man's face. The mouth spread in a wide grin to show brownish teeth worn to uneven points by years of chewing sugar-cane.\n\n\"Thanks, Mister. I'd rather stay alive.\" The man made to close the door. Bond whispered urgently, \"We could get out of here together.\"\n\nThe thick lips sneered. The man said, \"Shove it!\" The door shut with a solid click.\n\nBond shrugged his shoulders. He gave the door a cursory glance. It was made of metal and there was no handle on the inside. Bond didn't waste his shoulder on it. He went to the chair and sat down on the neat pile of his clothes and looked round the cell. The walls were entirely naked except fora ventilation grille of thick wire in one corner just below the ceiling. It was wider than his shoulders. It was obviously the way out into the assault course. The only other break in the walls was a thick glass porthole, no bigger than Bond's head, just above the door. Light from the corridor filtered through it into the cell. There was nothing else. It was no good wasting anymore time. It would now be about ten-thirty. Outside, somewhere on the slope of the mountain, the girl would already belying, waiting for the rattle of claws on the grey coral. Bond clenched his teeth at the thought of the pale body spread-eagled out thereunder the stars. Abruptly he stood up. What the hell was he doing sitting still. Whatever lay on the other side of the wire grille, it was time to go.\n\nBond took out his knife and the lighter and threw off the kimono. He dressed in the trousers and shirt and stowed the lighter in his hip pocket. He tried the edge of the knife with his thumb. It was very sharp. It would be better still if he could get a point on it. He knelt on the floor and began whittling the rounded end on the stone. After a precious quarter of an hour he was satisfied. It was no stiletto, but it would serve to stab as well as cut. Bond put the knife between his teeth and set the chair below the grille, and climbed onto it. The grille! Assuming he could tear it off its hinges, the frame of quarter-inch wire might straighten into a spear. That would make a third weapon. Bond reached up with crooked fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next thing he knew was a searing pain up his arm and the crack of his head hitting the stone floor. He lay, stunned, with only the memory of a blue flash and the hiss and crackle of electricity to tell him what had hit him.\n\nBond got to his knees and stayed there. He bent his head down and shook it slowly from side to side like a wounded animal. He noticed a smell of burning flesh. He lifted his right hand up to his eyes. There was the red smear of an open burn across the inside of his fingers. Seeing it brought the pain. Bond spat out a four-letter word. Slowly he got to his feet He squinted up at the wire grille as if it might strike at him again, like a snake. Grimly he set the chair upright against the wall. He picked up his knife and cut a strip off the discarded kimono and tied it firmly across his fingers. Then he climbed up again onto the chair and looked at the grille. He was meant to get through it. The shock had been to soften him up-a taste of pain to come. Surely he had fused the blasted thing. Surely they would have switched off the current. He looked at it only for an instant, then the fingers of his left hand crooked and went straight up to the impersonal wire mesh. His fingers went through the wire rim and gripped.\n\nNothing! Nothing at all-just wire. Bond grunted. He felt his nerves slacken. He tugged at the wire. It gave an inch. He tugged again and it came away in his hand and dangled down from two strands of copper flex that disappeared into the wall. Bond pulled the grille loose from the flex and got-down from the chair. Yes, there was a join in the frame. He set to work unravelling the mesh. Then using the chair as a hammer, he straightened the heavy wire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After ten minutes, Bond had a crooked spear about four feet long. One end, where it had originally been cut by the pliers, was jagged. It would not pierce a man's clothes, but it would be good enough for the face and neck. By using all his strength and the crack at the bottom of the metal door, Bond turned the blunt end into a clumsy crook. He measured the wire against his leg. It was too long. He bent it double, and slipped the spear down a trouser leg. Now it hung from his waistband to just above the knee. He went back to the chair and climbed up again and reached, nervously, for the edge of the ventilator shaft. There was no shock. Bond heaved up and through the opening and lay on his stomach looking along the shaft.\n\nThe shaft was about four inches wider than Bond's shoulders. It was circular and of polished metal.\"Bond reached for his lighter, blessing the inspiration that had made him take it, and nicked it on. Yes, zinc sheeting that looked new. The shaft stretched straight ahead, featureless except for the ridges where the sections of pipe joined. Bond put the lighter back in his pocket and snaked forward.\n\nIt was easygoing. Cool air from the ventilating system blew strongly in Bond's face. The air held no smell of the sea-it was the canned stuff that comes from an air-conditioning plant. Doctor No must have adapted one of the shafts to his purpose. What hazards had he built into it to test out his victims? They would be ingenious and painful-designed to reduce the resistance of the victim. At the winning post, so to speak, there would be the coup de grâce-if the victim ever got that far. It would be something conclusive, something from which there would be no escape, for there would be no prizes in this race except oblivion-an oblivion, thought Bond, he might be glad to win. Unless of course Doctor No had been just a bit too clever. Unless he had underestimated the will to survive. That, thought Bond, was his only hope-to try to survive the intervening hazards, to get through at least to the last ditch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a faint luminosity ahead. Bond approached it carefully, his senses questing in front of him like antennae. It grew brighter. It was the glint of light against the end of the lateral shaft. He went on until his head touched the metal. He twisted over on his back. Straight above him, at the top of fifty yards or so of vertical shaft, was a steady glimmer. It was like looking up along gun barrel. Bond inched round the square bend and stood upright. So he was supposed to climb straight up this shining tube of metal without a foothold! Was it possible? Bond expanded his shoulders. Yes, they gripped the sides. His feet could also get a temporary purchase, though they would slip except where the ridges at the joints gave him an ounce of upward leverage. Bond shrugged his shoulders and kicked off his shoes. It was no good arguing. He would just have to try.\n\nSix inches at a time, Bond's body began to worm up the shaft-expand shoulders to grip the sides, lift feet, lock knees, force the feet outwards against the metal and, as the feet slipped downwards with his weight, contract shoulders and raise them a few inches higher. Do it again, and again and again and again. Stop at each tiny bulge where the sections joined and use the millimetre of extra support to get some breath and measure the next lap. Otherwise don't lookup, think only of the inches of metal that have to be conquered one by one. Don't worry about the glimmer of light that never grows brighter or nearer. Don't worry about losing your grip and falling to smash your ankles at the bottom of the shaft. Don't worry about cramp. Don't worry about your screaming muscles or the swelling bruises on your shoulders and the sides of your feet. Just take the silver inches as they come, one by one, and conquer them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then the feet began to sweat and slip. Twice Bond lost a yard before his shoulders, scalding with the friction, could put on the brake. Finally he had to stop altogether to let his sweat dry in the downward draught of air. He waited fora full ten minutes, staring at his faint reflection in the polished metal, the face split in half by the knife between the teeth. Still he refused to lookup to see how much more there was, It might be too much to bear. Carefully Bond wiped each foot against a trouser-leg and began again.\n\nNow half Bond's mind was dreaming while the other half fought the battle. He wasn't even conscious of the strengthening breeze or the slowly brightening light. He saw himself as a wounded caterpillar crawling up a waste pipe towards the plug-hole of a bath. What would he see when he got through the plug-hole? A naked girl drying herself? A man shaving? Sunlight streaming through an open window into an empty bathroom?\n\nBond's head bumped against something. The plug was in the plug-hole! The shock of disappointment made him slip a yard before his shoulders got afresh grip. Then he realized. He was at the top! Now he noticed the bright light and the strong wind. Feverishly, but with a more desperate care, he heaved up again until his head touched. The wind was coming into his left ear. Cautiously he turned his head. It was another lateral shaft. Above him light was shining through a thick porthole. All he had to do was inch himself round and grip the edge of the new shaft and somehow gather enough strength to heave himself in. Then he would be able to lie down.\" With an extra delicacy, born of panic that something might now go wrong, that he might make a mistake and plummet back down the shaft to land in a crackle of bone, Bond, his breath steaming against the metal, carried out the manoeuvre and, with his last ounce of strength, jackknifed into the opening and crumpled full length on his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Later-how much later?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-Bond's eyes opened and his body stirred. The cold had woken him from the fringe of total unconsciousness into which his body had plunged. Painfully he rolled over on his back, his feet and shoulders screaming at shim, and lay gathering his wits and summoning more strength. He had no idea what time it was or whereabouts he was inside the mountain. He lifted his head and looked back at the porthole above the yawning tube out of which he had come. The light was yellowish and the glass looked thick. He remembered the porthole in Room Q. There had been nothing breakable about that one, nor, he guessed, would there be here.\n\nSuddenly, behind the glass, he saw movement. Ashe watched, a pair of eyes materialized from behind the electric light bulb. They stopped and looked at him, the bulb making a yellow glass nose between them. They gazed incuriously at him and then they were gone. Bond's lips snarled back from his teeth. So his progress was going to be observed, reported back to Doctor No!\n\nBond said out loud, viciously, \"---them all,\" and turned sullenly back on his stomach. He raised his head and looked forward. The tunnel shimmered away into blackness. Come on! No good hanging about. He picked up his knife and put it back between his teeth and winced his way forward.\n\nSoon there was no more light. Bond stopped from time to time and used the lighter, but there was nothing but blackness ahead. The air began to get warmer in the shaft, and, perhaps fifty yards further, definitely hot. There was the smell of heat in the air, metallic heat. Bond began to sweat. Soon his body was soaked and he had to pause every few minutes to wipe his eyes. There came aright-hand turn in the shaft. Round it the metal of the big tube was hot against his skin. The smell of heat was very strong. There came another right-angled turn. As soon as Bond's head got round he quickly pulled out his lighter and lit it and then snaked back and lay panting. Bitterly he examined the new hazard, probing it, cursing it. His light had flickered on discoloured, oyster-hued zinc. The next hazard was to be heat!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond groaned aloud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could his bruised flesh stand up to that?-How could he protect his skin from the metal? But there wasn't anything he could do about it. He could either go back, or stay where he was, or goon. There was no other decision to make, no other shift or excuse. There was one, and only one, grain of consolation. This would not be heat that would kill, only maim. This would not be the final killing ground-only one more test of how much he could take.\n\nBond thought of the girl and of what she was going through. Oh well. Get on with it. Now, let's see...\n\nBond took his knife and cutoff the whole front of his shirt and sliced it into strips. The only hope was to put some wrapping round the parts of his body that would have to bear the brunt-his hands and his feet. His knees and elbows would have to get along with their single covering of cotton fabric. Wearily he set to work, cursing softly.\n\nNow he was ready. One, two, three...\n\nBond turned the corner and forged forward into the heat stench.\n\nKeep your naked stomach off the ground! Contract your shoulders! Hands, knees, toes; hands, knees, toes. Faster, faster! Keep going fast so that each touch on the ground is quickly taken over by the next.\n\nThe knees were getting it worst, taking the bulk of Bond's weight. Now the padded hands were beginning to smoulder. There was a spark, and another one, and then a worm of red as the sparks began to run. The smoke from the stuff smarted in Bond's sweating eyes. God, he couldn't do anymore! There was no air. His lungs were bursting. Now his two hands shed sparks as he thrust them forward. The stuff must be nearly gone. Then the flesh would burn. Bond lurched and his bruised shoulder hit the metal. He screamed. He went on screaming, regularly, with each contact of hand or knee or toes. Now he was finished. Now it was the end. Now he would fall flat and slowly fry to death. No! He must drive on, screaming, until his flesh was burned to the bone. The skin must have already gone from the knees. Ina moment the balls of his hands would meet the metal. Only the sweat running dowrr his arms could be keeping the pads of stuff damp. Scream, scream, screamt It helps the pain. It tells you you're alive. Goon! Goon! It can't be much longer. This isn't where you're supposed to die. You are still alive. Don't give up! You can't!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond's right hand hit something that gave before it. There was a stream of ice-cold air. His other hand hit, then his head. There was a tinny noise. Bond felt the lower edge of an asbestos baffle scrape down his back. He was through. He heard the baffle bang shut. His hands came up against solid wall. They quested to left and right. It was aright-angled bend. His body followed blindly round the corner. The cool air felt like daggers in his lungs. Gingerly he laid his fingers down on the metal. It was cold! With a groan Bond fell on his face and lay still.\n\nSometime later the pain revived him. Bond turned sluggishly over on his back. Vaguely he noticed the lighted porthole above him. Vaguely he took in the eyes gazing down on him. Then he let the black waves take him away again.\n\nSlowly, in the darkness, the blisters formed across the skin and the bruised feet and shoulders stiffened. The sweat dried on the body and then on the rags of clothing, and the cool air soaked down into the overheated lungs and began its insidious work. But the heartbeat on, strongly and regularly inside the tortured envelope, and the healing sorceries of oxygen and rest pumped life back into the arteries and veins and recharged the nerves.\n\nYears later, Bond awoke. He stirred. As his eyes opened and met the other pair, inches away behind the glass, pain took him and shook him like a rat. He waited for the shock to die. He tried again, and then again, until he had measured the strength of his adversary. Then Bond, to hide himself away from the witness, turned over on his stomach and took the full blast of it. Again he waited, exploring his body for its reactions, testing the strength of the resolve that was left in the batteries. How much more could he take now? Bond's lips drew back from his teeth and he snarled into the darkness. It was an animal sound. He had come to the end of his human reactions to pain and adversity. Doctor No had got him cornered. But there were animal reserves of desperation left and, in a strong animal, those reserves are deep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly, agonizingly, Bond snaked a few yards away from the eyes and then reached for his lighter and lit it. Ahead there was only the black full moon, the yawning circular mouth that led into the stomach of death. Bond put back the lighter. He took a deep breath and got to his hands and knees. The pain was no greater, only different. Slowly, stiffly, \" he winced-forward.\n\nThe cotton fabric at Bond's knees and elbows had burned away. Numbly his mind registered the moisture as his blisters burst against the cool metal. Ashe moved, he flexed his fingers-and toes, testing the pain. Slowly he got the measure of what he could do, what hurt most. This pain is supportable, he argued to himself. If I had been in an aeroplane crash, they would only diagnose superficial contusions and burns. I would be out of hospital in a few days. There's nothing wrong with, me. I'm a survivor from the crash. It hurts, but it's nothing. Think of the bits and pieces of the other passengers. Be thankful. Put it out of your mind. But, nagging behind these reflections, was the knowledge that he had not yet had the crash-that he was still on his way towards it, his resistance, his effectiveness reduced. When would it come? What shape would it take? How much more was he to be softened up before he reached the killing ground?\n\nAhead in the darkness the tiny red pinpoints might have been an hallucination, specks before the eyes as a result of exhaustion. Bond stopped and screwed up his eyes. He shook his head. No, they were still there. Slowly he snaked closer. Now they were moving. Bond stopped again. He listened. Above the quiet thumping of his heart there was a soft, delicate rustling. The pinpoints had increased in number." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now there were twenty or thirty, shifting to and fro, some quickly, some slowly, allover the circle of blackness ahead. Bond reached for his lighter. He held his breath as he lit the little yellow flame. The red pinpoints went out. Instead, a yard ahead of him, very narrow mesh wire, almost as fine as muslin, blocked the shaft.\n\nBond inched forward, the lighter held before him. It was some sort of a cage with small things living in it. He could hear them scuttling back, away from the light. Afoot away from the mesh he dowsed the light and waited for his eyes to get used to the dark. Ashe waited, listening, he could hear the tiny scuttling back towards him, and gradually the forest of red pinpoints gathered again, peering at him through the mesh.\n\nWhat was it? Bond listened to the pounding of his heart. Snakes? Scorpions? Centipedes?\n\nCarefully he brought his eyes closeup to the little glowing forest. He inched the lighter up beside his face and suddenly pressed the lever. He caught a glimpse of tiny claws hooked through the mesh and of dozens of thick furry feet and of furry sacklike stomachs topped by big insect heads that seemed to be covered with eyes. The things plopped hurriedly off the wire onto the tin and scurried back and huddled in a grey-brown furry mass at the end of the cage.\n\nBond squinted through the mesh, moving the light back and forward. Then he dowsed the light, to save fuel, and let the breath come through his teeth in a quiet sigh.\n\nThey were spiders, giant tarantulas, three or four inches long. There were twenty of them in the cage. And somehow he had to get past them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond lay and rested and thought while the red eyes gathered again in front of his face.\n\nHow deadly were these things? How much of the tales about them were myth? They could certainly kill animals, but how mortal to men were these giant spiders with the long soft friendly fur of a borzoi? Bond shuddered. He remembered the centipede. The touch of the tarantulas would be much softer. They would be like tiny teddy bears'paws against one's skin-until they bit and emptied their poison sacs into you.\n\nBut again, would this be Doctor No's killing ground? A bite or two perhaps-to send one into a delirium of pain. The horror of having to burst through the mesh in the darkness-Doctor No would not have reckoned with Bond's lighter-and squash through the forest of eyes, crushing some soft bodies, but feeling the jaws of the others lance home. And then more bites from \"the ones that had caught in the clothing. And then the creeping agony of the poison. That would have been the way Doctor No's mind would have worked-to send one screaming on one's way. To what? To the final fence?\n\nBut Bond had the lighter and the knife and the wire spear. All he needed was the nerve, and infinite, infinite precision.\n\nBond softly opened the jaws of the lighter and pulled the wick out an inch with his thumb and fingernail to give a bigger flame. He lit it and, as the spiders scuttled back, he pierced the thin wire mesh with his knife. He made a hole near the frame and cut down sideways and round. Then he seized the flap of wire and wrenched it out of the frame. It tore like stiff calico and came away in one piece. He put the knife back between his teeth and snaked through the opening. The spiders cowered before the flame of the lighter and crowded back on top of each other. Bond slid the wire spear out of his trousers and jabbed the blunt, doubled wire into the middle of them. He jabbed again and again, fiercely pulping the bodies. When some of the spiders tried to escape towards him he waved the light at them and smashed the fugitives one by one. Now the living spiders were attacking the dead and wounded and all Bond had to do was bash and bash into the writhing, sickening mess of blood and fur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly all movement slackened and then ceased. Were they all dead? Were some shamming? The flame of the lighter was beginning to die. He would have to chance it. Bond reached forward and shovelled the dead mess to one side. Then he took his knife from between his teeth and reached out and slashed open the second curtain of wire, bending the flap down over the heap of pulped bodies. The light flickered and became a red glow. Bond gathered himself and shot his body over the bloody pile of corpses and through the jagged frame.\n\nHe had no idea what bits of metal he touched or whether he had put his knee or his foot among the spiders. All he knew was that he had got through. He heaved himself yards on along the shaft and stopped to gather his breath and his nerve.\n\nAbove him a dim light came on. Bond squinted sideways and upwards, knowing what he would see. The slanting yellow eyes behind the thick glass looked keenly down at him. Slowly, behind the bulb, the head moved from side to side. The eyelids dropped in mock pity. A closed fist, the thumb pointing downwards in farewell and dismissal, inserted itself between the bulb and the glass. Then it was withdrawn. The light went out. Bond turned his face back to the floor of the shaft and rested his forehead on the cool metal. The gesture said that he was coming into the last lap, that the observers had finished with him until they came for his remains. It took an extra ounce of heart out of Bond that there had been no gesture of praise, however small, that he had managed to survive so far. These Chigroes hated him. They only wanted him to die, and as miserably as possible.\n\nBond's teeth ground softly together. He thought of the girl and the thought gave him strength. He wasn't dead yet. Damn it, he wouldn't die! Not until the heart was torn from his body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond tensed his muscles. It was time to go. With extra care he put his weapons back in their places and painfully began to drag himself on into the blackness.\n\nThe shaft was beginning to slope gently downwards. It made the going easier. Soon the slope grew steeper so that Bond, could almost slide along under the momentum of his weight. It was a blessed relief not to have to make the effort with his muscles. There was a glimmer of grey light ahead, nothing more than a lessening of the darkness, but it was a change. The quality of the air seemed to be different. There was anew, fresh smell to it. What was it? The sea?\n\nSuddenly Bond realized that he was slipping down the shaft. He opened his shoulders and spread his feet to slow himself. It hurt and the braking effect was small. Now the shaft was widening. He could no longer get a grip! He was going faster and faster. A bend was just ahead. And it was a bend downwards!\n\nBond's body crashed into the bend and round it. Christ, he was diving head downwards! Desperately Bond spread his feet and hands. The metal flayed his skin. He was out of control, diving down a gun barrel. Far below there was a circle of grey light. The open air? The sea? The light was tearing up at him. He fought for breath. Stay alive, you fool! Stay alive!\n\nHeadfirst, Bond's body shot out of the shaft and fell through the air, slowly, slowly, down towards the gunmetal sea that waited for him a hundred feet below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond's body shattered the mirror of the dawn sea like a bomb.\n\nAshe had hurtled down the silver shaft towards the widening disc of light, instinct had told him to get his knife from between his teeth, to get his hands forward to break his fall, and to keep his head down and his body rigid. And, at the last fraction of a second when he glimpsed the up-rushing sea, he had managed to take a gulp of breath. So Bond hit the water in the semblance of a dive, his outstretched clenched fists cleaving a hole for his skull and shoulders, and though, by the time he had shot twenty feet below the surface, he had lost consciousness, the forty-mile-an-hour impact with the water failed to smash him.\n\nSlowly the body rose to the surface and lay, head down, softly rocking in the ripples of the dive. The water-choked\" lungs somehow contrived to send a last message to the brain. The legs and arms thrashed clumsily. The head turned up, water pouring from its open mouth. It sank. Again the legs jerked, instinctively trying to get the body upright in the water. ' This time, coughing horribly, the head jerked above the surface and stayed there. The arms and legs began to move feebly, paddling like a dog, and, through the red and black curtain, the bloodshot eyes saw the lifeline and told the sluggish brain to make for it.\n\nThe killing ground was a narrow deep water inlet at the base of the towering cliff. The lifeline towards which Bond struggled, hampered by the clumsy spear in his trouser-leg, was a strong wire fence, stretched from the rock walls of the inlet ana caging it off from the open sea. The two-feet squares of thick wire were suspended from a cable six feet above the surface and disappeared, algae encrusted, into the depths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond got to the wire and hung, crucified." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For fifteen minutes he stayed like that, his body occasionally racked with vomiting, until he felt strong enough to turn his head and see where he was. Blearily his eyes took in the towering cliffs above him and the narrow vee of softly breathing water. The place was in deep grey shadow, cutoff from the dawn by the mountain, but out at sea there was the pearly iridescence of first light that meant that for the rest of the world the day was dawning. Here it was dark and gloomy and brooding.\n\nSluggishly Bond's mind puzzled over the wire fence. What was its purpose, closing off this dark cleft of sea? Was it to keep things out, or keep them in? Bond gazed vaguely down into the black depths around him. The wire strands vanished into nothingness below his clinging feet. There were small fish round his legs below the waist. What were they doing? They seemed to be feeding, darting in towards him and then backing away, catching at black strands. Strands of what? Of cotton from his rags? Bond shook his head to clear it. He looked again. No, they were feeding off his blood.\n\nBond shivered. Yes, blood was seeping off his body, off the torn shoulders, the knees, the feet, into the water. Now for the first time he felt the pain of the seawater on his sores and burns. The pain revived him, quickened his mind. If these small fish liked it, what about barracuda and shark? Was that what the wire fence was for, to keep man-eating fish from escaping to sea? Then why hadn't they been after him already? To hell with it! The first thing was to crawl up the wire afld get over to the other side. To put the fence between him and whatever lived in this black aquarium." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Weakly, foothold by foothold, Bond climbed up the wire and over the top and down again to where he could rest well above the water. He hooked the thick cable under his arms and hung, a bit of washing on a line, and gazed vaguely down at the fish that still fed from the blood that dripped off his feet.\n\nNow there was nothing much left of Bond, not many reserves. The last dive down the tube, the crash of impact and the half-death from drowning had squeezed him like a sponge. He was on the verge of surrender, on the verge of giving one small sigh and then slipping back into the soft arms of the water. How beautiful it would be to give in at last and rest-to feel the sea softly take him to its bed and turnout the light.\n\nIt was the explosive flight of the fish from their feeding ground that shook Bond out of his death-dreaming. Something had moved far below the surface. There was a distant shimmer. Something was coming slowly upon the landward side of the fence.\n\nBond's body tautened. His hanging jaw slowly shut and the slackness cleared from his eyes. With the electric shock of danger, life flooded back into him, driving out the lethargy, pumping back the. will to survive.\n\nBond uncramped the fingers that, along time ago, his brain had ordered not to lose his knife. He flexed his fingers and took afresh grip of the silver-plated handle. He reached down and touched the crook of the wire spear that still hung inside his trouser-leg. He shook his head sharply and focused his eyes. Now what?\n\nBelow him the water quivered. Something was stirring in the depths, something huge. A great length of luminescent greyness showed, poised far down in the darkness. Something snaked up from it, a whiplash as thick as Bond's arm. The tip of the thong was swollen to a narrow oval, with regular bud-like markings. It swirled through the water where the fish had been and was withdrawn. Now there was nothing but the huge grey shadow. What was it doing? Was it...? Was it tasting the blood?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if in answer, two eyes as big as footballs slowly swam up and into Bond's vision. They stopped, twenty feet below his own, and stared up through the quiet water at his face.\n\nBond's skin crawled on his back. Softly, wearily, his mouth uttered one bitter four-lettered word. So this was the last surprise of Doctor No, the end of the race!\n\nBond stared down, half hypnotized, into the wavering pools of eye far below. So this was the giant squid, the mythical kraken that could pull ships beneath the waves, the fifty-foot-long monster that battled with whales, that weighed a ton or more. What else did he know about them? That they had two long seizing tentacles and ten holding ones. That they had a huge blunt beak beneath eyes that were the only fishes'eyes that worked on the camera principle, like a man's. That their brains were efficient, that they could shoot backwards through the water at thirty knots, by jet-propulsion. That explosive harpoons burst in their jellied mantle without damaging them. That... but the bulging black and white targets of the eyes were rising up towards him. The surface of the water shivered. Now Bond could seethe forest of tentacles that flowered out of the face of the thing. They were weaving in front of the eyes like a bunch of thick snakes. Bond could seethe dots of the suckers on their undersides. Behind the head, the great flap of the mantle softly opened and closed, and behind that the jellied sheen of the body disappeared into the depths. God, the thing was as big as a railway engine!\n\nSoftly, discreetly, Bond snaked his feet and then his arms through the squares in the wire, lacing himself into them, anchoring himself so that the tentacles would have either to tear him to bits or wrench down the wire barrier with him. He squinted to right and left. Either way it was twenty yards along the wire to the land. And movement, even if he was capable of it, would be fatal. He must stay dead quiet and pray that the thing would lose interest. If it didn't... Softly Bond's fingers clenched on the puny knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes watched him, coldly, patiently. Delicately, like the questing trunk of an elephant, one of the long seizing tentacles broke the surface and palped its way up the wire towards his leg. It reached his foot. Bond felt the hard kiss of the suckers. He didn't move. He dared not reach down and lose the grip of his arms through the wire. Softly the suckers tugged, testing the amount of yield. It was not enough. Like a huge slimy caterpillar, the tentacle walked slowly on up the leg. It got to the bloody blistered kneecap and stopped there, interested. Bond's teeth gritted with the pain. He could imagine the message going back down the thick tentacle to the brain: Yes, it's good to eat! And the brain signalling back: then get it! Bring it tome!\n\nThe suckers walked on up the thigh. The tip of the tentacle was pointed, then it splayed out so that it almost covered the width of Bond's thigh and then tapered off to a wrist. That was Bond's target. He would just have to take the pain and the horror and wait for the wrist to come within range.\n\nA breeze, the first soft breeze of early morning, whispered across the metal surface of the inlet. It raised small waves that slapped gently against the sheer walls of the cliff. A wedge of cormorants took off from the guanera, five hundred feet above the inlet, and, cackling softly, made out to sea. As they swept over, the noise that had disturbed them reached Bond-the triple blast of a ship's siren that means it is ready to take on cargo. It came from Bond's left. The jetty must be round the corner from the northern arm of the inlet. The tanker from Antwerp had come in. Antwerp! Part of the world outside-the world that was a million miles away, out of Bond's reach-surely out of his reach forever. Just around that corner, men would be in the galley, having breakfast. The radio would be playing. There would be the sizzle of bacon and eggs, th smell of coffee... breakfast cooking..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the plot as the writer's co-author.\nTags: spy fiction, thriller, action, mystery, James Bond\nAuthor: Ian Fleming\nTitle: Dr. No\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes watched him, coldly, patiently. Delicately, like the questing trunk of an elephant, one of the long seizing tentacles broke the surface and palped its way up the wire towards his leg. It reached his foot. Bond felt the hard kiss of the suckers. He didn't move. He dared not reach down and lose the grip of his arms through the wire. Softly the suckers tugged, testing the amount of yield. It was not enough. Like a huge slimy caterpillar, the tentacle walked slowly on up the leg. It got to the bloody blistered kneecap and stopped there, interested. Bond's teeth gritted with the pain. He could imagine the message going back down the thick tentacle to the brain: Yes, it's good to eat! And the brain signalling back: then get it! Bring it tome!\n\nThe suckers walked on up the thigh. The tip of the tentacle was pointed, then it splayed out so that it almost covered the width of Bond's thigh and then tapered off to a wrist. That was Bond's target. He would just have to take the pain and the horror and wait for the wrist to come within range.\n\nA breeze, the first soft breeze of early morning, whispered across the metal surface of the inlet. It raised small waves that slapped gently against the sheer walls of the cliff. A wedge of cormorants took off from the guanera, five hundred feet above the inlet, and, cackling softly, made out to sea. As they swept over, the noise that had disturbed them reached Bond-the triple blast of a ship's siren that means it is ready to take on cargo. It came from Bond's left. The jetty must be round the corner from the northern arm of the inlet. The tanker from Antwerp had come in. Antwerp! Part of the world outside-the world that was a million miles away, out of Bond's reach-surely out of his reach forever. Just around that corner, men would be in the galley, having breakfast. The radio would be playing. There would be the sizzle of bacon and eggs, th smell of coffee... breakfast cooking..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The suckers were at his hip. Bond could see into the horny cups. A stagnant sea smell reached him as the hand slowly undulated upwards. How tough was the mottled grey-brown jelly behind the hand? Should he stab? No, it must be a quick' hard slash, straight across, like cutting a rope. Never mind about cutting into his own skin.\n\nNow! Bond took a quick glance into the two football eyes, so patient, so incurious. Ashe did so the other seizing arm broke the surface and shot straight up at his face. Bond jerked back and the hand curled into a fist round the wire in front of his eyes. Ina second it would shift to an armor shoulder and he would be finished. Now!\n\nThe firsthand was on his ribs. Almost without taking aim, Bond's knife-hand slashed down and across. He felt the blade bite into the puddingy flesh and then the knife was almost torn from his grip as the wounded tentacle whipped back into the water. Fora moment the sea boiled around him. Now the other hand let go the wire and slapped across his stomach. The pointed hand stuck like a leech, all the power of the suckers furiously applied. Bond screamed as the suckers bit into his flesh. He slashed madly, again and again. God, his stomach was being torn out! The wire shook with the struggle. Below him the water boiled and foamed. He would have to give in. One more stab, this time into the back of the hand. It worked! The hand jerked free and snaked down and away leaving twenty red circles, edged with blood, across his skin.\n\nBond had not time to worry about them. Now the head of the squid had broken the surface and the sea was being thrashed into foam by the great heaving mantle round it. The eyes were glaring up at him, redly, venomously, and the forest of feeding arms was at his feet and legs, tearing the cotton fabric away and flailing back. Bond was being pulled down, inch by inch. The wire was biting into his armpits. He could even feel his spine being stretched. If he held on he would be torn in half. Now the eyes and the great triangular beak were right out of the water and the beak was reaching up for his feet. There was one hope, only one!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond thrust his knife between his teeth and his hand dived for the crook of the wire spear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tore it out, got it between his two hands and wrenched the doubled wire almost straight.\n\nHe would have to let go with one arm to stoop and get within range. If he missed, he would be torn to shreds on the fence.\n\nNow, before he died of the pain! Now, now!\n\nBond let his whole body slip down the ladder of wire and lunged through and down with all his force.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of the tip of his spear lancing into the centre of a black eyeball and then the whole sea erupted up at him in a fountain of blackness and he fell and hung upside down by the knees, his head an inch from the surface of the water.\n\nWhat had happened? Had he gone blind? He could see nothing. His eyes were stinging and there was a horrible fish taste in his mouth. But he could feel the wire cutting into the tendons behind his knees. So he must be alive! Dazedly Bond let go the spear from his trailing hand and reached up and felt for the nearest strand of wire. He got a hold and reached up his other hand and slowly, agonizingly, pulled himself up so that he was sitting in the fence. Streaks of light came into his eyes. He wiped a hand across his face. Now he could see. He gazed at his hand. It was black and sticky. He looked down at his body. It was covered with black slime, and blackness stained the sea for twenty yards around. Then Bond realized. The wounded squid had emptied its ink sac at him.\n\nBut where was the squid? Would it comeback? Bond searched the sea. Nothing, nothing but the spreading stain of black. Not a movement. Not a ripple. Then don't wait! Getaway from here! Getaway quick! Wildly Bond looked to right and left. Left was towards the ship, but also towards Doctor No. But right was towards nothing. To build the wire fence the men must have come from the left, from the direction of the jetty. There would be some sort of a path. Bond reached for the top cable and frantically began to edge along the swaying fence towards the rocky headland twenty yards away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stinking, bleeding, black scarecrow moved its arms and legs quite automatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thinking, feeling apparatus of Bond was no longer part of his body. It moved alongside his body, or floated above it, keeping enough contact to pull the strings that made the puppet work. Bond was like a cutworm, the two halves of which continue to jerk forward although life has gone and been replaced by the mock life of nervous impulses. Only, with Bond, the two halves were not yet dead. Life was only in abeyance in them. All he needed was an ounce of hope, an ounce of reassurance that it was still worthwhile trying to stay alive.\n\nBond got to the-rock face. Slowly he let himself down to the bottom rung of wire. He gazed vaguely at the softly heaving sheen of water. It was black, impenetrable, as deep as the rest. Should he chance it? He must! He could do nothing until he had washed off the caking slime and blood, the horrible stale fish-smell. Moodily, fatalistically, he took off the rags of his shirt and trousers and hung them on the wire. He looked down at his brown and white body, striped and pock-marked with red. On an instinct he felt his pulse. It was slow but regular. The steady thump of life revived his spirits. What the hell was he worrying about? He was alive. The wounds and bruises on his body were nothing-absolutely nothing. They looked ugly, but nothing was broken. Inside the torn envelope, the machine was quietly, solidly ticking over. Superficial cuts and abrasions, bloody memories, deathly exhaustion-these were hurts that an accident ward would sneer at. Get on, you bastard! Get moving! Clean yourself and wake up. Count your blessings. Think of the girl. Think of the man you've somehow got to find and kill. Hang onto lifelike you've hung onto the knife between your teeth. Stop being sorry for yourself. To hell with what happened just now. Get down into the water and wash!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten minutes later, Bond, his wet rags clinging to his scrubbed, stinging body and his hair slicked back out of his eyes, climbed over the top of the headland.\n\nYes, it was as he had guessed. A narrow rocky track, made by the feet of the workers, led down the other side and round the bulge of the cliff.\n\nFrom close by came various sounds and echoes. A crane was working. He could hear the changing beat of its engine. There were iron ship-noises and the sound of water splashing into the sea from a bilge pump.\n\nBond looked up at the sky. It was pale blue. Clouds tinged with golden pink were trailing away towards the horizon. Far above him the cormorants were wheeling round the guanera. Soon they would be going off to feed. Perhaps even now they were watching the scout groups far out at sea locating the fish. It would be about six o'clock, the dawn of a beautiful day.\n\nBond, leaving drops of blood behind him, picked his way carefully down the track and along the bottom of the shadowed cliff. Round the bead, the track filtered through amaze of giant, tumbled boulders. The noises grew louder. Bond crept softly forward, watching his footholds for loose stones. A voice called out, startlingly close, \"Okay to go?\" There was a distant answer: \"Okay.\" The crane engine accelerated. A few more yards. One more boulder. And another. Now!\n\nBond flattened himself against the rock and warily inched his head round the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "punctually at six o'clock the sunset with a last yellow flash behind the Blue Mountains, a wave of violet shadow poured down Richmond Road, and the crickets and tree frogs in the fine gardens began to zing and tinkle.\n\nApart from the background noise of the insects, the wide empty street was quiet. The wealthy owners of the big, withdrawn houses-the bank managers, company directors and top civil servants-had been home since five o'clock and they would be discussing the day with their wives or taking a shower and changing their clothes. In half an hour the street would come to life again with the cocktail traffic, but now this very superior half mile of'Rich Road', as it was known to the tradesmen of Kingston, held nothing but the suspense of an empty stage and the heavy perfume of night-scented jasmine.\n\nRichmond Road is the \"best\" road in all Jamaica. It is Jamaica's Park Avenue, its Kensington Palace Gardens, its Avenue D'lena. The \"best\" people live in its big old-fashioned houses, each in an acre or two of beautiful lawn set, too trimly, with the finest trees and flowers from the Botanical Gardens at Hope. The long, straight road is cool and quiet and withdrawn from the hot, vulgar sprawl of Kingston where its residents earn their money, and, on the other side of the T-inter-section at its top, lie the grounds of King's House, where the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jamaica lives with his family. In Jamaica, no road could have a finer ending.\n\nOn the eastern corner of the top intersection stands No 1 Richmond Road, a substantial two-storey house with broad white-painted verandas running round both floors. From the road a gravel path leads up to the pillared entrance through wide lawns marked outwith tennis courts on which this evening, as on all evenings, the sprinklers are at work. This mansion is the social Mecca of Kingston. It is Queen's Club, which, for fifty years, has boasted the power and frequency of its blackballs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such stubborn retreats will not long survive in modern Jamaica. One day Queen's Club will have its windows smashed and perhaps be burned to the ground, but for the time being it is a useful place to find in a sub-tropical island-well run, well staffed and with the finest cuisine and cellar in the Caribbean. At that-time of day, on most evenings of the year, you would find the same four motorcars standing in the road outside the club. They were the cars belonging to the high bridge game that assembled punctually at five and played until around midnight. You could almost set your watch by these cars. They belonged, reading from the order in which they now stood against the kerb, to the Brigadier in command of the Caribbean Defence Force, to Kingston's leading criminal lawyer, and to the Mathematics Professor from Kingston University. At the tail of the line* stood the black Sunbeam Alpine of Commander John Strangways, RN (Ret.), Regional Control Officer for the Caribbean-or, less discreetly, the local representative of the British Secret Service.\n\nJust before six-fifteen, the silence of Richmond Road was softly broken. Three blind beggars came round the corner of the intersection and moved slowly down the pavement towards the four cars. They were Chigroes-Chinese Negroes-bulky men, but bowed as they shuffled along, tapping at the kerb with their white sticks. They walked in file. The first man, who wore blue glasses and could presumably see better than the others, walked in front holding a tin cup against the crook of the stick in his left hand. The right hand of the second man rested on his shoulder and the right hand of the third on the shoulder of the second. The eyes of the second and third men were shut. The three men were dressed in rags and wore dirty jippa-jappa baseball caps with long peaks. They said nothing and no noise came from them except the soft tapping of their sticks as they came slowly down the shadowed pavement towards the group of cars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three blind men would not have been incongruous in Kingston, where there are many diseased people on the streets, but, in this quiet rich empty street, they made an unpleasant impression. And it was odd that they should all be Chinese Negroes. This is not a common mixture of bloods.\n\nIn the cardroom, the sunburned hand reached out into the green pool of the centre table and gathered up the four cards. There was a quiet snap as the trick went to join the rest.\n\n\"Hundred honours,\" said Strangways, \"and ninety below!\" He looked at his watch and stood up. \"Back in twenty minutes. Your deal, Bill. Order some drinks. Usual for me. Don't bother to cook a hand for me while I'm gone. I always spot them.\"\n\nBill Templar, the Brigadier, laughed shortly. He pinged the bell by his side and raked the cards in towards him. He said, \"Hurry up, blast you. You always let the cards go cold just as your partner's in the money.\"\n\nStrangways was already out of the door. The three men sat back resignedly in their chairs. The coloured steward came in and they ordered drinks for themselves and a whisky and water for Strangways.\n\nThere was this maddening interruption every evening at six-fifteen, about halfway through their second rubber. At this time precisely, even if they were in the middle of a hand, Strangways had to go to his \"office\" and \"make a call\". It was a damned nuisance. But Strangways was a vital part of their four and they put up with it. It was never explained what \"the call\" was, and no one asked. Strangways's job was'hush' and that was that. He was rarely away for more than twenty minutes and it was understood that he paid for his absence with around of drinks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drinks came and the three men began to talk racing.\n\nIn fact, this was the most important moment in Strangways's day-the time of his duty radio contact with the powerful transmitter on the roof of the building in Regent's Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service. Everyday, at eighteen-thirty local time, unless he gave'warning the day before that he would not be on the air-when he had business on one of the other islands in his territory, for instance, or was seriously ill-he would transmit his daily report and receive his orders. If he failed to come on the air precisely at six-thirty, there would be a second call, the'Blue'call, at seven, and, finally, the'Red'call at seven-thirty. After this, if his transmitter remained silent, it was'Emergency', and Section III, his controlling authority in London, would urgently get on the job of finding out what had happened to him.\n\nEven a \"Blue\" call means a bad mark for an agent unless his \"Reasons in Writing\" are unanswerable. London's radio schedules round the world are desperately tight and their minute disruption by even one extra call is a dangerous nuisance. Strangways had never suffered the ignominy of a'Blue'call, let alone a'Red\", and was ascertain as could be that he never would do so. Every evening, at precisely six-fifteen, he left Queen's Club, got into his car and drove for ten minutes up into the foothills of the Blue Mountains to his neat bungalow with the fabulous view over Kingston harbour. At six twenty-five he walked through the hall to the office at the back. He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him. Miss Trueblood, who passed as his secretary, but was in fact his No. 2 and a former Chief Officer WRNS, would already be sitting in front of the dials inside the dummy filing cabinet. She would have the earphones on and would be making first contact, tapping out his call-sign, WXN, on 14 megacycles. There would be a shorthand pad on her elegant knees. Strangways would drop into the chair beside her and pickup the other pair of headphones and, at exactly six twenty-eight, he would takeover from her and wait for the sudden hollowness in the ether that meant that WWW in London was coming into acknowledge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an iron routine. Strangways was a man of iron routine. Unfortunately, strict patterns of behaviour can be deadly if they are read by an enemy.\n\nStrangways, a tall lean man with a black patch over the right eye and the sort of aquiline good looks you associate with the bridge of a destroyer, walked quickly across the mahogany panelled hallway of Queen's Club and pushed through the light mosquito-wired doors and ran down the three steps to the path.\n\nThere was nothing very much on his mind except the sensual pleasure of the clean fresh evening air and the memory of the finesse that had given him his three spades. There was this case, of course, the case he was working on, a curious and complicated affair that M had rather nonchalantly tossed over the air at him two weeks earlier. But it was going well. A chance lead into the Chinese community had paid off. Some-odd angles had come to light-for the present the merest shadows of angles-but if they jelled, thought Strangways as. he strode down the gravel path and into Richmond Road, he might find himself involved in something very odd indeed.\n\nStrangways shrugged his shoulders. Of course it wouldn't turnout like that. The fantastic never materialized in his line of business. There would be some drab solution that had been embroidered by overheated imaginations and the usual hysteria of the Chinese.\n\nAutomatically, another part of Strangways's mind took in the three blind men. They were tapping slowly towards him down the sidewalk. They were about twenty yards away. He calculated that they would pass him a second or two before he reached his car. Out of shame for his own health and gratitude for it, Strangways felt fora coin. He ran his thumbnail down its edge to make sure it was a florin and not a penny. He took it out. He was parallel with the beggars. How odd, they were all Chigroes! How very odd! Strangways's hand went out. The coin clanged in the tin cup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bless you, Master,\" said the leading man. \"Bless you,\" echoed the other two.\n\nThe car key was in Strangways's hand. Vaguely he registered the moment of silence as the tapping of the white sticks ceased. It was too late.\n\nAs Strangways had passed the last man, all three had swivelled. The back two had fanned out a step to have a clear field of fire. Three revolvers, ungainly with their sausage-shaped silencers, whipped out of holsters concealed among the rags. With disciplined precision the three men aimed at different points down Strangways's spine-one between the shoulders, one in the small of the back, one at the pelvis.\n\nThe three heavy coughs were almost one. Strangways's body was hurled forward as if it had been kicked. It lay absolutely still in the small puff of dust from the sidewalk.\n\nIt was six-seventeen. With a squeal of tyres, a dingy motor hearse with black plumes flying from the four corners of its roof took the T-intersection into Richmond Road and shot down towards the group on the pavement. The three men had just had time to pickup Strangways's body when the hearse slid to a stop abreast of them. The double doors at the back were open. So was the plain deal coffin inside. The three men manhandled the body through the doors and into the coffin. They climbed in. The lid was put on and the doors pulled shut. The three Negroes sat down on three of the four little seats at the corners of the coffin and unhurriedly laid their white sticks beside them. Roomy black alpaca coats hungover the backs of the seats. They put the coats on over their rags. Then they took off their baseball caps and reached down to the floor and picked up blacktop hats and put them on their heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The driver, who also was a Chinese Negro, looked nervously over his shoulder.\n\n\"Go, man. Go!\" said the biggest of the killers. He glanced down at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It said six-twenty. Just three minutes for the job. Dead on time.\n\nThe hearse made a decorous U-turn and moved at a sedate speedup to the intersection. There it turned right and at thirty miles an hour it cruised genteelry up the tarmac highway towards the hills, its black plumes streaming the doleful signal of its burden and the three mourners sitting bolt upright with their arms crossed respectfully over their hearts.\n\n'WXN calling WWW... WXN calling WWW...\n\nWXN... WXN... WXN... '\n\nThe centre finger of Mary Trueblood's right hand stabbed softly, elegantly, at the key. She lifted her left wrist. Six twenty-eight. He was a minute late. Mary Trueblood smiled at the thought of the little open Sunbeam tearing up the road towards her. Now, in a second, she would hear the quickstep, then the key in the lock and he would be sitting beside her. There would be the apologetic smile as he reached for the earphones. \"Sorry, Mary. Damned car wouldn't start.\" Or, \"You'd think the blasted police knew my number by now. Stopped meat Halfway Tree.\" Mary Trueblood took the second pair of earphones off their hook and put them on his chair to save him half a second.\n\n\"... WXN calling WWW____WXN calling WWW____\"\n\nShe tuned the dial a hair's breadth and tried again. Her watch said six-twenty-nine. She began to worry. Ina matter of seconds, London would becoming in. Suddenly she thought, God, what could she do if Strangways wasn't on time! It was useless for her to acknowledge London and pretend she was him-useless and dangerous. Radio Security would be monitoring the call, as they monitored every call from an agent. Those instruments which measured the minute peculiarities in an operator's\"fist'would at once detect it wasn't Strangways at the key. Mary Trueblood had been shown the forest of dials in the quiet room on the top floor at headquarters, had watched as the dancing hands registered the weight of each pulse, the speed of each cipher group, the stumble over a particular letter. The Controller had explained it all to her when she had joined the Caribbean station five years before-how a buzzer would sound and the contact be automatically broken if the wrong operator had come on the air. It was the basic protection against a Secret Service'transmitter falling into enemy hands. And, if an agent had been captured and was being forced to contact London under torture, he had only to add a few hairbreadth peculiarities to his usual'fist' and they would tell the story of his capture as clearly as if he had announced it en clair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now it had come! Now she was hearing the hollowness in the ether that meant London was coming in. Mary Trueblood glanced at her watch. Six-thirty. Panic! But now, at last, there were the footsteps in the hall. Thank God! Ina second he would come in. She must protect him! Desperately she decided to take a chance and keep the circuit open.\n\n'WWW calling WXN____WWW calling WXN____Can\n\nyou hear me?... can you hear me? ' London was coming over strong, searching for the Jamaica station.\n\nThe footsteps were at the door.\n\nCoolly, confidently, she tapped back: 'Hear you loud and clear... Hear you loud and clear... Hear you...\"\n\nBehind her there was an explosion. Something hither on the ankle. She looked down. It was the lock of the door.\n\nMary Trueblood swivelled sharply on her chair. A man stood in the doorway. It wasn't Strangways. It was a big Negro with yellowish skin and slanting eyes. There was a gun in his hand. It ended in a thick black cylinder.\n\nMary Trueblood opened her mouth to scream.\n\nThe man smiled broadly. Slowly, lovingly, he lifted the gun and shot her three times in and around the left breast.\n\nThe girl slumped sideways off her chair. The earphones slipped off her golden hair onto the floor. For perhaps a second the tiny chirrup of London sounded out into the room. Then it stopped. The buzzer at the Controller's desk in Radio Security had signalled that something was wrong on WXN.\n\nThe killer walked out of the door. He. came back carrying a box with a coloured label on it that said PRESTO FIRE, and a big sugar sack marked TATE& LYLE. He put the box down on the floor and went to the body and roughly forced the sack over the head and down to the ankles. The feet stuck out. He bent them and crammed them in. He dragged the bulky sack out into the hall and came back. In the corner of the room the safe stood open, as he had been told it would, and the cipher books had been taken out and laid on the desk ready for work on the London signals. The man threw these and all the papers in the safe into the centre of the room. He tore down the curtains and added them to the pile. He topped it up with a couple of chairs. He opened the box of Presto firelighters and took out a handful and tucked them into the pile and lit them. Then he went out into the hall and lit similar bonfires inappropriate places. The tinder-dry furniture caught quickly and the flames began to lick up the panelling. . The man went to the front door and opened it. Through the hibiscus hedge he could seethe glint of the hearse. There was no noise except the zing of crickets and the soft tick-over of the car's engine. Up and down the road there was no other sign of life. The man went back into the smoke-filled hall and easily shouldered the sack and came out again, leaving the door open to make a draught. He walked swiftly down the path to the road. The back doors of the hearse were open. He handed in the sack and watched the two men force it into the coffin on top of Strangways's body. Then he climbed in and shut the doors and sat down and put on his top hat. ." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the first flames showed in the upper windows of the bungalow, the hearse moved quietly from the sidewalk and went on its way up towards the Mona Reservoir. There the weighted coffin would slip down into its fifty-fathom grave and, in just forty-five minutes, the personnel and records of the Caribbean station of the Secret Service would have been utterly destroyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond took one long comprehensive look and pulled back. He leant against the cool face of rock and waited for his breathing to get back to normal. He lifted his knife closeup to his eyes and carefully examined the blade. Satisfied, he slipped it behind him and down the waistband of his trousers up against his spine. There it would be handy but protected from bitting against anything. He wondered about the lighter. He took it out of his hip pocket. As a hunk of metal it might be useful, but it wouldn't light anymore and it might scrape against the rock. He put it down on the ground away from his feet.\n\nThen Bond sat down and meticulously went over the photograph that was in his brain.\n\nRound the corner, not more than ten yards away, was the crane. There was no back to the cabin. Inside it a man sat at the controls. It was the Chinese Negro boss, the driver of the marsh buggy. In front of him the jetty ran twenty yards out into the sea and ended in a T. An aged tanker of around ten thousand tons deadweight was secured alongside the top of the T. It stood well out of the water, its deck perhaps twelve feet above the quay. The tanker was called Blanche, and the Ant of Antwerp showed at her stern. There was no sign of life Onboard except one figure lolling at the wheel in the enclosed bridge. The rest of the crew would be below, battened away from the guano dust. From just to the right of the crane, an overhead conveyor-belt in a corrugated-iron housing ran out from the cliff-face. It was carried on high stanchions above the jetty and stopped just short of the hold of the tanker. Its mouth ended in a huge canvas sock, perhaps six feet in diameter,. The purpose of the crane was to lift the wireframed mouth of the sock so that it hung directly over the hold of the tanker and to move it to right or left to give even distribution. From out of the mouth of the sock, in a solid downward jet, the scrambled-egg-coloured guano dust was pouring into the hold of the tanker at a rate of tons a minute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Below, on the jetty, to the left and to leeward of the drifting smoke of the guano dust, stood the tall, watchful figure of Doctor No.\n\nThat was all. The morning breeze feathered the deep-water anchorage, still half in shadow beneath the towering cliffs, the'conveyor-belt thudded quietly on its rollers, the crane's engine chuffed rhythmically. There was no other sound, no other movement, no other life apart from the watch at the ship's wheel, the trusty working at the crane, and Doctor No, seeing that all went well. On the other side of the mountain men would be working, feeding the guano to the conveyor-belt that rumbled away through the bowels of the rock, but on this side no one was allowed and no one was necessary. Apart from aiming the canvas mouth of the conveyor, there was nothing else for anyone to do.\n\nBond sat and thought, measuring distances, guessing at angles, remembering exactly where the crane driver's hands and feet were on the levers and the pedals. Slowly, a thin, hard smile broke across the haggard, sunburned face. Yes! It was on! It could be done. But softly, gently, slowly! The prize was almost intolerably sweet.\n\nBond examined the soles of his feet and his hands. They; would serve. They would have to serve. He reached back ana felt the handle of the knife. Shifted it an inch. He stood up and took several slow deep breaths, ran his hands through his salt-and sweat-matted hair, rubbed them harshly up and down his face and then down the tattered sides of his black jeans. He gave a final flex to his fingers. He was ready.\n\nBond stepped up to the rock and inched an eye round. Nothing had changed. His guess at the distances had been right. The crane driver was watchful, absorbed. The neck above the open khaki shirt was naked, offered, waiting. Twenty yards away, Doctor No, also with his back to Bond, stood sentry over the thick rich cataract of whity-yellow dust. On the bridge, the watch was lighting a cigarette." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond looked along the ten yards of path that led past the back of the crane. He picked out the places he would put each foot. Then he came out from behind the rock and ran.\n\nBond ran to the right of the crane, to a point he had chosen where the lateral side of the cabin would hide him from the driver and the jetty. He got there and stopped, crouching, listening. The engine hurried on, the conveyor-belt rumbled steadily out of the mountain above and behind him. There was no change.\n\nThe two iron footholds at the back of the cabin, inches away from Bond's face, looked solid. Anyway the noise of the engine would drown small sounds. But he would have to be quick to yank the man's body out of the seat and get his own hands and feet on the controls. The single stroke of the knife would have to be mortal. Bond felt along his own collarbone, felt the soft triangle of skin beneath which the jugular pumped, remembered the angle of approach behind the man's back, reminded himself to force the blade and hold it in.\n\nFora final second he listened, then he reached behind his back for the knife and went up the iron steps and into the cabin with the stealth and speed of a panther.\n\nAt the last moment there was need to hurry. Bond stood behind the man's back, smelling him. He had time to raise his knife hand almost to the roof of the cabin, time to summon every ounce of strength, before he swept the blade down and into the square inch of smooth, brownish-yellow skin.\n\nThe man's hands and legs splayed away from the controls.\"His face strained back towards Bond. It seemed to Bond that there was a flash of recognition in the bulging eyes before the whites rolled upwards. Then a strangled noise came from the open mouth and the big body rolled sideways off its iron seat and crashed to the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond's eyes didn't even follow it ajs far as the ground. He was akeady in the seat and reaching for the pedals and levers. Everything was out of control. The engine was running in neutral, the wire hawser was tearing off the drum, the tip of the crane was bending slowly forwards like a giraffe's neck, the canvas mouth of the conveyor-belt had wilted and was now pouring its column of dust between the jetty and the ship. Doctor No was staring upwards. His mouth was open. Perhaps he was shouting something.\n\nCoolly, Bond reined the machine in, slowly easing the levers and pedals back to the angles at which the driver had been holding them. The engine accelerated, the gears bit and began to work again. The hawser slowed on the spinning drum and reversed, bringing the canvas mouth up and over the ship. The tip of the crane lifted and stopped. The scene was as before. Now!\n\nBond reached forward for the iron wheel which the driver had been handling when Bond had caught his first glimpse of him. Which way to turn it? Bond tried to the left. The tip of the crane veered slightly to the right. So be it. Bond spun the wheel to the right. Yes, by God, it was answering, moving across the sky, carrying the mouth of the conveyor with it.\n\nBond's eyes flashed to the jetty. Doctor No had moved. He had moved a few paces to a stanchion that Bond had missed. He had a telephone in his hand. He was getting through to the other side of the mountain. Bond could see his hand frantically. jiggling the receiver arm, trying to attract attention.\n\nBond whirled the director wheel. Christ, wouldn't it turn any faster? In seconds Doctor No would get through and it would be too late. Slowly the tip of the crane arced across the sky. Now the mouth of the conveyor was spewing the dust column down over the side of the ship. Now the yellow mound was marching silently across the jetty. Five yards, four, three, two! Don't look round, you bastard! Arrh, got you! Stop the wheel! Now, you take it, Doctor No!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the first brush of the stinking dust column, Doctor No had turned. Bond saw the long arms fling wide as if to embrace the thudding mass. One knee rose to run. The mouth opened and a thin scream came up to Bond above the noise of the engine. Then there was a brief glimpse of a kind of dancing snowman. And then only a mound of yellow bird dung that grew higher and higher.\n\n\"God!\" Bond's voice gave back an iron echo from the walls of the cabin. He thought of the screaming lungs stuffing with the filthy dust, the body bending and then falling under the weight, the last impotent kick of the heels, the last flash of thought-rage, horror, defeat?-and then the silence of the stinking tomb.\n\nNow the yellow mountain was twenty feet high. The stuff was spilling off the sides of the jetty into the sea. Bond glanced\n\n. at the ship. Ashe did so, there came three blasts on its siren.\n\nThe noise crashed round the cliffs. There came a fourth blast which didn't stop. Bond could seethe watch holding onto the lanyard as he craned out of the bridge window, looking down. Bond took his hands off the controls and let them rip. It was time to go.\n\nHe slipped off the iron seat and bent over the dead body. He took the revolver out of the holster and looked at it. He smiled grimly-Smith& Wesson. 38, the regular model. He slipped it down inside his waistband. It was fine to feel the heavy cold metal against his skin. He went to the door of the cabin and dropped down to the ground.\n\nAn iron ladder ran up the cliif behind the crane to where the conveyor-housing jutted out. There was a small door in the corrugated iron wall of the housing. Bond scrambled up the ladder. The door opened easily, letting out a puff of guano dost, and he clambered through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside, the clanking of the conveyor-belt over its rollers was deafening, but there were dim inspection lights in the stone ceiling of the tunnel and a narrow catwalk that stretched away into the mountain alongside the hurrying river of dust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond moved quickly along it, breathing shallowly against the fishy ammoniac smell. At all costs he must get to the end before the significance of the ship's siren and of the unanswered telephone overcame the fear of the guards.\n\nBond half ran and half stumbled through the echoing stinking tunnel. How far would it be? Two hundred yards? And then what? Nothing for it but to breakout of the tunnel mouth and start shooting-cause a panic and hope for the best. He would get hold of one of the men and wring out of him where the girl was. Then what? When he got to the place on the mountainside, what would he find? What would be left of her?\n\nBond ran on faster, his head down, watching the narrow breadth of planking, wondering what would happen if he missed his footing and slipped into the rushing river of guano dust. Would he be able to get off the belt again or would he be whirled away and down until he was finally spewed out onto the burial mound of Doctor No?\n\nWhen Bond's head hit into the soft stomach and he felt the hands at his throat, it was too late to think of his revolver. His only reaction was to throw himself down and forward at the legs. The legs gave against his shoulder and there was a shrill scream as the body crashed down on his back.\n\nBond had started the heave that would hurl his attacker sideways and onto the conveyor-belt when the quality of the scream and something light and soft about the impact of the body froze his muscles.\n\nIt couldn't be!\n\nAs if in answer, sharp teeth bit deeply into the calf of his right leg and an elbow jabbed viciously, knowledgeably, backwards into his groin.\n\nBond yelled with the pain. He tried to squirm sideways to protect himself, but even as he shouted'Honey!\" the elbow thudded into him again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The breath whistled through Bond's teeth with the agony. There was only one way to stop her without throwing heron to the conveyor-belt. He took a firm grip of one ankle and heaved himself to his knees. He stood upright, holding her slung over his shoulder by one leg. The other foot banged against his head, but half-heartedly, as if she too realized that something was wrong.\n\n\"Stop it, Honey! It's me!\"\n\nThrough the din of the conveyor-belt, Bond's shout got through to her. He heard her cry'James!\" from somewhere near the floor. He felt her hands clutch at his legs. \"James, James!\"\n\nBond slowly let her down. He turned and knelt and reached for her. He put his arms round her and held her tightly to him. \"Oh Honey, Honey. Are you all right?\" Desperately, unbelieving, he strained her to him.\n\n\"Yes, James! Oh, yes!\" He felt her hands at his back and his hair. \"Oh, James, my darling!\" she fell against him, sobbing.\n\n\"It's all right, Honey.\" Bond smoo'thed her hair. \"And Doctor No's dead. But now we've got to run for it. We've got to get out of here. Come on! How can we get out of the tunnel? How did you get here? We've got to hurry!\"\n\nAs if in comment, the conveyor-belt stopped with a jerk.\n\nBond pulled the girl to her feet. She was wearing a dirty suit of workmen's blue dungarees. The sleeves and legs were; rolled up. The suit was far too big for her. She looked like a girl in a man's pyjamas. She was powdered white with the guano dust except where the tears had marked her cheeks. She said breathlessly, \"Just up there! There's aside tunnel that leads to the machine shops and the garage. Will they come after us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no time to talk. Bond said urgently, \"Follow me!\" and started running. Behind him her feet padded softly in the hollow silence. They came to the fork where the side tunnel led off into the rock. Which way would the men come? Down the side tunnel or along the catwalk in the main tunnel? The sound of voices booming far up the side tunnel answered him. Bond drew the girl a few feet up the main tunnel. He brought her close to him and whispered, \"I'm sorry. Honey. I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill them.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" The answering whisper was matter of fact. She pressed his hand and stood back to give him room. She put her hands up to her ears.\n\nBond eased the gun out of his waistband. Softly he broke the cylinder sideways and verified with his thumb that all six chambers were loaded. Bond knew he wasn't going to like this, killing again in cold blood, but these men would be the Chinese Negro gangsters, the strong-arm guards who did the dirty work. They would certainly be murderers many times over. Perhaps they were the ones who had killed Strangways and the girl. But there was no point in trying to ease his conscience. It was kill or be killed. He must just do it efficiently.\n\nThe voices were coming closer. There were three men. They were talking loudly, nervously. Perhaps it was many years since they had even thought of going through the tunnel. Bond wondered if they would look round as they came out into the main tunnel. Or would he have to shoot them in the back?\n\nNow they were very close. He could hear their shoes scuffing the ground.\n\n\"That makes ten bucks you owe me, Sam.\"\n\n\"Not after tonight it won't be. Roll them bones, boy. Roll them bones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No dice for me tonight, feller. I'm goin\" to cut maself a slice of de white girl.\"\n\n\"Haw, haw, haw.\"\n\nThe first man came out, then the second, then the third. They were carrying their revolvers loosely in their right hands.\n\nBond said sharply, \"No, you won't.\"\n\nThe three men whirled round. White teeth glinted in open mouths. Bond shot the rear man in the head and the second man in the stomach. The front man's gun was up. A bullet whistled past Bond and away up the main tunnel. Bond's gun crashed. The man clutched at his neck and spun slowly round and fell across the conveyor-belt. The echoes thundered slowly up and down the tunnel. A puff of fine dust rose in the air and settled. Two of the bodies lay still. The man with the stomach shot writhed and jerked.\n\nBond tucked his hot gun into the waistband of his trousers. He said roughly to the girl, \"Come on.\" He reached for her hand and pulled her after him into the mouth of the side tunnel. He said, \"Sorry about that, Honey,\" and started running, pulling her after him by the hand. She said, \"Don't be stupid.\" Then there was no sound but the thud of their naked feet on the stone floor.\n\nThe air was clean in the side tunnel and it was easier going but, after the tension of the shooting, pain began to crowd in again and take possession of Bond's body. He ran automatically. He hardly thought of the girl. His whole mind was focused on taking the pain and on the problems that waited at the end of the tunnel.\n\nHe couldn't tell if the shots had been heard and he had no idea what opposition was left. His only plan was to shoot anyone who got in his way and somehow get to the garage and the marsh buggy. That was their only hope of getting away from the mountain and down to the coast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dim yellow bulbs in the ceiling flickered by overhead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still the tunnel stretched on. Behind him, Honey stumbled. Bond stopped, cursing himself for not having thought of her. She reached for him and fora moment she leaned against him panting. \"I'm sorry, James. It's just that...\"\n\nBond held her to him. He said anxiously, \"Are you hurt, Honey?\"\n\n\"No, I'm all right. It's just that I'm so terribly tired. And my feet got rather cut on the mountain. I fella lot in the dark. If we could walk a bit. We're nearly there. And there's a door into the garage before we get to the machine shop. Couldn't we go in there?\"\n\nBond hugged her to him. He said, \"That's just what I'm looking for, Honey. That's our only hope of getting away. If you can stick it till we get there, we've got areal chance.\"\n\nBond put his arm round her waist and took her weight. He didn't trust himself to look at her feet. He knew they must be bad. It was no good being sorry for each other. There wasn't time for it if they we're to stay alive.\n\nThey started moving again, Bond's face grim with the extra effort, the girl's feet leaving bloody footsteps on the ground, and almost immediately she whispered urgently and there was a wooden door in the wall of the tunnel and it was ajar and no sound came from the other side.\n\nBond took out his gun and gently eased the door open. The long garage was empty. Under the neon lights the black and gold painted dragon on wheels looked like afloat waiting for the Lord Mayor's Show. It was pointing towards the sliding doors and the hatch of the armoured cabin stood open. Bond prayed that the tank was full and that the mechanic had carried out his orders to get the damage fixed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly, from somewhere outside, there was the sound of voices. They came nearer, several of them, jabbering urgently.\n\nBond took the girl by the hand and ran forward. There was only one place to fide-in the marsh buggy. The girl scrambled in. Bond followed, softly pulling the door shut behind him. They crouched, waiting. Bond thought: only three rounds left in the gun. Too late he remembered the rack of weapons on the wall of the garage. Now the voices were outside. There came the clang of the door being slid back on its runners and a confusion of talk.\n\n\"How d'ya know they were shootin\"?\"\n\n\"Couldn't been nuthen else. I should know.\"\n\n\"Better take rifles. Here, Joe! Take that one, Lemmy! An' some pineapples. Box under da table.\"\n\nThere was the metallic noise of bolts being slid home and safety catches clicked.\n\n\"Some feller must a gone nuts. Couldn't ha\" been da Limey. You ever seen da big pus-feller in da creek? Cheessus! An'da rest of da tricks da Doc fixed up in da tube? An\" dat white gal. She cain't have been in much shape dis niornin\". Any of you men bin to have a look?\"\n\n\"Nossir.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Haw, haw. I'se sho surprised at you fellers. Dat's a fine piece of ass out dere on de crab walk.\"\n\nMore rattling and shuffling of feet, then, \"Okay let's go! Two abreast till we gets to da main tunnel. Shoot at da legs. Whoever's makin'trouble, da Doc'll sure want him to play wit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tee-hee.\"\n\nFeet echoed hollowly on the concrete. Bond held his breath as they filed by. Would they notice the shut door of the buggy? But they went on down the garage and into the tunnel and the noise of them slowly faded away.\n\nBond touched the girl's arm and put his finger to his lips. Softly he eased open the door and listened again. Nothing. He dropped to the ground and walked round the buggy and. went to the half-open entrance. Cautiously he edged his head round. There was no one insight. There was a smell of frying food in the air that brought the saliva to Bond's mouth. Dishes and pans clattered in the nearest building, about twenty yards away, and from one of the further Quonsets came the sound of a guitar and a man's voice singing a calypso. Dogs started to bark half-heartedly and then were silent. The Dobermann Pinschers.\n\nBond turned and ran back to the end of the garage. No sound came from the tunnel. Softly Bond closed the tunnel door and locked and bolted it. He went to the arms-rack on the wall and chose another Smith& Wesson and a Remington carbine. He verified that they were loaded and went to the door of the marsh buggy and handed them into the girl. Now the entrance door. Bond put his shoulder to it and softly eased it wide open. The corrugated iron rumbled hollowly. Bond ran back and scrambled through the open hatch and into the driver's seat. \"Shut it, Honey,\" he whispered urgently and bent and turned the ignition key.\n\nThe needle on the gauge swung to Full. Pray God the damned thing would startup quickly. Some diesels were slow. Bond stamped his foot down on the starter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The grinding rattle was deafening. It must be audible allover the compound! Bond stopped and tried again. The engine fluttered and died. And again, and this time the blessed thing fired and the strong iron pulse hammered as Bond revved it up. Now, gently into gear. Which one? Try this. Yes, it bit. Brake off, you bloody fool! Christ, it had nearly stalled. But now they were out and on the track and Bond rammed his foot down to the floor.\n\n\"Anyone after us?\" Bond had to shout above the noise of the diesel.\n\n\"No. Wait! Yes, there's a man come out of the huts! And another! They're waving and shouting at us. Now some more are corning out. One of them's runoff to the right. Another's gone back into the hut. He's come outwith a rifle. He's lying down. He's firing!\"\n\n\"Close the slot! Lie down on the floor!\" Bond glanced at the speedometer. Twenty. And they were on a slope. There was nothing more to get out of the machine. Bond concentrated on keeping the huge bucking wheels on the track. The cabin bounced and swayed on the springs. It was a job to keep his hands and feet on the controls. An iron fist clanged against the cabin. And another. What was the range? Four hundred? Good shooting! But that would be the lot. He shouted, \"Take a look, Honey! Open the slot an inch.\"\n\n\"The man's got up. He's stopped firing. They're all looking after us-a whole crowd of them. Wait, there's something else. The dogs are coming! There's no one with them. They're just tearing down the track after us. Will they catch us?\"\n\n\"Doesn't matter if they do. Come and sit by me, Honey. Hold tight. Mind your head against the roof.\" Bond eased up the throttle. She was beside him. He grinned sideways at her. \"Hell, Honey. We've made it. When we get down to the lake I'll stop and shoot up the dogs. If I know those brutes I've only got to kill one and the whole pack'll stop to eat him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond felt her hand at his neck. She kept it there as they swayed and thundered down the track. At the lake, Bond went on fifty yards into the water and turned the machine round and put it in neutral. Through the oblong slot he could seethe pack streaming round the last bend. He reached down for the rifle and pushed it through the aperture. Now the dogs were in the water and swimming. Bond kept his finger on the trigger and sprayed bullets into the middle of them. One floundered, kicking. Then another and another. He could hear their snarling screams above the clatter of the engine. There was blood in the water, A fight had started. He saw one dog leap on one of the wounded ones and sink its teeth into the back of its neck. Now they all seemed to have gone berserk. They were milling around in the frothing bloody water. Bond emptied his magazine among them and dropped the gun on the floor. He said, \"That's that, Honey,\" and put the machine into gear and swung it round and began rolling at an easy speed across the shallow lake towards the distant gap in the mangroves that was the mouth of the river.\n\nFor five minutes they moved along in silence. Then Bond put a hand on the girl's knee and said, \"We should be all right now, Honey. When they find the boss is dead there'll be panic. I guess some of the brighter ones will try and getaway to Cuba in the plane or the launch. They'll worry about their skins, not about us. All the same, we'll not take the canoe out until it's dark. I guess it's about ten by now. We should beat the coast in an hour. Then we'll rest up and try and get in shape for the trip. Weather looks all right and there'll be a bit more moon tonight. Think you can make it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hand squeezed his neck. \"Of course I can, James. But what about you? Your poor body! It's nothing but burns and bruises. And what are those red marks across your stomach?\"\n\n\"Tell you later. I'll be okay. But you tell me what happened to you last night. How in hell did you manage to getaway from the crabs? What went wrong with that bastard's plan? All nightlong I could only think of you out there being slowly eaten to death. God, what a thing to have dreamed up! What happened?\"\n\nThe girl was actually laughing. Bond looked sideways. The golden hair was tousled and the blue eyes were heavy with lack of sleep, but otherwise she might just becoming home from a midnight barbecue.\n\n\"That man thought he knew everything. Silly old fool.\" She might have been talking about a stupid schoolteacher. \"He's much more impressed by the black crabs than I am. To begin with, I don't mind any animal touching me, and anyway those crabs wouldn't think of even nipping someone if they stay quite still and haven't got an open sore or anything. The whole point is that they don't really like meat. They live mostly on plants and things. If he was right and he did kill a black girl that way, either she had an open wound or she must have died of fright. He must have wanted to see if I'd stand it. Filthy old man. I only fainted down thereat dinner because I knew he'd have something much worse for you.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm damned. I wish to heaven I'd known that. I thought of you being picked to pieces.\"\n\nThe girl snorted. \"Of course it wasn't very nice having my clothes taken off and being tied down to pegs in the ground. But those black men didn't dare touch me. They just made jokes and then went away. It wasn't very comfortable out thereon the rock, but I was thinking of you and how I could get at Doctor No and kill him. Then I heard the crabs beginning to run-that's what we call it in Jamaica-and soon they came scurrying and rattling along-hundreds of them. I just lay still and thought of you. They walked round me and over me. I might have been a rock for all they cared. They tickled a bit. One annoyed me by trying to pullout a bit of my hair. But they don't smell or anything, and I just waited for the early morning when they crawl into holes and go to sleep. I got quite fond of them. They were company. Then they got fewer and fewer and finally stopped coming and I could move. I pulled at all the pegs in turn and then concentrated on my right-hand one. In the end I got it out of the crack in the rock and the rest was easy. I got back to the buildings and began scouting about. I got into the machine shop near the garage and found this filthy old suit. Then the conveyor thing started up not faraway and I thought about it and I guessed it must betaking the guano through the mountain. I knew you must be dead by then,\" the quiet voice was matter of fact, \"so I thought I'd get to the conveyor somehow and get through the mountain and kill Doctor No. I took a screwdriver to do it with.\" She giggled. \"When we ran into each other, I'd have stuck it into you only it was in my pocket and I couldn't get to it. I found the door in the back of the machine shop and walked through and into the main tunnel. That's all.\" She caressed the back of his neck. \"Iran along watching my step and the next thing I knew was your head hitting me in the stomach.\" She giggled again. \"Darling, I hope I didn't hurt you too much when we were fighting. My Nanny told me always to hit men there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bond laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She did, did she?\" He reached out and caught her by the hair and pulled her face to him. Her mouth felt its way round his cheek and locked itself against his.\n\nThe machine gave a sideways lurch. The kiss ended. They had hit the first mangrove roots at the entrance to the river." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You're quite sure of all this?\"\n\nThe Acting Governor's eyes were hunted, resentful. How could these things have been going on under his nose, in one of Jamaica's dependencies? What would the Colonial Office have to say about it? He already saw the long, pale blue envelope marked \"Personal. For Addressee Only\", and the foolscap page with those very wide margins: \"The Secretary\" of State for the Colonies has instructed me to express to you his surprise...\" .\n\n\"Yes, sir. Quite sure.\" Bond had no sympathy for the man. He hadn't liked the reception he had had on his last visit to King's House, nor the mean comments on Strangways and the girl. He liked the memory of them even less now that he knew his friend and the girl were at the bottom of the Mona Reservoir.\n\n\"Er-well we mustn't let any of this get out to the Press. You understand that? I'll send my report into the Secretary of State by the next bag. I'm sure I can rely on your...\"\n\n\"Excuse me, sir.\" The Brigadier in command of the Caribbean Defence Force was a modern young soldier of thirty-five. His military record was good enough for him to be unimpressed by relics from the Edwardian era of Colonial Governors, whom he collectively referred to as \"feather-hatted fuddy-duddies\". \"I think we can assume that Commander Bond is unlikely to communicate with anyone except his Department. And if I may say so, sir, I submit that we should take steps to clear up Crab Key without waiting for approval from London. I can provide a platoon ready to embark by this evening. HMS Narvik came in yesterday. If the programme of receptions and cocktail parties for her could possibly be deferred for forty-eight hours or so...\" The Brigadier let his sarcasm hang in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I agree with the Brigadier, sir.\" The voice of the Police Superintendent was edgy. Quick action might save him from a reprimand, but it would have to be quick. \"And in any case I shall have to proceed immediately against the various Jamaicans who appear to be implicated. I'll have to get the divers working at Mona. If this case is to be cleaned up we can't afford to wait for London. As Mister-er-Commander Bond says, most of these Negro gangsters will probably be in Cuba by now. Have to get in touch with my opposite number in Havana and catch up with them before they take to the hills or go underground. I think we ought to move at once, sir.\"\n\nThere was silence in the cool shadowy room where the meeting was being held. Qn the ceiling above the massive mahogany conference table there was an unexpected dapple of sunlight. Bond guessed that it shone up through the slats of the jalousies from a fountain or a lily pond in the garden outside the tall windows. Faraway there was the sound of tennis balls being knocked about. Distantly a young girl's voice called, \"Smooth. Your serve, Gladys.\" The Governor's children? Secretaries? From one end of the room King George VI, from the other end the Queen, looked down the table with grace and good humour.\n\n\"What do you think, Colonial Secretary?\" The Governor's voice was hustled.\n\nBond listened to the first few words. He gathered that Pleydell-Smith agreed with the other two. He stopped listening. His mind drifted into a world of tennis courts and lily ponds and kings and queens, of London, of people being photographed with pigeons on their heads in Trafalgar Square, of the forsythia that would soon be blazing on the bypass roundabouts, of May, the treasured housekeeper in his flat off the King's Road, getting up to brew herself a cup of tea (here it was eleven o'clock. It would be four o'clock in London), of the first tube trains beginning to run, shaking the ground beneath his cool, dark bedroom. Of the douce weather of England: the soft airs, the'heat waves, the cold spells-\"The only country where you can take a walk everyday of the year\"-Chesterfield's Letters? And then Bond thought of. Crab Key, of the hot ugly wind beginning to blow, of the stink of the marsh gas from the mangrove swamps, the jagged grey, dead coral in whose holes the black crabs were now squatting, the black and red eyes moving swiftly on their stalks as a shadow-a cloud, a bird-broke their small horizons. Down in the bird colony the brown and white and pink birds would be stalking in the shallows, or fighting or nesting, while upon the guanera the cormorants would be streaming back from their breakfast to deposit their milligramme of rent to the landlord who would no longer be collecting. And where would the landlord be? The men from the SS Blanche would have dug him out. The body would have been examined for signs of life and then put somewhere. Would they have washed the yellow dust off him and dressed him in his kimono while the Captain radioed Antwerp for instructions? And where had Doctor No's soul gone to? Had it been a bad soul or just a mad one? Bond thought of the burned twist down in the swamp that had been Quarrel. He remembered the soft ways of the big body, the innocence in the grey, horizon-seeking eyes, the simple lusts and desires, the reverence for superstitions and instincts, the childish faults, the loyalty and even love that Quarrel had given him-the warmth, there was only one word for it, of the man. Surely he hadn't, gone to the same place as Doctor No. Whatever happened to dead people, there was surely one place for the warm and another for the cold. And which, when the time came, would he, Bond, go to?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Colonial Secretary was mentioning Bond's name. Bond pulled himself together.\n\n\"... survived is quite extraordinary. I do think, sir, that we should show our gratitude to Commander Bond and to his Service by accepting his recommendations. It does seem, sir, that he has done at least three-quarters of the job. Surely the least we can do is look after the other quarter.\"\n\nThe Governor grunted. He squinted down the table at Bond. The chap didn't seem to be paying much attention. But one couldn't be sure with these Secret Service fellows. Dangerous chaps to have around, sniffing and snooping. And their damned Chief carried a lot of guns in Whitehall. Didn't do to get on the wrong side of him. Of course there was something to be said for sending the Narvik. News would leak, of course. All the Press of the world would becoming down on his head. But then suddenly the Governor saw the headlines:\"GOVERNOR TAKES SWIFT ACTION... ISLAND'S STRONGMAN INTERVENES... THE NAVY'S THERE! \"Perhaps after all it would be better to do it that way. Even go down and seethe troops off himself. Yes, that was it, by jove. Cargill, of the Gleaner, was coming to lunch. He'd drop a hint or two to the chap and make sure the story got proper coverage. Yes, that was it. That was the way to play the hand.\n\nThe Governor raised his hands and let them fall flat on the table in a gesture of submission. He embraced the conference with awry smile of surrender.\n\n\"So I am overruled, gentlemen. Well, then,\" the voice was avuncular, telling the children that just this once...\"I accept your verdict. Colonial Secretary, will you please call upon the commanding officer of HMS Narvik and explain the position. In strict confidence, of course. Brigadier, I leave the military arrangements in your hands. Superintendent, you will know what to do.\" The Governor rose. He inclined his head regally in the direction of Bond. \"And it only remains to express my appreciation to Commander-er-Bond, for his part in this affair. I shall not fail to mention your assistance, Commander, to the Secretary of State.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside the sun blazed down on the gravel sweep. The interior of the Hillman Minx was a Turkish bath. Bond's bruised hands cringed as they took the wheel.\n\nPleydell-Smith leant through the window. He said, \"Ever heard the Jamaican expression \"rarse\"?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"\"Rarse, man\" is a vulgar expression meaning-er-\"stuff it up\". If I may say so, it would have been appropriate for you to have used the expression just now. However,\" Pleydell-Smith gave a wave of his hand which apologized for his Chief and dismissed him, \"is there anything else I can do for you? You really think you ought to go back to Beau Desert? They were quite definite at the hospital that they want to have you fora week.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Bond shortly, \"but I've got to get back. Seethe girl's all right. Would you tell the hospital I'll be back tomorrow? You got off that signal to my Chief?\"\n\n\"Urgent rates.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" Bond pressed the self-starter, \"I guess that's the lot. You'll seethe Jamaica Institute people about the girl, won't you? She really knows the hell of a lot about the natural history side of the island. Not from books either. If they've got the right sort of job... Like to see her settled. I'll take her up to New York myself and see her through the operation. She'd be ready to start in a couple of weeks after that. Incidentally,\" Bond looked embarrassed, \"she's really the hell of a fine girl. When she comes back... if you and your wife... You know. Just so there's someone to keep an eye on her.\"\n\nPleydell-Smith smiled. He thought he had the picture. He said, \"Don't worry about that. I'll see to it. Betty's rather a hand at that sort of thing. She'll like taking the girl under her wing. Nothing else? See you later in the week, anyway. That hospital's the hell of a place in this heat. You might care to spend a night or two with us before you go ho-I mean to New York. Glad to have you-er-both.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: spy fiction, thriller, action, mystery, James Bond\nAuthor: Ian Fleming\nTitle: Dr. No\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond said: \"Better plan for three days. Weather may break and stop us getting off fora night or two. Couple of good hunting knives. I'll take a gun. You never can tell.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" said Quarrel emphatically. He relapsed into a brooding silence which lasted until they got to Port Maria.\n\nThey went through the little town and on round the headland to Morgan's Harbour. It was just as Bond remembered-the sugar-loaf of the Isle of Surprise rising out of the calm bay, the canoes drawn up beside the mounds of empty conch shells, the distant boom of the surf on the reef which had so nearly been his grave. Bond, his mind full of memories, took the car down the little side road and through the cane fields in the middle of which the gaunt ruin of the old Great House of Beau Desert Plantation stood up like a stranded galleon.\n\nThey came to the gate leading to the bungalow. Quarrel got out and opened the gate, and Bond drove through and pulled up in the yard behind the white single-storeyed house. It was very quiet. Bond walked round the house and across the lawn to the edge of the sea. Yes, there it was, the stretch of deep, silent water-the submarine path he had taken to the Isle of Surprise. It sometimes came back to him in nightmares. Bond stood looking at it and thinking of Solitaire, the girl he had brought back, torn and bleeding, from that sea. He had carried her across the lawn to the house. What had happened to her? Where was she? Brusquely Bond turned and walked back into the house, driving the phantoms away from him.\n\nIt was eight-thirty. Bond unpacked his few things and changed into sandals and shorts. Soon there was the delicious smell of coffee and frying bacon. They ate their breakfast while Bond fixed his training routine-up at seven, swim a quarter of a mile, breakfast, an hour's sunbathing, run a mile, swim again, lunch, sleep, sunbathe, swim a mile, hot bath and massage, dinner and asleep by nine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After breakfast the routine began.\n\nNothing interrupted the grinding week except a brief story in the Daily Gleaner and a telegram from Pleydell-Smith. The Gleaner said that a Sunbeam Talbot, H. 2473, had been involved in a fatal accident on the Devil's Racecourse, a stretch of winding road between Spanish Town and Ochos Rio-on the Kingston-Montego route. A runaway lorry, whose driver was being traced, had crashed into the Sunbeam as it came round a bend. Both vehicles had left the road and hurtled into the ravine below. The two occupants of the Sunbeam, Ben Gibbons of Harbour Street, and Josiah Smith, no address, had been killed. A Mr Bond, an English visitor, who had been lent the car, was asked to contact the nearest police station.\n\nBond burned that copy of the Gleaner. He didn't want to upset Quarrel.\n\nWith only one day to go, the telegram came from Pleydell-Smith. It said:\n\nEACH OBJECT CONTAINED ENOUGH CYANIDE TO KILL A HORSE\n\nSTOP SUGGEST YOU CHANGE YOUR GROCER STOP GOOD LUCK\n\nSMITH\n\nBond also burned the telegram.\n\nQuarrel hired a canoe and they spent three days sailing it. It was a clumsy shell cutout of a single giant cotton tree. It had two thin thwarts, two heavy paddles and a small sail of dirty canvas. It was a blunt instrument. Quarrel was pleased with it.\n\n\"Seven, eight hours, cap'n,\" he said. \"Den we bring down de sail an\" use de paddles. Less target for de radar to see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weather held. The forecast from Kingston radio was good. The nights were as black as sin. The two men got in their stores. Bond fitted himself outwith cheap black canvas jeans and a dark blue shirt and rope-soled shoes.\n\nThe last evening came. Bond was glad he was on his way. He had only once been out of the training camp-to get the stores and arrange Quarrel's insurance-and he was chafing to get out of the stable and onto the track. He admitted to himself that this adventure excited him. It had the right ingredients-physical exertion, mystery, and a ruthless enemy. He had a good companion. His cause was just. There might also be the satisfaction of throwing the'holiday in the sun'back in M's teeth. That had rankled. Bond didn't like being coddled.\n\nThe sun blazed beautifully into its grave.\n\nBond went into his bedroom and took out his two guns and looked at them. Neither was apart of him as the Beretta had been-an extension of his right hand-but he already knew them as better weapons. Which should he take? Bond picked up each in turn, hefting them in his hand. It had to be the heavier Smith& Wesson. There would be no close shooting, if there was any shooting, on Crab Key. Heavy, long-range stuff-if anything. The brutal, stumpy revolver had an extra twenty-five yards over the Walther. Bond fitted the holster into the waistband of his jeans and clipped in the gun. He put twenty spare rounds in his pocket. Was it over-insurance to take all this metal on what might only be a tropical picnic?\n\nBond went to the icebox and took a pint of Canadian Club Blended Rye and some ice and soda-water and went and satin the garden and watched the last light flame and die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shadows crept from behind the house and marched across the lawn and enveloped him. The Undertaker's Wind that blows at night from the centre of the island, clattered softly in the tops of the palm trees. The frogs began to tinkle among the shrubs. The fireflies, the'blink-a-blinks\", as Quarrel called them, came out and began flashing their sexual morse. Fora moment the melancholy of the tropical dusk caught at Bond's heart. He picked up the bottle and looked at~ it. He had drunk a quarter of it. He poured another big slug into his glass and added some ice. What was he drinking for? Because of the thirty miles of black sea he had to cross tonight? Because he was going into the unknown? Because of Doctor No?\n\nQuarrel came up from the beach. \"Time, cap'n.\"\n\nBond swallowed his drink and followed the Cayman Islander down to the canoe.. It was rocking quietly in the water, its bows on the sand. Quarrel went aft and Bond climbed into the space between the forrard thwart and the bows. The sail, wrapped round the short mast, was at his back. Bond took up his paddle and pushed off, and they turned slowly and headed out for the break in the softly creaming waves that was the passage through the reef. They paddled easily, in unison, the paddles turning in their hands so that they did not leave the water on the forward stroke. The small waves slapped softly against the bows. Otherwise they made no noise. It was dark. Nobody saw them go. They just left the land and went off across the sea.\n\nBond's only duty was to keep paddling. Quarrel did the steering. At the opening through the reef there was a swirl and suck of conflicting currents and they were in amongst the jagged niggerheads and coral trees, bared like fangs by the swell. Bond could feel the strength of Quarrel's great sweeps with the paddle as the heavy craft wallowed and plunged. Again and again Bond's own paddle thudded against rock, and once he had to hold on as the canoe hit a buried mass of brain coral and slid off again. Then they were through, and far below the boat there were indigo patches of sand and around them the solid oily feel of deep water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, cap'n,\" said Quarrel softly. Bond shipped his paddle and got down off one knee and sat with his back to the thwart. He heard the scratching of Quarrel's nails against canvas as he unwrapped the sail and then the sharp flap as it caught the breeze. The canoe straightened and began to move. It tilted slowly. There was a soft hiss under the bows. A handful of spray tossed up into Bond's face. The wind of their movement was cool and would soon get cold. Bond hunched up his knees and put his arms round them. The wood was already beginning to bite into his buttocks and his back. It crossed his mind that it was going to be the hell of along and uncomfortable night.\n\nIn the darkness ahead Bond could just make out the rim of the world. Then came a layer of black haze above which the stars began, first sparsely and then merging into a dense bright carpet. The Milky Way soared overhead. How many stars? Bond tried counting a finger's length and was soon past the hundred. The stars lit the sea into a faint grey road and then arched away over the tip of the mast towards the black silhouette of Jamaica. Bond looked back. Behind the hunched figure of Quarrel there was a faraway cluster of lights which would be Port Maria. Already they were a couple of miles out. Soon they would be a tenth of the way, then a quarter, then half. That would be around midnight when Bond would takeover. Bond sighed and put his head down to his knees and closed his eyes.\n\nHe must have slept because he was awakened by the clonk of a paddle against the boat. He lifted his arm to show that he had heard and glanced at the luminous blaze of his watch. Twelve-fifteen. Stiffly he unbent his legs and turned and scrambled over the thwart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry, Quarrel,\" he said, and it was odd to hear his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You ought to have shaken me up before.\"\n\n\"Hit don signify, cap'n,\" said Quarrel with a grey glint of teeth. \"Do yo good to sleep.\"\n\nGingerly they slipped past each other and Bond settled in the stern and picked up the paddle. The sail was secured to a bent nail beside him. It was flapping. Bond brought the bows into the wind and edged them round so that the North Star was directly over Quarrel's bent head in the bows. Fora time this would be fun. There was something to do.\n\nThere was no change in the night except that it seemed darker and emptier. The pulse of the sleeping sea seemed slower. The heavy swell was longer and the troughs deeper. They were running through a patch of phosphorus that winked at the bows and 'dripped jewels when Bond lifted the paddle out of the water. How safe it was, slipping through the night in this ridiculously vulnerable little boat. How kind and soft the sea could be. A covey of flying fish broke the surface in front of the bows and scattered like shrapnel. Some kept going fora time beside the canoe, flying as much as twenty yards before they dived into the wall of the swell. Was some bigger fish after them or did they think the canoe was a fish, or were they just playing? Bond thought of what was going on in the hundreds of fathoms below the boat, the big fish, the shark and barracuda and tarpon and sailfish quietly cruising, the shoals of kingfish and mackerel and bonito and, far below in the grey twilight of the great depths, the phosphorous jellied boneless things that were never seen, the fifty-foot squids, with eyes afoot wide, that streamed along like zeppelins, the last real monsters of the sea, whose size was only known from the fragments found inside whales. What would happen if a wave caught the canoe broadside and capsized them? How long would they last? Bond took an ounce more pains with his steering and put the thought aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One o'clock, two o'clock, three, four. Quarrel awoke and stretched. He called softly to Bond. \"Ah smells land, cap'n.\" Soon there was a thickening of the darkness ahead. The low shadow slowly took on the shape of a huge swimming rat. A pale moon rose slowly behind them. Now the island showed distinctly, a. couple of miles away, and there was the distant grumble of surf.\n\nThey changed places. Quarrel brought down the sail and they took up the paddles. For at least another mile, thought Bond, they would be invisible in the troughs of the waves. Not even radar would distinguish them from the crests. It was the last mile they would have to hurry over with the dawn not far off.\n\nNow he too could smell the land. It had no particular scent. It was just something new in the nose after hours of clean sea. He could make out the white fringe of surf. The swell subsided and the waves became choppier. \"Now, cap'n,\" called Quarrel, and Bond, the sweat already dropping off his chin, dug deeper and more often. God, it was hard work! The hulking log of wood which had sped along so well under the sail now seemed hardly to move. The wave at the bows was only a ripple. Bond's shoulders were aching like fire. The one knee he was resting on was beginning to bruise. His hands were cramped on the clumsy shaft of a paddle made of lead.\n\nIt was incredible, but they were coming up with the reef. Patches of sand showed deep under the boat. Now the surf was a roar. They followed along the edge of the reef, looking for-an opening. A hundred yards inside the reef, breaking the sandline, was the shimmer of water running inland. The river! So the landfall had been all right. The wall of surf broke up. There was a patch of black oily current swelling over hidden coral heads. The nose of the canoe turned towards it and into it. There was a turmoil of water and a series of grating thuds, and then a sudden rush forward into peace and the canoe was moving slowly across a smooth mirror towards the shore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quarrel steered the boat towards the lee of a rocky promontory where the beach ended. Bond wondered why the beach didn't shine white under the thin moon. When they grounded and Bond climbed stiffly out he understood why.\n\nThe beach was black. The sand was soft and wonderful to the feet but it must have been formed out of volcanic rock, pounded over the centuries, and Bond's naked feet on it looked like white crabs.\n\nThey made haste. Quarrel took three short lengths of thick bamboo out of the boat and laid them up the flat beach. They heaved the nose of the canoe onto the first and pushed the boat up the rollers. After each yard of progress, Bond picked up the back roller and brought it to the front. Slowly the canoe moved up the sand until at last it was over the back tideline and among the rocks and turtle grass and low sea-grape bushes. They pushed it another twenty yards inland into the beginning of the mangrove. There they covered it with dried seaweed and bits of driftwood from the tideline. Then Quarrel cut lengths of screwpalm and went back over their tracks, sweeping and tidying.\n\nIt was still dark, but the breath of grey in the east would soon be turning to pearl. It was five o'clock. They were dead tired. They exchanged a few words and Quarrel went off among the rocks on the promontory. Bond scooped out a depression in the fine dry sand under a thick bush of sea-grape. There were a few hermit crabs beside his bed. He picked up as many as he could find and hurled them into the mangrove. Then, not caring what other animals or insects might come to his smell and his warmth, he lay down full length in the sand and rested his head on his arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was at once asleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond awoke lazily. The feel of the sand reminded him where he was. He glanced at his watch. Ten o'clock. The sun through the round thick leaves of the sea-grape was already hot. A larger shadow moved across the dappled sand in front of his face. Quarrel? Bond shifted his head and peered through the fringe of leaves and grass that concealed him from the beach. He stiffened. His heart missed a beat and then began pounding so that he had to breathe deeply to quieten it. His eyes, as he stared through the blades of grass, were fierce slits.\n\nIt was a naked girl, with her back to him. She was not quite naked. She wore abroad leather belt round her waist with a hunting knife in a leather sheath at her right hip. The belt made her nakedness extraordinarily erotic. She stood not more than five yards away on the tideline looking down at something in her hand. She stood in the classical relaxed pose of the nude, all the weight on the right leg and the left knee bent and turning slightly inwards, the head to one side as she examined the things in her hand.\n\nIt was a beautiful back. The skin was a very light uniform café au lait with the sheen of dull satin. The gentle curve of the backbone was deeply indented, suggesting more powerful muscles than is usual in a woman, and the behind was almost as firm and rounded as a boy's. The legs were straight and beautiful and no pinkness showed under the slightly lifted left heel. She was not a coloured girl.\n\nHer hair was ash blonde. It was cut to the shoulders and hung there and along the side of her bent cheek in thick wet strands. A green diving mask was pushed back above her forehead, and the green rubber thong bound her hair at the back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The whole scene, the empty beach, the green and blue sea, the naked girl with the strands of fair hair, reminded Bond of something. He searched his mind. Yes, she was Botticelli's Venus, seen from behind.\n\nHow had she got there? What was she doing? Bond looked up and down the beach. It was not black, he now saw, but a deep chocolate brown. To the right he could see as far as the river mouth, perhaps five hundred yards away. The beach was empty and featureless except fora scattering of small pinkish objects. There were a lot of them, shells of some sort Bond supposed, and they looked decorative against the dark brown background. He looked to the left, to where, twenty yards away, the rocks of the small headland began. Yes, there was a yard or two of groove in the sand where a canoe had been drawn up into the shelter of the rocks. It must have been alight one or she couldn't have drawn it up alone. Perhaps the girl wasn't alone. But there was only one set of footprints leading down from the rocks to the sea and another set coming out of the sea and up the beach to where she now stood on the tideline. Did she live here, or had she too sailed over from Jamaica that night? Hell of a thing fora girl to do. Anyway, what in God's name was she doing here?\n\nAs if to answer him, the girl made a throwaway gesture of the right hand and scattered a dozen shells on the sand beside her. They were violent pink and seemed to Bond to be the same as he had noticed on the beach. The girl looked down into her left hand and began to whistle softly to herself. There was a happy note of triumph in the whistle. She was whistling \"Marion\", a plaintive little calypso that has now been cleaned up and made famous outside Jamaica. It had always been one of Bond's favourites. It went:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All day, all night, Marion,\n\nSittin'by the seaside siftin\" sand...\n\nThe girl broke off to stretch her arms out in a deep yawn. Bond smiled to himself. He wetted his lips and took up the refrain:\n\n\"The water from her eyes could sail a boat, The hair on her head could tie a goat...\"\n\nThe hands flew down and across her chest. The muscles of her behind bunched with tension. She was listening, her head, still hidden by the curtain of hair, cocked to one side.\n\nHesitantly she began again. The whistle trembled and died. At the first note of Bond's echo, the girl whirled round. She didn't cover her body with the two classical gestures. One hand flew downwards, but the other, instead of hiding her breasts, went up to her face, covering it below the eyes, now wide with fear. \"Who's that?\" The words came out in a terrified whisper.\n\nBond got to his feet and stepped out through the sea-grape. He stopped on the edge of the grass. He held his hands open at his sides to show they were empty. He smiled cheerfully at her. \"It's only me. I'm another trespasser. Don't be frightened.\"\n\nThe girl dropped her hand down from her face. It went to the knife at her belt. Bond watched the fingers curl round the hilt. He looked up at her face. Now he realized why her hand had instinctively gone to it. It was a beautiful face, with wide-apart deep blue eyes under lashes paled by the sun. The mouth was wide and when she stopped pursing the lips with tension they would be full. It was a serious face and the jawline was determined-the face of a girl who fends for herself. And once, reflected Bond, she had failed to fend. For the nose was badly broken, smashed crooked like a boxer's. Bond stiffened with revolt at what had happened to this supremely beautiful girl. No wonder this washer shame and not the beautiful firm breasts that now jutted towards him without concealment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes examined him fiercely. \"Who are you? What are you doing here?\" There was the slight lilt of a Jamaican accent. The voice was sharp and accustomed to being obeyed.\n\n\"I'm an Englishman. I'm interested in birds.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" the voice was doubtful. The hand still rested on the knife. \"How long have you been watching me? How did you get here?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes, but no more answers until you tell me who you are.\"\n\n\"I'm no one in particular. I come from Jamaica. I collect shells.\"\n\n\"I came in a canoe. Did you?\"\n\n\"Yes. Where is your canoe?\"\n\n\"I've got a friend with me. We've hidden it in the mangroves.\"\n\n\"There are no marks of a canoe landing.\"\n\n\"We're careful. We-covered them up. Not like you.\" Bond gestured towards the rocks. \"You ought to take more trouble. Did you use a sail? Right up to the reef?\"\n\n\"Of course. Why not? I always do.\"\n\n\"Then they'll know you're here. They've got radar.\"\n\n\"They've never caught me yet.\" The girl took her hand away from her knife. She reached up and stripped off the diving mask and stood swinging it. She seemed to think she had the measure of Bond. She said, with some of the sharpness-gone from her voice, \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Bond. James Bond. What's yours?\"\n\nShe reflected. \"Rider.\"\n\n\"What Rider?\"\n\n\"Honeychile.\"\n\nBond smiled.\n\n\"What's so funny about it?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Honeychile Rider. It's a pretty name.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She unbent. \"People call me \"Honey\".\"\n\n\"Well, I'm glad to meet you.\"\n\nThe prosaic phrase seemed to remind her of her nakedness. She blushed. She said uncertainly, \"I must get dressed.\" She looked down at the scattered shells around her feet. She obviously wanted to pick them up. Perhaps she realized that the movement might be still more revealing than her present pose. She said sharply, \"You're not to touch those while I'm gone.\"\n\nBond smiled at the childish challenge. \"Don't worry, I'll look after them.\"\n\nThe girl looked at him doubtfully and then turned and walked stiff-legged over to the rocks and disappeared behind them.\n\nBond walked the few steps down the beach and bent and picked up one of the shells. It was alive and the two halves were shut tight. It appeared to be some kind of a cockle, rather deeply ribbed and coloured a mauve-pink. Along both edges of the hinge, thin horns stood out, about half a dozen to each side. It didn't seem to Bond a very distinguished shell. He replaced it carefully with the others.\n\nHe stood looking down at the shells and wondering. Was she really collecting them? It certainly looked like it. But what a risk to take to get them-the voyage over alone in the canoe and then back again. And she seemed to realize that this was a dangerous place. \"They've never caught me yet.\" What an extraordinary girl. Bond's heart warmed and his senses stirred as he thought of her. Already, as he had found so often when people had deformities, he had almost forgotten her broken nose. It had somehow slipped away behind his memory of her eyes and her mouth and her amazingly beautiful body. Her imperious attitude and her quality of attack were exciting. The way she had reached for her knife to defend herself! She'was like an animal whose cubs are threatened. Where did she live? Who were her parents? There was something uncared for about her-a dog that nobody wants to pet. Who was she?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bond heard her footsteps riffling the sand. He turned to look at her. She was dressed almost in rags-a faded brown shirt with torn sleeves and a knee-length patched brown cotton skirt held in place by the leather belt with the knife. She had a canvas knapsack slung over one shoulder. She looked like a principal girl dressed as Man Friday.\n\nShe came up with him and at once went down on one knee and began picking up the live shells and stowing them in the knapsack.\n\nBond said, \"Are those rare?\"\n\nShe sat back on her haunches and looked up at him. She surveyed his face. Apparently she was satisfied. \"You promise you won't tell anybody? Swear?\"\n\n\"I promise,\" said Bond.\n\n\"Well then, yes, they are rare. Very. You can get five dollars fora perfect specimen. In Miami. That's where Ideal with. They're called Venus Elegans-The Elegant Venus.\" Her eyes sparkled up at him with excitement. \"This morning I found what I wanted. The bed where they live,\" she waved towards the sea. \"You wouldn't find it though,\" she added with sudden carefulness. \"It's very deep and hidden away. I doubt if you could dive that deep. And anyway,\" she looked happy, \"I'm going to clear the whole bed today. You'd only get the imperfect ones if you came back here.\"\n\nBond laughe'd. \"I promise I won't steal any. I really don't know anything about shells. Cross my heart.\"\n\nShe stood up, her work completed. \"What about these birds of yours? What sort are they? Are they valuable too? I won't tell either if you tell me. I only collect shells.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're called roseate spoonbills,\" said Bond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sort of pink stork with a flat beak. Ever seen any?\"\n\n\"Oh, those,\" she said scornfully. \"There used to be thousands of them here. But you won't find many now. They scared them all away.\" She sat down on the sand and put her arms round her knees, proud of her superior knowledge and now certain that she had nothing to fear from this man.\n\nBond sat down a yard away. He stretched out and turned towards her, resting on his elbow. He wanted to preserve the picnic atmosphere and try to find out more about this queer, beautiful girl. He said, easily, \"Oh, really. What happened? Who did it?\"\n\nShe shrugged impatiently. \"The people here did it. I don't know who they are. There's a Chinaman. He doesn't like birds or something. He's got a dragon. He sent the dragon after the birds and scared them away. The dragon burned up their nesting places. There used to be two men who lived with the birds and looked after them. They got scared away too, or killed or something.\"\n\nIt all seemed quite natural to her. She gave the facts indifferently, staring out to sea.\n\nBond said, \"This dragon. What kind is he? Have you ever seen him?\"\n\n\"Yes., I've seen him.\" She screwed up her eyes and made awry face as if she was swallowing bitter medicine. She looked earnestly at Bond to make him share her feelings. \"I've been coming here for about a year, looking for shells and exploring. I only found these,\" she waved at the beach, \"about a month ago. On my last trip. But I've found plenty of other good ones. Just before Christmas I thought I'd explore the river. I went up it to the top, where the birdmen had their camp. It was all broken up. It was getting late and I decided to spend the night there. In the middle of the night I woke up. The dragon was coming by only a few chains away from me. It had two great glaring eyes and along snout. It had sort of short wings and a pointed tail. It was all black and gold.\" She frowned at the expression on Bond's face. \"There was a full moon. I could see it quite clearly. It went by me. It was making a sort of roaring noise. It went over the marsh and came to some thick mangrove and it simply climbed over the bushes and went on. A whole flock of birds got up in front of it and suddenly a lot of fire came out of its mouth and it burned a lot of them up and all the trees they'd been roosting in. It was horrible. The most horrible thing I've ever seen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl leant sideways and peered at Bond's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat up straight again and stared obstinately out to sea. \"I can see you don't believe me,\" she said in a furious, tense voice. \"You're one of these city people. You don't believe anything. Ugh,\" she shuddered with dislike of him.\n\nBond said reasonably, \"Honey, there just aren't such things as dragons in the world. You saw something that looked very like a dragon. I'm just wondering what it was.\"\n\n\"How do you know there aren't such things as dragons?\" Now he had made her really angry. \"Nobody lives on this end of the island. One could easily have survived here. Anyway, what do you think you know about animals and things? I've lived with snakes and things since I was a child. Alone. Have you ever seen a praying mantis eat her husband after they've made love? Have you ever seen the mongoose dance? Oran octopus dance? How long is a hummingbird's tongue? Have you ever had a pet snake that wore a bell round its neck and rang it to wake you? Have you seen a scorpion get sunstroke and kill itself with its own sting? Have you seen the carpet of flowers under the sea at night? Do you know that a John Crow can smell a dead lizard a mile away...?\" The girl had fired these questions like scornful jabs with a rapier. Now she stopped, out of breath. She said hopelessly, \"Oh, you're just city folk like all the rest.\" Bond said, \"Honey, now look here. You know these things. I can't help it that I live in towns. I'd like to know about your things too. I just haven't had that sort of life. I know other things instead. Like...\" Bond searched his mind. He couldn't think of anything as interesting as hers. He finished lamely, \"Like for instance that this Chinaman is going to be more interested in your visit this time. This time he's going to try and stop you getting away.\" He paused and added. \"And me for the matter of that.\" '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned and looked at him with interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh. Why? But then it doesn't really matter. One just hides during the day and gets away at night. He's sent dogs after me and even a plane. He hasn't got me yet.\" She examined Bond with anew interest. \"Is it you he's after?\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" admitted Bond. \"I'm afraid it is. You see we dropped the sail about two miles out so that their radar wouldn't pick us up. I think the Chinaman may have been expecting a visit from me. Your sail will have been reported and I'd bet anything he'll think your canoe was mine. I'd better go and wake my friend up and we'll talk it over. You'll like him. He's a Cayman Islander, name of Quarrel.\"\n\nThe girl said, \"Well, I'm sorry if...\" the sentence trailed away. Apologies wouldn't come easy to someone so much on the defensive. \"But after all I couldn't know, could I?\" She searched his face.\n\nBond smiled into the questing blue eyes. He said reassuringly, \"Of course you couldn't. It's just bad luck-bad luck for you too. I don't suppose he minds too much about a solitary girl who collects shells. You can be sure they've had a good look at your footprints and found clues like that\"-he waved at the scattered shells on the beach. \"But I'm afraid he'd take a different view of me. Now he'll try and hunt me down with everything he's got. I'm only afraid he may get you into the net in the process. Anyway,\" Bond grinned reassuringly, \"we'll see what Quarrel has to say.. You stay here.\"\n\nBond got to his feet. He walked along the promontory and cast about him. Quarrel had hidden himself well. It took Bond five minutes to find him. He was lying in a grassy depression between two big rocks, half covered by aboard of grey driftwood. He was still fast asleep, the brown head, stern in sleep, cradled on his forearm. Bond whistled softly and smiled as the eyes sprang wide open like an animal's. Quarrel saw Bond and scrambled to his feet, almost guiltily. He rubbed his big hands over his face as if he was washing it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mornin\", cap'n,\"he said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guess Ah been down deep. Dat China girl come tome.\"\n\nBond smiled. \"I got something different,\" he said. They sat down and Bond told him about Honeychile Rider and her shells and the fix they were in. \"And now it's eleven o'clock,\" Bond added. \"And we've got to make anew plan.\"\n\nQuarrel scratched his head. He looked sideways at Bond. \"Yo don'plan we jess ditch dis girl?\" he asked hopefully. \"Ain't. nuttin to do wit we...\" Suddenly he stopped. His head swivelled round and pointed like a dog's. He held up a hand for silence, listening intently.\n\nBond held his breath. In the distance, to the eastwards, * 'there was a faint droning.\n\nQuarrel jumped to his feet. \"Quick, cap'n,\" he said urgently. \"Bey's a comin'.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist with the plot and keep the story going.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harriet Smith's intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect Mrs. Weston's loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston's marriage her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore, one whom she could summon at anytime to a walk, would be a valuable addition to her privileges. But in every respect as she saw more of her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs.\n\nHarriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by anyone she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of appreciating what was elegant and clever, showed that there was no want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected. Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith's being exactly the young friend she wanted,-exactly the something which her home required. Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different sort of thing,-a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard which had its basis ingratitude and esteem. Harriet would beloved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done; for Harriet everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who were the parents; but Harriet could not tell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was ready to tell everything in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma was obliged to fancy what she liked; but she could never believe that in the same situation she should not have discovered the truth. Harriet had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther.\n\nMrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls, and the affairs of the school in general, formed naturally a great part of her conversation,-and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied her thoughts a good deal: she had spent two very happy months with them, and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her talkativeness,-amused by such a picture of another set of beings, and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much exultation of Mrs. Martin's having'two parlours, two very good parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard's drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of them Alderneys, and one a little Welsh cow, a very pretty little Welsh cow, indeed; and of Mrs. Martin's saying, as she was so fond of it, it should be called her cow; and of their having a very handsome summer-house in their garden, where someday next year they were all to drink tea,-a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen people.\"\n\nFor sometime she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and daughter, a son and son's wife, who all lived together; but when it appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore apart in the narrative, and was always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs. Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little friend from all this hospitality and kindness,-and that if she were not taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,-and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and obliging. \"He had gone three miles round one day, in order to bring her some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them,-and in everything else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood everything. He had a very fine flock; and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than anybody in the country. She believed everybody spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it), that it was impossible for anybody to be a better son; and therefore she was sure whenever he married he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all.\"\n\n\"Well done, Mrs. Martin!\" thought Emma. \"You know what you are about.\"\n\n\"And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose: the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers, Miss Nach, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with her.\"\n\n\"Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business. He does not read?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, yes!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-that is, no-I do not know-but I believe he has read a good deal-but not what you would think anything of. He reads the Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lie in one of the window seats-but he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor the Children of the Abbey. 1 He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.\"\n\nThe next question was,-\n\n\"What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?\"\n\n\"Oh! not handsome-not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. He has passed you very often.\"\n\n\"That maybe, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in someway or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice, as in every other he is below it.\"\n\n\"To be sure. Oh, yes, it is not likely you should ever have observed him; but he knows you very well, indeed-I mean by sight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know, indeed, that he is so; and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine his age to be?\"\n\n\"He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the 23d: just a fortnight and a day's difference; which is very odd.\"\n\n\"Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very desirable.\"\n\n\"Six years hence! dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old.\"\n\n\"Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely to make-cannot beat all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I daresay, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he maybe rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised anything yet.\"\n\n\"To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no in-doors man-else they do not want for anything; and Mrs. Martin talks of taking a boy another year.\"\n\n\"I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does marry,-I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife; for though his sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected to, it does not follow that he might marry anybody at all fit for you to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by everything within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But while I visit at Hartfield, and you are so kind tome, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what anybody can do.\"\n\n\"You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently well connected,-and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as maybe; and, therefore, I say, that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer's daughter, without education.\"\n\n\"To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry anybody but what had had some education, and been very well brought up. However, I do not mean to setup my opinion against yours,-and I am sure I shall not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not visit her, if I can help it.\"\n\nEmma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious difficulty on Harriet's side to oppose any friendly arrangement of her own.\n\nThey met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen, she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet's inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily noticed her father's gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr. Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face, and in aflutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to compose.\n\n\"Only think of our happening to meet him! How very odd! It was quite a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet. He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it, but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well, Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him? Do you think him so very plain?\"\n\n\"He is very plain, undoubtedly, remarkably plain; but that is nothing, compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility.\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" said Harriet, in a mortified voice, \"he is not so genteel as real gentlemen.\"\n\n\"I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been repeatedly in the company of some, such very real gentlemen, that you must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield, you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I should be surprised if, after seeing them, you could be in company with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior creature,-and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and abrupt manner; and the uncouthness of a voice, which I heard to be wholly unmodulated as I stood here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I seethe difference plain enough. But Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!\"\n\n\"Mr. Knightley's air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to compare Mr. Martin with him. You might not see one in a hundred, with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of them. Compare their manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. You must seethe difference.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.\"\n\n\"Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad,-the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age. Mr. Martinis now awkward and abrupt; what will he beat Mr. Weston's time of life?\"\n\n\"There is no saying, indeed,\" replied Harriet, rather solemnly.\n\n\"But there maybe pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross, vulgar farmer,-totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss.\"\n\n\"Will he, indeed? that will be very bad.\"\n\n\"How much his business engrosses him already, is very plain from the circumstance of his forgetting to enquire for the book you recommended. He was a great deal too full of the market to think of anything else,-which is just as it should be, fora thriving man. What has he to do with books? And I have no doubt that he will thrive and be a very rich man in time,-and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wonder he did not remember the book,\" was all Harriet's answer, and spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be safely left to itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She, therefore, said no more for sometime. Her next beginning was,-\n\n\"In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton's manners are superior to Mr. Knightley's or Mr. Weston's. They have more gentleness. They might be more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which everybody likes in him, because there is so much good humour with it-but that would not do to be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding sort of manner-though it suits him very well: his figure, and look, and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a model. Mr. Elton is good humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. He seems tome to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know whether he had any design of ingratiating himself with either of us, Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are softer than they used to be. If he means anything, it must be to please you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?\"\n\nShe then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr. Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.\n\nMr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would bean excellent match; and only too palpably desirable, natural and probable, for her to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what everybody else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that anybody should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet's coming to Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater washer sense of its expediency. Mr. Elton's situation was most suitable, quite the gentleman himself and without low connections; at the same time not of any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet. He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet's there could belittle doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her, there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense with: but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin's riding about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by Mr. Elton's admiration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I do not know what your opinion maybe, Mrs. Weston, \"said Mr. Knightley,\" of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I think it a bad thing. \"\n\n\"A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?-why so?\"\n\n\"I think they will neither of them do the other any good.\"\n\n\"You surprise me! Emma must do Harriet good; and by supplying her with anew object of interest, Harriet maybe said to do Emma good. I have been seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently we feel! Not think they will do each other any good! This will certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr. Knightley.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle.\"\n\n\"Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday, and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps, no man can be a good judge of the comforts a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman which Emma's friend ought to be. But, on the other hand, as Emma wants to see her better informed, it will bean inducement to her to read more herself. They will read together. She means it, I know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through-and very good lists they were-very well chosen, and very neatly arranged-sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen-I remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it sometime; and I daresay she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing. You never could persuade her to read half so much as you wished. You know you could not.\"\n\n\"I daresay,\" replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, \"that I thought so then; but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting to do anything I wished.\"\n\n\"There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that,\" said Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and fora moment or two he had done. \"But I,\" he soon added, \"who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured; Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only personable to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have been under subjection to her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on your recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse's family and wanted another situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to anybody. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said he smiling. \"You are better placed here, very fit fora wife, but not at all fora governess. But you were preparing yourself to bean excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to promise; but you were receiving a very good education from her, on the very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I should certainly have named Miss Taylor.\"\n\n\"Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to such a man as Mr. Weston.\"\n\n\"Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of comfort, or his son may plague him.\"\n\n\"I hope not that. It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not foretell vexation from that quarter.\"\n\n\"Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the young man maybe a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune. But Harriet Smith,-I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing everything. She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has anything to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma's doctrines give any strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally to the varieties of her situation in life. They only give a little polish.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance. How well she looked last night.\"\n\n\"Oh, you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty.\"\n\n\"Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine anything nearer perfect beauty than Emma altogether-face and figure?\"\n\n\"I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom seen a face or figure more pleasing tome than hers. But I am a partial old friend.\"\n\n\"Such an eye!-the true hazel eye-and so brilliant! regular features, open countenance, with a complexion-oh, what abloom of full health, and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure. There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her glance. One hears sometimes of a child being \"the picture of health;\" now Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?\"\n\n\"I have not a fault to find with her person,\" he replied. \"I think her all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to belittle occupied with it; her vanity lies another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of her intimacy with Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.\"\n\n\"And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm. With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which maybe trusted; she will never lead anyone really wrong; she will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well; I will not plague you anymore. Emma shall bean angel, and I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella. John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection, and Isabella always thinks as he does, except when he is not quite frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions with me.\"\n\n\"I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind; but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty, (I consider myself, you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma's mother might have had,) the liberty of hinting, that I do not think any possible good can arise from Harriet Smith's intimacy being made a matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any little inconvenience maybe apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to give advice, that you cannot be surprised, Mr. Knightley, at this little remains of office.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" cried he; \"I am much obliged to you for it. It is very good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often found; for it shall be attended to.\"\n\n\"Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about her sister.\"\n\n\"Be satisfied,\" said he, \"I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella does not seem more my sister: has never excited a greater interest; perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So do I,\" said Mrs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Weston, gently, \"very much.\"\n\n\"She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return: it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.\"\n\n\"There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution at present,\" said Mrs. Weston, \"as can well be; and while she is so happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which would be creating such difficulties, on poor Mr. Woodhouse's account. I do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight to the state, I assure you.\"\n\nPart of her meaning was to conceal some favorite thoughts of her own and Mr. Weston's on the subject as much as possible. There were wishes at Randalls respecting Emma's destiny, but it was not desirable to have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon afterwards made to'What does Weston think of the weather?-shall we have rain?\"-convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about Hartfield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet's fancy a proper direction, and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good purpose; for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr. Elton's being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners; and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating as much liking on Harriet's side as there could be any occasion for. She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton's being in the fairest way of falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard to him. He talked of Harriet; and praised her so warmly, that she could not suppose anything wanting which a little time would not add. His perception of the striking improvement of Harriet's manner, since her introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of his growing attachment.\n\n\"You have given Miss Smith all that she required,\" said he: \"you have made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she came to you; but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are infinitely superior to what she received from nature.\"\n\n\"I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted drawing out, and receiving a few, very few, hints. She had all the natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have done very little.\"\n\n\"If it were admissible to contradict a lady__\" said gallant Mr. Elton.\n\n\"I have, perhaps, given her a little more decision of character,-have taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before.\"\n\n\"Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much super-added decision of character! Skilful has been the hand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition more truly amiable.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt of it.\" And it was spoken with a sort of sighing animation which had avast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased, another day, with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers-to have Harriet's picture.\n\n\"Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?\" said she: \"did you ever sit for your picture?\"\n\nHarriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopped to say, with a very interesting naïveté,-\n\n\"Oh, dear, no,-never.\"\n\nNo sooner was she out of sight than Emma exclaimed,-\n\n\"What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself. You do not know it, I daresay; but, two or three years ago, I had a great passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and was thought to have a tolerable eye in general; but, from one cause or another, I gave it up in disgust. But, really, I could almost venture, if Harriet would sit tome. It would be such a delight to have her picture!\"\n\n\"Let me entreat you,\" cried Mr. Eiton,-\"it would indeed be a delight: let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your landscapes and flowers? and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable figure-pieces in her drawing-room at Randalls?\"\n\nYes, good man!-thought Emma-but what has all that to do with taking likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don't pretend to be in raptures about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet's face. \"Well, if you give me such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do. Harriet's features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult; and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth which one ought to catch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Exactly so,-the shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth,-I have not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it, it will indeed, to use your own words, bean exquisite possession.\"\n\n\"But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit,-she thinks so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering me? How completely it meant, \"Why should my picture be drawn?\"\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded.\"\n\nHarriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made; and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly, and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do everything, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to. She played and sang, and drew in almost every style; but steadiness had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill, either as an artist or a musician; but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved.\n\nThere was merit in every drawing,-in the least finished, perhaps the most. Her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness pleases everybody; and Miss Woodhouse's performances must be capital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No great variety of faces for you,\" said Emma." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had only my own family to study from. There is my father,-another of my father;-but the idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only take him by stealth; neither of them very like, therefore. Mrs. Weston again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston-always my kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her. There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure-and the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she would have sat longer; but she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my attempts at three of those four children:-there they are, Henry, and John, and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and anyone of them might do for anyone of the rest. She was so eager to have them drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three or four years old standstill, you know; nor can it be very easy to take any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are coarser featured than any of mamma's children ever were. Here is my sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade c as you would wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently:-that's very like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very good. Then here is my last,\"-un-closing a pretty sketch of a gentleman in small size, whole-length,-\"my last and my best,-my brother, Mr. John Knightley. This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made a very good likeness of it-(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in thinking it very like)-only too handsome-too flattering-but that was a fault on the right side;-after all this, came poor dear Isabella's cold approbation of-\"Yes, it was a little like; but to be sure it did not do him justice. \"We had had a great deal of trouble in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every morning visiter in Brunswick Square; and, as I said, I did then forswear ever drawing anybody again. But for Harriet's sake, or rather for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case at present, I will break my resolution now.\"\n\nMr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was repeating, \"No husbands and wives in the case at present, indeed, as you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives,\" with so interesting a consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the declaration must wait a little longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley's, and was destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station over the mantle-piece.\n\nThe sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no doing anything, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her, and watching every touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her to employ him in reading.\n\n\"If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the irksomeness of Miss Smith's.\"\n\nMr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace. She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; anything less would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the smallest intermission of the pencil to jump up and seethe progress, and be charmed. There was no being displeased with such an encourager, for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his complaisance were unexceptionable.\n\nThe sitting was altogether very satisfactory: she was quite enough pleased with the first day's sketch to wish to goon. There was no want of likeness: she had been fortunate in the attitude; and as she meant to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling its destined place with credit to them both;-a standing memorial of the beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both; with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton's very promising attachment was likely to add." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elton, just as he ought, entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again.\n\n\"By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the party.\"\n\nThe same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction, took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the picture, which was rapid and happy. Everybody who saw it was pleased, but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every criticism.\n\n\"Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she wanted,\" observed Mrs. Weston to him, not in the least suspecting that she was addressing a lover. \"The expression of the eye is most correct, but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of her face that she has them not.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" replied he. \"I cannot agree with you. It appears tome a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.\"\n\n\"You have made her too tall, Emma,\" said Mr. Knightley. Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly added,-\n\n\"Oh, no-certainly not too tall-not in the least too tall. Consider she is sitting down, which naturally presents a different-which in short gives exactly the idea;-and the proportions must be preserved, you know. Proportions, fore-shortening:-oh no: it gives one exactly the idea of such a height as Miss Smith's;-exactly so, indeed.\"\n\n\"It is very pretty,\" said Mr. Woodhouse. \"So prettily done! Just as your drawings always are, my dear. I do not know anybody who draws so well as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her shoulders; and it makes one think she must catch cold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer. Look at the tree.\"\n\n\"But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear.\"\n\n\"You, sir, may say anything,\" cried Mr. Elton; \" but I must confess that I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing Miss Smith out of doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other situation would have been much less in character. The naïveté of Miss Smith's manners,-and altogether-oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness.\n\nThe next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions, must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton than it was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. \"Might he be trusted with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing it! he could ride to London at anytime. It was impossible to say how much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand.\"\n\n\"He was too good!-she could not endure the thought!-she would not give him such a troublesome office for the world,\"-brought on the desired repetition of entreaties and assurances,-and a very few minutes settled the business.\n\nMr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, choose the frame, and give the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of not being incommoded enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a precious deposit!\" said he, with a tender sigh, as he received it.\n\n\"This man is almost too gallant to be in love,\" thought Emma. \"I should say so, but that I suppose there maybe a hundred different ways of being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet exactly: it will bean \"exactly so,\" as he says himself; but he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could endure as a principal. I come in fora pretty good share as a second. But it is his gratitude on Harriet's account.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The very day of Mr. Elton's going to London produced afresh occasion for Emma's services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield, as usual, soon after breakfast; and after a time, had gone home to return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to Mrs. Goddard's, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage. \"Who could have thought it! She was so surprised she did not know what to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter, at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very much-but she did not know-and so, she was come as fast as she could to ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.\" Emma was half ashamed of her friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful.\n\n\"Upon my word,\" she cried, \"the young man is determined not to lose anything for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can.\"\n\n\"Will you read the letter?\" cried Harriet. \"Pray do. I'd rather you would.\"\n\nEmma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprised. The style of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a gentleman: the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood anxiously watching for her opinion, with a'Well, well,\" and was at last forced to add, \"Is it a good letter? or is it too short?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, indeed, a very good letter,\" replied Emma, rather slowly;-\"so good a letter, Harriet, that, everything considered, I think one of his sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman; no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough fora woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural talent for-thinks strongly and clearly-and when he takes a pen in hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men. Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet (returning it), than I had expected.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the still waiting Harriet:-\"well-and-and what shall I do?\"\n\n\"What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this letter?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course-and speedily.\"\n\n\"Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, no: the letter had much better be all your own. You will express yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be unequivocal: no doubts or demurs; and such expressions of gratitude and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will present themselves unbidden to your mind, I am persuaded. You need not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his disappointment.\"\n\n\"You think I ought to refuse him, then?\" said Harriet, looking down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any doubt as to that? I thought-but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel in doubt as to the purport of your answer. I had imagined you were consulting me only as to the wording of it.\"\n\nHarriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued,-\n\n\"You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect.\"\n\n\"No, I do not; that is I do not mean-What shall I do? What would you advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do?\"\n\n\"I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do with it. This is a point which you must settle with your own feelings.\"\n\n\"I had no notion that he liked me so very much,\" said Harriet, contemplating the letter. Fora little while Emma persevered in her silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say,-\n\n\"I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a manor not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to \"Yes,\" she ought to say \"No\" directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself, to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence you.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I am sure you area great deal too kind to-but if you would just advise me what I had best do:-no, no, I do not mean that:-as you say one's mind ought to be quite made up-one should not be hesitating:-it is a very serious thing. It will be safer to say'No, \"perhaps. Do you think I had better say'No? ' .\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not for the world,\" said Emma, smiling graciously, \"would I advise you either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you hesitate? You blush, Harriet. Does anybody else occur to you at this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive yourself; do not be runaway with by gratitude and compassion. At this moment whom are you thinking of?\"\n\nThe symptoms were favourable. Instead of answering, Harriet turned away confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard. Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At last, with some hesitation, Harriet said,-\n\n\"Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost made up my mind, to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?\"\n\n\"Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just what you ought. While you were at all in suspense, I kept my feelings to myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence; but it would have been the loss of a friend tome. I could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you forever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her forcibly.\n\n\"You could not have visited me!\" she cried, looking aghast. \"No, to be sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have been too dreadful! What an escape! Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for anything in the world.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society. I must have given you up.\"\n\n\"Dear me! How should I ever have borne it? It would have killed me never to come to Hartfield anymore.\"\n\n\"Dear, affectionate creature! You banished to Abbey-Mill Farm! You confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must have a pretty good opinion of himself.\"\n\n\"I do not think he is conceited either, in general,\" said Harriet, her conscience opposing such censure; \"at least he is very good natured, and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard for-but that is quite a different thing from-and you know, though he may like me, it does not follow that I should-and, certainly, I must confess that since my visiting here I have seen people-and if one comes to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all, one is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr. Martina very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and his being so much attached tome-and his writing such a letter-but as to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.\"\n\n\"Oh, no;-and it is but a short letter, too.\"\n\nEmma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a'very true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that her husband could write a good letter.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, very. Nobody cares fora letter: the thing is, to be always happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But how shall I do? What shall I say?\"\n\nEmma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence. The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all.\n\nThis letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening; but Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of Mr. Elton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again,\" was said in rather a sorrowful tone.\n\n\"Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You area great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill.\"\n\n\"And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but at Hartfield.\"\n\nSometime afterwards it was, \"I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much surprised if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would-for Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a linen-draper.\" d\n\n\"One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher of a school, Harriet. I daresay Miss Nash would envy you such an opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear valuable in her eyes. As to anything superior for you, I suppose she is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be among the tittle-tattle† of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained themselves.\"\n\nHarriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards the rejected Mr. Martin.\n\n\"Now he has got my letter,\" said she softly. \"I wonder what they are all doing-whether his sisters know-if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy too. I hope he will not mind it so very much.\"\n\n\"Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully employed,\" cried Emma. \"At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is showing your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times, allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My picture!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he has left my picture in Bond Street.\"\n\n\"Has he so! Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest Harriet, depend upon it, the picture will not be in Bond Street till just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family, it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy their imaginations all are!\"\n\nHarriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have abed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or two to Mrs. Goddard's, but it was then to be settled that she should return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days.\n\nWhile she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat sometime with Mr. Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his mind to walkout, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley, who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering, by his short, decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and civil hesitations of the other.\n\n\"Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not consider meas doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma's advice and go out fora quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony, Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people.\"\n\n\"My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me.\"\n\n\"I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse, and take my three turns-my winter walk.\"\n\n\"You cannot do better, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think the sooner you go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the garden door for you.\"\n\nMr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before.\n\n\"I cannot rate her beauty as you do,\" said he; \"but she is a pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good hands she will turnout a valuable woman.\"\n\n\"I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be wanting.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said he, \"you are anxious fora compliment, so I will tell you that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl's giggle; she really does you credit.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I should be mortified, indeed, if I did not believe 1 had been of some use; but it is not everybody who will bestow praise where they may. You do not often overpower me with it.\"\n\n\"You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?\"\n\n\"Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she intended.\"\n\n\"Something has happened to delay her; some visiters, perhaps.\"\n\n\"Highbury gossips! Tiresome wretches!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Harriet may not consider everybody tiresome that you would.\"\n\nEmma knew this was too true for contradiction, and, therefore, said nothing. He presently added, with a smile,-\n\n\"I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of something to her advantage.\"\n\n\"Indeed! how so? of what sort?\"\n\n\"Avery serious sort, I assure you,\" still smiling.\n\n\"Very serious! I can think of but one thing:-who is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant?\"\n\nEmma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton's having dropped a hint. Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr. Elton looked up to him.\n\n\"I have reason to think,\" he replied, \"that Harriet Smith will soon have an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:-Robert Martinis the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have done his business. He is desperately in love, and means to marry her.\"\n\n\"He is very obliging,\" said Emma; \"but is he sure that Harriet means to marry him?\"\n\n\"Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe, considers meas one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice altogether; having some apprehension, perhaps, of her being considered (especially since your making so much of her) as in a line of society above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear better sense from anyone than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose; open, straight-forward, and very well judging. He told me everything; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved tome that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he would have thought highly of me then; and, I daresay, left the house thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should beat Mrs. Goddard's to-day: and she maybe detained by a visiter, without thinking him at all a tiresome wretch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pray, Mr. Knightley,\" said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech, \"how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" replied he, surprised, \"I do not absolutely know it; but it maybe inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?\"\n\n\"Come,\" said she, \"I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterday-that is, he wrote, and was refused.\"\n\nThis was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr. Knightley actually looked red with surprise and displeasure, as he stood up, in tall indignation, and said,-\n\n\"Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about?\"\n\n\"Oh, to be sure,\" cried Emma, \"it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin! Madness, if it is so; but I hope you are mistaken.\"\n\n\"I saw her answer; nothing could be clearer.\"\n\n\"You saw her answer! you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.\"\n\n\"And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing,) I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martinis a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet's equal; and am rather surprised, indeed, that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the plot as the author's writing partner.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 12" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pray, Mr. Knightley,\" said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech, \"how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" replied he, surprised, \"I do not absolutely know it; but it maybe inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?\"\n\n\"Come,\" said she, \"I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterday-that is, he wrote, and was refused.\"\n\nThis was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr. Knightley actually looked red with surprise and displeasure, as he stood up, in tall indignation, and said,-\n\n\"Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about?\"\n\n\"Oh, to be sure,\" cried Emma, \"it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin! Madness, if it is so; but I hope you are mistaken.\"\n\n\"I saw her answer; nothing could be clearer.\"\n\n\"You saw her answer! you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.\"\n\n\"And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing,) I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martinis a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet's equal; and am rather surprised, indeed, that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not Harriet's equal!\" exclaimed Mr. Knightley, loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity added, a few moments afterwards, \"No, he is not her equal, indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith's claims, either of birth, nature, or education, to any connection higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired anything herself. At her age she can have no experience; and, with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connection for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that, as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her; to her having that sort of disposition which, in good hands like his, might be easily led aright, and turnout very well. The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out upon her extreme good luck. Even your satisfaction I made sure of. It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend's leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember saying to myself,\"Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match. '\"\n\n\"I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What! think a farmer (and with all his sense and all his merit Mr. Martinis nothing more) a good match for my intimate friend! Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are not just to Harriet's claims. They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin maybe the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society. The sphere in which she moves is much above his. It would be a degradation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!\"\n\n\"As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she maybe called Nobody, it will not hold in commonsense. She is not to pay for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is brought up. There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a gentleman-and a gentleman of fortune. Her allowance is very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort. That she is a gentleman's daughter is indubitable tome; that she associates with gentlemen's daughters, no one, I apprehend, will deny. She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.\"\n\n\"Whoever might be her parents,\" said Mr. Knightley, \"whoever may have had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After receiving a very indifferent education, she is left in Mrs. Goddard's hands to shift as she can;-to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard's line, to have Mrs. Goddard's acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought this good enough for her; and it was good enough. She desired nothing better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any woman on the hap-hazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it, he had encouragement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject again.\n\n\"You area very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before, are unjust to Harriet. Harriet's claims to marry well are not so contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waving that point, however, and supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good natured, let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a beautiful girl, and must bethought so by ninety-nine people out of a hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of having the power of choosing from among many, consequently a claim to be nice. e Her good nature, too, is not so very slight a claim, comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims a woman could possess.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do.\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" cried she playfully. \"I know that is the feeling of you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in-what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. Oh, Harriet may pick and choose. Were you, yourself, ever to marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No-pray let her have time to look about her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,\" said Mr. Knightley presently, \"though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that, in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her. Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief. Nothing so easy as fora young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity,-and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy forever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune, she maybe a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard's all the rest of her life,-or, at least (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry somebody or other), till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the old writing master's son.\"\n\n\"We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more angry. But as to my letting her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible: she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him, whatever it maybe; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there was very little for me or for anybody to do. His appearance is so much against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen anybody superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen nobody better (that must have been his great assistant), she might not, while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nonsense, arrant nonsense, as ever was talked!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Mr. Knightley. \"Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand.\"\n\nEmma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was really feeling uncomfortable, and wanting him very much to begone. She did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be: but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general, which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable. Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt on Emma's side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words,-\n\n\"Robert Martin has no great loss-if he can but think so; and I hope it will not belong before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;-and as a friend I shall just hint to you, that if Elton is the man, I think it will be all labour in vain.\"\n\nEmma laughed and disclaimed. He continued,-\n\n\"Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a good sort of man, and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as anybody. Elton may talk sentimentally but he will act rationally. He is as well acquainted with his own claims as you can be with Harriet's. He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am very much obliged to you,\" said Emma, laughing again. \"If I had set my heart on Mr. Elton's marrying Harriet, it would have been very kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to myself. I have done with match-making, indeed. I could never hope to equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.\"\n\n\"Good morning to you,\" said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair was provoking him exceedingly.\n\nEmma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more indistinctness in the cause of hers than in his. She did not always feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet's staying away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the young man's coming to Mrs. Goddard's that morning, and meeting with Harriet, and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread of such a failure, after all, became the prominent uneasiness; and when Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which settled her with her own mind; and convinced her, that, let Mr. Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman's friendship and woman's feelings would not justify." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither with the interest nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of Mr. Knightley's pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully to be true, than what he knew anything about. He certainly might have heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition, as to money matters: he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr. Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure did not belong to Mr. Elton.\n\nHarriet's cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard's to attend a sick child, and Miss Nash had seen him; and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was coming back yesterday from Clayton Park he had met Mr. Elton, and found, to his great surprise, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the whist-club f night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr. Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not do: Mr. Elton had been determined to goon, and had said, in a very particular way indeed, that he was going on business which he would not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure there must be a lady in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits. Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, \"that she did not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only knew, that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer she should think the luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his equal for beauty or agreeableness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks showed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent. On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified, and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.\n\nThe picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr. Elton's return, and being hungover the mantle-piece of the common sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet's feelings, they were visibly forming themselves into as strong an attachment as her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied of Mr. Martin's being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.\n\nHer views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few first chapters, and the intention of going onto-morrow. It was much easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination range and work at Harriet's fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge her comprehension, or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin quarto g of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with ciphers and trophies.\n\nIn this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are not uncommon. Miss Nash, headteacher at Mrs. Goddard's, had written out at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse's help, to get a great many more. Emma assisted with her invention, memory, and taste; and as Harriet wrote a very pretty hand, it was likely to bean arrangement of the first order, inform as well as quantity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in. \"So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young-he wondered he could not remember them; but he hoped he should in time.\" And it always ended in'Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.\" h\n\nHis good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject, did not at present recollect anything of the riddle kind; but he had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much, something, he thought, might come from that quarter.\n\nIt was by no means his daughter's wish that the intellects of Highbury in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good enigmas, charades, or conundrums, that he might recollect; and she had the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections; and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the sex, should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade,-made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some pages ago already.\n\n\"Why will you not write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?\" said she; \"that is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to you.\"\n\n\"Oh, no; he had never written, hardly ever, anything of the kind in his life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse\"-he stopped a moment-\"or Miss Smith could inspire him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The very next day, however, produced some proof of inspiration. He called fora few moments, just to leave apiece of paper on the table containing, as he said, a charade which a friend of his had addressed to a young lady, the object of his admiration; but which, from his manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own.\n\n\"I do not offer it for Miss Smith's collection,\" said he. \"Being my friend's, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye, but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it.\"\n\nThe speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found it easier to meet her eye than her friend's. He was gone the next moment:-after another moment's pause,-\n\n\"Take it,\"-said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards Harriet,-\"it is for you. Take your own.\"\n\nBut Harriet was in a tremour, and could not touch it; and Emma, never loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself.\n\nShe cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then passing it to Harriet, sat happily, smiling, and saying to herself, while Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and dulness, \" Very well, Mr. Eton, very well, indeed. I have read worse charades. Courtship-a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly-\"Pray, Miss Smith, give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my intentions in the same glance.\"\n\nMay its approval beam in that soft eye!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye-of all epithets, the justest that could be given.\n\nThy ready wit the word will soon supply.\n\nHumph-Harriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade, indeed-and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon now.\"\n\nShe was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations, which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the eagerness of Harriet's wondering opinions.\n\n\"What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?-what can it be? I have not an idea-I cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw anything so hard. Is it kindgom? I wonder who the friend was-and who could be the young lady. Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?\n\nAnd woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\n\nCan it be Neptune?\n\nBehold him there, this monarch of the seas!\n\nOra trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no: shark is only one syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh, Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?\"\n\n\"Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper, and listen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Avery proper compliment!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-and then follows the application, which I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of its being written for you and to you.\"\n\nHarriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel. Emma spoke for her.\n\n\"There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment,\" said she, \"that I cannot have a moment's doubt as to Mr. Elton's intentions. You are his object,-and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now it is clear: the state of his mind is as clear and decided as my wishes on the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen which has happened. I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may well feel pride in creating. This is a connection which offers nothing but good. It will give you everything that you want,-consideration, independence, a proper home,-it will fix you in the centre of all your real friends, close to Hartfield and tome, and confirm our intimacy forever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in either of us.\"\n\n\"Dear Miss Woodhouse,\" and'Dear Miss Woodhouse,\" was all that Harriet, with many tender embraces, could articulate at first; but when they did arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she ought. Mr. Elton's superiority had very ample acknowledgment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever you say is always right,\" cried Harriet, \"and therefore I suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not have imagined it. It is so much beyond anything I deserve. Mr. Elton, who might marry anybody! There cannot be two opinions about him. He is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses-\"To Miss-.\" Dear me, how clever! Could it really be meant for me?\"\n\n\"I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by matter-of-fact prose.\"\n\n\"It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure, a month ago, I had no more idea myself!-The strangest things do take place!\"\n\n\"When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted-they do indeed-and really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so evidently, so palpably desirable-what courts the pre-arrangement of other people-should so immediately shape itself into the proper form. You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.\n\nThe course of truelove never did run smooth-3\n\nA Hartfield edition of Shakspeare would have along note on that passage.\"\n\n\"That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,-me, of all people, who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! 4 And he, the very handsomest man that ever was, and a man that everybody looks up to, quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that everybody says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not choose it; that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so excellent in the church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back to the first time I saw him! How little did I think! The two Abbotts and Iran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid i to look through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he looked! He was arm in arm with Mr. Cole.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is an alliance which, whoever-whatever your friends maybe, must be agreeable to them, provided at least they have commonsense; and we are not to be addressing our conduct to fools.\n\nIf they are anxious to see you happily married, here is a man whose amiable character gives every assurance of it: if they wish to have you settled in the same country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the common phrase, be well married, here is the comfortable fortune, the respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy them.\"\n\n\"Yes, very true. How nicely you talk! I love to hear you. You understand everything. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This charade! If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made anything like it.\"\n\n\"I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it yesterday.\"\n\n\"I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read.\"\n\n\"1 never read one more to the purpose, certainly.\"\n\n\"It is as long again as almost all we have had before.\"\n\n\"I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things in general cannot be too short.\"\n\nHarriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory comparisons were rising in her mind.\n\n\"It is one thing,\" said she, presently, her cheeks in aglow, \"to have very good sense in a common way, like everybody else, and if there is anything to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Martin's prose.\n\n\"Such sweet lines!\" continued Harriet-\"these two last! But how shall I ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out? Oh, Miss Woodhouse what can we do about that?\"\n\n\"Leave it tome. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I daresay, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will pass between us, and you shall not be committed. Your soft eyes shall choose their own time for beaming. Trust tome.\"\n\n\"Oh, Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good.\"\n\n\"Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not write it into your book.\"\n\n\"Oh, but those two lines are-\"-\"The best of all. Granted;-for private enjoyment; and for private enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know, because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its meaning change. But take it away, and all appropriation ceases, and a very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon it, he would not like to have his charade slighted much better than his passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be no possible reflection on you.\"\n\nHarriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts, so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree of publicity.\n\n\"I shall never let that book go out of my own hands,\" said she." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well,\" replied Emma, \"a most natural feeling, and the longer it lasts, the better I shall be pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But here is my father coming: you will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him so much pleasure. He loves anything of the sort, and especially anything that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of gallantry towards us all. You must let me read it to him.\"\n\nHarriet looked grave.\n\n\"My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade. You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which maybe affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over this charade.\"\n\n\"Oh no: I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please.\"\n\nMr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the recurrence of his very frequent enquiry of'Well, my dears, how does your book goon? Have you got anything fresh?\"\n\n\"Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. Apiece of paper was found on the table this morning-(dropped, we suppose, by a fairy)-containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied it in.\"\n\nShe read it to him, just as he liked to have anything read, slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every part as she proceeded; and he was very much pleased, and, as she had foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ay, that's very just, indeed; that's very properly said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very true. \"Woman, lovely woman.\" It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I can easily guess what fairy brought it. Nobody could have written so prettily but you, Emma.\"\n\nEmma only nodded, and smiled. After a little thinking, and a very tender sigh, he added,-\n\n\"Ah, it is no difficulty to see who you take after. Your dear mother was so clever at all those things. If I had but her memory. But I can remember nothing; not even that particular riddle which you have heard me mention: I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are several.\n\nAnd that is all that I can recollect of it; but it is very clever all the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it.\"\n\n\"Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick's, you know.\"\n\n\"Ay, very true:-I wish I could recollect more of it.\n\nKitty, a fair but frozen maid,\n\nThe name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being christened Catherine after her grand-mamma. I hope we shall have her here next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her, and what room there will be for the children?\n\n\"Oh yes-she will have her own room, of course; the room she always has;-and there is the nursery for the children,-just as usual, you know. Why should there be any change?\"\n\n\"I do not know, my dear-but it is so long since she was here:-not since last Easter, and then only fora few days. Mr. John Knightley's being a lawyer is very inconvenient. Poor Isabella!-she is sadly taken away from us all;-and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see Miss Taylor here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She will not be surprised, papa, at least.\"\n\n\"I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprised when I first heard she was going to be married.\"\n\n\"We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is here.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear, if there is time. But-(in a very depressed tone)-she is coming for only one week. There will not be time for anything.\"\n\n\"It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer,-but it seems a case of necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th; and we ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to betaken out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this Christmas, though you know it is longer since they were with him than with us.\"\n\n\"It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be anywhere but at Hartfield.\"\n\nMr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley's claims on his brother, or anybody's claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing a little while, and then said,-\n\n\"But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.\"\n\n\"Ah, papa, that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her husband.\"\n\nThis was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected by the idea of his daughter's attachment to her husband, she immediately led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother and sister are here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am sure she will be pleased with the children. We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she will think the handsomest, Henry or John?\"\n\n\"Ay, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.\"\n\n\"I daresay they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.\"\n\n\"Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mamma. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprised, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will come and standby my chair and say, \"Grandpapa, can you give me a bit of string?\" and once Henry asked me fora knife, but I told him knives were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with them very often.\"\n\n\"He appears rough to you,\" said Emma, \"because you are so very gentle yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then: but he is an affectionate father-certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate father. The children are all fond of him.\"\n\n\"And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way.\"\n\n\"But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I cannot understand it.\"\n\n\"That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.\"\n\nLater in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate in preparation for the regular four o'clock dinner, the hero of this inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away: but Emma could receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in his the consciousness of having made a push-of having thrown a die; and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse's party could be made up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, everything else must give way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his dining with him-had made such a point of it-that he had promised him conditionally to come.\n\nEmma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. Here-urged-she re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when, taking the paper from the table, she returned it.\n\n\"Oh, here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured to write it into Miss Smith's collection. Your friend will not take it amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the eight first lines.\"\n\nMr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather doubtingly-rather confused; said something about'honour;\"-glanced at Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an awkward moment, Emma smilingly said,-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade must not be confined to one or two. He maybe sure of every woman's approbation while he writes with such gallantry.\"\n\n\"I have no hesitation in saying,\" replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating a good deal while he spoke,-\"I have no hesitation in saying-at least if my friend feels at all as I do-I have not the smallest doubt that, could he see his little effusion honoured as I see it, (looking at the book again, and replacing it on the table,) he would consider it as the proudest moment of his life.\"\n\nAfter this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities there was a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and the sublime of pleasure to Harriet's share." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family who lived a little way out of Highbury.\n\nTheir road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane leading at right-angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of the place; and, as maybe inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr. Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about a quarter of a mile down the lane, rose the vicarage; an old and not very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation: but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes. Emma's remark was,-\n\n\"There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these days.\" Harriet's was,-\n\n\"Oh, what a sweet house! How very beautiful! There are the yellow curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.\"\n\n\"I do not often walk this way now,\" said Emma, as they proceeded, \"but then there will bean inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools, and pollards of this part of Highbury.\"\n\nHarriet, she found, had never in her life been within-side the vicarage; and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with Mr. Elton's seeing ready wit in her.\n\n\"I wish we could contrive it,\" said she; \"but I cannot think of any tolerable pretence forgoing in;-no servant that I want to enquire about of his housekeeper-no message from my father.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some minutes, Harriet thus began again,\n\n\"I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married-so charming as you are.\"\n\nEmma laughed, and replied,-\n\n\"My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming-one other person at least. And I am not only not going to be married at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.\"\n\n\"Ah, so you say; but I cannot believe it.\"\n\n\"I must see somebody very superior to anyone I have seen yet, to be tempted: Mr. Elton, you know (recollecting herself), is out of the question; and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.\"\n\n\"Dear me!-it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!\"\n\n\"I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were Ito fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I never have been in love: it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But then, to bean old maid at last, like Miss Bates!\"\n\n\"That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates-so silly, so satisfied, so smiling, so prosing, so undistinguishing and unfastidious, and so apt to tell everything relative to everybody about me, I would marry to-morrow. But between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried.\"\n\n\"But still, you will bean old maid-and that's so dreadful!\"\n\n\"Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and maybe as sensible and pleasant as anybody else! And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and commonsense of the world as appears at first; fora very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates: she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the world she would be very likely to giveaway sixpence of it; and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm.\"\n\n\"Dear me! but what shall you do? How shall you employ yourself when you grow old?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's usual occupations of eye, and hand, and mind, will be as open tome then as they are now, or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is, in truth, the great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces: I shall often have a niece with me.\"\n\n\"Do you know Miss Bates's niece? That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times-but are you acquainted?\"\n\n\"Oh yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury. By the by, that is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid, at least, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over: her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else fora month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor were assure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little, entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as goodwill. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,-\n\n\"These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make everything else appear! I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?\"\n\n\"Very true,\" said Harriet. \"Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else.\"\n\n\"And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,\" said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again. \"I do not think it will,\" stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.\n\n\"Oh dear, no,\" said her companion.\n\nThey walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was passed, Mr. Elton was immediately insight; and so near as to give Emma time only to say farther,-\n\n\"Ah, Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well (smiling), I hope it maybe allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harriet could just answer, \"Oh dear, yes,\" before the gentleman joined them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to accompany them.\n\n\"To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,\" thought Emma; \"to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.\"\n\nAnxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet's habits of dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing of her half-boot, and stooping down incomplete occupation of the footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort of further delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have been the most natural, had shebeen acting just then without design; and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however, involuntarily: the child's pace was quick, and theirs rather slow; and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might drawback a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail; and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday's party at his friend Cole's, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the dessert.\n\n\"This would soon have led to something better, of course,\" washer consoling reflection; \"anything interests between those who love; and anything will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have kept longer away.\"\n\nThey now walked on together quietly till within view of the vicarage pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short, and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them to stop, and acknowledge her inability to put herself to rights so as to be able to walk home intolerable comfort.\n\n\"Part of my lace is gone,\" said she, \"and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house, and ask your housekeeper fora bit of riband or string, or anything just to keep my boot on.\"\n\nMr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house, and endeavouring to make everything appear to advantage. The room they were taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind it was another with which it immediately communicated: the door between them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper, to receive her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make it practicable for him to choose his own subject in the adjoining room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lovers were standing together atone of the windows. It had a most favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point. He had been most agreeable, most delightful: he had told Harriet that he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little gallantries and allusions had been dropped, but nothing serious.\n\n\"Cautious, very cautious,\" thought Emma: \"he advances inch by inch, and will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.\"\n\nStill, however, though everything had not been accomplished by her ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them forward to the great event." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma's power to superintend his happiness, or quicken his measures. The coming of her sister's family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation, and then in reality, it became henceforth the prime object of interest; and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be expected-she did not herself expect-that anything beyond occasional, fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or other, whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.\n\nMr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent from Surrey, were exciting, of course, rather more than the usual interest. Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey: but all the holidays of this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children; and it was therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their Surrey connections, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake; and who, consequently, was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in forestalling this too short visit.\n\nHe thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless: the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids, all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival, the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for, without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to belong a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate, wrapt up in her family, a devoted wife, a doting mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry. They were alike, too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong habit of regard for every old acquaintance.\n\nMr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man; rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private character: but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a reproach: but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she wanted; and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing. He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella's sister, but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse's peculiarities and fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or sharp retort equally ill bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally a strong sense of what was due to him: but it was too often for Emma's charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality. They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter's attention to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, my dear,\" said he, \"poor Miss Taylor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a grievous business.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, sir,\" cried she, with ready sympathy, \"how you must miss her! And dear Emma too. What a dreadful loss to you both! I have been so grieved for you. I could not imagine how you could possibly do without her. It is a sad change, indeed; but I hope she is pretty well, sir.\"\n\n\"Pretty well, my dear,-I hope,-pretty well. I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably.\"\n\nMr. John Knightley here asked Emma, quietly, whether there were any doubts of the air of Randalls.\n\n\"Oh no: none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my life,-never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.\"\n\n\"Very much to the honour of both,\" was the handsome reply.\n\n\"And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?\" asked Isabella in the plaintive tone which just suited her father.\n\nMr. Woodhouse hesitated. \"Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.\"\n\n\"Oh, papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they married. Either in the morning or evening of everyday, excepting one, have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both, either at Randalls or here; and as you may suppose, Isabella, most frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way, you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Everybody must be aware that Miss Taylor must be missed; but everybody ought also to be assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated,-which is the exact truth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just as it should be,\" said Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "John Knightley, \"and just as I hoped it was from your letters. Her wish of showing you attention could not be doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have Emma's account, I hope you will be satisfied.\"\n\n\"Why, to be sure,\" said Mr. Woodhouse,-\"yes, certainly. I cannot deny that Mrs. Weston,-poor Mrs. Weston,-does come and see us pretty often; but then, she is always obliged to go away again.\"\n\n\"It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa. You quite forget poor Mr. Weston.\"\n\n\"I think, indeed,\" said John Knightley, pleasantly, \"that Mr. Weston has some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the poor husband. I being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella, she has been married long enough to seethe convenience of putting all the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.\"\n\n\"Me, my love,\" cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part. \"Are you talking about me? I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting Mr. Weston,-that excellent Mr. Weston,-I think there is nothing he does not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best tempered men that ever existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry's kite for him that very windy day last Easter; and ever since his particular kindness last September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o'clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, 6 I have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better man in existence. If anybody can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where is the young man?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said John Knightley. \"Has he been hereon this occasion, or has he not?\"\n\n\"He has not been here yet,\" replied Emma. \"There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.\"\n\n\"But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,\" said her father. \" He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She showed it tome. I thought it very well done of him, indeed. Whether it was his own idea, you know, one cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps-\n\n\"My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.\"\n\n\"Three-and-twenty! is he, indeed? Well, I could not have thought it; and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother. Well, time does fly indeed! and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. 28th, and began \"My dear Madam,\" but I forget how it went on; and it was signed \"F. C. Weston Churchill.\" I remember that perfectly.\"\n\n\"How very pleasing and proper of him!\" cried the good-hearted Mrs. John Knightley. \"I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is something so shocking in a child's being taken away from his parents and natural home! I never can comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with him. To give up one's child! I really never could think well of anybody who proposed such a thing to anybody else.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-writing with the writer, continue the narrative.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 16" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where is the young man?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said John Knightley. \"Has he been hereon this occasion, or has he not?\"\n\n\"He has not been here yet,\" replied Emma. \"There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.\"\n\n\"But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,\" said her father. \" He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She showed it tome. I thought it very well done of him, indeed. Whether it was his own idea, you know, one cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps-\n\n\"My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.\"\n\n\"Three-and-twenty! is he, indeed? Well, I could not have thought it; and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother. Well, time does fly indeed! and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. 28th, and began \"My dear Madam,\" but I forget how it went on; and it was signed \"F. C. Weston Churchill.\" I remember that perfectly.\"\n\n\"How very pleasing and proper of him!\" cried the good-hearted Mrs. John Knightley. \"I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is something so shocking in a child's being taken away from his parents and natural home! I never can comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with him. To give up one's child! I really never could think well of anybody who proposed such a thing to anybody else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,\" observed Mr. John Knightley, coolly. \"But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather an easy, cheerful tempered man, than a man of strong feelings: he takes things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection, or anything that home affords.\"\n\nEmma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to himself, whence resulted her brother's disposition to look down on the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was important. It had a high claim to forbearance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Knightley was to dine with them, rather against the inclination of Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that anyone should share with him in Isabella's first day. Emma's sense of right, however, had decided it; and, besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper invitation.\n\nShe hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time to makeup. Making-up, indeed, would not do. She certainly had not been in the wrong, and he would never own that he had. Concession must be out of the question: but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children with her,-the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced about in her aunt's arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave looks and short questions, he was soon led onto talk of them all in the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again; and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the baby,-\n\n\"What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces. As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.\"\n\n\"If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women, and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always think alike.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To be sure-our discordances must always arise from my being in the wrong.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, smiling, \"and reason good. I was sixteen years old when you were born.\"\n\n\"A material difference, then,\" she replied; \"and no doubt you were much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?\"\n\n\"Yes, a good deal nearer.\"\n\n\"But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think differently.\"\n\n\"I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years' experience, and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let us befriends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" she cried, \"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions went, we were both right, and I must say, that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that Mr. Martinis not very, very bitterly disappointed.\"\n\n\"A man cannot be more so,\" was his short, full answer.\n\n\"Ah! Indeed I am very sorry. Come, shake hands with me.\"\n\nThis had just taken place, and with great cordiality, when John Knightley made his appearance; and'How d'ye do, George?\" and'John, how are you?\" succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference the real attachment which would have led either of them, if requisite, to do everything for the good of the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The evening was quiet and conversible, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and the little party made two natural divisions: on one side he and his daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally distinct, or very rarely mixing, and Emma only occasionally joining in one or the other.\n\nThe brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative, and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting to a brother, whose home it had equally been the longest part of his life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality of interest by John as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his willing brother ever left him anything to enquire about, his enquiries even approached atone of eagerness.\n\nWhile they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.\n\n\"My poor dear Isabella,\" said he, fondly taking her hand, and interrupting, fora few moments, her busy labours for someone of her five children, \"how long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear,-and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go. You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing, as she did, that both the Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself, and two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by everybody, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,-\n\n\"It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.\"\n\n\"Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir, or we should not have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for the weakness in little Bella's throat,-both sea air and bathing.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to anybody. I am sure it almost killed me once.\"\n\n\"Come, come,\" cried Emma, feeling this to bean unsafe subject, \"I must beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable; I who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear Isabella, I have not heard you make one enquiry after Mr. Perry yet; and he never forgets you.\"\n\n\"Oh, good Mr. Perry, how is he, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himself; he tells me he has not time to take care of himself-which is very sad-but he is always wanted all round the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But then, there is not so clever a man anywhere.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? Do the children grow? I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He will be so pleased to see my little ones.\"\n\n\"I hope he will be hereto-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at little Bella's throat.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr. Wingfield's, which we have been applying at times ever since August.\"\n\n\"It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to her; and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken to-\"\n\n\"You seem tome to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,\" said Emma; \"I have not heard one enquiry after them.\"\n\n\"Oh, the good Bateses-I am quite ashamed of myself; but you mention them inmost of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs. Bates. I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children. They are always so pleased to see my children. And that excellent Miss Bates!-such thorough worthy people! How are they, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a bad cold about a month ago.\"\n\n\"How sorry I am! but colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he had never known them more general or heavy, except when it has been quite an influenza.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That has been a good deal the case, my dear, but not to the degree you mention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it altogether a sickly season.\"\n\n\"No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it very sickly, except-\"\n\n\"Ah, my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there;-so far off!-and the air so bad!\"\n\n\"No, indeed, we are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is so very superior to most others. You must not confound us with London in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town; there is hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in: but we are so remarkably airy! Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it-but after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say that I think you are any of you looking well at present.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir: but I assure you, excepting those little nervous headaches and palpitations which I am never entirely free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever sent us off, altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,\" turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety towards her husband." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley very far from looking well.\"\n\n\"What is the matter, sir? Did you speak tome?\" cried Mr. John Knightley, hearing his own name.\n\n\"I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking well; but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you left home.\"\n\n\"My dear Isabella,\" exclaimed he, hastily, \"pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I choose.\"\n\n\"I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,\" cried Emma, \"about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff from Scotland, to look after his new estate. But will it answer? Will not the old prejudice be too strong?\"\n\nAnd she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing worse to hear than Isabella's kind enquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was, at that moment, very happy to assist in praising.\n\n\"That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!\" said Mrs. John Knightley. \"It is so long since I have seen her, except now and then fora moment accidentally in town. What happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always regret excessively, on dear Emma's account, that she cannot be more at Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs. Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a delightful companion for Emma.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,-\n\n\"Our little friend, Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better companion than Harriet.\"\n\n\"I am most happy to hear it; but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so very accomplished and superior, and exactly Emma's age.\"\n\nThis topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came, and supplied a great deal to be said-much praise and many comments-undoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe philippics 7 upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerable; but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered it, she had never been able to get anything tolerable. Here was a dangerous opening.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head, and fixing his eyes on her with tender concern. The ejaculation in Emma's ear expressed, \"Ah, there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It does not bear talking of.\" And fora little while she hoped he would not talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes, however, he began with,-\n\n\"I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn, instead of coming here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But why should you be sorry, sir? I assure you, it did the children a great deal of good.\"\n\n\"And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprised to hear you had fixed upon South End.\"\n\n\"I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite a mistake, sir. We all had our health perfectly well there, never found the least inconvenience from the mud, and Mr. Wingfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he maybe depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and his own brother and family have been there repeatedly.\"\n\n\"You should have gone to Cromer, j my dear, if you went anywhere. Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea-a quarter of a mile off-very comfortable. You should have consulted Perry.\"\n\n\"But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey; only consider how great it would have been. A hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" as Perry says, \"where health is at stake, nothing else should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to choose between forty miles and a hundred. Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether, than travel forty miles to get into a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very ill-judged measure.\"\n\nEmma's attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her brother-in-law's breaking out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perry,\" said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, \"would do as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it any business of his to wonder at what I do?-at my taking my family to one part of the coast or another? I maybe allowed, I hope, the use of my judgment as well as Mr. Perry. I want his directions no more than his drugs.\" He paused, and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only sarcastic dryness, \"If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of a hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.\"\n\n\"True, true,\" cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition,-\"very true. That's a consideration, indeed. But, John, as to what I was telling you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however, will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me your opinion.\"\n\nMr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been attributing many of his own feelings and expressions; but the soothing attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the other, prevented any renewal of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;-perfect, in being much too short.\n\nIn general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their mornings: but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too, there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no denial: they must all dine at Randalls one day;-even Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of the party.\n\nHow they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difFculty if he could, but as his son and daughter's carriage and horses were actually at Hartfield, he was notable to make more than a simple question on that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for Harriet also.\n\nHarriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the only persons invited to meet them:-the hours were to be early as well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse's habits and inclination being consulted in everything.\n\nThe evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that Mr. Woodhouse should dine out on the 24th of December) had been spent by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs. Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore-throat: Mrs. Goddard was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss without many tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard's unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr. Elton's would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard's door, when she was met by Mr. Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly together in conversation about the invalid,-of whom he, on the rumour of considerable illness, had been going to enquire, that he might carry some report of her to Hartfield,-they were overtaken by Mr. John Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest boys, whose healthy, glowing faces showed all the benefit of a country run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend's complaint:-\"a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat about her, a quick low pulse, & c., k and she was sorry to find from Mrs. Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore throats, and had often alarmed her with them.\" Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed,-\n\n\"A sore throat!-I hope not infectious. 1 hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her?\"\n\nEmma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasinesswhich she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwards-as if quite another subject,-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is so cold, so very cold, and looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out to-day, and dissuade my father from venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear tome a little hoarse already; and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night.\"\n\nMr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of hers, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit; but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being'very cold, certainly very cold,\" and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated himself from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to enquire after Harriet every hour of the evening.\n\n\"You do quite right,\" said she:-\"we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston.\"\n\nBut hardly had she so spoken when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing: Mr. Elton was to go; and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger; nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" said she to herself, \"this is most strange! After I had gotten him off so well, to choose to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind! Most strange indeed! But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination-such a passion for dining out; a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that anything gives way to it-and this must be the case with Mr. Elton: a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.\"\n\nSoon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and he sighed and smiled himself off in away that left the balance of approbation much in his favour.\n\nAfter a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with,-\n\n\"I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please every feature works.\"\n\n\"Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect,\" replied Emma; \"but where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect good temper and goodwill in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, \"he seems to have a great deal of goodwill towards you.\"\n\n\"Me!\" she replied, with a smile of astonishment; \"are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton's object?\"\n\n\"Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.\"\n\n\"Mr. Elton in love with me! What an idea!\" \"I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.\"\n\n\"I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more;\" and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are forever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in want of counsel. He said no more.\n\nMr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe; and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so overcharged as to wantonly a milder air to produce a very white world in a very short time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least, which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like: he anticipated nothing in the visit that could beat all worth the purchase; and the whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his discontent.\n\n\"A man,\" said he, \" must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fire-side, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity-actually snowing at this moment! The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home-and the folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem it;-and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in everything given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he can;-here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man's house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;-four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.\n\nEmma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the'Very true, my love,\" which must have been usually administered by his travelling companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making any answer at all. She could not be complying; she dreaded being quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening her lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was letdown, and Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elton, spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had been, \"Much the same-not better.\"\n\n\"My report from Mrs. Goddard's,\" said she, presently, \"was not so pleasant as I had hoped:-\"Not better, ' was my answer.\"\n\nHis face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of sentiment as he answered,-\n\n\"Oh no-I am grieved to find-I was on the point of telling you that when I called at Mrs. Goddard's door, which I did the very last thing before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better, by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned-I had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I knew had been given in the morning.\"\n\nEmma smiled, and answered,-\"My visit was of use to the nervous part of her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat; it is a most severe cold, indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you probably heard.\"\n\n\"Yes-I imagined-that is-I did not-\"\n\n\"He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!\"\n\n\"Dreadful! Exactly so, indeed. She will be missed every moment.\"\n\nThis was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things, and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What an excellent device,\" said he, \"the use of a sheep-skin for carriages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How very comfortable they make it;-impossible to feel cold with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days, indeed, have rendered a gentleman's carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very cold afternoon-but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter. Ha! snows a little, I see.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said John Knightley, \"and I think we shall have a good deal of it.\"\n\n\"Christmas weather,\" observed Mr. Elton. \"Quite seasonable; and extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin yesterday, and prevent this day's party, which it might very possibly have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite the season, indeed, for friendly meetings. At Christmas everybody invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather. I was snowed up at a friend's house once fora week. Nothing could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not getaway till that very day se'nnight.\" l Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but said only, coolly,-\n\n\"I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls.\"\n\nAt another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much astonished now at Mr. Elton's spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party.\n\n\"We are sure of excellent fires,\" continued he, \"and everything in the greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;-Mrs. Weston indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so hospitable, and so fond of society;-it will be a small party, but where small parties are select, they are, perhaps, the most agreeable of any. Mr. Weston's dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably; and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me (turning with a soft air to Emma), I think I shall certainly have your approbation, though Mr. Knightley, perhaps, from being used to the large parties of London, may not quite enter into our feelings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir-I never dine with anybody.\"\n\n\"Indeed! (in atone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great enjoyment.\"\n\n\"My first enjoyment,\" replied John Knightley, as they passed through the sweep-gate, \"will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they walked into Mrs. Weston's drawing-room;-Mr. Elton must compose his joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr. Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the place. Emma only might be as nature prompted, and show herself just as happy as she was. To her, it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons. Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the world to whom she spoke with such unreserve as to his wife; not anyone, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston had not a lively concern; and half an hour's uninterrupted communication of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.\n\nThis was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day's visit might not afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half hour; but the very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice, was grateful to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr. Elton's oddities, or of anything else unpleasant, and enjoy all that was enjoyable to the utmost.\n\nThe misfortune of Harriet's cold had been pretty well gone through before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and Isabella's coming, and of Emma's being to follow; and had, indeed, just got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and welcome her dear Emma." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma's project of forgetting Mr. Elton fora while made her rather sorry to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her. The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards Harriet from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal suggestion of'Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from Harriet tome?-Absurd and insufferable!\"-Yet he would be so anxious for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father, and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and, at last, would begin admiring her drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge, as seemed terribly like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet's, in the hope that all would yet turnout right, she was even positively civil: but it was an effort; especially as something was going on amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton's nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son: she heard the words'my son,\" and'Frank,\" and'my son,\" repeated several times over; and, from a few other half syllables, very much suspected that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past, that any reviving question from her would have been awkward.\n\nNow it so happened, that, in spite of Emma's resolution of never marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea, of Mr. Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently thought.-especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor,-that if she were to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, character, and condition. He seemed, by this connection between the families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be a match that everybody who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs. Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though not meaning to be induced by him, or by anybody else, to give up a situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends' imaginations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With such sensations, Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elton's civilities were dreadfully ill-timed; but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very cross;-and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston. So it proved;-for, when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to her,-\n\n\"We wantonly two more to be just the right number. I should like to see two more here,-your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son,-and then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank. I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a fortnight.\"\n\nEmma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure, and fully assented to his proposition, of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party quite complete.\n\n\"He has been wanting to come to us,\" continued Mr. Weston, \"ever since September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices. But now I have no doubt of seeing him hereabout the second week in January.\"\n\n\"What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as yourself.\"\n\n\"Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off. She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do; but she does not know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is-(but this is quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other room. There are secrets in all families, you know)-the case is, that a party of friends are invited to pay a vsit at Enscombe in January, and that Frank's coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family that a certain lady, of some consequence at Enscombe, has a particular dislike to; and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point. I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself: but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table) has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been long in the practice of doing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sorry there should be anything like doubt in the case,\" replied Emma; \"but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe.\"\n\n\"Yes-I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at the place in my life. She is an odd woman! But I never allow myself to speak ill of her, on Frank's account; for I do believe her to be very fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of anybody except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her way-allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting everything to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him, that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say it to anybody else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in general, and the devil of a temper.\"\n\nEmma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston, very soon after their moving into the drawing-room; wishing her joy,-yet observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming. Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked of; \"for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr. Weston, I daresay, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands.\"\n\n\"Yes-it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs. Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world.\"\n\n\"My Emma!\" replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, \"what is the certainty of caprice?\" Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending before,-\"You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in any opinion, as his father thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt's spirits and pleasure; in short, upon her temper. To you-to my two daughters-I may venture on the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered woman; and his coming now depends upon her being willing to spare him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Mrs. Churchill, everybody knows Mrs. Churchill,\" replied Isabella; \"and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person must be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known anything of; but it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!\"\n\nEmma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her with a degree of unreserve which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed, would scarcely try to conceal anything relative to the Churchills from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after dinner was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor conversation was anything to him; and gladly did he move to those with whom he was always comfortable.\n\nWhile he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of saying,-\n\n\"And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant, whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over the better.\"\n\n\"Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that some excuse maybe found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on the Churchills to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He ought to come,\" said Emma. \"If he could stay only a couple of days, he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man's not having it in his power to do as much as that. A young woman, if she fall into bad hands, maybe teazed, and kept at a distance from those she wants to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young man's being under such restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he likes it.\"\n\n\"One ought to beat Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before one decides upon what he can do,\" replied Mrs. Weston. \"One ought to use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of anyone individual of anyone family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must not be judged by general rules: she is so very unreasonable; and everything gives way to her.\"\n\n\"But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now, according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she owes everything, while she exercises incessant caprice towards him, she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes nothing at all.\"\n\n\"My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way. I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it maybe perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand when it will be.\"\n\nEmma listened, and then coolly said, \"I shall not be satisfied, unless he comes.\"\n\n\"He may have a great deal of influence on some points,\" continued Mrs. Weston, \"and on others, very little; and among those, on which she is beyond his reach, it is but too likely maybe this very circumstance of his coming away from them to visit us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and with scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them.\n\nEmma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most friendly smiles.\n\nHe professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend-her fair, lovely, amiable friend. \"Did she know?-had she heard anything about her, since their being at Randalls?-he felt much anxiety-he must confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably.\" And in this style he talked on for sometime very properly, not much attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him.\n\nBut at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account than on Harriet's-more anxious that she should escape the infection, than that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick chamber again, for the present-to entreat her to promise him not to venture into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learned his opinion; and though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude about her. She was vexed. It did appear-there was no concealing it-exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable! and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston to implore her assistance: \" Would not she give him her support?-would not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go to Mrs. Goddard's, till it were certain that Miss Smith's disorder had no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise-would not she give him her influence in procuring it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So scrupulous for others,\" he continued, \"and yet so careless for herself!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home today, and yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston? Judge between us. Have not I some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid.\"\n\nEmma saw Mrs. Weston's surprise, and felt that it must be great, at an address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and offended to have the power of directly saying anything to the purpose. She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought must restore him to his senses; and then left the sofa, removing to a seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention.\n\nShe had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr. Woodhouse;-\n\n\"This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements, sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way through a storm of snow.\"\n\nPoor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but everybody else had something to say; everybody was either surprised, or not surprised, and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly.\n\n\"I admired your resolution very much, sir,\" said he, \"in venturing out in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon. Everybody must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and I daresay we shall get home very well. Another hour or two's snow can hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other at hand. I daresay we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he had known it to be snowing sometime, but had not said a word, lest it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and bean excuse for his hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for everybody, calling on his wife to agree with him, that, with a little contrivance, everybody might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house.\n\n\"What is to be done, my dear Emma? what is to be done?\" was Mr. Woodhouse's first exclamation, and all that he could say for sometime. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of their having so many friends about them, revived him a little.\n\nHis eldest daughter's alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.\n\n\"You had better order the carriage directly, my love,\" said she: \"I daresay we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we do come to anything very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes, you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that gives me cold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed!\" replied he. \"Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general everything does give you cold. Walk home!-you are prettily shod for walking home, I daresay. It will be bad enough for the horses.\"\n\nIsabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs. Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to getaway; and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had left the room immediately after his brother's first report of the snow, came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine, and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He had gone beyond the sweep-someway along the Highbury road-the snow was nowhere above half an inch deep-in many places hardly enough to whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there being nothing to apprehend.\n\nTo Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father's account, who was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning home, but no assurance could convince him that it was safe to stay; and while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus,-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, do.\"\n\nAnd the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more, and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and happiness when this visit of hardship were over.\n\nThe carriage came; and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr. Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. \"He was afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind. He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together as they could;\" and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very slow, and wait for the other carriage.\n\nIsabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally; so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them, and that they were to have a tête-à-tête drive. It would not have been the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure, previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to him of Harriet, and the three quarters of a mile would have seemed but one. But how, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's good wine; and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cutup-her hand seized-her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, hoping-fearing-adoring-ready to die if she refused him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It really was so. Without scruple-without apology-without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would goon, and say it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she replied,-\n\n\"I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This tome, you forget yourself-you take me for my friend-any message to Miss Smith I shall be happy to deliver; but no more of this tome, if you please.\"\n\n\"Miss Smith!-Message to Miss Smith!-What could she possibly mean!\"-And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with quickness,-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak either tome, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.\"\n\nBut Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,-but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,-he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent fora favourable answer.\n\nAs she thoughtless of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied,-\n\n\"It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond anything I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith-such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing-to be addressing me in this manner-this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far-very far-from gratified in being the object of such professions.\"\n\n\"Good heaven!\" cried Mr. Elton, \"what can be the meaning of this? Miss Smith! I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence-never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry-extremely sorry. But, Miss Smith, indeed! Oh, Miss Woodhouse, who can think of Miss Smith when Miss Woodhouse is near? No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to anyone else. Everything that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously doubt it. No! (in an accent meant to be insinuating) I am sure you have seen and understood me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be impossible to say what Emma felt on hearing this; which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply; and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed.-\n\n\"Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" cried Emma, \"it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views till this moment. As to myself I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelings-Nothing could be farther from my wishes-your attachment to my friend Harriet-your pursuit of her (pursuit it appeared)-gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success; but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am Ito believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith? that you have never thought seriously of her?\"\n\n\"Never, madam,\" cried he, affronted in his turn: \"never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!-Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well; and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to-Everybody has their level; but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith! No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received-\"\n\n\"Encouragement! I give you encouragement!-sir, you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more tome than a common acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry; but it is well that the mistake ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware, probably, anymore than myself, of the very great inequality which you are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the narrative as the author's co-writer.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be impossible to say what Emma felt on hearing this; which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply; and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed.-\n\n\"Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" cried Emma, \"it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views till this moment. As to myself I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelings-Nothing could be farther from my wishes-your attachment to my friend Harriet-your pursuit of her (pursuit it appeared)-gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success; but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am Ito believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith? that you have never thought seriously of her?\"\n\n\"Never, madam,\" cried he, affronted in his turn: \"never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!-Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well; and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to-Everybody has their level; but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith! No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received-\"\n\n\"Encouragement! I give you encouragement!-sir, you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more tome than a common acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry; but it is well that the mistake ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware, probably, anymore than myself, of the very great inequality which you are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite supplication: and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer, for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to afoot pace. If there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate awkwardness; but their straight-forward emotions left no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves, all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another syllable passed. Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a goodnight. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield.\n\nThere she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage Lane-turning a corner which he could never bear to think of-and in strange hands-a mere common coachman-no James; and there it seemed as if her return only were wanted to make everything go well: for Mr. John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her father, as to seem-if not quite ready to join him in a basin of gruel-perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party, except herself. But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable. It was a wretched business, indeed. Such an overthrow of everything she had been wishing for! Such a development of everything most unwelcome! Such a blow for Harriet!-that was the worst of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation of some sort or other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken-more in error-more disgraced by misjudgment than she actually was,-could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.\n\n\"If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne anything. He might have doubled his presumption tome-but poor Harriet!\"\n\nHow she could have been so deceived! He protested that he had never thought seriously of Harriet-never! She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made everything bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled.\n\nThe picture! How eager he had been about the picture!-and the charade!-and a hundred other circumstances;-how clearly they had seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its'ready wit\"-but then, the'soft eyes\"-in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such thick-headed nonsense?\n\nCertainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof, among others, that he had not always lived in the best society; that with all the gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but, till this very day, she had never for an instant suspected it to mean anything but grateful respect to her as Harriet's friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his character had been there shown than any she had reached herself. It was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him; proud, assuming, conceited: very full of his own claims, and little concerned about the feelings of others.\n\nContrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment, and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty, or with ten.\n\nBut, that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware of his views, accepting his intentions, meaning, in short, to marry him!-should suppose himself her equal in connection or mind!-look down upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself showing no presumption in addressing her!-it was most provoking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he washer inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family,-and that the Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate, to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he could, without any alliances but in trade, or anything to recommend him to notice but his situation and his civility. But he had fancied her in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners and a conceited head, Emma was obliged, in common honesty, to stop and admit, that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite. If she had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to wonder that he, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken hers.\n\nThe first error, and the worst, lay at her door. It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active apart in bringing any two people together. It was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here have I,\" said she, \"actually talked poor Harriet into being very much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I used to think him. Oh that I had been satisfied with persuading her not to accept young Martin! There I was quite right: that was well done of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the opportunity of pleasing someone worth having; I ought not to have attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cutup for sometime. I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were not to feel this disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of anybody else who would beat all desirable for her:-William Coxe-oh no, I could not endure William Coxe,-a pert young lawyer.\"\n\nShe stopped to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be, and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding éclat, were enough to occupy her inmost unmirthful reflections sometime longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.\n\nTo youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma got upon the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone to bed; more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to depend on getting tolerably out of it.\n\nIt was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to disappoint him; that Harriet's nature should not be of that superior sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive; and that there could be no necessity for anybody's knowing what had passed except the three principals, and especially for her father's being given a moment's uneasiness about it.\n\nThese were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow on the ground did her further service, for anything was welcome that might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.\n\nThe weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas-day, she could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting into freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse with Harriet possible but by note; no church for heron Sunday anymore than on Christmas-day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton's absenting himself.\n\nIt was weather which might fairly confine everybody at home; and though she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from them,-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at homelike poor Mr. Elton?\"\n\nThese days of confinement would have been, but for her private perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging, and speaking pleasantly of everybody. But with all the hopes of cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr. Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay behind with all her children, was obliged to seethe whole party set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor Isabella;-which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doted on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.\n\nThe evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr. Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, along, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with Mr. Elton's best compliments, \"that he was proposing to leave Highbury the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few weeks; and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever retain a grateful sense; and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be happy to attend to them.\"\n\nEmma was most agreeably surprised. Mr. Elton's absence just at this time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving it, though notable to give him much credit for the manner in which it was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded. She had not even a share in his opening compliments. Her name was not mentioned; and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his grateful acknowledgments, as she thought, at first, could not escape her father's suspicion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It did, however." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her father was quite taken up with the surprise of so sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse talked over his alarms, and Emma was inspirits to persuade them away with all her usual promptitude.\n\nShe now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that she should have as much time as possible forgetting the better of her other complaint before the gentleman's return. She went to Mrs. Goddard's accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary penance of communication; and a severe one it was. She had to destroy all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding, to appear in the ungracious character of the one preferred, and acknowledge herself grossly mistaken and misjudging in all her ideas on one subject, all her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last six weeks.\n\nThe confession completely renewed her first shame, and the sight of Harriet's tears made her think that she should never be in charity with herself again.\n\nHarriet bore the intelligence very well, blaming nobody, and in everything testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to her friend.\n\nEmma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost; and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on Harriet's side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having anything to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton would have been too great a distinction. She never could have deserved him; and nobody but so partial and kinda friend as Miss Woodhouse would have thought it possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her tears fell abundantly; but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes; and she listened to her, and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding,-really for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the two, and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.\n\nIt was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father's claims, was to promote Harriet's comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield, and showed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and amuse her, and by books and conversation to drive Mr. Elton from her thoughts.\n\nTime, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet's age, and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return, as to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance, without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.\n\nHarriet did think him all perfection, and maintain the non-existence of anybody equal to him in person or goodness, and did, in truth, prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an inclination of that sort unrequited, that she could not comprehend its continuing very long in equal force." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not imagine Harriet's persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the recollection of him.\n\nTheir being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each other, and make the best of it.\n\nHarriet was further unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs. Goddard's, Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great girls in the school; and it must beat Hartfield only that she could have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or repellant truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be found, if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of cure, there could be no true peace for herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs. Weston's fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For the present, he could not be spared, to his'very great mortification and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to Randalls at no distant period.\"\n\nMrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed,-much more disappointed, in fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man had been so much more sober; but a sanguine temper, though forever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprised and sorry: but then he began to perceive that Frank's coming two or three months later would be a much better plan, better time of year, better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner.\n\nThese feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself.\n\nEmma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr. Frank Churchill's not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls. The acquaintance, at present, had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to be quiet and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr. and Mrs. Weston's disappointment as might naturally belong to their friendship.\n\nShe was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite as much as was necessary (or, being acting apart, perhaps rather more,) at the conduct of the Churchills in keeping him away. She then proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt of the advantage of such an addition to their confined society in Surrey; the pleasure of looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and, making use of Mrs. Weston's arguments against herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Churchills are very likely in fault,\" said Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knightley, coolly; \"but I daresay he might come if he would.\"\n\n\"I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but his uncle and aunt will not spare him.\"\n\n\"I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a point of it. It is too unlikely for me to believe it without proof.\"\n\n\"How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose him such an unnatural creature?\"\n\n\"I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that he may have learned to be above his connections, and to care very little for anything but his own pleasure, from living with those who have always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud, luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it between September and January. A man at his age,-what is he?-three or four and twenty-cannot be without the means of doing as much as that. It is impossible.\"\n\n\"That's easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers to manage.\"\n\n\"It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four and twenty should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want money, he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in the kingdom. We hear of him forever at some watering-place or other; a little while ago he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the Churchills.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sometimes he can.\"\n\n\"And those times are, whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever there is any temptation of pleasure.\"\n\n\"It is very unfair to judge of anybody's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family maybe. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs. Churchill's temper, before we pretend to decide with what her nephew can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at others.\"\n\n\"There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chooses, and that is, his duty; not by manœuvering and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. It is Frank Churchill's duty to pay this attention to his father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill,\"Every sacrifice of mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience; but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion. I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow. ' If he would say so to her at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no opposition made to his going.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Emma, laughing; \"but perhaps there might be some made to his coming back again. Such language fora young man entirely dependent to use! Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible: but you have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to the uncle and aunt who have brought him up, and are to provide for him!-standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as loud as he could! How can you imagine such conduct practicable?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would feel himself in the right; and the declaration,-made, of course, as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner,-would do him more good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do. Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could trust him; that the nephew, who had done rightly by his father, would do rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does,-as well as all the world must know,-that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for right conduct is felt by everybody. If he would act in this sort of manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would bend to his.\"\n\n\"I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill's situation, you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early obedience and long observance to breakthrough. To him who has, it might not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as strong a sense of what would be right as you can have, without being so equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then, it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not bean equal conviction.\"\n\n\"Oh the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to understand what an amiable young man maybe likely to feel indirectly opposing those whom, as child and boy, he has been looking up to all his life.\"\n\n\"Your amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him, by this time, of following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for the fears of the child, but not of the man. Ashe became rational, he ought to have roused himself, and shaken off all that was unworthy in their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there would have been no difficulty now.\"\n\n\"We shall never agree about him,\" cried Emma; \"but that is nothing extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man: I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly, though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding, complying, mild disposition, than would suit your notions of man's perfection. I daresay he has; and though it may cut him off from some advantages, it will secure him many others.\"\n\n\"Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of preserving peace at home, and preventing his father's having any right to complain. His letters disgust me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy everybody else.\" \"I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother's place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly feel the omission. Had shebeen a person of consequence herself, he would have come, I daresay; and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behind-hand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself? No, Emma; your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He maybe very \"amiable,\" have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people,-nothing really amiable about him.\"\n\n\"You seem determined to think ill of him.\" \"Me! not at all,\" replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; \"I do not want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal,-that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.\"\n\n\"Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well bred and agreeable. We must not be nice, and ask for all the virtues into the bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a sensation his coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest-one object of curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak of nobody else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will excuse my being so much overpowered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If I find him conversible, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.\"\n\n\"My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of everybody, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; tome, of drawing or music; and soon to everybody, having that general information on all subjects which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my idea of him.\"\n\n\"And mine,\" said Mr. Knightley, warmly, \"is, that if he turnout anything like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What! at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company-the great man-the practised politician, who is to read everybody's character, and make everybody's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not endure such a puppy when it came to the point.\"\n\n\"I will say no more about him,\" cried Emma,-\"you turn everything to evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no chance of agreeing till he is really here.\"\n\n\"Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced.\"\n\n\"But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.\"\n\n\"He is a person I never think of from one month's end to another,\" said Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be angry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had never before fora moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit of another.\n\nEND OF THE FIRST VOLUME." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma's opinion, been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could not think that Harriet's solace or her own sins required more; and she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they returned;-but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded, and after speaking sometime of what the poor must suffer in winter, and receiving no other answer than a very plaintive-\"Mr. Elton is so good to the poor!\" she found something else must be done.\n\nThey were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates. She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was always sufficient reason for such an attention: Mrs. and Miss Bates loved to be called on; and she knew she was considered by the very few who presumed ever to see imperfection in her as rather negligent in that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of their scanty comforts.\n\nShe had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart, as to her deficiency, but none were equal to counteract the persuasion of its being very disagreeable,-a waste of time-tiresome women-and all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second rate and third rate of Highbury, who were calling on them forever, and therefore she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not passing their door without going in; observing, as she proposed it to Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.\n\nThe house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment, which was everything to them, the visiters were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes, anxious enquiries after Mr. Woodhouse's health, cheerful communications about her mother's, and sweet-cake from the buffet:-\"Mrs. Cole hadjust been there, just called in for ten minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and she had taken apiece of cake, and been so kind as to say she liked it very much; and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them the favour to eat apiece too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton. There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton since his going away. Emma knew what was coming: they must have the letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went, and how full the Master of the Ceremonies'ball had been; and she went through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet's being obliged to say a word.\n\nThis she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant, having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the mistresses and misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually hurried off by Miss Bates; she jumped away from him at last abruptly to the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.\n\n\"Oh yes,-Mr. Elton, I understood,-certainly as to dancing,-Mrs. Cole was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was-Mrs. Cole was so kind as to sit sometime with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as she came in, she began enquiring after her, Jane is so very great a favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to show her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much as anybody can. And so she began enquiring after her directly, saying, \"I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her time for writing;\" and when I immediately said, \"But indeed we have, we had a letter this very morning,\" I do not know that I ever saw anybody more surprised. \"Have you, upon your honour?\" said she; \"well, that is quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma's politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest,-\n\n\"Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I hope she is well?\"\n\n\"Thank you. You are so kind!\" replied the happily deceived aunt, while eagerly hunting for the letter. \"Oh, here it is. I was sure it could not be far off; but I had put my huswife m upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and, since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her-a letter from Jane-that she can never hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only just under my huswife,-and since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says; but, first of all, I really must, injustice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter, only two pages you see, hardly two, and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half. 8 My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often says, when the letter is first opened, \"Well, Hetty, now I think you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work\"-don't you, ma'am? And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out herself, if she had nobody to do it for her, every word of it,-I am sure she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed, though my mother's eyes are not so good as they were, she can see amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such a blessing! My mother's are really very good indeed. Jane often says, when she is here, \"I am sure, grandmamma, you must have had very strong eyes to see as you do-and so much fine work as you have done too!-I only wish my eyes may last meas well\".\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for\n\nbreath; and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss Fairfax's handwriting.\n\n\"You are extremely kind,\" replied Miss Bates highly gratified; \"you who are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is nobody's praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse's. My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf, you know. Ma'am,\" addressing her, \"do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say about Jane's handwriting?\"\n\nAnd Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax's letter, and had almost resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.\n\n\"My mother's deafness is very trifling, you see, just nothing at all. By only raising my voice, and saying anything two or three times over, she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me. Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmamma at all deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my mother's time of life, and it really is full two years, you know, since she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her now.\"\n\n\"Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; next week.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed! That must be a very great pleasure.\"\n\n\"Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Everybody is so surprised; and everybody says the same obliging things. I am sure she will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury as they can be to see her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Col. Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or Wednesday.\"\n\n\"Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could belittle chance of my hearing anything of Miss Fairfax to-day.\"\n\n\"So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My mother is so delighted! for she is to be three months with us at least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the summer, but she is so impatient to see them again;-for till she married, last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must make it very strange to be indifferent kingdoms, I was going to say, but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter to her mother, or her father,-I declare I do not know which it was, but we shall see presently in Jane's letter,-wrote in Mr. Dixon's name as well as her own, to press their coming over directly; and they would give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country-seat, Baly-craig,-a beautiful place I fancy. Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty,-from Mr. Dixon, I mean,-I do not know that she ever heard about it from anybody else,-but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses,-and as Jane used to be very often walking outwith them,-for Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them: of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word that he had shown them some drawings of the place, views that he had taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma's brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of further discovery,-\n\n\"You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.\"\n\n\"Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a distance from us, for months together,-notable to come if anything was to happen; but you see everything turns out for the best. They want her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing than their joint invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently. Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit,-I can never think of it without trembling!-but ever since we had the history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!\"\n\n\"But, in spite of all her friends' urgency, and her own wish of seeing Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?\"\n\n\"Yes-entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should recommend; and indeed they particularly wish her to try her native air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely; but Mrs. Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has no remarkable degree of personal beauty,-is not by any means to be compared with Miss Fairfax.\"\n\n\"Oh no. You are very obliging to say such things, but certainly not. There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely plain, but extremely elegant and amiable.\"\n\n\"Yes, that of course.\"\n\n\"Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November (as I am going to read to you), and has never been well since. Along time, is not it, fora cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so considerate!-But, however, she is so far from well, that her kind friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air that always agrees with her: and they have no doubt that three or four months at Highbury will entirely cure her; and it is certainly a great deal better that she should come here than go to Ireland, if she is unwell. Nobody could nurse her as we should do.\"\n\n\"It appears tome the most desirable arrangement in the world.\" \"And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following, as you will find from Jane's letter. So sudden!-You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse, what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of her illness,-but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened tome as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane's letters through to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for fear of there being anything in them to distress her. Jane desired me to do it, so I always do; and so I began to-day with my usual caution: but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I burst out, quite frightened, with \"Bless me! poor Jane is ill!\"-which my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does not think much about it: but I cannot imagine how I could be so off my guard! If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The expense shall not bethought of; and though he is so liberal and so fond of Jane, that I daresay he would not mean to charge anything for attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to her letter; and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better than I can tell it for her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am afraid we must be running away,\" said Emma, glancing at Harriet, and beginning to rise, \"my father will be expecting us. I had no intention, I thought I had no power, of staying more than five minutes, when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not pass the door without enquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good morning.\"\n\nAnd not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained the street, happy in this, that though much had been forced on her against her will, though she had, in fact, heard the whole substance of Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates's youngest daughter.\n\nThe marriage of Lieut. Fairfax, of the-regiment of infantry, and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope and interest; but nothing now remained of it save the melancholy remembrance of him dying inaction abroad-of his widow sinking under consumption and grief soon afterwards-and this girl.\n\nBy birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation, the fondling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no advantages of connection or improvement to be engrafted on what nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.\n\nBut the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change to her destiny. This was Col. Campbell, who had very highly regarded Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the death of poor Fairfax before his own return to England put anything in his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice of her. He was a married man with only one living child, a girl, about Jane's age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and growing a favourite with all; and, before she was nine years old, his daughter's great fondness for her, and his own wish of being areal friend, united to produce an offer from Col. Campbell of undertaking the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period Jane had belonged to Col. Campbell's family, and had lived with them entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Col. Campbell's power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was handsome, his fortune was moderate, and must be all his daughter's; but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of respectable subsistence hereafter.\n\nSuch was Jane Fairfax's history. She had fallen into good hands, known nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people, her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline and culture; and Col. Campbell's residence being in London, every lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was, as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children, fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote, and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with only the drawback of the future,-the sobering suggestions of her own good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over.\n\nThe affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from the circumstance of Jane's decided superiority both in beauty and acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the parents. They continued together with unabated regard, however, till the marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had yet her bread to earn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This event had very lately taken place; too lately for anything to be yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted noviciate, she had resolved atone-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification forever.\n\nThe good sense of Col. and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers forever; and for their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would be selfishness:-what must beat last, had better be soon. Perhaps they began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however, affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of their daughter's marriage; and till she should have completely recovered her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits, seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with tolerable comfort.\n\nWith regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths not told. It washer own choice to give the time of their absence to Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells, whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery of her health, than on anything else. Certain it was that she was to come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which had been so long promised it-Mr. Frank Churchill-must put up for the present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two years' absence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Emma was sorry to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like through three long months!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer: Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to bethought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her. But'she could never get acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve-such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not-and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!-and she was made such a fuss with by everybody!-and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimate-because their ages were the same, everybody had supposed they must be so fond of each other.\" These were her reasons; she had no better.\n\nIt was a dislike so little just,-every imputed fault was so magnified by fancy,-that she never saw Jane Fairfax, the first time after any considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years' interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost everybody would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and then, her face-her features-there was more beauty in them all together than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows, had never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her principles, admire it: elegance, which, whether of person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction and merit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold complacency,-the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible to feel anything but compassion and respect; especially, if to every well-known particular, entitling her to interest, were added the highly probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on. Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon's affections from his wife, or of anything mischievous which her imagination had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single, successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself effectually from him and his connections by soon beginning her career of laborious duty.\n\nUpon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings, as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence,-nobody that she could wish to scheme about for her.\n\nThese were charming feelings, but not lasting. Before she had committed herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax, or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than saying to Mr. Knightley, \"She certainly is handsome; she is better than handsome!\" Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother and aunt, and everything was relapsing much into its usual state. Former provocations re-appeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane's offences rose again. They had music: Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to showoff in higher style her own very superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If anything could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than anything. She seemed bent on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon's character, or her own value for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished. It did her no service, however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably was something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps, had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.\n\nThe like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma procure as to what he truly was. \"Was he handsome?\"-\"She believed he was reckoned a very fine young man.\"-\"Was he agreeable?\"-\"He was generally thought so.\"-\"Did he appear a sensible young man; a young man of information?\"-\"At a watering-place, or in a common London acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed everybody found his manners pleasing.\" Emma could not forgive her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma could not forgive her: but as neither provocation nor resentment were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had seen only proper attention and pleasing behavior on each side, he was expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.\n\n\"Avery pleasant evening,\" he began as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers swept away;-\"particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting at one's ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women; sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing undone. I was glad you made her play so much for having no instrument at her grandmother's, it must have been areal indulgence.\"\n\n\"I am happy you approved,\" said Emma, smiling; \"but I hope I am not often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.\"\n\n\"No, my dear,\" said her father instantly; \"that I am sure you are not. There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If anything, you are too attentive. The muffin last night,-if it had been handed round once, I think it would have been enough.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; \"you are not often deficient; not often deficient, either in manner or comprehension. I think you understand me, therefore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An arch look expressed-\"I understand you well enough;\" but she said only, \"Miss Fairfax is reserved.\"\n\n\"I always told you she was-a little; but you will soon overcome all that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.\"\n\n\"You think her diffident. I do not see it.\"\n\n\"My dear Emma,\" said he, moving from his chair into one close by her, \"you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant evening.\"\n\n\"Oh no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions, and amused to think how little information I obtained.\"\n\n\"I am disappointed,\" was his only answer.\n\n\"I hope everybody had a pleasant evening,\" said Mr. Woodhouse, in his quiet way. \"I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me. Miss Bates was very chatty and good humoured, as she always is, though she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs. Bates, too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady; a very pretty and a very well behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.\"\n\n\"True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.\"\n\nEmma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question,-\n\n\"She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from. I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the story in collaboration with the author.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 25" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An arch look expressed-\"I understand you well enough;\" but she said only, \"Miss Fairfax is reserved.\"\n\n\"I always told you she was-a little; but you will soon overcome all that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.\"\n\n\"You think her diffident. I do not see it.\"\n\n\"My dear Emma,\" said he, moving from his chair into one close by her, \"you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant evening.\"\n\n\"Oh no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions, and amused to think how little information I obtained.\"\n\n\"I am disappointed,\" was his only answer.\n\n\"I hope everybody had a pleasant evening,\" said Mr. Woodhouse, in his quiet way. \"I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me. Miss Bates was very chatty and good humoured, as she always is, though she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs. Bates, too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady; a very pretty and a very well behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.\"\n\n\"True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.\"\n\nEmma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question,-\n\n\"She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from. I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose thoughts were on the Bates's, said,-\n\n\"It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a great pity indeed! and I have often wished-but it is so little one can venture to do-small, trifling presents, of anything uncommon. Now, we have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg; it is very small and delicate-Hartfield pork is not like any other pork-but still it is pork-and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast pork-I think we had better send the leg-do not you think so, my dear?\"\n\n\"My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it. There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and the loin to be dressed directly, in any manner they like.\"\n\n\"That's right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but that was the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.\"\n\n\"Emma,\" slid Mr. Knightley, presently, \"I have apiece of news for you. You like news-and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will interest you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"News! Oh yes, I always like news. What is it?-why do you smile so?-where did you hear it?-at Randalls?\"\n\nHe had time only to say,-\n\n\"No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,\"-when the door was thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full of thanks and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest. Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another syllable of communication could rest with him.\n\n\"Oh, my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse-I come quite overpowered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be married.\"\n\nEmma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so completely surprised, that she could not avoid a little start, and a little blush, at the sound.\n\n\"There is my news:-I thought it would interest you,\" said Mr. Knightley, with a smile, which implied a conviction of some part of what had passed between them.\n\n\"But where could you hear it?\" cried Miss Bates. \"Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's note-no, it cannot be more than five-or at least ten-for I had got my bonnet and spencer non, just ready to come out-I was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork-Jane was standing in the passage-were not you, Jane?-for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said, I would go down and see, and Jane said,\"Shall I go down instead? for I think you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen. \"-\"Oh, my dear, \"said I-well, and just then came the note. A Miss Hawkins-that's all I know-a Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley, how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote tome. A Miss Hawkins-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was with Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just read Elton's letter as I was shown in, and handed it tome directly.\"\n\n\"Well! that is quite-I suppose there never was apiece of news more generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand thanks, and says you really quite oppress her.\"\n\n\"We consider our Hartfield pork,\" replied Mr. Woodhouse-\"indeed it certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot have a greater pleasure than-\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth themselves, had everything they could wish for, I am sure it is us. We may well say, that \"our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.\" 9 Well, Mr. Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter-well-\"\n\n\"It was short, merely to announce-but cheerful, exulting of course.\" Here was a sly glance at Emma. \"He had been so fortunate as to-I forget the precise words-one has no business to remember them. The information was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By his style, I should imagine it just settled.\"\n\n\"Mr. Elton going to be married!\" said Emma, as soon as she could speak. \"He will have everybody's wishes for his happiness.\"\n\n\"He is very young to settle,\" was Mr. Woodhouse's observation.\n\n\"He had better not be in a hurry. He seemed tome very well off as he was. We were always glad to see him at Hartfield.\"\n\n\"Anew neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!\" said Miss Bates joyfully: \"my mother is so pleased!-she says she cannot bear to have the poor old vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have never seen Mr. Eiton:-no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane's curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to occupy her.\n\n\"No, I have never seen Mr. Elton,\" she replied, starting on this appeal: \"is he-is he a tall man?\"\n\n\"Who shall answer that question?\" cried Emma. \"My father would say, \"Yes;\" Mr. Knightley, \"No;\" and Miss Bates and I, that he is just the happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax, you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in Highbury, both in person and mind.\"\n\n\"Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young man;-but, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,-I daresay, an excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother-wanting her to sit in the vicarage-pew, that she might hear the better, for my mother is a little deaf, you know-it is not much, but she does not hear quite quick. Jane says that Col. Campbell is a little deaf. He fancied bathing might be good for it-the warm bath-but she says it did him no lasting benefit. Col. Campbell, you know, is quite our angel. And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It is such a happiness when good people get together-and they always do. Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles, such very good people; and the Perrys-I suppose there never was a happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir,\" turning to Mr. Woodhouse, \"I think there are few places with such society as Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours. My dear sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better that another, it is pork-a roast loin of pork-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted with her,\" said Emma, \"nothing, I suppose, can be known." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One feels that it cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks.\" Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings, Emma said,-\n\n\"You are silent, Miss Fairfax-but I hope you mean to take an interest in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss Campbell's account-we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins.\"\n\n\"When I have seen Mr. Elton,\" replied Jane, \"I daresay I shall be interested-but I believe it requires that with me. And as it is some months since Miss Campbell married, the impression maybe a little worn off.\"\n\n\"Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse,\" said Miss Bates, \"four weeks yesterday:-a Miss Hawkins:-well, I had always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that I ever-Mrs. Cole once whispered tome-but I immediately said, \"No, Mr. Elton is a most worthy young man-but-\" In short, I do not think I am particulary quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it. What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if Mr. Elton should have aspired-Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so good humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs. John Knightley lately? Oh, those dear little children. Jane, do you know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley? I mean in person-tall, and with that sort of look-and not very talkative.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all.\"\n\n\"Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of anybody beforehand. One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is not, strictly speaking, handsome.\"\n\n\"Handsome! Oh no-far from it-certainly plain. I told you he was plain.\"\n\n\"My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain, and that you yourself-\"\n\n\"Oh, as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard, I always think a person well looking. But I gave what I believed the general opinion, when I called him plain.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does not look well, and grandmamma will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole's; but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home directly-I would not have you out in a shower! We think she is the better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for anything but boiled pork: when we dress the legit will be another thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh, Mr. Knightley is coming too. Well, that is so very!-I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be so kind as to give her your arm. Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins. Good morning to you.\"\n\nEmma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him, while he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry-and to marry strangers too-and the other half she could give to her own view of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it-and all that she could hope was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!-and upon its beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard's, and that the intelligence would undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes, when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the'Oh, Miss Woodhouse, what do you think has happened?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "which instantly burst forth, had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was given, Emma felt that she could not now show greater kindness than in listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to tell. \"She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour ago-she had been afraid it would rain-she had been afraid it would pour down every moment-but she thought she might get to Hartfield first-she had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain, and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as she could, and took shelter at Ford's.\" Ford's was the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united-the shop first in size and fashion in the place. \"And so, there she had sat, without an idea of anything in the world, full ten minutes, perhaps-where, all of a sudden, who should come in-to be sure it was so very odd!-but they always dealt at Ford's-who should come in, but Elizabeth Martin and her brother! Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting near the door-Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the shop; and I kept sitting near the door. Oh dear; I was so miserable! I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away, you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the world but there. Oh dear, Miss Woodhouse-well, at last, I fancy, he looked round and saw me; for, instead of going on with their buyings, they began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak tome-(do you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)-for presently she came forward-came quite up tome, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands, if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to try to be very friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking sometime; but I know no more what I said-I was in such a tremble! I remember she said she was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear Miss Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to holdup, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting away-and then-only think!-I found he was coming up towards me too-slowly, you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and so he came and spoke, and I answered-and I stood fora minute, feeling dreadfully, you know, one cannot tell how; and then I took courage, and said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set: and I had not got three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables-I believe I did-but I hardly knew where I was, or anything about it. Oh, Miss Woodhouse, I would rather have done anything than had it happen; and yet, you know, there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh, Miss Woodhouse, do talk tome, and make me comfortable again.\"\n\nVery sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly comfortable herself. The young man's conduct, and his sister's, seemed the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection and genuine delicacy in their behaviour: but she had believed them to be well-meaning, worthy people, before; and what difference did this make in the evils of the connection? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of course, he must be sorry to lose her,-they must be all sorry: ambition, as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped to rise by Harriet's acquaintance; and besides, what was the value of Harriet's description? So easily pleased,-so little discerning,-what signified her praise?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt on.\n\n\"It might be distressing for the moment,\" said she, \"but you seem to have behaved extremely well; and it is over,-and may never,-can never, as a first meeting,-occur again, and therefore you need not think about it.\"\n\nHarriet said, \"Very true,\" and she'would not think about it;\" but still she talked of it-still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution, hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet-such a conclusion of Mr. Elton's importance with her!\n\nMr. Elton's rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity, wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins, which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in her fancy.\n\nEmma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the brother, the sisters had never been at Mrs. Goddard's; and a twelvemonth might pass without their being thrown together again, with any necessity, or even any power of speech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.\n\nA week had not passed since Miss Hawkins's name was first mentioned in Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have every recommendation of person and mind,-to be handsome, elegant, highly accomplished, and perfectly amiable; and when Mr. Elton himself arrived to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits, there was very little more for him to do than to tell her Christian name, and say whose music she principally played.\n\nMr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and mortified, disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what had appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He had gone away deeply offended, he came back engaged to another; and to another as superior, of course, to the first, asunder such circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss Smith.\n\nThe charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune, of so many thousands as would always be called ten,-a point of some dignity, as well as some convenience. The story told well: he had not thrown himself away-he had gained a woman of 10,000l., or thereabouts, and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity; the first hour of introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice; the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress of the affair was so glorious; the steps so quick, from the accidental rencontre, o to the dinner at Mr. Green's, and the party at Mrs. Brown's,-smiles and blushes rising in importance,-with consciousness and agitation richly scattered; the lady had been so easily impressed,-so sweetly disposed;-had, in short, to use a most intelligible phrase, been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally contented." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had caught both substance and shadow, both fortune and affection, and was just the happy man he ought to be;-talking only of himself and his own concerns,-expecting to be congratulated,-ready to be laughed at,-and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more cautiously gallant.\n\nThe wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which a certain glance of Mrs. Cole's did not seem to contradict, that when he next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.\n\nDuring his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension now spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, except in amoral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave her pain; and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most satisfaction.\n\nThe pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be prevented-many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A Mrs. Elton would bean excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy\n\nmight sink without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of the lady individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury-handsome enough-to look plain, probably, by Harriet's side. As to connection, there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article, truth seemed attainable. What she was, must be uncertain; but who she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not appear that she was at all Harriet's superior. She brought no name, no blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters of a Bristol-merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it was unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath; but Bristol washer home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained-in the law line:-nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the grandeur of the connection seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was very well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.\n\nCould she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet's mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he certainly would, indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love. And now, poor girl, she was considerably worse from this reappearance of Mr. Elton-she was always having a glimpse of him somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times everyday Harriet was sure just to meet with him, or just to miss him, just to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, just to have something occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of surprise and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every guess,-all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and furniture,-was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss Hawkins's happiness, and continual observation of how much he seemed attached!-his air as he walked by the house-the very sitting of his hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet's mind, Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful as a check to the other. Mr. Elton's engagement had been the cure of the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth Martin's calling at Mrs. Goddard's a few days afterwards. Harriet had not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written in the very style to touch,-a small mixture of reproach with a great deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return, and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again, Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best for her to return Elizabeth Martin's visit.\n\nHow that visit was to be acknowledged, what would be necessary, and what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration. Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would be ingratitude. It must not be; and yet the danger of a renewal of the acquaintance!\n\nAfter much thinking, she could determine on nothing better than Harriet's returning the visit; but in away that, if they had understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the Abbey-Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again so soon as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen for the future." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could think of nothing better; and though there was something in it which her own heart could not approve-something of ingratitude, merely glossed over-it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her to the very spot, where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to The Rev. Philip Elton, White Hart, Bath, was to be seen under the operation of being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where the coaches passed; and everything in this world, excepting that trunk and the direction, was consequently a blank.\n\nShe went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of everything which had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour. She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who was married, and settled in Donwell.\n\nThe quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again; and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the gravel walk-a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with her seemingly with ceremonious civility.\n\nHarriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating. She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest common-place had been talked almost all the dme-till just at last, when Mrs. Martin's saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very room she had been measured last September with her two friends. There were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window. He had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, the party, the occasion,-to feel the same consciousness, the same regrets,-to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they were just growing again like themselves (Harriet, as Emma must suspect, as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage re-appeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago! Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a little higher should have been enough; but as it was, how could she have done otherwise? Impossible! She could not repent. They must be separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process-so much to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little consolation, and resolved ongoing home byway of Randalls to procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither'master nor mistress was at home:\" they had both been out sometime; the man believed they were gone to Hartfield.\n\n\"This is too bad,\" cried Emma, as they turned away. \"And now we shall just miss them; too provoking: I do not know when I have been so disappointed.\" And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both-such being the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage stopt: she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound; for Mr. Weston immediately accosted her with,-\n\n\"How d'ye do?-how d'ye do?-We have been sitting with your father-glad to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow-I had a letter this morning-we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty-he is at Oxford to-day, and he comes fora whole fortnight; I knew it would be so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days: I was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have just the right weather for him,-fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him completely; everything has turned out exactly as we could wish.\"\n\nThere was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston's, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose. To know that she thought his coming certain was enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in the rapidity of half a moment's thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now be talked of no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command, as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened, and smiled, and congratulated.\n\n\"I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,\" said he, at the conclusion.\n\nEmma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife.\n\n\"We had better move on, Mr. Weston,\" said she; \"we are detaining the girls.\"\n\n\"Well, well, I am ready;\" and turning again to Emma, \"but you must not be expecting such a very fine young man; you have only had my account, you know; I daresay he is really nothing extraordinary,\"-though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were speaking a very different conviction.\n\nEmma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a manner that appropriated nothing.\n\n\"Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o'clock,\" was Mrs. Weston's parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only for her.\n\n\"Four o'clock!-depend upon it he will be hereby three,\" was Mr. Weston's quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting. Emma's spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; everything wore a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least must soon becoming out; and when she turned round to Harriet she saw something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.\n\n\"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?\" was a question, however, which did not augur much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once; and Emma was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.\n\nThe morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's faithful pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o'clock, that she was to think of her at four.\n\n\"My dear, dear, anxious friend,\" said she, in mental soliloquy, while walking downstairs from her own room, \"always over-careful for everybody's comfort but your own: I see you now in all your little fidgets, going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.\" The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. \"\"Tis twelve,-I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I maybe thinking of the possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him soon.\"\n\nShe opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her father,-Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few minutes; and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank's being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her share of surprise, introduction, and pleasure.\n\nThe Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually before her-he was presented to her; and she did not think too much had been said in his praise; he was a very good looking young man; height, air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father's; he looked quick and sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted they soon must be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.\n\n\"I told you yesterday,\" cried Mr. Weston with exultation,-\"I told you all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I used to do myself. One cannot creep upon ajourney: one cannot help getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in upon one's friends before the look-out begins is worth a great deal more than any little exertion it needs.\"\n\n\"It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it,\" said the young man, \"though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far; but incoming home I felt I might do anything.\"\n\nThe word homemade his father look on him with fresh complacency. Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself to have always felt the sort of interest in the country, which none but one's own country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before passed suspiciously through Emma's brain; but still if it were a falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a state of no common enjoyment.\n\nTheir subjects, in general, were such as belong to an opening acquaintance. On his side were the enquiries,-\" Was she a horse-woman?-Pleasant rides?-Pleasant walks?-Had they a large neighbourhood?-Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were several very pretty houses in and about it.-Balls-had they balls?-Was it a musical society?\"\n\nBut when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance proportionately advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional proof of his knowing how to please-and of his certainly thinking it worthwhile to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but, undoubtedly, he could know very little of the matter. He understood what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. \"His father's marriage,\" he said, \"had been the wisest measure: every friend must rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on him.\"\n\nHe got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor's merits, without seeming quite to forget that, in the common course of things, it was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse's character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor's. And at last, as if resolved to qualify his opinion completely for trav elling round to its object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of her person.\n\n\"Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for,\" said he; \"but I confess that, considering everything, I had not expected more than a very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston, for my feelings,\" said Emma: \"were you to guess her to be eighteen, I should listen with pleasure; but she would be ready to quarrel with you for using such words. Don't let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty young woman.\"\n\n\"I hope I should know better,\" he replied; \"no, depend upon it (with a gallant bow), that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my terms.\"\n\nEmma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind, had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more of him to understand his ways; at present, she only felt they were agreeable.\n\nShe had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was confident that he was often listening.\n\nHer own father's perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion, was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily, he was not farther from approving matrimony than from foreseeing it. Though always objecting to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of any two persons\" understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous enquiries after Mr. Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold,-which, however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself, till after another night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move. \"He must be going. He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for Mrs. Weston at Ford's; but he need not hurry anybody else.\" His son, too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,-\n\n\"As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity of paying a visit, which must be paid someday or other, and therefore may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with a neighbour of yours (turning to Emma), a lady residing in or near Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty, I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not the proper name,-I should rather say Barnes or Bates. Do you know any family of that name?\"\n\n\"To be sure we do,\" cried his father: \"Mrs. Bates-we passed her house-I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl she is. Call upon her, by all means.\"\n\n\"There is no necessity for my calling this morning,\" said the young man: \"another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance at Weymouth which-\"\n\n\"Oh, go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank-any want of attention to her here should be carefully avoided. You saw her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of everybody she mixed with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The son looked convinced.\n\n\"I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,\" said Emma: \"she is a very elegant young woman.\"\n\nHe agreed to it, but with so quiet a'Yes,\" as inclined her almost to doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could bethought only ordinarily gifted with it.\n\n\"If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,\" said she, \"I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and hear her-no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an aunt who never holds her tongue.\"\n\n\"You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?\" said Mr. Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; \"then give me leave to assure you, that you will find her a very agreeable young lady. She is staying hereon a visit to her grand-mamma and aunt, very worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to show you the way.\"\n\n\"My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.\"\n\n\"But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown, quite on the other side of the street, and there area great many houses: you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk, unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you had best cross the street.\"\n\nMr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could; and his father gave his hearty support, by calling out, \"My good friend, this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get therefrom the Crown in a hop, step, and jump.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full confidence in their comfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs. Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to choose their walk, immediately fixed on Highbury. \"He did not doubt there being very pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always choose the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury, would be his constant attraction.\" Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with him. They walked thither directly.\n\nEmma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprise to her, therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in arm. She was wanting to see him again; and especially to see him in company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behavior to whom her opinion of him was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to her,-nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour or two,-first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards in Highbury. He was delighted with everything: admired Hartfield sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse's ear; and when their going farther was resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than Emma could have supposed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He begged to be shown the house which his father had lived in so long, and which had been the home of his father's father; and on recollecting that an old woman, who had nursed him, was still living, walked inquest of her cottage, from one end of the street to the other; and though in some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they showed, altogether, a goodwill towards Highbury in general, which must be very like a merit to those he was with.\n\nEmma watched, and decided, that with such feelings as were now shown it could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting himself: that he had not been acting apart, or making a parade of insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him justice.\n\nTheir first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by any interest excited there: but in passing it they gave the history of the large room visibly added. It had been built many years ago fora ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such: but such brilliant days had long passed away; and now the highest purpose for which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established among the gentlemen and half gentlemen of the place. He was immediately interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities, and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault in the room; he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No; it was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the very number for comfort. They ought to have balls thereat least every fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived the former good old days of the room? She who could do anything in Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him could not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that the inconvenience of such a mixture would be anything, or that there would be the smallest difficulty in everybody's returning into their proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent on dancing; and Emma was rather surprised to seethe constitution of the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills. He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps scarcely enough; his indifference to a confusion of rank bordered too much on inelegance of mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap. It was but an effusion of lively spirits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown; and being now almost facing the house where the Bates's lodged, Emma recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had paid it.\n\n\"Yes, oh yes,\" he replied, \"I was just going to mention it. Avery successful visit. I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken me quite by surprise, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and I had told my father I should certainly beat home before him, but there was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found, when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me thereat last, that I had been actually sitting with them very nearly three quarters of an hour. The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before.\"\n\n\"And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?\"\n\n\"III, very ill;-that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look ill: but the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies can never look ill; and, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health-a most deplorable want of complexion.\"\n\nEmma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's complexion. \"It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of her face.\" He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had heard many people say the same: but yet he must confess, that to him nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all; and where they were good, the effect was,-fortunately he need not attempt to describe what the effect was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" said Emma, \"there is no disputing about taste. At least you admire her, except her complexion.\"\n\nHe shook his head and laughed. \"I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion.\"\n\n\"Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?\"\n\nAt this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, \"Ha! this must be the very shop that everybody attends everyday of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place,-to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will betaking out my freedom. I daresay they sell gloves.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, gloves and everything. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because you were Mr. Weston's son; but layout half-a-guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues.\"\n\nThey went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of'Men's Beavers\" and'York Tan\" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said,-\"But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking tome, you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my amor patriæ. p Do not let me lose it; I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life.\"\n\n\"I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may choose to allow.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her account of everything leaves so much to be guessed; she is so very reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about anybody, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance with her.\"\n\n\"May I, indeed? Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Col. Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all.\"\n\n\"You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be.\"\n\n\"Yes\"-(rather hesitatingly)-\"I believe I do.\"\n\n\"You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,\" said Mrs. Weston, smiling; \"remember that I am here. Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little farther off.\"\n\n\"I certainly do forget to think of her,\" said Emma, \"as having ever been anything but my friend and my dearest friend.\"\n\nHe looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.\n\nWhen the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again,-\"Did you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of play?\" said Frank Churchill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ever hear her!\" repeated Emma. \"You forget how much she belongs to Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. She plays charmingly\"\n\n\"You think so, do you? I wanted the opinion of someone who could really judge. She appeared tome to play well, that is, with considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself. I am excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right of judging of anybody's performance. I have been used to hear hers admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well: a man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman-engaged to her-on the point of marriage-would yet never ask that other woman to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down instead-never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other. That I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof.\"\n\n\"Proof, indeed!\" said Emma, highly amused. \"Mr. Dixon is very musical, is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a very strong proof.\"\n\n\"Certainly, very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger than, if I had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable tome. I could not excuse a man's having more music than love-more ear than eye-a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?\"\n\n\"It washer very particular friend, you know.\"\n\n\"Poor comfort!\" said Emma, laughing. \"One would rather have a stranger preferred than one's very particular friend: with a stranger it might not recur again; but the misery of having a very particular friend always at hand, to do everything better than one does one's self! Poor Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she really did not seem to feel it.\"\n\n\"So much the better, or so much the worse: I do not know which. But be it sweetness, or be it stupidity in her-quickness of friendship, or dulness of feeling-there was one person, I think, who must have felt it-Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous distinction.\"\n\n\"As to that-I do not-\"\n\n\"Oh, do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax's sensations from you, or from anybody else. They are known to no human being, I guess, but herself; but if she continued to play whenever she was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chooses.\"\n\n\"There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all-\" he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, \"however, it is impossible for me to say on what terms they really were-how it might all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct herself in critical situations, than I can be.\"\n\n\"I have known her from a child, undoubtedly: we have been children and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate,-that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolised and so cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve; I never could attach myself to anyone so completely reserved.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,\" said he. \"Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.\"\n\n\"Not till the reserve ceases towards one's self; and then the attraction maybe the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering anybody's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think ill of her-not the least-except that such extreme and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea about anybody, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal.\"\n\nHe perfectly agreed with her; and after walking together so long, and thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate-his feelings warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr. Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at, and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who wanted more.\n\nMrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about. Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma, in her own mind, determined that he did know what he was talking about, and that he showed a very amiable inclination to settle early in life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or a bad butler's pantry; but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his haircut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and he had sent fora chaise and set off intending to return to dinner, but with no more important view that appeared than having his haircut. There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general; he became liable to all these changes. His father only called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs. Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that'all young people would have their little whims.\"\n\nWith the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made himself,-how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He appeared to have a very open temper,-certainly a very cheerful and lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of talking of him; said he would be the best man in the world if he were left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for such an unfortunate fancy for having his haircut, there was nothing to denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her, of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own indifference-(for still her resolution held of never marrying)-the honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint acquaintance." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer, move the story forward.\nTags: romance, classic, comedy of manners, matchmaking, social commentary\nAuthor: Jane Austen\nTitle: Emma\nChapter: 29" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his haircut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and he had sent fora chaise and set off intending to return to dinner, but with no more important view that appeared than having his haircut. There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general; he became liable to all these changes. His father only called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs. Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that'all young people would have their little whims.\"\n\nWith the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made himself,-how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He appeared to have a very open temper,-certainly a very cheerful and lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of talking of him; said he would be the best man in the world if he were left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for such an unfortunate fancy for having his haircut, there was nothing to denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her, of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own indifference-(for still her resolution held of never marrying)-the honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint acquaintance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her extremely-thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him harshly:-as Mrs. Weston observed, \"all young people would have their little whims.\"\n\nThere was one person among his new acquaintance in Surrey not so leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made for the little excesses of such a handsome young man,-one who smiled so often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles,-Mr. Knightley. The circumstance was told him at Hartfield: for the moment, he was silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself, over a newspaper he held in his hand, \"Hum! just the trifling, silly fellow I took him for.\" She had half a mind to resent; but an instant's observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass.\n\nAlthough in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and Mrs. Weston's visit this morning was in another respect particularly opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield to make Emma want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly the advice they gave.\n\nThis was the occurrence:-The Coles had been settled some years in Highbury, and were very good sort of people, friendly, liberal, and unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country, they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had brought them a considerable increase of means-the house in town had yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were, in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield. Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared everybody for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma could hardly suppose they would presume to invite,-neither Donwell, nor Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt her to go, if they did; and she regretted that her father's known habits would be giving her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks before it appeared, that when insult came at last, it found her very differently affected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Donwell and Randalls had received their invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs. Weston's accounting for it with'I suppose they will not take the liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,\" was not quite sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there, consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted to accept. Harriet was to be therein the evening, and the Bateses. They had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before, and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare possibility of it acted as a further irritation on her spirits; and her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.\n\nIt was the arrival of this very invitation, while the Westons were at Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first remark on reading it was that'of course it must be declined,\" she so very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their advice for her going was most prompt and successful.\n\nShe owned that, considering everything, she was not absolutely without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so properly-there was so much real attention in the manner of it-so much consideration for her father. \"They would have solicited the honour earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding screen from London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught. of air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour of his company.\" Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting his comfort,-how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be depended on forbearing him company,-Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked into an acquiescence of his daughter's going out to dinner on a day now near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for his going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible; the hours would be too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am not fond of dinner-visiting,\" said he; \"I never was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No more is Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us; take us in their afternoon walk, which they might do, as our hours are so reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose anybody too. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy.\" Then turning to Mrs. Weston with a look of gentle reproach,-\"Ah, Miss Taylor, if you had not married, you would have staid at home with me.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" cried Mr. Weston, \"as I took Miss Taylor away, it is incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs. Goddard in a moment, if you wish it.\"\n\nBut the idea of anything to be done in a moment was increasing, not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse's agitation. The ladies knew better how to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and everything deliberately arranged.\n\nWith this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking as usual. \"He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line and invite her. James could take the note. But first of all, there must bean answer written to Mrs. Cole.\"\n\n\"You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say that I am quite an invalid, and go nowhere, and therefore must decline their obliging invitation; beginning with my compliments, of course. But you will do everything right. I need not tell you what is to be done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have no doubt that James will take you very safely: and when you get there, you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again; and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late. You will get very tired when tea is over.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?\"\n\n\"Oh no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many people talking at once. You will not like the noise.\"\n\n\"But, my dear sir,\" cried Mr. Weston, \"if Emma comes away early, it will be breaking up the party.\"\n\n\"And no great harm if it does,\" said Mr. Woodhouse. \"The sooner every party breaks up the better.\"\n\n\"But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma's going away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must feel that anybody's hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss Woodhouse's doing it would be more thought of than any other person's in the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have been your neighbours these ten years.\n\n\"No, upon no account in the world. Mr. Weston, I am much obliged to you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but he is bilious-Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure, rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time; and the idea of that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that, if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that everything were safe in the house as usual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father's dinner waiting it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection which could be concealed.\n\nHe came back, had had his haircut, and laughed at himself with a very good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer to conceal any confusion of face; no reason to wish the money unspent to improve his spirits. He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him, Emma thus moralised to herself:-\n\n\"I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly. It depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is not a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own vanities. No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly.\"\n\nWith Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and fora longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and, by inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air; and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were now seeing them together for the first time.\n\nShe meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr. Cole's; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr. Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her father's comfort was amply secured, Mrs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bates as well as Mrs. Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged them to practise during the meal. She had provided a plentiful dinner for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat it.\n\nShe followed another carriage to Mr. Cole's door; and was pleased to see that it was Mr. Knightley's; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses, having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and independence, was too apt, in Emma's opinion, to get about as he could, and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey. She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from her heart, for he stopped to hand her out.\n\n\"This is coming as you should do,\" said she; \"like a gentleman. I am quite glad to see you.\"\n\nHe thanked her, observing, \"How lucky that we should arrive at the same moment; for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual. You might not have distinguished how I came by my look or manner.\"\n\n\"Yes I should; I am sure I should. There is always a look of consciousness or bustle when people come in away which they know to be beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I daresay; but with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern: I always observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. Now you have nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You are not striving to look taller than anybody else. Now I shall really be very happy to walk into the same room with you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nonsensical girl!\" was his reply, but not at all in anger. Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for. When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of admiration, were for her, from both husband and wife: the son approached her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object, and at dinner she found him seated by her; and, as she firmly believed, not without some dexterity on his side.\n\nThe party was rather large, as it included one other family,-a proper unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of naming among their acquaintance,-and the male part of Mr. Cox's family, the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already, at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour. The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend was the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy, received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been calling on Miss Bates; and, as soon as she entered the room, had been struck by the sight of a piano-forte, a very elegant looking instrument; not a grand, but a large-sized square piano-forte: and the substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of surprise, and enquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations on Miss Bates's, was, that this piano-forte had arrived from Broadwood's 10 the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and niece, entirely unexpected; that, at first, by Miss Bates's account, Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could possibly have ordered it; but now they were both perfectly satisfied that it could be from only one quarter,-of course it must be from Colonel Campbell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One can suppose nothing else,\" added Mrs. Cole; \"and I was only surprised that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems, had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it. She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might choose to surprise her.\"\n\nMrs. Cole had many to agree with her; everybody who spoke on the subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell, and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still listen to Mrs. Cole.\n\n\"I declare, I do not know when I have heard anything that has given me more satisfaction. It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves a slap, to be sure; and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole I really was ashamed to look at our new grand piano-forte in the drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make anything of it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not anything of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifulest old spinet q in the world, to amuse herself with. I was saying this to Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that really is the reason why the instrument was bought-or else I am sure we ought to be ashamed of it. We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse maybe prevailed with to try it this evening.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole's, turned to Frank Churchill.\n\n\"Why do you smile?\" said she.\n\n\"Nay, why do you?\"\n\n\"Me! I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell's being so rich and so liberal. It is a handsome present.\"\n\n\"Very.\"\n\n\"I rather wonder that it was never made before.\"\n\n\"Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before.\"\n\n\"Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument, which must now be shut up in London, untouched by anybody.\"\n\n\"That is a grand piano-forte, and he might think it too large for Mrs. Bates's house.\"\n\n\"You may say what you choose, but your countenance testifies that your thoughts on this subject are very much like mine.\"\n\n\"I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can be?\"\n\n\"What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Dixon! very true, indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must know, as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprise, is more like a young woman's scheme than an elderly man's. It is Mrs. Dixon, I daresay. I told you that your suspicions would guide mine.\"\n\n\"If so, you must extend your suspicions, and comprehend Mr. Dixon in them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dixon! very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance.\"\n\n\"Yes, and what you told me on that head confirmed an idea which I had entertained before. I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax; but I cannot help suspecting either that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune to fall in love with her, or that he became conscious of a little attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for her choosing to come to Highbury, instead of going with the Campbells to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance; there, it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse. In the summer it might have passed; but what can anybody's native air do for them in the months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would be much more to the purpose inmost cases of delicate health, and I daresay in hers. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what they are.\"\n\n\"And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon's preference of her music to her friend's I can answer for being very decided.\"\n\n\"And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that? A water party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her.\"\n\n\"He did. I was there-one of the party.\" \"Were you really? Well! But you observed nothing, of course, for it seems to be anew idea to you. If I had been there, I think I should have made some discoveries.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I daresay you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel, and that Mr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dixon caught her-it was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and alarm were very great, and much more durable-indeed I believe it was half an hour before any of us were comfortable again-yet that was too general a sensation for anything of peculiar anxiety to be observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made discoveries.\"\n\nThe conversation was here interrupted. They were called onto share in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said,-\n\n\"The arrival of this piano-forte is decisive with me. I wanted to know a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.\"\n\n\"And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it, we must conclude it to come from the Campbells.\"\n\n\"No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows\n\nit is not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have convinced you, perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr. Dixon is a principal in the business.\"\n\n\"Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world. But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in no other light than as an offering of love.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more,-other subjects took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert succeeded; the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the other-nothing worse than every-day remarks, dull repetitions, old news, and heavy jokes.\n\nThe ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entrée of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light, cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many alleviations of pleasure in the midst of the pangs of disappointed affection. There she sat-and who would have guessed how many tears she had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself, and seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been glad to change feelings with Harriet,-very glad to have purchased the mortification of having loved-yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in vain,-by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself beloved by the husband of her friend.\n\nIn so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her. She did not wish to speak of the piano-forte, she felt too much in the secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair, and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush of guilt which accompanied the name of'my excellent friend Colonel Campbell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her perseverance indwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the fair heroine's countenance.\n\nThey were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle, where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would not sit at all. Emma divined what everybody present must bethinking. She was his object, and everybody must perceive it. She introduced him to her friend Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard what each thought of the other. \"He had never seen so lovely a face, and was delighted with her naïveté.\" And she,-\"only to be sure it was paying him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a little like Mr. Elton.\" Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned from her in silence.\n\nSmiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech. He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room-hated sitting long-was always the first to move when he could-that his father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over parish business-that as long as he had staid, however, it had been pleasant enough, as he found them in general a set of gentlemen-like, sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether-thought it so abundant in agreeable families-that Emma began to feel she had been used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the society in Yorkshire, the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe, and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on; that their visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health or spirits forgoing; that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty without considerable address at times, that he could getaway, or introduce an acquaintance fora night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken in its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could with time persuade her to anything. One of those points on which his influence failed he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to go abroad-had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel-but she would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. Now, he said, he was beginning to have no longer the same wish.\n\nThe unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be good behaviour to his father.\n\n\"I have made a most wretched discovery,\" said he, after a short pause. \"I have been here a week to-morrow-half my time. I never knew days fly so fast. A week to-morrow!-and I have hardly begun to enjoy myself. But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others. I hate the recollection.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out of so few, in having your haircut.\"\n\n\"No,\" said he, smiling, \"that is no subject of regret at all. I have no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be seen.\"\n\nThe rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself obliged to turn from him fora few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before, she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is the matter?\" said she.\n\nHe started. \"Thank you for rousing me,\" he replied. \"I believe I have been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd away-so very odd away-that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw anything so outrée! r Those curls! This must be a fancy of her own. I see nobody else looking like her. I must go and ask her whether it is an Irish fashion. Shall I?-Yes, I will-I declare I will-and you shall see how she takes it;-whether she colours.\"\n\nHe was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady, as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing.\n\nBefore he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston.\n\n\"This is the luxury of a large party,\" said she: \"one can get near everybody, and say everything. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how Miss Bates and her niece came here?\"\n\n\"How!-They were invited, were not they?\"\n\n\"Oh yes-but how they were conveyed hither?-the manner of their coming?\"\n\n\"They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?\"\n\n\"Very true. Well, a little while ago it occurred tome how very sad it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room, and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would beat her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you maybe sure. \"Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!\"-but with many, many thanks,-\"there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley's carriage had brought, and was to take them home again. ' I was quite surprised;-very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprised. Such a very kind attention-and so thoughtful an attention!-the sort of thing that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse for assisting them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very likely,\" said Emma, \"nothing more likely. I know no man more likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing-to do anything really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane Fairfax's ill health, would appear a case of humanity to him;-and for an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day-for we arrived together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that could betray.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Weston, smiling, \"you give him credit for more simple, disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax. Seethe consequence of keeping you company!-What do you say to it?\"\n\n\"Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!\" exclaimed Emma. \"Dear Mrs. Weston, how could you think of such a thing?-Mr. Knightley!-Mr. Knightley must not marry!-You would not have little Henry cutout from Donwell?-Oh no, no,-Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley's marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you should think of such a thing.\"\n\n\"My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want the match-I do not want to injure dear little Henry-but the idea has been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry's account, a boy of six years old, who knows nothing of the matter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted. Mr. Knightley marry! No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!\"\n\n\"Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well know.\"\n\n\"But the imprudence of such a match!\"\n\n\"I am not speaking of its prudence-merely its probability.\"\n\n\"I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax-and is always glad to show them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making. You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey! Oh no, no;-every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so mad a thing.\"\n\n\"Imprudent, if you please-but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune, and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry? He is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up his time or his heart.\"\n\n\"My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves Jane Fairfax-\"\n\n\"Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" said Mrs. Weston, laughing, \"perhaps the greatest good he could do them would be to give Jane such a respectable home.\"\n\n\"If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself-a very shameful and degrading connection. How would he bear to have Miss Bates belonging to him? To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking him all daylong for his great kindness in marrying Jane?-\"So very kind and obliging! But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!\" And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat.\"Not that it was such a very old petticoat either-for still it would last a great while,-and, indeed, she must thankfully say that their petticoats were all very strong. '\"\n\n\"For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience. And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and if he wanted to say anything himself, he would only talk louder, and drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad connection for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The interest he takes in her-his anxiety about her health-his concern that she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself so warmly on those points! Such an admirer of her performance on the piano-forte, and of her voice! I have heard him say, that he could listen to her forever. Oh, and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred tome-this piano-forte that has been sent her by somebody-though we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in love.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does nothing mysteriously.\"\n\n\"I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of things, occur to him.\"\n\n\"Very well; if he had intended to give her one, he would have told her so.\"\n\n\"There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner.\"\n\n\"You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and runaway with it, as you have many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment. I believe nothing of the piano-forte, and proof only shall convince me that Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.\"\n\nThey combated the point sometime longer in the same way, Emma rather gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room showed them that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation; and at the same moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to lead, she gave a very proper compliance.\n\nShe knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by surprise-a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and everything usual followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again. They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive soon drew away half Emma's mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of Mrs. Weston's suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley's marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley, consequently to Isabella. Areal injury to the children-a most mortifying change, and material loss to them all-a very great deduction from her father's daily comfort-and, as to herself, she could not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs. Knightley for them all to give way to! No-Mr. Knightley must never marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.\n\nPresently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.\n\n\"I often feel concerned,\" said she, \"that I dare not make our carriage more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put to for such a purpose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,\" he replied; \"but you must often wish it, I am sure.\" And he smiled with such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another step.\n\n\"This present from the Campbells,\" said she-\"this piano-forte is very kindly given.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied, and without the smallest apparent embarrassment. \"But they would have done better had they given her notice of it. Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.\"\n\nFrom that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were entirely free from peculiar attachment-whether there were no actual preference-remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane's second song, her voice grew thick.\n\n\"That will do,\" said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud, \"you have sung quite enough for one evening; now be quiet.\"\n\nAnother song, however, was soon begged for. \"One more;-they would not fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.\" And Frank Churchill was heard to say, \"I think you could manage this without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the song falls on the second.\"\n\nMr. Knightley grew angry.\n\n\"That fellow,\" said he, indignantly, \"thinks of nothing but showing off his own voice. Thus must not be.\" And touching Miss Bates, who at that moment passed near,-\"Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to be grateful, before she stepped forward and put an end to all further singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodbouse and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within five minutes) the proposal of dancing-originating nobody exactly knew where-was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that everything was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston, capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top.\n\nWhile waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off, Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr. Knightley. This would be atrial. He was no dancer in general. If he were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs. Cole-he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else, and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.\n\nEmma had no longer an alarm for Henry: his interest was yet safe; and she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a partner. They were a couple worth looking at.\n\nTwo dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother's account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps it is as well,\" said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to her carriage. \"I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing would not have agreed with me, after yours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion must be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted the Coles-worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!-and left a name behind her that would not soon die away.\n\nPerfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of Jane Fairfax's feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission to all that she told was a compliment to her penetration which made it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her tongue.\n\nThe other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax, and there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily grieve over the idleness of her childhood; and sat down and practised vigorously an hour and a half.\n\nShe was then interrupted by Harriet's coming in; and if Harriet's praise could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted.\n\n\"Oh, if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!\"\n\n\"Don't class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like hers than a lamp is like sunshine.\"\n\n\"O dear, I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Everybody last night said how well you played.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those who knew anything about it must have felt the difference. The truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised, but Jane Fairfax's is much beyond it.\"\n\n\"Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole said how much taste you had, and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution.\"\n\n\"Ah, but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet.\"\n\n\"Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any taste. Nobody talked about it; and I hate Italian singing: there is no understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into any great family. How do you think the Coxes looked?\"\n\n\"Just as they always do,-very vulgar.\"\n\n\"They told me something,\" said Harriet, rather hesitatingly, \"but it is nothing of any consequence.\"\n\nEmma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its producing Mr. Elton.\n\n\"They told me that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay dinner.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there again next summer.\"\n\n\"She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should be.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry him.\"\n\n\"Very likely; I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar girls in Highbury.\"\n\nHarriet had business at Ford's. Emma thought it most prudent to go with her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and, in her present state, would be dangerous.\n\nHarriet, tempted by everything, and swayed by half a word, was always very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins, and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement. Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;-Mr. Perry walking hastily by; Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office door; Mr. Cole's carriage-horses returning from exercise; or astray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough: quite enough still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.\n\nShe looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law. They were walking into Highbury;-to Hartfield of course: they were stopping, however, in the first place at Mrs. Bates's, whose house was a little nearer Randalls than Ford's, and had all but knocked when Emma caught their eye. Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the agreeableness of yesterday's engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For my companion tells me,\" said she, \"that I absolutely promised Miss Bates last night that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day; but as he says I did, I am going now.\"\n\n\"And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I maybe allowed, I hope,\" said Frank Churchill, \"to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield, if you are going home.\"\n\nMrs. Weston was disappointed.\n\n\"I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased.\"\n\n\"Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps, I maybe equally in the way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am Ito do?\"\n\n\"I am hereon no business of my own,\" said Emma, \"I am only waiting for my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home. But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument.\"\n\n\"Well, if you advise it. But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an indifferent tone, what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs. Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world at a civil falsehood.\"\n\n\"I do not believe any such thing,\" replied Emma; \"I am persuaded that you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite otherwise, indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax's opinion last night.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do come with me,\" said Mrs. Weston, \"if it be not very disagreeable to you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards. We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me: it will be felt so great an attention-and I always thought you meant it.\"\n\nHe could say no more; and, with the hope of Hartfield to reward him, returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates's door. Emma watched them in, and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter, trying, with all the force of her own mind, to convince her that, if she wanted plain muslin, it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue riband, be it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel.\n\n\"Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard's, ma'am?\" asked Mrs. Ford.-\"Yes-no-yes, to Mrs. Goddard's. Only my pattern gown is at Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then, Mrs. Goddard will want to see it. And I could take the pattern gown home any day. But I shall want the riband directly; so it had better go to Hartfield-at least the riband. You could make it into two parcels, Mrs. Ford, could not you?\"\n\n\"It is not worthwhile, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two parcels.\"\n\n\"No more it is.\"\n\n\"No trouble in the world, ma'am,\" said the obliging Mrs. Ford.\n\n\"Oh, but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard's-I do not know-no, I think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and take it home with meat night. What do you advise?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield, if you please, Mrs. Ford.\"\n\n\"Ay, that will be much best,\" said Harriet, quite satisfied; \"I should not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard's.\"\n\nVoices approached the shop, or rather, one voice and two ladies; Mrs. Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.\n\n\"My dear Miss Woodhouse,\" said the latter, \"I am just run across to entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while, and give us your opinion of our new instrument-you and Miss Smith. How do you do, Miss Smith?-Very well, I thank you.-And I begged Mrs. Weston to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.\"\n\n\"I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are-\"\n\n\"Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well; and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse? I am so glad to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.-Oh, then, said I, I must run across; I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me just to run across and entreat her to come in: my mother will be so very happy to see her; and now we are such a nice party, she cannot refuse. \"Ay, pray do,\" said Mr. Frank Churchill, \"Miss Woodhouse's opinion of the instrument will be worth having. \"-But, said I, I shall be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.-\"Oh, \"said he,\"wait half a minute, till I have finished my job: \"for, would you believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother's spectacles. The rivet came out, you know, this morning; so very obliging!-For my mother had no use of her spectacles-could not put them on. And, by the by, everybody ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did, but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing, then another, there is no saying what, you know. Atone time, Patty came to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I, Patty, do not come with your bad news tome. Here is the rivet of your mistress's spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home; s Mrs. Wallis sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the Wallises, always. I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be uncivil and give a very rude answer; but we have never known anything but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know? only three of us. Besides, dear Jane, at present,-and she really eats nothing,-makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats; so I say one thing, and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome; for I took the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before. I have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We have apple dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these ladies will oblige us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Emma would be'very happy to wait on Mrs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bates, & c.,\" and they did at last move out of the shop, with no further delay from Miss Bates than,-\n\n\"How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon; I did not see you before. I hear you have a charming collection of new ribands from town. Jane came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do\n\nvery well-only a little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.\"\n\n\"What was I talking of?\" said she, beginning again when they were all in the street.\n\nEmma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix. \" I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of. Oh, my mother's spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill!\"Oh! \"said he,\"I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind excessively. \"Which, you know, showed him to be so very-Indeed I must say that, much as I had heard of him before, and much as I had expected, he very far exceeds anything--I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly. He seems everything the fondest parent could--\"Oh! \"said he,\"I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort excessively. \"I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some,\"Oh! \"said he directly,\"there is nothing in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest looking home-baked apples I ever saw in my life. \"That, you know, was so very--And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice, only we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise to have them done three times; but Miss Woodhouse will be so good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell-some of Mr. Knightley's most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his trees-I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the other day; for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating these apples, and we talked about them, and said how much she enjoyed them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. \"I am sure you must be,\" said he, \"and I will send you another supply; for I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more, before they get good for nothing.\" So I begged he would not-for really as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great many left-it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more, so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me: no I should not say quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear, I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down and spoke to William Larkins, and said everything, as you may suppose. William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it was all the apples of that sort his master had; he had brought them all-and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master's profit than anything; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid her not mind it, and be sure not to say anything to us about it, for Mrs. Hodges would be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told me, and I was excessively shocked, indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley know anything about it for the world! He would be so very-I wanted to keep it from Jane's knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it before I was aware." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visiters walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory goodwill.\n\n\"Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase-rather darker and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss Smith, the step at the turning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered was tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment, slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near her, most deedily t occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax, standing with her back to them, intent on her piano-forte.\n\nBusy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to show a most happy countenance on seeing Emma again.\n\n\"This is a pleasure,\" said he, in rather a low voice, \"coming at least ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.\"\n\n\"What!\" said Mrs. Weston, \"have not you finished it yet? you would not earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.\"\n\n\"I have not been working uninterruptedly,\" he replied, \"I have been assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily; it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.\"\n\nHe contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready to sit down to the piano-forte again. That she was not immediately ready, Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve never to expose them to her neighbour again." } ]

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